Legal status of live in relationships

The definition of live in relationships is not clear and so is the status of the couples in a live in relationship.
There is no specific law on the subject of live in relationships in India. There is no legislation to define the
rights and obligations of the parties to a live in relationships, the status of children born to such couples. In the
absence of any law to define the status of live in relationships, the Courts have come forward to give clarity to
the concept of live in relationships. The Courts have taken the view that where a man and a woman live
together as husband and wife for a long term, the law will presume that they were legally married unless
proved contrary.

The first case in which the Supreme Court of India first recognized the live in relationship as a valid marriage
was that of Badri Prasad vs. Dy. Director of Consolidation, in which the Court gave legal validity to the a 50
year live in relationship of a couple.
The Allahabad High Curt again recognized the concept of live in relationship in the case of Payal Katara vs.
Superintendent, Nari Niketan and others, wherein it held that live in relationship is not illegal. The Court said
that a man and a woman can live together as per their wish even without getting married. It further said that it
may be immoral for the society but is not illegal.
Again in the case of Patel and Others., the Supreme Court has held that live in relationship between two adults
without marriage cannot be construed as an offence. It further held that there is no law which postulates that
live in relationships are illegal. The concept of live in relationship was again recognized in the case of Tulsa v.
Durghatiya.

In the case of S. Khushboo vs. Kanniammal & Anr., the Supreme Court held that living together is a right to
life. Live in relationship may be immoral in the eyes of the conservative Indian society but it is not “illegal” in
the eyes of law. In this case, all the charges against Kushboo, the south Indian actress who endorsed pre-
marital sex and live in relationship were dropped. The Court held that how can it be illegal if two adults live
together, in their words “living together cannot be illegal.”

However in one of its judgment Alok Kumar vs. State, the Delhi High Court has held that live in relation is
walk in and walk out relationship and no strings are attached to it. This kind of relationship does not create any
legal bond between the partners. It further held that in case of live in relationships, the partners cannot
complain of infidelity or immorality.

Again giving recognition to live in relationships, the Supreme Court in the case of D. Velusamy v. D.
Patchaiammal has held that, a ‘relationship in the nature of marriage’ under the 2005 Act must also fulfill some
basic criteria. Merely spending weekends together or a one night stand would not make it a ‘domestic
relationship’. It also held that if a man has a ‘keep’ whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual
purpose and/or as a servant it would not, in our opinion, be a relationship in the nature of marriage’.

The court made it clear that if the man has a live-in arrangement with a woman only for sexual reasons, neither
partner can claim benefits of a legal marriage. In order to be eligible for ‘palimony’, a relationship must
comply with certain conditions, the apex court said. The following conditions were laid down by the apex
Court:

 The couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses;
 They must be of legal age to marry; they must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including
being unmarried;
 They must have voluntarily cohabited for a significant period of time.
Conscious of the fact that the judgment would exclude many women in live-in relationships from the benefit of
the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the apex court said it is not for this court to legislate or amend the law. The
parliament has used the expression ‘relationship in the nature of marriage’ and not ‘live-in relationship’. The
court cannot change the language of the statute.

RIGHTS OF A FEMALE IN LIVE IN RELATIONSHIP

In June, 2008, it was recommended by the National Commission for Women to the Ministry of Women and
Child Development to include live in female partners for the right of maintenance under Section 125 of
Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. The view was also supported by the judgment in Abhijit Bhikaseth Auti v.
State Of Maharashtra and Others. In October, 2008, the Maharashtra Government also supported the concept
of live in relationships by accepting the proposal made by Malimath Committee and Law Commission of India
which suggested that if a woman has been in a live-in relationship for considerably long time, she ought to
enjoy the legal status as given to wife. However, recently it was observed that it is divorced wife who is treated
as a wife in context of Section 125 of CrPC and if a person has not even been married i.e. the case of live in
partners, they cannot be divorced, and hence cannot claim maintenance under Section 125 of CrPC.

The partner of a live in relationship was first time accorded protection by the Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which considers females who are not formally married, but are living with a
male person in a relationship, which is in the nature of marriage, also akin to wife, though not equivalent to
wife. Section 2(f) of the Act defines domestic relationship which means a relationship between two persons
who live or have, at any point of time, lived together in a shared household, when they are related by
consanguinity, marriage, or through a relationship in the nature of marriage, adoption or are family members
living together as a joint family. Thus, the definition of domestic relationship includes not only the relationship
of marriage but also a relationship `in the nature of marriage’.

In a case in Delhi, the Delhi High Court awarded Rs. 3000/- per month as maintenance to a maid who was in a
live in relationship with her widower employer.

In Varsha Kapoor vs UOI & Ors., the Delhi High Court has held that female living in a relationship in the
nature of marriage has right to file complaint not only against husband or male partner, but also against his
relatives.

In the case of Koppisetti Subbharao Subramaniam vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, the defendant used to harass
his live in partner for dowry. In this case the Supreme Court held that the nomenclature ‘dowry’ does not have
any magical charm written over it. It is just a label given to demand of money in relation to a marital
relationship. The Court rejected the contention of the defendant that since he was not married to the
complainant, Section 498A did not apply to him. Thus, the Supreme Court took one more step ahead and
protected the woman in a live in relationship from harassment for dowry.

STATUS OF CHILDREN OF COUPLES IN LIVE IN RELATIONSHIP

Since there is no specific law that recognizes the status of the couples in live in relationship, hence the law as
to the status of children born to couples in live in relationship is also not very clear.

The Hindu marriage Act, 1955 gives grants the status of legitimacy to every child irrespective of his birth out
of a void, voidable or a legal marriage. But there is no specific law that raises any presumption of legitimacy in
favour of children of live in partners. The future of children of live in partners becomes very insecure in case
the partners step out of their relationship. There comes the requirement of a strong provision to safeguard the
rights of such children. The must be provision to secure the future of the child and also entitling the children to
a share in the property of both the parents.
 Again in the absence of a specific legislation, the Supreme Court of India took the initiative to safeguard the
interest of children of live in couples. In the case of Bharata Matha & Ors. vs. R. Vijaya Renganathan & Ors.,
the Supreme Court of India has held that child born out of a live-in relationship may be allowed to succeed
inheritance in the property of the parents, if any, but doesn't have any claim as against Hindu ancestral
coparcenary property.

CONCLUSION

Live-in relationships in India have still not received the consent of the majority of people. They are still
considered a taboo to the Indian society. The majority of the people consider it as an immoral and an improper
relationship. At present there is no specific legislation that deals with concept of live in relationship and the
rights of the parties and the children of the live in partners. It was a very unambiguous concept until the
Supreme Court of India took the initiative and declared that live in relationship though considered immoral but
it is not illegal.

Through its various decisions the judiciary has tried to accord legality to the concept and protect the rights of
the parties and the children of live in couples. But at present there is a need to formulate a law that would
clarify the concept. There should be clear provisions with regard to the time span required to give status to the
relationship, registration and rights of parties and children born out of it. The utmost need of the hour is to
secure the future of the children born to live in couples. The steps taken by the judiciary are indeed welcoming
and pragmatic in approach. Though the live in relations provide the individuals individual freedom but due to
the insecurity it carries it with, there needs to be a law to curtail its disadvantages.

