h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, so this is just my opinion, so please don't shout at me if you don't agree.

First off, nobody is ever really 'pro-abortion': no one goes around shouting that abortion is great, wonderful, we should all have one. The term used is 'pro-choice': abortion is a sometimes necessary evil, but ultimately the choice must rest with the woman involved. That is my opinion: no one has the right to tell anyone what he/she can or cannot do with their own body.

Everyone is aware that terminating a potential life is not a plesant prospect, but before anyone starts mouthing off about how 'wrong and evil' the whole thing is, please look at the other extreme. I don't want to have children, and the thought of being pregnant terrifies me. Have you see Alien? Okay, so pregnancy isn't exactly like that, but I can see similarities. The foetus is basically a parasite, living off the resources of the 'host' - the mother, that is. Now, for the many women for whom having a baby is a wonderful thing, they're not going to see it like this. But imagine if you are so utterly sure you DON'T want to have a child - can anyone honestly claim the right to tell a woman that she has to go through what will for her be the horror of pregnancy and childbirth? It's all very well carping on that she shouldn't have got into that state in the first place, but hey - let's be realistic here, mistakes DO happen.

Okay, so that's all a bit OTT in part, but I hope I've made my point. It's very easy for people to get on their high horse and moralise about a situation they have never been in, and - particularly in the case of men - may NEVER find themselves in. It really isn't your right to make sweeping judgements or decisions about what another person has to go through. Leave the choice and the morals to the woman who finds herself in that situation; after all, she is the person who has to live with the results, either way.

true. i think only women should be able to decide on this issue since if men did they WOULD be making a choice for another person. which is not to say that a woman shouldn't be able to consult her partner, but the ultimate decision should rest with her.

This particular man heartily agrees with both the previous postings in this thread. I too was wondering what prompted h2g2 to use that curious expression "pro-abortion", which is usually only used by those who are anti-choice.

It's really funny talking to pro-aborts like you three. It seems that anybody talking for the right to abortion has their I.Q. drop at least 40 pts. Before anybody gets hostile to my remark lets look at the basic arguments of Calypte and then I will easily tear into them like a hot knife through butter:
1."First off, nobody is ever really 'pro-abortion': no one goes around shouting that
abortion is great, wonderful, we should all have one. The term used is
'pro-choice' "

A: No the proper term is pro-abortion. Why are you people so afraid to advertise what you advocate? You say tha tyou don't want everyone to have an abortion but that the choice should be their. But home-school advocates don't
insist that all people pull their children out of public school. They just want the option available for themselves and others. They are pro-choice on school options. But they are not ashamed of what they stand for. They are pro-homeschooling.People who want to see drugs legalized don't want to make everyone take drugs. They just want them to be legally available to those who want them. They are pro-choice on drugs. But again, they are not ashamed of what they stand for. They are pro-drug legalization, and they will say it. Of all social movements, only abortion advocates are ashamed of what they stand for.

2.A: The second paragraph by Calypte is the exact reason I changed to pro-life. It just shows how evil abortion truly is. First, Why is aborting 'potential' human life an unpleasant prospect? Perhaps it's because the human life isn't potential at all but indeed a human being from conceprion. This has been confirmed since at least 1860 maybe earlier and science has not changed on this basic fact. Human life begins at conception. If human life does not begin at conception, when does it begin? If it isn't a baby what is it? To reduce the feotus (little one in latin) to potential human life or a parasite just shows how eugenic the pro-abortion argument is. All it takes to make killing human beings legitimate and legal is to dehumanize a group of people. It is not about the choice of the woman, rather it is a matter of whether or not the feotus is human. And if it is than that feotus is a person with the same right to life as you or me. Another point to be made is this: I won't disagree that a woman has a right to do what she wants with her own body. I do have a problem when she claims she has a right to do what she wants with somebody elses. A woman who is pregnant and "not ready" to have a baby has a severe problem on her hands. She already has a baby. If she was so utterly sure that she did not want to have a child she should not have had sex, because it is clear that she is unready and unwilling to deal with the natural consequences of sex. Accidents don't have to happen. It's called chastity and abstaining.(I know I'm going to get a lot of crap for that statement)

3. This argument is particularly annoying because I happen to be a man. No one seems to object to Ormondroyd's agreement and he's male. If the pro-abortion argument is consistent than he should be told to shut the hell up and stay out of it because "It's a woman's issue". But the anti-life argument is not consistent it's hypocritical. Abortion-supporting feminists have no qualms about men being involved in abortion. The overwhelming majority of abortionists in America are men. I've never heard the pro-abortion women complain. These men get rich off women's misery, and these
gals see nothing wrong with that. Alan Alda, Bill Clinton, and Ted Kennedy come to mind as other men pro-abortion feminists welcome into the abortion debate.

