Reply #143: Yes....... [View All]

[outinforce]

Thank you, elfwitch, for your thoughtful response. Thank you for taking the time to help me understand your position on this issue a bit better. And thanks also for pointing out your observation that I am missing your point. Abortion is, in my view, too important an issue to have people mis-interpreting other people's points of view on it. It is my belief that mis-interpretation of other people's points of view is the single biggest factor leading to animosity between people on this issue.

You say that it is really easy to be anti-abortion. I would suggest that it is not as easy as you might think.

I am not quite sure what, exactly, you mean by "anti-abortion", since I do happen to have several friends who support abortion rights, but who tell me that they are "personnally opposed" to abortion, or who tell me that they think abortion is not a good thing. I have always considered them to be "anti-abortion", because they feel that although women must have the right to have abortions, they feel that abortions should be rare.

I have several friends who describe themselves as being "prolife", but who at the same have absolutley no problem with abortions in certain circumstances. These circumstances might include, for some who call themselves pro-life, abortions which occur during the first few days of pregnancy, as well as pregnancies which threaten the life of the mother or which resulted from rape or incest.

It seems to me that to truly be "anti-abortion" one would have to say, I think, that there are no circumstances in which abortion is ever justified, and I think that would be a terribly difficult think to justify. That is why I suggest that it may not be as easy as you think to be anti-abortion.

You ask, "Has it ever occurred to anyone that the large majority of abortions that are occurring are not used as frivolous birth control? Do you honestly thing that women are tripping off merrily to the clinic?". I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly do not think that the large majority of abortions are used as frivolous birth control. Nor do I happen to think that women are tripping off merrily to the clinic. But I would think that abortion is such cases would somehow be -- if not "wrong" -- the certainly something that would make me uncomfortable. And it does seem to me that there is a part of the pro-choice community which says, in effect, "Even though most don't use abortion as a frivolous means of birth control, we would have no problem if every singler abortion were in fact a form of frivolous birth control."

You also say this, "No one here is suggesting that there be unfettered access. That is the outrageous rantings of people who want to make it completely illegal."

I would suggest that there are in fact people right here on DU who suggest that there be an unfettered right to abortion throughout the entire pregnancy. Some suggest that we use Canada's law as our own model. Canada allows (and pays for) abortions for any reason at any time during a pregnancy, if I understand the posts of some correctly. So I assure you that the call for unfettered access -- which may, as you say, be truly "outrageous" -- comes not so much from those few people who want to make abortion completely illegal. Rather, it does come from those who really, truly believe that the state has no right to interfere -- at all -- with a woman's right to choose, even if it means that a woman would have the right to destroy a completely healthy, eight-month fetus who poses no risk to her health or life.