This has been a topic I have been meaning to cover for some time. Until maybe a few months ago, I tended to agree with the pro-choice movement. I’m not exactly sure why, maybe it was because I didn’t really think about it and ‘her body her choice’ makes sense. A few months ago, anti-abortion arguments started showing up on my YouTube feed and after seeing these I have found that my opinion has flipped toward being against choice at least for later terms of pregnancy. This past weekend, I spent around 15 minutes discussing this with someone I care about and I prefaced everything I was saying with ‘this isn’t my opinion but I tend to agree with it’ both because it is true and she is pro-choice. I think it will be useful to spend some time thinking on this to better understand what I believe.

To start with, why have I flipped from pro-choice to anti-abortion? What I said this past weekend was ‘the convenience of the mother is less important than the life of the child’. Something about that seems correct to me. I’m still not exactly sure what I think about mothers who are 1 week pregnant, but I feel like once the fetus starts to look like a person it is too late. One update to what I said this weekend is I think I missed part of the story. It should actually be ‘the convenience of the mother and the father is less important than the life of the child’. Anyways, on my YouTube feed, I have seen strong arguments that are against abortion but have not looked into strong pro-choice arguments. To be more informed, I think it will be useful to spend some time understanding the pro-choice argument.

When searching for pro-choice arguments, the strongest argument I have found was this paper: Thinking Critically About Abortion. Honestly, as a result of going through this I am less firm in my convictions regarding abortion. My main reason for believing abortion is wrong is that the fetus will mature into a person and killing the fetus because a baby will impact the mothers lifestyle seems contemptible. However, the papers argument that legal rights shouldn’t be given based on a possible future also seems correct.

I have spent the past 2 days sitting on this question. In some sense, I feel like I am at an impasse. I am having difficulty coming up with a reason that abortion should be illegal that would convince someone who is pro-choice. I still feel that abortion is wrong because I value the life and future of the fetus more than the comfort and convenience of the mother and father, but why do I value the life of the fetus more? Maybe some rambling will help move things forward.

In NY this past January it was made legal to abort a baby up to 6 months into pregnancy provided the mothers health may be impacted. Maybe 6 months is too late. Also, why doesn’t the father have a say? Maybe if the mother is allowed to abort at will, the father should have some say with whether or not they will help raise the child such as payments etc. One thought that just came to mind is that in some sense abortion assumes all people are the same. “I’m not ready for a baby now, I will abort this one and have another when I am in a better position to handle child care”. Making abortion legal encourages people to not have children until they are ready, but maybe you don’t actually find out you are ready until you have a child.

On the other hand, who am I to tell people what to do? As far as I can tell I am saying a fetus is more valuable than the comfort of the mother but why? Because that fetus will develop into a person. But I don’t value a fetus the same as a 5 year old child. It is like I value the fetus but not as much as a child which kind of suggests to me the fetus is ‘sub-human’. And if the core of the abortion debate is a value judgement, why should I rewrite the law to force people to act the way I want them to? Honestly, I don’t know. In this sense as much as I don’t like it, maybe I am pro choice. But I do feel very torn on this still.

So what are my thoughts on abortion? I think it should be legal but that no-one should ever have one. To me this means maybe the problem which needs to be addressed are the circumstances which lead potential parents to seek abortion instead of the abortion itself. I don’t like that this is my opinion, but given I value a fetus less than a baby, I don’t see how I can say it is unreasonable for a potential mother to value a fetus less than her freedom. I know this is still a partial thought and I need to do more thinking on this, perhaps I will add an edit at some point when I have more insight into this topic.