I am a student in a Canadian University that I am proud to say has a very awesome and very active Women's Resource Centre and lots of feminist, or at least pro-woman people on campus and in our governmental posts.
That being said, we also apparently have a 'Students for Life' club on campus.
They recently had an event the 'Morality of Abortion' Debate, which featured a pro-choice Bioethics male Prof debating against Stephanie Gray (read her craziness here.).
In Canada, abortion has be legal for 21 years and I frankly thought it was a bit outdated to discuss the morality of something that has already been determined by our government, so I had an idea.
We went. And made a drinking game out of it.
In a classroom that crammed over 150 people into it, a full row of 10 of my peers and me drank every time 'genocide' 'kill' or 'baby' was mentioned.
I'm not going to lie I was drunk in 30mins.
Don't get me wrong, anti-choice groups are no laughing (or drinking) matter . The fact that Ms Gray compared abortion to the Rwandan Genocide and said abortion was worse, that even women who are raped do not have the right to abortion since (her direct quote) "the child should not have to pay for the father's mistake," and that the only difference between a fertilized egg and a 20yr old adult is the size of the person is fucking ridiculous.
I'm sure if I wasn't already drunk and fantasizing about how I could seduce anti-choice boys onto our side I would have walked out half way.
But just another creative way to fight the anti-choicers! And have a little bit of fun.
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Hm, maybe someone can help me out with this one. I definitely agree with you that anti-choicers arguments always tend to put the life of the child above the life of the mother and that is not right at all. Her body, her choice; it is as simple as that...right? Although I personally agree with this, I do struggle sometimes with the fact that although it is the mothers choice, yes the fetus will still continue to develop into a child if given the chance to. There is no doubt about that. So how do you argue with anti-choicers on that one? It is easy to say like "well, the mother has the choice because it is her baby and withour her, the baby would not even survive anyway and so she should not have to put herself through that if she does not want to" but then, a child is pretty much dependent on it's mother or father for the first few years of its life, etc.
I don't know, I just find the whole morality argument a bit overwhelming sometimes because you can't just say something like "it's not really a human life" because it can develop into one. I guess I am just asking people to help me debate on that :P
Is there no doubt that the fetus will continue to develop if not for abortion? Because there is such a thing as miscarriage and stillbirth. There is no guarantee that any pregnancy will go to term without someone else's intervention. Your point about babies being dependent on their mothers in the first few years of life doesn't make any sense either. A newborn can live without its mother. A fetus cannot. It's all because of that pesky umbilical cord that connects the fetus to the woman. An embryo or fetus is 100% dependent on the woman it's living inside to survive. If the pregnant woman dies or is hurt in some other way, the embryo or fetus most likely will too. Because if the woman's heart isn't beating, neither is the embryo's or fetus'. You can't say the same for a baby that's even one second old.
Again, if people missed it the first time I AM PRO-CHOICE ALL THE WAY, ok? I am just presenting arguments from the other side that I sometimes have a hard time refuting.
"Is there no doubt that the fetus will continue to develop if not for abortion? Because there is such a thing as miscarriage and stillbirth."
Yes but I think that because it is happening "naturally" as one might put it in their argument instead of the women deliberately aborting the fetus, then that is where the problem lies with many of the anti-choicers.
"Your point about babies being dependent on their mothers in the first few years of life doesn't make any sense either. A newborn can live without its mother. A fetus cannot."
Mm, first of all it is not my point because like I said, pro-choice. Anyway, what I meant was that if you leave a newborn by itself with no one to take care of it, it most likely will not survive on its own (which is the case with many babaies actually, but anti-choicers do not take that into consideration)
I could throw a lot of teenagers into the wilderness without any food or money and most of them wouldn't survive either. The difference is it's not because they're no longer physically attached to their mother's body, it's because when you're left completely alone with no resources and you don't know your surroundings it's difficult to survive.
More importantly, even if it WAS a human life, why does that mean that a woman is obligated to host it in her body? Do we require men to automatically give up their kidneys so innocent little children can live?
if it's not a human life, then what is it?
A fetus
Its a bundle of living cells with human DNA, just like your finger would be if it were cut off. It doesn't make it a separate person.
