Does the Constitution protect the right to abortion?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
141

<p>my SOLE reservation with abortion has nothing to do with a fetus and everything to do with those who are unquestionably alive. i think that widespread use of abortion risks a rise of eugenical mindsets that could excerbate the existing strains in our society as a result of prejudice. let me illustrate.</p>

<p>lets take a random, probably imaginary, culture for example. say that this culture favors individuals over 6 feet tall, who have curly hair, and brown eyes. in this situation, especially given the technological trends in the biomedical industry that allow parents to know more and more about their children before birth, there will almost certainly be a rise in abortions of children who don't fit the correct profile. this will ultimately result in more and more people being of that perfect stereotype.</p>

<p>the danger here is that what used to be an ideal now becomes the norm. i'm not really concerned with the innumerable cell clusters who get aborted early on in development, but rather those people who are alive. in my scenario, as the ideal social set of tall, curly haired, brown eyed people becomes commonplace, anyone outside of this norm will be marginalized. now i know that my scenario is pretty ridiculous and almost humorous, but think about it in context of american society. anyone who balds before a certain age will be an outcast. anyone vulnerable to a certain disease will be looked down upon. the problem is that this trend of pre-birth eugenics will result in new and far more insidious forms of racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice. just think - a form of prejudice that is so hateful that unless someone fits all the characteristics looked upon by society as ideal, they will be marginalized.</p>

<p>here's an example. i know that in my culture and in some asian cultures, male children are preferred over female children. think if parents had the option to abort a child if it was a female. what kinds of implications would this have for sexism in society?</p>

<p>this will ultimately breed a new and far more destructive form of racism - a racism not contingent on ethnicity, but genetics. the ultimate consequence is that this could split society into two communities: that of people possessing perfect characteristics, and that of the "flawed." and, as history has shown time and again, as soon as a society fractures along "us" and "them" lines, the worst atrocities are not only possible, but perhaps inevitable. </p>

<p>the internment of the japanese during WWII, the extermination of the native americans, the enslavement of black people, the genocide in darfur, the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia-Hertzogovena, and the holocaust are but a few examples of this.</p>

<p>so do i think this should be a reason we shouldn't allow abortion? no. but i think that there has to be a very firm safeguard (though i'm not sure what) that needs to be in place to keep social prejudices that exist in the status quo from spilling over into the very biological makeup of the next generation, who, presumably, would otherwise be the one to improve on our shortcomings as human beings.</p>

142

<p>no thoughts? ah well, it was an interesting discussion while it lasted.</p>

143

<p>Abortions are wrong in EVERY instance, they are evil and the murder of a baby that could not protect itself. Women who would rather have abortions than just give the baby up for adoption are evil fem-nazi murders. Or lesbians. And i'm tired of people saying that abortions are ok when rape or incest happens. It's not the baby's fault that you had to go out and get raped or incested. Be less of a ho and it won't happen.</p>

<p>Oh, and halfbaked is a stupid pathetic atheist communist drug addicted godless satanist who makes no sense and is a total idiot. only an idiot would think that abortions are about women's rights and not baby murders. maybe he should have been abortioned.</p>

144

<p>excuse me?</p>

145

<p>i have to agree completely with half<em>baked and disagree with college</em>bound06. college_bound06 makes it sound like a woman went out with the intent of getting raped. women are not raped because of the way the dress. women are raped based on how easy they are to rape. a man will rape a woman who he knows he can overpower, regardless of how much of a "ho" she dresses like. and on the topic of incest, do you really think its a woman's fault if a family member forces her to have sex with him?</p>

<p>i don't want an 80 year old man deciding what i should do with my body, unless, of course, he has carried around a baby in his uterus for 9 months and then gone through the pain that is equivalent to shoving a bowling ball out of his urethra. if a women wants an abortion bad enough; she will do whatever it takes. women will still get abortions if it is outlawed.</p>

146

<p>I just laughed out loud at post #143</p>

147

<p>"Abortions are wrong in EVERY instance, they are evil and the murder of a baby that could not protect itself."</p>

<p>Does a fetus have the same rights as humans? (A fetus before viability)</p>

<p>"Women who would rather have abortions than just give the baby up for adoption are evil fem-nazi murders. Or lesbians."</p>

<p>GJ @ demagoguery</p>

<p>"And i'm tired of people saying that abortions are ok when rape or incest happens. It's not the baby's fault that you had to go out and get raped or incested. Be less of a ho and it won't happen."</p>

<p>I think you need to go back to 4th grade, you can't or refuse to comprehend the definition of rape - The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse. Same goes for incest. Youre just dehumanizing rape and incest victims.</p>

