dk

That's a rather crude assertion. It presumes that abortion benefits blacks who are disproportionately poor, and even confirms stereotypes about the incontinence nature of black people. The truth is because of Roe there are 35% fewer Black people in the US today. From this perspective abortion keeps the poor under foot by perpetuating racist stereotypes. Its unclear black people are better off because of abortion, and the economic coercion employed to cull the Black population suggests much darker motives. If rich white whales employ abortion for the benefit of the poor (that are disproportionately black) why haven't the number of black people at or below the poverty line decreased since Roe. If rich white whales really wanted to help poor black poeple, then abortion has been an utter failure.

everlastingtongue

I made no reference to race in any of my posts, nor do I presume that abortion benefits any racial group over another – your racial inferences are your own and not mine.

An abortion ban would only affect those not able to travel abroad. Unless abortion was banned worldwide, that would be a fact. How that breaks down in racial terms is obviously important to consider, but it was in no way part of my original argument.

Daleth

Whoa! dk! You just read poor and think black? Their are poor people of all races. Furthermore there are middle class people of all races who can not afford a spur-of-the-moment trip out of the country.

Dal

Loren Pechtel

Attacking the causes of abortion would do *MORE* to reduce abortion than making it illegal would.

Loren Pechtel

Less black abortion would mean more blacks in poverty, more black criminals. Would that be good for blacks? No!

yguy

You sure you really want to say this?

Alonzo Fyfe

In reading through this issue, I'm afraid that I do not see the point of some of these arguments. With respect to many types of actions, there is reason to do both. That there are social practices that reduce the tendency of people to engage in some sort of criminal behavior is not reason against making it criminal.

There are sociological projects that one can undertake to keep people off of drugs, but it does not argue against a prohibition on drugs. (Other considerations might, but this is not one of them.) We can, perhaps, do more to prevent children from growing up to be abusive parents or to persuade them against theft as a way to take money. Yet, these programs should exist along with, not instead of, the relevant criminal laws.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that abortion should remain legal -- because nobody -- no PERSON -- has the right to the use of another person's body without her consent -- not for something so invasive and harmful as pregnancy.

But if abortion were wrong, this would only mean that we have an obligation to do our best to deal with the consequences that would come from preventing this wrong. In no way can an argument be made that we should permit murder because we do not want to be bothered with the dufficulties that arise from preventing it.

Accordingly, the effect on blacks is also completely irrelevant to the moral issue. If having 35% more blacks is such a worthy goal that abortion may be prohibited as a means of bringing this about, then we may also obtain this goal even more efficiently by outlawing birth control among blacks, or even forcing them to become pregnant, all for the sake of reaching the all-important goal of '35% more blacks'.

If legalized abortion results in there being fewer blacks than there would have otherwise been, it is important to recognize that this is their choice. It is not a matter of white people forcing abortion upon blacks as a form of genocide. It is a matter of people making their own individual choices.

So, I read these arguments and I have a question that keeps repeating itself in my mind.

"So what?"

Could somebody please explain to me why, if -- perchance -- abortion is murder, we should permit murder because those who would argue against allowing murder cannot come up with these "practical pro-life solutions". Or explain to me why, if -- perchance -- abortion is not murder, that raising the number of people in a particular demographic category is so important that abortion should be prohibited anyway.

yguy

Having more or less blacks is not the issue. The point is that abortion is being used in conjunction with wellfare and coddling of black criminals, among other things, to demoralize the black community. Specifically, availability of abortion encourages black men to treat women like sluts, and black women to act like sluts.

everlastingtongue

Alonzo,

I started this thread to see if there were any reasonable pro-life stances out there that I hadn’t encountered before.

Simply making something illegal does not offer any cure. Many things, as others pointed out, are illegal and yet they still occur.

I would think that the goal of anyone professing to be pro-life, would be to use whatever means are available to reduce, and eventually eliminate, abortion entirely. This would include sex ed and access to contraceptives, even at younger ages. But the only solution I’ve seen from pro-life people I’ve engaged about the issue is to criminalize it, which, in my opinion, does nothing. Sure the actual numbers might decrease, but the harm that would be brought about would more than make up for the difference. Plus, as I’ve stated before, the law would really only apply to the poor. Additionally, most pro-lifers I’ve encountered are against sex ed and easy contraceptive access, which seems ludicrous to me if their true goal is to reduce or eliminate abortion.

I’ve found that most pro-lifers are not pro-life at all, but rather anti-abortion – they care not for any real consequences, but only seek to promote their moral or religious agenda.

I consider myself pro-choice, for the exact reason you cited:
But I like to try and keep an open mind, which means my political stances are constantly under review. I’m always on the lookout for new information.

So far, I haven’t seen anything new.

Daleth

Sure ya have! My bit about gamete cryobanking and sterilization of 11 year olds. Course I didn't mean it, but it was new.

But I did notice was that the people who came and commented on how to reduce the need for abortions were pro-choice, which is interesting itself.

My interest in this thread is because I think all the choices a woman has in this situation pretty much suck. I'd like to see fewer women need to make these choices at all, and I'd like to see them have better choices when they do. I don't believe abortion is murder. That said...

However if you think it's murder (or to rephrase, killing a person and should be classified as murder) -- and one way or another it's just an opinion -- and you want to make it illegal, you do need to address what you're going to do with these millions of babies born every year. You need to address how society is going to handle a huge increase in the birth of fetal alcohol syndrome babies and drug addicted babies, because women who really don't want to be pregnant are less likely to change their habits to accomodate the needs of the fetus. You need to address how you're going to handle millions of children without medical insurance and millions more in the public schools and whether it's murder to deny an abortion to a ten-year-old girl who then dies in childbirth. You have to decide if you're going to put a woman in a cell because she was known to be seeking an abortion. You have to decide how we're going to pay for the prenatal care of women who are willing to seek it and can't afford it. You have to decide exactly how much you personally are willing to give up to prevent these things that you consider murders from happening. You have to decide how you're going to handle criminalizing something, even if you think that something is murder.

If you think drugs are a huge evil and need to be criminalized... if you think drug dealers are essentially murderers... you need to decide how you're going to handle that. So far all we've got is pay for more prisons, put criminals on waiting lists to get into them, and destroy more lives and families. If you can't find a better way than that to handle criminalizing it, I don't give a damn how evil you think it is... you can't HANDLE it being criminalized.

To criminalize an activity, no matter how awful you think that activity is, without forethought about how you're going to handle the results of making it illegal is mindblowingly negligent.

Dal