These women have never complained about the male "escorts" outside the local abortion clinics.
I've seen them grab women by the arm and propel them into the clinic. The pro-abortion women
find no fault with this behavior.

Most of the pro-lifers outside the abortion clinics are women. The pro-abortion women have no
problem with the male "escorts" mistreating these women. When the male "escorts" interpose
between a pro-life woman and a woman about to have an abortion, do pro-abortion women
mind? Not a bit. Here we have men interfering with women discussing abortion. This isn't wrong,
according to pro-abortion feminists.

Clearly, they have no problem with men being involved if they are impregnating the women,
abandoning them, coercing them, grabbing and shoving them, or getting rich off of them. Their
only complaint is with men who think women deserve better.

I think these pro-abortion women have a problem.

Dear h2g2 friends: if you were as disgusted and depressed by the aforegoing as I was, here's the good news. The misogynist moron responsible won't be back. Just click on his name and you'll see what I mean.
Isn't it amazing how, on those thankfully rare occasions when really vile pieces of bigoted crap appear on this site, they're always posted by pathetic hit-and-run sad cases who (thankfully) never write anything else?

I find nothing more frustrating than to find an irate anti-abortion fellow, despite his strong arguments, cannot state their argument without some unbecoming temper. Well Anthony was a spirited fellow, to say what he did, I will say that much on his behalf. However, I do not believe he followed the virtue of grace in the act of making a point.

Before I venture to make any further statement on the subject. I would first like to say that I apply myself primarily to truth. That is, what I believe has grounds of and in truth (what that is, I guess, only I determine). On this topic however, I'm still neutral, though other articles I've written may imply otherwise.

I try in all my articles to bring into focus the opposing view. So in essence, I suppose I'm a bit of a devil's advocate. Which I believe, gives a necessary balance to a discussion.

Now, I don't think all of Anthony's argument should be so quickly tossed to the dogs.
Though, the end of his article made little sense to me, No argument (at least by what I believe to be true), should be so quickly discarded.

Could anyone tackle his argument? I'm curious to see what all of you, Calypte, Ormondroyd, and anyone else who has happened to read Anthony's article, from what is now stated no one has yet attempted to challenge or refute his arguments.

If someone would do that, I believe we would have a most interesting discussion on our hands.

Hell, I knew I shouldn't have started this. I did say my little rant was purely my opinion, and I am completely open to Anthony having his opinion. But having just read his 'argument' - well! I have the urge to fight back as dirty as I got shoved at me ("um, well, my IQ, having dipped by 40 points, is probably still higher than yours, sunshine!") but I'm a grown-up, so I won't!!

Pro-abortion, pro-choice: I think there is a subtle difference. My argument was based purely on the fact that no one can demand of a woman the torture of a seriously unwanted pregnancy. What if she conceived after rape? It's a commonly used argument, but a good point. Why is Anthony so desperate to scream for the rights of the foetus - baby, group of cells, however you think of it - but is allowing the woman absolutely no rights at all over her own body? If a tapeworm happened to invade his body, how happy would he be if a group of animal rights activists refused him the right to NOT share his body with it's new guest? Note: I am NOT, and was not in my original posting, implying that the foetus is _nothing more_ than a parasite. However, the baby IS living off of the mother, and this is scientifically a parasite. Again, I'm exaggerating to try to make a point; obviously a new human life is much more important and precious than a 'real' parasite. But one cannot say the foetus (I'm a scientist, it's the term, live with it) has rights overwhelming any consideration of the mother. Pregnancy is a very traumatic experience for the body - planned or unplanned. It can also be very mentally traumatic experience. Currently, the law allows termination based on these factors, or if another child would be detrimental to the well-being of the mother's existing children. Who decides what is damaging for whom, if not the person so intimately involved?