Women's rights arguments in favour of

abortion
Here are some of the women's rights arguments in favour of abortion:

 women have a moral right to decide what to do with their bodies

 the right to abortion is vital for gender equality

 the right to abortion is vital for individual women to achieve their full potential

 banning abortion puts women at risk by forcing them to use illegal abortionists

 the right to abortion should be part of a portfolio of pregnancy rights that enables
women to make a truly free choice whether to end a pregnancy
This argument reminds us that even in the abortion debate, we should regard the woman as
a person and not just as a container for the foetus. We should therefore give great
consideration to her rights and needs as well as those of the unborn.
Pro-choice women's rights activists do not take a casual or callous attitude to the foetus;
the opposite is usually true, and most of them acknowledge that choosing an abortion is
usually a case of choosing the least bad of several bad courses of action.

Top

Abortion affects women disproportionately

Abortion is an important element of women's rights because women are more affected by
the abortion debate than men, both individually (if they are considering an abortion) and as
a gender.

Pregnancy has an enormous effect on the woman involved. As Sarah Weddington put it to
the US Supreme Court in Roe v Wade:

A pregnancy to a woman is perhaps one of the most determinative aspects of her life. It
disrupts her body. It disrupts her education. It disrupts her employment. And it often
disrupts her entire family life.
Sarah Weddington in Roe v Wade

And Mrs Weddington continued:

And we feel that, because of the impact on the woman, this … is a matter which is of such
fundamental and basic concern to the woman involved that she should be allowed to make
the choice as to whether to continue or to terminate her pregnancy.
Sarah Weddington in Roe v Wade

And the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson wrote:

...a great deal turns for women on whether abortion is or is not available.
If abortion rights are denied, then a constraint is imposed on women's freedom to act in a
way that is of great importance to them, both for its own sake and for the sake of their
achievement of equality;
and if the constraint is imposed on the ground that the foetus has a right to life from the
moment of conception, then it is imposed on a ground that neither reason nor the rest of
morality requires women to accept, or even to give any weight at all.
Judith Jarvis Thomson
Top

Bodily rights

Many people regard the right to control one's own body as a key moral right. If women are
not allowed to abort an unwanted foetus they are deprived of this right.
 The simplest form of the women's rights argument in favour of abortion goes like this:

 a woman has the right to decide what she can and can't do with her body

 the foetus exists inside a woman's body

 a woman has the right to decide whether the foetus remains in her body

 therefore a pregnant woman has the right to abort the foetus

The issue brings many ideas about human rights into brutally sharp focus.

 every human being has the right to own their own body

 a foetus is part of a woman's body

 therefore that woman has the right to abort a foetus they are carrying
The important US Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade to some extent supported that
view when it ruled that a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy came under the
freedom of personal choice in family matters and was protected by the 14th Amendment of
the US Constitution.

This leads some people to claim is that it is unethical to ban abortion because doing so
denies freedom of choice to women and forces 'the unwilling to bear the unwanted'.

Opponents of this argument usually attack the idea that a foetus is 'part' of a woman's
body. They argue that a foetus is not the same sort of thing as a leg or a liver: it is not just
a part of a woman's body, but is (to some extent) a separate 'person' with its own right
to life.

A second objection to this argument is that people do not have the complete right to control
their bodies. All people are subject to various restrictions on what they do with their bodies
- and some of these restrictions (laws against suicide or euthanasia) are just as invasive.

Top

Childbearing, freedom and equality

The women's liberation movement sees abortion rights as vital for gender equality.

They say that if a woman is not allowed to have an abortion she is not only forced to
continue the pregnancy to birth but also expected by society to support and look after the
resulting child for many years to come (unless she can get someone else to do so).

They argue that only if women have the right to choose whether or not to have children can
they achieve equality with men: men don't get pregnant, and so aren't restricted in the
same way.
 Furthermore, they say, women's freedom and life choices are limited by bearing children,
and the stereotypes, social customs, and oppressive duties that went with it.

They also regard the right to control one's own body as a key moral right, and one that
women could only achieve if they had were entitled to abort an unwanted foetus.

No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not
be a mother.
Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood

In summary:

 women need free access to abortion in order to achieve full political, social, and economic
equality with men

 women need the right to abortion in order to have the same freedoms as men

 women need the right to abortion to have full rights over their own bodies (including the
right to decide whether or not to carry a foetus to birth) - without this right they do not
have the same moral status as men
The US Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade, which gave women a right to abortion
(under certain conditions) is seen by many as having transformed the status of women in
the USA.

This landmark decision... not only protects rights of bodily integrity and autonomy, but has
enabled millions of women to participate fully and equally in society.
Kathryn Kolbert (1992)

What Is The Difference Between Transsexual And

Transgender? Facebook’s New Version Of ‘It’s
Complicated’

Earlier this year, Facebook created a stir when it added 50 gender options for its billions of users. Collectively,
the terms reveal the company’s recognition of a diversity of possible gender identities and gender
presentations. For many people, it raised questions about the terms of identity and inspired some to ask: What
is the difference between transsexual and transgender?
Transsexuals are people who transition from one sex to another. A person born as a male can become
recognizably female through the use of hormones and/or surgical procedures; and a person born as a female
can become recognizably male. That said, transsexuals are unable to change their genetics and cannot acquire
the reproductive abilities of the sex to which they transition. Sex is assigned at birth and refers to a person’s
biological status as male or female. In other words, sex refers exclusively to the biological features:
chromosomes, the balance of hormones, and internal and external anatomy. Each of us is born as either male or
female, with rare exceptions of those born intersex who may display characteristics of both sexes at birth.

Transgender, unlike transsexual, is a term for people whose identity, expression, behavior, or general sense of
self does not conform to what is usually associated with the sex they were born in the place they were born. It
is often said sex is a matter of the body, while gender occurs in the mind. Gender is an internal sense of being
male, female, or other. People often use binary terms, for instance, masculine or feminine, to describe gender
just as they do when referring to sex. But gender is more complex and encompasses more than just two
possibilities. Gender also is influenced by culture, class, and race because behavior, activities, and attributes
seen as appropriate in one society or group may be viewed otherwise in another.

Transgender, then, unlike transsexual is a multifaceted term. One example of a transgendered person might be
a man who is attracted to women but also identifies as a cross-dresser. Other examples include people who
consider themselves gender nonconforming, multigendered, androgynous, third gender, and two-spirit people.
All of these definitions are inexact and vary from person to person, yet each of them includes a sense of
blending or alternating the binary concepts of masculinity and femininity. Some people using these terms
simply see the traditional concepts as restrictive. Less than one percent of all adults identify as transgender.

Gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same. Sexual orientation, according to the American
Psychological Association, refers to an individual’s enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to
another person. Transgender people may be straight, bisexual, lesbian, gay, or asexual. Biological factors such
as prenatal hormone levels, genetics, and early childhood experiences may all contribute to the development of
a transgender identity, according to some researchers.

