Legalized Abortion
is a Civil Liberties centric issue"Female Reproductive Rights" does not equal abortion
Forums > "Female Reproductive Rights" does not equal abortion
"Female Reproductive Rights" does not equal abortion
A better title for this issue would be "Abortion," "Fetal Personhood," or "Roe v Wade." "Reproductive rights" is a much broader concept, including the right to contraception, the right to sterilization and freedom from sterilization, sex education in public schools, etc. Many pro-lifers, including me, DO support female reproductive rights in this broader sense, to the extent that they do not interfere with the right to life.
I agree that "Female Reproductive Rights" is probably to broad, however, I don't necessarily agree that "Do you support abortion?" is too narrow. It seems to me that abortion is the key issue where people disagree. Either way, the category should be more cleary defined.
Will spend a bit of time on it tomorrow. Everyone is running a bit out of steam (we have been up a while). My guess is that under the issue [yet to be named] you would have to have sub-issues. Lots of Americans when asked are for keeping Roe v Wade, but also for any restrictions that can be applied to it.
Sub-issues are a good idea. You could also make a continuum, like (this is just an example): 1= Abortion should be illegal except for extreme circumstances such as when mother's life is in danger 2= Abortion laws should be more restrictive than they currently are, but not a true ban 3= Abortion laws should stay the way they are 4= Abortion should have fewer restrictions than it does now
Or, you could phrase it in terms of competing rights, like "Do you believe that a woman's right to reproductive choice outweighs a fetus' right to life?"
Can't imagine why that would be, except for the fact that everybody, even the some of the most depraved among us, knows that "Do you support abortion?" is like asking "Do you support killing small children who haven't been born yet?"
It is what it is. I just call it as I see it.
oooh...touchy subject here. Yes, I am a man. Yes I have an opinion on this subject. Yes, it is likely that you will be able to divine my opinion from writing. No, I will not explicitly state my opinion. Ok, having said that, I believe the era of abortion on demand is nearing it's end. As medical technology advances, we can see with our own eyes the development of the "human" fetus. National Geographic has a film (searching my brain for the title) which takes you from conception to birth and shows "human" behavior from very early in "human" development. Also, the terms used in this debate, ie: pro choice, pro life are completely dishonest. The real debate is pro abortion rights anti abortion rights. Choice and Life are things everybody wants...like freedom fries. Sometimes semantics are everything.
There has to be some high level category, still. If you start breaking every issue down, you will ultimately have to subdivide everything into protons and electrons, so to speak. However, it should be clear that Female reproductive rights is a very, very broad topic that goes way beyond abortion.
I am a woman, antirock. Sure, it's my womb- but my children, when I conceive them, will not be a part of my body. They will be unique human individuals. In the meantime, I am taking the necessary precautions to ensure that I will never be in a position where abortion would be an option.
Moncho, I agree with you, subcategories would be too confusing. But since the whole summary page is about abortion, we might as well call it what it is.
Antirock, I literally laughed out loud at your comment. OK, after some discussion here internally, we think for now that "Legalized Abortion" may be the best name for this page. We also agree that "Reproductive Rights" is a bigger umbrella parent for Legalized Abortion and other topics.
Thoughts?
To me, female reproductive rights includes the right to terminate a pregnancy before the embryo or fetus can be viable outside of the woman's uterus. Personally, I would much rather that men and women practice responsible sexuality meaning that they use contraception if they are not interested in creating a baby. Unfortunately, there can be many impediments to people behaving in a responsible manner, as we all know.
I'm a nurse and worked in an ER in a busy County hospital in the days before abortion was legal and contraception was hard to get unless one was married (or lied about being so). Ofcourse, women still got abortions back then and in the ER we saw the horrors of the "back alley" and "do it yourself" failures. I would never ever want to have those times back. It was an ugly and very sad time.
Pumaj, i applaud your honesty and stance on this issue.
People forget that the alternative of this matter is even more horrifying. Banning abortion won't lower the frequency of abortion, it only allows pro-lifers to criminalize the desperate actions of some women so they can sleep better at night. Remember what happened when pro-habitation took place? People still were able to find alcohol and risked life and limb for it. The same standard could be applied for the outlawing of abortion.
The only way to sucessfully lower abortion rates is to educate people about the various effective contraceptive methods and create better social programs to help out single mothers, or low income couples.
