Why are you pro-life/pro-choice/undecided?

I know it is generally frowned upon to share personal information about yourself on the forums, so you are free to ignore this thread if you like, also I would appreciate a lot of courtesy from both sides commenting, please use a lot of discretion and respect when responding because the reasons behind what we believe are probably very personal and close to us. That goes for everyone here, I don't care if you're pro-life OR pro-choice. Keep it respectful, thank you.

I am going to share my more personal reasons of why I am pro-choice which are very personal and yes, very emotional to me.

Believe it or not I started out pro-life as I believe most people do. I started to debate this issue at around 13 years old. I slowly started to become a fence sitter on the issue, though, the more and more I debated. But what really turned me around in an instant was when I was faced with a pregnancy scare of my own at 17 years old. Yes I am a woman and yes I was definitely sexually active around that time. I took the Morning After Pill after a condom broke during intercourse with my first (and now ex) boyfriend at the time. Whether it worked or not I don't know. I didn't become pregnant and never knew if I ever was to begin with. It was a horrible experience, the fear, the anxiety and of course the horrible 7 hour long puking/dry heaving session I experienced during the whole thing. The Morning After Pill is what also alerted me to my ridiculous sensitivity to progestrin. I tried multiple other forms of oral birth control and it all resulted in the same experience (constant nausea/puking). My doctor told me that this sensitivity means I get to look forward to some serious morning sickness when I do have children someday. (Also I cannot take birth control as a result of this).

I think going through that whole experience really helped me to develop a lot more empathy for women who actually go through an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy because I can definitely relate to how they feel and I don't think people really understand certain things until they experience it for themselves sadly...

Another thing that turned me around and really rooted my beliefs in women's right to bodily integrity and autonomy is when my mother told me about her rape and her sister's rape and how they both had abortions because of it. It was horrible listening to her tell me how a man forced himself inside of her when she was only 14 years old, how much it hurt, how terrified she was and how she told no one because she felt it was her own fault for putting herself in that position (she was hanging out with an older girl and went to the older girl's boyfriend's home. The boyfriend's older brother raped her, a man in his late 20s.) My aunt was also raped when she was 17-18, although I am not clear on the details of what happened to her. Both had abortions as a result of pregnancies that occurred due to the rape. My mom tells me that abortion saved her life because she was severely suffering from PTSD and tried to kill herself several times when she found out she was pregnant. My aunt who had already gone through the same thing helped her obtain an abortion.

I can count at least five women I know of that have been sexually assaulted. My best friend was sexually assaulted by a guy she was hanging out with in our high school years. She wanted to go home and he wouldn't let her until she gave him a blow job. He coerced her into giving him oral sex at the threat that he would tell her very Catholic parents that she was out and about where she shouldn't have been. So she gave in and gave him what he wanted just so she could go home.

Another friend of mine has been sexually assaulted multiple times by multiple men, one being her step-father, the other a neighbor. Most recently was a year ago she was assaulted by the father of the friend she was living with. She finally stood up for herself and called the police on him for sexually assaulting her multiple times and is building a case against him. Apparently her friend and her friend's family are choosing to stand by him even though he openly admitted they had sex (and he's claiming it was consensual and she seduced him.) She was also kidnapped and almost raped by her ex-boyfriend back when we were in high school. He went to a juvenile facility for about 4 years for kidnapping, attempted sexual assault and attempted murder. This girl has been through hell and back...seriously, I applaud her tenacity.

The last one is an older Mormon woman, a co-worker and a really good friend of mine. She told me the horrific story about how her own father sexually molested her when she was only five years old. She told me how she remembers him giving her oral sex at a young age and feeling disgusted by it. She was preyed upon by multiple other men in her community as well. She is positive that her father raped her younger sister and that is why her sister is a drug addict and very messed up. She admitted that she actually covered for her father when questioned by the police in a case where another girl, a friend of theirs, went to the police after he raped her. It's all very messed up and very sad.


While the last three never had abortions or became pregnant due to the sexual assault they suffered I can honestly say I would have stood by them in their choices, whether they wanted an abortion or to give birth. What I fight for are their rights. These women who are so close to me and who have suffered greatly at the hands of horrible people. But I also fight for the rights of common women living normal common lives. Women like me who, yes, choose to have sex and to have a normal, healthy sex life with our partners.

And it's not just laws on abortion but laws surrounding pregnant women's rights - such as the right to determine when and where to give birth (at home/in a hospital), with or without medication, C-section or V-BAC and to not be persecuted for giving birth to a stillborn or using making different medical choices from the norm - these things all directly affect women's health and lives and they should have a right to make them without interference from people on the outside looking in and thinking they know better than us.

