Abortion...

[ljm2002]

Here is what I would like to ask each and every one of those who would put restrictions on abortion. Please think of one woman in your life, a woman of childbearing age. Maybe it's your mom, or your sister, or an aunt or your daughter, or just a friend. Now consider the reasons that woman might have for seeking an abortion: it might be a fatal disease, and the baby would not live for even 6 months; it might be because of a rape; it might be because bearing the child is likely to kill her. Whatever her reasons, ask yourself this: should the state be able to compel this woman to bear a child she does not want? Because that is what is being discussed when we say we will ban or restrict abortion rights.

Equating abortion with murder is of course a very effective frame. If we want to preserve this right for women, we need to find frames of our own. One I would suggest is the one above, asking whether the state really should have the right to compel a woman to give birth to a baby when she does not want to, regardless of circumstances. I do not believe the state should have that right. It goes beyond a right to privacy -- which has been so eroded in so many areas of our life, I fear it may not be enough protection for the right to a safe and legal abortion. It goes to state control over our lives.

Nature performs abortions in the form of miscarriages all the time. It is so common, it's laughable that we have to argue the point. We send 18-year-old young men halfway across the world to kill and be killed in a senseless slaughter with, while denying 40-year-old women the right to make their own life-and-death decisions.

[damntexdem]

1. An acquaintance of mine was religiously anti-abortion.

I asked him what he would do if his own wife wanted or needed an abortion. He said that he'd help her get one. But he would still work to make abortion illegal. I gave up on arguing with him.

[Captain_Nemo]

2. The logic of illegal abortion

I think we do need to reframe the argument, too. Here are a few ideas.

1. Go to The Center for Reproductive Rights.org and they have a map of the world that shows all of the countries where abortion is illegal and legal.
My question to anti-choicer's? Why would you want the USA in the same category as these incredibly poor countries where religion rules the land?

Here's another:
2.If you have laws that make abortion illegal becasue it is considered murder, then the woman who has the abortion MUST go to jail for murder.
There is no other recourse. When I mention this (and I hear this all the time on MSM) they say, "well I don't think she should go to jail..."

But, if it's murder she MUST to go to jail.

If the law makes abortion illegal because the zygote, blastocyst, fetus is a life than that is the punishment for murder. Yet, if the law does not put the woman in jail for murder than the law is saying that the zygote, blastocyst, fetus is less than a full life.
So the only reason for making it illegal would be to control women (thereby controlling the majority of the population of a country).

There is a third reframing idea: Look at history. nazi Germany was an anti-choice country. They came in on the heels of the Weimer Republic. Feminism was on the rise. It was squelched when the Nazis took over. They restricted access to borth control and prevented aryan women from having abortions.

Now why would the USA want to follow in those footsteps (or Goose steps as the case may be.)?