Many people say abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

Why do they include the 3rd qualifier, rare?

How to cook it once it's out?

Nice try buns. It is an important consideration in how you want your clump of cells cooked, but not the answer I was looking for.

Because it is a waste of biomass and energy. And it happening often means you are a wasteful being who does not care about future planning and descisions.

@kret...
I think you're on to something about people that get abortions not caring about future planning based on consequences of their decisions, but you're a bit off.

Because people what to make love but not always want to or can't keep the kid(s). The otherwise mother might not like going through the pain of childbirth either. Doctors may have informed the partners that the offspring have undesired traits such as possible learning difficulties, cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anaemia and the partners might want to save their children from having a much reduced quality of life. As far as I know, abortion is looked down upon by religions and religious places so there would be a relatively low abortion rate.

@Dan, your comment doesn't address why a proponent of abortion would include rare with safe and legal.

Edited 4/18/2018 14:25:08

~ "Safe legal and rare" first became a pro-choice rallying cry during the Clinton administration, and has been invoked by media-makers and politicians like – even President Obama has called the mantra "the right formulation" on abortion. It's a "safe" pro-choice answer: to support abortion, but wish it wasn't necessary ~

In essence the word "rare" implies that, while abortions should be legal, they should happen only when faced with the utmost necessity. Hence the supporters of the "rare abortions" movement means it should be used only when required due to critical medical situations. It also implies that abortions happens too often.

However, this was not always the case for the "rare" word. While it is now more often than not used by the more liberal no-campaigners and the more conservative yes-campaigners, it was intended for the slogan of the major yes-campaign.

This was effectively stopped and undermined by the mentioned liberal no-campaigners, using "rare" to both stigmatize women resorting to abortions, but also twisting the yes-campaigners words into implying that abortions were already too common, forcing the yes-campaigners to abandon it.

JJJ

@JJJ, So are you saying its logically inconsistent with the position that you're just removing a clump of cells?

@Pooh, yes!

The way the "rare" word is included in todays debates proves it inconsistent with "removing a clump of cells"

When discussing any other medical situations or operations, be it surgery or vaccines, etc, the word "rare" is never used in the same context. This is mostly due to the fact that people using the word "rare" doesnt see abortions as any other medical operation, nor do they see it as "removing a clump of cells".

There are no other surgeries which we want to RESTRICT access to when it can be critical to ones health. Hence why using the "rare" words makes "abortions" and "removing a clump of cells" consistently illogical. A tumor is per definition a clump of cells, and a surgery removing a tumor has never been debated upon whether its too common or not.

JJJ

(Disclaimer: I personally hold the stance that plastic surgery done on underage girls is not critical to their health)

Edited 4/18/2018 15:10:36

Okay, so that gets back to the base question, why would someone use RARE to qualify their pro-abortion stance?

-Would they not have the intellectual capacity to acknowledge their own logical inconsistency?
-Are they trying to appease people from the other side rather than taking a principled stance?
-Are they just morally reprehensible people that deep down think that abortions are killing babies, but for political gain support having abortions?

@Pooh, I already answered that!

"Rare" is being used in many ways in this debate, but first and foremost it has been used in three ways:

1: To express the opinion that abortions should only be used as a last resort when faced with a definite necessity.

2: To stigmatize women who have resorted to abortion, or support it by saying it is too common.

3: To convey the opinion that abortions shouldnt be trifled with due to it being something else than "removing a clump of cells"

JJJ

1: To express the opinion that abortions should only be used as a last resort when faced with a definite necessity.

-But why should it be a last resort? Its a legal and a safe procedure. What should they be doing first before getting an abortion? What is the consequence of getting that abortion?

2: To stigmatize women who have resorted to abortion, or support it by saying it is too common.

-It seems odd that a supporter of women's rights (e.g., abortion) would want to stigmatize a women for exercise her right. Again, if its safe and legal, why would you criticize or stigmatize someone for doing it? Exercise is safe and legal. Damn those a-holes that keep exercising! See, doesn't make much sense.

3: To convey the opinion that abortions shouldnt be trifled with due to it being something else than "removing a clump of cells"

-Oh, its something more? Then what? Could it possibly border on ending the life of an innocent person? If so, why are we so quick to make it safe and legal?

@Pooh, I have given you the 3 leading reasons for including "rare" in the "safe, legal and rare". And have correctly answered your question. The reasoning behind the explanation for the qualifier was not what you asked.

