As I attempted to show in Part 1, several common claims made by abortion rights proponents to support the pro-choice view miss their mark when clarified and subjected to further scrutiny. Continuing this theme, I’ll critically examine several more common pro-choice arguments and demonstrate that they are equally unpersuasive.
Opinion
You’re only pro-birth and not pro-life
This claim wrongly assumes that opposing abortion commits someone to specific views or additional obligations regarding care for others. Individuals may be pro-life and still differ as to the proper sociopolitical roles and policies best suited for cultivating and preserving a well-ordered society. As an analogy, abolitionists were not committed to housing freed slaves or agreement on how best to care for them upon release to be consistent in their demand to abolish slavery. This claim also ignores the massive impact of pro-life pregnancy centers across the United States that provide a huge amount of resources to new mothers and their families, the Charlotte Lozier Institute found.
No uterus, no opinion
If taken literally, this view would exclude the opinions of women who, due to hysterectomy or genetic defect, do not have a uterus. Taken to exclude only the opinions of men, the claim does not fare any better. First, if the opinions of men regarding abortion are inadmissible in public discourse, then this includes the opinions used to substantiate the decision in Roe v. Wade with a SCOTUS composed entirely of male justices, and in Casey v. Planned Parenthood with a SCOTUS composed of eight men and one woman. This would mean that the decisions are void, and there was never any legitimate constitutional right to abortion. Second, even if the opinions of men are excluded, pro-life women exist, and they hold identical views to their male counterparts, so the can has only been kicked down the proverbial road. Finally, as just mentioned, pro-life views are not sex-specific, which means men and women can, and often do, hold identical views, so denying men a seat at the table does nothing by itself to refute the pro-life position or strengthen the pro-choice position.
My body, my choice
This claim rightly emphasizes the importance of bodily autonomy while arriving at false conclusions regarding abortion. Bodily autonomy presumably belongs to every individual with a body. If a woman has a right to control her own body, then this same right also belongs to the fetus. When two individuals are involved the circumstances and additional considerations must be further evaluated to determine the rightness or wrongness of acts performed by one that affect the other. This is precisely the case with abortion because a woman is not making a decision about her body alone, but about her body and the body of another.
Rights are either natural or legal and ordered hierarchically. Circumstances determine when new rights are granted, how rights are surrendered voluntarily or involuntarily, or when rights are superseded by those more fundamental. For example, the right to private property ownership will yield to the right to life in a scenario where a person uses the vehicle of another without consent to save the life of someone else. Under normal conditions the theft would be wrong, but because of the circumstances the right to private property ownership is temporarily overridden.
Because the right to life is the most fundamental of all natural rights—indeed, no other natural rights could be recognized or legal rights conferred without an individual first being permitted to exist—bodily autonomy will, under certain circumstances, be restricted or superseded, especially in cases where the right to life is in question. This is something nearly everyone recognizes. Imagine the following scenario: A medical emergency occurs in a public place where a person is in cardiac arrest. Now imagine that someone nearby is a certified paramedic, and they immediately begin administering CPR. The victim is incapable of granting or withholding consent, so the paramedic has violated the victim’s bodily autonomy while attempting to preserve their life, correctly understanding that this violation is permissible under the circumstances. Similarly, while the right to bodily autonomy of both the mother and fetus are incredibly important, safeguarding the right to life possessed by the fetus will rightly restrict the mother’s exercise of autonomy to procure an abortion because the former is more fundamental than the latter. Preserving this hierarchy of natural rights is indispensable to sound moral reasoning and just legislation.
