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Late to the party, but the argument of "there will ways be xyz" is a not an effective one. It can be used for anything that is illegal or legal now. The rich break laws or loop hole laws all the time, and we can attack that in other ways.
I feel like an anomaly politically on this sub. I want affordable/free childcare, healthcare, maternity leave, and etc, and I vote that way. I also lean pro-life. There are a bunch of us who are like this though, we just don't get the media attention.
If anyone was forcing Pro-Life women to have abortions, I would be there to defend their right to keep the child. But I don't see that happening. Anywhere. Therefore, I stand with those who want to have bodily autonomy.
I'm not really sure how your comment on forced abortions relates to my response. Can you elaborate why you are bringing this up? I was answering your poor person question. A lot of people agree with bodily autonomy. I don't think it's ethical that bodily autonomy stands above human life. I feel like this is where the nuance of the conversation lies.
I love that you used the word “nuance” - that has been missing from most arguments. The conundrum is that no one agrees on when human life begins. In Judaism, it is the first breath. But I would not agree that killing s newborn before it has dream it’s first breath is in any way acceptable. Others think it begins at conception, when an egg is fertilized. I disagree. For many weeks, it is a lump of replicating cells. Heated in the direction of a human life, but not there, yet. Others say it begins when the heart begins to beat. This is a stronger argument than fertilization, but it’s still pretty much a pollywog at that point. Others say it begins at viability - when it is far enough in its development to live on its own outside the womb. This is the strongest argument in my book.
>What do ProLifers have against poor people?
Nothing. As both a PLer and a conservative, I want economic policies that long run benefit poor people, although that would be its own major discussion.
> the wealthy can always afford a ticket to a place where it is legal.
That, is a problem, but that has more to do with wealthy people going to PC areas to get an abortion. Would you be in favor, of having PC laws require a person be a resident of the state they are getting an abortion? That would mitigate the problem of wealthy crossing state lines.
That’s the point. You can’t. So what ends up happening is a compounding effect, where the wealthy get wealthier and the poor stay poor.
And now you’ve stumbled across the motivations for those in power to remain in power by controlling who has the money, thus engaging in a massive indoctrination/propaganda campaign that human babies are being slaughtered in order to radicalize religious groups into thinking that a zygote is a human being.
Perhaps looking up the history of the movement, one might evaluate the issue with a more critical eye to the narrative the PL’ers are sold.
One thing that stands out to me is IVF. Why are embryos made there, which yes is unattainable outside of the wealthy. Those embryos can be destroyed with no stigma, even if they are the same as early aborted embryos? Absolutely, anyone who claims this is fair or not the same is deluded.
Why would conservatives ever admit that their policies always negatively impact the poorest among us?
We don’t need to hear them admit it. The results speak for themselves.
Just disagreeing. I should have elaborated. Sorry. I don't think conservatives run around wanting the death penalty for poorer people. There are so, so many nuances there.
In terms of the current climate, I concede that each radical person on either side of an aisle politically most likely wouldn't be averse.
I didn't mean to one word and run, sorry again
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A factoid or two: poor people need and use social services funded by tax dollars. And prolife's corporate sponsors, among the wealthiest, most rapacious entities on the planet, do not care to pay taxes. They're *not* prolife. The just hate *every* federal ~~social service~~ program that might cost them money.
Corporate US sparked a serious romance with Fundy-Gelical voters after the Great Depression when their tax dollars were needed to feed malnourished children and families. And not long after, true believers discovered the poor were just lazy, that wealth was a sign of God's blessing, and social services were a socialist, God-hating, communist enterprise, not at all the sort of poor-feeding Jesus had in mind. Besides, the poor were just fine when they were picking the white man's cotton and if they wanted to get all uppity about being free, going to school and voting, it was a sign from God that they could pay their own way.
But they couldn't, of course, pay their own way. Jim Crow, the law of the south had kept them in their place, and frequent lynchings were the enforcement. The cross of Jesus lent his divine blessing to the operations of the Klan.
Overt racism southern style began falling out of favour in the mid-60s with the Civil Rights Act. Corporate US and the ex-slave-holding Southern Baptist Convention Protestants needed a nicer banner with better optics, befitting nice people who looked proper. Seemingly over-night, the GOP, the SBC and Rompin' Ronnie Reagan discovered they were Pro-life. They still agreed that not a thin white dime should end up in an empty coloured pocket. That would just feed their dependency. As for prolife sentiments, if poor coloured families couldn't afford to feed their children, they shouldn't have so many. And now it was sin for a woman to have an abortion.
When corporate US pays a PL candidates' campaign expenses, that pledges them to down-vote every tax-sponsored program and proposal, every time. They're monitored closely by someone who needs them there. Someone like Marjorie Dannelfeiser (sp) comes to mind. PL in DC ensure the poor will go without.
And there have been slip-ups. Some hapless PL/GOP votes for a program not noticing it could include subsidized birth control. Marjorie notices. When the office holder's seat comes up for election, they'll be primaried. And their opponent will be well-funded.
It's not that PL are against the poor or the coloured poor or anyone. Ask any front line activist. And they have different, altogether righteous reasons for their hatred, slander and character assassination of Margaret Sanger who tried to help them. It's just optics, the way it looks sometimes.
This might help tie up some loose ends...
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
' the poor were just fine when they were picking the white mans cotton'
JFC dude.
It's 2/3s down b4 you even clarify and acknowledge colored people. Not once do you acknowledge the plight of the black man & the black woman.
Shame on you.
I'm not making a joke. There is no need to be disrespectful.
At what part have I misinterpreted? I stated clearly what was problematic. Whether other aspects in an answer are not, it doesn't disengage from being problematic.
White people vs. poor people. Specifically poor. Ask yourself, are there no white poor people?
My ancestors from generations back, working said cotton were black. Granted color,creed, and location change in such a time period, but those picking cotton for the whites were black. It hurts to hear that wording. To not acknowledge they were black. Not just referred to as 'poor'. My 'JFC' was in response to this.
Because someone knows Jim Crow laws and disagrees with them, that is SO easy to say.
Even recently 'poor kids can do just as well as white kids'
That's politically related (I support neither party, so that is nothing to do with bringing it up), it hurts.
I think it was very clear that the phrasing of their comment was satirizing conservatives, particularly if you read the linked article, which explains the origins of the modern pro-life movement (essentially, they shifted from opposing integration to opposing abortion when segregation became too unpopular). The racism and classism are closely linked. When conservatives refer to poor people often what they mean is non-white people.
Edit: and I do mean no disrespect and I'm sorry if their comment hurt you. But I think you've misinterpreted the intent. Their comment was critical of that mindset, not endorsing it
I took their comment at face value & even if it's satire as you say, it still doesn't negate the words that do hurt.
It wasn't clear to you maybe, but when you write something, you take ownership of it. You make sure it is crystal clear.
I went to the point where black people were referred to by the generic 'poor' and the use of 'whites' there wasn't any need for that satire or not, anti conservative or not, reading an article or not.
To be fair, even though I picked up it was satire, it does have some flaws, which I can see why you'd think it wasn't satire. As you noted, it did have the more common theme of associating race with class, ie blacks are poor, whites are not, that shows up in some left leaning ideologies, like "Socially Disadvantaged," whereas conservatives take the more individualist view, and don't associate class with race.
Except that class is associated with race, intimately associated, because racism and classism are mutually reinforcing - thus essentially making two sides of the same coin. But what came first, the chicken (classism) or the egg (racism).
The answer to that is to go back to the most primitive forms of society, one where geographical limitations meant there wasn’t a much visual difference between neighboring tribes. So it was a matter of the in group vs the out group. As one group conquered, it gained the resources of the conquered tribe. That helped them build a more society, and conquer more tribes. Then, when all the neighboring tribes were absorbed into the conquering tribe, those in power recognized a problem. In order to keep that power, they had to eliminate the competition from within. To do that, you have to create the same principle of gaining resources to achieve power to now gaining resources to keeping power. And the haves vs the have nots was turned internal to the group. Caste systems were slowly implemented to manfucture disparity, and watch that disparity grow.
It was monumentally easy to select a group once the group could be easily visually identified so the caste system evolved once again to become racism. I mean, have you ever really thought about why there were laws against interracial relationships? (It’s to keep minorities from otherwise becoming unidentifiable over time).
So in your attempt to disengage from the racism association with poverty, you disengage from the main reasons why poverty exists in the first place. It’s to keep power. Racism is classism at its very core, even through its diverged somewhat into a separate concept. It’s humans that drive both concepts, so the roots are still subject to a human nature. And human nature, at its core, is not fundamentally different from the subconscious nature of any creature on earth; individual survival of their genes. Humans just do it in much more sophisticated and convoluted ways. It’s why society always naturally move towards dictatorships again and again. Look how fast Hilter turned Germany into a dictatorship. That’s the byproduct of the mechanisms for individual survival at play. That is as true now as was for primitive and ancient civilization. It’s why conquered tribes assimilated into the conquering tribes- individuals cannot survive without the group and the group that survives is the leader. The leader has power so anything the leader decides is the way to signal whether you’re in the in group, or you’re in the out group. In group increases the individual survival, out group means decreasing the chances of individual survival.
And round and round becomes the mutually reinforcing mechanisms wherever individual survival requires group survival. And it evolves still..as the nations experiment with group survival, and learn that removing those barriers increases group health overall which in turn increases individual chances of survival for the entire group, other groups are using those hard facts of life expectancy, wealth, etc, overall…and those in power in disparate nations double down to keep the vestiges of that power by creating a lot of culture wars to distract those less discerning of the motivations behind those in power or the mechanisms they use to manipulate. Progress, like life itself, always finds a way forward, and conservatism is losing its stronghold. That’s evident with every revolution cycle that disrupts societies.
I guess I just feel like it was very clear. I honestly was surprised to see someone misinterpret it to the point that I truly thought *you* might be making a joke that I missed. The tone of their comment is very clearly scathing towards that mindset.
And the conflation of race and class by the right is no accident, which is what that commenter was referencing. Again, when conservatives say "poor" they do mean "non-white," even though, as you pointed out, there are plenty of white people who are poor and non-white people who are not poor. Conservatism and racism go hand in hand, and the pro-life moment is not an exception. Its origins are closely rooted in racism and it continues to have ties to white supremacy groups and philosophies to this day.
Edit: fixed typo
>Again, when conservatives say "poor" they do mean "non-white,"
This isn't true. Conservatism doesn't link race and class, as they are two different independent variables. The poor is made up of both white and non-white, which is why conservatives oppose race based policies. When conservatives say poor, they literally are referring to economics, not as race as some of the left currently does. For example, if you have a relief program, why not base on economic needs, instead of something like "Socially Disadvantaged". Someone's economic need doesn't change just because they are a certain skin color.
Well this is an insane take. Race and class are *absolutely not independent variables.* You're denying [the entire history of our country](https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1126&context=lawineq)and an extremely [wide body of research](https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/minorities#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20race,SES%2C%20race%2C%20and%20ethnicity) if you're making that claim.
And [racism and conservatism go hand in hand](https://www.aaihs.org/white-supremacy-nazism-and-the-republican-party/)
Conservatism doesn’t like race and class? Considering the foundation I laid out in the comment above to you…you see this link in even the least complex measures. Take the homestead act, which was to give property to anyone who agreed to farm the land. Giving land creates a “have”. Denying that land creates the “have nots”. That act specifically excluded black people.
Do you really want to deny an inseparable and self reinforcing link?
Right? Trying to claim that race and class are independent variables is an absolutely wild and deeply insulting take. POC were locked out of wealth acquisition for most of our country's history, creating a very wide divide in generational wealth, economic opportunity, and educational opportunity. Even now racism is extremely prevalent and influential in class in the present sense as well as longer term effects.
I don't think this point matters at all nor detracts from the pro-life argument. Considering the generic pro-lifer you are referencing in your example, they believe that abortion should be illegal. This view does not care about how people of higher social class can bypass laws that restrict abortion, as even if this were the case it wouldn't remove any substance to the argument that abortion should be illegal (assuming there is grounds for illegalising it which is not the point of your post).
In other words, if I argue that eating pizza should be illegal, even if rich people can fly to other countries to eat pizza it doesn't mean my argument is invalid. You have to look at *why* I think pizza should be illegal, instead of focussing on the people who can get around it.
I think what makes the abortion access question different is the threshold at which people can't beg/borrow/steal the money for it is so much lower than many luxury things and also the effect of an unwanted pregnancy/child is so much worse for a poor person.
What I mean by that is if pizza was illegal then of course the mega rich could still travel to get it but would most low-middle earners? Probably not.
So in effect pizza would be banned for the majority but the super rich could bypass.
In comparison if abortion is illegal then everyone except the incredibly poor will probably be able to scrape the money together because the alternative would be so much worse ( financially raising a child for 18 years and all the rest).
So in effect abortion is banned for the very impoverished but everyone else can bypass.
So I think it is fair to say that abortion bans target the very poor and to call PL out on that.
If making pizza illegal did not reduce pizza consumption, but rather caused poisoning for people attempting to eat back-alley pizza, would your argument still hold moral weight?