A significant shift occurred late in 2012, when the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or
the DSM-5) officially changed the term “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria,” to describe the
emotional distress that can result from “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender
and assigned gender.” In 1973, homosexuality was similarly declassified as a mental disorder. The current
change suggests an evolution of thought on the matter of gender that may influence not only how many people
see themselves, but also how they are perceived by others.
No matter how they label themselves, many people do not entirely conform to a single, rigid gender definition
with most people having traits that don't exactly fit the profile. Even more importantly, some of the traditional
gender differences between men and women may be slight. Due to changes in social attitudes, general changes
in the perception of gender also occurs over time. A trait considered masculine in one generation may be a
feminine norm in the next. A woman wearing pants, for instance, would have been considered manly at one
time. And though it may have been unusual in the not-too-distant past, many women earn equal to or more
than their husbands today, while their husbands perform more of the household and childcare duties once
assigned to women. Ultimately, gender is a shifting ground on which each of us stands.

What is the difference between gay, lesbian, bisexual,

transgender and genderqueer?
Gay ... a male that prefers to date or marry another male
Lesbian ... a female that prefers to date or Marry another female
Bisexual ... a male or female that prefers both genders

Transgender ... a person that feels he or she was born in the wrong body. He or she takes hormones to
change the body into the gender of choice. The person also lives as the other gender, changing name,
documents.

GenderQueer ... a fancy term meant to imply the person has gay/lesbian acceptance of others, but may
not identify as gay or lesbian

Transvestite ... a male that dresses as a female as a sexual fetish

Drag King ... a female that dresses as a male, in jest (fun)

20 Arguments Against Abortion, Rebutted

October 13, 2013 by Bob Seidensticker 386 Comments
 Seventy percent of Americans are in favor of letting Roe v.
Wade stand, a new high. Nevertheless, pro-life advocates remain vocal.

I’ve heard a lot of arguments against abortion. Here many of them, with my
rebuttals.

1. The Bible says that abortion is wrong.

For starters, in the U.S., our secular constitution trumps the Bible. “The Bible says
so” is irrelevant when the First Amendment forbids government from enacting laws
guided by religious dogma.

And, as I’ve argued before, the Bible doesn’t say that abortion is wrong. Indeed, God
has no problem killing people, including children. The Bible demands that women
suspected of adultery be given a poison that will miscarry any illegitimate fetus
(Num. 5:16–29). Babies begin to count as persons only after they are a month old
(Lev. 27:6 and Num. 3:15–16). In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII said that
an embryo of less than 40 days was not yet human.

The heels-dug-in pro-life position within some Protestant churches is a new thing. A
summary of a 1978 analysis of abortion shows a surprisingly pro-choice attitude. The
names of pro-choice churches are a Who’s Who of American Protestantism:
American Baptist Churches, American Lutheran Church, Disciples of Christ, Church
of the Brethren, Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist
Church, and United Presbyterian Church.

Maybe if politicians let Christians figure this out on their own, the pro-choice stand
would be even more a majority position.

I apologize for piling on, but the Catholic Church’s loud voice demands a response.
The Catholic priest pedophilia scandal was a moral test. The church’s cover-up—its
focus on the well-being of the church over that of the flock—shows that it failed that
test. The Catholic Church has vacated its place at the table on the question of
abortion.

2. Abortion tinkers with the natural order.

We have cheerfully adopted medicine and technology that “tinker with the natural
order”—antibiotics, vaccines, and anesthesia, for example—to which we don’t give a
second thought. We prolong life beyond what the “natural order” would permit and
allow it to happen where it otherwise wouldn’t (in vitro fertilization, for example).
Abortion might be bad, but that it changes the natural order is no argument.

3. You argue that a newborn has more cells than the zygote that it started
from. Is this just a size thing? What about someone who’s lost a limb? Or
had tonsils, appendix, or gall bladder removed? Are they less of a
person?

The difference between an amputee and a newborn is trivial compared to that

between the newborn and the single cell. In the long list of organs, limbs, and
systems, this amputee merely has one fewer. Compare that with a single cell, which
not only has none of those body parts but doesn’t even have a single cell of any body
part.

We can push this thinking to the ridiculous. Imagine technology that provides life
support so that a human head could survive. Is this less of a person?

Well, yeah. Obviously. Someone who’s been reduced to just a head isn’t as much of a
person as they were. Or consider Terry Shiavo, who was allowed to die after 15 years
in a vegetative state. Was she less of a person? Her severe brain damage certainly
made her less of something, and you can label this whatever you want.

4. Imagine if you’d been aborted!

I wouldn’t care, would I? But how about you, Mr. Pro-life? How do you feel about the
fact that you took the opportunity for life that was denied to uncountably many other
combinations of egg and sperm? If you think that it’s a silly hypothetical question,
you can understand my similar reaction.
There are also voices who confront that challenge directly. Here’s someone who said
that her mother’s life was clearly worse for having her and that she wished her
mother had aborted her.

This thinking isn’t far removed from the Quiverfull movement, which encourages no
restraint on birth and childishly “lets God decide” how many children to have. Where
do you draw the line? If we are morally obliged to bring to term a 2-week-old
embryo, are we also morally obliged to bring to term the thought, “Gee, I wonder if
we should have another baby …”?

Seeing life as a spectrum is the only way to make sense of this. Yes, that leaves
unanswered the question of where to draw the line for abortion, but let’s first agree
that a spectrum exists.

5. Imagine that you had two planned kids, and then you had a child after
an unplanned pregnancy. You wouldn’t want to give that child up. But if
you’d aborted it, your life would be emptier.

Of course I’d love my unplanned child as much as my other ones. But what do we
conclude from this? That I should have not had two kids but rather three? Or five?
Or fifteen? Should I expect some tsk-ing behind my back as neighbors wonder why
my wife and I could have been so callous to have not had as many as biology would
permit?

(The Quiverfull Movement goes down this path, and I explore that here.)

By similar logic, is a woman’s menstrual cycle a cause for lamentation because that
was a missed opportunity for a child? It is a sign of a potential life, lost. But in any
life, there are millions of paths not taken. C’est la vie.

I don’t think it’s immoral to limit the number of children you have, and I don’t see
much difference between zero cells and one cell—it’s all part of the spectrum. I’ll
agree that the thought “Let’s have a baby” isn’t a baby … but then neither is a single
cell.

