Pro-choice people are pro-choice, not pro-abortion. They want the law to leave choices up to the individual women whose bodies are involved. Anti-choice people are anti-choice - they want to make human laws to stop individual choices and have state-mandated pregnancy. Pro-life people are pro-life. It is quite possible to be pro-choice and pro-life simultaneously. It is not possible to be pro-choice and anti-choice simultaneously. I don't know about you, but if someone says he or she is pro-life, I certainly expect that person to be anti-capital punishment, pro-national health insurance, and pro-positive welfare to help any pregnant woman financially and in other ways if she needs it, and to help any woman who just gave birth and has financial, health, nursing, or other problems. Anything less is hardly pro-life. Meanwhile, I am also pro-choice, because I believe that any law that forces women to get or stay pregnant against her will, conscience, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression - the right to refuse to express what she does not mean - is absolutely wrong. Because God never forces men to get or stay pregnant, if He forced women to do so, he would be saying that He'll let men get off scot-free for doing the same thing for which He'll punish women. And to be forced to use your life and body to act against your own conscience is certainly punishment. That is not impartial love. It is saying you love your sons more than your daughters. I can't possibly worship such a God. And I expect my government to be as impartial as my God. I admit I don't think embryos are equal, but even if I did, no one has the right to use someone else's body to stay alive against the will, conscience, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression of that someone else. I could not possibly use my word to support forcing that on that someone else. I'm just a declaration of independence and constitution girl.
While I would agree that using terms like 'anti-life' would be too alienating, I just am "not there" on using the very misleading "pro-choice" term. No other advocacy group, be they guns or weed, use such truth-hinding terms. I know it is extra wording, but there is a fundamental truth involved, and I would just refer to them as 'pro-legal abortion'.
These are the folks who often want to force pro-life taxpayers to fund abortions, and often want to force hospitals, clinics, and individual health care providers to participate in a "medical" procedure they liken to murder. Almost all the condemnation of forced abortions in China and eleswhere, as well as coerced abortions in the US, are brought to the public's attention through pro-lifers, almost never "pro-choicers". It is also the "pro-choicers" who want to force CPCs to to tell pregnant women about the "services" that Planned Parenthood provides, but they NEVER want PP to be required to talk about the services of CPCs. And don't forget how the oh-so-'pro-choicers' want to hide ultrasounds from mothers considering abortion! As one poster said on liveactionnews, if they were really pro-choice, they would want women to go to BOTH PP AND a CPC before getting an abortion!
When I was pro-choice, being called "pro-abortion" by my boyfriend hurt me deeply. I identified as pro-choice/anti-abortion at that point, because I believed abortion was a bad thing to be avoided if at all possible but it should be legal and a choice women are allowed to make for themselves, even if I would not be likely to choose that path myself. Pro-choice people have much much more nuanced perspectives than they are often given credit for by pro-life people (well ok, not all pro-choice people...but many!). It made it really difficult for me to feel respected and listened to when I felt that my boyfriend heard "pro-choice" and immediately assumed that it meant "pro-abortion". These terms DO mean different things. Josh, I really appreciate your comment about defining terms, because pro-choice might mean something very different to the person you're talking with than it means to you - maybe to you, it sounds like they're saying pro-abortion, but for them, they're saying they hate abortion and want it to be entirely unnecessary but they don't want it to be illegal for various compassionate reasons. Or maybe something else entirely. Language matters, and words hurt....I use "pro-choice" and hope that they will respect me enough to use "pro-life" to describe my position because that is how I self-identify. Many pro-choice people also call themselves feminists; something one can appeal to (if you care to correct the label they use for you) is that respecting peoples' self-identification is really important to most feminists (as it is for me! Go pro-life feminism :D ). tl;dr: Use pro-choice as your term of choice to a) respect your conversation partners' self-identification and b) be accurate about people's actual position, which may not be as straightforward as pro-abortion.
I have another question for Josh Braham - I confess this is somewhat off-topic yet not entirely. If someone asked you, point-blank, whether you believe abortion is cold-blooded murder, what would you say to them? Personally, I tend to answer "yes" because I can't call it anything else, then sometimes they get REALLY angry. I am not sure how to approach this issue. I want to be gracious with people, treat them as humans, and bond with them over areas we can agree on. However, to call abortion "cold-blooded murder" is nothing less than the truth, and I cannot compromise on that. How should I handle this situation?
