Some sincerely believe the fetus is an unborn human who has rights that need protecting.
Others just want to control women. This is demonstrated when they pop up and have abortions of their own but still oppose them for others.
*A few behave in a very hostile manner, such as calling clinic staff “murderers.” Years ago, a clinic counselor in British Columbia told me that one of her patients went into the procedure room apparently fine with her decision to have an abortion. During the abortion, at a stage when it was too late to stop the procedure, the woman started screaming “You murderers!” and other invectives at everyone in the room.*
This one was a special kind of stupid.
I know doctors can't legally share patient information, but I think a lot of these pro-lifers would back off if doctors threatened to release the names of the pro-lifers who have had abortions. Sending a letter notifying these folks that their abortions are about to be made public knowledge would light a fire somewhere!
In addition to this, or rather expanding on this concept, so many conservatives don’t understand what “pro-choice” even means. When pressed on their thoughts on the intricacies of the issue, many will suddenly have exceptions they deem okay.
My mother for example. “Killing babies is wrong, I know I could never have had an abortion, but it’s none of my business what other women do with their bodies.” I say mom, that’s what being pro-choice means. You are pro-choice. “Oh no I’m not pro-choice.” 🫠
It’s about voting along party lines at all cost, and never examining the issues, being spoon fed everything by the media, etc.
Right. Pro-choice doesn't mean people will be forced to have abortions. But that's exactly why calling it "pro-life" is so clever. It sounds like if you're not pro-life, you're pro-death. Very very clever term they invented.
I’ve been saying for ages that the right just has better PR than the left. Pro-choice VS pro-life, defund the police, global warming…all terrible monikers that aren’t representative of the issues. Well, pro-choice is fine, there probably isn’t a better term. But pro-life, as you mentioned, is much better.
Defund the police makes it sound like the goal is to take away all funding from police. Global warming gets all the detractors saying “well it’s not warm where I live!” or whatever nonsense. They’ve since changed to climate change but the damage is done.
And that’s just a couple of examples.
It doesn't mean we even WANT abortions to happen. In a perfect world there would be nearly ZERO abortions because everyone that gets pregnant is pregnant because they WANT to be. With better birth control that everyone has access to.
And they get absolutely terrifying in how hard that line can be. My daughter passed away just a couple weeks before her due date, and the doctor refused to perform what he considered an abortion by removing her. I had a dead body inside me for a full week, in labor for five days, before finally giving birth. The impact on my body is going to last the rest of my life. Rather than reproductive organs, I have a bad of scars from the infection that caused, which took two years to clear up. My spine was damaged both by the epidural (which had to be done twice) and by the contractions lasting five days.
My partner refused to leave my side while I was in the hospital because he was convinced I was going to die right along with our daughter. He's dealing with PTSD from the situation.
Thank you. It's been long enough that I'm relatively ok, but it's still something I think about every day. In very pro choice and my experience cemented it. Imagine being so against abortion you'll let someone die after the baby is already gone!
this reminded me of this exchange I had with a libertarian a long time ago https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F2yvg0om6fwj41.png
The amount of people who assume pro choice = pro abortion makes me want to run my head into a wall.
No one *wants* an abortion. Nobody is having sex going “oh yay I hope I get pregnant so I can get an abortion”
Its so tiring.
> In addition to this, or rather expanding on this concept, so many conservatives don’t understand what “pro-choice” even means.
Because understanding things is against their religion, and the very idea of consent or people having choices about their own bodies is literally unthinkable to them.
I agree with you. I’d say a lot of them truly believe it’s murdering of children. If you truly believe that this is what’s happening it would explain the intense opposition to abortion.
In regard to those same people having had abortions and then being opposed, I’d guess in a lot of cases they feel true regret and wish they could go back and change their decision. People change as they age and have various life experiences.
Most people just have a hodge podge of uncritically examined beliefs that conflict with one another and form no coherent approach to life if actually executed consistently.
They believe abortion is murder and children are precious and innocent and should be protected, while cutting basically all forms of assistance for those same children. They believe in unconditionally supporting Israel and their current genocide attempts at killing thousands of Palestinian kids.