. What’s the big deal about traveling down the birth canal?
The big deal is that before that process, only the mother could support the baby.
Afterwards, it breathes and eats on its own. The baby could then be taken away and
never see its mother again and grow up quite healthy. Before, the mother was
mandatory; after, she’s unnecessary.
I’m not arguing that abortion should be legal up until delivery, though others do, and
that has created this argument. I’m simply arguing that birth is a big deal. I’m not
arguing for any definition of when abortion should become illegal. My main point
has simply been that the personhood of the fetus increases from single cell through
newborn, which makes abortion arguable.
7. It’s a human from conception through adulthood! The DNA doesn’t
change. What else would that single cell be—a sponge? A zebra? (OK, if
you don’t like “human,” let’s use “person.”) No—person means the same thing
as human!
This name game is a common way to avoid the issue. I don’t care what you call the
spectrum as long as we use names that make clear what the newborn has that the
single cell doesn’t.
The only thing that connects the two ends of the spectrum is the Homo sapiens
DNA. This pro-life argument devolves into an argument from potential. Sure, the
single cell will be a baby in nine months. Get back to me then, and we’ll have
something to celebrate. At the other end of the spectrum, however, it ain’t a baby.
Yes, a single cell has the potential to make a baby. So does the lustful idea that pops
into a guy’s head. Neither is a baby.
I wonder at the pro-life advocate getting misty-eyed at the thought of that single
microscopic cell. A eukaryotic cell with one strand of Homo sapiens DNA—wow.
They wouldn’t get excited if it were the cell of a slug or a banana, but because it’s
human, somehow that’s so fabulous that not only do they get choked up about it, but
they demand that the rest of us do the same.
Sorry—not convincing.
8. What if the mother wanted to abort because the fetus had green eyes
or was female or would likely be gay?
This is a red herring. How many cases are we talking about? Abortion to increase the
fraction of male babies is done in India and China, but this isn’t a meaningful issue
in the U.S. (And in the third world, ask yourself if infanticide would be the
alternative if abortion was denied.)
Abortions for capricious or shallow reasons also aren’t the issue. Mothers-to-be have
plenty of noble instincts to judge what is appropriate so that society can rest assured
that the right thing will usually be done. (If you balk at the “usually,” remember that
that’s how society’s laws work. They’re not perfect, and we can only hope that they’re
usually on target.) We can certainly talk about the few special cases where a
woman’s actions seem petty, but don’t let that change abortion rights for the
majority.
The woman who aborts for some trivial reason would likely be a terrible mother.
Let’s let a woman who isn’t mature enough to take care of a baby opt out.
Consider how society treats parents. There is a wide variety of parenting styles, but
most parents are decent and loving. We have the laws, police, and social services to
remove children from abusive households, but the parents get the benefit of the
doubt. Similarly, the instincts of the pregnant woman are on target in most cases.
Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt as well. In the domain of parenting, we start
with, “You are a good parent.” That’s the null hypothesis. And the null hypothesis in
the abortion debate is, “You know what’s best for you and your fetus.”
9. Abortions are dangerous!
Not really. The chance of maternal death from delivering a baby is 14 times
higher than through abortion. This is what you’d expect, since the fetus only gets
bigger (and more dangerous to deliver) with time. Of course, this statistic will
change if abortion is made illegal and more dangerous. Does Kermit Gosnell scare
you? That’s what an America with illegal abortion would look like.
There is no indication that abortion is a risk factor for cancer or women’s mental
health.
10. Murder is wrong because it takes away a future like mine. If we found
intelligent humanoids like us on another planet, killing them for sport
would be wrong for this reason. And this is why abortion is wrong—it
takes away a future like mine. (This is Glenn Peoples’ “Argument from the
Future.”)
Why focus on the future? Assuming these humanoids are largely unchanging month
to month, like people, killing them for sport takes away a present like mine. I assume
Peoples focuses on the future only because he has no argument otherwise. A two-
week-old fetus doesn’t have much of a life (yet).
But let’s take the path that Peoples points us to. Killing a fetus would deprive it of a
future like mine, but so would killing a single skin cell, once they are clonable into
humans. Would it then a crime to scratch your skin? Or, let’s take it further back.
Suppose I have two kids. Was it criminal to not have three? Or four? Or fifteen? I’ve
deprived those people-to-be of life.
Extrapolating back to the twinkle in my eye, saying that we have a person deserving
of life at every step is ridiculous. But the facts fit neatly and logically into the
spectrum argument.

11. But a fetus has a soul!

Does it? If the zygote has a soul and then it splits into twins, does each twin have half
a soul or do they get another one as needed or did they get two to begin with? What
happens if one of those twins is later absorbed? What about conjoined twins—do
they share a single soul like a shared body part? What about babies with terrible
birth defects that leave them with very little brain function? What about a person
cloned from a skin cell—would they have a soul? And if the story for the soul has a
happy ending for the 50% of pregnancies that end in spontaneous (natural) abortion,
why not for an artificial abortion?
This mess vanishes if we don’t insist on a soul. As Daniel Dennett said, “What isn’t
there doesn’t have to be explained.”
12. “Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may
or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely
innocent.”
These are the words of an archbishop from Brazil. He was outraged at the abortion
done on a nine-year-old girl, raped and impregnated by her stepfather. In response
to the abortion, the church excommunicated the family of the girl and the doctors
who performed the abortion.
Wow. Let’s leave this example of how religion makes you do crazy things and focus
on the claim. First, a fetus is not a child. Second, the spectrum argument defeats this
claim.
Variations on this argument are popular, and they all have pretty much the same
response. Here are a few.
12a. Abortion kills a human life (at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy) to
help with another human’s self-actualization (higher on the hierarchy).
That’s the opposite of the way it’s supposed to work.
The two “human lives” are not comparable. This ignores the spectrum of
development from single cell to trillion-cell newborn.
Killing a blastocyst with fewer cells than the brain of the fly troubles me less than
killing a civilian in another country due to war or killing a criminal on death row.
12b. Don’t we normally go out of our way to defend the defenseless?
Again, this ignores the spectrum. Defenseless people are more important than
defenseless cells.
12c. Haven’t we been through this with racial minorities? Declaring that
single cells aren’t human is like declaring that African-Americans aren’t
human.
Nice try. Spectrum argument.
12d. In response to your abortion clinic example: you argue that, if given
a choice between saving a child and ten frozen embryos, you’d save the
child. Okay, and if given the choice between your wife and a stranger,
you’d save your wife, but that doesn’t mean that you can kill strangers.
Spectrum argument.
13. Haven’t you heard of adoption? That’s the answer to an unplanned
pregnancy.
No, it’s clearly not the answer. Two percent of all births to unmarried women in the
U.S. are placed for adoption. “Just have the baby and release it for adoption” is a pat
on the head. It might make you feel good, but it doesn’t work.
Adoption can also be psychologically difficult, both for mother and child.
14. You say that a trillion cells is definitely a person. Okay, how about a
trillion minus one—is that a person? And if so, how about a trillion
minus two? And so on.
This is the sorites paradox: if you can take a grain of sand from a heap and it’s still a
heap, can you continue to do so and get a “heap” of one grain?
This same game could be played with the blue/green spectrum. If this color is
“green,” what about just a touch more blue—isn’t that green as well? We still can’t
get around the fact that the two ends of the spectrum are very different—green is not
blue! Similarly, a single cell is not a newborn with arms, legs, brain, and so on.
15. The woman who got pregnant knew what she was doing. Let’s
encourage people to take responsibility for their actions.
Did she know what she was doing? Not necessarily. Sex education is so poor in the
United States that many teens become sexually mature without understanding what
causes what.
But let’s assume that the woman knew what she was doing and was careless or
stupid. What do we do with this? When someone shoots himself accidentally, that
was stupid, but we all pay for the medical and insurance system that puts them back
together. Let’s educate people, demand responsibility, and have a harm-reduction
approach where we find the best resolution of problem. For a woman whose life
would be overturned with a pregnancy, that resolution might be abortion.
Having sex with imperfect contraception is no more a willingness to accept
pregnancy than eating a sandwich is a willingness to accept choking. When someone
is choking, we do our best to take care of the problem; let’s continue to do the same
for an unwanted pregnancy.

