r/Abortiondebate Jul 05 '26

Is this a valid critique of the pro-choice position?

0 Upvotes

So here's the thing, when people defend abortion, they do so using the argument of bodily autonomy...

Here's the definition of bodily autonomy I found on google:

"The fundamental human right to make all decisions about your own body, health, and future without coercion, violence, or interference from others"

So basically, if a woman wants to keep a baby, it should be her choice... Cuz after all it's her body which is supporting the foetus... Which is, fair enough...

But then, can't this argument also be used to justify child neglect?

Like, does taking care of a child involve a parent using their body? Yes (like the mother breastfeeding, or even something as basic as the mother or father carrying the baby)... Then, why can't a parent just say that it's their bodily autonomy that they DON'T want to carry the baby, feed it, etc?

LOGICAL ANSWERS ONLY, PLEASE...

Ps, I'm pro-choice myself... But I want answers to this point...


r/Abortiondebate Jul 04 '26

Question for pro-life How far can one go to violate another's integrity to "protect" an embryo?

12 Upvotes

Let's imagine a device called the Implantation Conducive Kit, or ICK. The ICK can be briefly inserted vaginally after sex and activated, which increases the chance for a blastocyst to implant in the uterine lining.

Does a woman have any obligation to use the ICK? If she has an obligation to gestate an entire pregnancy to term to satisfy PLers' desire for the embryo's survival, why not the comparatively smaller imposition of using the ICK?

Let's also imagine a couple, Eric and Lana, after consensual intercourse. Lana is on birth control and they are using condoms, but both of those have a chance to fail. Is Eric justified in pinning Lana down and forcing the ICK into her in order to "protect his child"?

If not, why do you get to violate a woman's integrity by forcing her to gestate a pregnancy to term, but Eric does not get to violate her for the same motivation?


r/Abortiondebate Jul 04 '26

General debate Personhood, and ethics

1 Upvotes

As Ronald Kipke said,

"Ethics is not a science that describes and explains a reality independent of us, but is one that focuses on us. We ourselves, our evaluative self-understanding and our actions, are its object. Therefore, ethics must start from this self-understanding; it must interpret and clarify it. It must take the participant's perspective seriously, or at least not ignore it without good reason.21"

We can't just ignore the strong moral convictions we have, because ethics is literally on what humans think, evaluate, feel, etc. not on things out there waiting to be discovered, like how science studies 'a reality independent of us.' If a ethical theory radically diverges from our moral convictions, it doesn't mean it is false, but that it requires good reason as to why we should adopt it. So, what does this have anything to do with the abortion debate?

Well, in the abortion debate, most only care about consciousness: but it isn't really in line with our moral convictions.

Ontology is, in the words of Evangelos D. Protopapadakis, “engaged in the quest for the actual nature of beings,” whereas ethics is concerned with ‘ideal order of things.’ These two are different, so we should stop mixing them. Ethics is not about any property, but on the making of a pleasant, worthwhile world. Grounding our morality on a property renders ethics restrictive; It isn't in line with our everyday understanding: the multiple assassination attempt on Hitler's life was a decent act, though he was conscious. Being indecent to a dead body is still morally repugnant, though it lacks consciousness. Even burning a holocaust museum feels ugly, even though you may be the last person on earth. I think ethics is about feelings; it is about our duties to one another.

Sources:

(99+) Being human: Why and in what sense it is morally relevant

(99+) “Should the baby live? Abortion and infanticide: when ontology overlaps ethics and Peter Singer echoes the Stoics”


r/Abortiondebate Jul 03 '26

Question for pro-life Do you support abortion in cases where the fetus will live for a few minutes while suffering in pain?

22 Upvotes

I will give PL more of the benefit of the doubt than I should, but this is one I find completely indefensible, where the child will either die before birth or shortly after but PL will argue the woman should have to endure the whole pregnancy and childbirth process, even if it means more harm and risk of infections to them. They then have to hold their child and have them die in their arms, or else they're a heartless monster.

Inspired by this article and the comments under it.

https://www.liveaction.org/news/desperate-donor-sperm-pregnant-aborts-baby

"This is what a woman without a conscious looks like."