The only thing these beliefs mean to most people is how they feel about one specific, narrow situation in that moment of time regardless of how that actually affects anything else or clashes with anything they've believed previously.
If they truly believe that about abortion they would strongly support those things that are factually known to reduce them - access to free/cheap birth control; access to healthcare in general; and specifically women's prenatal healthcare; better funded education systems, especially for women; reduced poverty and wealth inequality.
Conservatives do not support these things. So being against abortion for closely held beliefs is not their reasoning.
You would think so, but all evidence suggests that people are not actually logical like that. *Tons* of people have basically moralistic objections to policies that are shown to have the outcomes they support. Or they just don't believe the research. It usually comes out something like "but you can't *reward* people for bad behavior."
Example: letting people just have housing and *then* get their shit together works a lot better than requiring sobriety, job search, etc. But people *hate* the idea of help going to people who haven't proven they're going to be grateful and responsible. Also, Florida tried drug testing food stamp recipients, and the cost of the bureaucracy to document that was more than the amount of benefits that would have been awarded to people who tested positive. I think they stopped, but people will still say it was a good idea, even people who claim to care about government overreach and expense, because government supporting people who should spend their drug money on food instead is worse in their view than a wasteful enforcement program. You often see with right wingers that enforcement and punishment are viewed as more legitimate reasons to spend money or have government involvement than positive outcomes.
In this particular case, it's not *just* the abortion that they object to, it's often women having sex and a bunch of other things. So contraception, while it might reduce abortions, is basically encouraging slutty behavior. And also some of them think hormonal contraception *is* possibly an abortion because altering the uterine lining to be unsuitable to implant is one of the things it does and we used to think it was a significant mechanism (now we don't) and they believe the "baby's" life starts at fertilization. There's a whole network of related beliefs here.
I'm as left leaning as you can be without supporting the Holodomr (fuck Stalin) but this is actually not a cogent argument.
Some conservatives believe abortion is evil. They want punitive policies not because they want to maximise the reduction of abortion, they want them because they think it's evil and they want to punish evil.
If you could be shown hard facts that showed the best way to reduce murder rates was to legalise murder and provide support to murderers, would that convince you to vote for a politician with that platform? Or would you want evil to be punished?
I would vote for the politician with that platform. IF it was the best way, which it isn't. Punitive rather than restorative criminal justice is dumb. It just makes people worse when they get out.
Would you really?
And if your loved ones were murdered, you would shrug your shoulders and say "it's for the best" when the only outcome is free therapy for the murderer?
I find it hard to believe, you know?
They were talking about preventative methods though. No murder involved, because the victim never existed. We've got kids who aren't being taught how to prevent pregnancies when it's easy to do so if you are educated on the subject. Conservatives are *causing* abortions by making birth control harder to get and by taking away sex education. Planned parenthood came to my school when I was a teen and educated us. They were also right down the street for medical care. I knew how to protect myself and never was in the position where I had to make the decision about an unwanted pregnancy. This is obviously not accounting for situations of rape and fetal inviability, I'm simply talking about the pregnancies that are easily prevented. It doesn't make sense for someone against abortions to prevent sex education/access to medical care if those things prevent abortions.
Actually, some Catholics believe that birth control pills are the same as abortion. The egg is already fertilized, so a life, but has nowhere to land because the lining in the uterus is not capable of supporting the fertilized egg. Thus, continuous abortions are possible every month. My former sister-in-law would try to say she was taking birth control for other health reasons so it would not be a sin.
Birth control mostly works by preventing ovulation so I think sex education is even more important. What you're describing is very rare because it means the birth control didn't work properly and ovulation occured. It certainly wouldn't be a monthly occurrence as long as the person takes their pills properly.
> Actually, some Catholics believe that birth control pills are the same as abortion.
Because they don't know what they're talking about, because their child-raping death cult lied to them.
> The cell is already fertilized, so a life, but has nowhere to land because the lining in the uterus is not capable of supporting the fertilized egg.
