Why the pro-choice argument is flawed

I just want to highlight a few points from O’Connor’s argument in our previous post on why pro-choice mentality is so alluring – when we think about abortion only in the context of the woman:

We should be able to live how we choose – shouldn’t we? As long as we don’t break the law, shouldn’t we be able to make our own choices about matters concerning ourselves? And especially matters that affect our private life. The government has absolutely no place in the bedroom – in the decisions concerning my sexual life, my reproductive actions, and my autonomous choices. I think this video explains it well: http://www.canadiansforchoice.ca/whatif.html
No one should impose their beliefs on me – especially pro-lifers. Don’t like abortion? Then don’t have one. It’s that simple. There’s no law in Canada that says women HAVE to have abortions – it’s their choice. For someone to tell me I can’t choose to have one for reason X, Y, Z is just imposing their morality on me, and I won’t have any of it.
Debating a women’s right to choose is contesting the equality of women – which feminism has fought for in centuries past. And now a bunch of old white men and their hidden Trojan horse agenda are turning back the clock on women’s rights. We won’t have any of it – the abortion matter has been settled. This video illustrates our commendable progress: http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/images/voices-choices-video.html
The decision to have an abortion is a choice, albeit a moral choice, but it is just like any other choice we have over our own bodies. And while it may be an incredibly difficult choice to make, it nevertheless must remain as an option for women in crisis pregnancies (for those that choose it), because no woman should be forced to carry her child to term if she is unwilling, unsupported by her partner or family, or unable to care for it.

So, how do we refute O’Conner’s argument and the pro-choice rhetoric behind it?

We should be able to live how we choose – shouldn’t we? Yes, as long as we don’t break the law, and as long as our choices do not infringe upon the rights, but more importantly, lives, of others. You see, abortion by it’s nature cannot be viewed solely in terms of the woman’s choice. This is evident when we ask, abortion is the choice to do what? It is a choice that involves the intentional killing of an innocent human being. This is a fact revealed when we consider what the unborn are, and what abortion does. So the first premise to O’Conner’s argument fails in the context of abortion – it does not “interfere with the actions of others,” it is an intervention that ends another’s very life.
No one should impose their beliefs on me – Yet in no society do we say, if you don’t like slavery, don’t own a slave. Oh, you don’t like it when children are tortured for fun? Then don’t torture them! Think rape is wrong – then don’t get raped! In all seriousness, we acknowledge that a mother who intentionally drowns her children has done something wrong – not just because she broke the law, but because she’s done something morally wrong. And it would not be “imposing our beliefs on someone” to adamantly insist that a woman who killed her children has done something wrong against another, moreover, to demand that it is wrong to kill the most vulnerable and innocent of humans among us.
Debating a women’s right to choose is “turning back the clock” by contesting the equality of women – but this already assumes a woman has the liberty to make a choice that will kill an innocent child. It’s not like men have the liberty to choose to kill their children which women are missing out on, so how is this an equality issue? Pro-choice advocates use the guise of feminism to advance their argument for equal women’s rights. But it so blatantly fails in the face of abortion, because it is a choice that advocates for the killing of innocent children.
& 5. The decision to have an abortion depends on one’s personal autonomy; it is a choice – but is it a choice like choosing to get a tattoo? You have autonomy over your body in the case of getting a tattoo; it’s a choice you can freely make. Obviously, abortion is not like that. Why the insistence that it’s a moral choice? Are other medical procedures moral choices – getting wisdom teeth removed? Tonsils? Appendicectomy? It’s obvious, again, abortion is different because it is more than just the removal of a part of a woman’s body, but the killing of a distinct, developing human being!

The conclusion that the only thing a woman must consider in having an abortion is her own conscience is based on flawed assumptions. Abortion is NOT a matter of personal choice, conscience, or individual beliefs – because we are talking about the killing of innocent human beings. When refuting pro-choice ideology, we must be clear on these 2 things: what the unborn are (and indeed, that they are innocent human beings), and what value/moral status the unborn have (that is, valued as persons with inherent dignity as human beings).

2012: 05/07
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The Pro-Choice Response to Motion 312

As you know, a Conservative member of Parliament has requested to pass a Motion that is an investigation into the Criminal Code’s definition of a human being, as the code currently states that a child is not a human being until the moment it exits the womb (and this definition has stood the same since the 1800s, when it was created).