Personally, I think that an early term fetus is not at all a person, but as the pregnancy goes on it gets more and more like a person. By the time you're 8 and a half months pregnant its a baby in there. Where do you draw the line in between? I don't know. But I also don't think that's important. Whether its a baby or not, it doesn't have a right to live inside of me without permission.
aren't we all bundles of cells with human DNA? why are we human and the fetus is not
We are autonomous, separate, conscious organisms. If we could remove a fetus and let it live somewhere else, that would be a great alternative to abortion, but it can't live on its own. That's why the most important issue is not whether its a person or not, but whether it has a right to live inside someone else against their will.
On the flip side, if you cut off your finger, it could, potentially, under the right conditions, be cloned into a whole person. Does that mean it should have all the rights and privileges of a person?
Is an acorn the same as an oak tree? Is an egg the same as a chicken? It really shouldn't be that hard to grasp the difference here.
But again, I don't think that's the most important point. If someone came up with me with a real live baby that was clearly a fully-formed human, and said "hey, can I stick this inside you for a few months so it can live off your system while its organs repair from a disease, and then we'll take it out and it will be fine" I would probably say no.
Ditto what AnUnfunnyFeminist said. Life continues to be rather tenuous after birth as well - sudden infant death syndrome.
I would also take up George Carland's point that the claim that "life is sacred" is awfully biased towards living people. Why is there a "right to life" when people are being killed and dying from preventable causes all over the place? It's far from an absolute value - the US still has the death penalty, and health care isn't garunteed to people with life-threatening illnesses. People's lives aren't valued equally. Again using the US as an example - when the decision is made to use "smart weapons" to prevent troops from going into combat, is the risk to Iraqi lives being given the same weight as the risk to American lives?
I think it's also worth noting that since *forever* if a woman got pregnant and the family or the community was unable to support another person, and she was unable to induce a miscarriage, the infant would be abandoned, or killed at birth. In many societies, from the earliest days of humanity up to the present day, this is acceptable, and though sad, not abnormal. It was and is a matter of necessity and reality. A stranger is ill-suited to make that decision. That is the case with abortion as well. Only the pregnant woman can properly balance the consequences of carrying a pregnancy to term (which in itself is costly) and having a child against the alternative.
So, I would argue that the "is it life" argument is moot. I don't think a principled position can be taken on either side. If a fertalized egg is life, it is life without emotions, without experiences, without thoughts, personality, or relationships. The consequences of having an abortion are negligible compared to those the deaths that we commit and allow each day.
Genocides involve the destruction of entire families, communities, cultures and histories. It's the destruction of a unique part of the mosaic of humanity. Each individual that is killed is a unique product of human, societal, environmental, and biological influences, and as such has a unique potential to contribute to the world, which is eliminated.
Abortion just isn't comparable.
it's very simple how to argue-you ask them if they approve of requiring medical donation is all cases. If they believe that you should be able to opt out of donating, say, bone marrow to your brother(currently not legally required) then they need to shut up about the baby.
as other people said above.
I am so sick of people acting like fetuses are adult babies in the womb! They are NOT adults. You wouldn't say a 5 year old is like a 20 year old only smaller, why does the fetus have adult status? It isn't an 'adult' once it leaves the womb, why does a fetus supposedly deserve more rights than already born children? Children earn their rights once they reach certain ages. Yet for some reason, I'm supposed to believe that a fetus is more like and adult than a child.
Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the whole thing. Hopefully I am.
I've said the same thing many times before. There's no logic in the argument that "it's eventually going to be a person." Maybe I'll eventually be a doctor or a lawyer. That doesn't mean I am one and all of a sudden get the same rights and privileges as one. Maybe I'll live to be a 100 years old. Does that mean I am 100 years old? Because I don't see Willard Scott announcing my birthday on the Today Show, courtesy of Smuckers.
Thank you! I am definitely using that logic next time I argue with someone about abortion.
That's so true. Its like me saying that throwing out an acorn is the same as hacking down an oak tree with an ax. Its not the same thing at all.
an acorn in this instance would be a woman's unfertilized egg or a man's sperm, things disposed of readily in menstrual cycles or masturbate. however, the disposal of a sapling would draw the wrath of many that oppose the indiscriminate destruction of trees. granted a sapling (fetus) has less effect on the world than a large tree(adult), some view and argue that each life and its potential is worthy of protection.
