I think most women have thought about abortion to some degree and formed an opinion on whether it's the right choice for them, or under what conditions they would entertain the idea of an abortion versus keeping the child in an unexpected pregnancy. In these cases, you're right: discouraging women who have thought about the process would be seen as in bad taste.
But what if the woman was being pressured to abort (or to keep) the child by outside pressure? Then intervention would be seen as supporting the woman, not as interfering, and it'd be in good taste.
IMO, suicide is very similar. A large proportion of suicide attempts are people who go on to regret it and successfully seek treatment. I don't think it's too much of a leap from that to the idea that a large proportion of suicides themselves are being done for the wrong reasons, i.e. the "outside pressure" of a brain that is suffering a mental illness.
My understanding is that prior to abortion being legalized, attempted abortion was not an uncommon cause of death. If someone is so willing to avoid pregnancy that they kill themselves, I don't know if it can be reasonably described as convenience anymore.
I'm sorry, but no. There's no equivalence in spirit between a crying mother deciding that it's in the best interests of her family to terminate a pregnancy and a bunch of scary-eyed fanatics trying to make humanity "better".
I'm assuming you've never known anyone go through that. It's a personal tragedy, not an intellectual issue.
It is also incredibly shitty to suggest that if a woman is raped she can just get an abortion, problem solved. It is surgery, this another insult to the body, and some women feel strongly that abortion is murder. So the choice becomes "Do I try to spend the rest of my life loving this demon spawn that will be a living, breathing reminder of my rape every day, or do I swallow my morals and commit what I view as baby murder?" Acting like it is no big if a woman is raped and left with such a conundrum sounds just mind-bogglingly callous.
Many people think that abortion is a bad choice, but one that women should be allowed to make. Saying you shouldn't do something is not the same as saying you shouldn't be allowed to do it.
But if you're solving/addressing a problem efficiently, you should work out a solution where the event space can be mapped such that events classed 'typical' should far outnumber events classed 'edge.'
Yes it's never going to be perfect when trying to overlay a closed system of logic on the open system that is the universe, but we've shown ourselves pretty capable at getting to good enough.
In this case it is a question of what is "good enough"? Meaning, what are we trying to accomplish?
I'd always been mostly ambivalent toward abortion but thinking about it more recently, it does seem quite the tragic and brutal practice.
I'm inclined to believe you that no one does it for fun, at least in retrospect. I think there is a problem of too much of a glib attitude about it from the SJW/Tumblr types which hides a lot of the torment an abortive mother is likely to feel after going through with the procedure.
I'll repeat:
What is it about our society that compels women to do this?
Context matters. It is a non-trivial issue when used in the context of terminating early pregnancy. Manipulating a teenager by telling her that she is a mother and she shouldn’t kill her baby is far more insidious than treating abortion as a women’s health issue, which it is.
The choice of words has a tremendous effect both on an individual and on the society. Ignoring this fact only leads to more misunderstandings.
Many of us don't believe abortion is murder, so we think that it should be left to the woman involved to decide whether her life circumstances are appropriate for raising a(nother) child. If anti-choicers want to insert their own beliefs into someone else's very personal decision, it seems only reasonable to expect them to take some responsibility for the effects of that insertion.
No I don't think people are playing mental games for fun. I think debates like these are not centered on the individual and their own responsibility to their and another's suffering.
In the case of abortion it's still the case that the mother is engaged in her own inquiry of harm. Notice how I've not brought myself into the picture.
That doesn't mean it can't be a complex inquiry but it is still her own inquiry and it is firmly rooted in suffering.
I considered for a few minutes that you might have meant "people who aren't pregnant with the specific fetus in question should shut up".
But I ruled it out confidently: The situation where a bunch of people are weighing in on a specific abortion is not one that really comes up, whereas people discuss abortion in general nonstop. You had just said that you aren't opposed to the other potential parent and medical professionals having input in a specific abortion. It doesn't make any sense to phrase that idea that way- having a functional uterus has no bearing on whether you're the one who is considering an abortion. And the other reply also interpreted you as saying men shouldn't comment on the issue and went uncorrected. Taken together, I thought there was no way that was what you meant and I was being excessively charitable.
I misunderstood, but I think you could have been clearer.
I guess I'm confused. Most of these people that are praising Kelsey for "saving these children" are pro-choice. In other words, they're glad that the mother can't take drugs to help her feel better during the first and second trimester to protect the baby, but if the mother wans to to straight up kill the child, that's the mother's choice and is ok.
I want to preface my comments by saying this is a legitimate inquiry. I am not anti-abortion, I am pro-choice.
> Well firstly, let’s stop spreading misinformation that abortion is inherently risky.
I wasn't, other people are saying that this is what it would lead to , more women choosing these "risky" abortions.
> ectopic pregnancy, high-risk pregnancy, cannot afford to stop psychological medication that hasn’t been approved for pregnancy…
These are all self defense cases in my opinion and so I do not consider it immoral.
> rape victims
I understand this as something that would put the life of the mother at risk because of the trauma involved. So not immoral.
> children, mothers who cannot afford time off because there is minimal maternity leave and they need to provide for their already born kids,
Well this is a problem with society then, yes? Does your suffering give you the right to kill another being (Since we still have not determined when life begins you have to admit this is a possibility.)
> professionals who are building their careers
I feel this is unacceptable. People make decisions that affect their career everyday. Having sex is one of them.
When do you think life begins? I really do not know.
So how late in a pregnancy can someone determine that a fetus is going to interfere with their career?
> trans men with gender dysphoria
Just going to stay away from this one becasue I do not know enough about it.
By actually listening to her, he found that she doesn't have an intractable philosophical opposition to abortion. Her opposition to abortion is rooted in her insecurity because her husband left her because she's barren; she feels like she's failed at being a woman, so other women getting abortions feels like a spiteful act to her.
Clearly, there is in fact room for compromise with her. At that point, the author could probably have shared his story about women he knew who'd had abortions, for whom it was a painful decision that wasn't thoughtless and casual and spiteful, and wasn't an indictment of her worth. Done carefully, she probably would have acknowledged that it's properly a deeply personal decision and she's not really that committed to her own feelings.
For me the motivation is rather important. A women terminating a pregnancy that's an obvious developmental train wreck is different than a political movement with some esthetic it wants to violently force onto society.
I think most women have thought about abortion to some degree and formed an opinion on whether it's the right choice for them, or under what conditions they would entertain the idea of an abortion versus keeping the child in an unexpected pregnancy. In these cases, you're right: discouraging women who have thought about the process would be seen as in bad taste.
But what if the woman was being pressured to abort (or to keep) the child by outside pressure? Then intervention would be seen as supporting the woman, not as interfering, and it'd be in good taste.
IMO, suicide is very similar. A large proportion of suicide attempts are people who go on to regret it and successfully seek treatment. I don't think it's too much of a leap from that to the idea that a large proportion of suicides themselves are being done for the wrong reasons, i.e. the "outside pressure" of a brain that is suffering a mental illness.
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