This is why I am pro-choice, because I trust in women to make the right choices for themselves and because I believe in the right to bodily integrity and the right to bodily autonomy. I believe in the right to govern our own medical choices!


Now please, feel free to share; Why are you pro-life? Why are you pro-choice? Or what makes you undecided on the issue?

 

Like many pro-choice people I started out pro-life, I was young and really didn't know very much about abortion or women's rights . .to me if a woman got pregnant it was her own fault .. then I started to get involved in debating abortion, now I am quite a precise person I don't tend to get involved in things I haven't researched, so I spent a lot of hours reading arguments from both sides of the debate and as I did so it dawned on me that pro-lifers seem to get their opinions based on the type of upbringing they had or how their life was now.

I have never been religious and again I saw the control that religion had over the majority of pro-lifers I knew, I'm not knocking them for it I just believe that they took the easy route and allowed someone else to make their mind up for them.

No matter how hard I looked I could find no logical reason why abortion should be made illegal .. and believe me I looked very, very hard. In the end I had to come to the conclusion that there are no logical reasons against abortion - it took me a good five years to finally realize that I had been advocating for the wrong side.

I have had personal experiences with abortion, but not ones I am willing to go into here.

Throughout my research I have been dismayed at the seemingly lack of empathy for women as a whole, not just in the case of abortion but in almost all other aspects which even to me as a male just seemed so wrong.

A very true saying fits the majority of pro-lifers, they are people who wish to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted .. reducing abortions isn't going to happen by legislation, it has to be through education.

 

I had never really given abortion any thought when I was young, it was illegal and that was that. Then the thalidomide scandal rocked the country forcing many of us to ask questions. I had thought that anti-abortion laws were to protect women from horribly dangerous procedures. When I found that abortion was safe, I had to ask a lot more questions. There are two kinds of people: 1. those who accept the explanations of those in authority, and 2. those who question why. Those who question anti-abortion laws will never receive a satisfactory explanation from authorities.

Since I know most of you are too young to remember this, here is the info.
http://scienceinsociety.northwestern.edu/content/articles/2009/research-digest/thalidomide/title-tba

In a post-war era when sleeplessness was prevalent, thalidomide was marketed to a world hooked on tranquilizers and sleeping pills. At the time, one out of seven Americans took them regularly. The demand for sedatives was even higher in some European markets, and the presumed safety of thalidomide, the only non-barbiturate sedative known at the time, gave the drug massive appeal. Sadly, tragedy followed its release, catalyzing the beginnings of the rigorous drug approval and monitoring systems in place at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today.

Thalidomide first entered the German market in 1957 as an over-the-counter remedy, based on the maker’s safety claims. They advertised their product as “completely safe” for everyone, including mother and child, “even during pregnancy,” as its developers “could not find a dose high enough to kill a rat.” By 1960, thalidomide was marketed in 46 countries, with sales nearly matching those of aspirin.

Around this time, Australian obstetrician Dr. William McBride discovered that the drug also alleviated morning sickness. He started recommending this off-label use of the drug to his pregnant patients, setting a worldwide trend. Prescribing drugs for off-label purposes, or purposes other than those for which the drug was approved, is still a common practice in many countries today, including the U.S. In many cases, these off-label prescriptions are very effective, such as prescribing depression medication to treat chronic pain.

However, this practice can also lead to a more prevalent occurrence of unanticipated, and often serious, adverse drug reactions. In 1961, McBride began to associate this so-called harmless compound with severe birth defects in the babies he delivered. The drug interfered with the babies' normal development, causing many of them to be born with phocomelia, resulting in shortened, absent, or flipper-like limbs.

 

Wow, that is messed up. I had never heard of this story.

 

Thank you to those sharing personal stories. My reasons for being pro-choice have nothing to do with my own anecdotal experience or emotions. It took me several years to really firm up my position on the subject.

I had to ask myself, what makes a person a “Being”? I don’t mean legal or biological definitions. I mean morally, what is a Being? What is it about that stranger across the street that makes me value his life? What is it that entitles him to any rights at all? Is it that he has a beating heart? Is it because he looks similar to me in form? Is it that he has 23 pairs of chromosomes? Is it that he has a flesh and blood brain?

I had to answer no to all of those. I think a person on a heart bypass machine should have rights. I don’t think a brain dead person should have rights. If we ever manage to create a truly artificial intelligent machine capable of sentience then I would think that machine should be entitled to rights, regardless of how physically dissimilar from me it it.

I realized it is the mind. It is the MIND that makes me value someone, or some”thing” as a Being. Currently, the mind is a manifestation of a functioning brain. You are your mind. Your mind is you. You may have a human life or a human body without a mind but you don’t have a Being, morally speaking.