I'm pretty sure an acorn is already fertilized, in that it can grow into a tree without an injection of DNA from a different tree. (I know different plants have different biology, but if I'm wrong about acorns we can easily replace the analogy with a different species of plant that does work that way).
So an acorn is more like a fertilized egg than an unfertilized egg or a solitary sperm. Does that change your argument?
Actually no. The acorn is analogous to an embryo. It contains at least a diploid cell derived from male and female haploid sex cells. Although it's probably divided and has formed an embryonic leaf and stem at this point.
I think many would rather lumber be harvested from young trees in a tree farms rather than from old-growth forests.
The value comes from the ecosystem that the tree is an integral part of
>> I am so sick of people acting like fetuses are adult babies in the womb! They are NOT adults. You wouldn't say a 5 year old is like a 20 year old only smaller, why does the fetus have adult status? [...] Children earn their rights once they reach certain ages.
As devil's advocate, an anti-choice paratrooper would say that guaranteeing a fetus the right to life would not be giving it "adult" status. They would argue (as I know from my entire bloody anti-choice family) that there are minimal rights granted any human being -- fetus, infant, child, adolescent or adult.
They would argue that, by virtue of their humanity alone, they have the right not to be abused, deprived, starved, killed or aborted (the last two of which they would say are synonymous). I have heard a number of anti-choice relatives liken abortion to child-abuse, just without the ability of CPS to step in on behalf of the child.
This is an argument that has caused me pause -- though it has not change my opinion that these rights do not vest in a child until he or she is actually born. To me, this is simply a question of when the rights of a fetus/infant vest, and thus when those rights are due state protection. I believe those rights vest at birth.
kbz
I think the argument about whether a fetus counts the same as a baby is almost irrelevant. Much more importantly, we don't normally require people to give up their bodily integrity for other people without a free choice in the matter. No one is required to give up their kidneys, blood, bone marrow, etc, even to save an "innocent" life. Why is a pregnant woman any different?
Exactly. The anti-choice brigade is basically saying that because an embryo is a person, it should be given the legal right to be inside a woman's body without her consent. If a man does that, it's called rape. But if an embryo does it, it's called the right to life.
Exactly. The anti-choice brigade is basically saying that because an embryo is a person, it should be given the legal right to be inside a woman's body without her consent. If a man does that, it's called rape. But if an embryo does it, it's called the right to life.
the argument goes that a pregnant woman made the choice to become pregnant (outside of rape incest etc) and is not being asked to support a strange innocent child, but to take responsibility of a life created by her actions.
Ah, but see, having sex is not the same as purposely getting pregnant.
I actually agree that a woman who purposely gets pregnant has a higher level of moral obligation to the fetus, but ultimately its still entirely her choice what to do about it.
In general, though, if I use protection and the protection failed, it was not my choice to become pregnant.
For example, I know that by going out and interacting with people, I run a certain risk of catching the flu. I try to minimize this risk by washing my hands, etc, but I have to admit it is still a risk. I could completely avoid the risk by avoiding normal human interaction, but I don't; I still interact with people. But if I catch the flu, it does not then follow that I CHOSE to catch the flu.
Knowing that action A has a small statistical chance of resulting in outcome B despite your precautions against B, does not mean that you CHOSE outcome B.
Also, I should point out that if a couple has a 3 year old child that needs a kidney transplant, they are not required by law to give up their own kidneys. And that is an innocent human life that they created and chose to raise.
(For the record, obviously most parents would choose to give up their kidney in that situation. But it would be THEIR CHOICE.)
Becoming pregnant is not a conscious act. I would argue that even women who plan their pregnancies don't choose to get pregnant. There are a lot of couples who want children but can't have them no matter how hard they try. If it all came down to choosing to get pregnant, then no women would have trouble doing so. So women don't choose to become pregnant. And even if they did, it should make no difference to anyone what she decides to do with her pregnancy.