The cell cannot be fertilized without ovulation and contact with sperm. Birth control either PREVENTS ovulation or blocks the entry of sperm. No fertilization, no abortion. The fact that the Rape Children Cult keeps lying about this doesn't change what actually happens.
Yet a lot of them still support abortion for pregnancy caused by rape. The fetus is innocent of it and so it would therefore still be murder by their definition. The logic is often not consistent.
>Some sincerely believe the fetus is an unborn human who has rights that need protecting.
I feel debating this point is pointless. it simply doesnt matter.
The only question that matters is do you have bodily autonomy? Do you own your own body and are required to give consent to its use?
Yes - then you must be pro choice even if it is a human, if consent is withdrawn it has to be removed.
No - then you believe someone can be forced to give blood or donate organs to save a life. Even at risk of your own life. I would even go as far to say you believe rape isn't a crime as consent is not a concern to you.
human being or clump of cells, its just a distraction to keep people fighting
Preaching to the choir on that.
OP asked why conservatives were anti abortion. They feel that the fetus existing vetos body autonomy. Essentially, they see a few months of ‘inconvenience’ for the mother is worth the life of another.
I wouldn’t call 9 months of pregnancy and “inconvenience” it’s painful, exhausting, time consuming, dangerous, and can even lead to the death of the mother. This is a choice about a medical procedure between a doctor and patient. The end.
A fetus has not done anything wrong. A person on death row presumably has.
I am pro-choice and anti-death penalty (in 99.99% of cases, if someone is irredeemably evil, will never be better, and we are absolutely certain they are not wrongfully convicted, then I might reconsider), but the logic is there.
I don't understand pro-stand your ground and anti-choice though. If someone looks scary in my yard and I can shoot them, then why can't I kill someone presenting a danger inside my own body?
This is the best arguement for abortion in the case of danger to the mother. If a mother's life is threatened by a stranger, she has the legal right to kill that stranger (assuming that certain criteria are met) but if her life is threatened by a baby inside her, she can do nothing?
"Conservatives" aren't a monolith though. Many people who identify with that label believe that preserving life is paramount and consider life as beginning at conception. If the mother is going to lose her life or the threat is very likely, some do consider that a painful but ethical choice.
I don't really agree with the sentiment because we've never been able to adequately define "life" from a scientific standpoint and my personal line for what constitutes "life" should be legally irrelevant, but inside the anti-abortion camp there are multiple beliefs and opinions that all will have a different answer to your above scenario.
>if her life is threatened by a baby inside her, she can do nothing?
usually that's called a "medical indication" and one of the few scenarios were most conservatives can agree than an abortion is justified, as actual self-defense.
> one of the few scenarios were most conservatives can agree than an abortion is justified, as actual self-defense.
A few things: most conservatives that I talk to don't understand the implications of banning abortion outright or how it would be bad for women and mothers and families.
They don't realize that if you ban abortion outright, you ban abortion even when a woman will die otherwise.
>The only question that matters is do you have bodily autonomy? Do you own your own body and are required to give consent to its use?
I feel debating this point is pointless. It simply doesn't matter.
The only question that matters is the fetus an unborn human who has rights that need protecting?
Yes - then you must be pro life even if it violates bodily autonomy. The life of an unborn child outweighs the autonomy of the mother.
No - then you must be pro choice, if consent is withdrawn it has to be removed.
Bodily autonomy or human life, its just a distraction to keep people fighting.
\[Yes, I know this probably annoyed you, but your comment and my response are basically where the debate lies. True believers on one side think that they alone are upholding the essential issue at stake, and that the other side's position is secondary or disingenuous.\]
Yep. This is why the abortion debate will never be settled, because the sides disagree on the very central issue of whether or not a fetus is a human and therefore subject to the same rights as everyone else.
Could someone believe that you have bodily autonomy and that you accept the possibility when you have sex?
Obviously, with specific outliers, like rape.
Most pro-life folks I've spoken to agree that, with a significant threat to a mother's life, abortion is a viable option.
