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#52 Sep 23 2015 at 6:17 PM Rating: Excellent
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Samira wrote:
I'm not so much pro-choice as anti-pregnancy, said no one ever.

Well, maybe a few parents of 2 or more kids.
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#53 Sep 23 2015 at 6:28 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Pro-life doesn't mean advocating for making babies.

Really? If you're pro-life, you're okay with the right to choose what happens to your body? You just shouldn't advocate too hard for the "right to have an abortion"?

Because I'm pretty sure pro-life advocates are 100% for bringing the baby to term but if you're arguing otherwise...

And try to keep up: The abortion debate is about what happens after you get pregnant. It's not about guns and it's not about encouraging conception prior to the fact. The fact that your position is silly doesn't mean you should go trying to change the topic.
Samira wrote:
I'm not so much pro-choice as anti-pregnancy, said no one ever.

You haven't been hanging out in Gbaji's closet with all his conservative boogeymen.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2015 7:33pm by Jophiel
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#54 Sep 23 2015 at 6:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
A pro-choice person is talking about the right of the woman to make choices with her own body (which in context includes abortion). A pro-abortion person is therefore talking about the right of the woman to have an abortion.

This is even more bizarre. Are there people out there advocating for a woman's right to choose an abortion but who are against a woman's right to, I don't know, seek contraceptives? So pro-choice people talk about the right to "make choices" including abortion and your "pro-abortion" people talk about the right to have an abortion but.... not other choices? Smiley: confused
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#55 Sep 23 2015 at 6:50 PM Rating: Good
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I assume gbaji is referencing the recent "#ShoutYourAbortion" thing. See here.

Direct quotes like "I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood last year and it was a great experience" are unbelievable in the literal sense that I can't believe somebody actually said it. I thought the one thing that both pro-life and pro-choice advocated agreed on was that abortions were terrible events that should occur as infrequently as possible ("Safe, Legal and Rare"). Guess not!
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#56 Sep 23 2015 at 6:54 PM Rating: Excellent
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"Great experience" doesn't mean "It was the time of my life and everyone should do it".

"I had a root canal done and the dentist made it a great experience" isn't advocating tooth decay, it's saying that the dentist (or PP) did an exceptional job of tending to my needs. On the other hand, I can appreciate the desire of some women to talk about their "terrible" choice without shame.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2015 7:55pm by Jophiel
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#57 Sep 23 2015 at 6:57 PM Rating: Good
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Kind of like how it's now apparently just ducky to talk about being a pedophile in public, I guess.
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#58 Sep 23 2015 at 7:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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Are you equating abortion to pedophilia? Smiley: dubious
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#59 Sep 23 2015 at 7:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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It's likely been said here before but: If you support the death penalty, you don't get to call yourself "pro-life". You're anti-abortion at best and anti-choice at worst.
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#60 Sep 23 2015 at 7:05 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Are you equating abortion to pedophilia? Smiley: dubious

Of course not. Just drawing a parallel between two things that are generally considered to be socially taboo, or at least used to be.
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#61 Sep 23 2015 at 7:06 PM Rating: Good
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Demea wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Are you equating abortion to pedophilia? Smiley: dubious

Of course not. Just drawing a parallel between two things that are generally considered to be socially taboo, or at least used to be.
Like Ugly's Satan-inspired foot fetish? Or was that Soracloud?
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#62 Sep 23 2015 at 7:13 PM Rating: Excellent
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Demea wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Are you equating abortion to pedophilia? Smiley: dubious
Of course not. Just drawing a parallel between two things that are generally considered to be socially taboo, or at least used to be.

Sure. I could come up with a long list of pretty obvious stuff that used to be socially taboo but is now accepted. Not sure what that proves.
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#63 Sep 23 2015 at 7:24 PM Rating: Good
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I'm not trying to prove anything, just voicing my general distaste.
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#64 Sep 23 2015 at 8:23 PM Rating: Default
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Pro-life doesn't mean advocating for making babies.

