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Pro-life:
- They place the fetus above all other living humans.
Why should a fetus be able to use a person's body without the consent of the person? A dying man cannot force you to give him your kidney, your liver, your heart. Why should a fetus be able to force a woman to let them use her uterus?

- It is based on putting one group of person's morals above the rest of the country.
I'm basing this off of the US, UK, and Canada, where one person's morals are not supposed to be more important than anyone else's. Though, when anti-choicers say "this is murder!" that is a moral belief that they hold, that the fetus should not be allowed to be killed. If I were to believe that animals should not be killed and that their lives are just as important as our's, then that would be my moral belief. What would make one any better than the other, any more important? Nothing. Most morals are subjective, and the laws should not be based off of subjective morals, and this is clearly one that differs greatly between people. By allowing the law to go by pro-choice standards, you allow those against abortion to keep their moral code because they do not have to have an abortion. Those, to those whom find nothing wrong with abortion, if they ever need one, then they can have one. It goes back to this: if you do not like abortion, then do not have one, though do not infringe on the rights of another human being.

Other flaws in the argument:
- The amount of children you have and when you have children directly affects your income, lifestyle, diet, and so forth. All of this affects your happiness, directly. In America, we have the right to pursue happiness, as long as it does not hurt another living, fully formed human being physically (fully formed because that is what the constitution was based off of, living, fully formed human beings, not undeveloped fetuses in the womb). By not allowing a woman a right to pursue happiness, you are violating her rights as a human being.

(Copypasta from a debate I had in the LD. domokun )

Pro-choice:
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(And pro-life people in the guild, or pro-life people reading, share your opinions on this side? D: )

I usually try to combat "Abortion is murder!" with the argument that killing isn't completely condoned in our society; the death penalty, eating meat, war, etc. What is right and wrong to kill is subjective, and you cannot force one to live by a subjective moral code.

I'm sorry but the copy-paste of the definition alone doesn't happen very often at all, so why is this an issue?

As for you murder argument, "murder" is a legal term, and not a moral or social term. Legal. Regardless of how badly you may feel abortion is s**t and horrible, doesn't make it murder. I though we were arguing facts here, and not how much it offends the other person the fact doesn't agree with their viewpoint. "Snarky?" Hard to be snarky if you're simply presenting a fact and saying they were wrong, unless you're easily offended.


"God says abortion is wrong!" "I'm not Christian, how does that apply to me?" No answer.

I'm sorry, how is it not weak?


Oooh, see that borderlines StrawMan. The adoption system as argued against as a GOOD CHOICE because of all the s**t and hell involved with it: racism, ageism. and the health bias. Both from the adopting, and the system itself.

For many, themselves, that's a good enough reason to abort than put a person through that s**t. Not mention, to even have a leg standing on this argument, you'd have to prove the Right to Life exists or give damn good arguments and why it even SHOULD.

Born =/= fetii. The born can feel, experience the pain and death itself. The fetus doesn't even know it exists. Weak argument.


Coma patients, and those with pace makers etc are biologically independent of other people. Fetus is not.

It's not a matter of how, it's a matter of IF, THEN how. Fetii are not conscious, dependent on the woman for nourishment and (especially early on) life. Coma patients and those with pacemakers? No.

Then you get into the philosophical matter of the other factors: are they conscious? Can the actually feel pain? Are they even sentient, much less sapient? Can they contribute to society and other people's lives immediately, and not JUST the woman?


And..I disagree. I like to argue with facts, not my opinions to avoid offending people simply because I disagree.

If a pro-lifer comes into the abortion debate topic and says, "I believe abortion is murder," do you sincerely think they are making an argument about the current state of the law?

If you answer "no" and proceed to bombard them with legal definitions you have committed a strawman by pretending their argument is something you know it is not, just because they may not be as articulate as you are.

By doing this you are not convincing that pro-lifer that women's rights ought to be preserved, and at worst you are solidifying their already held convictions that we are a bunch of cold hearted baby killers willing to stand by an unjust law just because it is the law. If your goal, as a pro-choicer, is to ensure women's rights by convincing those opposed to abortion that it should remain legal, you've failed by doing the above as described.

As for the frequency: I admit I have not been in the abortion debate topics recently, but when I have been there, almost every single time someone has said "I believe abortion is murder" they have been met with, "well you're wrong because murder is defined as..." Even if this argument is only used once that is one time too many.






Where does bodily autonomy come from? The law says we have it. So, why should we impose our law (which amounts to nothing more than a moral philosophy that just so happens to be secular and generally agreed upon by those under its rule) onto the unwilling? What reason is there to force the concept of bodily autonomy on those who do not believe it exists? Just because the concept is secular in nature, does not make it any less a moral philosophy subject to the same objections as imposing christianity on the unwilling. Just because pro-lifers have never had a big enough collective brain to press this line of questioning does not make it less a weak point.






You are bringing up two issues: [1] Fetal personhood, and [2] the impact the state of the adoption system has on abortion rights. I am only concerned with [2].