Abortion is health care
It’s clear this claim is false when we recall the definition of abortion provided in Part 1 of this column. What tends to happen is that pro-choice proponents will often lump together different meanings of the term “abortion” and use it as a single term. For example, a miscarriage is sometimes referred to as a spontaneous or natural abortion, while procedures to save the life of a pregnant woman during a medical emergency are sometimes referred to as therapeutic abortions. In the case of miscarriage, the fetus is deceased and you cannot intentionally kill what is no longer living, so this does not qualify as an abortion in the narrow sense. While scenarios involving saving the life of the mother are certainly more complex — and space dictates a more thorough discussion at another time — procedures utilized do not necessitate intentionally killing the fetus, so they will not qualify as abortions in the narrow sense either. What this means is that “abortion” is only ever legitimately health care when the term is used in the broad sense to cover either miscarriage or certain procedures to save the life of the mother, but neither is what the pro-life proponent has in mind as a human rights violation and what pro-life legislation intends to prohibit. In no sense, then, is abortion in the narrow sense legitimate health care, but pro-choice proponents rely on this equivocation when claiming otherwise.
While much more could be said in response to the claims analyzed in parts 1 and 2, I believe this column sufficiently neutralizes them all. My hope after writing this is that pro-choice readers will reevaluate their views and the support used for them, and that those on the fence will begin to take more seriously the pro-life position. In the end, more charitable engagement and good faith dialogue will lead to better understanding on all sides, and that sounds like a win for everyone in Wyoming.
Author goes to school for a philosophy degree and uses it to promote christian nationalism.
I see men are still getting a pass here and it’s all on the women. So the people getting a pass are going to tell the people who have to take full responsibility what to do. Abortions rates are same now as before Roe V Wade got overturned. Makes you wonder what the point was.
I am pro-choice. I have been since my late teens.
I am pro-choice for my college dorm mate that was raped on her way home from a late class. And in those days it was (and still is with campus police) she was asking for it walking alone at night. When she found out she was pregnant before Roe, she tried boiling water douches, jumping off the top bunk bed, etc. Her life ended when she went home and killed herself.
I am pro-choice for my high school friend who was drugged and beaten and on vacation. Again – she tried all the word of mouth tried and true ways to end her pregnancy. She died after the hanger perforated her uterus.
I am pro-choice for the 11 year old that I picked up to take to a safe house after she told her mother her paternal grandfather had been molesting her – ending in pregnancy. I don’t know the outcome – the mother took her out of state.
I am pro-choice for my mother that had to have 3 doctors certify that another pregnancy would endanger her physical and emotional well-being. This was to have her tubes tied. Of course – my father had to agree.
I am pro-choice for a friend that had an ectopic pregnancy.
I have sat up all night at a clinic when Operation Rescue came to town. I have done escorts for women from their cars into clinics. I have been called a murderer. I have been told Jesus does not love me. I have had guns pointed at me. I have been followed home from those same clinics by those that are anti-choice that they threw rocks at my house.
Women with means will still have ways to take care of their bodies. They always have. You know – the D&C by a friendly doctor. Or go visit an aunt for the weekend where a procedure would take place in a sterile environment. Some of the other escorts I worked with had done that pre-Roe.
Isn’t the “Pill” an abortifacient? It prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg. Is making that illegal next?
Where do you stand on protecting the Right to Choose?
Do you believe that a woman wakes up in the morning and says that – hey – nothing else on the schedule so I guess I will go and have an abortion? She has already talked to her family, friends, partner, doctors, and maybe clerical. What if she is making the decision because she found out her child will be born with Tay Sachs disease and her child will suffer greatly until the age of 3 or 4.
The decision is a private and personal one and is based on the knowledge and future of that individual.
In America, we like to think that the punishment should fit the crime. We don’t cut the hand off a thief; and, at least until Alex Pretti and Renee Good came along, we didn’t execute non-believers. Right-to Lifers would have us believe that the “crime” of having sex should carry a punishment of anywhere from nine months of lifestyle change, physical discomfort, and increased medical expenses to a literal lifetime of rearing children and helping them through their adult lives. I’ve never met a woman who gleefully ran to the abortion clinic. Just having an abortion should be “punishment” enough. Bear in mind that some unwanted pregnancies come in spite of every precaution having been taken- no birth control is 100% effective. Consider that, bearing in mind that the extremists of the Right to Life movement would do away with birth control altogether, making any heterosexual sex a potential life sentence!
