BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Pro-Choice What does "pro-choice" mean to you?

Then I would have to disagree that all human life is sacred. Highly valued and important, yes - that I can agree with. But I can't agree with the unassailable and inviolable part.

Take self defense. My attacker does not have the right to be unassailable and inviolable. Also I do not believe those that kill others for their perverse pleasure have the right to consider their lives unassailable or inviolable. Who, besides the murderer, considers him or her or highly valued and important? Would you consider....oh, say Charles Manson to be sacred?



Nope, I disagree. Why should the tax payers be expected to support these people? And what better way is there to protect society from these people than giving them the death penalty?



Serial killers and mass murderers also sneak around and come unannounced. The only difference is the motive.



I am truly sorry for your loss of your father and grandfather to cancer. It is a horrible disease. I, too, know the effects of it due to losing my mother to cancer and being her sole caretaker during her last months. I do beg to disagree about the effectiveness of the pain control meds though as they do not work for everyone in all circumstances. During the last 3 days of her life my mother was in serious pain, the drugs did nothing to alleviate her suffering and she was begging to die. Know what it's like to hear your mother beg to die for 3 straight days? I hope you don't and hope you are never in a position to find out.
Would I have "pulled the plug" if I could have? Certainly, and with no regrets. By contrast, my mother-in-law had a very peaceful and planned passing at her request being as she had the great good fortune to be a Dutch citizen and therefore had the right to request and receive euthanasia. As for myself, I feel lucky to live in the one US State that is enlightened enough to have legalized euthanasia.



My religion teaches that the soul enters the body with the first breath and departs with the last breath.



It is only potential life until it breathes. Human beings and animals, for that matter, MUST breathe to live. Leave the issue of souls out of it. If it isn't breathing, then it is not alive.
Note: I am not saying that everything that can be done to get it breathing should not be done - all possible measures should be taken to get it breathing. (I use "it" here because, to my way of thinking, this applies all species requiring oxygen to survive.)

No, I would never tell a woman who lost a baby prior to or at birth that her baby should not be valued. It is a tragedy when a woman who wants and expects a child loses it. However it is equally tragic who a woman who does not want a child is forced to bear one.






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I'm coming back around to your original post, DP. It is my understanding that the term "pro-choice" is in response to "pro-life." "Pro-life" is the unwavering belief of a sect of Americans that the life of the unborn human fetus is sacred, and therefore terminating the pregnancy is murder. What's interesting to me is that life is only viewed as sacred before birth. After a child is born they may be subject to any number of abuses in a home or facility where they are not wanted or loved. But as long as they get to be born, all is sanctioned.

"Pro-choice" is the answer to "pro-life" from the standpoint of the woman who feels she has the right to choose whether an abortion is appropriate for her situation or not. Either way, it is her choice and no one else's. Choosing one's own belief system is the root of a democratic nation.

Shay

I'm glad I posted on this forum. Thanks to all who replied and provided your "POV"s.

So this is what I have gathered from all of you:

Pro-choice (in regards to abortion)means that a woman has more rights than an unborn child, and his/her father. For some,this is justified by the belief that the child is not really a human being yet, or that he/she does not have a soul yet. For others killing another human being is merciful to the one being killed and to society. Killing is a justified option as a solution to society's self-made problems.

I can't say I understand or respect that point of view. In fact it scares me to think that there are so many people out there, effecting our laws, that value human life so little.

I do, however, respect you all as people with a right to their own point of view. As you have probably figured, I believe all of us, all human beings; old, dying, unborn,even evil-doers were created as sacred. It is,however, the choices we make that define who we are. And as a "pro-lifer" I don't believe that human beings should have the right to determine the value/worth of another human being's life. Thanks for the time it took to share your thoughts. And thank you for tolerating mine.

~live with love ...

Wow what a subject. I am very Pro-Choice and honestly in my little opinion it really isn't anyones business if a woman decides to have an abortion. We all have to make personal decisions about our lives and again it is a personal decision. I want every woman I know to be able to have a choice, no matter what she decides and it isn't up to me to judge anyone for that decision. I know we all look at things very differently and please do not think I am being a smart butt, my question is this: If you believe life begins at conception then why is there no death certificate given or required when a woman mis-carries at a certain point ? Also if you believe for religious reasons that life begins at conception, then why is there not a funeral no matter when a miscarriage happens ? Again I am not trying to be a pain, but to me this is a serious question that I would like an answer to if possible. I was also surprised to find out that a woman of childbearing age can miscarry quite a few times without even knowing it before actually carrying a child to full term, what do you think should happen to those fetus's ? Should there be a death certificate and a funeral ? Please accept my apologies if I offend anyone and I am not trying to be morbid but hopefully this will give a little food for thought here.

Hi CrochetQueen,
Excellent point, here! As a person who is on the Pro-choice side of things, I feel it is not my entitlement to determine what other's should or should not do with the lives that belong to them. When stringent opinions are heartily displayed it would be lovely to see these opinions reach full spectrum commitment. Your question is one of the best I've seen asked.

