Article from FoxNews:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/pussycat-dolls-singer-shares-abortion-experiences-warns-you-will-regret-whole-life
Relevant quote for context:
Jones described growing up in an "abusive" music industry that left her with little self-esteem and led her to make "poor choices." She said her third abortion happened after she was raped by an old boyfriend. Even though she wanted to keep the baby, she said she decided to terminate again due to stress and complications.
"After the first one, you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. It’s been normalized and what is a line until you’ve crossed it. You don't know what a line is. Once you cross that line, it’s a very slippery slope to continue to cross those lines," she recalled.
Not posting this to make any passionate argument against abortion...I've already done that plenty enough, not to mention I think any total ban on abortion is unreasonable, same as how I think most gun control arguments are unreasonable, same exact reason: It is right and moral to defend your own life.
What I found interesting about this article is that Kaya Jones points to pressures within the music industry for pushing her to have an abortion. It seems she initially approached abortion as something she felt was wrong, came to feel that abortions (because they're easy) aren't really a big deal, and came to regret it in hindsight.
I think it illustrates a bigger problem of being manipulated and controlled by others (industry pressure) and moral decay. The slippery slope she mentions seems to apply in a non-fallacious way to other facets of morality. A thing is wrong because it is WRONG--drunk driving is wrong because you put yourself and others in danger, and threatening your own life or other's is wrong. Consuming alcohol doesn't necessarily put you or others in danger, thus at worst consuming alcohol is morally neutral. But then you go from "no drunk driving" to bans on alcohol. When someone questions alcohol bans, it might be assumed that the reasoning is entirely a religious one. The prohibition of alcohol becomes a question of theology and superstition. If you don't wish to fall prey to superstition or you don't follow a tee-totaler religion, then there's no rationale for the prohibition of alcohol. Get rid of prohibition. Drink all you want. Then you decide to drive yourself home when you swerve into the other lane and hit someone head on, killing another motorist.
So I think the same pattern applies wrt abortion--historically, abortions have been known to happen with one or more rationalizations. But certainly nobody was ever prosecuted for it. And then someone points out some issues with abortion--first, abortion does destroy a human being (like it or not, this is true), and depending on specific circumstances this could constitute murder. Second, as a medical procedure, the wire hanger technique, the knitting needle, etc., can fail, result in irreparable damage to the uterus, or lead to deadly infections. So bans on abortions are reasonable given the context as a means of preserving the lives of women. Once abortions can be performed safely, the rationale for banning abortions is moot, leaving only the moral argument. If you can normalize the murder of the most vulnerable of us, you can normalize murder for ANY of us. And then you must content with why prohibitions against murder exist.
It would be a fallacious slippery slope to say if we legalize abortion, we WILL legalize murder. That has not happened, at least not at this point in time, and I'm not arguing that it ever will. But I do find a contradiction that one can be rationalized and NOT the other. I think at some point the conversation about why the preservation of human life is important will become a necessary conversation to have.
Thoughts?