<p>Obvioulsy 99% of the ppl are going to go against it but you want to impress the person sitting across from you...how will you do that?</p>
<p>Is this for a college interview or something similar?</p>
<p>Well, why don't you start with what you actually think rather than what you think people want to hear? People can often sense if you are just saying what you think they want to hear. </p>
<p>And a safe-ish answer ('cause this is tough topic is): </p>
<p>"I am against abortion personally, but for each woman's right to choose for herself. There are a host of statistics that show that families, children, and society is better off when the children we bring into the world are truly wanted and when the people who bring them into the world have the wherewithal to raise them well." </p>
<p>Or:</p>
<p>"I am against abortion full-stop. I believe abortion is taking the life of an unborn child. I believe under any circumstance -- even after rape, incest, or child molestation -- it should not be allowed. Again, it is murder."</p>
<p>Now, if you make the second statement, which is what so-called pro-lifers essentially believe, you are making a pretty radical statement. Since you seem to only want to say what you think the other person will want to hear, you're probably safer with the first statement -- unless you are talking to someone at a bible college or something.</p>
<p>yeah i like the first one better..and this is for a bs/md program interview..first round.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Obvioulsy 99% of the ppl are going to go against it
[/quote]
<p>
[quote]
why don't you start with what you actually think rather than what you think people want to hear?
[/quote]
Amen.</p>
<p>wow it seems to be 50/50..but i am against it because it goes against my religion but that is a very short answer so i'll probably go with ''but it's up to the family or the individual because in the end they have to deal with the baby and if it's unwanted then the baby wont be given the proper care blah blah''</p>
<p>I think that it would be safest to state that it is a really controversial topic and go in this direction for your discussion. I would try to stay away from discussion of personal views if at all possible. I would also state if pressed that at 18 yrs of age my opinions and beliefs were still being formed by my experiences and were not yet set in stone.</p>
<p>The best answer is:</p>
<p>"I believe in mandatory abortions... for everyone. Prenatal care should be replaced by abortional care. This would solve a great deal of society's problems."</p>
<p>Please try it and thank me for your success.</p>
<p>^nice. So now im overly prepared if they do ask me this question.</p>
<p>I'm pro-abortion. But, as with anything, it's bad to appear extreme. So, if you're pro-abortion (which you're not), you would select a stage of development beyond which you don't think abortion should be proformed. </p>
<p>I haven't been asked any questions of the sort. The trend for med school interviews is to shy away from these controversial topics and focus more on the candidate. Although at my premed committee interview, my interviewer literally went down the list of controversial topics (abortion, euthanasia, stem cell, universeral healthcare, etc.) and asked for my opinion on each one.</p>
<p>Bedhead:
So, since America has the most liberal abortion law in the world a "host of statistics" must show that child abuse has dropped dramatically in the past three decades, given that abortion is so easy to obtain--even for a 14-year-old without parental permission? </p>
<p>Original poster:</p>
<p>You will best impress your interviewer with a balanced answer, i.e., "it's a legal practice in this country but given recent stunning advances in prenatal surgery and ultrasound technology, I find it intellectually dishonest to deny the presence of a human life (if you do).</p>
<p>If you are a student preparing for a college interview, I'd advised thinking about this issue before you matriculate. In my personal experience (I graduated from Barnard in the 80s), abortion was widespread among college woman. A good friend of mine had four before she graduated. I now belong to a group called "Feminists for Life," which seeks better answers for women and children. Good luck in your interview.</p>
<p>andjoe8: Ah, so you believe that abortion is always wrong, even in the case of rape, incest, or incestual child rape. That is the only honest so-called "pro-life" position. Don't change the subject into 14 year olds and parental consent. That is a side issue.</p>
<p>And you are really stating the above position when you call for a so-called balanced answer:</p>
<p>
[quote]
You will best impress your interviewer with a balanced answer, i.e., "it's a legal practice in this country but given recent stunning advances in prenatal surgery and ultrasound technology, I find it intellectually dishonest to deny the presence of a human life (if you do).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There's really nothing balanced about this answer. A woman who is gang-raped must, by this logic, give birth to the putative life within her. That's actually a radical concept. Not very balanced at all.</p>
