Abortion is a perennial topic that invites people to line up as either ‘pro-choice’ (generally in favor of less restriction on abortion) or ‘pro-life’ (generally in favor of more restriction on abortion). Though these positions are fundamentally two sides of the same coin, their proponents’ a priori arguments are anchored in vastly different contexts. The descriptions ‘Pro-Choice’ and ‘Pro-Life’ inherently illustrate this point.
Pro-choice refers to a belief in the bodily autonomy of a pregnant women and her “right to choose” what happens regarding her body. Alternatively, pro-life argues the life growing inside a woman is separate from her and imbued with the same human rights conferred upon the rest of humanity. It then follows the opposite of pro-choice would be ‘anti-choice’ (of a woman’s control over her body), implying opponents of pro-choice desire to restrict freedom and liberty. The opposite of pro-life is ‘pro-death’, implying its opponents are in favor of killing babies. Illinois governor Jay Pritzker summarizes the misconception in his statement “Abortion bans don’t ban abortion, they just endanger women”. The opposite argument naturally being “abortion isn’t a woman exercising her right to choose, it’s just killing a baby”. Generally, the presumed “opposition” is not anti-choice or pro-death, but rather focused on different considerations of the broader issue. The following claims are popular arguments used to justify abortion and their relevant counterarguments.
Claim: Abortion is necessary in cases of rape, incest, and medical necessity. An instinctive pro-choice tactic is the use of an appeal to emotion by invoking the marginal, extreme cases of rape, incest, or danger to a mother’s life—circumstances in which pregnancy or its termination is not something the mother could have foreseeably avoided. Despite potential middle ground to be found among some pro-life advocates, especially for circumstances where the mother’s life is compromised, most pro-choice advocates making the above claim are highly unlikely to consider extreme circumstances as the only ones where abortion should be acceptable.
It is often the case a person making this claim opposes the proposition of any law allowing unrestricted abortion for extreme cases while banning all others. The claim is then moot as the person would advocate abortion even for non-extreme or otherwise unnecessary circumstances which make up the overwhelming majority of abortions performed in the United States. The claim also appears to suggest abortions are more necessary when a woman gets pregnant and needs an abortion through no fault of her own as opposed to cases where more responsible decisions could have been made and pregnancy avoided.
Even when marginal, extreme cases are intended as more than a smokescreen debate tactic, it should be noted the former medical director of Planned Parenthood, Mary S. Calderone, M.D., stated “[M]edically speaking, that is, from the point of view of diseases of the various systems, cardiac, genitourinary, and so on, it is hardly ever necessary today to consider the life of a mother as threatened by a pregnancy.” Considering the vast improvement in medical technology since the statement was made in 1960, it is unreasonable to suggest pregnancy poses a higher health risk today than it did over 60 years ago.
Claim: Men’s opinions on abortion are irrelevant since they can’t get pregnant. This claim rests on the ‘appeal to authority’ logical fallacy presuming women are uniquely qualified to speak on abortion. Using similar reasoning men would be more qualified than women to speak on unsafe working conditions, suicide, violent crime, and rape as they are statistically more affected by it.
Regardless, a pro-life or pro-choice argument’s validity, truth, and relevance is not based on the perceived or actual qualifications of the person advocating it, but solely on the merit of the argument. Consider a man and woman who both claim women have the “right to choose” an abortion. From the perspective of a pro-choice advocate, is the man’s argument any less valid since he is a man? Or does the woman’s statement become invalid because it is identical to the man’s argument which is invalid? Following this logic, does the sun shine any more brightly because a weatherman says it is sunny compared to a taxi driver?
Applying the logical extreme to the claim, the Roe v Wade ruling in 1973 would have to be retracted due to the invalid opinion of its nine male justices. What gives these men the right to weigh in on a “women’s health” issue? Had the case been decided in Wade’s favor, pro-choice advocates would protest these men claiming they lacked the right and experience to “control women’s bodies” or “decide what was best for women”. Instead, the majority opinion of these men is treated as social justice gospel. It is not that pro-choice advocates truly believe men’s opinions on abortion are invalid, it is pro-life arguments made by men they detest.