The way pro-choice MPs are responding to this Motion (about the legal definition of a human being), as if it were a full-frontal attack on Canadian woman’s rights, helps us to better see two things: 1) the ludicrousness of the pro-choice position, but also 2) the lure of the pro-choice position, and why so many are duped by its rhetoric.

See what Hon. Gordon O’Connor, one of the most senior and conservative members of the Conservative Party, had to say in the first hour of debate on Motion 312:

“Whether one accepts it or not, abortion is and always will be part of society,” … “No matter how many laws some people may want government to institute against abortion, abortion cannot be eliminated. It is part of the human condition.” … “I cannot understand why those who are adamantly opposed to abortion want to impose their beliefs on others by way of the Criminal Code,” … “I want all women to continue to live in a society in which decisions on abortion can be made, one way or the other, with advice from family and a medical doctor and without the threat of legal consequences,” … “I do not want women to go back to the previous era where some were forced to obtain abortions from illegal and medically dangerous sources. This should never happen in a civilized society.”… “The Supreme Court has also declared that the right to liberty guarantees a degree of personal autonomy over important decisions intimately affecting private life. The decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, and in a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual must be paramount and take precedence over that of the state.” … “I firmly believe that each of us should be able to pursue our lifestyle as long as it is within the boundaries of law and does not interfere with the actions of others. Trying to amend the legal rules governing abortion, as is intended by this motion, will not improve the situation. It will only lead to increased conflict as the attempt is made to turn back the clock. Society has moved on and I do not believe this proposal should proceed.”

(emphasis added, see his full speech at the bottom of the Official Report * Table of Contents * Number 111 (Official Version).

The main gist of O’Connor’s argument is as follows:

1. We should be able to live how we choose as long as we are within the boundaries of law and do not interfere with the actions of others.

2. Those who oppose abortion and wish for a law restricting it are imposing their beliefs on others.

3. Living in a society that legally opposes abortion would be turning back the clock on women’s rights, which is uncivilized, undemocratic, unconstitutional, etc and also unsafe – because women would resort to illegal and medically dangerous methods of abortion (such as coat hangers, “back-alley abortions”, etc).

4. Legally, the right to liberty guarantees an individual personal autonomy over decisions that affect their private life – and decisions over their body.

5. The decision over whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is a moral decision affecting the private life of the individual woman.

6. Thus, the only thing a woman must consider in having an abortion is her own conscience, and not the laws of the state.

7. Therefore, abortion is and always will be a part of society, a part of the human condition.

But is his argument true?

Not in accordance with reality: abortion is not about a woman’s right to choose – for her choice directly and intentionally kills the life of an innocent child in the womb. That is why we need to unmask choice for what it is – and cut through the ludicrous but luring layers of the pro-choice “onion,” if you will.

2012: 05/07
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Should we really stand for a law that says some human beings are not human beings?

April 26, 2012:

“Today, in this House, in the year 2012, because of a Conservative motion, we will be debating a womans right to choose, years after this issue has been dealt with… when will the Conservatives stop rolling the clock back on Canadian women’s rights?” – Angry New Democrat MP Lady: VIDEO: Harper to vote against Tory MP’s fetus motion | The Chronicle Herald.

Re-Opening the Abortion Debate in Parliament? Maybe.

Years after this issue has been dealt with? Not quite…

Doing what is democratically just? I think so.

Let’s see what we’re actually talking about here.

The above quote and video are in response to Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s Motion 312, filed in the House of Commons on February 6th of this year, requesting verbatim: “that a special committee of the House be appointed and directed to review the declaration in Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada which states that a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth:”[1] He calls this a 400 year old law, as it is based on 17th Century science following British Common Law. Indeed the Criminal Code states:

“A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not a) it has breathed; b) it has independent circulation; or c) the navel string is severed”

- Criminal Code Book of Canada R.S., cC-34, s.205

So no, Niki Ashton, this Conservative motion is not asking you to debate a woman’s right to choose. At least not yet. While Woodworth acknowledges that this would have effects for policy on abortion, he asserts that the implications are wider, because Parliament has a duty to update this 17^th Century definition of human beings in light of 21^st Century medical evidence, as a law that says some human beings are not human beings is untruthful, misrepresentative, and downright unjust.[2] According to Woodworth, “once we decide whether or not a child is a human being before birth, then we can have an honest conversation about all of the other issues.”[3] Regardless of personal views on “other issues,” he maintains that it does not make medical sense in the 21^st Century to say that a child is not a human being until the moment of complete birth, and that MPs have a duty to not accept any law that says some human beings are not human.

