Why is the abortion debate framed as pro-choice vs pro-life?

[Endus]

Pretty much. This is also why its an intractably difficult issue. You either get into complex issues of what gets to count as human, because obviously none of the liberals want to proclaim "I'm for baby murder!"

Likewise very few on the Right want to seriously argue that sex should come with possible consequences.

The debate over whether it counts as "human" is, at best, a distraction. Like with literally any other circumstance where one person's right to life rubs up against another person's bodily autonomy, bodily autonomy should win. The alternative means you support forcing people to donate organs/tissue against their will, to save another's life. That's the simple and obvious example where these two conflict, outside of the abortion debate, and nobody is arguing for forced organ donations from living persons. Everyone sees that for the horror that it would be.

And denying women abortion rights is exactly the same horror. It's the same violation of her rights, for the same reasons. It isn't a magically more-convincing argument when it's about a fetus rather than a living person. Even if we allow the fetus to be considered a person, that just puts pro-life on the same level as forcibly harvesting organs/tissue from the unwilling. Even if we just stick with that which can be regrown in time, like portions of your liver and various tissues, as opposed to whole organs like kidneys. That's the best-case scenario for the pro-life argument.

And the reality is that when we add that there's a lot of reasons to not consider the unborn fetus a human being, it gets even more objectionable to deny abortion rights.

We don't allow for forcing someone's body to be seized to support another's life in any other circumstance. Why should we do so in the case of pregnancy? What possibly justification could you come up with for a special treatment of these rights in that particular instance? Whether the fetus is a human being or not isn't relevant, because even if we allow it, there's still no justification for this kind of horror show. Any more than there would be forcibly harvesting part of someone's liver, or skin for a skin graft.

I don't see the "intractably difficult" part of this. I see emotional appeals of "but it's a BABY" that ignore that under no circumstances, for any other person, would we ever consider this kind of abuse of human rights.

[AkundaMrdal]

Abortion should be obligatory in all cases when is discovered that fetus have a genetic disorder. If fetus is healthy both parents should give a consent. Compromise could be that only married couples need consent from both sides.

[Segus1992]

someone got it into their head that they should decide what another person should do.

Ah yes, the strange concept of laws. What a recent and ridiculous idea.

[Thimagryn]

Sure, but if you're having a real conversation among friends on the topic, why would you use inaccurate branding to misrepresent the other side? Anti-abortion believes you have choice, but only as much as you have in committing any crime.

That conversation shifts from one of talking about practical life choices and that of semantics defining criminal activity as choices we make in life. If technicalities is what you want to argue, then that's the conversation you're going to have. This has nothing to do with inaccurate branding considering you're presenting criminal activity as a plausible life choice. This entire conversation is about defining that law.

[Antiganon]

Abortion should be obligatory in all cases when is discovered that fetus have a genetic disorder. If fetus is healthy both parents should give a consent. Compromise could be that only married couples need consent from both sides.

How about no?

Who decides what genetic disorders qualify and what ones don't?
What about ones you can't test for in utero?
What about birth complications that result in genetic-disorder-like symptoms?

In terms of consent -

What if the father wants children, and the mother does not? Or vice versa? Who gets to have an opinion, and who doesn't?

What if the married couple wants a divorce, do they still need mutual consent? Does the date of divorce finalization impact who gets to decide, or just the start of proceedings?

How about you worry about your own reproductive organs, and let other people worry about theirs?

I guess small government is good when it means that the government stays out of your business dealings, but not when it means the government stays out of your bedroom or uterus.

[Theodarzna]

The debate over whether it counts as "human" is, at best, a distraction. Like with literally any other circumstance where one person's right to life rubs up against another person's bodily autonomy, bodily autonomy should win. The alternative means you support forcing people to donate organs/tissue against their will, to save another's life. That's the simple and obvious example where these two conflict, outside of the abortion debate, and nobody is arguing for forced organ donations from living persons. Everyone sees that for the horror that it would be.

Having a baby however is a biological function of the uterus, unlike say forcibly removing ones organs (which can kill you), pregnancy is not some aberration but the actual function of our reproductive biology. You've interestingly enough compared the actual purpose of ones womb to the act of having someones heart cut out.

On its face the two situations aren't exactly similar, at all really. The Choice case is essentially the desire to have the ability to expunged responsibility for ones sex life. Which there is no shame in it. I wouldn't argue every child created necessarily deserves to be brought into this world. But lets not pretend your biological normal functions are the same as having organs removed against your will.

[Thimagryn]

Perhaps, but least the line I'm not crossing is the murdering of an innocent baby.

Was it really innocent if all humans are born with sin?

[Symphonic]

Was it really innocent if all humans are born with sin?

They're not.

[Endus]

Having a baby however is a biological function of the uterus, unlike say forcibly removing ones organs (which can kill you), pregnancy is not some aberration but the actual function of our reproductive biology. You've interestingly enough compared the actual purpose of ones womb to the act of having someones heart cut out.

