Issues Poll 1 - Abortion

[Dunefar]

I've been wanting to see how the DL samples on various hot button issues. I'm figuring I'll do one of these polls a week, tally up how various DLers come down politically, issue by issue. It's a small pet project I've been wanting to do for awhile, so why not start now? Anyway, once you vote, feel free to post and explain your vote and position and discuss.

Abortion is a highly charged issue, so please use common sense and respect.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I teeter between pro-choice and 'other'. I generally think people should get to make the moral judgment call for themselves, but I personally don't think I am terribly comfortable with having one. I voted #2 because legally I am pro-choice.

[superaielman]

I teeter between pro-choice and 'other'. I generally think people should get to make the moral judgment call for themselves, but I personally don't think I am terribly comfortable with having one. I voted #2 because legally I am pro-choice.

Yep, that.

[Bardiche]

Would vehemently and passionate oppose any abortions if it concerns my own child.

However, I wouldn't raise a stir if one of my friends would want to abort or something, for example. I imagine I'd be uncomfortable with family talking about aborting one of their children, too, and I'd likely try to dissuade them into other alternatives... but in the end, it's not my decision to make in most if not all cases.

I voted "other", because while I technically think you should never have an abortion, I also recognise people may have specific reasons to do so, such as in the case of rape or other unwanted pregnancies outside of their zone of control. Still, if it's my own child, I'd never want to abort it, and I'd raise hell if my (future) girlfriend would want to!

[DomaDragoon]

Pro-choice, though I've taken several steps to make sure that this will never, ever be an issue for me.

[Nephrite]

I, personally, don't understand why there are women out there who believe that other women shouldn't have the choice in what to do with their own bodies. I can't really speak to what women go through in terms of persecution and misogyny but it's always seemed very odd that there are any women who are Pro-Life who want to take the option to choose away from other women, considering how much women have had to fight in the past for their own ability to even do something as simple as vote.

I'm not sure what percentage of people are Pro-Life based on religion alone but I have a feeling that that's a very strong factor.

Myself, I'd be Pro-Choice but I don't really have an issue with people who are Pro-Life, as much as it's confusing to me.

[Dunefar]

I, personally, don't understand why there are women out there who believe that other women shouldn't have the choice in what to do with their own bodies. I can't really speak to what women go through in terms of persecution and misogyny but it's always seemed very odd that there are any women who are Pro-Life who want to take the option to choose away from other women, considering how much women have had to fight in the past for their own ability to even do something as simple as vote.

I'm not sure what percentage of people are Pro-Life based on religion alone but I have a feeling that that's a very strong factor.

Myself, I'd be Pro-Choice but I don't really have an issue with people who are Pro-Life, as much as it's confusing to me.

It's not a matter of choice to many pro-lifers. It's a matter of a moral issue and that you're doing something horrible to an innocent child. Choice doesn't play into it, and it's a fundamental disconnect between the sides. Pro life isn't about a woman's freedom of choice, it's about stopping murder. Arguing it as a matter of choice to a pro-lifer doesn't work, because you're on a totally different frame of reference.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Pro-choice here.

The choice of whether a person should go through abortion or not, I feel, should be taken at a personal/familial level, rather than at a State-level. However, the welfare of the people who -do- make that choice by goddamn should be taken as a State responsibility. As someone who lives in a country where abortion is mostly illegal, I can see, both through casual observation and raw numbers that the prohibition does -not- significantly deter people from taking that route - instead, it puts the women who go that route to flirt with illegal procedures, clandestine clinics and unsafe methods that put their lives at serious risk - even moreso than an abortion would already do normally. Considering that, I feel it's pragmatic to make sure that the procedures themselves are legally endorsed and covered to raise the safety and welfare of women who choose to abort. For me, this is a matter of public health rather than morals, and as far as I'm concerned, morals should be taken at a more personal level, while public safety obviously should be covered by the State. So yeah. Personally, I have no idea how would I handle it, for all that it's very unlikely that it'll ever be an issue for me, but I feel this shouldn't be taken as a matter of morals in a public sense. And, in a more cynical point of view, it could be even taken as a matter of acceptable losses.

[Captain K.]

