A question to pro-choice parents, or to people with pro-choice parents

[Atreus21]

Preface: I'm not yet a father, so I don't know as much about fatherhood or parenthood excluding my observations of my parents and my siblings who are married with children. I have much respect for you as a parent, and for being responsible.

Problem: Since my brother and his wife had their kids, my position on abortion became much more galvanized. I suppose in a very simple sense, I saw them as the object against which abortion advocates were arrayed. I couldn't stomach the idea that, for the sake of convenience, they might never have existed, and that they simply were lucky enough to be born in a convenient setting, to pro-life parents.

I've been asking myself if it ever crosses your mind (you being a pro-choice parent); the notion that someday, your child will grow up to an age suitable to understanding abortion, and that his or her parents are not opposed to it, and then put 2 and 2 together, and ask, "Would you have aborted me if I'd been inconvenient?"

Saying, "If your mother would've died in the birth, yes I would," is defensible. But I can't imagine any other possible answer.

Similar is the situation of those of us born to pro-choice parents. Does it ever bother you that the only thing protecting you from non-existence is the simple fact that you were born at a time that your parents deemed convenient? And that otherwise, you'd have been destroyed?

I think of these as questions any pro-choice parent or child of pro-choice parents can't help but ask themselves.

 

[RightIsWrong]

You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

Well played!

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

Well played!

:thumbsup:

 

[jackschmittusa]

Shades of "the road not taken". I wonder what Jeffery Dahmer's parents think of abortion? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

Making guesses about what might have been after making an irrevocable choice is fruitless. Making choices after observing a few other people's choices where the outcome is based on an almost infinite number of variables does not guarantee a good outcome from a similar choice.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

Why would you not advocate that your wife or daughters get an abortion?

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

Precisely.

I don't see why you can't take a personal pro-life stance but let others make their choice. They are the ones that have to live with the consequeneces.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Shades of "the road not taken". I wonder what Jeffery Dahmer's parents think of abortion? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

Making guesses about what might have been after making an irrevocable choice is fruitless. Making choices after observing a few other people's choices where the outcome is based on an almost infinite number of variables does not guarantee a good outcome from a similar choice.

I disagree. I think as moral persons, we must make those guesses. You hear testimonials from women who have had abortions and later regretted it that indicate them making just such guesses, fruitless or not. If we make what turns out to be the wrong decision, shouldn't we feel regret, even if it does no good to regret?

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

Precisely.

I don't see why you can't take a personal pro-life stance but let others make their choice. They are the ones that have to live with the consequeneces.

Okay, then I revise the question. Assuming that there are people who would have an abortion, and nonetheless have children, how should they answer their child when the child asks that inevitable question?

Also, why wouldn't you have an abortion if you have no problem with other people doing so? What personal reasons do you have against abortion?

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

/thread

 

[OrByte]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Shades of "the road not taken". I wonder what Jeffery Dahmer's parents think of abortion? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

Making guesses about what might have been after making an irrevocable choice is fruitless. Making choices after observing a few other people's choices where the outcome is based on an almost infinite number of variables does not guarantee a good outcome from a similar choice.

I disagree. I think as moral persons, we must make those guesses. You hear testimonials from women who have had abortions and later regretted it that indicate them making just such guesses, fruitless or not. If we make what turns out to be the wrong decision, shouldn't we feel regret, even if it does no good to regret?

sure you can feel regret. But that is the consequence of your decisions and you are free to make those decisions.

But I think what you are talking about is imagining a whole scenario wherein your parents didn't have you as a child because of an abortion. You are questioning your existence by narrowly defining the parameters.... that seems pointless. There could be a million reasons why you wouldn't exist today...why just focus on the one?

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Why would you not advocate that your wife or daughters get an abortion?

I understand the corner you are trying to pin me in and I personally think that you are going to regret trying because it is a corner that has many doors that will lead you into an arena that you do not want to be in....one that causes you to answer questions about your own hypocrisies.

I will answer nonetheless and I hope that you will return the courtesy.

My reasons for not advocating for it is because I would not be able to live with the doubt and second guessing that would accompany it. Like every other person on the planet, my beliefs are in direct conflict with other beliefs that I hold. I am a hypocrite. Pure and simple.

As Hannibal Lecter would say, "Quid pro quo, Clarice".