1> The function is irrelevant, because it isn't your body, so you don't get to have a say in how it's used in the first place. Which is explicitly what you're trying to do, here. Unless you're arguing that women's purpose is to be brood mares regardless of their preference in the matter, this isn't an argument. And if you are, I'll discard it for being heinous (not that I think you actually believe this).
2> Pregnancy can (and does) kill people, too.

A lot of medical conditions are "natural functions". But they're unwanted, and denying medical care for them is unethical.

On its face the two situations aren't exactly similar, at all really. The Choice case is essentially the desire to have the ability to expunged responsibility for ones sex life.

Because there isn't any "responsibility" to having sex. That's an anachronism that ceased to be relevant when safe abortions were available. And it's an anachronism that is only surviving through regressive religious pressure to restrict women's rights. So I repeat an earlier point; suggesting that women bear some "responsibility" to bear an unwanted child to term is not only no different in character than forcing them to wear a burqa, it's the far more invasive and abusive of the two. Since the burqa is just about wearing some clothes, not controlling your capacity to make decisions about your own body.

[Theodarzna]

1> The function is irrelevant, because it isn't your body, so you don't get to have a say in how it's used in the first place. Which is explicitly what you're trying to do, here.
2> Pregnancy can (and does) kill people, too.

A lot of medical conditions are "natural functions". But they're unwanted, and denying medical care for them is unethical.

Because there isn't any "responsibility" to having sex. That's an anachronism that ceased to be relevant when safe abortions were available. And it's an anachronism that is only surviving through regressive religious pressure to restrict women's rights. So I repeat an earlier point; suggesting that women bear some "responsibility" to bear an unwanted child to term is not only no different in character than forcing them to wear a burqa, it's the far more invasive and abusive of the two. Since the burqa is just about wearing some clothes, not controlling your capacity to make decisions about your own body.

The function is critical. Short of their being a problem with the pregnancy there is nothing abnormal about your body going on. Pregnancy can kill you, but having your heart removed WILL kill you. Your body is doing exactly as it is expected to do. Kind of like sperm, once it fires off into a woman it does its natural biological function.

And there is responsibility for having sex, just ask any man in the situation of having just impregnated a woman and the obviousness of there being consequences to sex are both enshrined in law and popular culture.

[Deleted]

...that makes it unreliable.

Except it doesn't. If someone replaces a woman's pills with sugar pills, you don't say that makes the pill less effective. If a woman pokes a hole in a condom without telling her partner, that doesn't affect the general efficacy of condoms. Someone who's practicing abstinence being raped doesn't inherently make abstinence a less effective contraceptive.

[Endus]

The function is critical. Short of their being a problem with the pregnancy there is nothing abnormal about your body going on.

It isn't "critical", because you haven't demonstrated anything of value, here. Wisdom teeth growing in is "natural" and not "abnormal", but we don't oppose removing them because of those irrelevant grounds.

All that matters is that the woman doesn't want her body doing this. Whether it's a natural function or not does not remotely matter. Not unless, to repeat myself, you are arguing that women aren't full people and are functionally brood mares that serve society's benefit against their irrelevant will. Basically, the dystopian vision presented in the Handmaid's Tale.

Pregnancy can kill you, but having your heart removed WILL kill you. Your body is doing exactly as it is expected to do. Kind of like sperm, once it fires off into a woman it does its natural biological function.

Giving blood is far less dangerous than pregnancy. You still can't be forced against your will to donate blood. To keep citing dystopian fiction, check Mad Max: Fury Road, where living people are used as blood bags. Is that wrong and horrible? What you're arguing is wrong and horrible for the same reasons. Moreso, actually.

And there is responsibility for having sex, just ask any man in the situation of having just impregnated a woman and the obviousness of there being consequences to sex are both enshrined in law and popular culture.

This is false, and you know it. There are consequences to having a child, but that's not the same thing, and implementing pseudo-religious totalitarian repression of women's rights to make it a thing is not something that makes the least bit of sense in any way whatsoever.

[Theodarzna]

It isn't "critical", because you haven't demonstrated anything of value, here.

A human life isn't something of value? Interesting worldview.

[Vyuvarax]

The function is critical. Short of their being a problem with the pregnancy there is nothing abnormal about your body going on. Pregnancy can kill you, but having your heart removed WILL kill you. Your body is doing exactly as it is expected to do. Kind of like sperm, once it fires off into a woman it does its natural biological function.

And there is responsibility for having sex, just ask any man in the situation of having just impregnated a woman and the obviousness of there being consequences to sex are both enshrined in law and popular culture.

Isn't saying that these situations - a man having to take legal responsibility for a child's well being and a woman being forced legally to remain pregnant - are the same not exactly accurate? I mean, there's plenty of legal precedence for paying financial obligations, but having to keep tissue inside your body against your will, as Endus is saying, has no legal equivalent. That seems like a big difference.