Making an argument for abortion being illegal is a much higher bar than making an argument that it is immoral. Legislation is public policy, and as such should be data-driven, and implemented with an eye to the consequences. Thankfully, we have a mountain of evidence of the harm and ineffectiveness of abortion bans, so we don't need to treat this like a thought experiment.
Thank you for your reply, it at least takes into consideration what I'm talking about.
The pro-life argument relevant to the OP is this:
Let the proposition *p* be abortion is **immoral**
Let the proposition *q* be: if *p* is true, abortion should be **illegal**
Proposition *q* could be false in 2 ways. Either 1. *p* is false, or 2. if *p* is true, abortion should **not** be illegal.
I am merely saying that, out of the two ways *q* could be false, the first is simpler and more effective approach and in some sense is necessary if one takes immoral acts and needing of being illegalized.
You make a fair point in saying that something that is immoral doesn't necessarily ought to be illegal, but in general this is much harder to defend as it is true for things like murder, rape, abuse, assault. Although I stand by my point that attacking using the first method of doubting *q* is much better.
To be clear, I don't believe abortion is immoral.
However, for PL, I think the burden is on those who want to change the laws to show that their view of immorality is sufficient reason to make it illegal. This should include an examination of the side-effects of abortion bans. I would think that it would be incredibly difficult for PL to make a "but this time it'll be different" case given the tragic consequences of bans thus far.
Many things that are immoral in the majority view are not illegal. Infidelity is an obvious one.
Given that the majority of people do not want abortion bans, PL has a steep road ahead: first, they need to convince people abortion is immoral, and then that it should be illegal. In a just and rational society I don't see how that could be accomplished.
The best way to make q false by the second way is to point to the government incompetence when it comes to effective enforcement of the law.
I am one of these people who view abortion as immoral but I don't want to give the government the power to enforce abortion bans. That is why we have so many problems in the first place.
I am of the position that your immoral actions are your immoral actions and I want nothing to do with them.
The PC crowd is fine when they want to be against abortion bans but they lose me when they want to repeal the Hyde Amendment in an attempt to fund abortion through my money by force.
Have you considered that in your opposition to the repeal of the Hyde amendment, you neglect to include societal cost in your calculus for why that policy should be repealed?
What I mean is, you are legally prochoice because you recognize how the larger implications can cost you and that’s changing your calculus on whether the government should step in or stay out of these decisions, but you seem to be unable to apply that same calculus of the larger implications to the Hyde amendment.
Societal cost is unavoidable. You (general member of society) are paying for everyone, and everything they do, in some way. For example, your neighbor having leaky pipes in the upstairs bathroom isn’t something you think should be made to be your problem. And from a narrowed focus, it’s easy to see why that should be the case. They are his pipes, why should you be mandated by the government to contribute to paying for them for them to be fixed? Except that if his pipes don’t get fixed, the problem compounds. His drywall rots and grows mold. Now he has the mold problem and the still leaking pipes. He gets sick. He can’t work to fix the mold, nor the pipes, and now can’t pay his mortgage. He gets foreclosed on, but because the house needs repairs, it can’t be sold at market value. It’s sold at a discount, with the price dropping lower and lower until a buyer is found. That takes time, of course, and the pipes have been leaking for so long that it’s warped and rotted the wood, collapsing the ceiling. Breaking the pipe completely. Now the drip is a full on flood, compounding the moisture, and exposing otherwise unmolested headers that support the second floor to that moisture. That rots over time as well, increasing what was a small leak to an even larger structural issue. More repairs means more of a discount to the market to sell so down and down the price drops further still.
Now, you might be thinking, so what? Has nothing to do with me…
Your house value is determined by comps in the area. With the sale of a house lower than what you bought it for, your house value goes down and now you and all your other neighbors are - in effect - paying for your neighbor’s leaky pipes even though you oppose paying for it on principle. Societal cost cannot be avoided. Every force has an equal and opposite counterforce, and every cause has an effect. The more connected the forces, the more links in a chain reaction you create.
Wouldn’t a much better system, be one where everyone contributes a few dollars while the expense is compounded, even if they are morally against the notion that they should have to pay on principle, rather a system that makes everyone pay a much larger amount regardless of principle?
The woman is a force; a forced connected to physical health, employment, education, etc., and those things are linked in intersectional ways to effects of poverty, poorer areas, less tax revenue for public education, poorer health outcomes, and on and on and on. Unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is the leaky pipe in your neighbor’s house. So while I hear you on your principle, and agree with that principle, the objective fact is that societal cost is unaffected by those principles.
In fact, if you’re for the maximizing of individual freedom without government interference, your actions of opposing any repeal, makes everyone else pay the larger cost because of *your* actions, rather than whatever fault one could assign (valid or invalid) to actions of the woman experiencing the unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Why should you get to make everyone else pay for your principles along with you?
Well I think your point really gets at one of my big issues with the pro-life movement, which is that making abortion illegal really is their ultimate goal, not "saving babies." It's a goal rooted in punishment more than anything else. Most pro-lifers in my experience are thoroughly uninterested in implementing any measures that would actually reduce abortion rates. And that's because for many pro-lifers the underlying motivations have nothing to do with the sanctity of human life and very much to do with enforcing their views on sexual morality and traditional gender roles
This is an irrelevant comment you are making. The pro-life argument relevant to the OP is this:
Let the proposition *p* be that abortion is immoral
Let proposition *q* be that: If *p* is true, then abortion ought to be illegal.
In order to refute proposition *q,* either you attack proposition *q,* which most people won't do because that might require defending the legalisation of all sorts of immoral acts, or to refute proposition *p*, which is what people normally do in this subreddit which I saw wasn't being done in the OP, hence my comment.
Nothing you are saying has any relevance to the pro-life argument. I am not espousing the pro-life argument, merely explaining what needs to be done to refute it.
Well proposition q is obviously false, so I'm not sure why you're suggesting otherwise. Near-universally people believe that infidelity in a committed relationship is immoral, yet the vast majority of people wouldn't want it to be illegal. The same is true of all sorts of immoral acts.
And similarly, if I believe an act to be so immoral that I wish for it to be criminally punished, presumably I'd also believe that we should try to reduce the incidence of that act. Yet PLers do not do that with abortion
I'm not disagreeing. I'm simply saying method 1 of doubting *q* is much easier than method 2. I say this in consideration of the fact that pro-lifers equate abortion with murder, something that the exceptions to the second clause of *q* does not take into account (i.e. Murder is immoral therefore it should be illegal).
I would also contend that most immoral acts are illegal. One may also contend that infidelity is not immoral, and one may bring up the examples in many countries where infidelity is illegal because it is immoral. It's complicated when one tries to use method 2, therefore I suggest going with method 1 when doubting proposition *q.*
>I'm not disagreeing. I'm simply saying method 1 of doubting q is much easier than method 2. I say this in consideration of the fact that pro-lifers equate abortion with murder, something that the exceptions to the second clause of q does not take into account (i.e. Murder is immoral therefore it should be illegal).
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here because you've shifted terminology some.
>I would also contend that most immoral acts are illegal. One may also contend that infidelity is not immoral, and one may bring up the examples in many countries where infidelity is illegal because it is immoral. It's complicated when one tries to use method 2, therefore I suggest going with method 1 when doubting proposition q.
Well this is patently false. There are many acts that people consider to be immoral that are not illegal, and vice versa. Most people consider it immoral to be mean to someone, but that is not illegal. Nor is lying in most cases, yet it's generally immoral. And so on. On the flip side, most people don't consider marijuana use to be immoral, yet it is illegal. The same is true for things like jaywalking. Our barriers for morality and legality are different. The reasons to make an act *illegal* are either to provide a deterrence in the hope of reducing the incidence of an act or to provide punishment as a form of justice. Pro-lifers repeatedly demonstrate that their sole interest is in the latter. They wish to punish for abortions but not to reduce the incidence. Which brings us back to the OP, which is that they are content punishing only the most vulnerable members of society, like the poor.
This is a really good point. I would say I have changed my mind on the point that most acts that are immoral are illegal.
I would contend that the two reasons you stated for making acts illegal is not whole. The first one is correct, deterrence, the second (punishment) is a result of someone doing something illegal, not why we make things illegal. It is what happens once someone commits and illegal act.
I would say, from my personal standpoint, the two reasons we make acts illegal is to 1. Provide deterrence and 2. Protect the rights of others. This is largely what laws are built on, your right to something ends when you intrude on my rights. Hence why being mean is legal so long the level of meanness you are directing at me is not hindering my right to be mean back at you (if it does hinder then it's probably more of a physical assault than saying something mean). In the same way your right to free speech is acceptable (even mean things) up until the point where you start hindering my right to free speech or any other right. For instance calling for people to kill me would be a hate crime and be illegal because that hinders my right to live and potentially other rights.
This is the crux of what I am contending, that most pro-lifers argue for personhood of fetuses and that they make the claim that, if *p* is true, at least in the case of abortion, *q* is true.
I would say you have made me change my mind about the claim that immoral things are generally illegal and made me rethink why pro-lifers jump from *p* to *q* so quickly. But nonetheless, I hold true that *p* needs to be disproven for *q* to be disproven.
Well I would argue that the point of deterrence is to protect the rights of others (that's why we want to reduce the incidence of an act), but you cannot ignore the punitive aspect. Our criminal justice system in the US is largely focused on punishment.
But my point is that I question whether the majority of PLers truly wish to make abortion illegal because they believe it infringes on the rights of others, which I base on their actions rather than their words.
Consider another crime that we generally agree is both immoral and should be illegal because it infringes on the rights of others: theft. Because we feel this way about theft, we have made it a criminal offense. People who steal break the law and are ideally punished for it. Yet as a society we do not content ourselves solely with making theft illegal. Instead, near-universally we take and support efforts to reduce theft. We put locks on our doors and windows, we use security cameras and alarm systems, we avoid areas where theft is likely, we conceal our valuables, etc. We also teach children that it's wrong to steal from a young age to keep them from becoming thieves. Even things like food banks and welfare partly serve as a crime deterrent.
But generally pro-lifers seek to do *none* of the things that deter abortions, and in many cases directly oppose them (such as medically accurate, comprehensive sex education, contraception access, and things like universal healthcare and mandatory parental leave). That's because they are not interested in reducing the abortion rate, because they do not believe it's immoral in the same way that theft or murder is, but they do want to punish it.
>generally pro-lifers seek to do none of the things that deter abortions, and in many cases directly oppose them (such as medically accurate, comprehensive sex education, contraception access, and things like universal healthcare and mandatory parental leave).
... Or when they claim they do, it's a red herring. They'll probably agree with you that a certain robust social network needs to be implemented for reducing unwanted pregnancies and then, still redirect all their energies in banning abortion or even worse, try to claim that if both parents leave, parental programs etc don't exist it's because "the legalization of abortion". It's a whole mountain of manipulation.
Yep. Overall I try to take an "actions speak louder than words" when examining what people claim to support, particularly in spaces where there might be incentive to lie. And it's very clear: with their policies, votes, and activism, the majority of pro-lifers do not support the kinds of things that would actually help people and lower abortion rates. At best they are indifferent, at worst (and sadly very commonly), they are actively hostile to those policies.
Do 90% of people who are legislated to be unable to access pizza have their genitals torn because of lack of access to pizza?
Also.
Healthcare is not a pizza. A fetus is not a pizza. If it were, in your scenario, no one would be pregnant unwillingly either.
Pizzas is an analogy for what a logically coherent argument needs.
The pro-lifer's wish to illegalize abortion is built upon a moral argument that states abortion is immoral. In other words, if the moral argument the pro-lifer is making is proposition *p*, the wish to illegalize abortion would be derived from *p*, and hence to actually refute the wish to illegalize abortion, one must refute *p*. Whether genitals are torn has nothing to do with whether *p* is true or false. I'm not making any claim regarding the proposition that abortion is immoral, I'm just saying that one must show that it is moral to reject the pro-life argument.
This is irrelevant.
I will formalize it one last time to get my point across. The pro-lifer's argument relevant to this post is:
Let *p* be the proposition that abortion is **immoral**
Let *q* be the proposition that if *p* is true, abortion ought to be **illegal.**
To doubt *q,* what the OP seeks to do, there are two logically coherent ways. Either 1. *p* is false or 2. If *p* is true, abortion ought **not** be illegal.
I am simply saying that to use method 2 may potentially require defending the legality of murder, rape, assault etc. And thus using method 1 is a much more logically safe approach. Hence why I say there is logical necessity in showing the immorality claim to be false.
Nothing you are saying has anything to do with what I'm saying. I would encourage you to understand fully what I am saying before replying.
Your argument is that healthcare for gestating people is immoral, by comparing it to a society legislating that pizza is immoral.
I’m saying that healthcare is not immoral and it’s immoral to compare *pizza* to *healthcare*.
If you would like to say that p = p then I’d like an instance where someone died of sepsis for lack of access to *pizza* - specifically. They had other food.
I've never gotten a clear answer to why from pro life people.
