Choose life

[warpus]

What term would you prefer?

If one side is against abortion the other side is for abortion. Not sure what else you could call it.

Calling them Pro-Abortion puts forward the notion that they LIKE abortions and want to see them performed.

You know that. It's a dishonest way of labelling your opponents in an attempt to belittle them.

 

[Cutlass]

While I'm more than happy to consider this means what you think it means, have you also considered the possibility that areas more generally hostile to the idea of abortion may be less inclined to kill pregnancies that develop defects? The sort where the infant has a chance of living 40 -70 good years, or a chance of being dead shortly after birth?

Or far more likely, you're just linking in the fact that poverty rates impact both lifespan and infant mortality while being clever enough to attempt to correlate abortion restrictions with poverty and poor education without actually biting the bullet and making your argument directly, that you associate abortion restrictions with uneducated idiots and poor people. You know, the underclasses.

Do you really think that there is that much of a difference between how many unhealthy fetuses are aborted? Because I can't see how that has much of anything to do with anything under discussion. High infant mortality rates aren't so much about the infants not being viable as the circumstances of their births being against them. The mothers are poor, they have restricted access to health care services, they have inferior diets, once the child is born it has less access to quality health care and less access to good diets. These are things which are greater in places where there is more conservative social and economic policies, which block the opportunity for children to grow up healthy.

 

[PhroX]

The problem with phrases like "pro-abortion" or "abortion supporter" is that no-one I know who is in favour of them being allowed actually wants abortions to happen. Abortions are not a good thing, and in a perfect world, there would be no need for them. But the thing is, we don't live in a perfect world, and pretending we do will cause nothing but harm. And in the real world, sometimes things that are unpleasant, that are wrong, must be allowed, lest even greater wrong be done.

The choice between a the rights of a woman to chose what happens to her body, and the rights of something with the potential for life to develop is not an easy one. It's not one I would ever want to be in a position to have to make. But ultimately, there's only one person who can fairly make that choice - the woman herself. I, and everyone who I know that's "pro-choice", would never actively encourage a woman to have an abortion. In fact, I would encourage the opposite. But in the end, once she has considered all the options and understands the consequences, I would leave the decision to her, and accept her choice.

edit: Heh, cross posted with warpus saying basically the same thing...

 

[Dralix]

Calling them Pro-Abortion puts forward the notion that they LIKE abortions and want to see them performed.

Link to video.

 

[potatokiosk]

What term would you prefer?


If one side is against abortion the other side is for abortion. Not sure what else you could call it.

Not much of a chance at a discussion with regards to abortion as there is not a grey area, no middle ground. One side views abortion as murder and the other side does not. What would the middle ground be? Instead of killing the child you just wound it?

There are lots of things I think should be legal but which I don't actually support. For example, I think burning flags should be legal, but I don't support that. I think religions like Islam and Scientology should be legal, but I don't support them. And I think abortion should be legal but I'm not telling anyone they should go get an abortion. That makes me pro-choice, because I'm on the side of freedom, but not pro-abortion.

 

[Formaldehyde]

But then you are trampling on the freedom of the right-wing authoritarians to demand that everybody think and behave as they wish.

 

[Farm Boy]

Do you really think that there is that much of a difference between how many unhealthy fetuses are aborted?

It all plays in, yes. Particularly in wealthier demographics with ready access to pre-natal testing and care that can raise red flags early. These aren't 1800s infant mortality rates, and the difference between the colors on your chart isn't x3 x4, small(ish) things will help bump colors around.

once the child is born it has less access to quality health care and less access to good diets.

Wait, how old does this "infant mortality rate" chart go again? Health care I'll give you but access to good diets during the infant period is largely a function of having access to breast milk.

These are things which are greater in places where there is more conservative social and economic policies, which block the opportunity for children to grow up healthy.

Heck, I'm partially inclined to agree with you here(as I think I indicated earlier), but it's a bit sketchy when calling poverty poverty isn't enough and you may or may not feel inclined to argue that the ethics of abortion themselves somehow cause it. They aren't in this country. Not this decade or the last. Not for the foreseeable future.

 

[Farm Boy]

And for someone who phrases it: destruction of our young to argue cop-out, it should not be that big a stretch. Then we're arguing which bole is the most hyper.

Really? You think that's hyperbole? I don't. I never call it murder. It's not murder. I never call it babykilling. Fetuses aren't babies. But, fetuses are young humans. Very young ones. They aren't human cells - like a sperm. They're a distinct human totally dependent on the body of another human while very early in development. They aren't sentient before certain points, they can't feel pain before certain points, but they are developing those things. What, exactly, is a stretch in calling them our "young?"

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Really? You think that's hyperbole? I don't. I never call it murder. It's not murder. I never call it babykilling. Fetuses aren't babies. But, fetuses are young humans. Very young ones. They aren't human cells - like a sperm. They're a distinct human totally dependent on the body of another human while very early in development. They aren't sentient before certain points, they can't feel pain before certain points, but they are developing those things. What, exactly, is a stretch in calling them our "young?"

