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Argument: Denying abortion rights forces maternity on women (state rape)

Issue Report: Abortion

Yes

  1. Sharon Presley and Robert Cooke, The Right to Abortion: A Libertarian Defense, Association of Libertarian Feminists. – “In the case of an unwanted pregnancy, the existential choice for a woman is not abortion vs. no abortion, but, as [Garrett Hardin] has pointed out, abortion vs. compulsory childbearing. If others can force her to be a mother… then she is coerced into putting her body at the disposal of the fetus as if she were an unclaimed natural resource or a chattel slave…. Thus, the woman’s most fundamental right of choice, the right to control her own body and happiness, is being abrogated.”[1]
  2. Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, 22 January 1973 – “The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.”[2]
  3. Ralph Nader, Interview on ‘Meet the Press’ May 7, 2000. – “I don’t think government has the proper role in forcing a woman to have a child or forcing a woman not to have a child. And we’ve seen that around the world. This is something that should be privately decided with the family, woman, all the other private factors of it, but we should work toward preventing the necessity of abortion.”[3]
  4. Edward Abbey , an American author – “Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”[4]

No

  1. It is beyond stupid to say that not letting women commit late term abortions, is similar to raping them.
  2. The day children are born, they are not that much different than they day after they are born. Their location and favorite place to eat has changed. But the day before some people think mothers should be free to end the life of their child. No one believes that it is OK to kill children after they are born. It is complicated. Some people choose to focus on the mother, and exclude the child that is grasping for breath. Some people only focus on the child. To pretend that a child can go from having no rights one second, to complete personhood in another second is ridiculous.
  3. If it is illegal for a mother to smoke crack, then it is not illogical infer that mothers are legally required to care for their children.
  4. If there are waiting lists for adoptions, then there is no reason for abortion