I simply don't think that abortion is cold-blooded murder. So this comment is me trying to convince you that my way of thinking about it is more accurate than yours. If I'm wrong, there could still be a legitimate pragmatic question of whether it's HELPFUL to call abortion cold-blooded murder, but in this case, I'm going to argue that abortion doesn't typically fit the definition of cold-blooded murder, both legally and in the way people usually define that term in their minds. Legally speaking, a murder is when one human being illegally kills another human being. It's not murder every time a human being kills another human being. Killing someone in self-defense is not murder, for example. I would like to see abortion become illegal and then it would be murder. Right now it's killing that ought to become illegal. Another problem with calling abortion "murder" is it begs the question. That's when you make your argument circular by assuming one of your premises to be true. In this case you'd be assuming the premise that the unborn is a human being to be true. If the unborn is not a human being, than it would never be considered murder, since we call instances when human beings kill non-humans something different. However, if I've made my case that the unborn are persons already, then it makes sense when I say that while abortion is not currently considered murder, I think it ought to be. Similarly, there was a time when killing a slave was treated more like killing your ox. It wasn't considered murder, but it should have been. I also would take issue with the "cold-blooded" part. I don't think most aborting moms are cold-blooded. I believe some probably are, based on the way they talk about their abortion decision. But I think most feel like they have no other option. I think this quote from Frederica Mathewes-Green says it well: "No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg." So my view is that it's rarely accurate to call abortion "cold-blooded murder," nor do I think that would help you to have a productive conversation with the vast majority of pro-abortion-choice people. Feel free to push back. :)
“I simply don't think that abortion is cold-blooded murder. So this comment is me trying to convince you that my way of thinking about it is more accurate than yours. If I'm wrong, there could still be a legitimate pragmatic question of whether it's HELPFUL to call abortion cold-blooded murder, but in this case, I'm going to argue that abortion doesn't typically fit the definition of cold-blooded murder, both legally and in the way people usually define that term in their minds.” I will answer this in two parts: the first, dealing out a (inadequate) response to your actual comment; the second, some thoughts on how to improve the prolife movement plus my thoughts on the nature of the illegality of abortion, which I beseech you to consider carefully as you read. I read your comment, and I can see that it’s a very interesting way to approach it; I do agree with you, yet disagree with you, yet have thoughts about it. You are right about abortion not fitting the definition of cold-blooded murder in most people’s minds because of Thompson’s Violinist Argument. The only difference between that hypothetical case and abortion is that abortion is proactively taking another person’s life whereas refusing to be hooked up is passively denying another person their right to live (although that is not a distinction recognised by secular law). Also, you are correct as to the legal definition, because unborn persons are not considered persons but rather as property and nothingness under the law*. I think that abortion is cold-blooded murder (to the consciences of many) because no thought is given to the unborn person’s life. It’s as if it doesn’t exist, and it has been dehumanised for the benefit of others, the better so people do not feel guilty over taking its life. Perhaps it’s not cold-blooded murder on the part of the mother, but on the part of the practitioners it certainly is. However, as blastocysts do not currently possess sentience and sapience, they are truly unimportant in many people’s minds. Could you explain why the unborn have *never been considered legal persons under the law? I also think that many people who believe in abortion live in denial because people can see it’s a baby, they can see it’s a person, but they don’t want to acknowledge that it is, for so many reasons. It is so inconsistent when one person’s right to live depends on another person choosing to call them human. It’s all on another person’s choices. Is that really fair? Yet when I talk about this, I am told, “Define human being. List the traits that make a blastocyst valuable, not in the future, but the traits it currently possesses as it is presently located in a Petri dish.” (see comment below and please tell me how you would answer that particular one): http://blog.secularprolife.org/2015/10/nobody-likes-abortion.html#comment-2287766599 “Legally speaking, a murder is when one human being illegally kills another human being. It's not murder every time a human being kills another human being. ‘Killing someone in self-defense is not murder, for example.’” They LUV bringing that one up. Abortion is self-defence against a parasitic intruder. It’s a pitiful and sick twisting of logic. But oh, how to answer it! “I would like to see abortion become illegal and then it would be murder. Right now it's killing that ought to become illegal.” As I do see abortion as a reprehensible injustice to vulnerable persons in the womb, I totally agree that it should be illegal. Just leaving it legal will keep the rate of unborn deaths rising, I think. Yet making it illegal without offering technological, safety net, societal, and practical solutions will not necessarily totally decrease the rate of unborn deaths, I think, and that worries me. I believe if we’re going to make a law like that, we need to seriously consider those who the law will affect drastically, and in what ways, so that we can make laws that don’t offer justice to one group of people while seriously depriving another group of justice. Considering these angles is one of many keys to ensuring that we do not have to resume the prolife fight. I do, however, wish to cover that more extensively in another comment. "Another problem with calling abortion "murder" is it begs the question. That's when you make your argument circular by assuming one of your premises to be true. In this case you'd be assuming the premise that the unborn is a human being to be true. If the unborn is not a human being, than it would never be considered murder, since we call instances when human beings kill non-humans something different." Well, it is true that the unborn person is a human being (how to explain it to them I know not). We know this by science and by our own intuition. However, it is not legally considered a person, as you pointed out before. Why is it an assumption to say that the unborn person is a human being? Is it because many have not come to that realisation yet? Can you explain this a little more clearly please? “However, if I've made my case that the unborn are persons already, then it makes sense when I say that while abortion is not currently considered murder, I think it ought to be. Similarly, there was a time when killing a slave was treated more like killing your ox. It wasn't considered murder, but it should have been.” I do agree with you in this sentence in the sense that the legal definition needs to change. However, remember the Jews in the WWII? I mean – was it murder what happened to them? It wasn’t considered murder under the nazi laws at the time, but morally, it was heinous, cold-blooded genocidal murder. It takes a