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Blogging for choice

By tfk on January 23, 2007.

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On this Blogging for Choice Day, we are asked to tell why we are pro-choice.

For me, the answer is simple: women are people, and as such deserve to have control of their own bodies. Like Lindsay, I find this claim remarkable only in that others find it remarkable.

That's why I'm pro-choice, and that's why I think that the basic framework of Roe v. Wade makes sense. A fertilized egg starts out as a growth in a woman's uterus. The decision to remove it is as morally consequential as the removal of a pre-cancerous polyp. At the end of a pregnancy, you've got an independently viable human being, and you have to consider the moral consequence of both independent lives.

Along the way, things are a little fuzzy. As a basic framework, the divisions into trimesters seem like a good way to reflect those trade-offs. January 22nd is an important day in our nation's history because it established the simple concept that a person exerts some sovereignty over their own body.

Tags
Culture Wars

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Can't disagree with any of that. Well said.

My reasons for being pro-choice are simple.

1) I don't want to have children. Seems that not having them is better than forcing unwanted children on anyone (especially for the sake of the kids). And yes, I've had a vasectomy. Additionally, my wife has been told that she most likely wouldn't be able to have children even if she wanted to, and if she were to become pregnant, it would be very dangerous for her (all because of a bad abdominal infection she had when very young).

2) See above. If my wife were to become pregnant, it would be potentially very dangerous for her. The odds are extrememly unlikely (since she is also on BC pills for unrelated reasons).

3) What Josh said. I'm a civil libertarian basically, and feel that if the government can't prove that harm is coming to society, or to another person, then the law should have absolutely no say in what happens.

4) It is the woman's choice. I feel as a man, that I really don't have a place to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body.

Cheers.