Posts tagged: abortion

Pro-choice Survey via the Abortioneers

By , April 25, 2010 3:04 pm

From Angry Feminist Doc, via The Abortioneers. Feel free to copy the questions to your own blog.

Do you Agree or Disagree with the following statements:

1. Every woman has the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy regardless of when during the pregnancy. I’m conflicted, but I think my answer is ‘yes.’ If the baby could survive unassisted outside the womb, I feel uncomfortable about aborting the pregnancy. But, ultimately, that’s such a tricky thing to define I’d rather err on the side of the woman’s rights, not the baby’s.

2. Abortion should be allowed even beyond 24 weeks of pregnancy. Yes.

3. Parental consent should be required for any teen under the age of 18 requesting an abortion. No.

4. Women who have more than 5 abortions are irresponsible. Not inherently – everyone’s situation is different.

5. Women who have more than 10 abortions are irresponsible. Same as above.

6. Women should not use abortion as a form of birth control. I agree, but I don’t think there should be legislative actions or rules in place to push women in that direction.

7. I think reproductive health advocacy organizations should promote the use of emergency contraception in order to decrease the number of abortions in the US each year. Yes, but not because of reducing abortions is, in and of itself, a “good” goal. Rather, there are (to my limited understanding) a safer, less expensive way of preventing and aborting the pregnancy.

8. I feel uncomfortable if a woman has an abortion because of the gender of the pregnancy. I do. But (like number 6) I can’t imagine a legit way to legislate this out of existence that doesn’t cause more problems than it prevents.

9. Male partners should have the right to be a part of the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Erg. I think women (usually) have a moral imperative to bring the male partner into the discussion, but I don’t think that should be put into law.

10. I think a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion is an absolute and inalienable right no matter what.

I mean, I can think of ridiculous situations where I’d say “no, it’s not a right.” If aliens came and impregnated a woman with their baby and said they’d destroy the world unless she carried the child to term, sure. Lets prevent her from aborting to save the human race. But I can’t think of any real-world scenarios where I don’t think abortion should be an absolute right.

“Abortion, Execution, And The Moral Weight Of Fetuses” from Dear Diaspora

By , May 12, 2009 11:19 pm

I’ve mentioned Daisy’s blog Dear Diaspora before, because it’s been a really interesting read. Her most recent post, Abortion, Execution, And The Moral Weight Of Fetuses, discusses a situation brought up over on Feministe:

Anyway, we last week we got the news that Orobator [a British woman in jail in Laos on drug charges] will not be executed due to the fact that she is pregnant. Obviously the fetus’ life is more important than the grown woman’s, as the fetus is “innocent” and the woman may or may not be guilty of committing a crime.

Daisy’s post is about the morality of the death penalty and of abortion, and the specifics of Orobator’s situation, and she asks some difficult questions:

Several questions are looming here, firstly: is capital punishment ethical? If one thinks execution for drug smuggling is a reasonable punishment, than the fetus’ innocence is in fact paramount here — not because fetuses are more important than women, but because one believes execution is an appropriate consequence for a given a crime, and, therefore, not an appropriate consequence for someone who is innocent.

On the other hand, if the death penalty is unethical — either for this particular charge or for all crimes — the fetus’ innocence is immaterial, since the execution is already wrong, whether a person is guilty or not. At the same time, the fetus’ existence may be relevant, since it may make the execution even more wrong, depending on whether it is ethical to kill fetuses.

Which brings us to our next question: is it ethical to kill a fetus? Is a fetus a life with any moral weight? Do we have an obligation to consider fetuses and their well-being?

As usual, Daisy answers her own questions with well-reasoned writing, and I definitely encourage you to go check it out.

-R

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