Pro choice.  What value is there in bringing a child into the world that you do not want/are not capable of caring for properly?  The odds of such a child having a promising future are low at best.

As for religious reasons/wanting to stop murder, it's supposed to be God's responsibility to judge people's actions.  Stay out of other people's business.

[SnowFire]

Neph: One of my friends is atheist and pro-life.  But that's a rare bird, for all that it arguably shouldn't be.

I'm pro-choice, and strongly in favor of the "viability" cutoff standard the Supreme Court originally used for when abortion becomes impermissable (for all that it's being undercut right now with claimed "fetuses can feel pain so let's roll the date back some weeks."  The argument I prefer to use is a rather libertarian one.  First, let's assume that life begins at conception, and that 2-day old fetuses have full US citizenship rights.  This is extreme, but it's the safest concession to make.  However, a woman "owns" her own body.  Why can't she kick out a guest she doesn't want anymore?  Yes, before viability, it will surely cause the fetus's death, but that isn't the mother's problem.  This is the world being cruel.  It's similar to the whole doctrine of "double effect" in end-of-life care where it's okay to pursue a treatment course that will almost surely lead to death if done for a good reason that is not related to that death - for instance, large amounts of anesthetic to alleviate pain (and so that someone can die peacefully), rather than dying slowly and in pain.  The goal isn't to kill the fetus or the sick person in either case, it's a (terrible) side-effect.  A similar example might be, say, your sick 80 year old mother coming back to her children and asking for lodging, food, and medical care.  While arguably cruel, there is no "responsibility" to say yes.  You can say "no, you're on your own, go talk with the government, you aren't my problem," even if this will likely lead to a faster death for mom.  I think pro-life arguments usually use something like getting pregnant was a contract or agreement....  but even if so, these agreements can be revoked.  If I invite people to my house to a party, I can kick them out afterward for any reason, because it's my house.  Same thing with someone's body.

That said, I can certainly understand the fact that "it's a life!," if you believe this to be true of fetuses, to be a real consideration.

[SageAcrin]

Pro-life in general, though not in any way that resembles pro-life as it exists anywhere else. Which is to say I am morally against both abortion and meat eating but I'm not crazy enough to think that either stance is the One True Morality and all others should be put to the flame.

Legality-wise, my wishlist would be to see abortion still be legal, but with relatively low limits(three/four/five depending on if I'm going for my own optimal beliefs on the development of a fetus or the better compromise.) on how far along you can be before there's a cutoff, albiet with exceptions in some cases such as rape. More rights to the father in these situations. More strict regulations for exactly when a doctor can give exceptions out as well. This would most closely reflect my own personal moral opinion on it.

While I'm wishing for impossible things, though, I'd like a pony and a million dollars. None of those things can be legally legislated worth a damn and I know it, and I am not at all suggesting that any of those things should be made into any form of law(except possibly male parent's rights to some degree, but I sure as fuck can't think of a good way.). They would do more harm than they're worth hands down, despite me seeing them as the best possible compromise overall between the two sides.

IN REALITY, I pretty much just feel that third trimester abortion-particularly of fetus that have come to a term of life where they could be kept alive using modern equipment-is basically fucked up and wrong and does need legal legislation. If you're considering it moral to spend millions on maintaining a life, you have to question the morality of just killing that same life.

Maybe that means you just need to make it illegal to spend millions on one life that isn't worth saving? I can see going that way on that.

Otherwise, legality-wise I don't think it needs to change myself.

I think it basically has to be someone's own moral choice. Anything else leads to too many undesirable side effects, as far as I'm concerned. In that sense, I'm pro-choice...and no other, really.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I am strongly pro-choice for a whole host of reasons.

There are two different questions here, and I do think it is important to separate them, i.e.
1. Should it be legal? and
2. Is it moral?

It's worth stressing that the answers need not be the same. (Adultery is a pretty classic example of one issue for which this is the case, for most people.)

I think it absolutely should be legal. There are strong pragmatic reasons for it being so. It prevents a dangerous underground abortion ring (which in this day and age would be impossible to suppress). Somewhat less popular but also pragmatic reasons include the fact that it is linked to significantly lower crime rates (which sadly makes sense: unwanted children are certainly more at-risk) and the fact that, given the current state of humanity, population control makes a great deal of sense.

