Reply #19: what you see [View All]

[iverglas]

That is not what I see from the pro-choice movement.

I think the pro-life movement is overly concerned with
what other people are doing - and expect everyone to have
the same value system and to care the same way about each
fertilized egg. But I happen to think they might be right
when it comes to saying look people this is how these
things work.

"Pro-choice" people advocate that women have legal access to abortion services.

Many of them may also advocate that women have ready access to a range of pregnancy prevention products. Many of them may even also advocate that certain products be used by individuals who want to prevent pregnancy, and promoted by society.

Hell, some of them probably even advocate the wearing and promotion of bicycle helmets, and the eating and promotion of tofu.

Bicycle helmets and tofu have nothing to do with the choice we are talking about when we say "pro-choice". Neither does anyone's opinion about how any particular pregnancy prevention product works.

There is one issue about which all "pro-choice people" agree: women must have legal access to abortion services. And that is the one and only issue on which we can be certain that all "pro-choice people" agree. Pretty much by definition.

"Choice", in this context, means (per my Concise Oxford) the power or opportunity to choose. In the very particular and only context we are in, it means the power or opportunity to choose abortion. (Having the power or opportunity to choose abortion necessarily implies having the power or opportunity to choose no-abortion, given how no one is trying to force anyone to choose abortion).

It has nothing to do with IUDs. And so no one's opinion about IUDs has anything to do with the choice that you are talking about.

So I can't figure out why, when you characterize people who disagree with you about IUDs, you call those people "pro-choice people". You might as well characterize people who ride bicycles as "Republicans", or call Republicans "people who ride bicycles". After all, some Republicans ride bicycles, and some people who ride bicycles are Republican.


So the pro-choice people, in my opinion, lose moral ground in that respect.

Ah, what an excellent ad personam arguer you are! Pro-choice people are immoral because they don't agree with your opinion about how IUDs work. Well ... so what?

A pro-choice person would undoubtedly lose moral ground if s/he were to argue that the earth is flat; s/he would obviously be a liar. And this would have something to do with the issue -- whether women should be prohibited by law from having abortions -- how? So the question of whether the person who said the earth was flat was pro- or anti-choice would be relevant ... how? And whether or not s/he was pro-choice would be worth mentioning in a discussion of the shape of the earth -- WHY?

You're talking about what the effects of an IUD are. What has anyone's position on women's right to choose abortion got to do with the merits of his/her argument about the effects of an IUD?

Nothing. So why are you identifying the people you disagree with as "pro-choice" -- even though some pro-choice people might agree with you and some anti-choice people might disagree with you when it comes to what evidence they accept as to how an IUD works?


I think the pro-choice people may have valid reasons for not being straightforward. Like with the Argentinian example - so here these women don't have pills or IUDs as an option.

You appear to be saying that you think that if people who support women's right to an abortion "admitted" how IUDs work, women could lose access to IUDs. Well, that's not too likely, unless women first lost access to abortion. But if that occurred, perhaps you're right; access to IUDs and the pill wouldn't be far behind. In the brave new world in which women could be enslaved in one way, certainly they could be enslaved in others.

But before you postulate any reasons for not being straightforward, you really have to establish that someone is not being straightforward. Or shall I now postulate reasons for what you're doing? Maybe I could even dream up some valid ones ...


I just happen to think - if some of the pro-choice people weren't misrepsenting the effects of pills and IUDs they could try to look for an alternate way of thinking to get people to consider using two types of birth control instead of none.

We seem to be assuming here that there are people in the world who are such fussbudgets that they won't use an IUD (or the pill) because they have somehow managed to hear the allegation that it will prevent a fertilized ovum from implanting in their uterus ... and who want to use birth control ... and who aren't motivated enough to figure out some other method to use.

These people evidently live in some sort of cocoon where they get all the latest anti-choice propaganda, and yet have never heard of a condom. So they just use nothing.

I'm still trying to figure out what fussbudgets like these are doing trying to prevent pregnancies anyhow. The subset of people who accept tales of IUDs and the pill being "abortifacient" as a reason not to use them who also wish to use any of that artificial birth control stuff at all must, it seems to me, be remarkably small.

The people who propagate these tales are, for the most part, really not wanting to persuade other people to use different forms of birth control, you know. People who profess to have scruples like these about IUDs and the pill generally just aren't people who want to use birth control ... or who want women to have control over their sexuality and fertility. They don't want to persuade women to use some other method. They want to make women stop screwing around and stop having the option of sex without pregnancy. And stopping women from having access to effective birth control is a pretty good way of accomplishing both those ends.

Do you actually know someone who has these scruples about IUDs and yet wants to fornicate madly and not get pregnant? I sure don't.

I'm just hearing a lot of people who want other people not to be able to fornicate madly and not get pregnant, and will try just about anything to achieve that end.