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| Main Points |  Here are the main views of the pro-choice arena:
- Pro-choice advocates argue: “It is not a baby, just a bunch of tissue.”
Pro-life supporters imply that there is proven scientific research that reports the fetus is a living organism from the instant of conception. The baby’s blood supply is also totally separate from the mother’s. There is no physician who would kill a newborn baby at the time it is born. So, their question is, “At what minute can one consider life to be worthless and at the next minute, that life to be precious?”
- Pro-choice advocates argue: “It is my body, so this is my choice.”
Pro-life advocates contradict this way. The fetus is a totally separate life from the woman, as if it has a different blood type and genetic code. It is not simply a part of the mother’s body. It is only dwelling there, and birth is just the change of residence from an already living, active person. Just for the reason that the fetus is maintained by the mother for its life for nine months does not give the mother the right to decide to stop its life.
- Pro-choice advocates argue: “If abortion is made illegal, women will die in back alleys.”
Pro-life advocates give explanation: The court case, Roe v. Wade essentially made people who were before considered illegal abortionist now legal. When that came into effect, the state constitutionally barred from requiring review of the abortion decision by a hospital committee or concurrence in the decision by two physicians other than the attending physician. The Constitution also bans a state from requiring that the abortion be in a hospital licensed by the Joint Committee on Accreditation of Hospitals or that it be a hospital at all. Consequently, the court simply let illegal back-alley abortionists go legal with their procedures unchanged.
- Pro-choice advocates ask: “What about a woman who has endured rape or incest or is carrying a disabled child?”
Pro-life advocates make clear that they do not treat illness by killing the patient, and that can be considered prejudice. Yes, a woman who has been made a victim of rape or incest has gone through a horrifying experience. Nevertheless, there is also a second victim, the baby. Women who have had abortion under these circumstances feel they have had a second act of violence when they have aborted.
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