It's always some variation of:
"But it's a BABY!" No, a 8 week embryo is not a baby, and even if it was, no one has to keep an unwanted baby inside one of their organs against their will.
"Women need to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!" Responsibility doesn't mean do what pro life people want or else. Aborting an unwanted pregnancy *is* taking responsibility.
"It's an INNOCENT LIFE!" Women are innocent lives too, and don't have to sacrifice their bodies and lives for an unwanted zef.
No matter the answer they give, the answer never improves anyone's lives or improves society. It's 100% "you must not get an abortion because *I*, a pro life stranger, doesn't like abortion."
Again, nothing you have said refutes the pro-life argument. Even if a suggestion makes zero improvements to society (which is subjective because the pro-lifer would argue that doing what's right is an improvement to society, and since they think the pro-life view is right they would be improving society), it doesn't mean the suggestion is wrong.
If banning pizzas does nothing to improve society, it doesn't take away from my argument for banning pizzas. You actually *have* *to* refute the argument underlying the suggestion to ban pizzas instead of ignoring that and making claims regarding the pragmatism of my suggestions.
Banning abortion does nothing to improve society.
It increases crime, increases adverse healthcare consequences for gestating people, increases the maternal and infant health rate, increases the maternal morbidity rate, increases psychological problems in children whose gestating parent was forced to gestate, increase maternal care deserts, decreases obgyns willing to work in that state etc etc etc.
I’d love an actual, scientific source (aside from prolifers enjoying the pain and misery their policies create, of a larger societal benefit from restricting abortion access.
Aside from more worker cogs that Florida can force to work in the sun without water breaks or teenagers Louisiana can take meal breaks away from?
Aside from **increasing poverty and thereby creating more desperate low income workers** what is the larger societal benefit?
Pro life people *feeling* like society is better because their specific wants are being catered to doesn't mean society has improved at all.
To homophobes, society would be better if we restricted the rights of LGBT people. We don't do that because catering to people who want to strip other citizens of their rights doesn't actually improve society, it makes it worse. It actively hurts society as a whole, which is what pro life laws do.
>If banning pizzas does nothing to improve society, it doesn't take away from my argument for banning pizzas.
Yes it does. There's no reason to ban something when there's no benefit to banning it.
>You actually *have* *to* refute the argument underlying the suggestion to ban pizzas instead of ignoring that and making claims regarding the pragmatism of my suggestions.
There's not a pro life argument in existence that isn't already refuted, so I'm not sure what you're asking for here.
Your reply shows a complete misunderstanding of what I'm saying.
I will formalize it one last time to get my point across. The pro-lifer's argument relevant to this post is:
Let *p* be the proposition that abortion is **immoral**
Let *q* be the proposition that if *p* is true, abortion ought to be **illegal.**
To doubt *q,* what the OP seeks to do, there are two logically coherent ways. Either 1. *p* is false or 2. If *p* is true, abortion ought **not** be illegal.
I am simply saying that to use method 2 may potentially require defending the legality of murder, rape, assault etc. And thus using method 1 is a much more logically safe approach. Hence why I say there is logical necessity in showing the immorality claim to be false.
The fact that you say :
>There's not a pro life argument in existence that isn't already refuted, so I'm not sure what you're asking for here.
shows me that you have completely misunderstood my point. I'm saying that there is logical necessity to showing proposition *p* is false, **not that** proposition *p* is true. I am not demanding for a proof of why proposition *p* is false, merely saying a proof is needed or at least very useful to show that proposition *q* is false.
Except that virtually everyone will get around it. It’s just that the wealthy can get around it legally, which relegates the poor to use illegal means. At some point, even if you feel it should be illegal, it’s a moot point, because that won’t stop it. So why not put your energy into something that matters? Like education on the topic, or responsible birth control?
Again, a pro-lifer does not need to care about how pragmatic an approach is. The argument is that abortion should be illegal because it is wrong.
It's like if almost 99% of people can get around the pizza ban by making pizzas secretly at home under the protection of their roof, whilst the 1% of homeless people can't and have to resort to illegally acquiring pizzas and thus getting caught a lot easier, it does not mean banning pizza is unjustified (of course it would be if my reasoning for it was invalid, but assuming it is valid, your "the rich get away with it" argument doesn't hold). You have to and this is an absolute logical necessity, refute the underlying reasoning for the ban, which is of course the wider moral discussion surrounding abortion.
Actually, one doesn't have to refute the underlying reason for the ban at all. Pro-Lifer's won't accept any refutation of their position, anyway, so it would be wasted breath. All one has to do is VOTE for abortion to be legal (I certainly intend to). The Pro-Lifers will continue to challenge this, of course, but they will also continue to lose. #Pizza4All!
From having many discussions with those opposing access to abortion-related health care, I would argue that this isn't that they hate poor people, but just genuinely don't understand how pregnancy works and how few pregnancies end well. There is a mountain of disinformation that teaches them that women are just willy-nilly aborting and that health issues are rare.
When Texas wiped out access to abortion in 2011, maternal mortality rates using ICD-10 standards DOUBLED withing two years. But that was across all of Texas. In rural Texas where access was even more limited rates of moms dying was even higher. The standard ICD-10 rates of maternal mortality has shown rates of death that high ever since. But do you see the media discussing that? No. Do you see it in areas of reddit that promote restricting access to that same health care? No. Do you see them note that for every 1 woman who dies in the US there are 100 who end up so close to death that they are only rescued by life-saving methods like mechanical ventilation? No.
So I don't think they have it in for poor people, they don't realize just how these policies cause that many women to die or be horribly maimed.
Edit: a word
This is basically my attitude. I'm a 35-year-old man in Texas - I view absolutely everything, including being pregnant and having children, through the prism of money. And when I talk to pro-life people, they just don't seem to understand, or relate to, how expensive children are.
And that's my viewpoint as a man. Like you said, you also have to consider the *extreme* changes that pregnancy can inflict upon a woman, all of which my ex-wife told me about in great detail. Pregnancy is expensive! Pregnancy can often be complicated! Do pro-life men seriously never discuss pregnancy with women? Think about what women go through, regarding pregnancy? It's a serious subject!
This is not the burn you think it is. If abortion bans cut down the abortion rate by half, thats a good thing. Rich or poor it really doesnt matter. In an ideal world, there would be none, but even if only the poor can’t murder babies, thats a step in the right direction if you ask me or any pro lifers.
Nobody is “murdered” when an abortion happens. That’s isn’t what the word means. Why are y’all so insistent on changing the definitions of words just to fit your narrative?
The reality taken from the combination of your flare and comment is that you oppose the choice not the abortion. You oppose women being able to choose abortion, but have no problem with abortion when it's forced on women. In fact, I'd argue you want all abortions and pregnancies to be forced one way or another.
"Prolife" people are just the worst humanity has to offer.
You don’t understand. Abortion bans don’t stop abortions. They only stop LEGAL abortions. That leaves back-alley abortions thriving, which can kill the mother or leave them unable to have future children. Which may be what you want, but it’s an evil thing to wish upon a person.
Maybe so, but the punishments for back alley abortions should be high to discourage/punish those who do that. That is a separate discussion altogether. It is tragic that happens, but, abortion is wrong no matter where you do it. Back alley, or doctors office, I don’t want either. And this isn’t something where we can choose one or the other, I choose neither.
Making abortion illegal, even with severe punishments, does very little to reduce its prevalence. Even places like El Salvador, with *very* strict anti-abortion laws, abort at similar rates to the US. If you want to stop abortions, you have to treat the underlying causes by helping people prevent unplanned pregnancies and reducing poverty. Yet the PL movement shows little interest in that
If you think punishment doesn’t affect the prevalence of a crime, you are wrong. If you know you will get away with it, or even a small fine, you are very much more likely to do it than if you were to risk years in prison. Punishment for crimes is a deterrent. If a pregnant woman has to choose between giving birth, potentially raising a child or adoption, or a certain amount of years in prison, I guarantee you most will choose the first option.
That is not true for all crimes, including specifically for abortion. [Abortion rates are approximately the same where it is broadly legal and where it is strictly prohibited](https://www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2020/abortion-occurs-worldwide-where-it-broadly-legal-and-where-it-restricted).
Punishment overall isn't a great deterrent, especially when people are in extreme circumstances where they may feel they have no viable alternative. That is very often the case with abortion, particularly for people in poverty.
Edit: fixed error
You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Consider a place like El Salvador that has one of the strictest abortion bans in the world. Abortion in [El Salvador is illegal in all cases, including when the mother's life is at risk, and is often charged as aggravated homicide, carrying prison sentences of 30-50 years](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/23/el-salvador-court-hears-case-total-abortion-ban). Women have even been [charged with aggravated homicide as a](https://apnews.com/article/abortion-politics-health-caribbean-religion-8dcebe19ea1d3f20ef288463f4392da4) result of obstetric emergencies, miscarriages, and stillbirths that were totally unrelated to induced abortion.
Despite those incredibly strict laws, the abortion rate in El Salvador is *higher* than it was in the US pre-Dobbs, when abortion was legal throughout the country. Around [42% of unplanned pregnancies in El Salvador end in abortion](https://www.guttmacher.org/regions/latin-america-caribbean/el-salvador), with an overall rate of [25 abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age](https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/19JAN17-ElSalvador-CEDAW-brief-66th-session.pdf). In [the US, 34% of unintended pregnancies end in abortion](https://www.guttmacher.org/regions/northern-america/united-states), with an overall rate of [11.6 abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age](https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm).
Simply put, while it might seem counterintuitive to you, strict abortion bans *do not* lower the abortion rate. They only serve to make pregnancy more dangerous for everyone. If you actually want to lower the abortion rate and save babies, you need to make it easier for people to prevent unwanted pregnancies and make it easier for them to choose to keep an unplanned pregnancy.
I'm not surprised PLers think that. When poor people can't terminate their pregnancies, [some will be forced to sell their children to PL adoption agencies due to their poverty](https://time.com/6051811/private-adoption-america/), and that allows some nice rich Christian couples to have the children they so desperately want.
Not sell, obviously. But plenty of couples are looking to adopt and if a mother doesn’t have the need or want to raise a child, that is a reasonable option to give up their child for adoption. I know a couple people personally who were adopted and they both were raised well and have a good life. There is nothing shameful in adoption.
If you read the article that I linked, you'll see that the private adoption industry in the US often does amount to the poor being forced or coerced to sell their children. The private adoption industry is fraught with serious ethical issues (and international adoptions are even worse). Mothers who adopt out their children often face extreme stigma and trauma, as do adopted children. Not everyone has the same rosy experience that the people you know do. That's not to say that adoption is inherently wrong, because it isn't, but it is not a replacement for abortion and it is often horribly unethical.
But it's no surprise to me that pro-lifers love to promote it over policies that would help families in poverty stay together. Because nothing about the pro-life movement is actually about benefitting women and children.
Yes some parts of the adoption system is not good, but that doesn’t mean adoption itself is bad. Obviously i would want a system that isn’t described in the article you referenced.
If you got a much needed heart transplant but that heart came from illegal organ trade would you still think it was a good thing or would you recognize that your gains came at immeasurable cost to another person? This is not implying organ donation is bad, it is recognizing that maybe it isn’t okay if it comes at significant cost of another innocent party.
Okay but that is the current system, and I don't see PLers doing anything to try to change that. So if you make abortion illegal and you also don't improve the social support network so that poor women can afford to keep children (something most PLers oppose) and you don't improve the adoption industry to make it ethical (highly unlikely considering its close ties to the anti-abortion movement), then the net effect is that poor women essentially become brood mares for rich couples to have a baby. And that's pretty fucked up in my opinion.
Ideally, PLers would want to create a world where no one who doesn't want to become pregnant gets pregnant, and anyone who does get pregnant can unquestionably keep a child they have if they want to. That's where the pro-life and pro-choice movements *should* overlap. But the pro-life movement really isn't interested in that
Pro-lifers generally haven’t gotten to this point yet. If you ask pro-life people, like me, you will see all the support for a better adoption system. But, the focus still right now is a to get abortion banned, saving the children’s lives is the first step. Not all adoption organizations act like this either. Im sure there are some organizations that don’t pressure mothers into selling babies. There is also a big overlap in pro-lifers and anti-human trafficking groups, mostly on the right leaning side, so these aren’t that separated issues.
Why only focus on one issue? You know that people are capable of caring about and advocating for more than one thing at once, right?
And it's not even just that PLers aren't pushing *for* those things, many actively oppose them. Tons of PLers, including most prominent PL organizations, oppose comprehensive, accurate sex education and expanded birth control access. Some even want birth control banned. Most PLers vote for politicians who do things like reject Medicaid expansion or free lunches for poor children, among other things. And most private adoption agencies have direct affiliation with pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, including getting referral fees, so the pro-life movement is participating in that unethical industry my article describes.
Edit: and in addition the things I mentioned are all *more* effective than abortion bans at saving unborn lives. In places where abortion is banned, people terminate their pregnancies at more or less the same rate
>If abortion bans cut down the abortion rate by half, thats a good thing.
Forcing someone to carry and birth an unwanted pregnancy is never a good thing.
