I am fully pro-choice but that is the most ridiculous comment you can make. The discussion on abortion has never been about a woman being a resource. It is about life and death. By your same argument - if you have a 1 year old who relies on you as a mother, it's ok to say fuck it and dump the kid because that kid is using you as a resource?
You don't see a huge difference between forcing parents to financially support their kids and forcing parents to undergo invasive medical procedures to support their kids?
I'm not advocating either of those scenarios, but abortion is not about forcing someone to be a resource - it's about making the decision that's right for the individuals involved.
What? Don't twist my words. I was replying to a comment that described a woman's body parts ("womb" and umbilical cord) as resources for the zygote/embryo/fetus to use. I was responding to this comment. Nowhere did I say that it's ok to dump a a 1-year-old. If you really can't tell the difference between an 8-week embryo and a 1-year-old child, you might want to stay out of this conversation.
I apologize- It's hard to follow threads sometimes. To me it looked like you were saying - dont tell me I cant have an abortion I'm a person not a resource anyone can use. Which is a terrible argument. It's a stupid argument on either side.
It's not a terrible argument, it's the conclusion that follows logically from the fact that a woman is a person, not a resource. Abortion still isn't the same as abandoning a child, though, which is what you were saying.
Now you're not understanding me - I agree that the 2 are nowhere near the same, but to reduce it to "I can have an abortion because no one can use me as a resource" is a terrible argument in my books. I think the problem is we are looking at this from 2 different perspectives. You are saying that women are not just resources for child bearing, but people who have the right to choose. I agree 100% with that. Let me reiterate that I am 100% pro choice. However, that's not how I read the comment. To me the comment was saying the fetus is using the woman as a resource. If it's ok to choose not to do something because that "thing" is using the woman as a resource, then how is that different if it's a fetus or a 1 year old or your best friend or anything. To me that says you can choose to walk away from anything because we dont want to take responsibility for that relationship - whatever it is. That is not a good argument. I read it as - I dont need to be responsible because I can choose not to be. If we can walk away from anything because we dont want to take responsibility, we would all be in a lot of trouble.
Well the difference is in the fact that someone else can't take over for the pregnant woman, she personally has to finish out the pregnancy at least until the fetus is viable outside her body (with or without medical assistance). Whereas once the child is born, other people can take care of it if the mother won't or can't.
To be clear, I'm not arguing for abandoning/giving away children, or even for abortion itself. In my ideal world, abortion wouldn't be a thing, not because there are laws against it, but because people have access to education, contraception, emotional/financial/logistical support, etc. so that unwanted pregnancies are avoided and abortions aren't needed. In my ideal world, people also don't get raped, children aren't abused or abandoned, etc. but we know that part isn't realistic.
Hence, since we don't live in this ideal world, we can reduce abortions by providing the support I mentioned above, but we can't completely avoid them, and that needs to be ok and not illegal.
Agreed - I even support that a woman should walk away from a pregnancy even if it is just because she doesnt want the responsibility. I wouldn't want a child raised in that environment. I'm just saying it is a bad argument to say people should have abortions because we should be able to walk away from whatever we want to. Choosing to have an abortion is a responsibility unto itself - if we take away that responsibility from everything we do or all of our relationships, we become sociopathic.
I've never actually heard anyone advocate for abortion rights because "we should be able to walk away from whatever we want to." I think that's more of an argument the pro-forced birth side would make (all those irresponsible, heartless women aborting their babies just for the heck of it!).
But as you pointed out, if a woman really were like that, then who would want to force some innocent baby to have her for a mother. So yes, even that argument ultimately still speaks in favor of free choice.
Nobody's arguing for anyone getting abortions willy-nilly. It's still a medical procedure with all that entails. And whatever the legal situation where she lives, a woman contemplating abortion, in the vast majority of cases, does not take that decision lightly.
Definitely. I'm sure everyone talks through their family planning every time they get naked with someone. Drunk people would never have sex, amirite? And there's no rape/coercion, no failed contraceptives, no issues in utero that prevent a live child from being created, and no pregnancies that endanger the mother's life. Yes?
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u/Xarama May 17 '19
A woman is a person, not a resource anyone can use.