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E-PrinceIt is well known and not disputed that, for social, cultural and economic reasons, parents in Asia use abortion as a means to eliminate unwanted female children in favor of sons. New research published in the Proceedings of the National ...
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Some great points, Brandon. I like the analogy you make.
It is incorrect to assert that "the right to choose is elevated over the right to life" in a society where abortion is legally, safely available. It assumes that the provision of legal, safe abortion is somehow anti-life, which is incorrect. Reality is, in fact, the reverse, which is to say that anyone who has removed the emotion surrounding this issue and has looked properly, from a truly pro-life standpoint, at all of the available research will know that on balance, it is only through providing legal, safe abortion as an option to autonomous human females that there can truly be a culture of life. The largest ever study on this matter (by the WHO) showed that there are no fewer abortions in jurisdictions where abortion is legal. Rather, the number of abortions stay the same, but the need to resort to illegal, unsafe procedures results in a massive rise in the resultant deaths of human females in the process. How is this a culture of life?
Further, it is a logical error to blend feminists and pro-choicers in the way you have, as though they are (a) monolithic and (b) inherently synonymous.
Finally, there is extensive feminist criticism and commentary on this issue, so your assertion of silence (which you say = hypocrisy) is again flawed.
If you are interested in learning more, I would be pleased to provide you with links to various relevant reports.
Oops, I meant where abortion is illegal.
Hmmm - perhaps you missed the UN's latest World Mortality Report. In it, when you compare countries like Ireland with strict abortion laws with countries like the US with liberal abortion laws, the maternal mortality rate tends to be lower in the countries with stricter abortion laws (assuming both countries are developed). While the mortality rate includes deaths from live births as well as abortions (legal or illegal), it is interesting to note that your proposition that the deaths of pregnant women will rise when abortion is made illegal is simply wrong. In fact, the factor that is most important in determining the maternal mortality rate is how developed the country is. You probably don't know this, but what caused the decrease in deaths by illegal abortions over the 20th century in the US was primarily due to advances in medical technology before Roe v. Wade.
By trying to hide behind the fact of deaths by illegal abortions, you are trying to evade the real issue at hand. I would like you to explain why the right to abortion is a good thing or at least more important than a baby's right to life.
Reading the Prince makes me wish I had been aborted
"By trying to hide behind the fact of deaths by illegal abortions, you are trying to evade the real issue at hand." Not really. The fact that large numbers of women died from illegal abortions before the passing of Roe vs. Wade is not a serious issue for you?
Before medical advances, primarily proper sterilization procedure and antibiotics, abortion was hgihly risky and this was the primary reason to ban abortion pre-Roe. But the justices in Roe realized that this rationale (to protect women's health) would no longer support an abortion ban. Rather it supports liberalization of abortion rights.
@Nice Try: The Ireland/US example is fatally flawed: #1 enormous religious and cultural differences between the two countries makes them entirely disanalogous even though both are developed countries. #2 small sample size, cannot generalize to the entire world after looking at two countries. This is why the WHO/Guttmacher report was so telling. They looked at the *entire* world.
Nice Try, your post is succinct and well thought out but has some real problems. Primarily, it is flawed logic to posit that it is the "right to abortion [that] is more important than a baby's right to life". That is not the issue. Rather, the issue is a fundamental conflict between the rights of the potential baby and of the pregnant woman. It's not the right to abortion that is "more important than a baby's right to life" (ignoring the fact that a cluster of cells hardly qualifies as a baby), but rather, in the context and on balance, the particular woman's right to life and autonomy is more important than the potential in her womb at the time she aborts.
Further, the proposition that more women die when abortion is illegal is not, in fact, wrong. You maybe need to cast your research net a bit more widely on that.
I would love to be more comprehensive and pointed here but am at work and alas must make these posts on the fly....!
Nice article. This was an issue I was wondering about myself, and I've come to the exact same conclusions. However, @Hmmm, I would still very much like to see the "criticism and commentary on this issue" that you offer. That would be a great resource and would make for a good counterpoint.
I regularly counsel woman who are seeking to abort their little sons and daughters. Several weeks ago, I spoke to a married woman who had gone through countless fertility treatments in order to conceive. This lady recently found out she was expecting a girl, and was not happy with the results. She now wants to abort this little girl. The one child policy of China has now crossed over the seas and landed in America. God forbid, if Americans adopt the practice of cannabilizing aborted children. There seems to be no end to the depravity.