Abortion absolutism

[Smash Williams]

I've never bought into the idea that abortion is solely a "woman's issue."

It's a much more nuanced discussion when your body is the one someone could force into an unwanted pregnancy, to put it as crassly as possible. I believe men can have well thought out, extremely valid viewpoints that deserve careful consideration, but I also believe it's an abstract discussion for men where it's an extremely personal one for a woman.

It's easy to make statements of absolutes when it's somebody else who will be affected. I think the most ardently pro-life men couldn't even fathom why a woman would want to have an abortion while the most ardently pro-life women can, and outside of all the hypocrisy discussion nonsense, that's the most telling thing about the Sarah Palin anecdote to me.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I think the most ardently pro-life men couldn't even fathom why a woman would want to have an abortion while the most ardently pro-life women can.

I get murdered on here for generalizing at times.

With that in mind, do you really think this statement is fair?

 

[User 11148]

I am strongly pro-life, and I can understand why a woman might want an abortion. That's not what I was getting at re: the "woman's issue" comment. Last I checked, close to half of all abortions (here in the U.S.) involved a male fetus.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I am strongly pro-life, and I can understand why a woman might want an abortion. That's not what I was getting at re: the "woman's issue" comment. Last I checked, close to half of all abortions (here in the U.S.) involved a male fetus.

And last I checked, half the genes in the fetus are provided by a male.

 

[Azrael]

I don't think there's gender differentiation or genital development until after Week 6.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I think the most ardently pro-life men couldn't even fathom why a woman would want to have an abortion while the most ardently pro-life women can.

I get murdered on here for generalizing at times.

With that in mind, do you really think this statement is fair?

It is a fair statement. Men cannot get pregnant.

 

[Smash Williams]

I think the most ardently pro-life men couldn't even fathom why a woman would want to have an abortion while the most ardently pro-life women can.

I get murdered on here for generalizing at times.

With that in mind, do you really think this statement is fair?

To a point, though I am absolutely guilty of having some unfair generalizations about people, so perhaps this is one of them. And I probably didn't phrase it as well as I could. It's certainly not true of all men who consider themselves pro-life - mostly the militaristic, women should be jailed for abortions crowd. Most reasonable people on both sides can at least understand where the other side is coming from even if there is a fundamental disagreement about the question of when life begins.

But I think the discussion is absolutely framed by whether or not it could potentially impact your body directly. It's so much easier to make decisions for other people. And beyond that, I believe most men involved in the discussion are much less cognizant of everything involved, and you see some of the lack of knowledge of women's reproductive health in comments like Bubbler's about how often something that's "conceived" becomes a live birth (with conceived in quotes because I don't know if an egg that is fertilized but doesn't implant is considered an embryo for purposes of someone thinking it's a human - if that's the case, the percentage of embryos that never become a birth is above 50 percent because not all eggs are of the same quality, and ones that are poor usually don't implant at all or are reabsorbed by the body almost immediately, meaning no true miscarriage but also no true pregnancy). I also didn't find the originally linked article that interesting because I already knew about that as a woman of child-bearing age, and it doesn't frame my viewpoint any differently.

 

[User 11148]

I don't think there's gender differentiation or genital development until after Week 6.

Yes, but a fetus is either an XX or and XY from the moment of conception.

 

[User 11148]

... I don't know if an egg that is fertilized but doesn't implant is considered an embryo for purposes of someone thinking it's a human.

Egg + sperm = zygote. Zygote, with a little time, becomes a blastocyst which, with a little more time and distance, becomes an embryo. It's considered an embryo prior to implantation, IIRC.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It's so much easier to make decisions for other people.

To play devil's advocate, can't the same be said about the decision women make about the fetus, if your view is that it is alive?

I'll bow out of this discussion now, because I'm often guilty of not letting things go, and I think I've made my point(s). The last thing I'll leave you with is this: I just don't buy the notion that the most affected person gets the final and/or only say on a decision. For example, I'm a staunch opponent of the death penalty. The reflexive question is: "What if it were your family killed?" No hemming. No hawing. I would still be 100 percent against it. Another example: Our whole jury system is foundationed on the idea that dispassionate observers can better come to rational decisions than those directly impacted. Bringing it back around to abortion: Men have every right to form and voice an opinion. In some ways, the lack of direct physical consequences may even serve as an advantage.

 

[Turtle Wexler]

I'll bow out of this discussion now, because I'm often guilty of not letting things go, and I think I've made my point(s). The last thing I'll leave you with is this: I just don't buy the notion that the most affected person gets the final and/or only say on a decision. ... Bringing it back around to abortion: Men have every right to form and voice an opinion. In some ways, the lack of direct physical consequences may even serve as an advantage.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mansplaining

mansplaining

The tendency of some men to mistakenly believe that they automatically know more about any given topic than does a woman and who, consequently, proceed to explain to her- correctly or not- things that she already knows.

 

[dooley_womack1]

At least he didn't manscape on this thread

 

[YankeeFan]

I'll bow out of this discussion now, because I'm often guilty of not letting things go, and I think I've made my point(s). The last thing I'll leave you with is this: I just don't buy the notion that the most affected person gets the final and/or only say on a decision. ... Bringing it back around to abortion: Men have every right to form and voice an opinion. In some ways, the lack of direct physical consequences may even serve as an advantage.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mansplaining

mansplaining

The tendency of some men to mistakenly believe that they automatically know more about any given topic than does a woman and who, consequently, proceed to explain to her- correctly or not- things that she already knows.

