How is this a legitimate pro-choice argument?

Question

"Abortion should be legal because when it was illegal, women and girls were having 'back alley' abortions, giving them infections that often resulted in dealth"

I hear that argument ALL THE TIME...

OK, well drugs are illegal. And there are individuals who still find a way to get high, snuff hairspray, spraypaint, etc, which often results in sickness or death.

So should drugs be legal? If you follow the pro-choice logic it appears that way...

So my point is..how is that a good pro-choice argument??

Answer 1

An abortion is a medical procedure. Making any medical procedure illeagal is going to cost people their lives. And since medicne is designed to save lives, procedures that endanger lives should be banned or regulated.

And as as matter of fact I do happen to think that drugs should be legal. They should be taxed at a high rate [as all legal drugs currently are] and the money raised used to fund programs to help people who have addiction problems.

Answer 2

Am caught between a rock and a hard place on the subject of abortion. On one hand, it's not my place to tell a woman what she should do with her body, but then my heart breaks everytime I see images of aborted fetuses and children.
http://www.silentscream.org/video1.htm

One Australian feminist site(wish I could find the link again) is trying to push for abortion at ALL pregnancy stages, including up to full-term. From what I know with a premmie baby that is aborted, the baby is left to die, others are pulled out feet first down to the heads and then an instrument is jammed in the back of their skull and their brain suctioned out so the skull collapses. I feel ashamed to be an Australian with this being promoted.
Abortion is a choice of the woman, but is also being promoted as a contraceptive choice, which is wrong.
Women are still dying even from clinical abortions, even that hasn't stopped and there is talk of alot of clinics being run by organised crime. A good and a quick rich scheme if there ever was one.

Answer 3

Well, the main argument is that people shouldn't be forced to continue a pregnancy that they don't want to.

But, yes, the idea that making abortion illegal kills women and girls adds to its wrongness. People think that making it illegal means no one will do it; the consequences of that idiocy are death and other serious effects from illegal abortions.

I think drugs shouldn't be illegal. Making drugs illegal makes all the problems they cause worse. The law is not a good way to deal with a health problem.

Besides, not all illegal drug use is harmful. Sometimes it's even beneficial.

It's really a question of whether the goverment should tell everyone what to do and not do and how to live their lives or not.

I think the government should NOT determine when females procreate, or how people spend their leisure time.

Answer 4

It is a good argument because it is true. Is it better to have a woman go to a "doctor" that is unsanitary, unqualified, and only cares about financial gains? Or one that is sterile, licensed, and often cares for the emotional and physical well-being of the woman? With "back-alley" abortions often the result is the loss of two lives, not just one. For centuries, if not longer, women have found a way of terminating pregnancies. Roots, seeds, and 'natural' remedies have often resulted in not terminating the pregnancy, but disfiguring and disabling the child for life. A good popular example would be the "Phantom of the Opera". Drugs are illegal because they have the potential to harm a good deal of people, not just the person using them. Also, legalizing drugs will not make them safer for the user, while legalizing abortion minimizes the risk to the woman using these methods. Yes, I realize that abortions harm fetuses, but women will always find ways of dealing with unwanted pregnancies. The alternative would have a crippling effect on society. Forgive the pun. So, having a sterile, safe, and effective place to go is in effect keeping the general public free of disabled people that are disabled simply because their mothers tried unsuccessfully to terminate. I realize that there are many disabled people that function well and contribute to society, but why subject them to this type of life when we have the means to prevent it?

Answer 5

It actually is part of the larger argument. Women should be given autonomy over decisions with regards to their own body and should not be forced to seek illegal and dangerous alternatives when safe, medical abortion is available. I have heard the pro life arguments that these babies could be adopted. Well my argument to that is why if that is the case there are so many conservatives like yourself who do not give a thought to the poor suffering, children in your own country let alone throughout the world. Try putting your money where your mouth is.

Answer 6

The fact is that what happens in a womans' body is her own business and no one elses. This has always been so. Whether or not abortion is legal has made no difference, nor will it. It might as well be legal to save lives.

Answer 7

-I do think abortion and drugs should be legal.
-I don't see why either should be a crime.
-Both are a choice a person makes about their body.
-I'm sick of seeing prisons filled with non-violent drug offenders for life, while people who molest, rape, and murder get out after a few years. I'd like to see drugs regulated and taxed, instead of wasting millions of tax dollars on enforcing useless laws.
-Illegal abortion and prohibition didn't work--sex and drugs have always been around, and always will be.

Answer 8

Personally I agree with your conclusion that the argument should apply to drugs.

Abortion must be legally available so that the procedure may be regulated by health standards, legally. With doctors who practice the procedure held to the same standards of the rest of the medical community. Abortion is, after all, a surgical procedure, and currently women are protected under the law to prevent them from being butchered in the back of someones van.

With drugs, you are correct, many still find a way to break the law. More than many I'd say, it is far from difficult to obtain illegal substances in this country. Therefore, the laws or the 'war on drugs' are clearly not working.

The common thread of the two is recognizing that there is a difference between idealism and realism. Ideally, no one would need to turn to drugs, or have an unwanted pregnancy, but realistically people do.