dedicated conscience to encourage people to change their minds on a moral issue. “I also would take issue with the "cold-blooded" part. I don't think most aborting moms are cold-blooded. I believe some probably are, based on the way they talk about their abortion decision. But I think most feel like they have no other option. I think this quote from Frederica Mathewes-Green says it well: ‘No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.’” I would agree that some aborting mums are cold-blooded, do possess hatred towards their babies, and are relieved once it is gone. Most are not like this. If there was another option available, or they knew of one, I’m sure many would take it. Many are pressured into it either by circumstances or other people, an occurrence I find very sad. Some might feel relief after the abortion (not out of hatred but out of keeping things status quo) but I think it would be fairly temporary emotionally, although I cannot judge the motives of every single person who is relaxed over relinquishing themselves of the significant change in their lives. I know of one case where a mother was very sick every time she got pregnant and she aborted nearly every single time (although she was wrong to have those abortions, in a way I can’t blame her for not wanting to be ill because some women die from morning sickness, did you know that?), but it was a kind doctor who helped her by educating her about what she was carrying that helped her not to do it the last time around. However, I read an article from the lovely Abolish Human Abortion team that coldly asserted that all aborting mums hate their unborn babies and would gladly see them die, all for convenience. http://blog.abolishhumanabortion.com/2015/09/murder-and-manslaying.html One day I will share my exact opinion on AHA. Suffice it to say one of the things I dislike about them is that they are very desirous to take a woman’s safety net away from her without providing her due recourse so that she has every chance offered her not to commit the act. Do I disagree with everything they say? No, I don’t, because nearly everyone has good ideas on this subject. I admire and share their intense concern for unborn persons, yet I do find their tone cold, uncaring, and judgmental in that they seek to impose a cookie cutter mould on everyone without considering the ramifications of their ultimate desires socially, legally, and morally. One of the best ways to raise society out of the gutter is to allow women their rights, an education, and contraception, and that is something AHA (and dare I say many prolife groups because they have not made contraception availability a huge part of their mission), so far as I know, fail to take into account. I think providing a good safety net, complete with contraceptives, sex education, superior technological alternatives to abortion (like artificial wombs and anything else anyone could brainstorm up), social benefits including financial and material aid for unwed mothers, seeking to reduce the actual causes of abortion (poverty, domestic violence, rape, etc), plus many of the other things prolifers do, would be helpful for women so that they could still be empowered without taking another person’s life to arrive at that condition. The Frederica Mathewes-Green quote is 100% spot on, especially when a woman feels apprehensive of the future and knows that her life could change forever because of a pregnancy. That is why contraceptives are so helpful – they provide a safety net to help a woman feel more secure about having sex as a female without getting pregnant. As a recovering tokophobe I can, in a sense, understand their desperation although I have never been pregnant myself, because I went through at least some of the conflicting emotions of fear and desperation. The thought of being pregnant, in and of itself, was enough to arouse very negative feelings in me. I am better now, but still suffer flash-backs from time to time. “So my view is that it's rarely accurate to call abortion "cold-blooded murder," nor do I think that would help you to have a productive conversation with the vast majority of pro-abortion-choice people.” I think from a pragmatic standard your comment is somewhat right; I never thought of it that way before ever. I just assumed that, due to the inconsistent treatment of the unborn, that it was morally reprehensible to redefine what a human life was for my own benefit (and I was right about that, by the way). Morally, that is exactly what it is – cold-blooded murder. However, your explanation makes sense legally (in that the unborn are not considered persons under the law) and philosophically (in that people have redefined when human life begins, and also that aborting mums are usually in a desperate situation when they abort). Can you please tell me what I should call it instead of “cold-blooded murder” so that I can help people understand why I object to it so strongly morally? Yet I think that we need to remember that since we do have the moral high ground on this issue we do need to define abortion in strong terms to expose the immorality of the practice. When I first started out discussing abortion with people on the other side of the fence, I was naively unaware of how deceptive these arguments were, especially the bodily autonomy ones. They would sound almost convincing if you didn’t know what abortion is and what it does. I would like to get people to question the inconsistency of refusing to call the unborn persons when it doesn’t suit them. How can a baby be a baby when someone wants it and a worthless foetus when it is unwanted? I do not understand. The thought experiments they come up with to attempt to justify the taking of another person’s life are elaborate attempts to refuse to face the reality that they are talking about another person, worth far more than a clump of cells. Also consider – if foetuses aren’t human why are PP using foetal organs to put into babies the parents want? If they weren’t people they have no business doing that, do they? I’ve also heard people discuss children’s rights a lot. They say that children have the right not to be spanked, beaten, battered, abused, etc. (all of which I would agree with). Yet they are silent when it comes to abortion. On that, ironically, parental rights comes first rather than children’s rights. That is so incredibly hypocritical yet they have created this wall around them to keep them from facing the facts on the question because the reality that we are dealing with human lives here is way too hard to face. It’s a form of comfortable self-deceit to say that the unborn person is only a clump of cells that won’t feel a thing. Sure it might be that in the first few days, but foetal development starts pretty fast. Also, if we were discussing any other topic but abortion people would be interested in foetal development and ooh and aah over the fact their little baby has fingernails and is starting to look like a human at a very early stage in pregnancy. Any basic pregnancy info will tell you about ZEF development, and the information I read in there is enough to convince me their position is wrong, partially because it seems so different from what advocates for legal abortions assert about foetal development. One huge question I have always wrestled with is, I cannot understand why unborn persons are completely considered the property of their elders, to do with as they see fit, yet newborns, toddlers, children, etc., have some sorts of rights (which need to be recognised more by the way) that they can appeal to, despite their being perceived by the law as minors. PS: I humbly apologise for the lengthiness of my comments, and once again, thank you for putting up with it.