16. If you’re so smart, where do you draw the line?

I don’t. I find that pro-life advocates quickly turn the conversation to the definition
of the OK/not-OK line for abortion, hoping to find something to criticize. I avoid
this, both because it diverts attention from the spectrum argument—the main point I
want to make—and because I have no opinion about the line and am happy to leave
it up to the experts.
Legislatures make these kinds of distinctions all the time. In fact, in the hundreds of
jurisdictions around the world where abortion is regulated, they already have.
17. Imagine a woman seeing an ultrasound of her unborn baby.
Sometimes the hands and feet are visible, and the baby is sometimes
sucking its thumb. Why aren’t such images shown to women considering
abortions as part of informed consent?
Let’s consider this proposal only after adding conditions to make it practical.
This should be an option rather than part of a mandatory gauntlet forced on women
considering abortion.
This should not be the first time the woman has seen this information. That is,
public education should teach about the stages of fetal development as part of
comprehensive sex education that would minimize the chances of her having this
unwanted pregnancy in the first place.
The woman’s choices should be made available as soon as possible. Putting obstacles
in her way—by closing down nearby clinics, encouraging pharmacists to refuse to
offer morning-after pills, and so on—increases the age of the fetus she must consider
aborting. If an abortion is to happen, let’s make it early so that the woman doesn’t
see a fetus sucking its thumb.
18. But the fetus is innocent, and we always protect the innocent.
Some things are on a spectrum of innocent/guilt (adults, say), but other things are
not (squirrels, rocks). The squirrel may have shorted out the transformer, and the
rock may have been used to whack someone on the head, but neither the squirrel nor
the rock were guilty of what we interpret as bad. But you wouldn’t call them innocent
either; it makes no sense to say they were even on that spectrum. A fetus is also not
on that innocent/guilty spectrum. It doesn’t have the capacity to be in that
spectrum.
One commenter observed that it’s a moral decision either way. If you choose life, you
condemn that baby to his life. That is, you force life upon it, and every life has
suffering. This may not be an easy choice, but who’s in a better position than the
mother-to-be to decide?
19. Let’s suppose that we’re doubtful that the unborn child is a human
being with human rights. Given this uncertainty, shouldn’t we err on the
side of the child?
A fetus is not a person. Play games with the name all you want (“The fetus is a Homo
sapiens, ‘human being’ is simply a synonym, and if a fetus is a human being, it must
have human rights!”), but there’s no ambiguity here. Despite your word games, a
newborn baby is still not the same thing as a single cell. There is a spectrum.
Worse, you pretend that there is no downside—as if carrying a pregnancy to term
was a “What the heck?” kind of thing. Bringing a baby into the world where it is
unwanted or won’t be cared for properly is a gargantuan downside. It’d be refreshing
to hear a pro-lifer say, “Okay, an abortion would be a smart thing from the
standpoint of your education, career, life, family, finances, happiness, and so on. I’ll
grant you that. But it’s still morally wrong.”
I could look at a cow and think “hamburger,” while you could look at it and think
“pet.” These are two different bins that are valid from two different standpoints.
Similarly, one woman could think “baby” and the other “a clump of cells that is
standing in the way of my life dreams.” If you want to see it as a baby from day one,
that’s fine, just don’t impose that view on the rest of the country. Illegal abortion
means forced pregnancy.
This is a bit like Sharia law. Hey, if you want to constrain yourself with Sharia law, go
ahead. Just don’t do it to the rest of us.
20. Have you seen the cartoon where the cancer patient shakes his fist at
God for giving him cancer? God replies, “I sent someone to cure cancer,
but your society aborted him.”
The Atheist Pig has some nice rebuttals. Let’s imagine God instead saying, “I sent
someone to cure cancer … but she died after being denied an abortion despite her
high-risk pregnancy.”
Or: “… but he died, having been denied appropriate medical care because his parents
insisted that only prayer was the response to illness.”
Or: “… but he killed himself as a teenager after being relentlessly bullied by
Christians for being gay.”
Or: “… but she lost interest in science because her public school watered it down to
satisfy Christian extremists.”
Let’s not imagine that the Christian path is always the best path.
Abortion and the Christian worldview
Many Christians with whom I’ve discussed abortion have a naive desire to have their
cake and eat it too—no abortion and no premarital sex. In a primitive society where
kids got married upon sexual maturity, that happened by itself. But when maturity
happens earlier because of better nutrition and marriage happens later because of
more education and social customs, we have a gap of a decade or more where young
adults are sexually mature but not married. Wishful thinking won’t get us safely
across. (I defend premarital sex here.)
Christians often point to embarrassing aspects of society during Old Testament
times such as slavery or polygamy and say that that was simply a different culture.
They operated by different rules. Okay, let’s accept that logic. Just extend the list of
“things that made sense back then but don’t now” to include an abstinence-only
approach to premarital sex.

When the topic of abortion is discussed, people tend to assume one of two standpoints: “pro-life” (they believe
that women should not have the ability to abort a human life because it would constitute murder) or “pro-choice”
(they believe that the woman carrying the fetus should be given the right to decide whether to carry the baby to
term or abort it). Although Americans are divided on the subject of abortion by these beliefs, most do not fall
strictly on one side or the other and ultimately the majority favors restricted availability.
There are variations within each group depending on how liberal or conservative one’s opinions are; some
individuals who are pro-life believe that in cases of rape or incest abortion should be allowed, and some pro-
choice groups favor waiting periods and other restrictions on abortion. Furthermore, pro-choice proponents do
not necessarily support or advocate abortion?they simply want women to have control over their own bodies
and futures. Therefore, contrary to popular media portrayals of the debate between pro-life and pro-choice
groups, there is not actually a clear-cut line between the two sides of the argument for many American citizens.
 No matter which side you have personally taken (if you so choose to “pick” a side), it is important to understand
what the opposing position believes. The more you know about the arguments in favor of or against abortion,
the better prepared you will be if you must make this type of decision regarding your own pregnancy.

Pro-Life Rhetoric
 The fetus is a human being from the moment of conception; this means abortion is murder, which is immoral
and should be illegal.

 If the pregnancy is the result of carelessness on the mother’s part (i.e., she did not take the proper
precautionary measures to effectively prevent an unintended pregnancy), she should have to deal with the
consequences. It is ultimately her responsibility (as the partner who can become pregnant) to prevent
pregnancy if both she and her male partner do not wish to conceive.

 If abortions are unconditionally accepted by society and easily obtainable, people will use them as a regular
form of birth control.

 All babies have great potential; a woman could possibly abort a fetus that could have grown up to be of great
importance to society or the world at large.

 Many religions do not endorse abortion or certain forms of birth control. This is because such religions may
believe that sexual intercourse is for procreation purposes only or because any children conceived within a
marriage are children of God. Terminating a child of God is a moral sin.
 Pro-Choice Rhetoric
 Every child born should come into the world wanted, loved, and cared for. Planned children often have better
life prospects because caregivers are better prepared to support the child physically, emotionally, and
financially.

 The fetus is not yet a human being because it cannot survive outside the uterus on its own. Abortion should not
be considered murder if the fetus is not self-sustaining and requires the mother’s body and physical resources
to survive. The body of first priority is therefore the mother’s, and it should be her choice as to what she
endures both mentally and physically.

 A woman’s body belongs to herself, and she should be free to do what she deems necessary for her body and
overall health in any situation.

 In cases of rape or incest, the resulting baby could be a constant reminder to the woman of the trauma she
experienced. Research also suggests that the babies of such cases face a higher risk of neglect or abuse from
their mothers for various reasons.

