Abortion glossary :: Anti-abortion
The anti-abortion position signifies opposition to abortion. People who hold anti-abortion positions are sometimes selective based on a variety of criteria, the most common being:
- gestational age (number of days or weeks after conception)
- viability (this is ultimately a predictive measure of success of a future childbirth)
- religion as justification
- significant medical/health dangers (e.g., complications like high blood pressure, searious infection, presence of a sexually transmitted disease, etc.)
- risk of death (e.g., pregnancy is ectopic, serious infection, cancer, etc.)
- pregnancy being the result of a sexual assault
- anti-abortion laws
- foetus feeling or perceiving pain due to physical reflexes/reactions
Debating strategies
Exact gestational age should be dismissed as "vague and irrelevant" because it can't be reliably determined due to multiple factors (which are irrelevant because the zygote/embryo/blastocyst/foetus is part of the pregnant person's body anyway), including:
- speed of developmental can vary depending on environmental and/or genetic factors
- time to first sperm entering an egg tends to vary
- uncertainty for a pregnant person who was sexually active over the course of multiple days or weeks
- multiple developing zygotes have to share human resources like energy and nutrition
Religious reasons used as anti-abortion arguments typically fail to coincide with religious texts in their literal form. To scriptural literalists, ad hoc interpretation of religious texts is commonly regarded as a form of blasphemy, and even those who are not literalists almost always object to making changes to religious texts, all of which can be a helpful area to explore, but do be aware that the interpretation of scripture also tends to be a deep and diverse rabbit hole that easily derails the topic at hand.
Laws are not necessarily ethical, and so it's important to object to anti-abortion laws (in particular) on ethical grounds whenever possible. Precedent-setting case-law can also raise doubts about the integrity of laws, as well as trying to understand the motives behind such laws (e.g., in the Canadian legal system some laws are written in a manner that might include hints of intentions for their original enactment). Laws can also be changed (usually through government processes), and usually need to be changed when the reasonable needs of society create demand for it. Internationally-recognized Human Rights law currently (in the year 2025) provides specific protections from torture and slavery, and for the right to liberty and security of the person (which necessarily includes the right to bodily autonomy), and many countries have officially embraced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The assertion that "a foetus can be observed feeling pain" is an attempt to manipulate a person's sence of empathy, which is a deceptive way to argue. Such assertions are trivially defeated by the fact that "nociception" explains why said physical reactions do not indicate conscious response, and becasue fatal levels of anesthetic are normally delivered to the foetus prior to the abortion (which also explains why it's impossible for the foetus to wake up during the procedure).
See also