Is "advocates for abortion" an acceptable label? I ask because I have spoken to people who disagree with me on this topic, and I want to be respectful, but not compromise what I believe because I do not believe abortion is a choice, and to call it a choice is, in my mind, like saying slavery is a legitimate, acceptable choice. However, I have been told that calling them "pro-abortion" does not accurately represent their position because they want women to be able to decide whether or not to have abortions, rather than actually out-and-out killing all babies. I decided to take on the term "advocates for legal abortion" because I felt that it would not compromise what I believed on the issue, but it would be more accurate due to the fact that, although those who disagree with me will advocate to keep abortion legal, most people, regardless of their stance, do not like abortion. I appreciate your blog, and came across it recently. I confess I engaged in some online debates with folks who believed the opposite from me on the topic, and in some ways I made a mess of myself, and botched up the debates, due to inexperience on my part, and not having studied the issue as extensively as I could have, although I tried to be fairly polite. I am prolife, I strongly believe in prolife philosophy, but I do listen to what advocates for legal abortion say sometimes because some of the things they say sound to me like good ideas, like seeking out the causes of abortion so that we can reduce the number of abortions (personally, I think abortion should be illegal but replaced with something technologically better, however, that's a whole 'nother topic for another time). I've come here to try again, and if possible, to win back the respect of at least some folks. Can you help me? I do not want to compromise what I believe ever. However, I do want to approach people with sensitivity and compassion because I understand that advocates for legal abortion are human, like me, and I want to sound intelligent rather than brainwashed.
I would be cautious with "abortion advocate" even, to be honest. This comes out of my own experience of being pro-choice. I do not know if now I would be happy to be called an "anti-choice advocate" or even a "pro-life advocate" ...mostly because of the word "advocate". It implies activism. I think being pro-life is more inherently an advocate/activist type positioning because of society's default stance, but a whole lot of pro-choice people just don't really care much either way or at the least don't think about it often. I've been hearing recently about how many men especially will say they cannot or will not even claim a label in the conversation, saying it's for women to decide - while we can see that this is a pro-choice position, they would not self-label as pro-choice and even less as "abortion advocates" because they see themselves as abstaining from having an opinion.
I love the attitude of this comment. You and I have something in common, Crystal. We have both had experiences of botching debates, and we both want to avoid doing that in the future. I think "abortion advocate" is close enough to accurate to be fine to use. I don't think I see the word "choice" quite the same way you do, so I wouldn't be as bothered by saying "pro-abortion-choice" or "abortion-choice advocate." But reasonable people can certainly disagree about that, and "abortion advocate" is far more accurate of most people on the other side of this debate than "pro-abortion."
Well, I know it hasn't caused the same level of offence, but you wouldn't consider it a softening of stance? I do want to be accurate with my words. I used "pro-abortion" because I COULDN'T think of anything else to use for a long time. I could see it was causing problems and I stopped using it. I strongly feel abortion is a vile, criminal, barbaric human rights abuse and it needs to be spoken about in those terms. I feel that one of the reasons the prolife movement is failing is that it is way too soft on it in the language: it calls it "sin" and "wrong". Would we be so soft on the confederates, the nazis, or dare I say IS? However, I also feel that attacking people who believe differently from me on the question is not going to win people over. Furthermore, I actually feel sorry for most women who have abortions because, as you said, they seem to have no other option. Sometimes they don't even know they're carrying a baby. I don't like attacking people because civility is far more likely to win folks over than rudeness, but I do feel strongly about calling abortion out for what it is. I was asked once, after speaking about it so strongly, that wouldn't forcing an eight-year old to go through a birth be a barbaric, vile thing? I answered, C-section, and this is what I got back: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/friendlyatheist1/if_the_gop_defunded_planned_parenthood_this_is_how_americans_would_suffer/#comment-2204787619 https://disqus.com/home/discussion/friendlyatheist1/if_the_gop_defunded_planned_parenthood_this_is_how_americans_would_suffer/#comment-2205052888 After facing that I wasn't a happy camper :( Fortunately, we have made up, I think, which is good, but that still hurts (no offence to the person who was mad at me though). What is your answer to the dilemma I have proposed? If that was your daughter, what would you do? You have three options, so far as I know:
1) abort, thus killing an innocent unborn person who didn't deserve death and potentially causing her post-traumatic grief 2) birth naturally, meaning she has urine and excrement running down her legs from the birth and she is possibly ripped up and in great pain, with serious medical complications 3) C-section - apparently safest option, but traumatic for a little girl to be told she will be cut up, could take a while to recover from, and possibly cause resentment on her part for being cut up In the last two cases, rape trauma and birth PTSD could be a thing too, and I'm not sure an eight-year old deserves to birth children; she's just not ready for it. In all of those proposals I listed, she could face paralysis or even death, so far as I know. Because I'm stuck on that one. None of those options seem acceptable. I suppose the third one wouldn't be as bad as the others but is any of that really fair to a child?? These are the dilemmas they throw at us. Why didn't we find an answer to them? You'd have thought with our great scientific minds we WOULD have; why not? Please forgive me; I'm finding this very hard.