Really? If you're pro-life, you're okay with the right to choose what happens to your body? You just shouldn't advocate too hard for the "right to have an abortion"?


Huh. I just explained this. Pro-life means that you support the right of the unborn to live. Specifically, a pro-life person believes that the right of the unborn to live outweighs the right of the woman to choose a health action which would terminate that life (ie: an elective abortion). The only exception (for most anyway) is when the woman's own life is in danger (since that's also "pro-life"). It's not really that difficult of a position to grasp.

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Because I'm pretty sure pro-life advocates are 100% for bringing the baby to term but if you're arguing otherwise...


And? How does this relate to your claim that pro-abortion means someone who likes abortions and thinks everyone should get one? That would relate to pro-life meaning someone who likes making babies and thinks everyone should have one. But that's not what's going on.

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And try to keep up: The abortion debate is about what happens after you get pregnant. It's not about guns and it's not about encouraging conception prior to the fact. The fact that your position is silly doesn't mean you should go trying to change the topic.


Except that your attempted definition of "pro-abortion" isn't about what a woman does after being pregnant, but about what other people think should happen. So being "pro-abortion" means that someone else wants to talk any/all pregnant women into having abortions. It's an absurd and completely unworkable definition, but it's the one you tried to come up with. It's silly. Just as "pro-life" meaning someone who wants other people to have babies is silly. I was showing how absurd your definition was by countering with an equally absurd definition for the opposing position.

Pro-abortion means believing in a "right to abort", as opposed to pro-choice which merely means a woman's right to control her own body may outweigh the right of the fetus to live. Pro-choice is countered by pro-life because the pro-live position believes that the right to life always outweighs the woman's choice (except for where her life is at risk, which isn't really about choice at that point). Pro-abortion is in its own weird world, where you decide that abortion is an actual right. I use the label specifically to apply to people who engaged in somewhat ridiculous lengths to dehumanize a developing fetus in order to protect the "right to abort".

If you want to argue about the label, that's your choice (haha!). Um... But that's what I'm talking about. And that position is very different from the classic pro-choice position that is enshrined in the Roe v Wade decision. Whatever you want to call it, that "side" has moved well beyond what that decision ruled.

But if you're so upset about the label, what label would you use? I happen to think it's important to make a distinction between those who believe that the issue is one of conflicting rights between the woman over her body and a developing fetus' right to life and those who believe in an absolute right to abort, which apparently seems to completely invalidate any rights of the fetus, to the point of many people argue that a fetus isn't really even human, so there's no moral issue to even debate. Call it what you will, those are radically different positions. And unfortunately, the desire to conceal the former within the latter, forces people to have to choose between the two apparent "sides", when I believe there are actually three position in play. Again, one of them just doesn't stand up well to public scrutiny so it hides behind the veneer of the seemingly benign "pro-choice" banner.


I wouldn't even bring it up, except for the very noticeable shift in arguments claiming to be pro-choice that I've seen just in my lifetime. I don't ever recall anyone trying to argue that a fetus was no different than a collection of random cells, like fingernails, or cancer, or virus, which can just be removed without any issue at all. And I believe that this shift has occurred because it's easier to rationalize that "choice" by making that argument. But I think that's self deception. And not remotely what the original court decision was about.
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#65 Sep 23 2015 at 8:25 PM Rating: Good
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Please explain how giving the government control over every uterus in the country is a good idea.

I can't wait to hear your justification for that.
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#66 Sep 23 2015 at 8:40 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
A pro-choice person is talking about the right of the woman to make choices with her own body (which in context includes abortion). A pro-abortion person is therefore talking about the right of the woman to have an abortion.

This is even more bizarre. Are there people out there advocating for a woman's right to choose an abortion but who are against a woman's right to, I don't know, seek contraceptives? So pro-choice people talk about the right to "make choices" including abortion and your "pro-abortion" people talk about the right to have an abortion but.... not other choices? Smiley: confused


The pro-choice position on abortion is derived directly from the legal concept that women (all people for that matter) have a right to make decisions involving their own bodies. That's the legal basis for the position. I'm not sure why there's confusion about this. What did you think? We just randomly decide "this is legal, this isn't legal"?