<p>"Oh, and halfbaked is a stupid pathetic atheist communist drug addicted godless satanist who makes no sense and is a total idiot."</p>

<p>More demagoguery.</p>

<p>"only an idiot would think that abortions are about women's rights and not baby murders. maybe he should have been abortioned."</p>

<p>More demagoguery.</p>

148

<p>"Women who would rather have abortions than just give the baby up for adoption are evil fem-nazi murders. Or lesbians."</p>

<p>I'm straight, and I'm pro-choice. If being pro-choice makes me a lesbian (and I'm kind of wondering how you made the connection between women who get abortions and lesbians) then I call Portia de Rossi. For all other pro-choice women out there. HANDS OFF!!! (note the sarcasm, please)</p>

149

<p>Lol, well, this is one of the problems that comes up whenever abortion as a topic is brought up. The left oftentimes resorts to very territorial arguments (Its my body!) and the right resorts to accusations against the left (Baby murderer!).</p>

<p>Personally I think posts like the one by collegebound06 really serve to promote the reactionary nature of both the right and the left and inflame the partisan passions over the abortion issue instead of actually having intelligent discussions where we seek a middle ground on the issue.</p>

<p>Here's my stance: we allow abortion to stay legal but we encourage people to consider other options as well. Women would have the right to an abortion, but as a society we would encourage them to consider other options first. This would both preserve a keystone of women's rights (refer to some of my previous posts, i only have a few on this thread) while also avoiding the pre-birth eugenics that may occur if abortion becomes very commonplace.</p>

<p>I would love to hear from conservatives on this issue who have well thought out criticisms of my plan and/or counterproposals, and I would relish a good debate about this. Name calling and mudslinging, however, doesn't get either side anywhere.</p>

150

<p>Abortion = Unreasonable search and seizure.</p>

151

<p>I believe abortions should be allowed in cases of rape and incest...and for all other situations make them legal before viability, but after viability...nono (unless its rape or incest).</p>

152

<p>Abortion should only be permitted in cases of rape, incest, or in which the mother's life is endangered. Limiting abortion this way would also lower the rampant spread of STD's, as people would be more hesistant of having unprotected sex due to the fear of pregnancy.</p>

153

<p>
[quote]
as people would be more hesistant of having unprotected sex due to the fear of pregnancy.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That just isn't true. People will always have sex and unprotected sex can lead to pregnancy as well. No contraception is 100% effective (and please don't start on the abstinance bit, as for many people that is not an option) Saying restricting abortion will stop STDs or stop people having sex is ridiculous. It just doesn't work like that.</p>

154

<p>I believe you'll find the following excerpts from some of my previous posts relavant:</p>

<p>"that might seem a bit tangential, but here's where it ties in - the ultimate control of patriarchial power structures in society is embodied in both the power to create and destroy life. if we look, the masculine gender entity has clear control over the power to TAKE life, in the form of the military-industrial complex (read: the military restricts the role of women, bans homosexuals, and most of the high level positions in corporate america are taken, statistically speaking, by men). the obvious counterpart to the power to take life is the power to make it - ultimately, society gives nearly limitless power to men to apply contraceptive measures, the most pervasive of which being condoms. of course, these contraceptive measures find their counterparts in methods women also have to prevent the creation of life, such as female condoms and the pill, but ultimately, in a scenario where all else fails, the masculine entity still has the power to walk away in a manner in which the woman, who is responsible for childbirth, does not.</p>

<p>which is why i believe that abortion is more fairy characterized as a women's rights issue than as a "life" issue. is a fetus a living being? for the purposes of this discussion, i have no clue. whose rights are more important, those of an ethically ambiguous "life" (or perhaps non-life, depending on where you stand) or the mother? once again, i really don't know. but here's a clear cut answer i do know - does society's insistence that women are forced to bear a greater cost for a mistake made mutually by a man and a woman further reentrench gender and sexual domination in society on a very basic and fundamental level? yes."</p>

<p>And,</p>

<p>"in addition, remember that the fact that man wants the baby, in my view, is exactly what makes this a woman's rights issue. refer to my second long paragraph above - the power of men in sociey to create and destroy life is what perpetuates the dominance of men and inequality in society. think of this as a scale; no one really knows if a baby is a life or not (scientifically speaking, you can justify both), so you don't really know how much morality to weigh there. however, you know for a fact that letting a man decide what a woman does with her body (whether its an abortion or not) perpetuates a very fundamental form of domination. let me put it this way - if a woman wanted to have a child but the father wanted her to have an abortion, wouldn't you agree that it should be the mother's choice?"</p>

