Do you think pro-choice women are more worried about whether or not a fetus is a living human being?

Question

or that they resent anyone telling them what they can or can't do in regards to abortion. I got into a friendly debate with a girl who was ok with abortion and in the end, she admitted her deal was that she didn't think "a man" should be able to tell her what she could do with her own body. All the "trivial" stuff about whether or not the fetus had an inherent right to life and could feel pain and so forth is just poo poo. The most fundemental right in question here is the right for a woman to choose. Whether that choice involves killing another human being is inconsequential and pales in comparison to the revered "right to choose". Newsflash---Laws are constantly restricting people's right to choose certain things.

Delylah, thx for your response. Since you believe life begins at conception, your opinion as a "Christian" is noted; that a woman should have the right to commit muder for the sake of nine valuable months of her life and to prevent emotional suffering. I would like to know if its also ok to kill the child once its been born so long as its done in a painless way and does not cause anxiety in the child?

BuckFush, only taking human life is considered murder. Yes, sperm cells are alive but so is every other cell in the body. No, killing a cell is not murder.

Answer 1

men shouldn't make the laws on women's bodies

Answer 2

If a woman is pregnant there are physical and emotional bonds attached to that fetus from the moment she knows. The decition to have an abortion cannot be an easy one, however if the woman is likely to die (whether the infant will or not), she has been raped, it is likely she or her other children will suffer severly or come to harm then you have to consider the incubator (woman) dont you think? I think by soely using pro life arguements that is exactly what you turn a woman into, in some cases pre-teens.

When I was in hostels I met a girl who had been raped by her step-father and got pregnant. She had the baby in care and it was taken and adopted as it was best for the child. She has never recovered emotionnaly although she did her job as a 13 year old incubator - the baby lived. I dont want to kill that child but the harm it created that would never have been known if it had been aborted very early on (late abortions are terrible terrible things) could (and probably would have been reduced). When you are talking about one life over another it becomes very difficult. I'm not sure how that child is going to feel about how it was created and that could leave an impact too.

Yes a fetus IS improtant but not at the expense of the life around it. If the fetus has an inherent right to life - do i have a right to mine, and or my own peorson emotional, mental and physical wellbeing.

If people stopped trying to legislate against this maybe the other arguements could be heard. But when you ban something important to people they tend to concentrate on not having that happen, rather than the 'fine detail'.

I recently lost a fetus at around 8 weeks - that was not a baby, I still have a strange emmotional connection. It wasnt formed, it wasnt viable and most women who have this happen to them dont know (it happens a lot by the way). If a fetus is living at conception then an aweful lot of people never make it into the world as they die after just 2 - 4 weeks of life.

Answer 3

I agree with you; it seems like the two sides are fighting for different things. One side is screaming about taking an innocent life, the other, about taking a woman's right to privacy. It's like we can't line up and compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

I noticed in a women's study class that the issue of abortion was treated in the text and the lecture as one solely of reproductive rights; that the lawmakers- hence, the patriarchy- were against abortion because they wanted to be able to control their ladies. Is that a part of it? Maybe. Probably, unconsciously or subconsciously. But I also think people are forgetting the whole 'Is a fetus a human being?' argument, which, to me, is at the core of whether abortion is right or wrong.

Personally, I feel that a fetus is a human being. It's not a religious belief (I'm not Christian at all), but just something I feel, so I do not advocate abortion, particuarly the way it is haphazardly often done, in lieu of preventative methods and birth control and precautions and plain old common sense. And especially in this day and age, when pre-natal care can be provided for free, and giving one's child up for adoption is possible (especially when there are so many childless couples longing for the ability to have children), I think carrying a child to term and giving birth is the responsible, morally right thing to do. In certain cases, perhaps, abortion is morally feasible; I'm still not 100% convinced in either way, especially on issues like stem-cell research (which is different from abortion, I know, but comes back to the whole 'Is a fetus a human being?' question).

I think I've been rambling, so I'll stop. But I agree with you- far too many people skirt the issue of this question (which is a question I doubt will ever be answered to anyone's satisfaction), and instead make it all about reproductive rights . . . forgetting that one only has a right inasmuch as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. If a fetus is a human being, it is entitled to the right to life, and abortion is illegal. If not, then abortion is okay. To me, that's the essence of the dilemma.

