Thread by @coldxman

A point rarely made in the abortion debate is that many women considering an abortion are not choosing between having a child and not having a child, but between having a child now and having a child later––when they're better able to provide for it.

The first situation pits a world with N lives against a world with N+1 lives. The second situation pits a world with N+1 lives against a slightly better world, also with N+1 lives––a world in which a mother is better able to provide for her child.

If the goal is to maximize happiness for the greatest number, then abortions in category 2 clearly help achieve this goal. (Abortions in category 1 can go either way.)

What % of abortions are in the second category? I have no idea. But anecdotally, it's substantial.

I offer this because I am pro-choice, but find most common pro-choice slogans unpersuasive. The "it's a woman's right to choose what to do with her body" argument should be retired.

It's a true statement, but it applies to ear piercings and appendix removals, not fetuses

A fetus is not just like any other body part. If it were, then there would be no reason not to abort a fetus the day before its due date.

"A woman's right to choose" can't be the intuition we rest the pro-choice argument on.

Good pro-choice arguments emphasize the ethical cost imposed on women and on society at large by unwanted pregnancies; the mothers who have children too early and therefore choose not to have children when they're better able to provide for them; the specter of DIY abortions...;

...the falseness of Christian claims about souls entering zygotes at conception, etc.

Fellow pro-choicers should make the above arguments instead of shouting about women's bodies.

As for my disagreements with pro-lifers: Science does not tell us when life begins.

As Wikipedia says (and as first-year biology students learn), "There is currently no consensus regarding the definition of life."

When life begins is a not a scientific question. It's a conceptual question. And like other conceptual questions––e.g., when does adulthood begin?––it's up to *us* to answer it in a way that produces the best consequences for society as a whole.

Concepts usually have fuzzy borders. Is every 18-year old mentally ready to be legally treated as an adult? Obviously not. But we had to draw the line between "adult" and "child" somewhere, and 18 seemed pretty reasonable based on what we know about human psychology.

Similarly, *we* have to draw the line between "clump of cells" and "life" somewhere in between conception and delivery––somewhere that seems reasonable.

Crucially, the line is not pre-drawn by science any more than the line between "adult" and "child" is. It's up to us.