Another phrase that was picked up on was 'potential human life'. Indeed, there is great debate about when the fertilised egg, dividing away on its quest to become enough cells to be a functioning person, becomes a 'life'. My own opinion aside, my argument was based around the fact that a foetus is NOT capable of life without the cooperation of the mother; artificial wombs have yet to be satisfactorily invented. Therefore, we're back to the issue of choice: can the woman be _forced_ to endure this invasion of her body?

Anthony's other (rather rambling - but I can hardly complain about that!!) point was about men having a say. I feel that a man being strongly pro-life (or even pro-abortion, for selfish reasons) is a little hollow. How much strength can be put behind an argument when there is no possibility that a man will ever have to go through the intimate reality of a pregnancy? I am not saying they should have no say when the issue DOES relate to them - if a man wants his child, but the mother does not - but I feel that is a slightly separate issue and not the one under discussion. But to answer Anthony's point in particular: let's say the issue was domestic abuse. Some men still think it's all right to 'give the wife a bit of slap'. I do not think men are entitled to such an opinion, but that does not mean men are not entitled to be *against* domestic abuse. Not entirely the same point applies to this discussion, but again, I did not mean to get into a serious battle-of-the-sexes debate.

Last of Anthony's points: chastity. Society no longer sees pregnancy as "the natural consequences of sex"; contraception has changed that, and the use of contraception itself implies that the woman is not ready for children. Accidents DO happen, how silly to say otherwise. Sex is a part of life, whether Anthony likes it or not. There are so many complex issues tied up in all this, such a sweeping statement as "if you don't want children, don't have sex" is far too oversimplified. Human nature will not be changed, and banning abortion will neither stop people having sex, nor stop women from ridding themselves of unwanted pregnancies - the past has shown this, and the results were often barbaric.

I feel I haven't tackled this as well as I could have done. I wanted to get my point across without personalising the issue so much, and haven't been altogether successful. Emotion-based rants are ten-a-penny, and only distract from the real issue. As I said, I feel everyone is entitled to her - or his, ultimately - own opinion, and I only wanted to argue against making decisions for another person. I do not know what decision I would make for myself if I ever found myself in that situation, but it is the right to a choice that I argue for. Those who want children are not affected by my stance; those who do not are very much affected by Anthony's. Does he really give himself that kind of power? People who argue to ban abortion are to me saying, "My opinion is better than that of anyone who will ever have to face the issue for real". By being pro-choice, I am hoping that every woman in that position will be allowed to think for herself, using her own moral base, and be allowed to live with her own decision.

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Forgive me for being so rash last time. You are right, emotions tend to get in the way of my arguments. But I do have answers to all of your arguments. My next entry will concern Calypte and Ormondroyd's latest entries.

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Well said! Although I don't have time to read all of your post...what I did read seemed well thought out and extrapolated. Can anyone reply negatively to this? I am interested in hearing the other side.

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broelan, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the brave and beautiful thing you've just written.

I've been unable to get on with my life for the past couple of days because I've been lying awake at night struggling to come up with a form of words that might make Anthony begin to realise how arrogant, pompous, ignorant and obscene his words appear to those of us who have to live in the real world.

Have you visited Anthony's h2g2 page? There's a nauseating little Journal Entry there headed "I think I won", smugly snickering about how he thinks he's won this argument. I've already posted a reply; perhaps you might like to add one.

I intend to write something longer in this thread when I can, but I'm finding it very hard because saying what I'd like to say involves resurrecting long-suppressed, extremely painful personal memories.
But for now, broelan: a big to you, my friend.

broelan, I apologise. Of course you've been to Anthony's page.

Morbidly fascinating, isn't it?

I'm actually quite young. But I also realize that there are people hurting out there. Broelan, you hint at an "experience that I can only assume involved an abortion. And while you say that you feel worse about personally insulting me than about your "experience", There are many women and men who are hurting because of abortion. But your statement brings up a good point. Many women get abortions not because they "have a right to choose" but because they feel they have NO choice at all.

But again I am going to have to say that abortion has not done anything it's supposed to do other than kill babies.

Radical abortion advocates continue to hammer away at the argument that ending abortion will cause all manner of social problems for our nation.