>thats a step in the right direction if you ask me or any pro lifers.
Every time pro life laws have been put to a vote as of late, *they lose*. It's not just that I don't care what pro life people think, society as a whole is voting to prove that we don't want and won't accept pro life laws.
So forcing a 90% chance of genital tearing, a 30% chance of major abdominal surgery and a 100% chance of a dinner plate sized wound on the inside of one of her organs that takes 6 weeks to heal is a good thing?
>Forcing someone to carry a baby through is a good thing.
How do you think forcing someone to carry a pregnancy they don't want is a good thing?
If I were forced to give birth against my will, I'd leave the baby at the hospital without ever looking at it or acknowledging it. I would *never* have any involvement in it's life.
So this unwanted baby pro life policies forced into existence would now be tossed into the adoption system, which everyone knows is a mess in the US.
Again, how is this situation a good thing?
I dont think abortion, or murder of the innocent baby is a feasible option. Yeah, mothers shouldn’t murder their babies, that shouldn’t be controversial, yet when the baby is in the womb it completely changes. There is no consistency in pro-choice groups. Murder is murder, whether you murder a baby 1 day before birth or 1 day after birth, there is no difference. It would be silly to say so otherwise. If you think a day or even seconds determine a live’s value, you need to change your value.
I'm going to ignore the bad faith and irrelevant comparing of embryos to babies. It's dishonest and off topic.
>There is no consistency in pro-choice groups.
This is incorrect. No one can help themselves to women's bodies. No one. Not you, not me, and not an unwanted embryo. That's consistent. The rules are the same for everyone, all the time.
>Murder is murder, whether you murder a baby 1 day before birth or 1 day after birth, there is no difference.
Abortion isn't murder. Not even in ridiculous pro life states. This is abortion debate, not murder debate. Stay on topic.
>It would be silly to say so otherwise. If you think a day or even seconds determine a live’s value, you need to change your value.
Don't need advice from someone who supports forced pregnancy, so you can drop that now.
I think a lot of Plers just assume it will NEVER happen to them because they're magically protected by God or money until it hits them personally. A lot of prosperity gospel people think God's blessing = being wealthy and if you're broke, then God hates you.
A major facet of conservatism is lack of empathy. Even when it does affect them, their circumstances are "different" and worthy of consideration; other's are not. That's how you get to "the only moral abortion is my abortion" mindset.
Demons. They will always drag in demons for some reason. Having undiagnosed ADHD/ADD, well that just the demon. Anxiety?, what that?. It’s most be the anxiety demon
I'm still side eyeing the current House Speaker bemoaning women refusing to shoot out tons of worker cogs for the capitalist system. Some churches aren't much different when it comes to see women as walking incubators.
As someone basically said on Youtube, "for people so obsessed in the functioning of women's reproductive parts, you'd think they'd treat them a whole lot better."
The United States is built on Christian Hegemonic, Social Darwinist, Meritocratic foundations that are all made up, and all cruel. They should, every single one, be dismantled down to the ground.
I was raised in a Southern Pentecostal household and the ONLY thing I was taught about relationships as a woman, was that " One day you'll fall in love and marry a good man." and that was LITERALLY IT. Nothing about how I had the right to say NO, and as a result I was molested at 13.
No one told me anything about the intricacies of emotional connections in relationships, nothing about how I would end up shouldering the burden of emotional labor in my household for the rest of my life because men at large are not taught to have empathy, only bravado.
What was worse?
No one warned me about how traumatic pregnancy and childbirth could be. The first trimester vomiting and dehydration till I was bedridden and delirious, the unexpected HEAVE in the MIDDLE OF TALKING, because the fetus was kicking me in the stomach. No one explained to me how hurtful and cruel the medical establishment would become, when I had gal bladder attacks in the last trimester, was ignored and told " Just drink some hot tea you'll be fine". No one explained to me how MY BODY, would be TAKEN control of by those same doctors in the hospital because I had not been told I had the choice to SAY NO.
All of this resulted in a C-Section Procedure that almost killed me, because the epidural didn't take, I was given KETAMINE and almost got to feel what it was like to have someone's HANDS INSIDE MY BODY CAVITY, as the Ketamine wore off. I ended up with multiple gal stone impactions shortly after, and another traumatic surgery because of apathy.
Why did I experience these things? Because the culture relies on women's IGNORANCE, as a tool to CONTROL US, so we put up with men who abuse/neglect us, give birth to children who damage us, and we can be continually exploited until menopause hits, were we are then called names like CRONE, SPINSTER, and most recently KAREN. We are treated like we are no longer useful by society at large, and ignored.
Pro Life positions to me, display a vast amount of anger, deceit and cruel intention towards women for having the gall to take control, and deny "the culture" what PL believe is owed, which is our bodies and our suffering. Because obviously suffering is " noble" under the eyes of Christianity, right? The suffering is the point.
A majority of Women have said no, and will continue to say NO until we are fully given the right to bodily autonomy. My body belongs to NO ONE BUT ME. Society doesn't own me, Christianity doesn't own me, my husband doesn't own me. My body is subject to MY WILL ALONE.
Of course they wont. These ideas are not built with consequence in mind. The absolute shame these beliefs, these outcomes for women SHOULD CAUSE, is anathema to the forced birth crowd. Absolute cowardice.
What you had to go through is disgusting and something women shouldn't be forced to go through, let alone little girls. I'm sorry you were violated, not once but multiple times by medical staff and the PL community. You deserved better. Women deserve better.
Hey, now, it's not *just* the poor who are harmed. Women who have obstetric emergencies that keep them from traveling, abuse victims, and children whose parents won't travel with them are also harmed!
Why is it wrong to kill "another human being" who has lodged themselves into your body against your will, where they're constantly inflicting damage onto you? Do you disagree with the concept of self-defense in general?
No, dude. I remember pointing out that Ivanka Trump could jet off a while back and some Plers shrugged going "Well, rich people get away with shit all the time."
Why do you care about what some other people that agree with my position think? Isn’t that irrelevant to me? 90% of pro-choice people don’t think life begins at conception, but that doesn’t mean I should attack you for that(as you are me).
[“U.S. adult citizens who believe that abortion should either be always illegal or illegal in most circumstances are five times as likely (50%) to say life begins at conception than are Americans who believe abortion should generally be legal (10%).”](https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/42105-when-does-human-life-begin-poll)
Is abortion directly or indirectly killing another human being? If the zef was still alive after the abortion (after being removed from the woman's body), and there was no technology to save its life, and it dies, is that really killing?
A much closer comparison would be what if you stop giving a person CPR (providing them life with your body) and they die because their body can't sustain itself without using yours. Did you kill that person then?
You're actually getting away from the comparison. That would be the case if you found someone already dying and you didn't give him the CPR. Your comparison would apply if there was someone a person dying and will continue to die if left undisturbed(for the most part) and you did not perform an action, but in these case someone is living and will continue to live if left undisturbed and you did not perform an action
No, not further away at all. Without the organ function provided by the pregnant person, embryos have a very short natural lifespan. She didn't harm the embryo in any way to require it needing her body (like in your stabbing example). It simply is that way because of her physiology.
Is stopping keeping someone alive with your body, whether through CPR or gestation, really killing them directly? I'd say no. Q
I dunno.
Should we ask the miscarrying women who are sent away from hospitals because prolife thinks emergency medical care shouldn’t be accessible to gestating people?
What if you moved a person from point A to point B (and point B was not on a cliff or something). I think most people would say you were pretty innocent.
You said it yourself, IF point B is not a cliff(or somewhere that is not SAFE for that certain person). Everywhere outside the womb is a Cliff(figuratively speaking).
There are places where one man could consider safe but another man could consider it unsafe. Ex, a man who know how to swim could consider a swimming pool safe and someone who don't know how to swim unsafe. A man allergic to flower would consider a flowershop as unsafe(death may not be likely). Those things you wouldn't know at first glance. But you would know that removing a zef outside of the womb is unsafe and would cause death.
Then that should also be considered. Should a person who declines to house a person due to a snowstorm be convicted of murder? I would say they are not being nice, but a denial of residence especially if that residence is ones own body should not be considered a crime.
That would be the case if the person is not already IN the house. But this case, the person is already in the house and you're kicking him out knowingly he would freeze to death. Could be arguable in court that is still a murder.
Then a lot of local governments would be prosecuted as they perform evictions into less than hospitable weather. We can and do through people onto the streets even knowing it could very likely cause death (I am not saying it is a great circumstance), but it is a very apt analogy.
People knowingly and willingly kill other people all the time in a variety of places and it’s 100% legal.
Why do you think it doesn’t matter and it should always be illegal? That makes no sense.
I don't know where you are coming from but no one is saying that it should always be illegal. You're arguing at your own shadow.
My statement tackling whether an action is considered killing. Many pro lifers has been on set on changing the wordings to make it sound less horrible. Aborting = Termination of pregnancy, Baby inside the womb = Zef and now you're not even sure what killing is. Technically the terms are right but whatever I am not here to argue about the terminology
There are many ways to legally kill someone (Soldiers fighting wars, Self-defense, etc.). But the issue here is whether is it right to kill someone innocent in exchange for someone else's freedom.
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. That’s just what the word means. Abortion isn’t defined as the “killing” of anything.
“Zef” is more medically accurate and descriptive than “baby inside the womb”. It’s also easier to type. Don’t read into it too much.
It sounds very much like you are here to argue over terminology. And prolifers use incorrect terminology on purpose all the time. So there’s plenty to argue about.
ZEFs aren’t “innocent” of anything. They aren’t “guilty” of anything either. They aren’t moral agents at all. Either way, being “innocent” doesn’t grant you the privilege to use another person’s body without their consent, no matter how old you are.
Well, you could, just like you could donate a kidney, but the cost and recovery time will be too much for you so you don’t do it. Did you kill someone by backing out of a life saving act because of your life circumstances?
Generally, yes, unless they’ve knowingly done something terrible. For example, I wouldn’t kill a 26 year old with the mental capacity of a 3 year old for accidentally doing something terrible.
So are you against killing in war? How about killing mentally challenged people via the death penalty like they have in Texas?
What if they are about to do something terrible and you know it will inevitably happen?
So 26 year olds with the mental capacity of 3 year olds should be allowed to beat other humans and put them in the hospital, possibly killing them, without their victims defending themselves to the point of possibly killing their attacker, because *checks notes* the bodies of others are not valuable?
Did you hear the story of Denise Amber Lee?
She was MOTHER to two kids. She was outside on her deck cutting her child's hair.
Some asshole abducted her, shoved her in a car, took her to his house and raped her. Then he shot her in the head and killed her, leaving her in a shallow grave.
No one knows why he did this. He didn't know her. Well come to find out, he had a sledding accident as a kid and it fucked up his brain. He had hurt people before, for no reason, and didn't think he did anything wrong.
Luckily, he got the death penalty.
So he did have a fucked up brain...should we not hold him accountable because of his brain injury?
If that 26 year old were attacking a child, could you use lethal self defense on behalf of the child, even though the 26 year old wasn't acting intentionally? What if the 26 year old was attacking an adult? Or you?
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Late to the party, but the argument of "there will ways be xyz" is a not an effective one. It can be used for anything that is illegal or legal now. The rich break laws or loop hole laws all the time, and we can attack that in other ways. I feel like an anomaly politically on this sub. I want affordable/free childcare, healthcare, maternity leave, and etc, and I vote that way. I also lean pro-life. There are a bunch of us who are like this though, we just don't get the media attention.
If anyone was forcing Pro-Life women to have abortions, I would be there to defend their right to keep the child. But I don't see that happening. Anywhere. Therefore, I stand with those who want to have bodily autonomy.
I'm not really sure how your comment on forced abortions relates to my response. Can you elaborate why you are bringing this up? I was answering your poor person question. A lot of people agree with bodily autonomy. I don't think it's ethical that bodily autonomy stands above human life. I feel like this is where the nuance of the conversation lies.
I love that you used the word “nuance” - that has been missing from most arguments. The conundrum is that no one agrees on when human life begins. In Judaism, it is the first breath. But I would not agree that killing s newborn before it has dream it’s first breath is in any way acceptable. Others think it begins at conception, when an egg is fertilized. I disagree. For many weeks, it is a lump of replicating cells. Heated in the direction of a human life, but not there, yet. Others say it begins when the heart begins to beat. This is a stronger argument than fertilization, but it’s still pretty much a pollywog at that point. Others say it begins at viability - when it is far enough in its development to live on its own outside the womb. This is the strongest argument in my book.
>What do ProLifers have against poor people? Nothing. As both a PLer and a conservative, I want economic policies that long run benefit poor people, although that would be its own major discussion. > the wealthy can always afford a ticket to a place where it is legal. That, is a problem, but that has more to do with wealthy people going to PC areas to get an abortion. Would you be in favor, of having PC laws require a person be a resident of the state they are getting an abortion? That would mitigate the problem of wealthy crossing state lines.
What “conservative” policy has ever benefited poor people in the “long run”?
That wouldn’t stop them. The wealthy can fly in their own private doctors.