I'm going off the assumption from the OP and other posts of yours that you are a Christian. My understanding is that God has granted all of us the ability to exercise free will and it is via that free will that a decision to acknowledge him and to accept Jesus as his son and savior that you are granted entrance to his kingdom.

Why do you want to deny someone of a gift given them (free will to exercise judgment) to make choices that will have a bearing on God's decision on whether they meet his criteria for an eternity in his kingdom?

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: OrByte

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Shades of "the road not taken". I wonder what Jeffery Dahmer's parents think of abortion? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

Making guesses about what might have been after making an irrevocable choice is fruitless. Making choices after observing a few other people's choices where the outcome is based on an almost infinite number of variables does not guarantee a good outcome from a similar choice.

I disagree. I think as moral persons, we must make those guesses. You hear testimonials from women who have had abortions and later regretted it that indicate them making just such guesses, fruitless or not. If we make what turns out to be the wrong decision, shouldn't we feel regret, even if it does no good to regret?

sure you can feel regret. But that is the consequence of your decisions and you are free to make those decisions.

But I think what you are talking about is imagining a whole scenario wherein your parents didn't have you as a child because of an abortion. You are questioning your existence by narrowly defining the parameters.... that seems pointless. There could be a million reasons why you wouldn't exist today...why just focus on the one?

Because that one is possibly the worst imaginable. Being killed by a murderer, or by nature, or by anything else is preferable to being killed by one's own parents, I think.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

Precisely.

I don't see why you can't take a personal pro-life stance but let others make their choice. They are the ones that have to live with the consequeneces.

Okay, then I revise the question. Assuming that there are people who would have an abortion, and nonetheless have children, how should they answer their child when the child asks that inevitable question?

Also, why wouldn't you have an abortion if you have no problem with other people doing so? What personal reasons do you have against abortion?

I would tell them yes.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: Atreus21Does it ever bother you that the only thing protecting you from non-existence is the simple fact that you were born at a time that your parents deemed convenient? And that otherwise, you'd have been destroyed?

No, it does not bother me. If it happened to me, I wouldn't have even known I existed, my mind would not have developed to the stage where I had capacity to realize my own existence.

 

[OrByte]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: OrByte

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Shades of "the road not taken". I wonder what Jeffery Dahmer's parents think of abortion? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

Making guesses about what might have been after making an irrevocable choice is fruitless. Making choices after observing a few other people's choices where the outcome is based on an almost infinite number of variables does not guarantee a good outcome from a similar choice.

I disagree. I think as moral persons, we must make those guesses. You hear testimonials from women who have had abortions and later regretted it that indicate them making just such guesses, fruitless or not. If we make what turns out to be the wrong decision, shouldn't we feel regret, even if it does no good to regret?

sure you can feel regret. But that is the consequence of your decisions and you are free to make those decisions.

But I think what you are talking about is imagining a whole scenario wherein your parents didn't have you as a child because of an abortion. You are questioning your existence by narrowly defining the parameters.... that seems pointless. There could be a million reasons why you wouldn't exist today...why just focus on the one?

Because that one is possibly the worst imaginable. Being killed by a murderer, or by nature, or by anything else is preferable to being killed by one's own parents, I think.

Then you should be thankful that your parents choose to have you. Are you looking for ways to be bitter at your parents about something?

That would be the only reason imho for you to go down this mental exercise.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: GTKeeper

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
You conflate the terms "Pro-choice" with "Pro-abortion".

I am a parent and I would never in a million years advocate that my wife or daughters or anyone else that I know get an abortion. I will not, however, deny them their right to decide what is the path they want their life to go down.

You get to make the choices that impact your life greatly (where you will work, live, etc). Denying someone else the right to decide something that will have a life-altering effect on theirs is not something that you (collective noun) should have the ability to do for others.

Precisely.

I don't see why you can't take a personal pro-life stance but let others make their choice. They are the ones that have to live with the consequeneces.

Okay, then I revise the question. Assuming that there are people who would have an abortion, and nonetheless have children, how should they answer their child when the child asks that inevitable question?

Also, why wouldn't you have an abortion if you have no problem with other people doing so? What personal reasons do you have against abortion?

The fallacy of that construction is that you assume status quo given the alternative course of action (Your kid grows up happy and healthy and everything is good when you chose not to abort).