<p>Further,</p>

<p>"first, refer to my paragraph directly above - on a scale, as an objective decision maker, this should be a woman's rights issue. on one hand you have a probablistic scenario to judge on (is a first-trimester fetus a life, and if so, to what extent), whereas on the other hand you have a very definite and tangible consequence. second, weigh consequences here - remember, in a world in which my proposition is implemented, every woman would have the ABILITY to get an abortion, but very few would. this means that there would only be relatively few abortions per year, but woman would effectively gain a voice in gender politics in a way in which they never have before.</p>

<p>third, as far as the woman bearing responsibility because it was her choice to have sex, i answered this too. remember that men have always had the power to avoid an unwanted baby - they can just walk away. abortion is the factor that equalizes the scales in terms of sexual and social power. if an unwanted pregnancy is a mutal responsibility, there should be ways for both of the people to just not deal with it if they don't want to. not doing so results in the subjugation of women."</p>

<p>To concur with scarletleavy,</p>

<p>"let me pose the question to you this way - do you think abortions would happen in a society in which women weren't ostracized for having children out of wedlock? the answer is probably, but not nearly as much as it happens today. so i think that your arguments about blaming social conditions for situations like abortion is fundamentally flawed (both in the instance of gender and in the instance of race, but that's another discussion). i think that its gender inequality that makes abortion as prevalent as it is today. the reason why men are far less pro-abortion than women is because, in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, they dont' suffer nearly as many social consequences as women do.</p>

<p>sex in society is an inevitable issue. the purpose of policymakers in society (and us, as the new generation of activists and politicians) is not to oppose ideas on principle but to look for effective, pragmatic solutions. there is no point crying over the spilled milk that is premartial sex; we need to look for an effective solution to the systemic problem of unwanted pregnancy."</p>

<p>And finally, to truly embrace the spirit of compromise and pragmatism that I'm advocating, my alternative:</p>

<p>"remember, i'm nto saying anything about abortion as an ethical or unethical choice. but from a pragmatic perspective, i strongly believe that leaving the DISCRETION to get an abortion in the hands of the woman is a fundamental step toward breaking down the dominant power structures perpetuating inequality in society today. for those people who believe that women's rights are important but also believe that abortions are unethical, i think a much better strategy is to pursue education campaigns and awareness-raising drives to convince people to make what you believe is the right choice, not to ban abortion altogether."</p>

<p>And finally,</p>

<p>"Here's my stance: we allow abortion to stay legal but we encourage people to consider other options as well. Women would have the right to an abortion, but as a society we would encourage them to consider other options first. This would both preserve a keystone of women's rights (refer to some of my previous posts, i only have a few on this thread) while also avoiding the pre-birth eugenics that may occur if abortion becomes very commonplace."</p>

155

<p>yes because we have the right to be happy and a person will not be happy if they have to carry around a 10 pound being in their stomach for almost a year if they dont want it!</p>

156

<p>Just so we stick to the facts, we do not actually have a right to be happy - just trying to keep this discussion from becoming, shall we say, featherbrained.</p>

157

<p>
[quote]
ultimately, in a scenario where all else fails, the masculine entity still has the power to walk away in a manner in which the woman, who is responsible for childbirth, does not.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's all very "Hills Like White Elephants"...</p>

158

<p>sort of late coming into this (i only read the first page, so don't flame me for not wanting to read 11 pages...), anyway...</p>

<p>the constitution protects the right to life. Why doesn't that baby get a chance to live? Because you don't "want" it? I don't think that's a good enough argument.</p>

159

<p>"Why doesn't that baby get a chance to live?"</p>

<p>Why don't all the sperm and eggs in the world have a chance to create babies? What's the difference? Say you use a condom, or you don't and then have an abortion. The outcome is ultimately the same, and no one's hurt. They fetus doesn't feel pain and doesn't know what's happened because it isn't ALIVE yet. It's just a skeleton basically.</p>

<p>Just because a sperm and egg happened to meet doesn't mean the fetus is a person yet. Think of all the sperm and eggs that are NEVER USED. Just because two happen to unite and start the process doesn't mean it has to be finished.</p>

160

<p>"A fetus is just a skeleton." That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. </p>

<p>I vistited a traveling exhibit called Body Works and it has a one display where little fetus' are in jars at different stages. After only 3 weeks the fetus looked like a miniature baby that you get in a toy set. it had visible fingers, facial features, and toes. They alow you three months to get an abortions, unless it is a life/death situation. </p>

<p>I always for the right to choose, but that exhibit changed my pespective forever.</p>