Answer 4

No male (nor the government) should be allowed to tell a female what to do in regards to a pregnancy. It's HER body and women decide to have an abortion for many different reasons. Not all women have an abortion to "spare her body" as you put it.

Have you ever heard of something called rape? Would you go up to a woman and tell her that she is a murder just because she chose to not be haunted by that event for the rest of her life? Spare me with the adoption bull because there have been incidents of the kid showing up after they turn 18.

Or how about a woman who's life was threatened if she didn't have an abortion? Look at the whole picture next time before you call someone a murder.

Answer 5

This belongs in the pregnancy section of Yahoo Answers and not the GLBT section.

I don't know how people feel about whether or not sperm is alive or not.But sperm creates life and under the microscope it appears to be alive.So, is masturbating a form of murder?A line must be drawn about when we can call something life.Otherwise everything can be seen as murder.

I don't agree with abortion as a contraceptive act for irresponsible people.But my opinion doesn't negate the fact that an undeveloped fetus in the womb of a woman that doesn't want that fetus to develop into life, should have the right to remove that undeveloped fetus.Otherwise, women might return to back alley abortions with coat hangers and without any care to whether or not the fetus is developed or not.

Answer 6

First of all, I'm a Christian and I'm not physically capable of having children, so I'm definitely not a big fan of abortion. However, I think it comes down to this:

It takes two people to make a baby. Regardless of whether it was a mistake or not is irrelevant. The difference between the man and the woman is that a man can walk away from the pregnancy while the woman is not able to. The woman simply isn't able to walk away and pretend like it never happened. The baby is growing inside of her body and she can't escape that. Even if she chooses to give the baby up for adoption, that's nine months of her life in which she has to completely change the way she lives to grow this child ... during which she has to feel the baby move and possibly grow attached, even if she knows she's not capable of providing the best possible care. Abortion gives women the choice that men have ... to be able to walk away, and carry own with life as if nothing happened, even if the price is higher. And yes, it sucks that the only way for this to happen results in the death of an innocent child who has a world of opportunities available that they will never see.

Even though I do believe that life begins at conception, I am scientifically knowledgable enough to know that a small grouping of cells has no awareness, no thoughts, and that if neuro-receptors have yet to form there should be no pain. Instead of fighting about this issue, I've chosen to leave it as is ... and pray for all the women who feel the need to explore this option.

**Jason, I never said that I promoted abortion. In fact, my exact words were "I'm not a big fan of abortion". Your question, I'm assuming, was to understand the viewpoints of why a woman might use this option. Even if I don't agree with them, as a woman I can understand them. All I was attempting to do was to offer some suggestions on why a woman might feel this way. If I, a married woman who desperately wishes she was able to create life can understand this, there is no reason why you shouldn't. The sad thing is that you aren't really asking a question, you're using this forum to degrade the feelings and opinions of women who have possibly made the wrong choice in a situation that you, yourself will never be in. I said that I don't fight this issue anymore, and I don't ... I find it a more "Christian" attitude to pray for the women who find themselves in this situation and to give to charities who can help them make a different choice. I find it a more "Christian" attitude to encourage people to make the right decisions then it is to constantly degrade someone else's point of view and demand to be viewed as "right".

Answer 7

Pro-lifers(usually bible thumpers) are great about screaming "DON'T ABORT!" However they are almost never around to adopt the babies of drug addicts, those w/ severe birth defects or those of rape. Pro lifers would rather see a mother die giving birth due to medical complications and leave her husband and other children behind then let her have an abortion. Most pro choice people will admit that women shouldn't go around having an abortion everytime she get's pregnant and doesn't want to have a baby. Why can't pro life people admit that under some extreme circumstances abortion is the best option? Why should the rights of a fetus out weigh those of the mother?

Answer 8

Whether the fetus is alive and can feel pain is irrelevant in many ways. As a society, we kill animals every days that are alive and feel pain. Thousands of pigs, cows, chickens and other animals are killed at slaughterhouses every day, yet the majority of people don't care.

The fundamental question here is whether a woman has the right to control her own body. If she doesn't, then she becomes a second class citizen and less than human - she is essentially an ambulatory incubator, second to the life inside of her. Since you're a man, you have no way of knowing what it's like to be pregnant, nor can you possibly comprehend the horror of being pregnant against your will and forced to carry it. The way I see it is that having a child you want is like having voluntary sex. Being forced to continue a pregnancy against your will is like being raped, every single minute of every single day, over and over, with people telling you you deserved it and should be happy about it. Pregnancy is physically and emotionally difficult, even if the child is wanted. There are serious health risks and there is permanent damage to the woman's body. Forcing a woman to do that when she doesn't want to is the most cruel and inhumane thing I can think of. It's much more evil than abortion is.

