Pro-abortion rhetoric driven by feminist agenda

ATHE EDITOR, Sir:

RGUMENTS IN favour of abortion are extremely fatuous. Advocates recommending the legality of abortion appear deluded when opining that a woman has the right to choose.

The right to choose is a subsidiary of self-ownership, and abortion would be a benefit of the former. However, the foetus is not the woman’s body; therefore, no right to choose may be established.

Asserting that abortion is preferable when the likelihood of the prospective child suffering is high sounds plausible. But the same argument has been used to abort girls in countries where women are not valued.

Further, contrary to what activists think, abortion should not be seen as a population-control strategy to avert ecological disasters. Human ingenuity has an unlimited capacity to solve problems. Population growth will not result in resources becoming scarce or expensive because innovations enable the discovery of substitutes and allow price reductions. For example,

from 1980-2017, population growth resulted in resources becoming cheaper (Pooley and Tupy, 2018). Furthermore, pregnancy is the result of the actions of both men and women. As a result, abortion cannot be the woman’s choice because she did not impregnate herself. Men have a legal obligation to support children financially, so if abortion is solely the woman’s choice, why are men expected to provide for children?

In addition, abortion is a philosophical and ethical issue. Hence the opinions of women are peripheral to the debate. The decision to make abortion an argument about women’s sovereignty is part of the feminist agenda to silence dissenting opinions. Radical feminists think that the family and child rearing are instruments of capitalism oppressing women and impeding their wage prospects. Therefore, advocating abortion is their strategy to achieve radical objectives. Abortion is not a right, and feminists ought to be ignored. LIPTON MATTHEWS lo_matthews@yahoo.com