 Many foster homes and orphanages are beyond capacity; putting a child into the foster care system would
weigh even heavier on already-scarce resources.
 Abortion is overall a very safe procedure. Less than 1% of abortions performed before 21 weeks of pregnancy
result in major complications such as heavy bleeding or infection. If abortion is made illegal, surely many
women will continue to seek them in secrecy and likely sacrafice sanitary conditions and professional care;
illegitimate abortions have caused thousands of women to die throughout history all over the world.

Non-Polarized Views in the United

States: Some Statistics
Depending on the questions you ask, you may get different responses from those surveyed on the subject of
abortion. However, a consistent finding is that only small percentages of Americans hold extreme opinions on
whether abortion should “never” be legal or “always” be legal. Most Americans fall somewhere in between
these extremities of opinions.
When asked “Under what circumstances should abortion be legal?” the following responses yielded data
representative of the gray area between the two “opposing sides” of pro-life and pro-choice supporters
[emphases added].

- “Under no circumstances” should abortion be a legal practice: 20% of respondents agreed

- “Under any circumstances” abortion should be a legal practice: 24% of respondents agreed

- “Under a few circumstances” abortion should be a legal practice: 40% of respondents agreed

- “Under most circumstances” abortion should be a legal practice: 15% of respondents agreed

Furthermore, the data show those who believe abortion should never be legal are the minority among those
who support abortion in all cases or those who support it under certain circumstances.
The Debate is Centralized around
Specific Issues: The Gray Area

People often consider the following when deciding whether they hold an extreme position for or against the
legality of abortion. Depending on which issues they deem more important as an individual, their position may
lean closer to one side or the other, but many Americans usually maintain a neutral position and evaluate
abortion on a case-by-case basis.
 Should abortion be restricted by imposing conditions on it such as mandatory 24-hour waiting periods or
mandatory counseling about alternatives to abortion?

o Currently, 21 American states require parental consent for abortion if the woman is under 18 years of age, and
38 states require “parental involvement” in the decision if the woman is a minor.2 This means that a parent or
guardian (or both parents/guardians) may need to give consent, receive notification, or provide notarized
documentation of consent for an abortion to be performed.

 Should abortions be banned after a certain duration of pregnancy?

o There is no current American legislation banning abortion after a fixed point in pregnancy. However, the later in
pregnancy an abortion is performed the more risky it becomes. Many practicing clinicians reserve the right to
refuse an abortion completely or to decide they will not perform an abortion after a specific amount of time out
of concern regarding the safety of the procedure for the patient.
 Should certain late-term abortion procedures, such as intact Dilation and Extraction (“D and E”) abortions, be

banned?

o Because dilation and extraction abortions closely resemble the birthing process or miscarriage, people are
often weary of this type of abortion. The fetus is removed from the uterus intact and is further along in
development. Americans are more accepting of abortions that occur early in pregnancy when the fetus is not as
developed and is not “viable” (able to survive on its own outside of the woman’s body).

o In terms of which trimester Americans are the most accepting of abortions taking place, about 41% agree first-
trimester abortions should be permitted. Additionally, about 15% of Americans agree that both first- and
second-trimester abortions should be permitted, about 29% say abortion should never be permitted, and 5%
are unsure.

 Should financially-challenged women’s abortions be publicly funded?

o Currently, all American states are required to fund abortions in certain circumstances (namely for women who
have been raped, who are victims of inscest, or whose lives are in danger as a result of the pregnancy). Some
states and organizations voluntarily fund abortions under other varying circumstances.
The bottom line is that abortion is a safe and legal way to end a pregnancy in the United States. A woman is
entitled to choose whether to carry her pregnancy to term or to terminate her pregnancy as she sees fit. If you
and/or your partner are deciding whether to terminate your own pregnancy or carry it to term, there is no such
thing as not making a decision. Once a pregnancy has been established, you must decide to either carry it to
term or terminate the fetal development. Knowing where you and your partner stand on the possibility of
abortion will better equip you to make a decision that is mutually beneficial, and being knowledgeable about
abortion (and the arguments on both sides) contributes to making an informed decision. Please explore the
other related topics on our site that can give you additional insight into your feelings on abortion and the
alternative options available regarding pregnancy.

10 Pro-Choice Arguments
1. Nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester, when a fetus is attached by the
placenta and umbilical cord to the mother. As such, its health is dependent on her health,
and cannot be regarded as a separate entity as it cannot exist outside her womb.
2. The concept of personhood is different from the concept of human life. Human life
occurs at conception, but fertilized eggs used for in vitro fertilization are also human lives
and those not implanted are routinely thrown away. Is this murder, and if not, then how is
abortion murder?
3. Adoption is not an alternative to abortion, because it remains the woman's choice
whether or not to give her child up for adoption. Statistics show that very few women
who give birth choose to give up their babies - less than 3% of white unmarried women
and less than 2% of black unmarried women.
 4. Abortion is a safe medical procedure. The vast majority of women - 88% - who have
an abortion do so in their first trimester. Medical abortions have less than 0.5% risk of
serious complications and do not affect a woman's health or future ability to become
pregnant or give birth.
5. In the case of rape or incest, forcing a woman made pregnant by this violent act would
cause further psychological harm to the victim. Often a woman is too afraid to speak up
or is unaware she is pregnant, thus the morning after pill is ineffective in these situations.
6. Abortion is not used as a form of contraception. Pregnancy can occur even with
responsible contraceptive use. Only 8% of women who have abortions do not use any
form of birth control, and that is due more to individual carelessness than to the
availability of abortion.
7. The ability of a woman to have control of her body is critical to civil rights. Take away
her reproductive choice and you step onto a slippery slope. If the government can force a
woman to continue a pregnancy, what about forcing a woman to use contraception or
undergo sterilization?
8. Taxpayer dollars are used to enable poor women to access the same medical services as
rich women, and abortion is one of these services. Funding abortion is no different from
funding a war in the Mideast. For those who are opposed, the place to express outrage is
in the voting booth.
9. Teenagers who become mothers have grim prospects for the future. They are much more
likely to leave of school; receive inadequate prenatal care; rely on public assistance to
raise a child; develop health problems; or end up divorced.
10. Like any other difficult situation, abortion creates stress. Yet the American Psychological
Association found that stress was greatest prior to an abortion, and that there was no
evidence of post-abortion syndrome.

Senate Democrats today blocked a vote on a pro-life Senate bill to ban late-term
abortions — a bill that would save as many as 18,000 unborn babies form abortions
each and every year.

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The Senate voted today to stop the Democrats’ filibuster of the Pain Capable
Unborn Child Protection Act, legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks —
as neither Congress nor state legislatures can vote to ban all abortions under Roe v.
Wade. The bill highlights how unborn babies feel intense pain when they are killed in
abortions. The vote comes at a time when 10 expose’ videos have exposed the
Planned Parenthood abrogation business selling aborted babies and their body
parts.

“What I am asking every colleague is this: look in your hearts and help us stand up
for the most innocent life,” said Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
in advance of the vote.

But Democrats defeated the cloture vote 54-42, with pro-life Senate Republicans not
getting the 60 votes needed to end debate and proceed to a vote on the pro-life bill
itself. Three Democrats joined with Republicans to support the pro-life bill, including
Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Donnelly of
Indiana. Two pro-abortion republican, Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of
Illinois — voted with Democrats to support late-term abortions. (SCROLL TO
BOTTOM to see how all Senators voted).