Clearly, this motion will advance honest discussion about the abortion question, in society and in Parliament. And that inevitably constitutes a re-opening of the abortion debate, or as Niki Ashton maintains, debating over women’s right to choose.

But please, let’s be clear on what we’re “debating,” or more exactly, on what this Motion in Parliament’s purpose is. Woodworth’s request is to re-examine the section of the Criminal Code where the law gets its definition of a human being: that’s it. Read it for yourself here: Stephen Woodworth : Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre : Motion 312. For our law to maintain that children in the womb are not human beings until the moment they exit the birth canal, or from a C-Section, is illogical and resolutely unscientific. Unless of course we wish to re-define the meaning of a “human being” to suit our purposes.

So are the Conservatives rolling back the clock on Canadian women’s rights with this Motion? Or doing what is democratically just? Heck, it’s more like they’re acting on common sense.

[1] http://www.stephenwoodworth.ca/canadas-400-year-old-definition-of-human-being/motion-312

[2] Read Woodworth’s entire speech to reporters, “Don’t accept any law that says some human beings are not human beings!” http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/02/06/dont-accept-any-law-that-says-some-human-beings-are-not-human-beings/

[3] http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/06/pol-abortion-conservative-motion.html

2012: 04/28
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Margaret Somerville on why the abortion debate is about the fetus

Focusing on the fetus changes abortion debate

By Margaret Somerville

Over 100,000 abortions take place each year in Canada, which, uniquely among Western democracies, has no law restricting access to the procedure. It is legal throughout pregnancy, although the vast majority of physicians will not carry it out after viability of the fetus (the time at which the fetus has a chance of living outside the womb, which the Canadian Medical Association sets at 20 weeks gestation), except for serious medical reasons. Other exceptions to the 20 week limit do, however, occur and are probably not uncommon.

All of which means that if a woman wants an abortion, whatever her reason for deciding that, she may have an abortion. And pro-choice advocates argue that that’s how it should be, as women have the right “to absolute reproductive freedom.” That means abortion is a private matter between a woman and her physician, just another medical decision; it’s nobody else’s business and certainly not society’s or the law’s; and the fetus is “just a bunch of cells,” part of the woman’s body not a separate being, a “parasite” she is entitled to get rid of.

Pro-choice advocates used to oppose sex selection abortions, but some have changed their position because they do not want to endorse the legitimacy of any restriction on abortion. The absence of any restrictions not only makes abortion more accessible, it sends a message and establishes a cultural value that having an abortion is “no big deal,” as one woman expressed it, which is consistent with pro-choice ideology.

So why is there this huge fuss about sex selection abortion? If one can have an abortion for any reason or none, why not because a baby of the opposite sex is strongly preferred?

The reason is, as sex selection abortion most clearly demonstrates, that abortion is not just a private matter. The issue involves shared societal values, cultural norms and clashes of cultural values and shows that the cumulative impact of abortion has societal consequences.

Pro-choice advocates have long proposed that whether women can have unfettered access to abortion should be the litmus test of whether a society has respect for women and their rights. They argue this access is required to protect women’s rights to autonomy and self-determination — and to protect their dignity. Ironically, however, sex selection abortion is overwhelmingly the expression of a lack of respect for women in cultures in which sons are highly valued and daughters are massively devalued.

Sex selection abortion also shifts the analytic, ethical and legal spotlight from the pregnant woman (who is the basis of the pro-choice case), to the unwanted fetus (which is normally ignored in the pro-choice analysis). This is because in sex selection, unlike probably most other abortions, the woman wants a baby — just not a girl. As a result of this focus on the fetus, we see abortion in a different ethical and legal light.

As is true in all ethical decision making, our choice of language in relation to abortion is also important, because it can affect our emotional response, which factors into how we see abortion’s ethical acceptability. Sex selection abortions are often referred to as “female feticide” or “gendercide” — both emotionally evocative terms. But all abortions are feticide. Why don’t we refer to them as such?