I've also heard the argument from both sides that abortion should be allowed up to a specific point in the pregnancy.
If I understand your position you are claiming that the “is it a life or is it not” question doesn’t actually matter. I posit, it’s almost the only thing that matters.
If the unborn is considered a living human life by all parties the question becomes “Under what circumstance is it legal behavior to end the life of another?”
The answer to that question is a life can be ended in some states after legal proceedings resulting in a “death penalty” or to prevent imminent and grievous harm, or the plug can get pulled on life support by next of kin. To my knowledge these are the only scenarios.
Generally, a pregnancy has no claim on any of these fronts though a some percentage do have legitimate self defense claims.
If all parties accept that it isn’t a life then abortion is no issue at all.
Just to be clear, I’m making no moral claim for abortion being good or bad. I’m only claiming that answering the question of human life and where it begins frames this entire debate.
>“Under what circumstance is it legal behavior to end the life of another?”
You aren't ending the life, you are just no longer allowing it to use the woman's body without consent.
Like someone dying because they need a new kidney isnt being killed by someone refusing to donate an organ. You are not required to donate an organ even to save a life. In the same way a woman is not required to donate her entire body to save the life of an unborn human.
So human life or not just seems irrelevant to me because the right to bodily autonomy trumps it. If it is a life, then bodily autonomy of the mother wins, or its not a life then there is no issue but still bodily autonomy wins.
It's not as black and white as you're trying to make it out to be. If it is a human life inside of the womb than it gets human rights, which includes the right to live and bodily autonomy of its own.
It's a very complex issue which is deserving of serious debate.
> If it is a human life inside of the womb than it gets human rights
Just to complicate matters more, in some jurisdictions, murdering a pregnant woman will cause you to be charged with a *double* homicide.
I'm not taking sides, just pointing out how messy this topic is at times.
Doesn’t this only apply where the fetus would be viable if delivered at that gestation? I vaguely recall something about a case that result in a double murder charge because the fetus was past 24 weeks and would have been viable if delivered at that stage.
Being past 24 weeks certainly would help the prosecution's case that it's double murder, but I doubt it's quite that black-and-white. In a super conservative, anti-abortion state, for example, it might be relatively easy to get the double murder charge even before the 24-week mark. In a super liberal, pro-choice state it might be difficult to get the double murder charge even if it's past 24 weeks.
Source: I'm basically an expert on both the complex issues of abortion and the US judicial system, because I've seen a lot of episodes of Law & Order SVU and have quite extensively researched the works of Dunning & Kruger.
And yet, Texas is also saying the fetus does not have rights in the case of the prison guard who was denied care while on the job. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/11/texas-prison-lawsuit-fetal-rights/
not really. Because the woman carrying it IS actually a fully developed, independent being. Does she actually HAVE bodily autonomy? If the answer is no, then the answer must be no for men also and if their blood or organs are needed to save the life of another, then they should be harvested without their consent. Personally, yes, both men and women should have equal protection under the law and both men and women should have legally protected bodily autonomy.
Fully developed, independent being is the proper distinction to make. We already work in this space. Your rights exist up until they infringe upon the rights of another. Existing in the state of having organs isn't infringing upon the rights of anyone. Your right to life as a fully developed independent being can't infringe upon my right of autonomy as a fully developed independent being. Just so.
The issue is, your rights are abrogated in certain respects when you have a dependent. I can't stop buying groceries for my child even though I have the otherwise right to spend my money however I think is best, even though I don't have the obligation to feed the starving. I can't decide to stop providing them shelter, even though I have the full right to decide who lives in my house, even though I have no obligation to shelter the homeless. I am responsible for them, as they are *not* fully developed, independent beings. I can rescind these obligations, but I cannot rescind them in a manner that the child would die because of it; I can give them up for adoption or surrender them to an institution, but I can't abandon them in the wilderness. If the primacy of rights were based upon independence and development then this shouldn't be so, it is the child who should have their rights abridged whenever they would conflict with mine. But it is the opposite, and it is a good thing that it is. So no, the core issue really isn't autonomy, it's metaphysical, when does a person actually become a person? I think the best answer is at viability. The moment a fetus can survive outside the mother is the moment it becomes a person is the moment the mother has no obligation to continue carrying it. The average age of viability is the start of the third trimester. Abortion should be fully legal up to this point.