The whole point is that, what is illegal on matter of 'moral' principal,( a 'discouragement' law, if you will), does NOT in fact discourage people from obtaining either goal.

And for those who do walk outside the law, and obtain it anyway? They are not being protected, are exposed to unsafe environments, substances and procedures. And instead of our government of the people for the people by the people being in control and able to provide safety, we illegalize it, putting Colombian drug lords, common street gangs and bubba the meth-doctor in charge of it, who, btw, are only looking to turn a profit, not provide safe product for the customer.

The law is supposed to protect individuals. Who is being protected by drugs being illegal? Drug cartels/lords/dealers street gangs income? Our over-populated prison system? Kids who do it anyway outside of the law, get kitchen sink drugs full of rat poison and die?

Were it legal, like abortion, it would be possible to impose FDA regulations and government control. Drug cartels would no longer be necessary. Our prisons would not need even half the amount of our tax-dollars. EVERYONE would be protected from receiving substances cooked up in Jimbo's bathtub. Streetgangs would lose their main source of income and power. Think of all the taxes that could be imposed on them, similarly to cigarette taxes. The benefits are endless.

Gangs war over the money. Drugs being illegal puts a huge mark-up on them, therefore creating a huge sub-economy of which nothing is going back into our national economy. Let's also not forget when the influx of organized crime started, during prohibition. We may joke about it now, or look at it romantically, but the mafia would not have existed to even 10% of it's power without bootlegging. (Drug-dealers from the past)

Bottom-line, both need to be legal because *realistically* people will get them whether 'moral' authority wants them to or not. Only when legal, can federal and state regulation be imposed on both, creating safe, realistic solutions, rather than closing our eyes and hoping for idealistic utopia, and meanwhile placing considerable money and power into the hands of gangs and drug cartels.

Don't agree with abortion? Fine! Don't have one.

Advocate adoption as an alternative? Fine! Adopt unwanted children.

Pro-Choice is Pro-Child, may every child be a wanted child.

Answer 9

Mm-hmm. The argument is saying, "Lots of women are going to die." People will only care about this argument if they value the lives of adult women. Human, adult women. The difference between "abortion" and "murder" (abortion is NOT murder - this is anti-choice rhetoric used to mystify and confuse the masses) is that an embryo and fetus is VERY DIFFERENT from an adult human being. It has no identity. It has no thoughts, no skills, no *friends and family* (who will also suffer), no personality. If anyone thinks an adult female is equal in all ways to an unborn fetus, the latter of which could yet easily be miscarried by an act of god or grow up into a serial killer, that an adult woman is "disposable" for the sake of her unborn baby, s/he needs to seriously reassess his/her reasoning abilities.

So, no, the coat-hanger argument is not "the best" pro-choice argument. It is one of many pro-choice arguments. There is no such thing as a "best" argument; all arguments must interact with and twine around one another until you or whomever comes to your "decision" about the basis of your belief. Do more reading on these issues. Read everything you can find. People who are better informed can better weigh arguments for themselves, and in spite of how much you think you "know" or how firm you are in your stance, you will always (if you keep your mind open) learn something new that will challenge or question what you thought you believed.
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P.S. If you think smoking pot and sniffing glue are bad, you should read more about how comparatively worse for the body alcohol is. Because alcohol is the drug that *should* be illegal, if our government is truly concerned about the public good. But it isn't. Really, cigarettes are far more unhealthy than marijuana. And we have too deep a cultural tradition of drinking and too much money invested in the alcoholic-beverage business to make what logically SHOULD be illegal - truly illegal.
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Chip, quit pretending like you think for yourself when you actually just regurgitate religious right crap you hear on televised mass every Sunday. It is not "not murder" only in "my personal opinion." LOOK UP THE TWO WORDS IN THE DICTIONARY. Comprehend details and subtleties for once in your life. The point still stands, in spite of how "unfair" it is that the "fetus wasn't given a chance to fulfill its 'potential'": AN ADULT WOMAN IS NOT DISPOSABLE FOR HER UNDEVELOPED FETUS. AN ADULT IS NOT WORTH LESS THAN A BUNCH OF CELLS, POTENTIAL OR NO POTENTIAL.

Answer 10

I believe the government should stick its head in the sand on this issue and stay out of it. The gov speaks for all people and I don't like my gov speaking for me on this issue. Personally, I am against abortion, but what somebody does with their body is their business. Just don't tell me about it and I don't want to know about it. If you get pregnant and make a baby, I ask what does that have to do with me? You want to abort the fetus - GO FOR IT! But, just do it on your own time and your own knickel, and your own morals.. Doctors should be outlawed from performing abortions. They should sell a machine, that the woman and the father can use to abort the fetus on their own. Thereby, making it their own problem and not societies problem!

Answer 11

Abortion is a problem without a solution. Both sides have valid arguments, and both seem to ignore the valid arguments of the other side.
___It's a pity that stigma has been stigmatized. Stigma is a good tool for discouraging undesireable behavior, which, for one reason or another, isn't practical to ban legally. Society has only so many tools, and the current arrangement that insists that everything that isn't banned is a right is intellectually un-nuanced and just plain stupid. Human affairs are too complicated for black-and-white solutions.