And, cumulatively, abortion decisions have an impact on society and are not just a private matter. This is most clear in sex selection abortion. It’s estimated that there are at least 100 million missing girls in India and China as a result of sex selection abortion and female infanticide. In one Indian study in which 7,000 consecutive abortions were followed, 6,997 were of female fetuses. In some areas of China it’s reported there are 160 young men for every 100 girls. This is harmful to both sexes: Women are devalued, treated as objects, abused and harmed. And men cannot find wives.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal editorial suggestion that the way to handle sex selection abortion in Canada is to withhold information on the sex of the baby until 30 weeks gestation is neither feasible nor ethical. A baby’s sex can be determined at eight weeks of gestation with a blood sample from the mother and, in general, people have an ethical and legal right to know the information a physician generates about their condition.

Moreover, testing unborn children for sex is the tip of the prenatal testing iceberg. Tests for many other conditions are already available and more are coming fast. The issues are how may these be used and how should they not be used — and what law governing abortion should be put in place to ensure that the Canadian values we want to enshrine regarding these tests are respected? Much as some politicians, including the Prime Minister, protest against doing so, they must start discussing abortion in Parliament. It is an issue that affects some of the most important values on which we base our Canadian society. And it is not going away.

From: The National Post

Margaret Somerville is the founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University.

2012: 04/16
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Breaking News!

Last night, a willing pro-choicer contacted US to debate, at EXTREMELY last minute!

We were able to go through with the debate after all, through an unexpected turn of events, and the night went great! The room was full to capacity (approx 80-100 people), very respectful, excellent arguments made on both sides, and great questions asked for each speaker. The debate was filmed, so as soon as we get a copy of it, it will be posted on our blog for you to watch.

Soon, we will be posting a debrief of the debate and the arguments made by both sides, and would love to address any questions you may have.

If you attended last night’s debate, can you PLEASE take 2 minutes to fill in this survey inquiring what you thought about each speaker.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6WS7WCB

It would be greatly appreciated, and beneficial to Lifeline as well as both speakers.

Thank-you!

2012: 03/23
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What do you think about abortion?

Abortion: Human right? Thursday March 22nd, 7-9pm, Hamilton Hall 302.

Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Center for Bio-Ethical Reform will deliver her opening statement on the position that abortion is a human violation. Following that will be an extended Q&A session with the audience.

A conversation on abortion that will provoke discussion, raise questions, and prompt you to engage in honest thought and dialogue.

Why come?

You have questions about abortion…

You have had an encounter with abortion before and are seeking answers…

You’ve been faced with the issue of abortion before (in conversation, class, or crisis), and want to learn more about how to defend your position…

You’re undecided on whether abortion is a woman’s choice, or whether it’s wrong to abort the unborn…

You want to know the scientific facts of when human life begins…

You have never seriously thought about this issue before and want to come to an informed judgment …

You don’t think it’s possible to come to an informed judgment, or “objective answer” about abortion, and need reasons to show you otherwise…

Perhaps you’ve only ever heard emotional responses to the topic of abortion and have never heard the arguments made for the pro-life or pro-choice case…

You like to be engaged in intellectually stimulating discussion on important issues, and participate in honest thought and dialogue about matters of ethics and the human person…

You are interested in moral issues, ethics, free speech, debates, human dignity and rights…

For all these reasons and more, participating in the event “Abortion: Human Right or Human Violation?” will provide answers, provoke discussion, raise questions, and prompt you to engage in honest thought and dialogue about matters of ethics and the human person.

2012: 03/21
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Press Release: Ontario students want abortion debate but abortion advocates unwilling to defend their position

March 14, 2012: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ontario students want abortion debate but abortion advocates unwilling to defend their position

Toronto, ON: This March, two Ontario university clubs are hosting abortion debates on campus, but pro-choicers have been unwilling to debate. Despite contacting over 120 professors, feminist organizations, and abortion advocacy groups, Guelph Life Choice and McMaster Lifeline have been unable to find anyone willing to debate. Pro-life students from McMaster and Guelph are now issuing a public challenge to pro-choice proponents (specifically professors, doctors, clinic workers, and advocates from pro-choice organizations), inviting them to defend their position on abortion and join in an open and respectful debate.

“There’s been great student interest in having this debate,” states Hanna Barlow, President of the University of Guelph Life Choice. “But everyone we’ve contacted to represent the pro-choice side has either rejected the invitation or simply ignored it. It’s very disappointing.”