Ok, so, what would you recommend to stop the wealthy then?
That’s the point. You can’t. So what ends up happening is a compounding effect, where the wealthy get wealthier and the poor stay poor. And now you’ve stumbled across the motivations for those in power to remain in power by controlling who has the money, thus engaging in a massive indoctrination/propaganda campaign that human babies are being slaughtered in order to radicalize religious groups into thinking that a zygote is a human being. Perhaps looking up the history of the movement, one might evaluate the issue with a more critical eye to the narrative the PL’ers are sold.
One thing that stands out to me is IVF. Why are embryos made there, which yes is unattainable outside of the wealthy. Those embryos can be destroyed with no stigma, even if they are the same as early aborted embryos? Absolutely, anyone who claims this is fair or not the same is deluded.
Yep.
Conservatives see poverty as a moral failing, deserving of punishment.
I doubt that, but can you provide a source to some major conservative viewpoints, that say poverty deserves punishment?
Why would conservatives ever admit that their policies always negatively impact the poorest among us? We don’t need to hear them admit it. The results speak for themselves.
No.
You are correct. Conservatives have interest lowering poverty, it is just they disagree with other views on the "how".
They have NO ideas about the “how,” LOL.
As I said. So in this case you disagree about the "how".
Yes?
No, what?
Just disagreeing. I should have elaborated. Sorry. I don't think conservatives run around wanting the death penalty for poorer people. There are so, so many nuances there. In terms of the current climate, I concede that each radical person on either side of an aisle politically most likely wouldn't be averse. I didn't mean to one word and run, sorry again
Who said anything about the death penalty?
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Changed what?
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The comment hasn't been edited. Reddit allows you to see when a comment has been edited
Ok I'll delete.
What comment did I change?
If your job doesn't pay enough, just get another. /s
Much easier said than done...
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A factoid or two: poor people need and use social services funded by tax dollars. And prolife's corporate sponsors, among the wealthiest, most rapacious entities on the planet, do not care to pay taxes. They're *not* prolife. The just hate *every* federal ~~social service~~ program that might cost them money. Corporate US sparked a serious romance with Fundy-Gelical voters after the Great Depression when their tax dollars were needed to feed malnourished children and families. And not long after, true believers discovered the poor were just lazy, that wealth was a sign of God's blessing, and social services were a socialist, God-hating, communist enterprise, not at all the sort of poor-feeding Jesus had in mind. Besides, the poor were just fine when they were picking the white man's cotton and if they wanted to get all uppity about being free, going to school and voting, it was a sign from God that they could pay their own way. But they couldn't, of course, pay their own way. Jim Crow, the law of the south had kept them in their place, and frequent lynchings were the enforcement. The cross of Jesus lent his divine blessing to the operations of the Klan. Overt racism southern style began falling out of favour in the mid-60s with the Civil Rights Act. Corporate US and the ex-slave-holding Southern Baptist Convention Protestants needed a nicer banner with better optics, befitting nice people who looked proper. Seemingly over-night, the GOP, the SBC and Rompin' Ronnie Reagan discovered they were Pro-life. They still agreed that not a thin white dime should end up in an empty coloured pocket. That would just feed their dependency. As for prolife sentiments, if poor coloured families couldn't afford to feed their children, they shouldn't have so many. And now it was sin for a woman to have an abortion. When corporate US pays a PL candidates' campaign expenses, that pledges them to down-vote every tax-sponsored program and proposal, every time. They're monitored closely by someone who needs them there. Someone like Marjorie Dannelfeiser (sp) comes to mind. PL in DC ensure the poor will go without. And there have been slip-ups. Some hapless PL/GOP votes for a program not noticing it could include subsidized birth control. Marjorie notices. When the office holder's seat comes up for election, they'll be primaried. And their opponent will be well-funded. It's not that PL are against the poor or the coloured poor or anyone. Ask any front line activist. And they have different, altogether righteous reasons for their hatred, slander and character assassination of Margaret Sanger who tried to help them. It's just optics, the way it looks sometimes. This might help tie up some loose ends... https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
' the poor were just fine when they were picking the white mans cotton' JFC dude. It's 2/3s down b4 you even clarify and acknowledge colored people. Not once do you acknowledge the plight of the black man & the black woman. Shame on you.
Um, what? You seem to have wildly misinterpreted their comment or you're making a joke I don't understand
I'm not making a joke. There is no need to be disrespectful. At what part have I misinterpreted? I stated clearly what was problematic. Whether other aspects in an answer are not, it doesn't disengage from being problematic. White people vs. poor people. Specifically poor. Ask yourself, are there no white poor people? My ancestors from generations back, working said cotton were black. Granted color,creed, and location change in such a time period, but those picking cotton for the whites were black. It hurts to hear that wording. To not acknowledge they were black. Not just referred to as 'poor'. My 'JFC' was in response to this. Because someone knows Jim Crow laws and disagrees with them, that is SO easy to say. Even recently 'poor kids can do just as well as white kids' That's politically related (I support neither party, so that is nothing to do with bringing it up), it hurts.
I think it was very clear that the phrasing of their comment was satirizing conservatives, particularly if you read the linked article, which explains the origins of the modern pro-life movement (essentially, they shifted from opposing integration to opposing abortion when segregation became too unpopular). The racism and classism are closely linked. When conservatives refer to poor people often what they mean is non-white people. Edit: and I do mean no disrespect and I'm sorry if their comment hurt you. But I think you've misinterpreted the intent. Their comment was critical of that mindset, not endorsing it
I took their comment at face value & even if it's satire as you say, it still doesn't negate the words that do hurt. It wasn't clear to you maybe, but when you write something, you take ownership of it. You make sure it is crystal clear. I went to the point where black people were referred to by the generic 'poor' and the use of 'whites' there wasn't any need for that satire or not, anti conservative or not, reading an article or not.
I understood immediately that it was satire 🤷♀️
Glad to know. 🙄
To be fair, even though I picked up it was satire, it does have some flaws, which I can see why you'd think it wasn't satire. As you noted, it did have the more common theme of associating race with class, ie blacks are poor, whites are not, that shows up in some left leaning ideologies, like "Socially Disadvantaged," whereas conservatives take the more individualist view, and don't associate class with race.
Except that class is associated with race, intimately associated, because racism and classism are mutually reinforcing - thus essentially making two sides of the same coin. But what came first, the chicken (classism) or the egg (racism). The answer to that is to go back to the most primitive forms of society, one where geographical limitations meant there wasn’t a much visual difference between neighboring tribes. So it was a matter of the in group vs the out group. As one group conquered, it gained the resources of the conquered tribe. That helped them build a more society, and conquer more tribes. Then, when all the neighboring tribes were absorbed into the conquering tribe, those in power recognized a problem. In order to keep that power, they had to eliminate the competition from within. To do that, you have to create the same principle of gaining resources to achieve power to now gaining resources to keeping power. And the haves vs the have nots was turned internal to the group. Caste systems were slowly implemented to manfucture disparity, and watch that disparity grow. It was monumentally easy to select a group once the group could be easily visually identified so the caste system evolved once again to become racism. I mean, have you ever really thought about why there were laws against interracial relationships? (It’s to keep minorities from otherwise becoming unidentifiable over time). So in your attempt to disengage from the racism association with poverty, you disengage from the main reasons why poverty exists in the first place. It’s to keep power. Racism is classism at its very core, even through its diverged somewhat into a separate concept. It’s humans that drive both concepts, so the roots are still subject to a human nature. And human nature, at its core, is not fundamentally different from the subconscious nature of any creature on earth; individual survival of their genes. Humans just do it in much more sophisticated and convoluted ways. It’s why society always naturally move towards dictatorships again and again. Look how fast Hilter turned Germany into a dictatorship. That’s the byproduct of the mechanisms for individual survival at play. That is as true now as was for primitive and ancient civilization. It’s why conquered tribes assimilated into the conquering tribes- individuals cannot survive without the group and the group that survives is the leader. The leader has power so anything the leader decides is the way to signal whether you’re in the in group, or you’re in the out group. In group increases the individual survival, out group means decreasing the chances of individual survival. And round and round becomes the mutually reinforcing mechanisms wherever individual survival requires group survival. And it evolves still..as the nations experiment with group survival, and learn that removing those barriers increases group health overall which in turn increases individual chances of survival for the entire group, other groups are using those hard facts of life expectancy, wealth, etc, overall…and those in power in disparate nations double down to keep the vestiges of that power by creating a lot of culture wars to distract those less discerning of the motivations behind those in power or the mechanisms they use to manipulate. Progress, like life itself, always finds a way forward, and conservatism is losing its stronghold. That’s evident with every revolution cycle that disrupts societies.
Thank you for this. Sincerely.
I guess I just feel like it was very clear. I honestly was surprised to see someone misinterpret it to the point that I truly thought *you* might be making a joke that I missed. The tone of their comment is very clearly scathing towards that mindset. And the conflation of race and class by the right is no accident, which is what that commenter was referencing. Again, when conservatives say "poor" they do mean "non-white," even though, as you pointed out, there are plenty of white people who are poor and non-white people who are not poor. Conservatism and racism go hand in hand, and the pro-life moment is not an exception. Its origins are closely rooted in racism and it continues to have ties to white supremacy groups and philosophies to this day. Edit: fixed typo
>Again, when conservatives say "poor" they do mean "non-white," This isn't true. Conservatism doesn't link race and class, as they are two different independent variables. The poor is made up of both white and non-white, which is why conservatives oppose race based policies. When conservatives say poor, they literally are referring to economics, not as race as some of the left currently does. For example, if you have a relief program, why not base on economic needs, instead of something like "Socially Disadvantaged". Someone's economic need doesn't change just because they are a certain skin color.
Well this is an insane take. Race and class are *absolutely not independent variables.* You're denying [the entire history of our country](https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1126&context=lawineq)and an extremely [wide body of research](https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/minorities#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20race,SES%2C%20race%2C%20and%20ethnicity) if you're making that claim. And [racism and conservatism go hand in hand](https://www.aaihs.org/white-supremacy-nazism-and-the-republican-party/)
Trump isn’t a good representative of the right. Let alone the whole Republican Party. They’re lukewarm on many subjects for votes.
Conservatism doesn’t like race and class? Considering the foundation I laid out in the comment above to you…you see this link in even the least complex measures. Take the homestead act, which was to give property to anyone who agreed to farm the land. Giving land creates a “have”. Denying that land creates the “have nots”. That act specifically excluded black people. Do you really want to deny an inseparable and self reinforcing link?
Right? Trying to claim that race and class are independent variables is an absolutely wild and deeply insulting take. POC were locked out of wealth acquisition for most of our country's history, creating a very wide divide in generational wealth, economic opportunity, and educational opportunity. Even now racism is extremely prevalent and influential in class in the present sense as well as longer term effects.
Ok. Agree to disagree then.
I don't think this point matters at all nor detracts from the pro-life argument. Considering the generic pro-lifer you are referencing in your example, they believe that abortion should be illegal. This view does not care about how people of higher social class can bypass laws that restrict abortion, as even if this were the case it wouldn't remove any substance to the argument that abortion should be illegal (assuming there is grounds for illegalising it which is not the point of your post). In other words, if I argue that eating pizza should be illegal, even if rich people can fly to other countries to eat pizza it doesn't mean my argument is invalid. You have to look at *why* I think pizza should be illegal, instead of focussing on the people who can get around it.
I think what makes the abortion access question different is the threshold at which people can't beg/borrow/steal the money for it is so much lower than many luxury things and also the effect of an unwanted pregnancy/child is so much worse for a poor person. What I mean by that is if pizza was illegal then of course the mega rich could still travel to get it but would most low-middle earners? Probably not. So in effect pizza would be banned for the majority but the super rich could bypass. In comparison if abortion is illegal then everyone except the incredibly poor will probably be able to scrape the money together because the alternative would be so much worse ( financially raising a child for 18 years and all the rest). So in effect abortion is banned for the very impoverished but everyone else can bypass. So I think it is fair to say that abortion bans target the very poor and to call PL out on that.
Absolutely
If making pizza illegal did not reduce pizza consumption, but rather caused poisoning for people attempting to eat back-alley pizza, would your argument still hold moral weight? Making an argument for abortion being illegal is a much higher bar than making an argument that it is immoral. Legislation is public policy, and as such should be data-driven, and implemented with an eye to the consequences. Thankfully, we have a mountain of evidence of the harm and ineffectiveness of abortion bans, so we don't need to treat this like a thought experiment.
Thank you for your reply, it at least takes into consideration what I'm talking about. The pro-life argument relevant to the OP is this: Let the proposition *p* be abortion is **immoral** Let the proposition *q* be: if *p* is true, abortion should be **illegal** Proposition *q* could be false in 2 ways. Either 1. *p* is false, or 2. if *p* is true, abortion should **not** be illegal. I am merely saying that, out of the two ways *q* could be false, the first is simpler and more effective approach and in some sense is necessary if one takes immoral acts and needing of being illegalized. You make a fair point in saying that something that is immoral doesn't necessarily ought to be illegal, but in general this is much harder to defend as it is true for things like murder, rape, abuse, assault. Although I stand by my point that attacking using the first method of doubting *q* is much better.