Since the dawn of human history, women have used both abortion and infanticide to control the size of their family. I think we can all agree that abortion is the preferred method here. In fact, abortion was legal until very recently - it was only criminalized in the mid-1800's in the US. Women have also tried desperately to avoid having children, often killing themselves in the process. You should try reading up on what life was like for women when abortion was illegal, like http://www.choicematters.org/articles/lest.html or http://www.cwluherstory.com/CWLUFeature/Janearticles.html and ask yourself if that's really what's best for our country. Since you're a man, try to imagine it happening to your mother, sister, girlfriend or wife. Imagine what it's like to find out someone you loved is dead because she didn't want to have a child. Imagine what it's like to be a woman, to be told that you are less than human and that your life and your desires are meaningless simply because your body has been invaded by a parasite.

The abortion debate is about human rights, about a woman's very basic ability to control her body and her destiny and to be considered fully human.

Answer 9

I am totally against abortion. It is nothing but murder. I understand your point totally. When I was in high school one girl in our school had 9 abortions. She would come to school bragging about how she got pregnant by so and so and had another abortion. 9 different guys! She used abortion as a birth control! How can anyone murder an innocent human and laugh about it and say it is their right to have abortion. I feel like this,... if a person can murder an innocent baby (fetus is just an escape goat for people who don't want to admit it is a baby) they are capable of killing anyone with no remorse. It is sickening. When I was pregnant with my son I was told by the doctor that my life was in danger. My chances were slim of survival. Before he could even say what he suggested. I told him "I will die before I have an abortion." I lived through it and so did my baby. I don't feel there is any excuse for abortion. Basically the "right" women are allowed to choose is the "right" to commit murder! And noone should have that choice!

Answer 10

You're basing an argument against an entire movement based on your interactions with one girl. I happen to lean pro-life myself, but I'm still going to call you out on blatantly creating a straw-man.

The entire structure of the pro-life argument up to now has been entirely stupid, I hate to say. It's stupid to tell people that a fetus IS a life. They'll say it isn't, and no one gets anywhere because there's no way to prove either way. No one's going to win that. If you point out that it MIGHT be, and no one can prove that it's not, then people might see a responsibility to not kill something that might be alive (if that phrasing makes sense). That said, I do agree partially with that woman in that I don't feel it's my place, as a man, much less a gay man who will NEVER accidentally impregnate anyonw, to dictate what happens to said woman. I leave that up to pretty much other women. Furthermore, I feel that there's more definite murder going on everyday in Iraq than the possible killing of abortion, and that sort of takes priority in my life.

Answer 11

At conception, if that baby (egg, fetus, whatever word you wish to use) is removed from the womb, it dies. It lives because of the mother.

At some point during pregnancy that baby (fetus, etc) is able to live on its own outside the womb. At that point, it is a life separate from its mother, because it is able to sustain itself separate from the womb.

Before that point, the child would fit scientific criteria for being parasitic, meaning that its life is sustained by its attatchment to another being. After that point, the mother could birth the baby (obviously would have to be induced as her body is not ready) and the baby could theoretically live on its own.

That's where I draw the line for alive/not alive.

To add to that, the fetus/baby does not feel any sensations (including pain) until shortly before the time that they are able to be birthed and live on their own (about 2/3 through pregnancy).


I think everyone (Pro choice or pro life) agrees that practices such as partial birth abortion are wrong, as they are taking a child who is being birthed and killing him/her. Luckily, those practices are uncommon.


I also find it ironic that you are either pro life or pro choice. Think about those words. I am in favor of life, of course, and I am also very much in favor of choice. Where's the middle ground? Because when we think about it, we all fall much closer to the middle ground.

As for my personal opinions: In the first trimester the fetus is not nearly able to sustain itself on its own. The only way that it possibly could become a human life is through the mother taking great care to nurture the life she is creating. During this time, if the mother decides to abort, I think she should have the option to do so.

After the first trimester, however, I don't think so. You've had your 3-4 months to think about it and make your decision. If you're having reservations, there's probably a reason.

And by the third trimester, no way, because the baby is now a sustainable life.