There is something wrong with this picture. Thirty years ago they were clamoring that legalizing abortion would solve all our social problems. But today, after more than 27 years of legal abortion, and over 40 million children killed, every single social problem we faced when we began this grizzly business is considerably worse. We have more teenage pregnancies, more hunger, more welfare, more divorces, more women and children living in poverty, more child abuse, more spousal abuse, more deadbeat dads, more gangs, more drugs, more sexually transmitted diseases, more high school drop-outs, more homelessness, and a generally more fractured and violent society.

So where's the payoff? The only answer from the abortion industry is that stopping abortion will make these problems worse. In short, they're asking us to ignore the fact that these problems got worse when abortion was made legal, and blindly accept that they'll get worse if abortion is made illegal.

It is utterly preposterous. Perhaps it's time we acknowledged that killing people is a bad way to solve social problems. It's morally indefensible, and it apparently doesn't work. Moreover, it's the ultimate act of selfishness. After all, no one ever volunteers to die to solve a social problem, they only insist that others do.

what is utterly preposterous is that abortion has caused all of the above mentioned social problems.

so what you would propose, then, is to end abortion. forcing those women with no other choice to the last choice - back alleys. resulting in the loss of not only the "fetus", but the mother's life as well.

wrong answer.

has it occurred to you that maybe unwanted pregnancy stems from poverty? not limited to it, but it is definitely a presence in poverty-ridden areas. poor children (teenagers) being forced to give birth to unwanted children that they cannot care for and will not raise promotes the spread of social degredation. it is a wide spread problem.

in the 50's and 60's, teenagers still got pregnant. they were sent away and shamed, instead of being given the opportunity to make something of their lives because of one mistake. back in that time people also said "thank you, ma'am", held doors, helped their neighbors, left their doors unlocked and their windows open at night. they were curteous, nice, and well mannered all around.

of these things, the only thing that remains is unwanted pregnancy. but now-a-days those teenagers still have the opportunity to make a difference in their lifetimes.

>>We have more teenage pregnancies, more hunger, more welfare, more divorces, more women and children living in poverty, more child abuse, more spousal abuse, more deadbeat dads, more gangs, more drugs, more sexually transmitted diseases, more high school drop-outs, more homelessness, and a generally more fractured and violent society.<<

these things occur because parents are not teaching their children how to become responsible adults. you can force someone to have a baby (you think), but you still cannot force them to be parents.

and you want to perpetuate this problem by forcing more unwanted children into an already overcrowded and uncaring world?

*wide-eyed*

my. I just read that entire discussion - having visited Anthony's space and wanting to get to know a little more about him.

I have a desperate urge to get involved, to say so many things, but it's hard - not having participated on the argument in the beginning - to know where to start.

It IS certainly an emotional topic. None of these posts, including the one you're reading now, have succeeded in looking at the subject objectively. It's really not plausible.

But I will say this first and foremost: It IS pro-choice. It is NOT pro-abortion. To continue with the type of example that's been used by some of you to try to describe this, how about a closer comparison.

There are those who believe that brain-surgery is wrong. There are also those who advocate it. There are some people need brain surgery in order to correct mental or physical problems. The people who believe it's wrong are certainly saying it's a bad thing, so they're anti-lobotomy. The people advocating brain surgery are not saying that lobotomy is a good thing. They are not pro-lobotomy. They are saying that for some people it is necessary, and as such it should be counted as a viable option. They are pro-option. Do you see the difference?

And too, pro-life and anti-choice are two different things. The fact that most people who belong to pro-life are also anti-abortion does not make them mutually inclusive. In answer to your question about what the difference is, Anthony... I'm speaking from an educated common sense, intuition and emotion here mind you...

I am pro-choice. Anti-abortion.

I don't believe abortion is a good thing. I do believe that the living foetus is human from conception. However, just because we have a charter of written human rights doesn't mean that what we define as human rights is true and all-encompassing. What I think is that society needs to just stop, and take a look at all the "issues" as they are interrelated, one by one, and fix what's going wrong. That's idealistic and unrealistic though.

Before I digress into society as a whole big-ass problem though, finish my thought. A person living with another organism in his/her body absolutely has the right to say what happens to that organism, human or not. A foetus is human, but that doesn't mean it should have equal rights before it exits the womb.