Children do not have the same rights as their parents. They should (and do) have a right to life. But the author himself uses the word “fetus.” A fetus is not a human- it is a potential human.
Yes Phil, it is absolutely a Human being. Saying it isnt human makes it easier for people to kill.
From Merriam Webster
Fetus
specifically : a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth
No thing being developed, is the thing itself.
Since Mr. Stanislaw has set the stage for man splainin’, I’ll bite. Seems to me that the essence of the dispute is whether or not someone believes a pregnancy is already a being, endowed with rights including protection and a mandate to be carried through to birth. At present, no one or no law prevents that protection or carrying the pregnancy through to birth. If someone believes the pregnancy is not yet a being endowed with those rights, then the profound health and life impacts can be considered in a decision whether or not to carry it through to birth. The essential difference is that the people who believe the pregnancy is already a being and therefore must be carried through to birth want to impose their belief on those that don’t necessarily believe that. This mission however is not reciprocated – those that don’t believe a pregnancy is already a being and therefore must be carried through to birth are not trying to impose their belief on those that do believe such. As stated, if someone wants to carry a pregnancy through to birth,
for whatever reasons and in whatever circumstances, nothing at present is preventing it. Thus a believer gets to carry on in life consistent with their conscience and beliefs. It seems respectful and fair that those who don’t believe that a pregnancy must be carried through to birth should have an equal opportunity to carry on in life consistent with their conscience and beliefs as well. The mission to have others live by our beliefs sure seems like a root cause of much human misery and strife, irrespective of how strongly and earnestly a belief is held by the missionaries. I’m reminded that the job of telling others how to live is a crowded field of endeavor, and this particular life element is obviously an example.
While Mr. Stanislaw does an interesting job of dissecting bumper-sticker level pro-choice “arguments”, as a philosophy student, he must be familiar with the “false premise” fallacy. Foundational to his otherwise seemingly logical pitch is the premise that a single-cell zygote is “a human”, with “bodily autonomy”, entitled to it’s own “health care” and most of the rights we extend to adult citizens. There clearly is no societal consensus on this premise. On the contrary, both public polls and full elections continue to demonstrate a majority of Americans reject this premise.
Basically, Mr. Stanislaw is on the same logic track as Donald Trump, who argues that all undocumented immigrants are “rapists and murderers”. And therefore, ICE is justified in breaking down the doors and dragging them out by their heels. Sure, if they really were all rapists and murderers, go get ‘em. But they’re not – by a very long shot.
When boiled down, these carefully-crafted anti-choice essays are founded on a demand that we accept his premise. We don’t.
Where the logic DOES hold up is here: abortions are precipitated by unwanted pregnancies. Any argument there? Unwanted pregnancies can be prevented by broad access to sex education and birth control. Again, pretty basic.
Important as the moral issues are, if our common goal is to reduce the number of abortions, can’t we agree that as a practical, real-world, on-the-ground, implementable matter, the obvious tools are education and birth control rather than law enforcement? IS that the goal?
N.B. The term “pro-choice” is outdated and indicates being out of touch with reality in 2026. We no longer call the movement to ensure basic human rights for women a pro-choice movement — that was a framing to address the issues in the 1970s. We now call it reproductive justice, emphasizing that adult humans are all equal and have the right to bodily autonomy not coerced by others, including those who want to impose their personal belief systems on everyone else. So if you want to argue against women’s human rights, please say clearly that you are against justice.
I reject your fallacy of morality. Go thump your Bible somewhere else.
A man who’d truly understand the limits of his own perspective wouldn’t have written with that certainty.
Dwight writes a great deal, but never explains why he or the State should have the power to manage a neighbor’s womb? Please read the Constitution and Bill of Rights then try again. Managing another’s womb using the power of the State is tyranny.
Dwight—
Thank you for your publications.