With the debate scheduled for the end of the month, Guelph Life Choice contacted the Student Help and Advocacy Centre (SHAC) from the student union for help finding a pro-choice advocate. They declined, stating, “We do not believe that the sexual and reproductive rights of women is [sic] something that should be debated because we see ‘pro-choice’ as the only option. For us, reproductive rights are non-debatable.” (See full email text at: http://uofguelphlifechoice.ncln.ca/2012/03/14/email/)

“Unwillingness to debate is something we’ve seen before on other campuses,” states Rebecca Richmond, Executive Director for the National Campus Life Network, a national pro-life student organization. “Despite accusations from pro-choicers that we’re closed minded and backwards, they are the ones who keep rejecting our offers to engage in dialogue.”

“Anyone who holds a belief on an issue must have evidence to back up their belief,” states Julia Bolzon, President of McMaster Lifeline. “If pro-choicers are confident in their position, then they should be willing to defend it in a debate. We hope pro-choicers will rise to the challenge.”

For more information or for those interested in representing the pro-choice side of the debate, contact:

Julia Bolzon – President McMaster Lifeline, 647 221 0912, jbolzon@gmail.com

Hanna Barlow – President Guelph Life Choice, 519 830 9072, hannabarlow@gmail.com

Rebecca Richmond – Executive Director, National Campus Life Network, 416 388 0461 director@ncln.ca

-30-

2012: 03/14
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Why talk about abortion?

Most of us have probably never thought about abortion before. Or maybe you have thought about it a lot. Maybe you’ve been brought face to face with abortion in a crisis pregnancy, or someone you know has considered one, or even had one. Why talk about abortion – is it an issue, is it a right, is it a choice, is it something that just happens, that needs to be done, when we’re left with no other choice? We all intrinsically know what abortion is about, or at least, we have some idea or connotations that we carry about abortion…

The Planned Parenthood website – the largest abortion provider in the world - explains it in this way:

“Abortion is a safe and legal way for women to end pregnancy.”

But what is being ended in a pregnancy? Is it the ending of a potential new human life, or the ending of an actual existing human life?

Faye Wattleton, Planned Parenthood’s longest reigning president, argued as far back as 1997 that everyone already knows that abortion kills. She proclaims the following in an interview with Ms. Magazine:

I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.

Naomi Wolf, a prominent feminist author and abortion supporter, makes a similar concession when she writes:

Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life…we need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death.

David Boonin, in his book, A Defense of Abortion, makes this startling admission:

In the top drawer of my desk, I keep [a picture of my son]. This picture was taken on September 7, 1993, 24 weeks before he was born. The sonogram image is murky, but it reveals clear enough a small head tilted back slightly, and an arm raised up and bent, with the hand pointing back toward the face and the thumb extended out toward the mouth. There is no doubt in my mind that this picture, too, shows [my son] at a very early stage in his physical development. And there is no question that the position I defend in this book entails that it would have been morally permissible to end his life at this point.

Peter Singer, contemporary philosopher and public abortion advocate, joins the chorus in his book, Practical Ethics. He writes:

It is possible to give ‘human being’ a precise meaning. We can use it as equivalent to ‘member of the species Homo sapiens’. Whether a being is a member of a given species is something that can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being.

Bernard Nathanson co-founded one of the most influential abortion advocacy groups in the world (NARAL) and once served as medical director for the largest abortion clinic in America. In 1974, he wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine in which he states, “There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy…” Some years later, he would reiterate:

There is simply no doubt that even the early embryo is a human being. All its genetic coding and all its features are indisputably human. As to being, there is no doubt that it exists, is alive, is self-directed, and is not the the same being as the mother–and is therefore a unified whole.

(Taken from Abort73: The Case Against Abortion: Medical Testimony.)

If the embryo is a human being, an actually existing human life rather than potentially a human life, then we need to be talking about abortion. Stats are hard to find, but 91, 377 abortions were performed in Canada in 2006 (and those were only ones reported to Stats Canada.) That’s 91, 377 actually existing human lives that were killed, and only in one year. Shouldn’t we be talking about this? If abortion IS a human right, if it is a choice that woman can make, don’t we need to ask – is it right for someone to make the choice to kill the innocent human being in her womb, for whatever reason?

When something like 91 377 human beings in Canada are being killed yearly (while in the safest place on earth, no less) because of someone’s choice, I think we need to be DOING something about it. And yet, no one is even talking about it.