Morally, it mostly comes down to the issue of the rights of a woman to control her body against the rights of a fetus to life. (So it's no surprise that both sides of the issue have framed it with the positive language that favours their own view.). I feel very strongly that nobody has the right to tell a woman she must go through childbirth (a far more dangerous and certainly more painful process than a large majority of legal abortions, incidentally). If a woman decides that she doesn't want something that is part of her body to continue being part of her body, she can do so. See Snowfire's argument at this point, I pretty much agree with it.

By comparison, I have much lower respect for the rights of something I personally do not consider to be human life, or, perhaps more precisely, worthy of human rights (core reasons: no ability to survive indepently from its host, no sentience. And the latter certainly does matter since it is the main reason w). I am quite willing to grant that this is somewhat arbitrary, naturally, and very difficult to make clear, perfectly unbiased arguments on, from either side. So I expect the morality of abortion will always be an issue (even as its legality becomes increasingly accepted).

Though, I do have to strongly question the pro-life argument that life begins at conception. If it does, then why do we shed no tears (or at most, very few) at the prospect of a fertilised embryo that fails to implant itself in the woman's uterus and "dies" within days of conception?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm pro-choice simply because I'm strongly opposed to any government legislation that impedes a person's rights to their own body or personal life. So it's more about not giving up ground in any way.

[metroid composite]

Bleh, grudgingly voted for the "pro-choice" option.

Which is to say, I think it should be legal, for the reasons Elfboy stated (being linked to lower crime rates; the fact that there would be a dangerous black market; the fact that rich people would have no trouble getting abortions--you would only be screwing the poor).

However, I really, really hate the language of "pro-choice" and "pro-life".  By selecting one of those options, I feel like I'm endorsing blatant, manipulative propaganda; I would feel much more comfortable if the options were "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion".


Now, the moral question is more interesting.  Do I think someone is a bad person if they get an abortion, the same way I think someone is a bad person if they buy an SUV purely for city driving, or protest soldier funerals with signs saying "thank god for dead soldiers"?  It...honestly depends; there are people who abort girls because they want a boy, and that sickens me; these are bad people in my mind.  On the other hand, there are people who just aren't able to take care of a child, or are worried about their health, or have a poisoned relationship with the father and don't want any part of him growing in her (rape being the most explicit example, but I don't think rape is the only way to make a woman feel she was used and abused by a man).  Such cases seem morally...ambiguous; I don't expect I'll ever pat someone on the back and say "good for you" when they get an abortion...but there's plenty of situations where I would just feel that the woman was put in a lose-lose situation where neither side was sunshine and roses, and she just chose the lesser of two evils.



(On an unrelated note, wow: I've been too well-trained in my writing; I keep trying to use gender-neutral pronouns, and then going "oh wait")

[Dunefar]

However, I really, really hate the language of "pro-choice" and "pro-life".  By selecting one of those options, I feel like I'm endorsing blatant, manipulative propaganda; I would feel much more comfortable if the options were "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion".

I struggled with this! I decided to go with pro choice and pro life, to be affirmative to the choices rather than the more oppositional choices of anti life or anti choice. I figured that was the safest language to use without particularly poisoning the debate.

[Cmdr_King]

Pro-Death.  I tend to view maximizing personal freedom as the point of government, and this is not an exception.  Ultimately the transition from cancerous lump to human being takes place around... I believe it's 23 weeks now given medical treatment, last I looked (that'd be when the fetus can viably be born and survive), so the need to stop freedom at harming others doesn't kick in until then.

Though personally I'd consider it somewhat unforgivable.  I also wish there were some way to enforce informing the father without a) giving him ultimate choice in the matter or b) exposing the woman to risk of violence, but it seems very hard to come up with a workable law on the matter.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Dune: For a topic like this I agree with using the labels that both groups primarily use to denote themselves. Seems fairest, even if some people may take issue with them (I'm not trying to say mc doesn't have a point here!).