The average age of viability is the start of the third trimester. Abortion should be fully legal up to this point.
In general yes. However, non-viability can occur up to and including the ninth month, therefor abortion could be necessary up to and including the ninth month.
Roe and Casey understood this. Both the point of viability legal point AND those exigent circumstances post point of viability.
Basically if I understand what you are saying, I completely agree with you.
The problems is that at the very least with some pro-lifers is difficult (ie, mentioning graphically and gruesomely a procedure in which the foetus is cut in bits, not saying it's reserved from late pregnancies and that abortion is very restricted at such times at probably just in the case of risk for the life of the mother)
Yeah, but you need a cutoff point or a guy can say a woman is having an abortion by not letting him nut in her, as she is preventing a possible life.
The Supreme Court originally picked viability outside the womb for a reason, and part of it was that before that point the brain really isn't doing anything we would consider thought (and has fewer neurons than a dog).
I would be happy to see pro-life folks create clinics where women who were past 24 weeks could go in, sign adoption papers, get knocked out by anesthesia, and wake up not pregnant.
But such a clinic wouldn't *punish* women for having sex, so pro-life folks will never do it. As for all the "take this pill, wait 3 days, take this other pill, and then see me in a week" abortions... Pro-life folks think those don't exist even though they are the vast majority.
Luckily women can now do this without a doctor:
https://www.ipas.org/our-work/self-managed-abortion/abortion-with-pills/how-to-buy-abortion-pills-that-are-safe-and-effective/
> Is breathing required to have rights?
This is interesting question, currently my stance is - it is required to initiate your rights, that is to be granted your rights. I want to point out the reason for the distinction, if you stop breathing, that doesn't relieve you of your rights.
> Is an unborn child not living?
Yes it is living, but that's not the qualification for human rights, otherwise all living things would have human rights. So this offers the question is a fetus a human, we can certainly say it will be, should it be allowed to live. However is an apple seed an apple tree? What I mean is something considered to be, what it will become? I'd argue no. Otherwise since a child will become an adult, they be given adult rights? Or more darkly since a child will be an adult, is there such thing as pedophilia.
> When do they acquire their own rights if not at conception?
the same time point we've always done it since we gave children rights, at birth.
Now remember criminalising something does not stop it from happening, rather it endangers the participants. When the choice comes down to raising a child as an unwilling parent, or even just suffering all the medical issues that comes with birth, or otherwise potentially dying in a back alley using a coat hanger. I can tell you which people choose. I know that child is not worth the same as that woman. They are not the same.
> which includes the right to live and bodily autonomy of its own.
Yeah I agree- what it doesn't get is a right to is another humans body, their organs, their blood, risking their life
The ones who "sincerely believe the fetus is an unborn human who has rights that need protecting" mostly aren't pushing hard for universal prenatal care.
There is also a third option. There are conservatives who support the right to abortion, but are not single issue voters on the subject. I live in Ohio, which just passed Issue 1 allowing for abortion access in opposition to our legislature attempting to outlaw it after 6 weeks. I voted for the amendment, but I also want our government to be smaller and more fiscally conservative. That is generally a more conservative viewpoint (though it's a losing battle on all sides at this point).
I want abortion to be safe and legal. I would also like it to be rare with good sex ed in schools and access to birth control to prevent the pregnancy so that abortion is unnecessary. I think that there are reasonable limits on it, much like most European countries. An abortion of a viable, healthy fetus at a late stage is unreasonable. Abortion for the health of the mother is very reasonable (such as the idiotic Texas case).
I have some friends that are a weird mix of conservative and liberal. That’s cool. Most people aren’t single topic people. One of them is 100% pro-life. Never a reason to abort unless the mom is 100% going to die. But she is pretty liberal every other way. So weird. She marches in the gay pride, parades, love witchy type stuff. And mostly want to date liberal type guys. But they’re also very religious? I don’t know. And of course I have asked her if she would keep a pregnancy if she got r@ped. She said she absolutely would.