Hmm... so you're claiming the 1000 coins? I would argue that the "why" question implicitly goes to the reason of why they take that position. You gave end results, not motive, which is truly what I'm interested in.

You could apply those qualifiers to any invasive medical procedure. I would like open heart surgery to be safe, legal, and rare. Rare because there are always potential complications, which it would be greatly preferable avoid entirely through preventative medicine. Abortion is no different. It is not logically inconsistent to say that a procedure is necessary and be desirous that the necessity occur as infrequently as possible.

Perhaps the word 'rare' is tagged on to sate the minds who would otherwise be those of a pro-life stance? My belief that cynicism rules the world really makes it seem like that is the purpose of using the word. Pulling as many people as possible to your side.

@Beren, don't kid yourself. In supporting a pro-choice position, the rare is not intended to be for the safety of the mother. Remember, its safe... While at risk of setting up a strawman, the article quoted by JJJ introduces a study that says women are 14 times as likely to die by carrying out a pregnancy to term rather than just getting an abortion. If that's the case, then every single women should always have an abortion rather than take a pregnancy to term, if safety is a concern.

@DDB, Getting somewhere... I would argue that anyone pro-life would be in that position because they support the life of the unborn child. To think that someone would be pro-life to oppress women is truly reprehensible (to me). So, just as there are logically inconsistent people on the pro-choice side (e.g., someone that takes the stance that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare) I'm sure there are some people on the pro-life side that may be tricked into thinking that taking the life of an unborn child should be legal, as long as its rare.

TL;DR: maybe read something other than Steven Crowder every once in a while.

---

'cause this tested well

Any attempt to read deeper into this, especially from an ideologically-motivated, self-serving standpoint trying to come up with a "gotcha," is a fundamentally flawed undertaking. However, my guess is that the "rare" part is to mitigate damage from pro-life voters (which it does not seem to be doing well) and appeal to people on the fence who're uncomfortable with the idea of abortion (the ones who go out of their way to say they're pro-choice but anti-abortion).

I think what you're trying to do here is bring up some sort of cognitive dissonance in the latter group. If they're okay with abortions happening legally, then why are they uncomfortable with many abortions happening?

Well it turns out that instead of pulling reasons out of our asses and reading into noise emanating from our preconceived notions of how people work, we can probably find actual signals here. As a start, instead of attempting to put words and thoughts into the mouths and heads of these people, we can begin by reading what they have to say:

Officially I am pro-choice and anti-abortion. This view tends to leave people confused and angry that they think I am playing with their heads, so let me explain. I don’t think that a woman should be forced to carry a fetus to term. I also believe that abortion is a horrible experience for the mother and the fetus. I doubt that anybody looks forward to having one.

- https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/pro-choice-anti-abortion-unconventional-opinion-cmtt-2/

As a member of the clergy I understand these distinctions, and keep them in mind whenever we seek to enact laws that would basicly subjugate human rights to subjective and/or relative moral codes. I believe God gave mankind free will, even knowing that we would sin. In the end, abortion is between a woman and God, and whether or not she has one is her choice, both according to God and the Constitution.

- https://www.quora.com/Can-you-be-anti-abortion-but-pro-choice

Would I myself ever have an abortion? I'd like to think the answer is no, not ever -- unless my life was in grave danger. But it's arrogant and narrow-minded to think it's out of the realm of possibility and pointless to expect others to feel the same way. If I were in need of an abortion, it would be an intensely painful, private, personal decision between my doctor and I -- and not something I'd want the government and state lawmakers involved in.

- https://www.xojane.com/issues/the-case-for-being-both-pro-life-and-pro-choice

While I don't personally share the arguments made by any of these three sources*, I think they all merit reading if you're interested in the issue + how people come to their viewpoints on it. I also didn't find any hard data near the top of my Google search for "pro-choice anti-abortion" but I believe that you'll likely find something from Pew or PRRI since they tend to have polls on just about everything.

However, even without that extra data, I think these three viewpoints are responsive to your allegation of "logical inconsistency." Your idea of a pro-choice, anti-abortion voter is someone who sees abortion as trivial and harmless (as just "not murder," essentially) but is at the same time uncomfortable with a society where abortions are common. But that does not apply to any of the three viewpoints above.