If a woman has the right to an abortion because of bodily autonomy this right exists no matter what. If the adoption system is rainbows and butterflies and children who grow up there turn out to be the greatest possible adults... a woman's right to her body would still grant her the right to an abortion. If the adoption system is good or bad, a woman's right to her body does not change. Do you disagree?

As such, the current state of the adoption system has absolutely nothing to do with a woman's right to abortion. If a pro-lifer had half a brain, they would point this out every single time a pro-choicer tries to say "abortion should be allowed because the adoption system is racist, ageist, and otherwise a hellhole." Then again, if a pro-lifer had half a brain, they wouldn't say "just put it up for adoption" in the first place.





Explain the bolded (I don't understand what you're trying to say).

To clarify my complaint:
If a pro-choicer says, "Biological independence is necessary to be a person" why does it matter how an individual is dependent for the purposes of determining personhood?

Yes, if they are infringing on another human being then there is an issue of bodily autonomy, but if we are only trying to determine "are fetuses persons," and "biological independence" is a a bullet on the checklist for determining that, then how that dependence manifests itself is irrelevant.

The solution is to change the bullet: biological independence is not a factor in personhood OR biological independence under specific circumstances is a factor to personhood. But as it stands biological independence is not adequate.



Thus far I've used logic and reasoning to explain why some arguments used by pro-choicers are unsound, invalid, and are otherwise not worth being used. I'd appreciate it if you'd show me the same respect I've shown you by not insinuating I'm pulling opinions out of my a** and parading them around as fact, otherwise it is not worth my time to continue this conversation. Your response to this post will dictate whether I bother any further to discuss disagreements with you or put you on my ignore list given how absolutely insufferable you've been to me lately for apparently no other reason then I disagreed with something you've had to say.









Social contract theory is also a large part of the reason I am dead-set on being pro-choice as well. Don't be too discouraged. Most people on gaia are very young, and abstract thought isn't something everyone can do early in life. I'm pretty sure if you discussed social contract theory with peers instead of gaians you'd be a lot less frustrated. There's only so much "dumbing down" you can do to a subject before it loses its meaning sad .

Check out your philosophy department or philosophy club. Odds are you can take one or two low-level classes without needing any pre-reqs or department approvals. I'd suggest avoiding the larger lectures if you can, especially "intro to philosophy," and instead go for more specific classes (so a time period, or a specific author, or a specific topic). Also sociology/psychology might have a few interesting classes (anything involving deviance, sexual development, or moral psychology)... but I imagine the good classes will have pre-reqs sad

heart If I've only ever affected the mind of one person out there, I've done something meaningful. Thanks ^^

I see these first two very often, and sometimes I even make them. What alternatives do you offer? How does one argue that abortion is not murder without brining up the legal definition? How does one defend bodily autonomy without leaving it open to moral relativism?

You can press a pro-lifer to tell you what they actually mean when they say abortion is murder (but we all know the answer: they believe it is unjustified killing), and redirect the conversation. You could do as 20 shades says, point out other instances where we kill living things, to demonstrate that just because abortion kills a fetus it is not by necessity a bad thing. You could also point out, again as 20 says, that our society condones killing in self defense, the death penalty, war, and other instances where killing a human being is justified and then through bodily integrity try to pull the two together to show killing fetuses is a justified killing.


As for the second issue... it's difficult. I'm not sure of the best way to go about it because I've never bothered trying (mostly because I've never had the need to do so).

It would be important, I imagine, to point out the positive impact differences between the two philosophies. Under a secular autonomy based system all participants within are not actually forced to live by someone else's rules, they are merely prevented from enforcing their own rules on the unwilling. You can't really force the concept of bodily autonomy onto the unwilling, because you aren't asking them to change anything about themselves or change anything they do to themselves; only prohibiting how they treat other people.

Of all the moral philosophies one could abide by, this sort of philosophy provides the most protection and freedom and so a rational/unbiased agent should want to agree to these sorts of terms (the only thing that would prevent them from doing so are currently held biases, such as a belief that it is their duty to be sure uppity women "know their place"). It escapes moral relativism in this way because, should we do away with all morals, all biases, and all preconcieved notions of what is right and wrong, this sort of social contract (live your life as you see fit without interfering with others doing the same with the role of government to be a moderator between conflicts of this principle) would be what rational unbiased agents come up with. The only meaningful way I can imagine an opponent disagreeing to this would be to suggest an alternative system that would arise in a totally unbiased world (such as 'the strong rule over the weak' via anarchy) and then demand justification for choosing one over the other(anarcy/autonomy).

The real problem arises with the conflict of rights I mentioned above. The role of the government in a social contract would be to solve conflicts of autonomy. Pro-lifers believe abortion is a conflict of autonomy that should be handled one way, while pro-choicers believe it is a conflict of autonomy that should be handled another way. However, I've never heard any decent argument from the pro-life side as to why it should be handled their way that does not ultimately depend on their own personal morals and biases which are most definately relative.