Hypothetical construction such as this is just as valid:
"Your wife suffers brain damage due to a blood clot during labor and your child is severely handicapped due to oxygen starvation, all because you chose not to abort"

The problem with these things is assuming status quo ex-ante and then using it to justify your position. This isn't any more of an argument than "aren't you glad you weren't aborted". Or your friend talking you into fleeing police after a traffic stop and if you manage get away he says "Aren't you glad we did this, I saved you a speeding ticket!"

 

[Moonbeam]

I ask myself these kinds of questions all the time:

I like to kick stones when I walk, but what if one of the stones I kick kills a bug what contains nutriment that would have fed a bird that pooped on a corn field that produced an ear of corn that would have gotten into a cereal box that would have fed a women who was going to have sex soon and that protein she never got was to become a vital part of her ova that would determine a very important part of its DNA that would determine if the child would have a fatal genetic flaw or not.

And this is just one example of the infinite terrors that haunt my mind.

Well, I tell you. What I do is wear a horse hair shit and I have a large whip I self-flagellate with because I know that I am evil, and I thank God every day some asshole didn't kick a stone that would have eliminated me.

I have found to my infinite amazement that no matter how worthless and evil I really am, to me my worthless, meaningless, happenstance of a life is more important than anything, and definitely worth a full blown psychosis and mental insanity.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Why would you not advocate that your wife or daughters get an abortion?

I understand the corner you are trying to pin me in and I personally think that you are going to regret trying because it is a corner that has many doors that will lead you into an arena that you do not want to be in....one that causes you to answer questions about your own hypocrisies.

I will answer nonetheless and I hope that you will return the courtesy.

My reasons for not advocating for it is because I would not be able to live with the doubt and second guessing that would accompany it. Like every other person on the planet, my beliefs are in direct conflict with other beliefs that I hold. I am a hypocrite. Pure and simple.

As Hannibal Lecter would say, "Quid pro quo, Clarice".

I'm going off the assumption from the OP and other posts of yours that you are a Christian. My understanding is that God has granted all of us the ability to exercise free will and it is via that free will that a decision to acknowledge him and to accept Jesus as his son and savior that you are granted entrance to his kingdom.

Why do you want to deny someone of a gift given them (free will to exercise judgment) to make choices that will have a bearing on God's decision on whether they meet his criteria for an eternity in his kingdom?

For the time being, let's argue atheistically. I don't want to be accused of having a religious argument.

Free will is a gift, but that doesn't excuse us to be irresponsible. We don't have the right to choose anything we want. We can't choose to murder, or steal, or things like that. There are choices that are not allowed. Abortion, in my opinion, should be such a choice.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: OrByte

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: OrByte

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Shades of "the road not taken". I wonder what Jeffery Dahmer's parents think of abortion? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

Making guesses about what might have been after making an irrevocable choice is fruitless. Making choices after observing a few other people's choices where the outcome is based on an almost infinite number of variables does not guarantee a good outcome from a similar choice.

I disagree. I think as moral persons, we must make those guesses. You hear testimonials from women who have had abortions and later regretted it that indicate them making just such guesses, fruitless or not. If we make what turns out to be the wrong decision, shouldn't we feel regret, even if it does no good to regret?

sure you can feel regret. But that is the consequence of your decisions and you are free to make those decisions.

But I think what you are talking about is imagining a whole scenario wherein your parents didn't have you as a child because of an abortion. You are questioning your existence by narrowly defining the parameters.... that seems pointless. There could be a million reasons why you wouldn't exist today...why just focus on the one?

Because that one is possibly the worst imaginable. Being killed by a murderer, or by nature, or by anything else is preferable to being killed by one's own parents, I think.

Then you should be thankful that your parents choose to have you. Are you looking for ways to be bitter at your parents about something?

That would be the only reason imho for you to go down this mental exercise.

I'm thinking that if my parents were ardently pro-choice, I would be pretty bitter, yes.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Why would you not advocate that your wife or daughters get an abortion?

I understand the corner you are trying to pin me in and I personally think that you are going to regret trying because it is a corner that has many doors that will lead you into an arena that you do not want to be in....one that causes you to answer questions about your own hypocrisies.

I will answer nonetheless and I hope that you will return the courtesy.

My reasons for not advocating for it is because I would not be able to live with the doubt and second guessing that would accompany it. Like every other person on the planet, my beliefs are in direct conflict with other beliefs that I hold. I am a hypocrite. Pure and simple.

As Hannibal Lecter would say, "Quid pro quo, Clarice".