When I say I am anti-abortion, I mean that personally, abortion I DON"T THINK would be right for me, if it became an issue. But NOBODY has the right to make that choice for me. As for morals, well, morals and logic and law and emotion are four things entirely separate of themselves. When you try to argue them all as the same thing, well... look what happens. You get mish-mash like this and some of the above posts.

Of COURSE everyone is entitled to an opinion - and education or lack thereof doesn't make an opinion LESS VALUABLE, just possibly less believability. There are other factors for judgement of value and it's the person to whom the opinion is given, and the person that gave it, who assign it the value. It's an opinion not a fact. As long as there is support behind the opinion, any sort of real support, it has value.

The invective on everyone's part just confuses the argument.

I agree that people (like myself, like Anthony, and others) don't always have a stake in the argument as big as the pregnant women or those who've been through it. But we are human, and unlike the foetus, we have opinions, rights, emotions based on experience, education... Don't try to exclude us on the basis of lack of experience. It doesn't work that way. Demand that we get informed rather than boast rash and generalizing statements; demand that we have some compassion, empathy rather than just think selfishly. But don't try to tell us that we have to go through it before we can have an opinion! That's ridiculous. Understandable, but ridiculous in what we call a society. Everyone is different; the experience will never be duplicated.


Lady K
~8~

my apologies, it was never my intention to imply that pro-lifers are not entitled to their own opinion. everyone is entitled to their own opinion. however i did mean to imply that without having had a relevant experience, it is wrong to impose that opinion on everybody. as it is impossible for anthony to ever personally have an abortion (insofar as i am assuming he is male), i do not find him qualified to say that it should be illegal for women in that position to have a choice.

and yes, i was rather emotional at the time. it is an emotional subject, and i will always be passionate regarding the things i feel strongly about.

i suppose this is the argument i'm seeing:

i am pro-choice. that doesn't mean that i will get an abortion if i find myself in an unplanned pregnancy. that means that i support the right of other women to make that choice when faced with that situation. i don't feel everyone should have an abortion. but whether or not someone gets an abortion should be up to them, and not me.

in general i see pro-lifers, like anthony, as being exactly that: pro life, anti-chioce. for whatever their own personal reasons, many of them religious, they feel that aborting a fetus is wrong at any cost. it is wrong for them, it is wrong for you, it is wrong for me. and they think legislation should be passed that says no matter what happens, i cannot get an abortion if i want to. even if i am not in the least way religious, and having an abortion is just a medical procedure to me, no more than having a cancerous cyst removed; because they are religious abortion is wrong for me. why can't they just say that they would never even consider having an abortion, but it's not really their place to say what i should be able to do.

like you, lady k, you are pro-choice but anti-abortion. but for the most part, a majority of pro-lifers that get into these types of discussions are anti-choice.

let me clarify briefly....

like i said, i did not mean to imply that people like anthony are not entitled to an opinion. but it is my feeling that if it were possible for him to "walk a mile...." so to speak, he may find himself having a very different opinion. he may not change his personal feelings, but he might see the need for options.

Of course... broelan, my response was certainly not directed at you alone, as I hope was clear. I appreciate your position, and share most of your views. The problem, I suppose, other than the whole idea of general human selfishness that seems to pervade society, is the moral aspect of the law.

North American law is largely based on the much-cited Western philosophy - and thus inextricably linked to religion as well as pure logic. Therefore, if you see a foetus as fully human, a problem arises when you imagine somebody legally terminating it. This is not how I see things, personally; call me a sociopath if you will. But I'm trying to suggest that perhaps it's not simple selfishness or even religious fanaticism that causes some to be anti-choice. If you were Christian and you saw somebody getting away with, for instance, shooting their brother, it wouldn't matter who you were dealing with, what the reasons, what country you were in, what laws/religion you were under, you would feel that this was wrong, and what's more, you would try to make other people see it was wrong.

Once again, if I didn't make it clear enough, I AM NOT TAKING SIDES. The above SUGGESTION does not represent my views. But I am known for being a neutral party, trying to explain and extrapolate and reason rather than state my own personal views. Sometimes I fail. Forgive me if this is one of those times...

~8~