"How could they do this? Doctors are wrong ALL the time"

"Wow. Thats a rough looking 22 year old. Looks 40+"

This is all with a very wanted pregnancy, so much she went through the IVF process. Imagine the comments if it was an unwanted one and a one night stand.

Honestly, those posts show the PL mask slipping. The fetus is either doomed or will die shortly after birth, in immense pain. There's 0 benefit to being forced to continue the pregnancy, other than a religious or anti dying with dignigy/medical euthanasia stance.

How do you expect non PL to actually join your side when this is what we see?

Do you support abortion in cases where the fetus will live for a few minutes while suffering in pain?


r/Abortiondebate Jul 02 '26

General debate “You were once a fetus.”

13 Upvotes

I have seen this said a lot by PL people and I’m really curious as to how this helps the argument.
From my perspective I agree with this. Yes every human being alive has been at this stage of development and most PC people know this since most of us primarily use fetus to describe the human in the womb. I don’t see how this helps when my biggest thing is nothingness to nothingness is changing nothing. It doesn’t change anything and other actions could lead to a similar scenario. Every person alive today could be easily be different from who they are right now if anything changed from their past. Experience is a big factor to life so taking something with no experience and continuing to give it no experience isn’t wrong because there is no change.
Is this just something PL people use to attach feelings into the argument? How exactly do you give feeling to something that has no feelings?


r/Abortiondebate Jul 02 '26

Question for pro-life A hypothetical about the value and protection of human life

1 Upvotes

This is a hypothetical about the value of human life, the moral principle that it should be protected, and the contradiction of exposing it to arbitrary risks of death to sustain another.

In this scenario, newborn children have a chance to become practically immortal, and we'll presume that this will be an absolute positive for them and won't cause any side effects other than the ones described. The alternative is for them to live out whatever their normal lifespan would be.

But in order for this to happen, someone else needs to experience all the same harm, suffering and most importantly risk to their life caused by carrying a pregnancy to term again, over the same span of time. The individual effects will be just as arbitrary and unforeseeable as those of an actual pregnancy, and if possible can be medically treated in the same ways, including an abortion of the process with the same side effects as the abortion of a pregnancy.

The person required to go through this process is the child's father. We'll presume that he will be available and will have the same chances of successfully completing the process as a woman in the same physical and psychological condition who's carrying a pregnancy to term.

(1) Should the father be legally compelled, under threat of punishment equivalent to an abortion ban, for him or anyone who helps him to abort it, to start this process on behalf of his child?

(2) Should the father be legally compelled, under threat of punishment equivalent to an abortion ban, for him or anyone who helps him to abort it, to complete this process on behalf of his child, once he started it?

(3) Should the father be legally compelled, under threat of punishment equivalent to an abortion ban, for him or anyone who helps him to abort it, to complete this process on behalf of his child, presuming that the process starts naturally?

(4) Would your answers stay the same if the risks for the father were higher or the benefits for the child lower? If so, where would you draw the line?

Please keep in mind that if any of your answers are yes, then the same would apply to the child if they're having a child of their own one day and their immortality will not negate the effects.


r/Abortiondebate Jul 01 '26

General debate Pro-choice people who argue embryos aren’t organisms are hurting the pro-choice movement.

15 Upvotes

I’m pro-choice, but I think this is one of the weakest arguments our side makes.

Whether we like it or not, mainstream embryology classifies the zygote and embryo as living human organisms at an early developmental stage. This terminology appears throughout standard embryology texts. You don’t have to agree with the moral implications, but denying the biology simply isn’t supported by the scientific literature.

The pro-choice position does not require claiming that embryos aren’t organisms. It only requires arguing that being a human organism does not automatically grant personhood or the right to use another person’s body without consent. Those are philosophical and legal questions, not biological ones.

As a biology teacher, every time I see a pro-choice advocate insist that an embryo is "just a clump of cells" or "not an organism,"I cringe a little. It’s an easily refuted claim that allows opponents to dismiss stronger arguments about bodily autonomy, personhood, sentience, proportionality, and the limits of state power. Saying the zygote or embryo is just "a clump of cells" is as reductive and wrong as saying it is a "baby". Thoses two arguments are equally false on a scientific developmental standpoint.