Had the Senate approved the bill, President Barack Obama has issued a veto
threat. But pro-life groups hope to use the measure as an election tool in 2016 in an
attempt to wrest control of the White House and approve a pro-life president who will
sign it into law.

Senator Dan Coat, a pro-life Republican from Indiana, was one of the many pro-life
lawmakers speaking for the bill during the debate leading up to the vote.
“Advances in science and medical technology require us to confront, both now and
in the future, some ethical questions that are profoundly important,” said Coats.
“This week, the United States Senate will have the opportunity to do so. We have
the opportunity to protect the unborn children in this country whose lives are being
ended – in many cases brutally – at an age at which these children are capable of
experiencing pain.”

Coats noted that prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy wouldn’t just be
beneficial for unborn children.

Keep up with the latest pro-life news and information on Twitter.

“It also is indisputable that the later in pregnancy an abortion occurs, the riskier it is
for the mother and the more painful it is for the child,” said Coats. “Research shows
that a woman seeking an abortion at 20 weeks is 35 times more likely to die from
abortion than she was in the first trimester. At 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times
more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. These significant
risks to maternal health should cause all of us concern.”

Pro-life Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah added: “This bill recognizes the
indisputable fact that each of us, including each individual member of the U.S.
Senate, was a living human being before we were born. This bill reflects the
indispensable principle that each individual member of the human family has
inherent dignity and worth Prohibiting the killing of innocent human beings who can
feel pain is only a small step in the right direction, but it is a step that we must take.”

“One of the most successful cover-ups in legal and social history has misled
Americans into believing either that abortion is not legal for any reason at any time in
this country or that this radical abortion regime is the norm around the world. Neither
is true. Today, the United States is one of only seven nations in the entire world to
allow elective abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Other members of that club
include China and North Korea,” he said.

The bill was developed from model legislation offered by National Right to Life in
2010, enacted thus far in 12 states.

The House voted to pass the 20-week abortion ban earlier this year and the vote on
the bill, the Pain Capable Child Unborn Protection Act, broke down on mostly
partisan lines with Republicans supporting the ban on late-term abortions and
Democrats opposing it. The House approved the bill on a 242-184 vote with four
Democrats (Reps. Cuellar, Langevin, Lipinski, and Peterson) voting for the bill and
five Republicans voting against it (Reps. Dent, Dold, Hanna, Frelinghuysen) or
voting present (Hice).

The House vote for the bill came on the anniversary of the conviction of late-term
abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who killed babies in a live-birth abortion process.

“Two years ago today, Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted
of murder, conspiracy to kill and involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to life
imprisonment,” Congressman Chris Smith said.

“Even though the news of Gosnell’s child slaughter was largely suppressed by the
mainstream media, many of my colleagues may remember that Dr. Gosnell
operated a large Philadelphia abortion clinic where women died and countless
babies were dismembered or chemically destroyed often by having their spinal cords
snipped—all gruesome procedures causing excruciating pain to the victim,” he
added. “The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is needed now more than
ever because there are Gosnells all over America, dismembering and decapitating
pain-capable babies for profit.”

“Fresh impetus for the bill came from a huge study of nearly 5,000 babies—
preemies—published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The next
day, a New York Times article titled: “Premature Babies May Survive at 22 Weeks if
Treated” touted the Journal’s extraordinary findings of survival and hope,”
Congressman Smith continued. “Thus the babies we seek to protect from harm
today may survive if treated humanely, with expertise and compassion—not the
cruelty of the abortion.”

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

During the hearing on the last bill, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told
members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and
how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who
is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the
University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable
of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America
take place.

Americans strongly support legislation that would ban late-term abortions and
protect babies who are capable of feeling intense pain during an abortion.

The vast majority of Americans are still very uncomfortable with abortion, according
to a January Marist University poll. The survey finds support for abortion restrictions
among both “pro-life” and “pro-choice” supporters. Despite the strong support,
President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the pro-life bill.

According to the national survey, 84% of Americans want significant restrictions on

abortion, and would limit abortions to, at most, the first three months of pregnancy.
This includes almost 7 in 10 (69 percent) who identify themselves as “pro-choice”
who support such abortion limits and oppose late-term abortions.

The same percentage (84 percent) also says that laws can protect both the well-
being of a woman and the life of the unborn. In addition, by more than 20 points (60
percent to 38 percent), Americans say abortion is morally wrong.

Other national polls also show strong support nationwide for the Pain Capable
Unborn Child Protection Act and stopping late-term abortions.

A poll conducted for the liberal Huffington Post find Americans support the ban on
late-term abortions starting at 20-weeks of pregnancy by almost a 2-1 margin.

A national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is
scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20
weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the
mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law.

A November 2014 poll from Quinnipiac found that 60 percent of Americans support
legislation limiting abortions after 20 weeks, including 56 percent of Independents
and 46 percent of Democrats.

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for
Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy. The science behind the concept of
fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician
from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in
the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.

He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-
a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right
circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top
researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was
Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois
and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the
control of pain.

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed

early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote.

“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as

early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves,
including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation.
The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th
weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal
column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire
sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they
continued.

With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the
concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand has provided further research to
substantiate their work.

One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the
University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S.
Department of Justice, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to
experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by
a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older
children.”
“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn
babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human
Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern

University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said,
“[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post
fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or
ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting,
and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness
their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have
enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care
for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal
pain,” Dr. Malloy testified. She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and
neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s
experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients
to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac
injection.”

Why Trans Women Belong in the Fight for Abortion Rights

Women's reproductive rights and transgender liberation are two of the greatest and
most controversial political movements in the 21st century. In the last few years the
conservative right has struck legislative attacks against women's access to abortion;
meanwhile, the now-notorious anti-trans "bathroom bills" that have been proposed,
and even made into law, in states across the country are just one example of how
the civil rights of transgender people are also being stripped away. While these
movements may not seem similar on the surface, they could actually be fighting for
the same thing.

Carole Joffe is a professor at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at
the University of California, San Francisco. In an interview with Broadly, Joffe
explained that there is a "a very strong conceptual link" between abortion rights and
the transgender movement. In addition to being opposed by right-wing forces and
stigmatized in wider culture, "both movements are about bodily integrity and
autonomy."
In other words, both movements are about the right to choose. The freedom to
determine what happens to one's own body was fought for throughout the 20th
century, culminating in the historic abortion case Roe v. Wade.

"During the half century leading up to Roe, the Supreme Court decided a series of
significant cases in which it recognized a constitutional right to privacy that protects
important and deeply personal decisions concerning 'bodily integrity, identity, and
destiny' from undue government interference," the national pro-choice nonprofit
NARAL said in a paper called "Roe v. Wade and the Right to Choose."

But there is more than a conceptual link between reproductive and transgender
rights. "In practical terms, the abortion-providing community has been in the forefront
of incorporating reproductive health services for trans people, including abortion
care in some instances but also a range of other services, such as hormonal
treatment," Joffe said.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects people from discrimination

on the basis of sex. Historically, Title IX has been used to protect cisgender women
from discrimination—including measures that endanger their reproductive rights. But
in 2016 it has also come to serve as a counter to anti-trans bathroom bills like North
Carolina's HB2. On May 13, 2016, the Department of Justice released a letter on
transgender students that made it clear the sex protections of Title IX include
transgender people. "The Departments treat a student's gender identity as the
student's sex for purposes of Title IX and its implementing regulations," the letter
read. "This means that a school must not treat a transgender student differently from
the way it treats other students of the same gender identity."