[NotMiki]

However, I really, really hate the language of "pro-choice" and "pro-life".  By selecting one of those options, I feel like I'm endorsing blatant, manipulative propaganda; I would feel much more comfortable if the options were "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion".

I struggled with this! I decided to go with pro choice and pro life, to be affirmative to the choices rather than the more oppositional choices of anti life or anti choice. I figured that was the safest language to use without particularly poisoning the debate.

I suggest 'right to abort' and 'no right to abort.'  Neither of them sound particularly high and mighty, and they properly frame the debate.  Anti-life sounds like a stance where every fetus should be aborted, and anti-choice makes it sound like the pro-life stance is explicitly about curtailing the autonomy of women, which it isn't (although that is a collateral consequence).

I'm pro-choice; I believe a woman should have autonomy over her own body even if there's another potential human life in it.  As for what situations I think a woman should have an abortion in I express no opinion.

I do wonder, though:

pro-lifers, would you allow an abortion in the case of:
1. a rape victim?
2. a fetus with a severe/fatal disability?
3. to save the life/preserve the good health of the mother?

pro-choicers, would you allow abortion if:
1. a woman wants to abort a girl fetus because they find boys more valuable than girls?
2. the potential father desperately wants the fetus to come to term and will assume responsibility if it does?

(for me the answer is 'yes' for all of them but the potential father one, for which my answer is 'I don't know.')

[Dark Holy Elf]

1. My answer to this is yes. I may not approve of it but... I think you yourself put it best once when you noted that it's an unfortunate downside to rights, people don't always use them the way you would like. Such is life.

2. My answer here, again, would be "legally, yes". Obviously this is something I hope would be talked out between the two parties, and honestly I suspect there are few women out there who would want to abort a potential child that had an interested potential father (unless he was abusive. In which case I wouldn't want him getting legal custody of a child from my body either). But in the end, if they can not agree, the law must side with one, and I believe the interests of the party who is the one who has to bear all the burdens of pregnancy should take precedence. Again, I think it is morally wrong for the state to force someone to go through with that, under any circumstances I can think of.

[SageAcrin]

Yes to the former three, resounding no to the latter two(if I was the King of the Americas and could fiat pass such things and had perfect knowledge of people's intentions. See above for how laws about that sort of stuff don't work in my opinion.).

3 strikes me as a moral no-brainer-if it's a coinflip to save/kill the mother and child then you may as well go with the person that already has emotional attachments to life, and if it's not I still have no objections to someone fearing death and wishing to prevent it even at the cost of another.

I mean, maybe you can get a murderer down to 10% chance of killing you, or you can shoot him and have 0%. Shooting him strikes me as moral-protecting your own life in a 1v1 situation. Maybe another option would be laudable morally, but not expected. (Granted, one could argue that a murderer is a bad person that is dangerous to others. You could also argue that a five month fetus doesn't have a particular attachment to life though. Exactly weighing morals is sticky syrup for the soul, it's best to approximate. I consider the situations roughly close enough.)

For rape and disabilities...I consider them a small enough subset to allow just in general to toss out some of the sticking point  arguments, for starters. And, for the aforementioned king of the world situation... I don't consider myself able to judge them morally. I do somewhat take exception to what's considered "serious disability" at points(downs syndrome? Being...potentially 100 IQ, if I'm recalling right? That's always struck me as off. Where's the line drawn here? Anything correctable? What's correctable? Anything uncorrectable, no matter how small? There's a line between disability and eugenic weeding that is a little hard to draw.), but again, I still don't feel morally able to exactly judge the lines, I don't feel able to judge someone's anguish over rape vs a fetus' suffering over it's death.

(Speaking of the latter, would this be a good time to mention that some abortion methods strike me as off? Particularly late term? I'm pretty sure we don't kill any livestock in ways that abusive.)

[NotMiki]

in the end, if they can not agree, the law must side with one, and I believe the interests of the party who is the one who has to bear all the burdens of pregnancy should take precedence.

well, the law doesn't need to be so rigid.  It could, for example, set up a standard where if a potential father assumes legal responsibility for the potential child, a woman loses the right to abort only at that point.  Or the law could say the woman can abort unless the man makes "reasonable assurances" or something like that and punt the issue to judges to figure out.  We could totally create a middle ground based on how well we thought the husband would take care of the kid, how much of a burden bringing a baby to term would be on the mother, etc.