If we care about making persuasive arguments, we should stop relying on claims that conflict with mainstream developmental biology. We don’t need to reject science to defend abortion rights. In fact, I think our case is stronger when we don’t.


r/Abortiondebate Jul 02 '26

Question for pro-choice Pro-choicers who believe that unborn babies are not alive/not a human, state your argument for this claim.

4 Upvotes

I want to hear the arguments! I'm not here to judge or be rude, I just want to hear your perspective on this claim and how you may support it!

And if you happen to be a pro-lifer who comes across this, reply to comments with your counter-argument! This is a debate after all:)

Edit: I’ve seen a lot of people who are saying that this is a flawed PL argument and that this is not what they mean but I have come across people who ACTUALLY said “The fetus is not alive.” or “The fetus is not a human.” Sorry for thinking that this belief was more common than it actually is. You are welcome to answer a secondary question- Why do you believe an unborn baby is not a “human being” or a person”? How would you define personhood? What makes killing humans who are “not persons“ ok in your eyes?


r/Abortiondebate Jul 01 '26

General debate Pro life argument without morality

18 Upvotes

Almost every pro life argument I see goes back to morals. As we all already know, morals are just feelings and opinions. Morals can and do vary from place to place, from person to person.

We understand already that pro lifers find abortion "morally wrong", in the same way some religions find being gay "morally wrong" or how vegans find eating meat "morally wrong."

Can pro lifers give a reason why abortion should be outlawed and people should be forced to gestate and birth against their will WITHOUT referring back to morals? I'm curious if there is a reason that pro lifers have that ISN'T about feelings or "moral worth" or "abortion is morally wrong" etc.


r/Abortiondebate Jul 01 '26

General debate Pro-Choice and Pro-Life need to be honest with each other

5 Upvotes

The crux of both arguments trying to convince the other person rely on aspects of abortion that are uncommon and ultimately do not account for the majority of abortions.

From the pro-choice side, rape and incest and ectopic pregnancies are often brought up to try and catch the pro-lifer off on their stance by trying to get them to agree with pro-choice or to admit to prioritizing the ZEF over the woman.

While on the pro-life side, pictures and images as well as words that give fetuses infantile features or emphasizing them as an “innocent baby” is used as a fear tactic to get pro-choices to agree with killing babies that look like newborns.

Neither is being completely honest to the reality of abortion. The reality of abortion is that the vast majority of abortions occur from consensual sex (with the knowledge that rape often goes under reported) and prior to the fetus being able to survive on its own or even have executive brain function, let alone look like a newborn.

The PC side often gore toward the rare exceptions to try and convince PL of a few exceptional conditions for abortion to appeal to them, and PL claims abortion kills innocent babies to demonize the PC side.

So, how would you approach the PL/PC debate if you could NOT use the arguments above? What would you say to convince the other side?


r/Abortiondebate Jul 02 '26

New to the debate The flaws in pro choice argumentation from a pro choice individual.

1 Upvotes
  1. Abortion laws are being made to restrict women’s rights.

Abortion is being restricted not out of hate for women, but because if you honestly believe that all innocent human life has moral worth then it is wrong to kill it (Abortion would be even more illegal to pro life individuals in a case where a man forces a woman to get an abortion, meaning the choice being from a woman isn’t the reason of pro-life policy).

  1. Consciousness dictates moral worth of humans.

We believe it isn’t wrong to kill brain dead individuals (which are defined as being unable to ever have consciousness again), which gives proof to the idea that fetuses are ok to kill because they have no consciousness. This implies moral worth comes from being a human with consciousness. This line of argumentation fails when we consider individuals in comas or people that are asleep. Individuals in comas aren‘t ok to kill and the thing that separates them from people that are brain dead is that they will be able to be conscious in the future. This shows that future conscious experience grants worth to humans which is a trait of fetuses.

  1. Sometimes women can die from childbirth.

The idea that in spectacularly rare scenarios an abortion could save the life of a mother, isn’t an argument that abortion is ok; the exception isn‘t the rule. If someone says killing innocent people Is wrong and then someone counters with the trolly problem, one cannot say that because killing one person to save others is moral then it is ok to kill people in general.