I'm going off the assumption from the OP and other posts of yours that you are a Christian. My understanding is that God has granted all of us the ability to exercise free will and it is via that free will that a decision to acknowledge him and to accept Jesus as his son and savior that you are granted entrance to his kingdom.

Why do you want to deny someone of a gift given them (free will to exercise judgment) to make choices that will have a bearing on God's decision on whether they meet his criteria for an eternity in his kingdom?

For the time being, let's argue atheistically. I don't want to be accused of having a religious argument.

Free will is a gift, but that doesn't excuse us to be irresponsible. We don't have the right to choose anything we want. We can't choose to murder, or steal, or things like that. There are choices that are not allowed. Abortion, in my opinion, should be such a choice.

You are flat out wrong. We can and people do chose all of those things on a daily basis.

Exercising your free will to do what you want != society not holding you accountable for your choices.

 

[fskimospy]

Sorry, but I'm not a parent. I personally view the pro-choice stance similarly to how some others in this thread have expressed it though, it's about respect for other people and their right to control their own body.

The only case I can really think of myself being pro-abortion for is the baby across the alley from my apartment window. That guy wakes me up constantly at ungodly hours of the morning. Interestingly enough though, my mother had an abortion before she had me. It went: Older brother... abortion... Eskimospy. Dodged a bullet there, eh?

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: OrByte

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Shades of "the road not taken". I wonder what Jeffery Dahmer's parents think of abortion? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

Making guesses about what might have been after making an irrevocable choice is fruitless. Making choices after observing a few other people's choices where the outcome is based on an almost infinite number of variables does not guarantee a good outcome from a similar choice.

I disagree. I think as moral persons, we must make those guesses. You hear testimonials from women who have had abortions and later regretted it that indicate them making just such guesses, fruitless or not. If we make what turns out to be the wrong decision, shouldn't we feel regret, even if it does no good to regret?

sure you can feel regret. But that is the consequence of your decisions and you are free to make those decisions.

But I think what you are talking about is imagining a whole scenario wherein your parents didn't have you as a child because of an abortion. You are questioning your existence by narrowly defining the parameters.... that seems pointless. There could be a million reasons why you wouldn't exist today...why just focus on the one?

Because that one is possibly the worst imaginable. Being killed by a murderer, or by nature, or by anything else is preferable to being killed by one's own parents, I think.

. . . But are they really "one's own parents", if the couple decided to have an abortion?

I knew a girl in college who had an abortion. Nobody she knew ever considered her a parent, before or afterwards.


Your question is silly because it will likely never come up. It is NOT an "inevitable question" as you suggest. Think about it. If you are alive, it is obvious to you that your mother did not get an abortion, so why would you ask? If you are not alive, you are not able to ask. 99.999% of cases fall under these two. The other 0.001% of cases can be split in half due to the introspection and intelligence required to come up with such a question; most kids don't have it. The remaining 0.0005% can be easily dealt with by just saying "I don't know" or brushing off the question.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I ask myself these kinds of questions all the time:

I like to kick stones when I walk, but what if one of the stones I kick kills a bug what contains nutriment that would have fed a bird that pooped on a corn field that produced an ear of corn that would have gotten into a cereal box that would have fed a women who was going to have sex soon and that protein she never got was to become a vital part of her ova that would determine a very important part of its DNA that would determine if the child would have a fatal genetic flaw or not.

And this is just one example of the infinite terrors that haunt my mind.

Well, I tell you. What I do is wear a horse hair shit and I have a large whip I self-flagellate with because I know that I am evil, and I thank God every day some asshole didn't kick a stone that would have eliminated me.

I have found to my infinite amazement that no matter how worthless and evil I really am, to me my worthless, meaningless, happenstance of a life is more important than anything, and definitely worth a full blown psychosis and mental insanity.

You're talking about several iterations of circumstances. I'm talking about one iteration of deliberate action. The parents didn't have to choose to abort. It was a conscious choice. You kicking stones was not calculated to bring about the end result that it did. A parent having an abortion was calculated to kill the child.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Sorry, but I'm not a parent. I personally view the pro-choice stance similarly to how some others in this thread have expressed it though, it's about respect for other people and their right to control their own body.

The only case I can really think of myself being pro-abortion for is the baby across the alley from my apartment window. That guy wakes me up constantly at ungodly hours of the morning. Interestingly enough though, my mother had an abortion before she had me. It went: Older brother... abortion... Eskimospy. Dodged a bullet there, eh?

My bad. I thought you were.