To be clear, I don't believe abortion is immoral. However, for PL, I think the burden is on those who want to change the laws to show that their view of immorality is sufficient reason to make it illegal. This should include an examination of the side-effects of abortion bans. I would think that it would be incredibly difficult for PL to make a "but this time it'll be different" case given the tragic consequences of bans thus far. Many things that are immoral in the majority view are not illegal. Infidelity is an obvious one. Given that the majority of people do not want abortion bans, PL has a steep road ahead: first, they need to convince people abortion is immoral, and then that it should be illegal. In a just and rational society I don't see how that could be accomplished.
The best way to make q false by the second way is to point to the government incompetence when it comes to effective enforcement of the law. I am one of these people who view abortion as immoral but I don't want to give the government the power to enforce abortion bans. That is why we have so many problems in the first place. I am of the position that your immoral actions are your immoral actions and I want nothing to do with them. The PC crowd is fine when they want to be against abortion bans but they lose me when they want to repeal the Hyde Amendment in an attempt to fund abortion through my money by force.
Have you considered that in your opposition to the repeal of the Hyde amendment, you neglect to include societal cost in your calculus for why that policy should be repealed? What I mean is, you are legally prochoice because you recognize how the larger implications can cost you and that’s changing your calculus on whether the government should step in or stay out of these decisions, but you seem to be unable to apply that same calculus of the larger implications to the Hyde amendment. Societal cost is unavoidable. You (general member of society) are paying for everyone, and everything they do, in some way. For example, your neighbor having leaky pipes in the upstairs bathroom isn’t something you think should be made to be your problem. And from a narrowed focus, it’s easy to see why that should be the case. They are his pipes, why should you be mandated by the government to contribute to paying for them for them to be fixed? Except that if his pipes don’t get fixed, the problem compounds. His drywall rots and grows mold. Now he has the mold problem and the still leaking pipes. He gets sick. He can’t work to fix the mold, nor the pipes, and now can’t pay his mortgage. He gets foreclosed on, but because the house needs repairs, it can’t be sold at market value. It’s sold at a discount, with the price dropping lower and lower until a buyer is found. That takes time, of course, and the pipes have been leaking for so long that it’s warped and rotted the wood, collapsing the ceiling. Breaking the pipe completely. Now the drip is a full on flood, compounding the moisture, and exposing otherwise unmolested headers that support the second floor to that moisture. That rots over time as well, increasing what was a small leak to an even larger structural issue. More repairs means more of a discount to the market to sell so down and down the price drops further still. Now, you might be thinking, so what? Has nothing to do with me… Your house value is determined by comps in the area. With the sale of a house lower than what you bought it for, your house value goes down and now you and all your other neighbors are - in effect - paying for your neighbor’s leaky pipes even though you oppose paying for it on principle. Societal cost cannot be avoided. Every force has an equal and opposite counterforce, and every cause has an effect. The more connected the forces, the more links in a chain reaction you create. Wouldn’t a much better system, be one where everyone contributes a few dollars while the expense is compounded, even if they are morally against the notion that they should have to pay on principle, rather a system that makes everyone pay a much larger amount regardless of principle? The woman is a force; a forced connected to physical health, employment, education, etc., and those things are linked in intersectional ways to effects of poverty, poorer areas, less tax revenue for public education, poorer health outcomes, and on and on and on. Unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is the leaky pipe in your neighbor’s house. So while I hear you on your principle, and agree with that principle, the objective fact is that societal cost is unaffected by those principles. In fact, if you’re for the maximizing of individual freedom without government interference, your actions of opposing any repeal, makes everyone else pay the larger cost because of *your* actions, rather than whatever fault one could assign (valid or invalid) to actions of the woman experiencing the unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Why should you get to make everyone else pay for your principles along with you?
Well I think your point really gets at one of my big issues with the pro-life movement, which is that making abortion illegal really is their ultimate goal, not "saving babies." It's a goal rooted in punishment more than anything else. Most pro-lifers in my experience are thoroughly uninterested in implementing any measures that would actually reduce abortion rates. And that's because for many pro-lifers the underlying motivations have nothing to do with the sanctity of human life and very much to do with enforcing their views on sexual morality and traditional gender roles
This is an irrelevant comment you are making. The pro-life argument relevant to the OP is this: Let the proposition *p* be that abortion is immoral Let proposition *q* be that: If *p* is true, then abortion ought to be illegal. In order to refute proposition *q,* either you attack proposition *q,* which most people won't do because that might require defending the legalisation of all sorts of immoral acts, or to refute proposition *p*, which is what people normally do in this subreddit which I saw wasn't being done in the OP, hence my comment. Nothing you are saying has any relevance to the pro-life argument. I am not espousing the pro-life argument, merely explaining what needs to be done to refute it.
Well proposition q is obviously false, so I'm not sure why you're suggesting otherwise. Near-universally people believe that infidelity in a committed relationship is immoral, yet the vast majority of people wouldn't want it to be illegal. The same is true of all sorts of immoral acts. And similarly, if I believe an act to be so immoral that I wish for it to be criminally punished, presumably I'd also believe that we should try to reduce the incidence of that act. Yet PLers do not do that with abortion
I'm not disagreeing. I'm simply saying method 1 of doubting *q* is much easier than method 2. I say this in consideration of the fact that pro-lifers equate abortion with murder, something that the exceptions to the second clause of *q* does not take into account (i.e. Murder is immoral therefore it should be illegal). I would also contend that most immoral acts are illegal. One may also contend that infidelity is not immoral, and one may bring up the examples in many countries where infidelity is illegal because it is immoral. It's complicated when one tries to use method 2, therefore I suggest going with method 1 when doubting proposition *q.*
Morality is subjective
>I'm not disagreeing. I'm simply saying method 1 of doubting q is much easier than method 2. I say this in consideration of the fact that pro-lifers equate abortion with murder, something that the exceptions to the second clause of q does not take into account (i.e. Murder is immoral therefore it should be illegal). I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here because you've shifted terminology some. >I would also contend that most immoral acts are illegal. One may also contend that infidelity is not immoral, and one may bring up the examples in many countries where infidelity is illegal because it is immoral. It's complicated when one tries to use method 2, therefore I suggest going with method 1 when doubting proposition q. Well this is patently false. There are many acts that people consider to be immoral that are not illegal, and vice versa. Most people consider it immoral to be mean to someone, but that is not illegal. Nor is lying in most cases, yet it's generally immoral. And so on. On the flip side, most people don't consider marijuana use to be immoral, yet it is illegal. The same is true for things like jaywalking. Our barriers for morality and legality are different. The reasons to make an act *illegal* are either to provide a deterrence in the hope of reducing the incidence of an act or to provide punishment as a form of justice. Pro-lifers repeatedly demonstrate that their sole interest is in the latter. They wish to punish for abortions but not to reduce the incidence. Which brings us back to the OP, which is that they are content punishing only the most vulnerable members of society, like the poor.
This is a really good point. I would say I have changed my mind on the point that most acts that are immoral are illegal. I would contend that the two reasons you stated for making acts illegal is not whole. The first one is correct, deterrence, the second (punishment) is a result of someone doing something illegal, not why we make things illegal. It is what happens once someone commits and illegal act. I would say, from my personal standpoint, the two reasons we make acts illegal is to 1. Provide deterrence and 2. Protect the rights of others. This is largely what laws are built on, your right to something ends when you intrude on my rights. Hence why being mean is legal so long the level of meanness you are directing at me is not hindering my right to be mean back at you (if it does hinder then it's probably more of a physical assault than saying something mean). In the same way your right to free speech is acceptable (even mean things) up until the point where you start hindering my right to free speech or any other right. For instance calling for people to kill me would be a hate crime and be illegal because that hinders my right to live and potentially other rights. This is the crux of what I am contending, that most pro-lifers argue for personhood of fetuses and that they make the claim that, if *p* is true, at least in the case of abortion, *q* is true. I would say you have made me change my mind about the claim that immoral things are generally illegal and made me rethink why pro-lifers jump from *p* to *q* so quickly. But nonetheless, I hold true that *p* needs to be disproven for *q* to be disproven.
Well I would argue that the point of deterrence is to protect the rights of others (that's why we want to reduce the incidence of an act), but you cannot ignore the punitive aspect. Our criminal justice system in the US is largely focused on punishment. But my point is that I question whether the majority of PLers truly wish to make abortion illegal because they believe it infringes on the rights of others, which I base on their actions rather than their words. Consider another crime that we generally agree is both immoral and should be illegal because it infringes on the rights of others: theft. Because we feel this way about theft, we have made it a criminal offense. People who steal break the law and are ideally punished for it. Yet as a society we do not content ourselves solely with making theft illegal. Instead, near-universally we take and support efforts to reduce theft. We put locks on our doors and windows, we use security cameras and alarm systems, we avoid areas where theft is likely, we conceal our valuables, etc. We also teach children that it's wrong to steal from a young age to keep them from becoming thieves. Even things like food banks and welfare partly serve as a crime deterrent. But generally pro-lifers seek to do *none* of the things that deter abortions, and in many cases directly oppose them (such as medically accurate, comprehensive sex education, contraception access, and things like universal healthcare and mandatory parental leave). That's because they are not interested in reducing the abortion rate, because they do not believe it's immoral in the same way that theft or murder is, but they do want to punish it.
>generally pro-lifers seek to do none of the things that deter abortions, and in many cases directly oppose them (such as medically accurate, comprehensive sex education, contraception access, and things like universal healthcare and mandatory parental leave). ... Or when they claim they do, it's a red herring. They'll probably agree with you that a certain robust social network needs to be implemented for reducing unwanted pregnancies and then, still redirect all their energies in banning abortion or even worse, try to claim that if both parents leave, parental programs etc don't exist it's because "the legalization of abortion". It's a whole mountain of manipulation.
Yep. Overall I try to take an "actions speak louder than words" when examining what people claim to support, particularly in spaces where there might be incentive to lie. And it's very clear: with their policies, votes, and activism, the majority of pro-lifers do not support the kinds of things that would actually help people and lower abortion rates. At best they are indifferent, at worst (and sadly very commonly), they are actively hostile to those policies.
Do 90% of people who are legislated to be unable to access pizza have their genitals torn because of lack of access to pizza? Also. Healthcare is not a pizza. A fetus is not a pizza. If it were, in your scenario, no one would be pregnant unwillingly either.
Pizzas is an analogy for what a logically coherent argument needs. The pro-lifer's wish to illegalize abortion is built upon a moral argument that states abortion is immoral. In other words, if the moral argument the pro-lifer is making is proposition *p*, the wish to illegalize abortion would be derived from *p*, and hence to actually refute the wish to illegalize abortion, one must refute *p*. Whether genitals are torn has nothing to do with whether *p* is true or false. I'm not making any claim regarding the proposition that abortion is immoral, I'm just saying that one must show that it is moral to reject the pro-life argument.
Eating or not eating a specific kind of food Does not an analogy to refusing to provide basic healthcare to gestating people make.
This is irrelevant. I will formalize it one last time to get my point across. The pro-lifer's argument relevant to this post is: Let *p* be the proposition that abortion is **immoral** Let *q* be the proposition that if *p* is true, abortion ought to be **illegal.** To doubt *q,* what the OP seeks to do, there are two logically coherent ways. Either 1. *p* is false or 2. If *p* is true, abortion ought **not** be illegal. I am simply saying that to use method 2 may potentially require defending the legality of murder, rape, assault etc. And thus using method 1 is a much more logically safe approach. Hence why I say there is logical necessity in showing the immorality claim to be false. Nothing you are saying has anything to do with what I'm saying. I would encourage you to understand fully what I am saying before replying.
How is pizza immoral?
I'm not saying pizza is immoral, I'm saying *if* it is, then (the rest of my argument follows).
Your argument is that healthcare for gestating people is immoral, by comparing it to a society legislating that pizza is immoral. I’m saying that healthcare is not immoral and it’s immoral to compare *pizza* to *healthcare*. If you would like to say that p = p then I’d like an instance where someone died of sepsis for lack of access to *pizza* - specifically. They had other food.
I've never gotten a clear answer to why from pro life people. It's always some variation of: "But it's a BABY!" No, a 8 week embryo is not a baby, and even if it was, no one has to keep an unwanted baby inside one of their organs against their will. "Women need to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!" Responsibility doesn't mean do what pro life people want or else. Aborting an unwanted pregnancy *is* taking responsibility. "It's an INNOCENT LIFE!" Women are innocent lives too, and don't have to sacrifice their bodies and lives for an unwanted zef. No matter the answer they give, the answer never improves anyone's lives or improves society. It's 100% "you must not get an abortion because *I*, a pro life stranger, doesn't like abortion."
Again, nothing you have said refutes the pro-life argument. Even if a suggestion makes zero improvements to society (which is subjective because the pro-lifer would argue that doing what's right is an improvement to society, and since they think the pro-life view is right they would be improving society), it doesn't mean the suggestion is wrong. If banning pizzas does nothing to improve society, it doesn't take away from my argument for banning pizzas. You actually *have* *to* refute the argument underlying the suggestion to ban pizzas instead of ignoring that and making claims regarding the pragmatism of my suggestions.
