I don't buy the "no excuse to get pregnant" argument. Affordable and accessible birth control does a lot to reduce abortion rates, yes. But sometimes, even when you do it right, it fails. And I think that when it fails, that's not a sufficient justification for nine months of state-sanctioned torture. Refusing an abortion to someone who used whatever resources and knowledge were actually available to her (whether that's the pill and a condom, if they're educated, wealthy, and live in a liberal area, or standing up and washing with bleach if they're in some back-asswards fundie hellhole that's far more likely to be the places where they succeed in making abortion difficult to obtain), is more akin to refusing to treat injuries sustained in a car accident because, y'know, they made the decision to get in a car, and cars are dangerous.
And they are.
But we still don't sit around and let you bleed out if you crash, and the *reason* we don't sit around and let you bleed out if you crash is because sometimes men drive too.
I would like to reduce the abortion rate. I would like to do this by reducing the demand for abortion. Attempting to reduce it forcibly by making it harder for that demand to be met, however, is inhuman. Period.
Even if you believe a small clump of cells is a person, in no other aspect of medical law is somebody legally mandated to give up their body to save someone else's life. You might think they're a huge douchebag if they don't, but nobody is allowed to force them. If I'm dead, the state isn't allowed to use my organs to save someone else's life unless I give my express permission. Why should I have fewer rights when I'm alive than I will when I'm dead?
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 08:06 pm (UTC)And they are.
But we still don't sit around and let you bleed out if you crash, and the *reason* we don't sit around and let you bleed out if you crash is because sometimes men drive too.
I would like to reduce the abortion rate. I would like to do this by reducing the demand for abortion. Attempting to reduce it forcibly by making it harder for that demand to be met, however, is inhuman. Period.
Even if you believe a small clump of cells is a person, in no other aspect of medical law is somebody legally mandated to give up their body to save someone else's life. You might think they're a huge douchebag if they don't, but nobody is allowed to force them. If I'm dead, the state isn't allowed to use my organs to save someone else's life unless I give my express permission. Why should I have fewer rights when I'm alive than I will when I'm dead?