And at the stage in the pregnancy in which the vast majority of abortions happen, that fetus or embryo is most definitely not a Being. It has no mind. And thus, it has no claim to any rights whatsoever. It is just tissue. No mind has manifested.

And even when I was pro-life the whole “potential” argument was ridiculous to me. A potential being is not a being. We exist in linear time. A “potential” life (i.e. embyo) should have no more rights than a “former” life (i.e. corpse).

 

This is not a personal issue with me. I have had a girlfriend who aborted. Not a great experience, but I accepted that it was not my choice. Besides which it happened very early in the pregnancy.

I have been support for other girls who have had abortions too. Not much fun either.

It seems really strange to me that so many pro-lifers think that this is an easy decision for women to make. It really isn't. But an acorn is not a tree, an egg is not a chicken, and a six week old fetus is not a human being. It just isn't murder.

That doesn't mean its not hard or sad. It just means its a regrettable choice that sometimes is appropriate.

The OP here seems extreme. Very few women have that experience as far as I can see. It isn't usually about sexual violence. But I can't argue that that situation never happens. I just do not think it's necessary to justify the act.

peace

 

Who ever said the decision to murder another human being was easy?

You are perhaps under the impression it's possible to murder a tree or a chicken?

 

Umm... many decisions are hard. Are all hard decisions about murder?

I don't think so.

 

Glad to hear you supported your friends/girlfriend through their difficult choices. I think that's all we can ask of from the men in our lives when going through something like this.

Yes, my anecdotes are pretty extreme. I just happen to know a lot more women who have suffered from sexual violence than most I suppose, but knowing them and what they have gone through has given me a great deal of empathy towards other girls and women.

 

We're talking about a decision which is "hard" because it requires a violation of conscience.

Which contravenes nothing I said, obviously.

 

Which means you said..... not much.

Its not about a violation of conscience but about a difference of future. To become a parent or not. To accept a new life as more important than your own or to continue on without it. The abortion simply negates one future, it does not kill a person.

A difficult decision.

 

Exactly, it's like coming to a fork in the road. I can go on as a parent and start my family and introduce a new person into this world that I have to raise and care for or I can take the other path that I have been on for a while now without children on it.

 

No, it means your brain, in an attempt to protect your cherished misconceptions, turned what I said into nothing - just as it turns the nothing you have in support of your position into something in your eyes.

Of course it is. People who think otherwise don't understand what conscience is, or what a human being is, or both.

Isn't murdering someone about a difference of future?

Nonsense.

It most certainly does, and you bloody well know it. That's why you find yourself with nothing but lame analogies and transparent misdirection as support for your contention.

 

Are you going to share your story?

 

Humans are just another animal and our #1 priority is to ensure the survival of our species , with a population of over 7 billion we are not in any danger so casualties due to abortions don't matter . It is much more beneficial for our species for females to have free will so we can use their creativity to move forward rather than increase our numbers . Free women = a better world .

 

At some point I realized there is no way to draw a bright biological line between a human zygote and a human infant, and at some other point I realized the inability to manifest consciousness within the scope of perception of others does not necessarily imply lack of consciousness.

 

What the hell for?

I mean we're "just another animal", so why is our survival of any importance as long as other species fill the gap created by our absence?

 

The #1 priority for every species is to survive, from bacteria to humans.

 

At the start it was a matter of just the freedom of the individual....I actually started off fairly liberatarian on other issues. Real libertarians are pro-choice.

And naturally, there is no way to enforce laws against abortion that are not going to almost solely impact poor women. So it's a basic matter of inequality of justice as well.

I have added to that ...the opposition. In general, I find "pro-lifers" to be hypocritical...dishonest....misogynistic....and with clear leanings towards authoritarianism. We see it here often...."pro-lifers" (usually men, often men who are not or have not been in a serious relationship with a woman coincidentally) who would be absolutely fine with the creation of what I have termed a "Womb Gestapo"....with women subject to ultrasounds at airports, even "street corner" random ultrasounds, and turning America into a police state to enforce their dream of an "Abortion Prohibition".

- - - Updated - - -

So do you believe an ovum one second after fertilization has "consciousness"?

 

If I wanted mindless repetition I'd just do transcendental meditation, so thanks for nothing.

Of course you don't really believe it anyway. As far as you're concerned the universe doesn't survive your own demise.

 

Unlike a lot of you here, I don't really have a personal connection with abortion or people that have had them(that I am aware of). It's also not an issue I'll ever have to deal with in a direct way since I am a man and won't be getting pregnant anytime soon and because my wife has had a tubal ligation and pregnancy is something we'll never worry about again. We have three children so we're more than stocked up in that department.