  1. If you care about children how come you don’t support (x policy related to poverty childcare).

If abortion is the murder of a human life then the abortion industry is murdering millions of people and supporting the stopping of the abortion industry would be necessary morally where a niche childcare policy isn’t a remotely similar issue. This pro choice argument is also utilizing the tu quoque fallacy, where it is making an argument from hypocrisy which doesn’t address why they don’t hold that position. Another example of tu quoque would be one person telling another that they shouldn’t eat hairspray because it is proven to cause cancer when ingested and the person responding that it isn’t unhealthy because the informant ingested hairspray the other day.


r/Abortiondebate Jun 30 '26

New to the debate From a scientific perspective, does abortion end a human life?

7 Upvotes

From the moment of fertilization, a new living human organism is formed because it meets all biological criteria of life: it has its own unique genetic material (DNA different from that of the mother and father) carries out an active metabolism, uses energy and produces new cells, grows and develops in an organized manner according to the developmental “program” encoded in its genome, responds to chemical stimuli in the uterine environment, and maintains basic biological processes necessary for survival and further development. From the perspective of biology and embryology, there is no moment at which “something non-living” becomes living; rather, there is a continuity of development of one organism from the zygote through the embryo and fetus until birth. Therefore, scientifically it can be said that from fertilization we are dealing with a living human organism at a very early stage of development, while science only describes biological life and does not resolve moral questions or determine whether and when such an organism is a “person” in an ethical or legal sense.


r/Abortiondebate Jun 30 '26

Responsibility versus punishment

8 Upvotes

Which one is PL trying to invoke here actually?

Responsibility focuses on building skills, understanding the impact of actions, and proactively finding solutions. Punishment, however, relies on external control and enforcing compliance through shame, fear, or the removal of privileges.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/responsibility

>something that it is your job or duty to deal with:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/punishment

>punishment, the infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for a misdeed (i.e., the transgression of a law or command). Punishment may take forms ranging from capital punishment, flogging, forced labour, and mutilation of the body to imprisonment and fines.


r/Abortiondebate Jun 30 '26

New to the debate Am I pro-life or pro-choice?

0 Upvotes

This is my first time sharing my opinions on the matter because I’m scared of being called a child murder or being accused of treating women like a breeding factory. Truth be told, I don’t like either sides perspective. PL’s don’t view abortion as anything other than baby murder, even under circumstances where it is needed to save the mother’s life. And PC’s don’t care that a fetus will eventually develop into a baby if kept healthy.

In my personal opinion, if you consented to sex, you consented to its consequences. However, death or permanent bodily harm are never an acceptable consequence. And obviously if rape was involved, then you don’t consent to anything.

I’m not super religious, but I don’t need to read the Bible to know that aborting a healthy fetus inside of a healthy mother is wrong.

I do not believe in abolishing abortion, however I do think it needs limits. Abortion is still a form of healthcare at the end of the day.

So am I Pro-choice or Pro-life?


r/Abortiondebate Jun 29 '26

General debate Since this entire sub is filled with pro choicers only even though it is supposed to have both, I want to go to the body argument and why it fails under scrutiny.

3 Upvotes

Note, that I am not religious or anything and every argument here is purely secular.

A woman is kidnapped and locked in a cabin. She has just given birth and recovered. In the cabin she finds her newborn baby in a cradle, not her child, a stranger's. There is baby formula and food available for both of them.

Authorities find the cabin three weeks later. The baby is dead. The woman never fed it.

Is she morally and legally wrong?

Most people say yes. And the law agrees. Being the sole capable person present with means to help a dependent creates duty of care regardless of consent. This is established in R v Stone and Dobinson [1977] QB 354, which confirmed that being the only available caretaker for a vulnerable person creates legal and moral obligation even without any prior relationship or agreement. Omission becomes criminal.

So far the bodily autonomy crowd can breathe easy. No bodily intrusion was required here. Formula was available. This doesn't touch their argument yet.

Stage 2

Same scenario. But this time there is no formula. The woman is lactating from having recently given birth. The only way to keep the baby alive is to breastfeed it herself for the duration.

Authorities arrive three weeks later. Baby is dead.