In Part 1, you compare abortion to sending men to war: “while it is technically true that pro-life legislation intends to control women in a certain respect, it does not do so unjustly, similar to the way conscription controls young men in a certain respect.” In your worldview, legislation which prevents the premature ending of human life is necessary. In this very same worldview, legislation which promotes, encourages, and functionally mandates the premature ending of a human life is also necessary.
How do you reconcile this discrepancy?
In addition, you bring up the gender divide in the Supreme Court: “First, if the opinions of men regarding abortion are inadmissible in public discourse, then this includes the opinions used to substantiate the decision in Roe v. Wade with a SCOTUS composed entirely of male justices, and in Casey v. Planned Parenthood with a SCOTUS composed of eight men and one woman.”
You are correct that these male and majority-male boards should never have been tasked with making these decisions in the first place. Abortion should never be anyone’s decision other than the person carrying and the team she chooses. Further, the Supreme Court should be composed entirely of women—Our great country deserves nothing less.
Finally, you shrug off what is the core of the issue: “While scenarios involving saving the life of the mother are certainly more complex — and space dictates a more thorough discussion at another time — procedures utilized do not necessitate intentionally killing the fetus, so they will not qualify as abortions in the narrow sense either.”
A miscarriage and an intentional abortion have no discernible difference once complete. Miscarriage can happen to any pregnancy at any point in time. As such, under pro-life legislation, any pregnancy can be subject to legal scrutiny at any point in time. This may rightly serve as a deterrent to couples deciding whether to have children at all.
Pro-life perspectives such as the ones delineated in your articles are not only lacking in nuance and critical thought—They are actively dangerous, both to the individual, and to society as a whole.
What a bunch of faux erudition to justify governmental overreach and degrade women’s agency.
Black and white thinking is attractive because it is simple. To say life begins at conception is a simplistic, black and white idea and / or a religious belief. In reality, the creation of a new sentient being is a months-long process that happens inside a woman’s body, consuming her energy, and changing the form and function of her body. On the day a sperm cell joins an egg cell, a religious view may be that God places a soul in the fertilized egg. The secular view is that a process has just begun that, if all goes well, will result in the birth of a human baby forty weeks later. A zygote has no brain, no heart, no nerves, no bones, and has no chance of even becoming a fetus without attaching to the womb. To impart human rights on a zygote is a religious decision that in reality makes no sense. Roe v. Wade recognized the process of human gestation by differentiating between a fetus that is necessarily a part of a woman’s body and a fetus that has developed enough to possibly survive outside the womb. An adult woman makes choices that affect not only her own life, but the lives of her family members as well. Pregnancy is complicated. No two pregnancies are alike, and complications are myriad. We have already seen in other states, like Texas, what happens when the government sticks its nose into women’s healthcare. Women have died, and others have suffered miserably and unnecessarily, from sepsis because doctors are afraid to provide abortion if they don’t have proof that the fetus is already dead. Women have been forced to carry to term fetuses with defects that are incompatible with life, which not only causes unnecessary pain and suffering, but can also cause women to lose their fertility. Can you imagine wanting to be a mom, but having to go through an entire pregnancy, labor, and delivery, knowing the baby will never go home home with you, and then losing your fertility because of the damage to your body, and so much of that having been preventable by an abortion early in the pregnancy? For that to happen to even one woman is unacceptable. The government needs to stay out of women’s healthcare decisions. People need to keep their religious views out of government.
Proverbs 17:28 … Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.
Is the author auditioning for the freedumb caucus?
Wow, it takes two articles to explain to us morons just how we should be thinking about, expressing ideas about, and terminology about “abortions”.
I like your self deprecation and being honest with yourself. I suspect it was actually a good idea to look at the rhetoric of both sides individually. Hence two articles.
You said it, not me.