While Joffe reiterated that there is an overlap between the trans and abortion rights
movements, there is also a long-running tension between feminists and trans
people. "Historically, cisgender feminists have not gotten along very well with trans
women," Laurel Westbrook, a professor of sociology at Grand Valley State
University who specializes in transgender studies, said in an interview with Broadly.

Particularly in the 1970s and 80s—though vestiges of this ideology linger today—
some second-wave feminists maintained a binary view on gender, positioning men
and women as true opposites at either end of a gender system that was rooted in
biological sex. "In that moment, some second-wave feminists believed that women
are inherently good and men are inherently bad," Westbrook said. "Thus, if you
allow[ed] a woman who was labeled male at birth into those spaces, that person
[was] an intruder. The narrative of the time was that trans women [would] rape
feminist spaces."

Anti-trans feminists have come to be known as Trans-Exclusionary Radical

Feminists (TERFs), and they have often come up against inclusive feminists. In one
of these instances of conflict, the transgender theorist and artist Sandy
Stone became the target of hate-mongering, anti-trans author Janice Raymond,
who wrote a garbage 1979 book called The Transsexual Empire: The Making of
the Shemale, a text that made ridiculous and objectively disgusting claims against
trans women, arguing that they colonized and appropriated the female
body. According to an interview Stone did with the watchdog media network
TransAdvocate in 2014, an armed TERF group called the Gorgons once showed up
to a performance put on by the feminist music collective Stone was member of; they
threatened to kill her. Couple stories like these beside the long-held anti-trans
policies of feminist projects like the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, and a
scary history creates an unnecessary gap between the women's liberation
movement and transgender rights movement.
Lost in these popular representations of radical feminism is its long and
courageous trans inclusive history.

But that history may not be as fraught as some believe. Cristan Williams is a trans
historian, activist, and the managing editor of TransAdvocate. In the Transgender
Studies Quarterly, Williams recently wrote that although radical feminists did enact
violence and hatred against trans women, and although the damage inflicted upon
the transgender community by TERFs has been significant, the tension between
feminists and trans people may not have been as broadly sweeping as is commonly
thought today. "Lost in these popular representations of radical feminism is its long
and courageous trans inclusive history," Williams writes.

One of the examples Williams uses is the work of Andrea Dworkin, one of the
grandmasters of feminist theory. While Dworkin is famously billed as being anti-
trans, Williams thinks that framing may be fallacious. "These narratives don't tell us
that Dworkin ensured that her 1980s-era prowoman legal activism was trans
inclusive," Williams writes.

According to Williams, the TERFs were a minority within the feminist movement. In
the paper, Williams describes a moment that symbolizes the support that radical
feminism has had for transgender women: the 1973 West Coast Lesbian
Conference (WCLC), "the largest lesbian gathering to date." There, anti-trans
feminists tried to attack Beth Elliott, a trans woman and conference coordinator. But
their plans were quickly foiled. "[T]he radical feminists of WCLC stood in the way of
the violent TERF activists—physically protecting a WCLC trans woman—and TERFs
turned on those brave radical feminists and physically beat them instead," Williams
writes, painting a complex portrait of the intersections between feminist and trans
histories.

Today, the relationship between trans and cisgender women is becoming more
reciprocal. "I am not aware of any group within the larger pro-choice movement that
has been opposed to the participation of trans people," Joffe said. "I have not seen
any data, but I would assume that most trans people are pro choice, so in that sense
they are natural allies."
Nevertheless, Westbrook is concerned that trans women who wish to join the fight
for abortion rights might experience a backlash by the movement. "'What do you
care about women's reproductive health?'" Westbrook asked, mimicking those
arguments. "'You can't have a baby.' As if trans women wouldn't care about making
the world a better place [beyond] just promoting their own identity."

We all value the right to control our bodies.

Westbrook emphasized that the obvious unity between women's reproductive and
transgender rights may be hard to see because of the way we compartmentalize
and are galvanized by identity today. "That's one of the dangerous things with
identity politics," she said. "We try to police the borders of who gets to talk about
those people's right, so now we have a group of people fighting for abortion rights
and a group of people fighting for access to restrooms based on self-identity, rather
than [based on] what someone sees them as."

While there may not seem to be a problem with identity politics, it's possible that
more could be accomplished if the distinction between various identities were
dissolved. "Those two types of identity politics groups haven't been able to see that,
actually, what they are both fighting for is a certain bodily autonomy, the ability to
decide what happens to your own body," Westbrook said.

The social conditions that produce violence against women also produce anxieties
around issues like abortion and transgender rights. "Some cis women don't realize
that they're facing the same issues trans women are facing, and it actually creates a
lot of fighting—which helps keep the people in power, who were doing the labeling in
the first place, in power," Westbrook said. "Rather than saying, 'I am a woman, so
you should give me rights to control my body,' we should say, 'We all value the right
to control our bodies,' or, 'We all value access to health care.'"

There has been pushback against the fact men are often those legislating against
abortion in the US, and there is a similar disconnect between the people legislating
against transgender rights and those affected by them. North Carolina governor Pat
McCrory has led the way in discriminatory laws against trans people, yet
publicly stated he'd never met a trans person before.

Read More: Gay Men Share What It's Like Taking Female Friends to Get
Abortions

"I think some of those men must believe that women are too stupid to make
decisions for their own bodies," Westbrook said, "so they're protecting those women
from their stupid decisions. In the same way, those same straight, cisgender white
men say trans women can't use a women's restroom."
But Westbrook is quick not to condemn men. "There's nothing inherent about being
a man that makes you do these things," she said. "It's just that they're the people
who have the power to enact these policies at this moment."

The rights of both women and transgender people are under assault. As a result, the
category of woman is broadening, which is liberating for both women and trans
people; both groups have long had to confront a society that determines their role
based on their physiology. In 2015, the feminist activist and author Catharine
MacKinnon—who also wrote a civil rights legal proposal with Dworkin in 1983—gave
an interview to the NYU Shanghai publication On Century Avenue (OCA).
MacKinnon told OCA that she didn't believe biology should define womanhood.

"To me," MacKinnon said, "women is a political group."

Stop saying and stop thinking that abortion is a women’s issue.

That’s it. Pretty simple right? But incredibly important.

Cause, the thing is, it’s not just women that have abortions

Trans men have abortions. Gender queer people have abortions. Two spirit people
have abortions. People who do not fit into the box of ‘woman’ have abortions.

This is the reality we live in, and the more we pretend otherwise, the more dangerous
it is for other people, and the more they are excluded by the movement.

Gender is this thing that we construct out of a million different characteristics. The
way we hold our hands. The length of our hair. The shape of our face. What we wear.
Our voices. But then, for some reason, when we got to the question of what is it
really, we go to what lives between your legs. Even though that’s not how we make
gender and that’s not how gender works. It’s in that assumption that gender lives in
our crotches, that we end up erasing the reality that men can have abortions, men
can get pregnant and give birth.