It's so devastating when thinking about very young girls who have been raped and become pregnant. Emotionally speaking, my heart goes out to her way more than her unborn child. I think that's natural. I would want the rapist punished to the full extent of the law, and her to be given as much help as possible. On the intellectual question, the first thing I would want to know from several unbiased doctors is whether the pregnancy/delivery (regardless of method) would endanger the 8-year-olds life. If her life is at risk and there is no way to save both, I think she can have a medical procedure intended to save her life, even though we know the child would die in the process. I have lots of thoughts about that, some of which you can listen to here: http://joshbrahm.com/mothers-life-risk-speech-audio/ If her life is not at risk, I believe the Ç-section will most likely do the least amount of damage. Again, it's a horrible situation, and there is no answer that will satisfy anyone completely, because of how there is no answer that will make the rape survivor's life immediately easier. :(
Yeah it is. "If her life is not at risk, I believe the Ç-section will most likely do the least amount of damage." Some people got REALLY angry at me when I said that answer, if you saw all that up there :( Your comment is well-thought out - for the present, I think. I'm a little puzzled as to why you'd choose C-section; I mean, a small child would find being cut up an incredibly traumatising experience :( Also, although I understand there are few situations where the mother's life is directly in danger, I also realise that every pregnancy, no matter how smooth, is potentially risky. I have another question too; this is NOT an attack but rather a critical thinking exercise: WHY have prolifers seemed to ignore this dilemma so much, focusing on only the unborn person (not that they shouldn't focus) rather than coming up with a superior medical alternative that I think would have the capacity to right the situation - if it worked out well, that is. They love throwing this one at us because it's a gotcha question, and not one that you can just rattle off an answer to. But I think in a way we deserve it. I think we deserve it because we haven't seriously considered the question enough to realise that women's needs are as important as children's lives, but have just thoughtlessly used the cookie cutter, all the time. We know abortion is morally reprehensible, okay? We know for a fact that it is. But we also know that forced pregnancy is morally reprehensible. We need to find a way to solve the moral dilemma that would satisfy both parties, preferably along the technological line; I feel it would save many lives, and the suggestion below is only one of many ways that could be investigated to make sure it works for real before starting out on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_uterus I have another question: if you knew for sure a pregnant person would face paralysis if she carried through the pregnancy what would you advise? Would you advise an abortion, or a carrying to term? Also, would you force her to carry to term? Would you say she should not get an abortion in such a case, because baby, or would you say she should be set free from risk of paralysis, because mother? Again, thanks for answering. I am hesitant to take you away from your work though.
Some people on the pro-abortion side are pro-choice and some are not. It depends on whether they're OK with forced abortion. If the want some people to be forced to abort, then they're not pro-choice. They are hard core pro-aborts. In order to be pro-choice, you have to be respectful of the choice to refuse abortion, and not want the pregnant woman penalized or punished in any way for this refusal. Anything else is hypocracy while claiming the pro-choice label.
I don't know about you, but if someone says he or she is pro-life, I certainly expect that person to be anti-capital punishment, pro-national health insurance, and pro-positive welfare to help any pregnant woman financially and in other ways if she needs it, and to help any woman who just gave birth and has financial, health, nursing, or other problems. Anything less is hardly pro-life.
Meanwhile, I am also pro-choice, because I believe that any law that forces women to get or stay pregnant against her will, conscience, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression - the right to refuse to express what she does not mean - is absolutely wrong.
Because God never forces men to get or stay pregnant, if He forced women to do so, he would be saying that He'll let men get off scot-free for doing the same thing for which He'll punish women. And to be forced to use your life and body to act against your own conscience is certainly punishment. That is not impartial love. It is saying you love your sons more than your daughters. I can't possibly worship such a God. And I expect my government to be as impartial as my God.
I admit I don't think embryos are equal, but even if I did, no one has the right to use someone else's body to stay alive against the will, conscience, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression of that someone else. I could not possibly use my word to support forcing that on that someone else. I'm just a declaration of independence and constitution girl.
No other advocacy group, be they guns or weed, use such truth-hinding terms.
I know it is extra wording, but there is a fundamental truth involved, and I would just refer to them as 'pro-legal abortion'.
Almost all the condemnation of forced abortions in China and eleswhere, as well as coerced abortions in the US, are brought to the public's attention through pro-lifers, almost never "pro-choicers".
It is also the "pro-choicers" who want to force CPCs to to tell pregnant women about the "services" that Planned Parenthood provides, but they NEVER want PP to be required to talk about the services of CPCs.
And don't forget how the oh-so-'pro-choicers' want to hide ultrasounds from mothers considering abortion!
As one poster said on liveactionnews, if they were really pro-choice, they would want women to go to BOTH PP AND a CPC before getting an abortion!
tl;dr: Use pro-choice as your term of choice to a) respect your conversation partners' self-identification and b) be accurate about people's actual position, which may not be as straightforward as pro-abortion.
If someone asked you, point-blank, whether you believe abortion is cold-blooded murder, what would you say to them?
Personally, I tend to answer "yes" because I can't call it anything else, then sometimes they get REALLY angry.
I am not sure how to approach this issue. I want to be gracious with people, treat them as humans, and bond with them over areas we can agree on. However, to call abortion "cold-blooded murder" is nothing less than the truth, and I cannot compromise on that. How should I handle this situation?
Legally speaking, a murder is when one human being illegally kills another human being. It's not murder every time a human being kills another human being. Killing someone in self-defense is not murder, for example.
I would like to see abortion become illegal and then it would be murder. Right now it's killing that ought to become illegal.
Another problem with calling abortion "murder" is it begs the question. That's when you make your argument circular by assuming one of your premises to be true. In this case you'd be assuming the premise that the unborn is a human being to be true. If the unborn is not a human being, than it would never be considered murder, since we call instances when human beings kill non-humans something different.