I have one as well. In many cultures it is practiced that if you save a life, you have committed yourself to retain responsibility for that life. If a person strongly feels that their opinion should save an embryo's life, should they not also carry through with caring for the child throughout it's lifetime? Most aborted embryo's would have faced a loveless, heartbreaking life had they been born. If a person feels they have saved the baby from not being born, would it not be appropriate to adopt the child? Would it not be appropriate to see that the child they had saved lived a lovely life? On the flip side, if such a person saved the child's life and it faced a horrific life of neglect and abuse would the pride in saving it be so beaming? Or are hands and conscience washed clean on it's day of birth? What if hundreds of such babies were born due to the opinion of a single person? Like CrochetQueen I do not wish to offend, but to simply inquire about the wholeness of a person's strong opinion regarding the choices of women who's breath they've never breathed, shoes they've never walked in, and whose eyes they've never looked through.

Shay

I thought this was an excellent post, especially since I've seen this "wearing down of the rights of women" by "king George". I saw a show about fistulas. A fistula is basically a hole in your body caused by giving birth, where it rips a chunk out of you due to a difficult birth. In Africa, a doctor has made it her mission to help these young girls who, because of their extremely young age and poverty, wind up in labor for DAYS, only to deliver a corpse. The reason that it can be delivered after it's dead? The body shrinks just enough so the girl can finally push it out, but her body is already damaged. Because of this tearing, bladder and colon control are (to varying degrees) lost, and the girls are usually cast out of their village. So, this doctor has set up a clinic to repair the fistulas, tend the girls for the rest of their lives if they can't be repaired, and to give sex education. George Bush cut funding to it. Why? Because they SOMETIMES performed abortions, on these girls who couldn't safely give birth in the first place. Because of his religious ideals, he's dooming girls who are ALREADY HERE to agony, exile, and most likely death.

I'm glad, Curtis'Mom, that you at least make the distinction of allowing abortion in case of danger to the mother, but so many other pro-lifers don't want to give in even that amount, no matter how insane that is.

Thanks Greydrakkon. And you've added an important point too - I'm sure most people would wish that every young girl in the world had the right to decline being married off at 12, or even 9 in some cases simply because she's begun menstruating, to someone twice or three times her age and being impregnated right away. Those girls have no choice but to try and carry a child in a body that is still that of a child. As Greydrakkon mentioned, a child's body is not ready and capable of the physical stability and strength required to give birth and her body really does rupture.

In this case, it is not the "woman who has more rights than the unborn child" as Curtis'mom put it, but the man whose right to have sex overrides his "wife's" right to a healthy life. So, where do you draw the line? I know what the Pro-lifers will say to that, but my answer is "by ensuring that all women, everywhere, have more choices, not fewer".

Excellent point, and I've thought about this before.

Bear with me here, this is a bit piscean (ie, swimming in both directions at once):

For a woman who has been trying to get pregnant and sustain a pregnancy to full term, a foetus that is only a few weeks old is probably as much a living, precious child to her as a toddler is to another mother. If that child died in the womb, that mother would mourn as much as any other mother, and she likely would do something to honour the tiny amount of life that the child had. If you asked her if she wanted a death certificate and a funeral service, she probably would - for closure.

For a mother who has gone through pregnancy and given birth and loves her precious child - yes, it hard to imagine any other woman's foetus as being considered "not alive yet".

BUT. For a woman for whom giving birth would be a nightmare (there are so many reasons, but for the sake of this point let's just say "nightmare" means this pregnancy is just not going to be an option whatsoever for genuinely important reasons), the foetus inside her is probably not considered by her to be a viable life.

It's a matter of perception, and the perception belongs to the person who has to make the decision. I know this is why it is hard for parents, or for people who want children, to accept because it seems that this person's choice negates your feeling that your own precious child (or foetus) is precious and worthy of life. But that's not true - no one's threatening your child (where you've made the conscious decision to have a child).

Yes, that does mean that men who have impregnated a woman and want their child to live, have to negotiate this point if the woman is considering not having or keeping the baby.

Just some thoughts.

Hi Elle :),

Yes those are very good points and also some food for thought. I think that each person has a right to do what they feel comfortable with. I also want to point out that a woman that chooses to have an abortion does feel badly about it, I think it is traumatic and really sometimes the lesser of two evils so to speak but again this is the reason for Pro-Choice, we get a choice which is better than not having a choice at all. Even though I am well past child bearing age, I do have a Grand Daughter and I will certainly do whatever it takes to ensure SHE has the right to choose for herself, not someone who 99% of the time either is past child bearing age or can not even have a baby themselves. I know everyone has an opinion but unless you have been in the shoes etc. etc.

Of course, and I didn't want to make light of the feelings of sadness, etc, of a woman needing to have an abortion. I wanted to draw a comparison on more intuitive reasons why some women might have a need to believe that life starts at conception and others have a need to believe that it starts at birth only. And that in the case of individual perception, both women are right.