Hacker News Reader

Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

To really spell it out, as these "pro-life/pro-choice" terms are somewhat esoteric and not always understood by foreign speakers, the ACLU is in favor of abortion rights and many conservatives are against abortion rights.

View on HN

The terms I usually see are "pro-choice" and "anti-choice." Everyone on the planet is "pro-life" and thinks abortion is a bad thing, the question is whether outlawing abortion results in better outcomes than allowing it. I think there is room for reasonable disagreement, though legally speaking it's largely a settled issue.

That the terms you usually see are "pro-choice" and "anti-choice" means nothing more than that your particular filter bubble is strongly pro-choice. Pro-lifers never call themselves "anti-choice"; they call themselves "pro-life." Conversely, pro-choice activists never call themselves "pro-life" (except maybe in rhetorical arguments such as the one you just provided).

Legally speaking, the situation could change drastically based off of new composition of the U.S. Supreme Court, legislation making abortion de facto banned, or an amendment to the Constitution explicitly banning it.

I feel like you have that backwards. All evidence indicates that legal abortion results in no more abortions occurring, but those that do occur will be safer. Legally speaking there seem to be a fair number of people who want to outlaw it anyway.

> Everyone on the planet … thinks abortion is a bad thing

I think it's a pretty damn good thing when it's needed, so let's cool it with the "everyone on the planet thinks" business.

It can be better than the alternative, but I think you would be hard pressed to have anyone say abortion is a good thing. The ideal would be no unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

That response assumes that "unwanted pregnancies" are the only reason a woman would want an abortion. There's plenty of medical reasons why it would be necessary.

I believe that outside of the weirdness in America and the church, and perhaps a few religious groups a lot of people really don't care. I'd say a vast majority of people in the world aren't caught up this particular whirlpool of emotions.

A more neutral way to put it would be that the ACLU is in favor of abortion rights and many conservatives are in favor of fetal rights.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com