However, if I've made my case that the unborn are persons already, then it makes sense when I say that while abortion is not currently considered murder, I think it ought to be. Similarly, there was a time when killing a slave was treated more like killing your ox. It wasn't considered murder, but it should have been.
I also would take issue with the "cold-blooded" part. I don't think most aborting moms are cold-blooded. I believe some probably are, based on the way they talk about their abortion decision. But I think most feel like they have no other option. I think this quote from Frederica Mathewes-Green says it well: "No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg."
So my view is that it's rarely accurate to call abortion "cold-blooded murder," nor do I think that would help you to have a productive conversation with the vast majority of pro-abortion-choice people.
Feel free to push back. :)
I will answer this in two parts: the first, dealing out a (inadequate) response
to your actual comment; the second, some thoughts on how to improve the prolife movement plus my thoughts on the nature of the illegality of abortion, which I beseech you to consider carefully as you read.
I read your comment, and I can see that it’s a very interesting way to approach it; I do agree with you, yet disagree with you, yet have thoughts about it. You are right about abortion not fitting the definition of cold-blooded murder in most people’s minds because of Thompson’s Violinist Argument. The only difference between that hypothetical case and abortion is that abortion is proactively taking another person’s life whereas refusing to be hooked up is passively denying another person their right to live (although that is not a distinction recognised by secular law). Also, you are correct as to the legal definition, because unborn persons are not considered persons but rather as property and nothingness under the law*.
I think that abortion is cold-blooded murder (to the consciences of many) because no thought is given to the unborn person’s life. It’s as if it doesn’t exist, and it has been dehumanised for the benefit of others, the better so people do not feel guilty over taking its life.
Perhaps it’s not cold-blooded murder on the part of the mother, but on the part of the practitioners it certainly is. However, as blastocysts do not currently possess sentience and sapience, they are truly unimportant in many people’s minds.
Could you explain why the unborn have *never been considered legal persons under the law?
I also think that many people who believe in abortion live in denial because people can see it’s a baby, they can see it’s a person, but they don’t want to acknowledge that it is, for so many reasons. It is so inconsistent when one person’s right to live depends on another person choosing to call them human. It’s all on another person’s choices. Is that really fair?
Yet when I talk about this, I am told, “Define human being. List the traits that make a blastocyst valuable, not in the future, but the traits it currently possesses as it is presently located in a Petri dish.” (see comment below and please tell me how you would answer that particular one):
http://blog.secularprolife.org/2015/10/nobody-likes-abortion.html#comment-2287766599
“Legally speaking, a murder is when one human being illegally kills another human being. It's not murder every time a human being kills another human being. ‘Killing someone in self-defense is not murder, for example.’”
They LUV bringing that one up. Abortion is self-defence against a parasitic
intruder. It’s a pitiful and sick twisting of logic. But oh, how to answer it!
“I would like to see abortion become illegal and then it would be murder. Right now it's killing that ought to become illegal.”
As I do see abortion as a reprehensible injustice to vulnerable persons in the womb, I totally agree that it should be illegal. Just leaving it legal will keep the rate of unborn deaths rising, I think. Yet making it illegal without offering technological, safety net, societal, and practical solutions will not necessarily totally decrease the rate of unborn deaths, I think, and that worries me. I believe if we’re going to make a law like that, we need to seriously consider those who the law will affect drastically, and in what ways, so that we can make laws that don’t offer justice to one group of people while seriously depriving another group of justice. Considering these angles is one of many keys to ensuring that we do not have to resume the prolife fight. I do, however, wish to cover that more extensively in another comment.
"Another problem with calling abortion "murder" is it begs the question. That's when you make your argument circular by assuming one of your premises to be true. In this case you'd be assuming the premise that the unborn is a human being to be true. If the unborn is not a human being, than it would never be considered murder, since we call instances when human beings kill non-humans something different."
Well, it is true that the unborn person is a human being (how to explain it to them I know not). We know this by science and by our own intuition. However, it is not legally considered a person, as you pointed out before.
Why is it an assumption to say that the unborn person is a human being? Is it because many have not come to that realisation yet? Can you explain this a little more clearly please?
“However, if I've made my case that the unborn are persons already, then it makes sense when I say that while abortion is not currently considered murder, I think it ought to be. Similarly, there was a time when killing a slave was treated more like killing your ox. It wasn't considered murder, but it should have been.”
I do agree with you in this sentence in the sense that the legal definition needs to change. However, remember the Jews in the WWII? I mean – was it murder what happened to them? It wasn’t considered murder under the nazi laws at the time, but morally, it was heinous, cold-blooded genocidal murder. It takes a dedicated conscience to encourage people to change their minds on a moral issue.
“I also would take issue with the "cold-blooded" part. I don't think most
aborting moms are cold-blooded. I believe some probably are, based on the way they talk about their abortion decision. But I think most feel like they have no other option. I think this quote from Frederica Mathewes-Green says it well: ‘No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.’”
I would agree that some aborting mums are cold-blooded, do possess hatred towards their babies, and are relieved once it is gone. Most are not like this. If there was another option available, or they knew of one, I’m sure many would take it. Many are pressured into it either by circumstances or other people, an occurrence I find very sad. Some might feel relief after the abortion (not out of hatred but out of keeping things status quo) but I think it would be fairly temporary emotionally, although I cannot judge the motives of every single person who is relaxed over relinquishing themselves of the significant change in their lives. I know of one case where a mother was very sick every time she got pregnant and
she aborted nearly every single time (although she was wrong to have those abortions, in a way I can’t blame her for not wanting to be ill because some women die from morning sickness, did you know that?), but it was a kind doctor who helped her by educating her about what she was carrying that helped her not to do it the last time around.