The claim also contradicts other, often simultaneously held, ideological beliefs both related and unrelated to abortion:
Vasectomies should be mandatory for men. Following abortion laws passed in Georgia, Ohio, and Texas, some pro-choice advocates have called for mandatory vasectomies, suggesting men share responsibility for pregnancies. Child-support laws further endorse the notion a man has responsibility for his offspring. To claim a man is at least partially responsible for getting a woman pregnant as well as once the baby is born but not any point in between is blatantly arbitrary at best. It even wholly contradicts the popular, pro-choice slogan “my body, my choice”, unironically calling for control over men’s bodies while exclaiming freedom for women’s.
Pro-choice advocates also tend to claim men don’t have to face the repercussions of pregnancy the same way women do, forcing many women to face a potentially difficult decision alone. This is a culturally self-imposed problem. Those making this claim often simultaneously promote or tacitly support a culture that expressly attempts to erode any notion of responsibility and accountability from society, particularly men. It’s asinine to bemoan men’s lack of responsibility after getting a woman pregnant while telling men they have no responsibility for what happens to the pregnancy.
Conversely, the pro-life position generally believes men should be held to account (by their partner and society) for impregnating a woman, the pregnancy, and raising the child. They believe women should not only hold higher standards for themselves in selecting sexual partners, but expect and require accountability from them. However, this is made significantly more difficult in a culture that promotes random sexual encounters and abdication of personal responsibility. In fact, men abdicating responsibility in the way pro-choice advocates claim was once highly stigmatized by society such as scandals about children born out of wedlock, bringing shame to family names, and “shotgun weddings”. This stigma was largely overturned in Western culture led by the women’s liberation movement and is now sustained by Democrat party ideology and popular culture.
The proposal for mandatory vasectomies also implies what should be an obvious fact: pregnancies don’t magically happen. Men and women make personal decisions that could lead to pregnancy. However, questions such as “what will all those pregnant women who want to abort do if they can’t get an abortion?” assumes a de facto amount of abortion exists, ignoring behavioral changes in people that would occur based on changes in availability of abortion. In this case, just the option of abortion serves as a form of “pregnancy insurance”, incentivizing risky sexual behavior and leading to more pregnancies than if abortion were unavailable, a concept known as “moral hazard”.
If abortion wasn’t available, women (and men) would be forced to make different choices:
Abstinence. Less common in today’s culture, abstinence is an option for both men and women.
Contraception. Highly effective, yet imperfect. It is a matter of record contraception isn’t 100% effective, so it is fair to assume women who feel “trapped” by an unplanned pregnancy are either woefully ignorant or are incapable of assuming personal responsibility for their decisions. The same is true of men.
Adoption. Despite claims of adding to the burden of overcrowded orphanages and the foster care system, adoption provides many couples a chance to raise a family. The claims also imply adopted family members and/or friends would have been better off had they been killed in the womb.
Motherhood. And fatherhood. Two people entering a sexual relationship should be prepared to raise a child, even if as a last resort. Note: Some men and women won’t even consider having sex with someone they couldn’t envision raising a child with, factoring in the potential for an unplanned pregnancy.
Black market abortion. Less safe, more expensive. A general rule of thumb is anything made illegal will find a black-market alternative. Note: If Planned Parenthood were shut down today, over 13,500 clinics would be available to provide “comprehensive health care for women”.
So there are five choices available to women, four of them good ones (to varying degrees). The only “choice” pro-life advocates are against is the one involving killing another human being (dependent on at what stage a person believes life begins—discussed in ‘On Abortion: Part 2’).
