if I were a rhetorical question, I would look like this

[the_siobhan]

Is it possible for somebody who is pro-life and somebody who is pro-choice to be friends?

Is it simply a matter of difference of opinion? Or is it more than that? Is there an underlying difference in values that makes it impossible to be friends?

What do you think?


What I'm listening to right this second: Stromkern

Comments

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

three unborn babies killed
As you have likely guessed, my view is that a fetus is not a baby, and therefore I have no moral conundrum about abortion, or anyone who has one. I wonder very much how you can say the above and also say that you don't think these are bad people. To you they are agents of death. How do you reconsile that in your head?

I am trying to be respectful of others opinions here
I felt the same until you said another woman should be forcibly steralised. I don't respect that one bit and I'm disgusted you would say it. My response to that was, indeed, meant to be aggressive.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

I must say I find it really really difficult not to think of people who have had abortions as bad people in the abstract. Which is why I talk to the people who have had one, as I said above.

As for my other comment - I did try to add something on, but the internet just fell over for a while, so couldn't, the comment related to my fellings on the matter. I realised reading it that it came out really badly and made me come across as some sort of new nazi! EEK! I would absolutely not ever condone enforced sterilisation of a woman. (I though the "or sewn closed or something made it sound different - it didn't). I apologise for that!

As I said higher up in the thread, I'd like an ideal world scenario where nmo woman is ever pregnant unless she wants to be, and no health condition ever threatens mother and child (incidentally, that is one area where I do not hesitate to say I am pro-choice, health reasons), but we don't. It is very difficult to reconcile what has, it seems, become the foetus vs baby debate (which, incidentally, I loathe - the terms I mean). For me life begins at conception, but I know for others it is at "quickening" and yet others birth. It's like an aetheist and a pagan arguing religion - the points at which we start are so very different we're not even really talking about the same thing

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

The problem with abstractions, of course, is that they don't help real women. I'm guilty of that too. I sit around debating this on the internet, but what am I actually doing?

I would absolutely not ever condone enforced sterilisation of a woman[...] I apologise for that!
Thanks.

It's like an aetheist and a pagan arguing religion
I said almost that very thing earlier today in this post! Different conclusion of course. :P

...the points at which we start are so very different we're not even really talking about the same thing
Yes, agreed and that's what's so frustrating about the whole thing. To some people, I will always be a murderer. That, in my thinking, is a great big load of crap. You yourself have a disconnect between thinking of how wrong it is, and then meeting people, talking to friends who have gone through it, and it really makes things a bit muddier for you. Actually, I'm glad for this conversation with you because it does make me understand the "but" camp a little better. Most of the "but" camp hasn't really attempted to talk to me about it, and I appreciate that you have.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

The problem is that people think being "pro-life but" which is probably what I would describe myself as, means I do assumea higher moral ground than the pro-choice camp, or that I want control over their bodies. It's not higher moral ground- it's different mountains. And I usually get yelled at, told I am anti-feminist or a fundamentalist Christian- and that's before I've said anything else.

I often sum it up by saying that I think abortion is one of the the most horrible and wrong things there is, but forcing women to carry a child they don't want to term, not allowing them to control their own bodies and (as in the case of Miss X in Ireland) forcing underage rape victims to bear a child, or making women havedangerous and illegal medical procedures is one of the few things I can think of that is more wrong than abortion.