Allowing an exception for rape/incest really reveals that the real issue for anti-choicers is controlling women's sexuality. The moral responsibility of the woman should be irrelevant if there's such a thing as a "right to life"
"minimal rights granted any human being -- fetus, infant, child, adolescent or adult."
But what is 'human'? If we say anything with the DNA of a human is human, that that opens up humanity way too wide. A fetus may be biologically human, but should probably not considered legally human until they have higher brain function. At the other end of the spectrum of life, brain death is legal death (or the loss of brain function). So then shouldn't we define the legal start of life as the brain having function?
I don't really know very much about higher brain function vs. other brain functions (like the brain controlling heart beat). But, I found some information on a religous website, which i found interesting:
"26 weeks or 6 months: The fetus 14" long and almost two pounds. The lungs' bronchioles develop. Interlinking of the brain's neurons begins. The higher functions of the fetal brain turn on for the first time. Some rudimentary brain waves can be detected. The fetus will be able to feel pain for the first time. It has become conscious of its surroundings. The fetus has become a sentient human life for the first time." http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_fetu.htm
To me, this means that we should allow all abortions until the beginning of the 3rd trimester, but then in the 3rd trimester, any abortions need to be done with a high level of scrutiny (which, I'm sure they are.)
If the school in question is U of T I may be tempted to join you ;)
I'm all for abortion rights and everything, but this sentence makes no sense:
"I frankly thought it was a bit outdated to discuss the morality of something that has already been determined by our government"
So, I mean, we shouldn't discuss our government torturing terrorism suspects? Or the death penalty?
People who live in countries where their government has determined that abortion is illegal shouldn't discuss the morality of that?
I think everyone's made some good points (especially on the "potential life" argument), but i have to say, I understand where they come from on the morality issue. I don't agree, but I can understand that it pains them, because they have a fundamentally different view of when life, irrespective of any legal rights, begins.
Honestly, I don't think life is all that sacred, and doubt other people who do. To most people, the life of murderers, rapists, even home burglars can be terminated as punishment or in self-defense. Most people choose not to think of the millions upon millions of people who are dying right now, from hunger, disease and war. Millions see no harm in killing a hundred "enemies" as revenge for the death of one of our soldiers.
At the same time, people grieve over the passing of their pets, of the kidnapping of some white girl in Aruba.
It's evident to me that death on a large scale, and of people who you don't identify with or care about is not a big deal. To survive in this world, we're forced to deal with it this way.
Anti-choicers picture abortion as the murder of a child, specifically, a child that they care about. Were this kid born with HIV and without food, they wouldn't care. Anti-choicers can't identify with this child. Her life means nothing.
I think this is very similar to the treatment of animals that are pets, and all other animals. There's nothing intrinsic or sacred about the life of a cat (as seen in different culture's treatment of it), or, I'm sad to say, the life of a human.
I don't care when life begins.
I agree. but the thing is most pro choice people disagree as to when life begins and then move to the next stage and admit that society kills for a variety of reasons. instead they argue that its not human life until birth, a point that pro-life folks cant understant.
A lot of pro-choicers are also anti-death penalty, so arguing that killing is okay when it's adults who have done horrendous things isn't going to fly with their beliefs.
An anti-choice drinking game? LOVE IT.
Where I think that things get weird is when states consider the murder of a pregnant woman the murder of two people. I think that this is a good thing, because it is a terrible, awful act and it should be punnished as such. However, I am pro-choice. The whole abortion argument is so complicated.
My main problem with the anti-choice movement is that it is in fact anti-choice and that the life of an unborn fetus or even an embryo takes precident over the woman carrying it, as if the woman is merely an incubator. Laws that would be put in place to protect the life of the unborn seem to completely ignore the fact that that fetus is inside of a woman who, although some seem to disagree, is a person. It seems really strange to me that there could be a law that tells women that once they are pregnant, they have to stay that way. Just thinking about it makes me feels so dirty, used, and violated. When it comes down to it, it is my body.
The murder of anyone is a horrible act and should be punished. I don't think pregnant women or any other demographic should be treated as though their murder is worse than someone else's, or that the murderer did something worse.