Belief men can get pregnant. If this is true, the entire “men’s opinions are invalid” claim falls apart as men would have the same “right to choose” as women and therefore have valid opinions on abortion. Far from a fringe belief, the scientifically fraudulent concept has risen in popularity to obtain support from big tech companies. For example, Apple plans to release an emoji of a pregnant man on its platform and Twitter suspended a Spanish politician for tweeting “A man cannot get pregnant. A man has neither uterus nor ovaries”, claiming the tweet violated its policies prohibiting “hate, threats, harassment, and/or fomenting violence against people”. Of course, even adamant supporters of this ideology slip up and reveal their true beliefs in the case of Jen Psaki admitting men can’t get pregnant during a White House press briefing.
It is also worth noting the cognitive dissonance present in those who support the “men’s opinions are invalid” claim and various aspects of the LGBTQ+ movement simultaneously:
Transgenderism. There is a significant overlap in the number of people making the above claim and claiming men can be women and women can be men. By this definition a woman can have the experience of giving birth and having an abortion before transitioning into a man at which time her opinion would become irrelevant or invalid despite being the same opinion. Do the arguments of a biological man who transitions into a woman suddenly matter even though he can’t get pregnant or have an abortion?
“Flux Gender Theory”: a made-up term the author uses to describe the numerous genders that could literally identify as a woman (or not as a woman) at any given moment. By the broader logic of the LGBTQ+ movement, people must be treated as the gender with which they identify to avoid denying their lived experience and physical existence.
How is the validity of biological women’s opinions determined depending on their identified gender? Would a biological woman who identifies as a man (or as anything other than a woman) no longer have a valid opinion on abortion? What about a ‘genderfluid’ biological man (“feeling a different gender…as situations change”) who identifies as a woman exclusively when talking about abortion and other perceived women’s issues?
This political correctness goes so far as to treat biological males identifying as women as women, even to the detriment of his physical health. For example, men can receive abortion medication and be scheduled for an abortion after receiving a positive pregnancy test, an indicator of testicular cancer. Is his opinion considered irrelevant or invalid? Imagine having a doctor’s recommendation for an abortion and be told your opinion on it is invalid.
Of course, none of these distinctions matter if the person is pro-choice, as noted regarding the male opinions expressed via Roe v Wade. Rather, identifying whether people’s sex/gender allows them a valid opinion on abortion is only relevant when the person is pro-life.
Claim: If you’re against abortions, don’t get one. This argument promotes an ironic “live and let live” message identical to the logic used for legalizing drugs such as marijuana; simply, if it doesn’t affect you, don’t worry about it. The claim rests on the implication abortions carry no moral dilemma. No moral person would agree with the identically worded statement “If you’re against slavery, don’t own one”, understanding that to agree would be to tolerate slavery at best and promote it at worst. Therefore, this argument can only be made by someone who sees no moral implications tied to the act of abortion or is tolerant of it. The argument is also almost invariably offered by pro-choice advocates who simultaneously speak out against issues that don’t directly concern them, for instance claiming offense on others’ behalf.
The similar claims “I would personally never get an abortion, but I can’t tell someone else what to do” or “I would personally never get an abortion, but I don’t know her specific circumstances”, and their variations, are also offered to justify support for abortion. These claims differ from the first in that a person admits moral opposition to abortion to at least some degree. The slavery example above is then adjusted: “I would personally never own a slave, but who am I to tell someone else what to do/I don’t know their circumstances”. It follows a belief in one necessitates belief in the other and vice versa.
Fundamentally, the degree to which any of the above arguments is relevant depends on what stage abortion constitutes murder, “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”. The “abortion is murder” argument relies most heavily on what stage someone believes the life growing inside a woman constitutes as “human”. Once this is identified (discussed in ‘On Abortion: Part 2’), if people still argue to allow abortion past the stage they believe human life begins, the discussion ceases to be about being pro- or anti-abortion, but rather “when is it acceptable to murder a human being?”
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