Probably because I have another connotation with "our young". I'd not call a one minute old embryo "our young". I can make the same argument with regard to baby murder by the way. I think if you look at the definition of baby it can apply. And murder non-legally can be used as I have been explained.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?rd=1&word=baby

"Enthousiast" I will admit was a dig towards your positive argument. Simply because you brush aside far more sensible motivations.

edit: my point, which clearly has issues coming across (entirely my fault for trying to be a smart-arse ) is to avoid emotionally laden terms in a debate about abortion. When I am merely advocating the destruction of our young in your eyes, it doesn't give me great hope to enter into a meaningful discussion with you about the issue. I at least wouldn't want to hear a Destructor of our Young's arguments for they are clearly beastly.

edit 2: clearly issues clearly issues clearly issues.

 

[Light Cleric]

Do you really think that there is that much of a difference between how many unhealthy fetuses are aborted? Because I can't see how that has much of anything to do with anything under discussion. High infant mortality rates aren't so much about the infants not being viable as the circumstances of their births being against them. The mothers are poor, they have restricted access to health care services, they have inferior diets, once the child is born it has less access to quality health care and less access to good diets. These are things which are greater in places where there is more conservative social and economic policies, which block the opportunity for children to grow up healthy.

I think it's pretty unfair to blame "conservative" policies when places like Utah, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, hardly hotbeds of liberalism, have better mortality rates than places like Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Michigan.

You can criticize the health care and other things in the states with higher infant mortality rates, but I'd appreciate it if you can explain why "conservative" policies are at fault rather than the individual state policies if there is a wide variance amongst conservative states. I guess it would also help to know what exactly is the general cause of death amongst said infants.

It's also seems pretty unfair to me to harp on infant mortality rates and decry lost opportunity while glossing an aborted fetus, but I suppose that's why we still have these kind of the discussions after all these years.

It's also really not helpful to call people "anti-life" any more than it is to call them "pro-abortion" :/

 

[timtofly]

But being anti-abortion does not mean that a person is pro-life. It's not actually an accident that the most anti-abortion parts of the US are also the parts of the country that have the highest infant mortality.

So anti-abortion people generally are not 'pro-life'. They are simply anti-choice.

I would like to point out that it just takes the choice away from the human and gives it to nature.

I have no problem allowing nature to decide, so I am not anti-choice. I just claim that every one should choose life and let nature choose whatever the antonyms are.

If you then bring up the point about back ally deaths, that is not the problem of choosing life. It is the lack of education and giving people the ability to choose life. I have already pointed out in this thread that the government should not legislate one way or other in the decision process. Right now it is legal to choose "not life".

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Gawd I hate these term. But more than that I hate the mindless bickering.

Pro-life does not mean Pro-life in all circumstance. It also doesn't mean Anti-choice.
Pro-choice does not mean Pro-choice in all circumstances. It also doesn't mean Anti-life.

Both are far from perfect terms which happen to be the best way to describe a position in a word and a half. There are very few terms which can accurately describe most positions in those amounts.

 

[Light Cleric]

Gawd I hate these term. But more than that I hate the mindless bickering.

Pro-life does not mean Pro-life in all circumstance. It also doesn't mean Anti-choice.
Pro-choice does not mean Pro-choice in all circumstances. It also doesn't mean Anti-life.

Both are far from perfect terms which happen to be the best way to describe a position in a word and a half. There are very few terms which can accurately describe most positions in those amounts.

Thank you, this is what I said earlier there's too many nuances

 

[JollyRoger]

Roughly 30 years have passed since the video in the OP. Are we sure that the people wearing those shirts still endorse the message?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think they've long since been converted. I don't think any of them would say "GOGO" after "You wake me up". They'd just say "buggered off".

I think the main motivator was to have it rhyme with "Yoyo". Rather hard to find anything that rhymes with "buggered off". Also doesn't fit well in the rhythm.

I always have to spell check rhyme and rhythm. Oddball words.

 

[JollyRoger]

I suspected the phrase wake me up before you gogo line had to do with some sort of fetish activity.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Oh, you're bad!

 

[Farm Boy]

Probably because I have another connotation with "our young". I'd not call a one minute old embryo "our young".

I don't really care what connotation you have with "our young." A couple trying to expand their family would certainly think of it as their "young," it meets all the definitional hallmarks for being their "young," and "our young" as a species encompasses prenatal care and development as well as post birth. The lifecycle of humans is thus, and it encompasses that.

I have no idea what "positive argument" you think I am trying to make that isn't particularly sensible. Did you shift to anti-abortion-in-all-circumstances some time while I wasn't paying attention? Or is it that you simply want to wipe your hands of a process that terminates human life and think the issue has no more gravitas than if you decided to eat a pile of asparagus for dinner with or without the chicken? You might have the right end conclusion, but simplifying the issue for the sake of ethical cleanness and possibly to make one's self "right" while those in disagreement are "wrong" is a tool I generally associate with people who are, well, not you Ziggy.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Look Farm Boy, I really don't care what connotations you have with the word baby. But I have a dictionary reference so I will vormit any term I deem apropriate to illustrate your overdramatic psychobabble.

And I will stand by the term enthousiast. I take my admission back. So there. Now look what you made me do.

I have no idea what "positive argument" you think I am trying to make that isn't particularly sensible.

Allow me

Eh, it's a cop out. You have to find a positive to be "pro" for, especially when you are advocating a policy that allows for destruction of our young.

Wrong. The term pro-choice is simply more descriptive of my position than pro-abortion. Now you're free to ignore that or not believe me or disagree. But please spare me the nonsense about having to find a positive to be pro about.

 

[Farm Boy]

Sure. Whatever. Have fun.