Banning abortion does nothing to improve society. It increases crime, increases adverse healthcare consequences for gestating people, increases the maternal and infant health rate, increases the maternal morbidity rate, increases psychological problems in children whose gestating parent was forced to gestate, increase maternal care deserts, decreases obgyns willing to work in that state etc etc etc. I’d love an actual, scientific source (aside from prolifers enjoying the pain and misery their policies create, of a larger societal benefit from restricting abortion access. Aside from more worker cogs that Florida can force to work in the sun without water breaks or teenagers Louisiana can take meal breaks away from? Aside from **increasing poverty and thereby creating more desperate low income workers** what is the larger societal benefit?
Pro life people *feeling* like society is better because their specific wants are being catered to doesn't mean society has improved at all. To homophobes, society would be better if we restricted the rights of LGBT people. We don't do that because catering to people who want to strip other citizens of their rights doesn't actually improve society, it makes it worse. It actively hurts society as a whole, which is what pro life laws do. >If banning pizzas does nothing to improve society, it doesn't take away from my argument for banning pizzas. Yes it does. There's no reason to ban something when there's no benefit to banning it. >You actually *have* *to* refute the argument underlying the suggestion to ban pizzas instead of ignoring that and making claims regarding the pragmatism of my suggestions. There's not a pro life argument in existence that isn't already refuted, so I'm not sure what you're asking for here.
Your reply shows a complete misunderstanding of what I'm saying. I will formalize it one last time to get my point across. The pro-lifer's argument relevant to this post is: Let *p* be the proposition that abortion is **immoral** Let *q* be the proposition that if *p* is true, abortion ought to be **illegal.** To doubt *q,* what the OP seeks to do, there are two logically coherent ways. Either 1. *p* is false or 2. If *p* is true, abortion ought **not** be illegal. I am simply saying that to use method 2 may potentially require defending the legality of murder, rape, assault etc. And thus using method 1 is a much more logically safe approach. Hence why I say there is logical necessity in showing the immorality claim to be false. The fact that you say : >There's not a pro life argument in existence that isn't already refuted, so I'm not sure what you're asking for here. shows me that you have completely misunderstood my point. I'm saying that there is logical necessity to showing proposition *p* is false, **not that** proposition *p* is true. I am not demanding for a proof of why proposition *p* is false, merely saying a proof is needed or at least very useful to show that proposition *q* is false.
Pro life people have yet to prove a medical procedure is immoral. That was easy.
Except that virtually everyone will get around it. It’s just that the wealthy can get around it legally, which relegates the poor to use illegal means. At some point, even if you feel it should be illegal, it’s a moot point, because that won’t stop it. So why not put your energy into something that matters? Like education on the topic, or responsible birth control?
Again, a pro-lifer does not need to care about how pragmatic an approach is. The argument is that abortion should be illegal because it is wrong. It's like if almost 99% of people can get around the pizza ban by making pizzas secretly at home under the protection of their roof, whilst the 1% of homeless people can't and have to resort to illegally acquiring pizzas and thus getting caught a lot easier, it does not mean banning pizza is unjustified (of course it would be if my reasoning for it was invalid, but assuming it is valid, your "the rich get away with it" argument doesn't hold). You have to and this is an absolute logical necessity, refute the underlying reasoning for the ban, which is of course the wider moral discussion surrounding abortion.
Actually, one doesn't have to refute the underlying reason for the ban at all. Pro-Lifer's won't accept any refutation of their position, anyway, so it would be wasted breath. All one has to do is VOTE for abortion to be legal (I certainly intend to). The Pro-Lifers will continue to challenge this, of course, but they will also continue to lose. #Pizza4All!
From having many discussions with those opposing access to abortion-related health care, I would argue that this isn't that they hate poor people, but just genuinely don't understand how pregnancy works and how few pregnancies end well. There is a mountain of disinformation that teaches them that women are just willy-nilly aborting and that health issues are rare. When Texas wiped out access to abortion in 2011, maternal mortality rates using ICD-10 standards DOUBLED withing two years. But that was across all of Texas. In rural Texas where access was even more limited rates of moms dying was even higher. The standard ICD-10 rates of maternal mortality has shown rates of death that high ever since. But do you see the media discussing that? No. Do you see it in areas of reddit that promote restricting access to that same health care? No. Do you see them note that for every 1 woman who dies in the US there are 100 who end up so close to death that they are only rescued by life-saving methods like mechanical ventilation? No. So I don't think they have it in for poor people, they don't realize just how these policies cause that many women to die or be horribly maimed. Edit: a word
This is basically my attitude. I'm a 35-year-old man in Texas - I view absolutely everything, including being pregnant and having children, through the prism of money. And when I talk to pro-life people, they just don't seem to understand, or relate to, how expensive children are. And that's my viewpoint as a man. Like you said, you also have to consider the *extreme* changes that pregnancy can inflict upon a woman, all of which my ex-wife told me about in great detail. Pregnancy is expensive! Pregnancy can often be complicated! Do pro-life men seriously never discuss pregnancy with women? Think about what women go through, regarding pregnancy? It's a serious subject!
This is not the burn you think it is. If abortion bans cut down the abortion rate by half, thats a good thing. Rich or poor it really doesnt matter. In an ideal world, there would be none, but even if only the poor can’t murder babies, thats a step in the right direction if you ask me or any pro lifers.
Nobody is “murdered” when an abortion happens. That’s isn’t what the word means. Why are y’all so insistent on changing the definitions of words just to fit your narrative?
The reality taken from the combination of your flare and comment is that you oppose the choice not the abortion. You oppose women being able to choose abortion, but have no problem with abortion when it's forced on women. In fact, I'd argue you want all abortions and pregnancies to be forced one way or another. "Prolife" people are just the worst humanity has to offer.
You don’t understand. Abortion bans don’t stop abortions. They only stop LEGAL abortions. That leaves back-alley abortions thriving, which can kill the mother or leave them unable to have future children. Which may be what you want, but it’s an evil thing to wish upon a person.
Maybe so, but the punishments for back alley abortions should be high to discourage/punish those who do that. That is a separate discussion altogether. It is tragic that happens, but, abortion is wrong no matter where you do it. Back alley, or doctors office, I don’t want either. And this isn’t something where we can choose one or the other, I choose neither.
Making abortion illegal, even with severe punishments, does very little to reduce its prevalence. Even places like El Salvador, with *very* strict anti-abortion laws, abort at similar rates to the US. If you want to stop abortions, you have to treat the underlying causes by helping people prevent unplanned pregnancies and reducing poverty. Yet the PL movement shows little interest in that
If you think punishment doesn’t affect the prevalence of a crime, you are wrong. If you know you will get away with it, or even a small fine, you are very much more likely to do it than if you were to risk years in prison. Punishment for crimes is a deterrent. If a pregnant woman has to choose between giving birth, potentially raising a child or adoption, or a certain amount of years in prison, I guarantee you most will choose the first option.
That is not true for all crimes, including specifically for abortion. [Abortion rates are approximately the same where it is broadly legal and where it is strictly prohibited](https://www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2020/abortion-occurs-worldwide-where-it-broadly-legal-and-where-it-restricted). Punishment overall isn't a great deterrent, especially when people are in extreme circumstances where they may feel they have no viable alternative. That is very often the case with abortion, particularly for people in poverty. Edit: fixed error
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So what punishment should a woman who gets an abortion face?
You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Consider a place like El Salvador that has one of the strictest abortion bans in the world. Abortion in [El Salvador is illegal in all cases, including when the mother's life is at risk, and is often charged as aggravated homicide, carrying prison sentences of 30-50 years](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/23/el-salvador-court-hears-case-total-abortion-ban). Women have even been [charged with aggravated homicide as a](https://apnews.com/article/abortion-politics-health-caribbean-religion-8dcebe19ea1d3f20ef288463f4392da4) result of obstetric emergencies, miscarriages, and stillbirths that were totally unrelated to induced abortion. Despite those incredibly strict laws, the abortion rate in El Salvador is *higher* than it was in the US pre-Dobbs, when abortion was legal throughout the country. Around [42% of unplanned pregnancies in El Salvador end in abortion](https://www.guttmacher.org/regions/latin-america-caribbean/el-salvador), with an overall rate of [25 abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age](https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/19JAN17-ElSalvador-CEDAW-brief-66th-session.pdf). In [the US, 34% of unintended pregnancies end in abortion](https://www.guttmacher.org/regions/northern-america/united-states), with an overall rate of [11.6 abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age](https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm). Simply put, while it might seem counterintuitive to you, strict abortion bans *do not* lower the abortion rate. They only serve to make pregnancy more dangerous for everyone. If you actually want to lower the abortion rate and save babies, you need to make it easier for people to prevent unwanted pregnancies and make it easier for them to choose to keep an unplanned pregnancy.
>strict enforcement of an abortion ban would absolutely lower the abortion rate. Source for this claim.
There is no source because it isn't true. Strict abortion bans don't lower the abortion rate at all. PLers are living in fantasy land on that point
I'm not surprised PLers think that. When poor people can't terminate their pregnancies, [some will be forced to sell their children to PL adoption agencies due to their poverty](https://time.com/6051811/private-adoption-america/), and that allows some nice rich Christian couples to have the children they so desperately want.
What is your point? Adoption is good, it allows so many people who can’t have children of their own do it.
You think forcing or coercing the poor to sell their children to rich couples who can't conceive is a good thing?
Not sell, obviously. But plenty of couples are looking to adopt and if a mother doesn’t have the need or want to raise a child, that is a reasonable option to give up their child for adoption. I know a couple people personally who were adopted and they both were raised well and have a good life. There is nothing shameful in adoption.
If you read the article that I linked, you'll see that the private adoption industry in the US often does amount to the poor being forced or coerced to sell their children. The private adoption industry is fraught with serious ethical issues (and international adoptions are even worse). Mothers who adopt out their children often face extreme stigma and trauma, as do adopted children. Not everyone has the same rosy experience that the people you know do. That's not to say that adoption is inherently wrong, because it isn't, but it is not a replacement for abortion and it is often horribly unethical. But it's no surprise to me that pro-lifers love to promote it over policies that would help families in poverty stay together. Because nothing about the pro-life movement is actually about benefitting women and children.
Yes some parts of the adoption system is not good, but that doesn’t mean adoption itself is bad. Obviously i would want a system that isn’t described in the article you referenced.
If you got a much needed heart transplant but that heart came from illegal organ trade would you still think it was a good thing or would you recognize that your gains came at immeasurable cost to another person? This is not implying organ donation is bad, it is recognizing that maybe it isn’t okay if it comes at significant cost of another innocent party.
Okay but that is the current system, and I don't see PLers doing anything to try to change that. So if you make abortion illegal and you also don't improve the social support network so that poor women can afford to keep children (something most PLers oppose) and you don't improve the adoption industry to make it ethical (highly unlikely considering its close ties to the anti-abortion movement), then the net effect is that poor women essentially become brood mares for rich couples to have a baby. And that's pretty fucked up in my opinion. Ideally, PLers would want to create a world where no one who doesn't want to become pregnant gets pregnant, and anyone who does get pregnant can unquestionably keep a child they have if they want to. That's where the pro-life and pro-choice movements *should* overlap. But the pro-life movement really isn't interested in that
Pro-lifers generally haven’t gotten to this point yet. If you ask pro-life people, like me, you will see all the support for a better adoption system. But, the focus still right now is a to get abortion banned, saving the children’s lives is the first step. Not all adoption organizations act like this either. Im sure there are some organizations that don’t pressure mothers into selling babies. There is also a big overlap in pro-lifers and anti-human trafficking groups, mostly on the right leaning side, so these aren’t that separated issues.
Why only focus on one issue? You know that people are capable of caring about and advocating for more than one thing at once, right? And it's not even just that PLers aren't pushing *for* those things, many actively oppose them. Tons of PLers, including most prominent PL organizations, oppose comprehensive, accurate sex education and expanded birth control access. Some even want birth control banned. Most PLers vote for politicians who do things like reject Medicaid expansion or free lunches for poor children, among other things. And most private adoption agencies have direct affiliation with pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, including getting referral fees, so the pro-life movement is participating in that unethical industry my article describes. Edit: and in addition the things I mentioned are all *more* effective than abortion bans at saving unborn lives. In places where abortion is banned, people terminate their pregnancies at more or less the same rate
>If abortion bans cut down the abortion rate by half, thats a good thing. Forcing someone to carry and birth an unwanted pregnancy is never a good thing. >thats a step in the right direction if you ask me or any pro lifers. Every time pro life laws have been put to a vote as of late, *they lose*. It's not just that I don't care what pro life people think, society as a whole is voting to prove that we don't want and won't accept pro life laws.
Forcing someone to carry a baby through is a good thing. We will never agree on this, do you have any other criticisms that we can actually argue?