Also, this: “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” —C.S. Lewis
Excellent article. I’m neither pro-life nor pro-choice, and have long been curious how this ethical/philosophical issue became so politicized. (One illustration of this is to look at the Reagan administration, when pro-choice was a Republican platform.) The author nicely illuminates the dilemma, and essentially reiterates the need for taking several steps back and asking ourselves some fundamental questions about who we are as humans, and as a society. The fundamentalist Christian POV sounds so much like strident ideology, but the pro-choice stance makes me equally uncomfortable in that it comes with a strong whiff of our current tribal, religion-like belief in the role and power of the autonomous, self-actualized individual. There are crazy hypocrisies and logical disconnects on both sides of the issue. It’s almost as if it exists to intentionally divide us into political camps, rather than engage us in discussion about a question that will almost certainly still be with us 200 years from now.
You are mistaken on the Reagan era GOP platform. It is in the plank titled Constitutional Government and Individual Rights Equal Rights. There are numerous issues under the title including:
• That the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We therefore reaffirm our support for a human life [p.32] amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose the use of public revenues for abortion and will eliminate funding for organizations which advocate or support abortion. We commend the efforts of those individuals and religious and private organizations that are providing positive alternatives to abortion by meeting the physical, emotional, and financial needs of pregnant women and offering adoption services where needed.
Source
https://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=3LRPB86VXLCBM3U&H=1
Thank you for taking the time to read the column and provide your thoughts.
What a waste of electrons.
Thank you Mr. Stanislaw,
I think conversations such as this are exactly what are suppose to happen in every state with the reversal of Roe V. Wade. I am sure this will be a protracted political battle. But a battle about fundamental human rights is exactly what the nation is founded on and it is an important one.
I appreciate your contribution.
Thank you for taking the time to read the column and provide your thoughts. Indeed, I don’t think there could be a more important discussion within the polity than one regarding the nature of fundamental human rights and what should be done to ensure they are protected among its citizens.
“No uterus no opinion”…
Men should ABOSLUTELY have a say in what happens to their child, it is half theirs.
Females are given the gift of motherhood, no human being can have as close a tie to a child as its mother.
In the animal kingdom mothers will risk their life to protect their offspring. Funny how so many adorers of grizzly bears would have a hard time admitting that trait regarding this issue.
Humans have come to reject that natural instinct in this argument, even using non existent risk in most cases to justify ending that human beings life. Studies indicate around 1% of abortions are for the life of the mother, which most pro-life advocates dont take issue with.
I commend Wyofile for publishing Mr. Stanislaw’s articles.
I understand how people that are anti abortion would be against abortion if they consider it to be killing a life. But it is difficult to take them seriously if they support war, where many innocent people are killed, or capital punishment, especially when we know we have executed innocent people. However, there seems to be a strong overlap between people that are in favor of war, capital punishment, etc that are against abortion. It sure doesn’t seem like the “pro life” crowd cares that much about life unless it is a woman that is pregnant, then it is issue #1. It is the woman’s decision, and no one else’s.
Thanks for the thoughts here, Mark. It’s important to make a distinction in the intention of each act. In the case of war—and I subscribe to Just War Theory—there must be a right intention and this would be something like bringing lasting peace, correcting an egregious wrong, or defending against the unjust aggression of another nation. With capital punishment, the intention is just insofar as it is used as a proportionate punishment against individuals for committing the most extreme crimes. In neither instance, however, is the intention of the act itself to harm or kill the innocent, even if it at times happens incidentally. With abortion, however, this is precisely the intention of the act.
We’ve whipped this topic to death. This is this guys ‘philosophy ‘, nothing more. Put it on the ballot.
Your kidding right?
Wyofile has almost weekly articles on abortion. They finally have an opinion piece defending the unborn and suddenly it’s too much for you?
Chad. Gordon is right….this issue keeps popping up because WoodChip Neiman doesn’t have the nuggies to put it on a ballot. Let the people decide. This is a personal decision not a political talking point.
How about we make birth control free and readily available to all women? How about we support all mothers financially and emotionally until their children becomes adults, including free health care, food, clothing, and shelter? How about we eliminate the death penalty? How about we make vetted adoptions free to those who want to raise a child but cannot conceive, and, again, provide financial and emotional support? How about we make war a thing of the past, which we can look back upon with a sense of wonder that we ever allowed it to happen?