I was more commenting on the fact that it is considered two people than anything else, and how that is isn't consistant wisth abortion being legal. Obviously, killing anyone is not good. Speaking of that though, there have been cases of men murdering pregnant ex's, or pregnant women who get murdered in domistic violence situations, and honestly, to me anyway, it seems to make something already awful, tragic, and sickinging a little more awful, tragic and sickening. That's just what I think though.
I read some stat somewhere that pregnant women are more susceptible to spousal abuse, and more likely to be killed.
I think making it an extra offence to kill a pregnant woman is just the first step to re-criminalizing abortion. I think that's the deliberate, strategic aim behind introducing such a law. Plus there's no reason to differentiate between the life of the fetus and the life of the mother when one is entirely dependent on the other. It's just saying that women's lives hold more value as incubators.
In cases in which a pregnant woman has been killed by someone who knew she was pregnant, I personally do not feel that the law needs to conceive of the fetus as a second person who has been murdered, though, at heart, I'm agnostic on the issue.
But, to answer your question, I think it is possible to reconcile such laws with laws permitting abortion. Here's how I would do it:
In cases in which a pregnant woman has not (or not yet) "voted with her feet" by getting an abortion, the law should err on the side of viewing the pregnancy as a fetus that the mother expects to carry to term. The subjective intent of the mother to carry the child to term becomes irrelevant. A woman may very well have been planning on getting an abortion (don't ask me how this can be proved short of her name being listed in Planned Parenthood's abortion schedule), but since there's always the possibility that she might change her mind, the pregnancy should be construed as a second murder.
Now, as a compromise for those pro-choicers for whom this whole type of law is exceedingly uncomfortable, perhaps legislators would create a separate crime for the killing of the fetus. Murder of the pregnant woman would be Homicide, obviously, but the killing of the fetus could be called Fetuscide or something, which carries a lesser sentence than the murder of a born human. That way, if the violent act causes the woman to miscarry but she remains alive, the perp will be accused of both Assault (for the woman) and Fetuscide.
Yeah. I was just saying that I don't think the murder of a pregnant woman should be considered worse under the law. It shouldn't be a trial of two murders right off the bat. It would probably be really hard for the jury to ignore the fact that she's pregnant during sentencing, and they might give the murder a more serious sentence.
I sort of feel like in the case of a murder, that is already a very serious crime either way, and treated as such. Maybe sentencing should be worse... I think they take such details into account when sentencing anyway.
But what I was wondering about was a case where there was no other serious harm other than causing a miscarriage. For example, I mentioned below a TV show where someone was slipped RU-486 in a drink. I don't know if that's ever actually happened, but if it did, I'd want it to count as a serious crime (maybe assault, maybe something else) even if there was no other bodily harm to the woman. I absolutely don't want it to be called fetucide or something like that-- as I see it its harm to the woman and her right to determine her pregnancy that's the issue, not rights for the fetus.
I understand that dilemma. On the one hand, I want to have the right to terminate my own pregnancy. On the other hand, if I have am pregnant and I want to carry the baby to term and think of it as my child, and someone purposely kicks me in the stomach with the intention of causing a miscarriage, I want that to be a serious crime.
Here's how I would solve the problem: base the abortion laws around consent. It is legal to terminate a pregnancy as long as you have the consent of the pregnant woman, but it is a crime to terminate the pregnancy without her consent. Just like rape laws.
In response to MissKittyFantastico and Okra
If someone terminates a pregnancy without consent, it's assault. Any kind of physical contact without consent is assault.
Creating a new offence would have 2 effects: 1) declaratory: signaling that women's lives are more valuable when they are pregnant.
2) creating a basis for arguing that fetuses have legal rights.
If the termination of the pregnancy is to be taken into account at all, it should be conceptualized as an additional harm to the mother. The crime is against the mother. Not against the fetus. It should absolutely not be characterized as homicide.
In Canada, where the possibility of amending the Criminal Code to create a new offence of causing the death of a fetus was raised by the Conservative government, a child becomes a human being when it emerges alive from the mother; if someone causes injury to an unborn child which results in it's death after it becomes a human being, then and only then does the assaulter commit homicide.
Any change in the law would have to reconceptualize the status of an unborn child under the law. A fetus currently has no legal rights, it is not a human being, and it cannot be murdered. Creating an offence less than homicide, like "fetuscide" still confers some rights and protections on the fetus itself. This would be a dramatic shift in the law.
