Is it a right to abort

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I pose this simple question does a woman have the right to have an abortion of a healthy unborn child??? If so why does she have that right and if not why does she not have that right.

Rights are a human construct, and in many countries women do have that right, because of attitudes which put liberty of the adult woman over the right to life of an unborn child. Or because children are not considered very important/valuable/useful any more.


In other countries women do not have this right, because unborn human life ( ostensibly) is considered more important than the liberty of women in those countries. Or because children are still very useful/valuable commodities there, and/or men still wish to have some control over women and reproduction.

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Last edited by ouinon on 09 Sep 2008, 6:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

You didn't answer my question, I want your opinion not facts about social norms around the world

Ahh! You mean what I think "should" be the case? That's a different question. Very complicated to answer.

My opinion would depend on the nature of the society in which the woman is living.

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Last edited by ouinon on 09 Sep 2008, 6:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

In all honesty, the answers you will receive won't be that much different than those from the other abortion thread. Pro-life people think the question is absurd because nobody has the right to murder anybody, whereas the pro-choice people (pay attention now conservatives) are of the opinion that it isn't murder in the first place.

Orwell said it a lot better, something about both sides missing the others starting arguments, so I hope that he posts.

For the record, I am generally pro-choice. I have my reasons, and I am not the devil.

There's already a thread on this but I'll give you my opinion here.

If you feel human life is valuable then it's not a definite yes or no answer as you'd have to first discuss whether the fetus has actually begun it's life first.

If you're like me and don't feel human life has value then it's a definite yes.

At least I'm honest.

She does not only have a right, but a duty to abort.

no she does not i think.
it is unclear whether a fetus feels anything or is conscious in any way.

while that fact remains unclear, it is murderously ignorant to stop the progress of a life.

I realise the more religious people will spit on me for this, but in all honesty: I am 100% pro abortion even when there is no other motivation than the girl just not wanting the child.

Just think of this: would you want to put a child on this world while you really dont have the motivation or energy to raise it? Nothing is worse then such children being born: the child will have no loving parents and grow up in a very tough way, without any person caring about him. The mother on the other hand is stuck with an unwanted child, and her life is never going to be the same again neither. So for both child and mother, life will have a low quality unless the child is extremely lucky that someone else voluntarely cares for him.

So I would say that every woman should have the right to abort in every single case, one should not even ask for a proper motivation. If she wants the abortion, it is her body and thus her choice which she does not have to defend or justify.

In case of rape etc I cannot understand pro-life stands. How do you want to force a child on a young girl who was raped, when this child will not only take away what remains of her worryless youth but also will remind her always of what happened? I think this is extremely harsh.

I can understand people being uncomfortable with a woman aborting just because she is not feeling like having a child after unsafe sexual adventures. Still, it is her body, so I think the abortion should go ahead. I do think life is sacred, hence why I am so strongly against the death penalty. However, life to me begins at birth, so an unborn child is not a living person yet in my terms, hence why I consider capital punishment as murder while I consider abortion not to be a murder case.

I won't repost the whole rant right now, but basically both sides are using a different set of starting assumptions. Reasoning from either set of assumptions, you will get a different answer. The question isn't one that can be debated rationally because most times the two sides are unwilling to sit down and examine why they hold the assumptions they do, and refuse to acknowledge that other people do not share the same starting point.


IIRC, you mentioned something about being opposed to late-term (partial birth) abortions while being fine with ones earlier in the pregnancy. In any case, you are drawing an arbitrary line at which something switches from non-human to being a living human with rights. Extreme pro-choicers put this line at actual birth, extreme pro-lifers put it at conception, you take the fuzzier (but probably more accurate) route of putting it somewhere in between. Now it just remains to be decided where exactly that line goes.

Women would say yes, while men would say no.

It's the woman who bears the child, but don't forget about the sperm from the man which began the pregnancy in the first place. Do we not have some reprouctive rights as fathers and sperm-dispensers or are we significant only because of our sperm?

This issue is so hideously political now, it's a quagmire ...

if she gets screwed, then she gets screwed with responsibility.

I don't think that the gender breakdown is really so simple as that. I think a number of women dislike abortion, possibly a greater percent than men.

It is a political issue, how could it avoid being itself.

I LIKE IT!

Who let this troll in here?

I think that this is a legitimate and valid opinion.