My interpretation of 42% pro-choice

I’m going way out on a limb here, so bear with me.

42% of Americans are pro-choice, according to a new Gallup poll, and 51% are pro-life. My response to this is: since so many Americans disagree with the pro-life stance, then we should stick with the neutral road, which is the policy to keep abortions legal.

Those who are against abortion may avoid having them, and convince those around them not to have them, either. That is also neutral. What is not neutral is to project one’s morality onto others and require adherence without sharing the morality. Not when there is so much disagreement. There is no clear morality here if 42% disagree. Morality is not democracy, I’m sure you’ll agree, but when did it become OK to require conformance to one view in the presence of many others? Maybe in Afghanistan, but not here.

If John is pro-life and Mary has an abortion, she does not commit any sin against John. John is NOT INVOLVED unless he actively and aggressively meddles. Any view that reaches out and forms an opinion about the actions of others is suspect. I question the motives of that person, because I suspect they are overcome by their will to dominate others.

Oh, and by the way, I’d like to see the poll numbers broken down by response to the question “are you anti-abortion?”

Machine Learning Engineer

I am a software engineer and mathematician. I work on NLP algorithms for Apple News, and research homotopy type theory in CMU’s philosophy department.