Kade, I hate to single you out, but I was scanning through the posts in this thread and yours seemed to sum up the pro-choice logic most concisely, so you're my target
Good, it means you either recognize an intellectual equivalent and desire to stifle the potential affect on uninformed hordes, or you want to sharpen your expand your own knowledge base.
1) Privacy: Abortion is not a privacy issue. Period. A fetus is either a human being and has the right to life, or it isn't and it doesn't. I'm not going to pretend I know the answer to when a fetus is or is not a human being, but I really wish the abortion argument would focus on this question instead of resorting to the privacy argument, which is completely irrelevant.
An excellent start. Abortion is a privacy issue because the courts considered it relevant. There are two reasons for this, but I'll only use one. The nature of abortions prior to Roe v Wade was one of non-prosecution; states that banned abortion, like Texas, didn't normally prosecute. When Roe v Wade came to the Supreme Court, it was decided, among other things, that as precedence of the issue had proclaimed, the government had no right to a patient's medical history, or to view the operation's performed on a patient. In other words, the government could not violate the privacy of a person's medical history. This continues to gain a strong precedence with the passing of HIPAA. The other reason is more complex. Either way, I have proven that privacy is not irrelevant here.
2) Reproductive freedom: To the best of my knowledge, aside from cases of rape, no one is forcing a man and a woman to have sexual intercourse and reproduce. Consenting adults have the freedom to choose whether or not they engage in sexual intercourse. If a pregnancy occurs, the choice of whether or not reproduce has already been made. So again, except for rape, the "reproductive freedom" argument is completely irrelevant.
Do they have the freedom to decide when and where to have a child? Reproductive freedom does not simply end with the act of sexual intercourse. Reproduction requires about 18 years normally.
3) Separation of church and state: Abortion laws are not about religion, even though lots of people either think they are or want them to be. These laws are about deciding when a fetus is or is not a human being possessing the right to life.
Some of the definitions given for when a fetus is a human being possessing the right to life rely HEAVILY on religious language (ie, soul). This issue is furthered by the language used in many of the pro-life rallies and speeches. A law that reflects a change of heart for a right to an abortion must remain secular.
4) Women's rights: First of all, I'm surprised that a Ron Paul supporter would think in terms of the rights of a group. That aside, abortion should be about an individual's rights. There are at least two (and maybe three, depending on how you look at it) individuals involved in every pregnancy - the mother, the father, and the fetus. In the case of consensual sex, the mother and father should both have equal rights in deciding whether the fetus is aborted. Of course this would create all sorts of legal complications if you believe in the popular definitions of "reproductive freedom" and "women's rights." But if you believe that the freedom to reproduce is a positive right possessed by all individuals (i.e., the right of a man and a woman to have consensual sexual intercourse and reproduce) and not a negative right possessed by single group of individuals (i.e., the right of only one individual involved, the woman, to terminate a pregnancy that occurred from consensual sex), then you must believe that all individuals involved in a pregnancy have the right to say whether the fetus is aborted or not.
I'm a unique cat. I don't say things just because they sound like I am using the language of a libertarian. Women's rights are individual rights. There was a time when those rights didn't exist, as a separate group, thus an inclusion of the group in discussion. I am relatively torn about the father's rights in all this. There was a time when I was strongly against allowing the father to be the sole decider in the decision. On that, I think it will always depend heavily on intent. For what reason does he want to keep the child? If it is for religious reasons and plans on giving the child up for adoption, his views on the subject are magnanimously more irrelevant, if it is because he has chosen to be a part of the child's life and the woman's, and desires a family, I may falter a bit on the decision. I believe strongly that cases in which there is not a census decision, that is very rarely a point of contention. Part of the reason for the desire for abortions is the carnal knowledge a mother has about her potential to be a mother. It is natural, and evolutionary. If she cannot be a good mother, as happens often in nature, the best chance for survival of her offspring is to wait until she can be... this is a trait of ALL mammals. There is a potential argument on the improvement of the potential of her offspring in our current cultural, and one worth noting, however it is negligent when compared with the cost analysis of developing a fetus to full viability, a cost that is strongly weighed on the women's mental condition and future desires. I believe a man should have a say, and ultimately from a societal point of view, he does. I find it VERY hard to believe that there are women who get abortions who have men willing to raise a child with them, aside from cases of infidelity. As for the laws that hold doctors responsible, they are necessary. It was the intent of a mother to raise and give birth to a child, those interests are first and foremost, and a doctor's negligence is a still malpractice. In those cases it is clear that the woman desired to reproduce, and the doctor had a hand in ending her freedom to do so...
Personally, I'm agnostic and religion doesn't factor in to my decision. I used to be pro-choice until I found out that a doctor can be held responsible for the death of a fetus if he mistreats a pregnant woman in his practice, and that a murderer can be charged with a double murder if he kills a pregnant woman and the fetus dies. These laws imply that a fetus is human and has the right to life. But the abortion laws imply that a fetus is not a human and has no right to life. I will be pro-life at least until all the laws regarding pregnancy don't contradict each other.
I explained this. The double murder laws are bad law in general. However, I could argue either way. Consistency relies heavily on intent. Murder is malicious homicide. I don't see how a person could be charged with intent to kill a fetus unless it was the intent to kill the fetus. Make sense? Also, the woman desired to have the child. Her desires must be weighed strongly in these cases. This was a truly potential human destroyed. In cases of killing a pregnant women, emotional appeal aside, one should consider charges for first degree murder and a stricter sense of second degree manslaughter, perhaps in this case, for which I rarely side, a new law. It was understood from even Biblical times that punishment was necessary for the termination of a pregnancy, however, it was never equivalent to murder.
But seriously a 15 page long thread about abortion? I'm just as guilty as all of you for chiming in on this, but we have much more serious problems in this country.
Are there? Social issues have destroyed this country. I know many, many, libertarian friends of mine who do not support Ron Paul because of this issue.. I am a persuasive son of a bitch, and they won't budge. Consider the philosophy of Goldwater, he thought the influence of the religious right would destroy conservatism, and it has. Many on these boards demonstrate that.