I didn't see a single man condescend to women on this thread. It's been a mostly intelligent conversation.

There were very few declarative statements, and most of those were made by the few women who posted.

Yet, you somehow saw something different. And, instead of joining the conversation, and sharing your own thoughts, you just decided to dismiss the very idea that a man should comment on the issue.

So, who's being disrespectful?

 

[Turtle Wexler]

I take exceptional offense to the concept that "lack of direct physical consequences may even serve as an advantage" for men in developing policy on women's reproductive health issues. It's that type of patriarchal arrogance that has led to generations of old white men dictating what women can and can't do with their bodies.

 

[Smash Williams]

It's so much easier to make decisions for other people.

To play devil's advocate, can't the same be said about the decision women make about the fetus, if your view is that it is alive?

I'll bow out of this discussion now, because I'm often guilty of not letting things go, and I think I've made my point(s). The last thing I'll leave you with is this: I just don't buy the notion that the most affected person gets the final and/or only say on a decision. For example, I'm a staunch opponent of the death penalty. The reflexive question is: "What if it were your family killed?" No hemming. No hawing. I would still be 100 percent against it. Another example: Our whole jury system is foundationed on the idea that dispassionate observers can better come to rational decisions than those directly impacted. Bringing it back around to abortion: Men have every right to form and voice an opinion. In some ways, the lack of direct physical consequences may even serve as an advantage.

My view is that a fetus is not alive until the 20th-24th week, so that point does not apply to me. For those who believe an zygote is alive, sure. But those people should also, reasonably, be opposed to any woman drinking after unprotected sex if they really and truly believe the rights of a potential baby are equal to the rights of the existing woman. Who controls that first 4-6 weeks if an embryo is considered human from the moment of conception but a woman can't reasonably know she's pregnant in that time frame?

Men do have every right to form and voice an opinion. But I vehemently disagree that the fact that the lack of direct physical consequences gives them an advantage. First of all - advantage in what? And second, it gives them too much remove from the potential consequence to make a meaningful decision given that we're dealing with individual human rights here. It's easy to take someone else's rights away because you don't have to worry it would some day happen to you.

And again, I understand where you're coming from in that you believe there are two sets of rights involved. I do not, and therefore I see the scenario as solely my rights to decide things about my own health being taken away.

As far as what TW posted, the part that sat at ill with me is idea that men may have an "advantage" in this discussion. I find that to be distinctly reminiscent of a colonial-style attitude where someone else knows what's good for a person without any potential of suffering the consequences of that decision.

 

[Dick Whitman]

For clarity's sake: Women have an advantage, too. The fact that they have physical consequences to endure give women a particular insight that men do not have. But men have an advantage because they can evaluate the competing interests from some remove. Like a jury. Neither men nor women have a monopoly on insight or advantage here. I apologize if I seemed to imply otherwise. That was not my intent.

 

[HC]

Women are also the ones who are going to raise the child. Men can be forced to pay child support but they cannot be forced to be involved in the raising of the child. They will not be forced to stay home from work with a sick child. The consequences for women go well beyond the physical.

 

[BB Bobcat]

I just skipped to the end here, so apologies for what I've missed in the middle, but does anyone else agree that the whole abortion issue is just one big political football?

Both sides trot it out as a big deal ("Vote for me or they are going to outlaw abortion!" or "Vote for me and I'll outlaw abortion!") when really there is very little chance of the laws substantially* changing because there's nowhere near the consensus needed to push the ball either direction at this point.

* I use substantially, because the sides both like to argue that little things like parental notification are huge changes that should scare us all out to the polling stations. "If they make teenagers tell their parents, that's the same thing as outlawing abortions!" No, it isn't.

 

[YankeeFan]

Women are also the ones who are going to raise the child. Men can be forced to pay child support but they cannot be forced to be involved in the raising of the child. They will not be forced to stay home from work with a sick child. The consequences for women go well beyond the physical.

If you're only knowledge of abortion issues came from this thread, you'd think every woman was pro-choice, and some large segment of men were out there trying to force their wives and/or girlfriends to have babies against their will.

In my experience, it's just the opposite.

If it was solely the woman's choice, there would likely be fewer abortions.

I know several -- and have dated a couple -- of women who wanted to have the baby, but were pressured by the baby's father (and often his parents as well) to have an abortion.

So, if it's the "woman's choice", I say let's allow them to make it, free from the outside influence of the selfish men in their lives, who don't want the (financial) responsibility of raising a child.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I just skipped to the end here, so apologies for what I've missed in the middle, but does anyone else agree that the whole abortion issue is just one big political football?

Both sides trot it out as a big deal ("Vote for me or they are going to outlaw abortion!" or "Vote for me and I'll outlaw abortion!") when really there is very little chance of the laws substantially* changing because there's nowhere near the consensus needed to push the ball either direction at this point.

* I use substantially, because the sides both like to argue that little things like parental notification are huge changes that should scare us all out to the polling stations. "If they make teenagers tell their parents, that's the same thing as outlawing abortions!" No, it isn't.

Tell that in places like Mississippi, Kansas, and South Dakota, that only have one clinic. Or in the 87 percent of U.S. counties that don't have a clinic.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/no-choice-87-of-us-counti_n_210194.html