Abortion seems a pretty small thing in comparison. Every sperm is sacred, but we can’t be bothered to take care of living, breathing, viable human beings.
It’s time to get somewhere. Are you afraid that the public will vote for the freedom of choice? I think you are.
There’s nothing new here, Chad.
If the fetus cannot survive outside of the mother’s womb then essentially it is a part of the woman’s body. Just as if you cut off a hand it will no longer survive on its own. Thus the woman should have the choice of how she wants to take care of that part of her body. The fetus is not autonomous until it can survive outside of the womb on its own. We don’t treat miscarried fetuses the same as babies outside the womb. We don’t give then funerals, a woman when asked how many kids she has doesn’t include miscarried fetuses in that number, however heartbreaking that miscarriage was for her. Even pro life politicians don’t talk about giving child tax credits to unborn fetuses. It just isn’t the same.
Curtis, A child can’t survive on its own outside the womb for years. They are completely dependent on the mother according to nature. Is it ok for a mother to end a toddlers life for the convenience of her life?
People have gone to prison for murder and manslaughter of the unborn, when the mother WANTS the child. The unborn are considered human beings by the courts in that regard.
This is absolutely an issue of human rights, the rights of the most innocent and vulnerable human beings on the planet. The unborn human beings that are unable to speak for themselves.
Hi Curtis. A few thoughts and questions in response. First, infants and toddlers cannot survive outside the womb on their own, so at what stage of development should we assign autonomy to children and is it permissible to kill them at any point prior to that? If not, why not?
Second, imagine the following scenario: You and I are on a space mission and I am the captain. After several months of being together in a tiny ship, I grow weary of your boorish behavior and the fact that you always eat more than your share of the rations. As the captain of the ship I decide to place you into the airlock and open the exterior door, thus exposing you to the cold, dark environment of space where you cannot survive on your own. By simply removing you from the safety of the ship and placing you into an environment you are incapable of surviving in on your own, have I done anything wrong, or was this permissible?
Third, you are confusing autonomy and independence. The two are closely related and often used interchangeably, but autonomy refers more to self-directedness without exterior compulsion or influence, and independence refers more to the lack of reliance or dependence on external factors. For example, a fully competent adult with a severe physical disability may have extreme limitations to their independence and yet remain fully autonomous. Likewise with a fetus at the developmental stage where independence is limited but autonomy is not.
Finally, the way we treat the fetus with mourning, how they are numbered (and you’re incorrect here; I know several women who count their miscarried children among the total children they’ve had), or what legal rights they may have beyond the right to life is irrelevant to the question. The fact that human persons were once treated legally as property should make it clear that what the law may or may not say at any given moment about a portion of the human population does not by itself determine who does and does not possess fundamental human rights.
Sorry Curtis, but We need to set some things straight.
A baby in the womb is not a body part. That suggestion is completely asinine.
A woman with child, would argue about the child she is carrying as autonomous every time she gets kicked hard, sonograms that record video show all of the autonomous movement you can imagine.
Ask a woman carrying a child and she will tell you how many she has given birth to and one on the way. And I have seen my fair share of heartbeat tattoos on the arms of women who have miscarried. Who are you to say that a woman who loses the child she carried does not grieve? Can you be more offensive?
You are completely wrong when discussing politicians and money towards unborn children. Tax credits would be unworkable as the SSN isn’t assigned. But prenatal care and a whole host of other benefits are provided. If you assault a woman with child and the baby dies, then you can be charged with murder here in Wyoming. And yes, even hard core pro choice politicians such as Charlie Scott, (Senator, Natrona County) has voted for the murder state law provisions as well as every appropriation to support women and babies from the moment the woman knows they are pregnant.
Even Trump has suggested Baby bonuses.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-administration-5000-baby-bonus-incentivize-public-children/story?id=121094707