Critique my Answer to Pro-Choice Argument?

[dmar198]

Well-informed pro-choicers with whom I have dialog’d often observe that, regarding the unborn, whatever we’re talking about–regardless of whether we call it embryo or child–it requires its biological mother in order to live at all. (Some with whom I have spoken have even gone so far as to say that this is a parasitic relationship, despite the fact that the body welcomes embryos and benefits from the hormones they trigger, neither of which are done for parasites.)

They say: whatever the relationship is between an embryo and its mother, it is still a relationship by definition, and the mother has rights in this relationship. She can even terminate it altogether, if she wills, for there are no relationships which women are obliged to maintain. The fact that the embryo dies (usually) when she terminates that relationship, has nothing to do with the fact that she has a right to do so in the first place: it’s her ‘choice’ (gag!).

Pro-lifers are not about dis-enabling women or taking away their choices. The fact that ‘choice’ is equivocated on this issue does not help. The thing is, technically speaking, everything that a person either may or may not do, is a choice by definition. I can choose to drink soda. I can choose to pull my tooth out. A woman may choose to kill her unborn baby.

Those choices have no legal penalties. Other choices do. I can choose to rape someone, but I will spend time in jail. I can choose to take random peoples’ money, but I will suffer the consequences. Commonly, however, we say that raping and robbing are ‘not’ choices. What we mean is that we may not choose those things, without incurring legal penalties, but we drop that last half of the sentence for efficiency’s sake.

Regarding abortion, pro-lifers do not want to limit women’s choices: we just want to attach reasonable consequences to certain of those choices. At the federal level, abortion is the only action by which one can intentionally destroy innocent human life, without legal penalties. Pro-lifers simply recognize this inconsistency, and demand that anybody who does it should suffer the same consequences that they would suffer if they took human life in any of the other ways.

A woman does not presently have the ‘choice’ (in the common sense) of ‘terminating the relationship’ she has with her newborn, if that means it will die. Neither (we say) should she be allowed to terminate her relationship with her preborn, if it will die as a consequence.

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I’m particularly worried that I’ve been attacking a strawman. Please critique this answer. It may become published!

 

[Snowy]

I like your answer. The argument I always hear from pro-choicers is that “women have always aborted and will always continue to abort, and doing so clandestinely puts their life at risk”. Murder has always existed and will always exist, and murderers risk their life when they murder, yes. That’s no excuse for making murder legal.

 

[Dempsey1919]

Well-informed pro-choicers with whom I have dialog’d often observe that, regarding the unborn, whatever we’re talking about–regardless of whether we call it embryo or child–it requires its biological mother in order to live at all.

A one year old baby depends on it’s mother even more than an embryo. Using the logic of the pro-lifers, does the mother have the right to kill this child? The baby requires the mother to live, and could be classed as a parasite in the same way that the embryo is classed as a parasite.

In reality, there is no difference between an unborn baby and a baby who has been born. They both have a right to life. Pro-choicers refuse to acknowledge the fact that the embryo is a person because to do so would make it harder for them to kill the innocent. The thought of murdering a born baby is absolutely adhorent to everybody. That is why I find it odd that the same people would condone the murder of a baby who has yet to be born; it is hypocritical because they would not advocate the killing of the same baby if that baby was two months old.

 

[Snowy]

The thought of murdering a born baby is absolutely adhorent to everybody.

The thought of murdering a born baby is abhorent to Christians and to those unfit for survival who survive thanks to the protection of their Christian neighbors (liberals). Infanticide is still very common in many parts of the world.

 

[StCsDavid]

They say: whatever the relationship is between an embryo and its mother, it is still a relationship by definition, and the mother has rights in this relationship. She can even terminate it altogether, if she wills, for there are no relationships which women are obliged to maintain. The fact that the embryo dies (usually) when she terminates that relationship, has nothing to do with the fact that she has a right to do so in the first place: it’s her ‘choice’ (gag!).

It would seem to me that a relationship would require some modicum of respect for the other party. What the pro-death folks are advocating is a really a dictatorship. In their world, a woman should have the choice to dictate over the unborn in her body.