Matthew Gilman (first source) is pro-choice on grounds that include the first argument (abortion is not murder) but anti-abortion on the grounds that it's still a traumatic experience. No evil is committed, but it's a painful medical procedure that creates societal consequences. Even if those consequences are outweighed by the good of not forcing women to carry pregnancies to term, there's still an opportunity cost if abortion can be avoided altogether. (As an analogy, imagine that we lived in a society where lung cancer could be surgically removed with >99% reliability. Now, even though the procedure would work and save people's lives, cancer surgery is a risky and traumatic experience with often serious side-effects. So if you're given a choice between not getting the surgery and getting the surgery, getting the surgery would win out. But if you throw in the third option of not needing the surgery in the first place, then that's the best option overall.) I think it's pretty straightforward to see why Gilman would want abortions to be "safe" and "legal" (he believes that the good of women's choice outweighs the side-effects of abortion) but also "rare" (he furthermore believes that a) there's a third option where abortion can be avoided altogether, and b) avoiding the trauma of abortion is sufficiently worthwhile that this third option should be exercised as often as possible). This is basically the trauma argument.

Similar lines of reasoning exist for the other two arguments. The second source (Kelly Graham on Quora) presents a traditional "hate the sin, not the sinner" argument. From their perspective, the (legal, not moral) utility of preserving free will outweighs the bad of a rather serious sin- just like how God giving Cain free will outweighed the evil of Cain murdering Abel. So again, if there's two options- banning abortions (no evil, but no free will) and allowing abortions (evil, but through free will)- then allowing abortions prevails. But if you throw in the third option of not having abortions altogether- free will without evil (through humans choosing to be good)- then of course that third option would prevail. Hence the preference for "rare" (in this case, no abortions at all).

Third one- Alison Freer- echoes the viewpoints of Mr. Gilman and Kelly Graham- but with different arguments for allowing abortion and against having common abortions. She echoes a variation of Gilman's "trauma" argument (with an additional focus on women's choice) but her argument for abortion has more to do with intrusion into private life. Same pattern, though, a "good" of abortion that's not outweighed by the "evil" of abortion- but an opportunity cost that makes the alternative of not needing abortions at all preferable.

I think where your interpretation of the issue breaks down is in your attempt to frame it as a straight good-vs-evil (in terms of utility) argument where the good and evil of a single abortion don't intrinsically differ from the good and evil of many abortions. However, this neglects the issue of opportunity cost, which single-handedly accounts for each of the three Google search result viewpoints above. Your idea seems to posit that if the good of a single abortion outweighs the harm, then there's no reason at all for someone to be uncomfortable with many abortions. But it's also worth considering the margin by which that good outweighs the harm and how it compares to the margins for other options- the basic economic idea of opportunity cost. Hence people can be logically consistent in their pro-choice but anti-abortion viewpoints.

I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of opportunity cost, so here's a simple illustration: at a proper cookout in Texas, you're not allowed to have well-done steak, but medium-rare is okay, and blue rare is better. So medium-rare is more "good" than "bad" but it has the opportunity cost of not eating proper rare steak instead. Similarly, you could formulate the pro-choice/anti-abortion viewpoint as: "Banning abortions is wrong, having an abortion is okay, but side-stepping the issue altogether is the best option." Banning abortions, like well-done steak, results in more bad than good (in the eyes of this group). Allowing an abortion is more good than bad, but not by as big a margin as just a pregnant woman not wanting/needing an abortion in the first place. So abortions are okay, but not needing to worry about an abortion in the first place? That's what the "safe, legal, and rare" people would have in their ideal world even though they're willing to allow less optimal options.

For the record, I am not here to engage you in debate on the morality or legality of abortion. As previously mentioned, I do not share any of the three viewpoints above. You might find their arguments compelling or (more likely) not. In either case, however, they represent the viewpoints of the people you're attempting to profile here and should be taken at face value not as good arguments but as arguments that represent the reasoning of this group. I.e., don't attempt to sidestep out of this by simply engaging flaws in the three viewpoints above instead of sticking to your original goalpost of cognitive dissonance.

Therefore, this response pretty squarely answers your question. You'd be moving the goalposts pretty hard if you pretend it doesn't. I expect you to do so anyway, so in advance I'd like to tell you to go fuck yourself. (As usual, I won't be hanging around on this thread. I usually just downvote, hide, and move on, but there's a compulsive part of me that's sufficiently troubled by your disingenuousness and intellectual dishonesty here that I had to respond but not engage just this one time. $10 is also nothing to me, so idrc that you made this thread without the intention of actually giving anyone those coins in the first place.)

* I consider myself pro-abortion but anti-choice, largely as I'm in favor of human extinction. That's an issue for another time, however.

Edited 4/18/2018 19:24:16

*asks a question he knows there's no definitive/easy answer to so he doesn't have to give away the coins*