Before I really became aware of the political controversy surrounding abortion, I simply knew of it as a way of ending a pregnancy. I understood then, just as I do now, what an abortion "was" in that the fetus in the womb is removed and the pregnancy ended. To me then, that sounded like a no-brainer. People shouldn't be slaves to their own biology and we take active efforts to make that less and less so every single day through medical advancements and other scientific discoveries. A person shouldn't be required to become a parent, a life-long job and extremely critical responsibility unless they are ready. Why on Earth would I ever want someone to be a parent before they were ready to be? How is it even remotely fair that the woman, the only gender that gets pregnant, should be told that her body stops being hers when that happens? When does a man's body stop belonging to him? As a man, I've never encountered a situation where my body and my rights over it were taken from me and I cannot think of any situations where that would happen in the future. That all sounded insane to me. Bonkers. It still does.

This was before I really understood WHY a woman would want to get an abortion and all the social, religious, and economic factors that go into the decision. That realization came later after I'd become interested in politics and current events and began educating myself about a myriad of things, not just abortion. It also came as I became an adult and entered the adult world and saw for myself what it entails. It's easy to have absolutist or utopian positions on things when you're a kid and don't know (*)(*)(*)(*).

As I got older and more educated on and interested in politics, I realized that the very idea itself that we should use the law to control people's bodies was anathema to everything I believed in. The basis for my pro-choiceness nowadays is the idea that a person's body is the one thing we're born with and it's the one thing that nobody else should be allowed to control. Creating laws that do so opens the door to laws that control, literally, anything. Thoughts. Emotions. Private actions that only impact yourself. If the law can go "there", where can't it go? If we can justify the usurpation of another person's right of control of their very own body, we can take anything away for any reason at any time. I don't agree with that.

I don't believe there is a natural system of law of any kind. There is no absolute good or absolute morality. There is no set of rules that are on a tier above humanity. There is only what we create and what we believe. We can have ideals that we try to elevate above ourselves, but those are still man-made creations and as such, are still subjective. It's even subjective to think that murder is bad or that pedophiles are bad, although I'd say that things like that are going to find people almost exclusively in agreement that they are, myself included. I think humanity as a whole, at least in the educated places of the world, are at the point where a transition has to occur. We've elevated absolute morality for so long based on religious ideas of a grand creator and big-bossman that now that we don't need religion to explain the world to us, we also lose that absolute law that helped solidify social behavior. Now we'll need to figure out a new paradigm. But I'm diverging here.

In summary, I'm pro-choice because I believe it's 100% wrong to control other people's bodies in that manner. We can make laws about what a person is allowed to possess i.e. drugs, guns, etc, but I do not think we have the power or the right to make laws about the biology of a person. There's just too much to lose and really nothing to gain by going down this road because it opens the door to abuse of that power by anyone who has a hair on their ass and can come up with a halfways decent case that plays on human emotion. I mean, just look at all the emotional theater used by the pro-life camp about abortion. They'll have you believing that the fetus is in there wearing a diaper posing with cute looks and giggles the day after conception. They'll tell you there is no difference between a fetus and a born person. That's just pure silliness and, depending on the situation, pretty much dishonest.

 

I have no horse in this race, but I have one at the track.

Being a male it could not possibly impact me directly and so far the issue has not come up in my family.
However, because I have extensively traveled all over the world and have interacted with the people and learned about their issues among the abortion I started thinking about it. No matter how I looked at it, what facts or arguments I considered, I could not conclude that abortion should be anything more than a decision made by the pregnant woman and anyone else she wishes to involve in it. After that I started looking at the reasons why certain governments made abortion illegal and no matter what or how I reasoned it, could not come up with a valid reason why government should be involved in the matter. On the contrary, I found and still do that when boiled down to the basics, opposition to abortion stems from two sources: religious or moral convictions which at times coincide. Regarding those, I find that there is no more vile human behavior than morality or religious coercion. Simply put I love freedom and abhor anyone and everything that attempt to dictate to others how they should live their personal lives, in matters that affect no one else.

 

I like this story of yours because in a way it is both pro-life and pro-choice. For the two of you abortion was not the right answer to your situation and that's fine, in fact it's even better that you guys stood up to those who tried to pressure or coerce you into agreeing that abortion was the right choice.

This is ultimately a pro-choice view. Being able to choose to carry to term or to have an abortion. One thing I get so tired of seeing is the common misconception that pro-choicers (especially pro-choice women or women who have had abortions) are all evil people/women/mothers and that we all just want to see every pregnancy ever end in abortion. It happens so much now that I have seen us be referred to as pro-aborts and even 'abortionists' as though we want all women to not have babies anymore. It's just totally absurd.