What Being Pro Choice Really Means

A woman cannot be compelled, by any means or form, to give her body into the service of another,  just as men have always had the right to personal autonomy, so too do women.

...is what it means to me.

And oops, I opened this thread long ago and wrote a response, but got called away from the comp so was late in responding, meanwhile maysi posted even better words of mine.... Must be getting briefer as I age. ;)

Thanks maysie...

GPie, that is a very diffcult question, as yes, I agree with you it is a nuance of sorts.

On first blush, I would say I am completely against any type of forced abortion.

Though there would/could be nuances for me to consider, if I were in the legal position to have to make such a detemination on the behalf of another.

Done.  Thanks for picking up on that.  Looked up woo woo in the DSM, couldn't find it.

I don't see it as a derailment at all actually Maysie, respectfully.

If one is for women's autonomy over their own bodies in recognition of the SCC decision then I do think the two are not only related, but deal with the very same issue at core.

Susan's question is one in which I would also like an answer for. This isn't about animosity or rival opinions. This is about choice. Full stop.

......

Please don't leave Susan

This thread also has nothing to do with psychiatric rape, but you mentioned that. Clearly a thread derailment no? These narrow agenda's have to go.

Is it possible to discuss both secular and religious rights and values seperately, any more (or less) than it is to both empathize and judge, simultanously? Just as one may value certain rights, she may also have a right to certain values.  It depends on where one places the conditional (are there any absolutes, here?).  While I think it's important to understand how our rights and values originate and establish themselves, in both fact and law, I don't believe that they're mutually exclusive, even if most would disagrree.  Do we choose our entitlements (including the right to choose), or are certain individual rights inherent and inalienable, whereby choice is rendered moot?  How do we decide?  Can anyone enlighten here?

Maysie:

I suppose my concern is with the entrenchment of Charter rights (notwithstanding the Notwithstanding Clause)  In that context I agree that choice should be irrelevent, but, as long as we allow our legistatures to override rights that should be guaranteed by the Constitution, then any rights issue will be open and vulnerable to political expediency. 

Overriding judicial Charter decisions leads us down a slippery slope where we risk creating a hierarchy of rights, dependent upon the the political contingencies of the moment. 

I agree that issues such as abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment should not be thrust into that environment, but, as long as the Charter is flawed by the Notwithstanding Clause, all rights are vulnerable, and remain a matter of political choice at the ballot box.

This is a complex matter for me personally.  Politically, not so much.

The most slippery slope facing pro choice right now is the movement to include the death of an unborn child within homicide charges when a pregnant woman is killed. 

I understand the emotional side of the issue, and certainly if a woman is murdered and is at a point in her pregnancy that the fetus could live outside the womb, then I can see the ethical value of such a change in law.  However, those who would ban abortion outright would use this as a stepping stone to declaring a fetus a person with Charter rights. 

While I can't say I immediately reject the idea that a fetus has rights at some point, at which point does it grow from a potential human being to a human being?  Anti-choice advocates would say at the moment of conception.  I, on the other hand, would say that a collection of rapidly multiplying cells does not constitute a person, merely a potential person. 

I am, and always have been, pro choice.  To me, pro choice means not imposing one's individual values upon another when it comes to carrying a pregnancy to term or not.  But I am very strongly against abortions conducted past the first trimester, when there is no medical need (health of mother, rape, other extenuating circumstances), for many reasons - ethical and otherwise.  I know, later termination of pregancies are very rare, and more often than not involves a stillborn fetus or one that cannot possibly survive the entire gestation period.  Regardless, this is a personal issue, one that I would not impose upon another.

I'm also concerned that medical technology has extended the ability to keep fetuses born as early as 28-30 weeks gestation alive outside the womb.  I don't have any general objection to this, but our technology hasn't advanced to the extent that we can accomplish this without significant damage to the infant.  I feel that the advance of this particular life-saving branch of technology is done at the expense of the parents and their premature infants.  Yes, it's important to preserve life, when possible.  Yes, it's important to advance medical technology.  But at what cost?

I don't have definitive answers, and I suspect there are none.  But I think these issues are worthy of debate, at the very least.  Thoughts?

I dunno autoworker, is a world in which the marginalized aren't exploited, in which racism and oppression don't run rampant, in which the poor are no longer blamed for the greediness of the bankers possible?

That's a very dicey question to ask in the feminist forum, in a thread about choice. Just letting you know.

IMO, such a world will only be possible when birth control is 100% effective and available to everyone.  Until then accidents will continue to occur and some people will continue to choose abortion.  This includes women with money and good jobs and good spouses and good mat-leave policies available to them.  Some people just do not want babies. 