But the "right" in question isn't about the right to abort. Remember that the counter argument (which was the basis of the Texas law in question in Roe v Wade) is that the second a woman is pregnant, she loses the right to do anything with her body that might endanger the life of the developing embryo/fetus (technically loses it to the state, which may legislate on the issue). Which would certainly include the choice to abort the pregnancy (as the state of Texas had done in the case in question). The pro-choice argument is that, no, the woman's rights to control her body remain intact even when pregnant, and thus she should legally be allowed to "choose" to have an abortion. But the legality of that choice, just as it is for any other choice you make regarding control of your body, has to be balanced against other conflicting rights (like the right of the fetus to live, which is clearly also enshrined in the Roe v Wade decision). You don't have a right to choose to abort past that balance point anymore than you have a right to chose to swing your fist past the balance point of someone else's right not to get hit in the face.


What I label the "pro-abortion" position is one where abortion itself becomes a right. The analogy that I gave earlier is apt: You have a right to defend yourself against harm. That right may include lethal force against another under specific legal conditions. People might fight for that right to defend themselves and call it the "pro-defence" position, arguing that a right to self defense is itself infringed if it cannot ever include lethal force. But it would be another thing entirely to decide that using lethal force against someone else is itself a right. We'd have to call that something else, wouldn't we? Pro-lethal_force perhaps?

That's what I'm talking about. I've just seen a lot more people taking up what I consider a "pro-abortion" position rather than a classic "pro-choice" one. Again, call it whatever you want, but it is a significant shift in the issue itself. Heck. It's hard to get people today to even acknowledge that the Roe v Wade position allows for any restriction of abortion at all. Which is what happens when you start thinking of abortion as a right. Hence my comment on it.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2015 7:44pm by gbaji
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#67 Sep 23 2015 at 8:47 PM Rating: Default
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Friar Bijou wrote:
Please explain how giving the government control over every uterus in the country is a good idea.


Please explain how government control over every fist in the country is a good idea.

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I can't wait to hear your justification for that.


Your rights stop when they hit the boundaries of someone else's? This is the justification for pretty much every single law on the books. What I find bizarre is that you actually think this is a hard justification to generate.
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#68 Sep 23 2015 at 8:48 PM Rating: Excellent
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It's not really "confusion", it's just a false distinction. I understand the political motivation behind using the term "pro-abortion" though.
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#69 Sep 23 2015 at 9:03 PM Rating: Good
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I'll just wait while you look up a little history and see if any past governments

A) outlawed abortion and then
b) enforced mandatory birthing.
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#70 Sep 23 2015 at 9:10 PM Rating: Decent
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Demea wrote:
I assume gbaji is referencing the recent "#ShoutYourAbortion" thing. See here.

Direct quotes like "I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood last year and it was a great experience" are unbelievable in the literal sense that I can't believe somebody actually said it. I thought the one thing that both pro-life and pro-choice advocated agreed on was that abortions were terrible events that should occur as infrequently as possible ("Safe, Legal and Rare"). Guess not!


Actually, I wasn't referencing that (wasn't even aware of it), but I've noticed the general shift in the dialog on this issue over the past couple decades, so it doesn't surprise me. You are correct that in the past, both pro-choice and pro-life people agreed that abortions were terrible "last resort" choices. But recently? I've seen a trend towards what I label as "pro-abortion". Which is why I brought it up.

I don't think it's so much about people saying that abortions are great and everyone should have one (what Joph is talking about), but a kind of trend towards downplaying the negatives of abortion and arguing for all the positives. This sort of language seems designed precisely to make abortion an easier decision for women to make. I can't speak to the motivations of it, and as I mentioned earlier, I don't think it's really so much about advocacy (although I'm not precluding the possibility for some people to view it that way), but that most people really do think they're just "fighting for a right", and don't stop to think about the ramifications of what they are doing. Fighting for an absolute right means that you don't have an end point for that right. But all rights have end points. As I mentioned just above, your rights end where they hit the boundaries of someone else's rights.