<p>Dude, don't lie. It's one thing to be sympathetic to the difficulties faced by your side of the argument. It's another thing entirely to be a hypocrite about it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm pro-abortion
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Are you pro-abortion or pro-choice? </p>
<p>Myself, I am pro-life (meaning I think it's good that a person who can gives birth to a child in the right circumstances), fundamentally pro-choice person (meaning that I think above all it should be up to the woman to decide what to do.)</p>
<p>BH, it is most accurate to say that you are pro-abortion-choice and do not identify with the position which usually refers to itself as "pro-life."</p>
<p>Second, your response to post #10 confuses "balanced" (acknowledging the other side of the debate) with "moderate."</p>
<p>Sorry, I meant pro-choice or whatever the euphemism is.</p>
<p>I also don't like where this thread is heading...lol</p>
<p>"pro-abortion-choice"? Give me a break. No, it's not accurate to say that people who are pro-choice are not pro-life. I know what the current political taxonomy perpetrated by the anti-good-life and the anti-choice people state, and I reject it. For me, this is accuracy.</p>
<p>There's nothing that can be perceived as balanced as you define it in the poster's "pro-life" position. Either one believes life begins at conception or one doesn't and if one calls oneself "pro-life" at the point that which life exists (according to them), the woman must, morally speaking, give birth to the child no matter the progeny, no matter the suffering. That's my point: it's neither a balanced or a moderate position, IMO.</p>
<p>If one has grave doubts that "life" begins at conception, one can, logically speaking, abort (i.e., terminate) the child as he or she or "it" emerges from the womb. No matter the suffering.</p>
<p>First, notice that I didn't call you "not pro-life." I said very specifically that you do not identify with the position which usually refers to itself as "pro-life." So far as I know, that's a correct statement which does not merit your defensiveness.</p>
<hr>
<p>If you want to get ivory-tower and irrelevant, I can certainly meet you there. Language is defined contextually -- that is, given syllables are meaningless outside a shared conception of what those syllables are meant to represent. As such, language is not individually symbolic but socially symbolic. Terms, too, sometimes take on counter-intuitive or time-evolving meanings. Ice cream is not actually supposed to have ice in it; modern Good Samaritans are not usually from Samaria, etc.</p>
<p>You can reject the "current political taxonomy" all you want, but it remains the most valid communication tool and any "rejections" of it which serve as linguistically-buried positional attacks serve to confuse rather than clarify and attack rather than synthesize.</p>
<p>Of course "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are silly terms that serve more as propaganda tools than legitimate discourse. That doesn't mean that you can go around rejecting their meanings any more than you can go around rejecting the meaning of "caramel apple." (Which is not an apple made of caramel.) The terms have a socially-constructed meaning and clear communication requires that you stay within them.</p>
<hr>
<p>But if you want "accurate" terms, then let's break down the terminology.</p>
<p>"Pro-life" (anti-abortion-choice) is not a good term because it takes for granted that a fetus is a (implied human) life. It thus attempts to subvert the debate by incorporating its argument into its terminology, which is shady and deserves to be questioned. "Anti-life" (a term which is never used) would be similarly ludicrous.</p>
<p>"Pro-choice" (pro-abortion-choice) is not a good term because it's ridiculously generic. It completely removes the relevant discussion from the terminology. It makes an abortion "choice" rhetorically equivalent to the "choice" between peanut butter and jelly. Removing "abortion" from the terminology entirely is an attempt to distract from the issue at hand. "Anti-choice" is a similar sleight-of-rhetorical-hand.</p>
<p>Pro-abortion is a confusing term because it implies that one actively advocates for abortion, which in our current social norms is a rare position.</p>
<hr>
<p>Finally, you persist in mistaking "balanced" with "moderate." You argue that because AJ's position is intellectually "extreme," it cannot be "balanced." Balance simply means understanding and acknowledging that both sides of the debate have a fair point. Which AJ does very clearly.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If one has grave doubts that "life" begins at conception, one can, logically speaking, abort (i.e., terminate) the child as he or she or "it" emerges from the womb. No matter the suffering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not a developmental biology major but last I recall, there is a 9 month period b/w fertilization and birth. Just because you don't think life begins at fertilization, it doesn't mean you think life starts at birth.</p>
<p>Say what you mean. I think it's quite intrusive to ask that since it is such a personal question. But regardless of the interviewer, say what you think is true. They will respect you for stating the truth. But definitely give some background to it so they understand why you feel that way.</p>