Regarding the gender-selection, the law could forbid abortions if sought after a gender-determining ultrasound or could set up a system where abortions for some reasons are legal and for other reasons are not.  Proving someone's motivation for doing something is always really difficult for prosecutors, but we could set up a system like that if we wanted.  (We have such systems for errors on your tax return.  Making a mistake is legal; intentionally lying is a felony.)

If all that sounds like a highly subjective mess, you should see how judges calculate alimony sometime.

[metroid composite]

However, I really, really hate the language of "pro-choice" and "pro-life".  By selecting one of those options, I feel like I'm endorsing blatant, manipulative propaganda; I would feel much more comfortable if the options were "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion".

I struggled with this! I decided to go with pro choice and pro life, to be affirmative to the choices rather than the more oppositional choices of anti life or anti choice. I figured that was the safest language to use without particularly poisoning the debate.

Anti-life and anti-choice don't strike me as any better.  They're still staying within the same propaganda machine.  Like, if someone came up to me and said "are you pro-faggot or pro-biggot?" I'd respond "hold on, can't we use some different words here?"

pro-choicers, would you allow abortion if:
1. a woman wants to abort a girl fetus because they find boys more valuable than girls?
2. the potential father desperately wants the fetus to come to term and will assume responsibility if it does?

1. No.  It's hard to avoid this, but some places have shown that you can make a decent effort (there are some provinces in Canada which won't tell you the gender of the child when you get the ultrasound).
2. Hmm...yes if she has health issues, or her relationship with the man is particularly poisonous.  But if her only reason for abortion is that she can't support a child, then...well I guess no, but I'd want to see some contract involved here to make sure he's committed.  But...realistically, the number of situations where abortion is a 100% economic or time based decision AND the parents are separated and don't agree on the abortion AND there's no deep negative emotions between them AND child support payments would not be applicable or time is the bigger issue AND the mother is not affected by the economic/time loss from just plain being pregnant itself AND the parents would not come to their own solution without the aid of an additional external rule are...exceptionally uncommon.


Hmm...#2 is reminding me of California Prop 4:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_4_(2008)
"The initiative would prohibit abortion for unemancipated minors until 48 hours after physician notifies minor’s parent, legal guardian."
It sounded somewhat reasonable on paper; I remember thinking "Hm, maybe" until people starting bringing up statistics like the number of teen pregnancy cases where the parent is abusive or violent (it was some disturbingly high number like 50% or something).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oh, yeah, I'm not opposed to laws that make it illegal for doctors to tell parents the sex of the fetus (although... not necessarily in favour. Pretty neutral here, but since I'm strongly pro-choice in general, something I am "neutral" on I am generally expecting to concede as a compromise). If you really wanted to curtail #1 that'd be the way to do it. However, I feel pretty strongly that the state has no business policing the "purity" of abortions so if a woman -does- find out the sex of the child I'd be opposed to any laws that would make abortion illegal if any only if she is doing it for reasons of sex.

This is significant because it's very, very possible that some method of determining the sex of a fetus will be available to the general public in the future. (In fact, I'm not sure to what degree it is now. No idea what sort of accreditation is required to own and/or operate an ultrasound machine, for instance.) Never mind of course the possibility of simply crossing borders.

[metroid composite]

There's plenty of people who have a decent amount of accuracy reading baby bumps.  LGBT babies tend to foil them based on anecdotes (which makes sense given that LGBT seems to be a prenatal condition triggered by mismatched hormones).  But yeah, there are ways requiring zero technology, even if the accuracy isn't perfect.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Lots of very nice, well-thought-out arguments here. I just generally simplify it all down for myself as the very pragmatic "Anti-Overpopulation" side of things and I fall in with the Pro-Choice crowd. I generally see overpopulation as the root of all of our problems on this planet and we'd all be much happier if there weren't so damn many of us ravenously chewing through all of our natural resources. Might as well lower the population starting with the non-sentient members of the species. This is also the basis of why I'm Pro-Gay Marriage and Pro-Death Penalty.