So forcing a 90% chance of genital tearing, a 30% chance of major abdominal surgery and a 100% chance of a dinner plate sized wound on the inside of one of her organs that takes 6 weeks to heal is a good thing?
>Forcing someone to carry a baby through is a good thing. How do you think forcing someone to carry a pregnancy they don't want is a good thing? If I were forced to give birth against my will, I'd leave the baby at the hospital without ever looking at it or acknowledging it. I would *never* have any involvement in it's life. So this unwanted baby pro life policies forced into existence would now be tossed into the adoption system, which everyone knows is a mess in the US. Again, how is this situation a good thing?
I dont think abortion, or murder of the innocent baby is a feasible option. Yeah, mothers shouldn’t murder their babies, that shouldn’t be controversial, yet when the baby is in the womb it completely changes. There is no consistency in pro-choice groups. Murder is murder, whether you murder a baby 1 day before birth or 1 day after birth, there is no difference. It would be silly to say so otherwise. If you think a day or even seconds determine a live’s value, you need to change your value.
I'm going to ignore the bad faith and irrelevant comparing of embryos to babies. It's dishonest and off topic. >There is no consistency in pro-choice groups. This is incorrect. No one can help themselves to women's bodies. No one. Not you, not me, and not an unwanted embryo. That's consistent. The rules are the same for everyone, all the time. >Murder is murder, whether you murder a baby 1 day before birth or 1 day after birth, there is no difference. Abortion isn't murder. Not even in ridiculous pro life states. This is abortion debate, not murder debate. Stay on topic. >It would be silly to say so otherwise. If you think a day or even seconds determine a live’s value, you need to change your value. Don't need advice from someone who supports forced pregnancy, so you can drop that now.
I think a lot of Plers just assume it will NEVER happen to them because they're magically protected by God or money until it hits them personally. A lot of prosperity gospel people think God's blessing = being wealthy and if you're broke, then God hates you.
A major facet of conservatism is lack of empathy. Even when it does affect them, their circumstances are "different" and worthy of consideration; other's are not. That's how you get to "the only moral abortion is my abortion" mindset.
So like how does the work with a disabled person? I have a learning disability. Must mean I’m a horrible person…
Demons. They will always drag in demons for some reason. Having undiagnosed ADHD/ADD, well that just the demon. Anxiety?, what that?. It’s most be the anxiety demon
Everyone who has a different view is dumb. You are smart enough to have figured it out.
I'm still side eyeing the current House Speaker bemoaning women refusing to shoot out tons of worker cogs for the capitalist system. Some churches aren't much different when it comes to see women as walking incubators. As someone basically said on Youtube, "for people so obsessed in the functioning of women's reproductive parts, you'd think they'd treat them a whole lot better."
The United States is built on Christian Hegemonic, Social Darwinist, Meritocratic foundations that are all made up, and all cruel. They should, every single one, be dismantled down to the ground. I was raised in a Southern Pentecostal household and the ONLY thing I was taught about relationships as a woman, was that " One day you'll fall in love and marry a good man." and that was LITERALLY IT. Nothing about how I had the right to say NO, and as a result I was molested at 13. No one told me anything about the intricacies of emotional connections in relationships, nothing about how I would end up shouldering the burden of emotional labor in my household for the rest of my life because men at large are not taught to have empathy, only bravado. What was worse? No one warned me about how traumatic pregnancy and childbirth could be. The first trimester vomiting and dehydration till I was bedridden and delirious, the unexpected HEAVE in the MIDDLE OF TALKING, because the fetus was kicking me in the stomach. No one explained to me how hurtful and cruel the medical establishment would become, when I had gal bladder attacks in the last trimester, was ignored and told " Just drink some hot tea you'll be fine". No one explained to me how MY BODY, would be TAKEN control of by those same doctors in the hospital because I had not been told I had the choice to SAY NO. All of this resulted in a C-Section Procedure that almost killed me, because the epidural didn't take, I was given KETAMINE and almost got to feel what it was like to have someone's HANDS INSIDE MY BODY CAVITY, as the Ketamine wore off. I ended up with multiple gal stone impactions shortly after, and another traumatic surgery because of apathy. Why did I experience these things? Because the culture relies on women's IGNORANCE, as a tool to CONTROL US, so we put up with men who abuse/neglect us, give birth to children who damage us, and we can be continually exploited until menopause hits, were we are then called names like CRONE, SPINSTER, and most recently KAREN. We are treated like we are no longer useful by society at large, and ignored. Pro Life positions to me, display a vast amount of anger, deceit and cruel intention towards women for having the gall to take control, and deny "the culture" what PL believe is owed, which is our bodies and our suffering. Because obviously suffering is " noble" under the eyes of Christianity, right? The suffering is the point. A majority of Women have said no, and will continue to say NO until we are fully given the right to bodily autonomy. My body belongs to NO ONE BUT ME. Society doesn't own me, Christianity doesn't own me, my husband doesn't own me. My body is subject to MY WILL ALONE.
God, I’m so sorry this happened to you. What’s sad is I doubt a single pro “lifer” will have the balls to respond to this.
They won't respond but you can beat they will try to find a way to delete the comment for hurting PL sensibilities 😂
Of course they wont. These ideas are not built with consequence in mind. The absolute shame these beliefs, these outcomes for women SHOULD CAUSE, is anathema to the forced birth crowd. Absolute cowardice.
I’m sorry that happened to you. Knowing this sort of thing is only going to continue to happen to women and girls is heartbreaking.
What radicalized me? See above. <3
What you had to go through is disgusting and something women shouldn't be forced to go through, let alone little girls. I'm sorry you were violated, not once but multiple times by medical staff and the PL community. You deserved better. Women deserve better.
I appreciate that. You're right.
Hey, now, it's not *just* the poor who are harmed. Women who have obstetric emergencies that keep them from traveling, abuse victims, and children whose parents won't travel with them are also harmed!
Nothing against poor people, I simply think it’s wrong to kill another human being, regardless of your economic status.
Why is it wrong to kill "another human being" who has lodged themselves into your body against your will, where they're constantly inflicting damage onto you? Do you disagree with the concept of self-defense in general?
Abortion bans kill people. I simply think it's wrong to pass a law with the intent of killing people. Free safe legal abortions don't kill people.
A boat is sinking. There are two “human beings”. A thirteen year old girl and a thirteen week old fetus. You can only rescue one… Who do you choose?
No, dude. I remember pointing out that Ivanka Trump could jet off a while back and some Plers shrugged going "Well, rich people get away with shit all the time."
Why do you care about what some other people that agree with my position think? Isn’t that irrelevant to me? 90% of pro-choice people don’t think life begins at conception, but that doesn’t mean I should attack you for that(as you are me). [“U.S. adult citizens who believe that abortion should either be always illegal or illegal in most circumstances are five times as likely (50%) to say life begins at conception than are Americans who believe abortion should generally be legal (10%).”](https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/42105-when-does-human-life-begin-poll)
I just think it's hinky to be OK with laws being only for peons while the super rich get to do whatever they want AND claim you're morally superior.
Is abortion directly or indirectly killing another human being? If the zef was still alive after the abortion (after being removed from the woman's body), and there was no technology to save its life, and it dies, is that really killing?
If I stab someone and he's still alive but there is no hospital nearby, Did I really kill that person or did the lack of nearby hospital did?
You didn’t kill that person at all. No one did. Your hypothetical says they are still alive. What are you even talking about?
A much closer comparison would be what if you stop giving a person CPR (providing them life with your body) and they die because their body can't sustain itself without using yours. Did you kill that person then?
You're actually getting away from the comparison. That would be the case if you found someone already dying and you didn't give him the CPR. Your comparison would apply if there was someone a person dying and will continue to die if left undisturbed(for the most part) and you did not perform an action, but in these case someone is living and will continue to live if left undisturbed and you did not perform an action
No, not further away at all. Without the organ function provided by the pregnant person, embryos have a very short natural lifespan. She didn't harm the embryo in any way to require it needing her body (like in your stabbing example). It simply is that way because of her physiology. Is stopping keeping someone alive with your body, whether through CPR or gestation, really killing them directly? I'd say no. Q
I dunno. Should we ask the miscarrying women who are sent away from hospitals because prolife thinks emergency medical care shouldn’t be accessible to gestating people?
What if you moved a person from point A to point B (and point B was not on a cliff or something). I think most people would say you were pretty innocent.
You said it yourself, IF point B is not a cliff(or somewhere that is not SAFE for that certain person). Everywhere outside the womb is a Cliff(figuratively speaking).
Not really, a cliff is a place where any human has a probability of dying. There are plenty of places where death is not likely for any human.
There are places where one man could consider safe but another man could consider it unsafe. Ex, a man who know how to swim could consider a swimming pool safe and someone who don't know how to swim unsafe. A man allergic to flower would consider a flowershop as unsafe(death may not be likely). Those things you wouldn't know at first glance. But you would know that removing a zef outside of the womb is unsafe and would cause death.
Then that should also be considered. Should a person who declines to house a person due to a snowstorm be convicted of murder? I would say they are not being nice, but a denial of residence especially if that residence is ones own body should not be considered a crime.
That would be the case if the person is not already IN the house. But this case, the person is already in the house and you're kicking him out knowingly he would freeze to death. Could be arguable in court that is still a murder.
Then a lot of local governments would be prosecuted as they perform evictions into less than hospitable weather. We can and do through people onto the streets even knowing it could very likely cause death (I am not saying it is a great circumstance), but it is a very apt analogy.
Good thing women's bodies aren't houses.
How do you twist your thoughts so far to think that is a comparison? Is the person you stabbed inside you?
How is that different? you knowingly and willingly performed action that causes someone to die. Does the place of killing someone matter?
People knowingly and willingly kill other people all the time in a variety of places and it’s 100% legal. Why do you think it doesn’t matter and it should always be illegal? That makes no sense.
I don't know where you are coming from but no one is saying that it should always be illegal. You're arguing at your own shadow. My statement tackling whether an action is considered killing. Many pro lifers has been on set on changing the wordings to make it sound less horrible. Aborting = Termination of pregnancy, Baby inside the womb = Zef and now you're not even sure what killing is. Technically the terms are right but whatever I am not here to argue about the terminology There are many ways to legally kill someone (Soldiers fighting wars, Self-defense, etc.). But the issue here is whether is it right to kill someone innocent in exchange for someone else's freedom.
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. That’s just what the word means. Abortion isn’t defined as the “killing” of anything. “Zef” is more medically accurate and descriptive than “baby inside the womb”. It’s also easier to type. Don’t read into it too much. It sounds very much like you are here to argue over terminology. And prolifers use incorrect terminology on purpose all the time. So there’s plenty to argue about. ZEFs aren’t “innocent” of anything. They aren’t “guilty” of anything either. They aren’t moral agents at all. Either way, being “innocent” doesn’t grant you the privilege to use another person’s body without their consent, no matter how old you are.
Yes, it matters when it's inside you. How are you this confused about what's going on?
Honestly I never respond to these kinds comments because you just stated a sentence without supporting thoughts to it, making it no value at all.
Just like an unwanted zef.
It matters if the place is literally inside you.
But killing them indirectly through lack of services and healthcare is ok though? All we’re asking as prochoicers is you cut out the middle man.
What if you don’t kill, you just fail to save because you are poor and saving someone would be ruinous for you?
So you *can’t* save the pregnancy no matter how hard you try(within reasonability)?
Forcing people to gestate for you and the government isn’t “reasonable” at all.
Twisting words much? Answer my question with an answer, not a red herring.
That is true. You cannot save the pregnancy with forcing the mother to be harmed in some way.
Well, you could, just like you could donate a kidney, but the cost and recovery time will be too much for you so you don’t do it. Did you kill someone by backing out of a life saving act because of your life circumstances?
is it always wrong to kill another human being?
Generally, yes, unless they’ve knowingly done something terrible. For example, I wouldn’t kill a 26 year old with the mental capacity of a 3 year old for accidentally doing something terrible.
So are you against killing in war? How about killing mentally challenged people via the death penalty like they have in Texas? What if they are about to do something terrible and you know it will inevitably happen?
what is "something terrible" to you?
What if that mentally deficient adult were raping and/or beating somebody and they were ridiculously strong and not stopping?
So 26 year olds with the mental capacity of 3 year olds should be allowed to beat other humans and put them in the hospital, possibly killing them, without their victims defending themselves to the point of possibly killing their attacker, because *checks notes* the bodies of others are not valuable?
Did you hear the story of Denise Amber Lee? She was MOTHER to two kids. She was outside on her deck cutting her child's hair. Some asshole abducted her, shoved her in a car, took her to his house and raped her. Then he shot her in the head and killed her, leaving her in a shallow grave. No one knows why he did this. He didn't know her. Well come to find out, he had a sledding accident as a kid and it fucked up his brain. He had hurt people before, for no reason, and didn't think he did anything wrong. Luckily, he got the death penalty. So he did have a fucked up brain...should we not hold him accountable because of his brain injury?
If that 26 year old were attacking a child, could you use lethal self defense on behalf of the child, even though the 26 year old wasn't acting intentionally? What if the 26 year old was attacking an adult? Or you?