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I got in an argument with a Pro-Choicer yesterday (I know, it's shocking) and at one point she started complaining about how bad the adoption system is. And this is a very common tactic; Pro-Choicers saying, "Well it's better than the foster care system. It's better for them to be aborted than for them to have to be molested and mistreated by assholes in the foster care system." And, of course, the standard argument against this is, "It's better for them to live and be mistreated than for them to die. Better a bad life than no life. And even then, they aren't in the foster care system forever, and lots of people go through that and come out as very productive members of society, living fairly happy lives."

But it struck me; It's entirely unnecessary to argue against this at all. For us to argue about the state of the adoption system, and whether it's better for them to die or go through it, they have to admit, or at least start with the assumption, that the fetus is a human being with the same worth as a grown human being. If the fetus is not a human being, and doesn't have any value or worth, then of course abortion is okay, for any reason at all; No need to discuss the adoption system. But if they are a human being and do have the same worth and value as a grown human being, then there is no way they can say it is better for them to be dead than in the adoption system; No Pro-Choicer would support killing the infants, toddlers, teens, etc. currently in foster care, even if they were killed quickly and painlessly in their sleep, ie, completely unaware and unfeeling of their death like a fetus supposedly is.

And you can even see that sometimes when you talk to them; They argue about how horrible the adoption system is, and about how no one should have to go through that, and of course we all agree. And if you bring up the fact that it is better to live through that and have a chance at a happy life than to die, they'll talk about how the fetus isn't a person anyways and doesn't know or feel their deaths, so it doesn't matter. But, as I mentioned, if that were true, the adoption argument is unnecessary!

So it's pretty plain to me that the adoption argument is nothing more than an appeal to emotion. I am sure that Pro-Choicers don't do this consciously, but it is a distraction from the actual argument, meant to drive their cause with pure emotion, and no logic.

In that vein, Pro-Choicers and Pro-Lifers both should very strongly support reform of the adoption and foster care system. As a Pro-Lifer, it's my opinion that these arguments about how we should keep abortion in order to keep kids out of the adoption system are not only foolish/ridiculous, but they enable. They enable the adoption system to stay like it is, by offering abortion as a supposedly better alternative than adoption, and that's just bullshit. No one is saying that the adoption system is good, or no one should be. It sucks. Let's be honest. But that doesn't mean that we should line all the foster care kids up in front of a firing squad, to "spare them" from it.

(I'm considering moving this to the debate subforum, but I haven't decided yet. Opinions?)

Of course it's an appeal to emotion. When you get right down to it that's all they're appealing to.

You see the thing is that they don't give a rats a** about the child, but they have to make it seem that way. They have to put up this front that they want what's best for everybody involved. So when given a perfectly viable option their only real defense is to demonize it in such a way that they try and make it seem like it's not an option at all.

However when was the last time they showed statistics for the amount of adopted child who were molested, or beaten?

Yes the foster care system sucks, however a newborn baby is not going to go into the foster care system they're going to be adopted. Because people want babies.

And let's be honest, at least in order to adopt a child there is a very rigid screening process. Of course people are going to slip through however parents who give birth naturally are not screened. I think that's a tad more worrisome.

But they don't care about any of that because if they admit it, it is basically admitting that they'd rather kill a child than deal with a viable alternative. And then they can't make us look like the bad guys anymore.