However, I read an article from the lovely Abolish Human Abortion team that coldly asserted that all aborting mums hate their unborn babies and would gladly see them die, all for convenience.
http://blog.abolishhumanabortion.com/2015/09/murder-and-manslaying.html
One day I will share my exact opinion on AHA. Suffice it to say one of the things I dislike about them is that they are very desirous to take a woman’s safety net away from her without providing her due recourse so that she has every chance offered her not to commit the act. Do I disagree with everything they say? No, I don’t, because nearly everyone has good ideas on this subject. I admire and share their intense concern for unborn persons, yet I do find their tone cold, uncaring, and judgmental in that they seek to impose a cookie cutter mould on everyone without considering the ramifications of their ultimate desires socially, legally, and morally. One of the best ways to raise society out of the gutter is to allow women their rights, an education, and contraception, and that is something AHA (and dare I say many prolife groups because they have not made contraception availability a huge part of their mission), so far as I know, fail to take into account.
I think providing a good safety net, complete with contraceptives, sex education, superior technological alternatives to abortion (like artificial wombs and anything else anyone could brainstorm up), social benefits including financial and material aid for unwed mothers, seeking to reduce the actual causes of abortion (poverty, domestic violence, rape, etc), plus many of the other things prolifers do, would be helpful for women so that they could still be empowered without taking another person’s life to arrive at that condition.
The Frederica Mathewes-Green quote is 100% spot on, especially when a woman feels apprehensive of the future and knows that her life could change forever because of a pregnancy. That is why contraceptives are so helpful – they provide a safety net to help a woman feel more secure about having sex as a female without getting pregnant.
As a recovering tokophobe I can, in a sense, understand their desperation although I have never been pregnant myself, because I went through at least some of the conflicting emotions of fear and desperation. The thought of being pregnant, in and of itself, was enough to arouse very negative feelings in me. I am better now, but still suffer flash-backs from time to time.
“So my view is that it's rarely accurate to call abortion "cold-blooded murder," nor do I think that would help you to have a productive conversation with the vast majority of pro-abortion-choice people.”
I think from a pragmatic standard your comment is somewhat right; I never thought of it that way before ever. I just assumed that, due to the inconsistent treatment of the unborn, that it was morally reprehensible to redefine what a human life was for my own benefit (and I was right about that, by the way). Morally, that is exactly what it is – cold-blooded murder. However, your explanation makes sense legally (in that the unborn are not considered persons under the law) and philosophically (in that people have redefined when human life begins, and also that aborting mums are usually in a desperate situation when they abort).
Can you please tell me what I should call it instead of “cold-blooded murder” so that I can help people understand why I object to it so strongly morally? Yet I think that we need to remember that since we do have the moral high ground on this issue we do need to define abortion in strong terms to expose the immorality of the practice.
When I first started out discussing abortion with people on the other side of the fence, I was naively unaware of how deceptive these arguments were, especially the bodily autonomy ones. They would sound almost convincing if you didn’t know what abortion is and what it does. I would
like to get people to question the inconsistency of refusing to call the unborn persons when it doesn’t suit them. How can a baby be a baby when someone wants it and a worthless foetus when it is unwanted? I do not understand. The thought experiments they come up with to attempt to justify the taking of another person’s life are elaborate attempts to refuse to face the reality that they are talking about another person, worth far more than a clump of cells. Also consider – if foetuses aren’t human why are PP using foetal organs to put into babies the parents want? If they weren’t people they have no business doing that, do they?
I’ve also heard people discuss children’s rights a lot. They say that children have the right not to be spanked, beaten, battered, abused, etc. (all of which I would agree with). Yet they are silent when it comes to abortion. On that, ironically, parental rights comes first rather than children’s rights. That is so incredibly hypocritical yet they have created this wall around them to keep them from facing the facts on the question because the reality that we are dealing with human lives here is way too hard to face. It’s a form of comfortable self-deceit to say that the unborn person is only a clump of cells that won’t feel a thing. Sure it might be that in the first few days, but foetal development starts pretty fast. Also, if we were discussing any other topic but abortion people would be interested in foetal development and ooh and aah over the fact their little baby has fingernails and is starting to look like a human at a very early stage in pregnancy. Any basic pregnancy info will tell you about ZEF development, and the information I read in there is enough to convince me their position is wrong, partially because it seems so different from what advocates for legal abortions assert about foetal development.
One huge question I have always wrestled with is, I cannot understand why unborn persons are completely considered the property of their elders, to do with as they see fit, yet newborns, toddlers, children, etc., have some sorts of rights (which need to be recognised more by the way) that they can appeal to, despite their being perceived by the law as minors.
PS: I humbly apologise for the lengthiness of my comments, and once again, thank you for putting up with it.
I appreciate your blog, and came across it recently. I confess I engaged in some online debates with folks who believed the opposite from me on the topic, and in some ways I made a mess of myself, and botched up the debates, due to inexperience on my part, and not having studied the issue as extensively as I could have, although I tried to be fairly polite. I am prolife, I strongly believe in prolife philosophy, but I do listen to what advocates for legal abortion say sometimes because some of the things they say sound to me like good ideas, like seeking out the causes of abortion so that we can reduce the number of abortions (personally, I think abortion should be illegal but replaced with something technologically better, however, that's a whole 'nother topic for another time). I've come here to try again, and if possible, to win back the respect of at least some folks. Can you help me?