[Deleted]

The debate over whether it counts as "human" is, at best, a distraction. Like with literally any other circumstance where one person's right to life rubs up against another person's bodily autonomy, bodily autonomy should win. The alternative means you support forcing people to donate organs/tissue against their will, to save another's life. That's the simple and obvious example where these two conflict, outside of the abortion debate, and nobody is arguing for forced organ donations from living persons. Everyone sees that for the horror that it would be.

The personhood argument is not only not a distraction: it's the only reasonable one.

The violinist scenario only works for the case of rape: the donor is put in the predicament against their will. Any other case of abortion is similar to a willful commitment to be plugged to the violinist, and deciding mid-procedure that you really are not up to the task. Unplugging at that point is questionable, at best.

Not allowing something is not forcing the opposite to happen anyway: we have the liberty to choose not to get to the point of being plugged to the violinist.

Similarly, the argument of bodily autonomy, or uterus-ownership does't work. Because me owning a piece of land doesn't grant me the privilege to kill any person that I find it it; me finding a person inside my uterus doesn't grant me the privilege to kill it. It's its status as a non-person what does it.

Contrived analogies aside, at the end of the day we don't want the autonomy to insert a coathanger up our vaginas. We don't just want to be allowed to do it; any argument that only shoots for allowance (such as the stupidly libertarian body-autonomy one) sucks. What we want is the state putting in place the doctors, clinics, nurses, etc. necessary to have the procedure done safely. And that requires a higher bar for the argumentation: for the state to figure what is a person and what is not. Keep your body autonomy argument for yourself, bra; we don't want that.

[Vyuvarax]

A human life isn't something of value? Interesting worldview.

A fetus isn't a human life by a determinable metric.

[Endus]

A human life isn't something of value? Interesting worldview.

C'mon. In point form to deal with the several ways this comment of yours is wrongheaded;

1> The "human life" we're valuing here is the pregnant woman's, and you are the one dismissing it, not I.

2> Whether the fetus is "human life" at all is not remotely a given, and in medical and legal terms, is flat-out false.

3> Even if we grant that the fetus is "human life", and that it has value comparable to any other human life, there is still no other circumstance where we would deny another their bodily autonomy to protect that life. Because the value of that autonomy is higher than that of the life, if you want to assign value to these things.

4> The "value" in question was whether you claim of biological function had merit, not value of human life, and now you're shifting goalposts to misrepresent things on purpose.

[Theodarzna]

C'mon. In point form to deal with the several ways this comment of yours is wrongheaded;

1> The "human life" we're valuing here is the pregnant woman's, and you are the one dismissing it, not I.

2> Whether the fetus is "human life" at all is not remotely a given, and in medical and legal terms, is flat-out false.

3> Even if we grant that the fetus is "human life", and that it has value comparable to any other human life, there is still no other circumstance where we would deny another their bodily autonomy to protect that life. Because the value of that autonomy is higher than that of the life, if you want to assign value to these things.

4> The "value" in question was whether you claim of biological function had merit, not value of human life, and now you're shifting goalposts to misrepresent things on purpose.

Nothing I can say is going to be as good as @sefrimutro's post here.

[Endus]

The personhood argument is not only not a distraction: it's the only reasonable one.

The violinist scenario only works for the case of rape: the donor is put in the predicament against their will. Any other case of abortion is similar to a willful commitment to be plugged to the violinist, and deciding mid-procedure that you really are not up to the task. Unplugging at that point is questionable, at best.

Errr, no, it isn't.

If I say I'll donate a kidney to my dad, and then find out he was a shithead and beat my mom, and decide he's not getting my kidney, I can back out at any point. Even if they've just cleaned the site and are about to give me the anaesthetic. I can get up and walk away with zero legal repercussions because it's my kidney.

Similarly, the argument of bodily autonomy, or uterus-ownership does't work. Because me owning a piece of land doesn't grant me the privilege to kill any person that I find it it; me finding a person inside my uterus doesn't grant me the privilege to kill it. It's its status as a non-person what does it.

We're talking about bodily autonomy, not property ownership.

But if you wanted a comparison, it's why you can have the police remove the homeless man sleeping in your garage. Just because he's in your garage doesn't give him any right to stay there. What happens to him when he's made to leave isn't your concern or responsibility.

At best, you're arguing for the fetus to be removed whole, to be allowed to die on its own, which is about technique, not access.

Contrived analogies aside, at the end of the day we don't want the autonomy to insert a coathanger up our vaginas. We don't just want to be allowed to do it; any argument that only shoots for allowance (such as the stupidly libertarian body-autonomy one) sucks. What we want is the state putting in place the doctors, clinics, nurses, etc. necessary to have the procedure done safely. And that requires a higher bar for the argumentation: for the state to figure what is a person and what is not. Keep your body autonomy argument for yourself, bra; we don't want that.

Hardly.

Canada leaves the abortion discussion between the patient and her doctor, and is not otherwise involved in any way whatsoever. And that works just fine for us, thanks.

[Vyuvarax]

Nothing I can say is going to be as good as @sefrimutro's post here.

I don't think his post supports you like you think it does.