What bothers me the most is the relatively recent rise of the "fetus is just like a cancer" argument. I'm not sure where this is coming from, but it seems designed to make people believe that there is no right on the part of the fetus. Which completely flies in the face of the Roe v Wade decision itself. But more importantly, when people adopt this idea, it actually does eliminate the "boundary" of the "right to abort". If there is no counter right involved, then the right to abort has no boundary (except birth, but that's outside the scope of what we'd term an "abortion"). Again, this is a relatively recent trend in the issue (maybe first started seeing this about 10-12 years ago maybe?), so I kinda wonder at the source of the idea, and the motivations behind it. It's an argument which is clearly wrong, but is presented in a way such that those who already identify themselves as pro-choice (or more broadly don't want to be identified as anti-women), will tend to accept as part and parcel of those already accepted and hard held "rights". But once you adopt that concept, you now almost have to accept unrestricted elective abortion, or go back on what you believe your position rests on.

Dunno. It just seems like the whole thing is designed to play on people's ideas of rights, manipulate them, and then turn them into something else entirely. I label that as "pro-abortion", but that's just a label. The trend is certainly real though. And it's a bit alarming because it's effectively made any discussion of the issue of abortion into one of being absolutely on one side or the other. Which bothers me because my pro-choice position is somewhat in the middle. But how many times on this forum have I been bashed or called a hypocrite because I'm pro-choice, but still support things like laws that actually say "no late term abortions for mental health reasons". I mean, that's so far past the limits set in Roe v Wade that it's ridiculous, yet taking that quite reasonable moderate position gets you labeled as a horrible violator of women's rights.

It's hard not to see the current position being more or less "support anything that allows abortion to happen, no matter what, or you're evil". So yeah, I call that being "pro-abortion". Because that's certainly what it looks like is going on. It's just funny because I frequently stop and ask people making these arguments where they think the limits for elective abortion should be, and it's almost like they haven't really thought the issue through. They just know they have to "fight for my side. RAR!". Um.... What are you fighting for? Women "won" the issue over abortion 40 year ago. What you're fighting for now, is what? Protecting people who are skirting the law and performing later and later term abortions? How is that a good thing? And, again, where does that end? If you can't think your position all the way through, maybe you should rethink it again?

Edited, Sep 23rd 2015 8:22pm by gbaji
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#71 Sep 23 2015 at 9:20 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
I'll just wait while you look up a little history and see if any past governments

A) outlawed abortion and then
b) enforced mandatory birthing.


Are you arguing that they have, or they haven't? I'm struggling to grasp what you're getting at here. How is one connected to the other? I'll repeat that I brought up the "pro-life is wanting people to have babies" as a counter to Joph's claim that pro-abortion can only mean people wanting other people to get abortions. It was not meant to be a serious claim. That misunderstanding is the only thing I can thin of that makes your post sensible. But if you meant something else, then by all means elaborate. Cause right now, I don't know how to start to respond to it.
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#72 Sep 23 2015 at 10:19 PM Rating: Good
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Mandatory state-directed impregnation and birth.
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#73 Sep 23 2015 at 10:22 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
Mandatory state-directed impregnation and birth.


And? What about it?
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#74 Sep 24 2015 at 12:36 AM Rating: Good
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Friar Bijou wrote:
I'll just wait while you look up a little history and see if any past governments

A) outlawed abortion and then
b) enforced Mandatory state-directed impregnation and birth.


Holding your hand grows tiresome.
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#75 Sep 24 2015 at 7:42 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Your rights stop when they hit the boundaries of someone else's?
Except if you call it religious. Smiley: schooled
gbaji wrote:
I'm struggling to grasp what you're getting at here.
Business as usual.

Edited, Sep 24th 2015 10:51am by lolgaxe
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#76 Sep 24 2015 at 8:37 AM Rating: Good
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Well, one option is moving to a model where an entity other than a parental unit is responsible for the creation of the next generation. Crickets? Aww c'mon.
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