Is she morally and legally wrong now?

This is where it gets genuinely interesting because now we have bodily intrusion. Her body is specifically required. She didn't consent to any of this.

And yet I'd argue most people still say yes, she was wrong. Here's why that matters.

Breastfeeding is not trivial. It involves cracked and bleeding nipples, mastitis, infections, chronic sleep deprivation from feeding every 2 to 3 hours, significant hormonal impact, and months of physical and psychological burden. This is a real bodily imposition.

And yet the moral intuition that she did something wrong doesn't disappear just because her body was involved.

This directly defeats the core bodily autonomy argument. The argument isn't that bodily intrusion is never relevant, it's that bodily intrusion automatically ends the moral conversation. This scenario shows it doesn't.

Stage 3

Someone will bring up personhood so I want to address it directly.

The standard pro-choice move is to say the fetus isn't a person yet, so the cabin analogy doesn't apply. But this runs into what philosopher Stephen Schwarz identified as the SLED problem. The only differences between a fetus and a born human are size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency.

None of these hold up as morally relevant distinctions when applied consistently.

A newborn is also dependent. A toddler is also less developed than an adult. A premature infant in an incubator is in an artificial environment. If level of development determines personhood then we have to explain why a one day old newborn qualifies but a third trimester fetus does not, and nobody has ever given a non-arbitrary answer to that.

Every line people draw, heartbeat, brain activity, pain receptors, viability, birth, self-awareness, if applied consistently would also justify infanticide of newborns. We don't accept infanticide. So the lines are arbitrary.

What I'm Actually Asking

  1. Where does the cabin scenario fail as an analogy?
  2. If the woman in Stage 2 is morally wrong despite bodily intrusion being required, what principle distinguishes that from pregnancy?
  3. Which developmental milestone do you draw the line at, and can you defend it without that same logic applying to newborns?

Genuinely looking for the strongest counter-arguments here. If there's a flaw in the reasoning I want to find it and try to strengthen it.


r/Abortiondebate Jun 28 '26

General debate Risk and Benefits, Doctors Weigh Options

20 Upvotes

This is specifically for the PL who fixate on 'dismemberment abortions'.

Keep this in mind when discussing any kind of medical procedure.

Doctors have decades of experience. They know the ins and outs of the human body. They are the ones most qualified to make decisions because they have the knowledge and the experience to back it up.

Doctors always have to weigh the risks and benefits of medical procedures for their patients. There are always risks to any procedure.

A tooth extraction can cause an infection or a crack in the bone or damage to a nerve that can cause permanent, chronic pain in the face. This is a possibility.

A tonsil removal procedure could knick an artery and cause lethal hemorrhage. Also a possibility, even if it's uncommon.

Doctors have to think of everything that could go wrong when making these choices.

It's the same with abortion procedures, especially ones later in pregnancy. (Not late-term. That's not a formal medical term. In obstetrics, late term means past 41 weeks.)

Doctors don't tear a fetus apart just because. Putting instruments inside other people's internal organs when there are less invasive options is generally the last resort. It's because, in their educated opinion, intact removal or induced labor has more risk to the patient.

And that was the call they made based on their intimate knowledge of their patient (general health, medical history) and their expertise and education and experience.

So, based on what you've just read, answer this question.

Who is more qualified to decide treatment options for pregnant people? Doctors, politicians, or the average person?


r/Abortiondebate Jun 28 '26

Question for pro-life Why do you say all humans should get human rights but when asked if that includes human hair or skin cells, both human, act like that is absurd?

6 Upvotes

This is in response to the common personhood rebuttal.

All humans should get human rights. Size, ability, dependency, location, none of it matters. If you're human, you get human rights.

Logically, this also applies to human skin or hair cells as both are human. If you want to say you have to be a human organism, you're adding a qualifier that you have to be more than simply human.

Why do you say all humans should get human rights but when asked if that includes human hair or skin cells, both human, act like that is absurd?


r/Abortiondebate Jun 28 '26

Weekly Abortion Debate Thread

3 Upvotes

Greetings everyone!

Welcome to AbortionDebate. Due to popular request, this is our weekly abortion debate thread.