It's important to realize that the core of the new Conservative Party consists of hard-core neoconservatives who oppose anything which advances women's equality. They are ideologically opposed to reproductive rights. It would be political death to raise the possibility of re-criminalizing abortion. Creating a new offence for the death of a fetus can only be interpreted as part of an incremental strategy, the first step towards rolling back reproductive rights.
I wasn't necessarily saying we should make separate laws, just that that's how I think the laws should be interpreted to solve the above dilemma.
Maybe you can explain the details of an assault case. If a man attacks a woman and she is left with bruises and a broken arm, but nothing that won't heal, I don't know exactly what the punishment would be. How would that compare with a man who attacks a woman in the same way, leaving her with the same bruises and broken arm, but in this case she was pregnant and the attack also caused a miscarriage? (Assuming he knew she was pregnant).
Now, I think classifying them both as assault is fine, but the case where he causes an unwanted miscarriage strikes me as much worse and should be punished more harshly. However, I don't want to do it by saying that killing a fetus is illegal because that would affect abortion rights. So my solution is to interpret the laws so that this assault is worse than the other. (In general, is an assault punished more harshly when more harm is committed? I'd assume that it is, and I'd count killing the fetus as a very high level of harm.)
Is that the way it is now?
re: (2), the entire POINT of my strategy is NOT to give a fetus legal rights or classify it as a homicide. Its to center the law around the rights of a woman to decide whether or not she is keeping a pregnancy, and have that decision respected whichever way it goes.
Well, there's simple assault, assault causing bodily harm, and aggravated assault, aggravated assault involving the wounding or maiming of the victim, and being a much more serious offence. I wasn't able to find anything on whether an assault that causes a miscarriage would be considered aggravated assault if there was little else in the way of physical harm done to the woman. My guess is that that it doesn't happen, and that assaults that result in miscarriages cause other serious injuries as well. I'm not familiar with the law on sentencing, but it's supposed to be very fact-driven, and I think judges would take it into account if the accused caused a miscarriage.
The other case I'm thinking of was on an episode of Veronica Mars (although they didn't pursue any legal charges). In the episode, a pregnant woman was slipped RU-486 in a drink and it caused a miscarriage. Now, is slipping someone a controlled substance generally considered assault in and of itself? I don't know if it is. But if it didn't hurt her at all besides causing a miscarriage, what would the person be charged with?
You see my point, I want a forced, nonconsensual miscarriage to count as a really high degree of harm to the woman-- NOT to the fetus. Even if there was no physical assault involved.
This idea could also be applied to cases like that crazy nurse who sterilized women without their consent. That should be a crime also, possibly some sort of assault or possibly something else, but it should be a serious crime.
Administering a noxious substance to someone, in Canada, is an offence punishable by up to 14 years if the intent is to hurt the person, and up to 2 years if the intent is to "aggrieve or annoy" they person.
Assault is the application of force to another person, directly or indirectly.
I know that "application of force" has been interpreted broadly. The slightest touch can be an assault. What matters is the intent of the accused and the presence of consent. The degree of harm just changes the kind of assault, and what kind of sentencing is available. Assault is an offence against the bodily integrity and autonomy of the individual, Medical procedures without informed consent are assaults.
I forgot to add:
A major part of the debate around abortion is how the relationship between the woman and the fetus is characterized. Anti-choicers characterize them as two separate persons with conflicting rights. Pro-choicers, as we know, argue that the fetus is indivisible from the mother, it has no interests that are not her interests, no rights which are not her rights.
Again referring to Canada, the law currently endorses the pro-choice conception of the relationship between woman and fetus. Making any kind of concession which confers rights or protections *on the fetus itself* distinct from the mother, would mean surrendering this tremendous advantage.
While the wheels of justice turn slowly and, sadly, many times not at all for survivors of abuse, consumers have the opportunity every day to make themselves heard with their pocketbooks. Wrigley's reaction to this disturbing incident taints their product. I think it's a poor business decision not to terminate the contract bedroom furniture entirley and a missed opportunity for a major corporation to make a statement around abusive relationships.