I do not want to compromise what I believe ever. However, I do want to approach people with sensitivity and compassion because I understand that advocates for legal abortion are human, like me, and I want to sound intelligent rather than brainwashed.
I think "abortion advocate" is close enough to accurate to be fine to use. I don't think I see the word "choice" quite the same way you do, so I wouldn't be as bothered by saying "pro-abortion-choice" or "abortion-choice advocate." But reasonable people can certainly disagree about that, and "abortion advocate" is far more accurate of most people on the other side of this debate than "pro-abortion."
I strongly feel abortion is a vile, criminal, barbaric human rights abuse and it needs to be spoken about in those terms. I feel that one of the reasons the prolife movement is failing is that it is way too soft on it in the language: it calls it "sin" and "wrong". Would we be so soft on the confederates, the nazis, or dare I say IS?
However, I also feel that attacking people who believe differently from me on the question is not going to win people over. Furthermore, I actually feel sorry for most women who have abortions because, as you said, they seem to have no other option. Sometimes they don't even know they're carrying a baby.
I don't like attacking people because civility is far more likely to win folks over than rudeness, but I do feel strongly about calling abortion out for what it is.
I was asked once, after speaking about it so strongly, that wouldn't forcing an eight-year old to go through a birth be a barbaric, vile thing? I answered, C-section, and this is what I got back:
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/friendlyatheist1/if_the_gop_defunded_planned_parenthood_this_is_how_americans_would_suffer/#comment-2204787619
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/friendlyatheist1/if_the_gop_defunded_planned_parenthood_this_is_how_americans_would_suffer/#comment-2205052888
After facing that I wasn't a happy camper :(
Fortunately, we have made up, I think, which is good, but that still hurts (no offence to the person who was mad at me though).
What is your answer to the dilemma I have proposed? If that was your daughter, what would you do? You have three options, so far as I know: 1) abort, thus killing an innocent unborn person who didn't deserve death and potentially causing her post-traumatic grief
2) birth naturally, meaning she has urine and excrement running down her legs from the birth and she is possibly ripped up and in great pain, with serious medical complications
3) C-section - apparently safest option, but traumatic for a little girl to be told she will be cut up, could take a while to recover from, and possibly cause resentment on her part for being cut up
In the last two cases, rape trauma and birth PTSD could be a thing too, and I'm not sure an eight-year old deserves to birth children; she's just not ready for it. In all of those proposals I listed, she could face paralysis or even death, so far as I know.
Because I'm stuck on that one. None of those options seem acceptable. I suppose the third one wouldn't be as bad as the others but is any of that really fair to a child??
These are the dilemmas they throw at us. Why didn't we find an answer to them? You'd have thought with our great scientific minds we WOULD have; why not?
Please forgive me; I'm finding this very hard.
On the intellectual question, the first thing I would want to know from several unbiased doctors is whether the pregnancy/delivery (regardless of method) would endanger the 8-year-olds life. If her life is at risk and there is no way to save both, I think she can have a medical procedure intended to save her life, even though we know the child would die in the process. I have lots of thoughts about that, some of which you can listen to here: http://joshbrahm.com/mothers-life-risk-speech-audio/
If her life is not at risk, I believe the Ç-section will most likely do the least amount of damage.
Again, it's a horrible situation, and there is no answer that will satisfy anyone completely, because of how there is no answer that will make the rape survivor's life immediately easier. :(
"If her life is not at risk, I believe the Ç-section will most likely do the least amount of damage."
Some people got REALLY angry at me when I said that answer, if you saw all that up there :(
Your comment is well-thought out - for the present, I think. I'm a little puzzled as to why you'd choose C-section; I mean, a small child would find being cut up an incredibly traumatising experience :(
Also, although I understand there are few situations where the mother's life is directly in danger, I also realise that every pregnancy, no matter how smooth, is potentially risky.
I have another question too; this is NOT an attack but rather a critical thinking exercise: WHY have prolifers seemed to ignore this dilemma so much, focusing on only the unborn person (not that they shouldn't focus) rather than coming up with a superior medical alternative that I think would have the capacity to right the situation - if it worked out well, that is.
They love throwing this one at us because it's a gotcha question, and not one that you can just rattle off an answer to. But I think in a way we deserve it. I think we deserve it because we haven't seriously considered the question enough to realise that women's needs are as important as children's lives, but have just thoughtlessly used the cookie cutter, all the time. We know abortion is morally reprehensible, okay? We know for a fact that it is. But we also know that forced pregnancy is morally reprehensible. We need to find a way to solve the moral dilemma that would satisfy both parties, preferably along the technological line; I feel it would save many lives, and the suggestion below is only one of many ways that could be investigated to make sure it works for real before starting out on it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_uterus
I have another question: if you knew for sure a pregnant person would face paralysis if she carried through the pregnancy what would you advise? Would you advise an abortion, or a carrying to term? Also, would you force her to carry to term? Would you say she should not get an abortion in such a case, because baby, or would you say she should be set free from risk of paralysis, because mother?
Again, thanks for answering. I am hesitant to take you away from your work though.