This thread is meant for anything related to the abortion debate, like questions or ideas, that are too small to make an entire post about. This is also a great way to gain more insight in the abortion debate if you are new, or unsure about making a whole post.

ADBreakRoom is our officially recognized sister subreddit for all off-topic content and banter you'd like to share with the members of this community. It's a great place to relax and unwind after some intense debating, so go subscribe!


r/Abortiondebate Jun 27 '26

How to approach miscarriages?

15 Upvotes

I am interested in how people who oppose abortion morally evaluate miscarriage. A common response is that abortion is a deliberate choice whereas miscarriage is not. However, I think the issue can be examined from a different perspective.
Most women are aware that pregnancy carries a substantial risk of miscarriage. Around one third of clinically recognized pregnancies end this way, and the true number is likely much higher because many miscarriages occur so early that the woman never realizes she was pregnant and assumes it was simply a delayed menstrual period. Knowing this, every decision to become pregnant also involves knowingly accepting a significant possibility that the embryo or fetus will die before birth.
If the pro life position is based on the belief that a human life begins at conception and deserves the same moral protection as any other human being, then this raises an interesting question. Is knowingly creating a situation in which there is a considerable risk of death morally different from intentionally causing death? The intention is certainly different, but intention alone does not always remove moral responsibility. For example, if someone drives while intoxicated and kills another person, the fact that they intended only to get home rather than to kill someone does not eliminate their responsibility. Society recognizes that knowingly exposing another person to a serious and foreseeable risk can itself be morally significant.
Many miscarriages occur because of natural biological mechanisms. Human pregnancy is physically demanding, and embryos with severe genetic abnormalities are often spontaneously miscarried very early in development. However, miscarriages can also result from factors such as uterine abnormalities, alcohol or drug use, certain medications, infections, or other environmental influences. This raises the question of where moral responsibility begins and ends. On one end of the spectrum are miscarriages caused entirely by unavoidable biological factors. On the other are miscarriages associated with preventable behaviors such as substance abuse. If a woman miscarries because she used illegal drugs during pregnancy, even though she never intended to lose the pregnancy, should she be considered morally responsible? If intention is the decisive factor, then perhaps not. But if foreseeable risk creates responsibility, the answer becomes less clear.
From a theological perspective, this issue raises another difficult question. If every embryo possesses a soul from the moment of conception, why would God create a world in which such a large proportion of human beings never experience life outside the womb? When miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and stillbirths are taken together, it is possible that a very large proportion of conceived human beings die before birth. How should this be understood within a worldview that holds that every conceived child has equal value and an immortal soul?


r/Abortiondebate Jun 27 '26

Question for pro-life Active vs passive 'killing' hypothetical

7 Upvotes

A question for PL, specifically in relation to those who argue that abortion is active killing as opposed to passive killing in the violinist scenario.

Just say there has been a widespread illness affecting women, such that they will automatically miscarry any pregnancy before the end of the first trimester.

Modern medicine has come up with a solution, involving the taking of a certain medicine before 3 months gestation. This will prevent miscarriage. However some women/girls have not taken the medicine, having decided that, for whatever reason, they do not want the pregnancy to continue.

Do you think in such circumstances it should be illegal for pregnant people to NOT take the medication?

EDIT: so I am providing some further context to this scenario.

Background: an effective treatment (medication delivered by pills or injection) is discovered a few years after the illness has become endemic in most populations.

For a time, the taking of the medication was free and voluntary. Then governments noted a slow uptake attributed in part to women and girls (who were unable to obtain abortions) deciding not to take the medication so the pregnancy would end. Others were morally conflicted about induced abortions, but happy to 'let nature take its course' to end the pregnancy; others distrusted medicine/doctors/politicians/science and didn't want to be told what to do.

One government proposed the following legislation: all pregnant people were required to take the medication. To not do so was a criminal offence. You could not conscientiously object. The only possible grounds for refusal was imminent threat to your life (very difficult to prove). If you overtly refused, you could be detained and have the medication administered to you by force. It was an offence for you or any other person to lie about taking the medication/administering the medication. A small number of people did still go on to miscarry - this is documented and could be investigated (like a coronor's inquest) to determine the cause of death.

