Right To Life - Abortion Debate Framing

Abortion Debate Framing

See also: Abortion debate, Pro-choice, Pro-life, and Religion and abortion

The term "right to life" is a rhetorical device used in the abortion debate by pro-life proponents. Pro-life advocates argue that prenatal humans are human persons from the moment of conception and have the same fundamental "right to life" before birth as humans have after birth. Generally speaking, those identifying themselves as "right-to-life" believe abortion is morally unacceptable.

The term "right to choice" is a rhetorical device used in the abortion debate by abortion-rights proponents. Abortion rights advocates argue that prenatal humans are not human persons and do not have the same fundamental "right to life" as humans after birth. The distinction is that a human becomes a person and is given rights after birth. Generally speaking, those identifying themselves as "right-to-choice" are advocates for legal elective abortion. At the same time, some advocates for legalized abortion state that they simply do not know for sure where in pregnancy life begins; then-Senator Barack Obama took this view in the 2008 election. Other advocates have stated that they hold personal views against abortion but do not support putting those beliefs into law; then-Senator Joe Biden took this view in the 2008 election.

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Famous quotes containing the words abortion, debate and/or framing:

    “It is always the moralists who do the most harm. Abortion is the logical outcome of civilization, only the jungle gives birth and moulders away as nature decrees. Man plans.”
    —Max Frisch (1911–1991)

    “Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.”
    —Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men ... you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
    —James Madison (1751–1836)