______

Come to the Abortion Debate, featuring the pro-life and pro-choice arguments, coming up on Thursday March 22nd in Hamilton Hall 302, from 7-9pm.

2012: 03/11
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ATTN: Debate Opponent Wanted to defend women’s rights.

McMaster Lifeline is currently seeking a speaker willing to step forward and defend the position that abortion is a woman’s right in a formal debate for the McMaster campus. The opponent who had been confirmed with us for over 2 months (in the beginning of January) backed out last Monday because of the “great discomfort at the possibility of being recorded and posted on to the internet,” even though we agreed to absolutely NOT film the debate after requesting her permission. Apparently, she was only ever interested in “a small gathering of students in a more intimate setting” when our initial invitation and follow-up clearly indicated “We are currently planning a professional debate for this term, which will explore the issue of abortion.”

In truth, her concerns about participating in this debate were voiced in an email only after she looked up the speaker representing the pro-life position, Stephanie Gray from CCBR: “I did not investigate your speaker from the pro-life position until the request for permission to record the debate” (which was on February 24th, although she had originally confirmed her participation in the debate on January 5th). “I watched the recordings on this organizations website classroom information, and I watched the YouTube postings. I found considerable cause for caution that further lead me to engaging in discussion with my women professional colleagues and seek their feedback.”

You can watch those very recordings of CCBR’s “website classroom information” here: Pro-Life Classroom | Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

If you ask me, the “considerable cause for caution” is that the arguments put forward by Stephanie Gray, arguing that abortion is a human violation, are absolutely impossible to refute. The opponent’s interests in accepting the debate rested “solely in [her] interest to help students have a meeting where they are engaged in topical discourse” and her interest in discussing the topic of abortion was in “the legislative right of all patients to be engaged in informed choice leading to informed consent, and in this case as it pertains to the decisions leading to the right to have an abortion.”

But for someone who is interested “in supporting students in appropriate sharing of discourse, inquiry, exchange of ideas,” as she elsewhere stated, and in “the importance of providing female patients with the right to informed choices,” why back out of the perfect platform from which to defend a woman’s right to abortion, which can contribute to the exchange of ideas we wish to see among students on this topic?

Perhaps it’s because, after looking at her opponent’s arguments, her own seemed no match in comparison? You be the judge. We’re still looking for a speaker willing to step up and argue against the position that abortion is a human violation. If you know of any colleagues or individuals willing to do so, please contact me, as we have invested a lot of planning and funding in making this forum for students possible, and do not want to have to cancel due to lack of opponent.

After all, can a formal debate on the topic of abortion to engage students in an intellectually stimulating way, through reasonable and open discussion rather than emotional appeal, not be had on a university campus? We want the debate.

2012: 03/05
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Debate 2012, Abortion: Human Right or Human Violation?

What do you think about abortion?

Abortion is such a hotly debated topic. It’s been described as an extremely controversial issue, causing some to refrain from talking about it at all, and others to take firm stances on either extreme. It’s not a simple or clear-cut, black and white issue, but rather complex, volatile, and extremely sensitive. The topic always comes up under moral issues, or in ethics classes, and it seems as if people will always take opposite positions on abortion, even when they think rationally, honestly, and with good will.

You may have had heated discussions about it before. More seriously, you may know people who have had an abortion, who have contemplated abortion, or have had an abortion yourself.

Why is abortion so seemingly controversial?

What makes abortion a moral issue?

Why are people afraid to talk about it, while others remain so intolerantly for or against it?

Abortion remains a critical issue for discussion because it is an issue that affects the whole of society, and on a university campus, open and honest dialogue is promoted on such issues.

To facilitate open and honest discussion, a professional debate is being hosted at McMaster for the entire campus on “Abortion: Human Right or Human Violation?” with opposing arguments put forth by professionals in their field.

Representing the position that abortion is a human violation, and wrong in every instance, is Stephanie Gray, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform. Stephanie has debated numerous abortion advocates, pro-choicers, and abortion doctors at universities across Canada, and is committed to making the killing of unborn human beings unthinkable.

Representing the position that abortion is a human right, and the importance of providing female patients with the right to informed choices, is a McMaster Professor of the Health, Society and Aging department, a medical historian and medical anthropologist with interest in the historic importance of patient self- determination over their right to make choices that affect their personal circumstances.

Why come to the debate?