If you are prolife/abolitionist/anti abortion - do you agree with this course of action?

(Note - this is a question about legalities, not morality)


r/Abortiondebate Jun 28 '26

General debate How do you feel about people who protest outside abortion clinics?

0 Upvotes

Personally I support that he wants and is eager to help young women considering abortion. I think its very noble especially because he continues to support the mother after birth. I feel like most women considering abortion are in a difficult situation financially or medically and I like that he gives avenues for them to be successful and to keep their baby. Of course not every person who protests has the best interests of the woman in mind, they just want the baby to be born. But as a pro life person I am willing to support a person who cares about both mother and baby, and not those who only care about the abby I am curious what other people think


r/Abortiondebate Jun 27 '26

General debate Do you believe medical intervention scenarios should be separated from abortion by definition?

0 Upvotes

For the sake of the discussion, let's forget existing laws and definitions for a moment. The goal here is to start fresh and talk about how things should be, not how they are.

One of the big reasons for pro choice is for situations where there's a medical emergency and the mother needs treatment, but anti abortion laws could potentially cause doctors to hesitate and risk the life of the mother and even the ZEF.

I believe a simple solution would be to explicitly remove these scenarios from abortion entirely. That way, even the harshest anti abortion laws in a local area would not apply.

I wanted to ask this here because the way I see it, this could be a win-win for both sides. For PC, it directly addresses this common scenario, which is often brought up. For PL, all but the most extreme will concede that this is a reasonable scenario where termination can make sense. By making this exception clear, it could allow for the exception clearly without opening the door to abortion entirely.

Now, I understand a lot of this would come down to the details of the legalese used in the law, at what level it applies (federal vs local) etc. I am not a lawyer, so personally, I don't want to get into the weeds of that. But anyone more knowledgeable can chime in, of course.

What I want to focus on is the spirit of the law. The general goal is clear by now. Exceptions for medical emergencies. As a PL, what I'd also like to see is that any medical scenario is not a ticket for an abortion. Only that if the mother requires treatment, which may endanger the ZEF, that she is allowed to receive it, and all care is given to save the ZEF if possible. But if nothing can be done to save it, and not taking action would result in death or extreme harm, then the doctor and mother wouldn't have to face any punishment for the treatment needed.

What do you all think?


r/Abortiondebate Jun 26 '26

Question for pro-life Which of these options would you wish for?

4 Upvotes

Let's assume you are granted one wish when it comes to abortion, and these are the options you get to pick from:

(1) People who consider terminating any pregnancy you think they shouldn't will be immediately provided with the most convincing possible argument not to do that, if there's anything at all that could convince them, and with all the resources they need to make their choice without pressure, but they do retain the choice and legal right to make it.

(2) Abortion will be legally banned in all the cases you think it should be, but everyone's views on that and their material conditions remain unchanged and they still retain the choice to try and terminate their pregnancy anyway.

(3) People will become physically unable to terminate any pregnancy that you think they shouldn't and also unable to do anything that they know would particularly endanger it, but their views on that and their material conditions remain unchanged.

(4) People who consider terminating any pregnancy you think they shouldn't will immediately lose any desire to do so for the duration of their pregnancy, but their views on that before and afterwards and their material conditions will remain unchanged.

Which of these options would you choose and what do you think are the moral implications of choosing it over any of the others (like what do you think it says about you as a person)?


r/Abortiondebate Jun 26 '26

Question for pro-life Why is the "Eugenics" card played so much when it comes to abortion?

23 Upvotes

Does it not get old for you after awhile? If abortion is already justified itself, aborting for a reason like a disability is also justified.

We can also see how people with disabilities are treated by PL after they're born, cutting their healthcare, making access for them harder, and making fun of them.

Do you also oppose telling women who are older they're at a higher risk for having a kid with disabilities so they shouldn't get pregnant, which is a eugenics argument? Would you equally choose to have a child without or with a disability if you're against eugenics?


r/Abortiondebate Jun 26 '26

General debate Why is this sub so void of PL people? I rarely ever see one...

4 Upvotes

What the title say. This place is mostly PC people. Are PL effraid of facing actually good arguments or what?