To answer G Pie's OP:  to me, being pro-choice means accepting (or even better, agreeing) that access to abortion is an important human rights issue and that each woman is individually free to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy or not.  It does not mean you have to like or agree with the choices other women make. 

Maysie wrote:

I dunno autoworker, is a world in which the marginalized aren't exploited, in which racism and oppression don't run rampant, in which the poor are no longer blamed for the greediness of the bankers possible?

That's a very dicey question to ask in the feminist forum, in a thread about choice. Just letting you know.

I think you're addressing the obverse side of the same question.  As for the issue of choice, I think we agree that the term itself is problematic, in the sense that it is now an issue that is often discussed in isolation from the conditions that necessitate it.  If asking that question leads to a larger contextual analysis, then it may be worth the risk. 

If the original question is what is meant by pro-choice, my question is: in what context are women's individual decisions being made?  I'm not a psychiatrist, so I'm not trying to get into women's heads.  It's their externalities that I'm addressing.

In other words: what is to be done?

autoworker wrote:

In other words: what is to be done?

[s]Nothing from the position you are coming from[/s]

From position, woman's access to abortion/day after services and other health care services needs to be enhanced across the country.

I don't see what there is to debate, it's a womans right.

I am not 100 percent comfortable with all aspects of abortion, very late term abortions for reason other than the mothers safety being about the only one, but that really doens't happen anyway.  It also doesn't matter what does or deosn't bother me, its not any of my business, why can't we just leave it at that.  Im sick of the debate, and it wont ever be a decision i have to make, i can't imagine how tiring it must be for women, the decisions have been made, let it be.

I always thought pro-choice meant that someone believed that what a person decided to do with their own body was completely their choice, no ifs ands or buts, so imagine my surprise wehen I found out that there were a lot of self-described radical feminists like Julie Bindel, Janice Raymond, and our very own Ghislane (I think using tra**ie when cis and to limit the definition of woman definitely applies,) seem to think that the only people who are allowed that agency are cis women. Trans men must obviously be deluded and we have to protect their womanhood despite their protestations that the only womanhood you see is the kind others have imposed upon them, and trans women? Well, we're not really women are we? Certainly we've never been raped, juggled around by a doctor who feels he knows our own body better than we do to the point of denying us the basic tools of transition or even blood pressure medication (for a 150 over 92 BP BTW, but that's my own story and your mileage may vary.)

I'm pro-choice, absolutely, always have been, since before I came out to myself, though I'm rather disturbed when pro-choice comes to mean cis women only... and only when they're terminating a pregnancy, but not when they're acting in a way you might not personally approve of but which physically (remember we're in a no-metaphor zone here, so my existence assaulting your sensibilities rings hollow...) assaults another person.

PS: I probably would have pointed this at the Lu's pahrmacy debate (which thankfully is over,) but those threads were closed.

I understand your points and I agree RTG but this thread is specifically about abortion.

Quote:

 And I'm saying for some it means a cis-centered, definition of abortion only, which, in and of itself, has trans misogynistic and misandristic and ablist, (to name a few) implications.

Um, what?

Actually, I disagree that this thread is specifically about abortion: it is specifically about the meaning of "pro-choice". I grant that, to a lot of babblers, "pro-choice" is about abortion. But some babblers have argued, here and elsehwhere, that the meaning of "pro-choice" has to do with something broader than the question of abortion: something along the lines of personal autonomy or control over one's own body. From this perspective, the issue of abortion is just one issue under a more general pro-choice umbrella of autonomy or personal bodily control.

Other issues then fall under this general pro-choice umbrella:  Does the state have any place interfering with the drugs I choose to ingest? Does the state have any place interfering with whether I get sex-reassignment surgery? (If not, should the state fund sex-reassignment surgery?) Does the state have any place interfering with whether I decide to sell or donate my organs? Does the state have any place interfering with whether I decide to provide sexual services for a fee? Of course, Canada does interfere in each of the above decisions, but one might ask whether Canada engages in inappropriate interference in my control over my own body.

Leftists disagree quite strongly about the above issues: we've witnessed that several times on babble. But it might be fruitful to think of abortion in the broad context of personal autonomy and control over one's own body, to see where the arguments lead.

That said, one might also have reasons to support choice on abortion for reasons other than personal autonomy: one might argue that abortion is a special case, where the state has a special reason to uphold personal autonomy and a special reason not to interfere with my decisions concerning my own body. Such an argument might leave room for state interference in other bodily decision, e.g., drug ingestion, organ donations/sales, sex work, etc.

I guess I'm saying that a broader discussion about pro-choice would be useful and interesting, but it isn't what this thread was intended to be about. Maybe start another one?