The pro-choice community needs to build stronger arguments with fewer obvious weaknesses, based on this fundamental assumption:
- The younger a minor child or fetus is the fewer and weaker their rights are.
- Abortion is justifiable because, for a period of time, the unborn child’s right to life is weaker than the mother’s rights.
If all pro-choice arguments started from this foundation it would eliminate many weaknesses because:
- It acknowledges that life begins at conception.
- It acknowledges that unborn children do in fact have right(s) (to life)/(moral) value from the moment of conception.
- It changes the argument from theoretical (all or nothing) to practical (a matter of degrees).
- It puts much of the pro-life community on the defense by requiring them to explain why its OK to murder unborn children in some cases (life of the mother, rape or incest) but not others.
- Limits all arguments to unborn children.
And this assumption (that the younger an unborn child is the weaker it’s right(s) (to life)/(moral) value) is supported by this recent poll https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/abortion-rights-in-the-united-states/ shows that:
- 9% Think that abortion is never acceptable under any circumstances.
- 91% Think that abortion is acceptable to save the life of the mother.
- 82% Think abortion is acceptable in cases of rape or incest.
- 59% Think abortion is acceptable in the first 3 months of pregnancy.
- 34% Think abortion is acceptable in the first 6 months of pregnancy.
- 22% Think abortion is acceptable at anytime during the pregnancy.
The first two cases (life of the mother and rape or incest) confirm that the right(s) (to life)/(moral) value of an unborn child is inferior to the mother and the rest of the statistics confirm that the the right(s) (to life)/(moral) value gradually rises as a function of the unborn child’s age and development.
The pro-choice community needs to start framing arguments in these terms because it is something that we already agree on and eliminates many of the common weaknesses.