What's your stance on abortion?

I wish that no one ever had an abortion again.

I want our public policy focus to be on helping prevent unwanted pregnancy rather than on continuing to fight over the legality of abortion.

I find a large segment of the anti-abortion rights movement to be horridly anti-woman. I find a smaller, but not insubstantial, portion of the pro-abortion rights movement to be hostile and dismissive to the honest beliefs of other Americans.

Those are the boxes I would check. But I have supported what I considered to be women's rights movements and campaigns with activism and money. And I will do so again.

 

Don't you have an Obama collage to finish?

 

All done.

 

This isn't really true, of course. It's not that simplistic.

You're not pro-choice because you believe abortion is right (i.e. not wrong). Pro-choice isn't about the morality of it -- it's about the legality of it. That's the problem with framing this discussion dualistically: right vs. wrong. Pro-life is about life, about morality; pro-choice is about rights, about legality. Using those terms means you're not having the same debate.

I believe that it should be legal, regulated and supervised by professionals who know what they're doing. The days of back-alley operations that don't get talked about and could get a doctor thrown in jail bothers me greatly. So, that makes me "pro-choice."

I also believe that abortion should truly be a last resort, only to be considered under extreme duress (rape/incest, mother's health, etc.), never as "birth control." Like Zeke said, I wish no one would ever have one again. I also know that's an impossible dream, hence my stance on its legality.

 

I was 15 years old and sitting in science class when a girl across the room began to bleed on her seat. She looked whiter than a ghost, even through her cinnamon-colored skin, and after going to the nurse's office she was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Word around school is that she had been pregnant, and a few days before had undergone what you could call a "back-alley abortion." She was OK after missing a lot of school, but there was speculation about whether or not she could ever have kids.

That was the day I became pro-choice. Legalization leads to regulation, and everyone has a right to safe medical care. Pro-choice means there should be a variety of options available, and people should be able to choose the one that bests suits their needs.

I'm also a believer in the "keep your laws off my body" line of thought. I resent the fact that some old, white, middle-aged men in Washington think they know what's best for me, my body, my life. Fuck you, and the patriarchal horse you rode in on.

This is an example of what drives me crazy about the abortion debate: the language used. "Getting off on dead babies"? Sadly, that's not the first time I've heard that phrase directed toward pro-choice people, but honestly, who really thinks that's the case? While there are many anti-abortion people who don't hate women, there are a lot who do. But I have yet to meet a pro-choice person who "gets off on dead babies."

 

That's what annoys me about the whole debate, Cadet. If anyone truly "gets off" about anything, it's the anti-abortion people who "get off" about demonizing women and pro-choice people. Of course no pro-choice person "gets off on dead babies," but that doesn't stop conservatives from suggesting that.

 

Alma has stated that he is opposed to abortion and wants it outlawed. The individual starting the poll is deeply biased...

 

Cadet, Beamer: I was being deliberately over the top to illustrate my point. There's certain elements among the abortion-rights believers that would have me be a woman-hating asshole who lives to keep them in the place. There's certain elements among the anti-abortion believers that thinks you hate babies and take delight in their death. I think both are wrong. Based on your comments, you only think the half that affects you is wrong.

 

I realize that. I usually find Alma to be more intellectually honest, even when he has a strong opinion.

 

And yet ... it's not. Again.

As I said before, it's not dualistic, no matter which way people like to frame it. It's too complex an issue, and people's views on it are too nuanced, to be simplified down to A vs. B. It doesn't matter what you call A or what you call B -- it's not that simple.

I'm not OK with women in my life having them. I'm also not OK with lawmakers or judges -- primarily men, of course -- deciding whether other women can have them.

Does that make me "lame," as Mystery Meat put it, for not sticking with one side or the other of a debate that I can't possibly view dualistically? I think it's lame to force people to choose, when neither of the "opposing" viewpoints fully reflect my views.

 

I'm curious, but in what way are they biased? Both have a "I'm in support of/opposition to abortion and I'll take to the streets for it option, which probably should be taken metaphorically more than literally, since I'd assume most journos have a better sense of self-preservation than to be outward activists. Both have a "I support my position except in these unusual circumstances" option. What options are being ignored?

And if a pro-abortion rights believer were to word the poll, how would they do it?