One of the key arguments that are being thrown at me about abortion is that it "isn’t just about me".
No, it isn’t. However I cannot think of anyone other than me who should have the decision making ability in this situation. The choice to carry, birth and raise an entire human IS MY CHOICE and it should not be illegal, or unsafe to terminate, if I should choose to, just because YOU don’t like it.
I'm well aware that some of these comparisons will piss people from both sides of the debate off. It is meant to make you think.
Let it.
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This is part of a week of Pro-Choice Postings hosted here at The Hand Mirror starting on Friday 28th October 2011. For an index of all the posts, being updated as they go up, please check the Pro-Choice Postings index. And if you'd like to submit a post for cross-posting, guest posting or linking to please email thehandmirror@gmail.com.
9 comments:
I can't read the speech bubble comments, they're too small! What do they say?
Just click on them and it enlarges the image, sorry about that.
The cartoon is crap, vaguely offensive and doesn't really advance a pro-choice position unless it's pro-choice to lump abortion with all the other things society condemns women for doing. It's not thought provoking its just plain annoying. Chur.
The cartoons seem to be suggesting that two wrongs make a right.
Which is exactly what you are suggesting too. On one hand you suggest you have rights, which are founded on some kind of moral position, and then getting annoyed if morality is considered in how far rights can go.
I think the pro-choice position is grounded in the supremacy of the individual, and I mean this in the sense that that belief system is so core to setting the world view, any perspective that moves away from this is hard to fathom.
It also requires that we do not consider that the unborn is in any way an individual with a right to life, no matter the feelings of others, because that would create a paradox over the supremacy of individual rights.
So to come at it from a rights perspective, as a mother, do they not have an obligation to make the best possible decisions for their child? Because don't rights come with obligations and duties? Certainly, if you wish to have certain rights, it will place duties on others to allow those rights. That could extend to the right to life of an unborn to place a duty on you to complete the pregnancy.
You do have a right to not get pregnant in the first place though, and complete autonomy over that decision - unless your rights are violated.
Actually, I thought the cartoon sums up the legal status quite accuratley. Unlike ZT, I see the point that giovernments are content to allow all sorts of individual decisions to be made, but when it comes to a woman's reproductive activites....
A great pots about why abortion is not murder can be found at
http://freethoughtblogs.com/alstefanelli/2011/10/17/abortion-is-not-murder/
Thanks, most have embraced the nature of this (shoddy though my pictures are - terribly sorry for that Bianca, I’m sure you will find better elsewhere.) it IS offensive if you think about it from certain angles, and designed not to wrap it up nicely for you, but allow you to break it down, creating discussion and functional debate throughout.
Keep up the criticism of the concept, lots of valid points coming out.
I agree that morality, law, politics and human autonomy are like one big f**ed up venn diagram, and this is without adding into the debate when a person achieves their personhood.
Thanks so much to those who have put thought into their responses.
Zen Tiger,
The complexity of a ‘moral system’ which has its limitations set by further morals is a frustrating one.
You have leapt straight from this complexity to the simplicity of the rights and duties as a parent ignoring the fact that you really cannot label someone a parent who chooses not to be one, and takes no action to become one.
As a parent, I can choose to walk away from my child, and never nurture, care or put another thought into them. Rather unfair to all involved (and to mothers) to call me a mother…
Your comment has resulted in a massive reply which I will pop up as another blog post.
Sorry, I didn't mean that the cartoon (as in the drawing of it or whatever) was crap, but that the content was. I just don't think some of the analogies made are helpful to advancing a pro-choice position. The smoking while pregnant was the thing that tripped me out. I think the analogy in context, sort of ads to the view of pregnant people's bodies as being public property. I also think you kind of implied that I missed the point. I didn't. I just don't think this cartoon makes it very well.
Thanks for the reply ScubaNurse, look forward to your post. Sorry my wording was not very precise - I apologise for the implication from that comment.
I suspect the difference in opinion would revolve around the timing of personhood, among other things.
you really cannot label someone a parent who chooses not to be one, and takes no action to become one.
I can see your point on the first half of that comment, and to the second, a person may need to take action NOT to be one, once they are pregnant, either by abortion or adoption.
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