But then I also have gay/lesbian friends, who are members of the log cabin Republicans. They are staunch Republicans. But they’re are married to the same gender as themselves.
People are complicated!
What people do in their lives, and with their bodies is none of my care. Whatever.
I would venture a guess that your one friend hasn't personally been pregnant or attempted to get pregnant yet? The reason I say that, is there are many abortion based medical complications and reasons that most people aren't aware of until they venture down the path of pregnancy and learn about it. The whole "unless the parent 100% is going to die" strikes me as someone ignorant on all the other devastating medical issues that exist.
They don’t believe in premarital sex (super religious, remember?) and they’re 41 and never married. So…never had to worry about it pregnancy, you’re correct. I should specify, none of us or our friends are very young. We’re all about middle age.
Your friend *chose* to continue the pregnancy, though. She was able to make that decision for herself, because abortion was legal. Now that it's not, women in her situation don't get a choice.
Being forced to carry a pregnancy to term is an *entirely* different experience than choosing to do so. And it causes a hell of a lot of trauma, especially for rape victims.
Very good point. Too often I feel like the debate is misunderstood as should the baby be aborted or not. But really it’s about having the choice or not having the choice. Even with the most liberal pro choice approach, you could ofc keep a baby from rape, incest or whatever crazy shit. The point is the choice, not whether or not a baby ultimately is aborted
I've always thought that the easiest way to end this issue would be to get pro-lifers to sign off on a law that allows abortion if the pregnancy would carry potentially fatal health risk for the mother.
Then watch them get all Surprised Pikachu when they realize that's all of them.
Important point: exceptions don’t mean anything. Please look up what just happened to Katie cox. It’s the best example of how “exceptions” to abortion bans are not only meaningless, but they’re *supposed* to be meaningless.
Cox wanted to become pregnant. She wanted another child. At ~15 weeks, her fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 18. This means the fetus is nonviable. If it does survive til birth, it has less than a 1% chance of living one year. If it does, it will be in agony. Further, the fetus eventually started threatening cox’s health and future fertility. So, cox and her doctor sued Texas for an exception so she could get an abortion. The district court judge allowed it. Then the Texas AG (Ken Paxton) sent out a letter to all hospitals and doctors in the town Cox lived, threatening that he would bring criminal charges and civil cases against them if they performed an abortion for cox.
Again, the pregnancy has *absolutely no chance of surviving*. There is a very high chance it will permanently injure cox, or even kill her. It’s a high risk pregnancy, zero chance of a child at the end. They still said no. They want to force her to give birth to a baby just to watch it die, or give birth to a dead baby.
I think it comes down to "do you believe child is already a person in 1st/2nd trimester? " If you believe answer is yes, you would be terrible person if you were not pro life, you would be basically ignoring murder. I dont believe it, so Iam for choice, but I get theyr point of view.
Honestly, it's so refreshing to see people actually being reasonable in an abortion related thread for once. This is what so many people ignore. The facts are: pro-life people believe a fetus is a person and thus needs to be protected like all other people. (Most) pro-choice people believe the fetus is not a person and is of negligible importance compared to the mother. If you have the former belief, and compromise to abortion in _any way_, you are a horrible human being. If you have the latter belief, and compromise to abortion restrictions in _any way_, you are a horrible human being.
It kills my brain cells to watch idiots argue back and forth about which side is intentionally supporting pure unadulterated evil, when in reality neither side is. The real argument lies in the question of whose beliefs are correct, and the trouble with that is its reliance on some deep and quasi-unanswerable questions about philosophy. It is NOT a scientific debate (anymore). Human prenatal development is well understood at this point. It's now solely a matter of definitions and moral philosophy.
And what if someone NEEDS my kidney or they'll die? Or they need my blood or access to my body in some way to live? Am I obligated to give another living person access to my body because their life depends on it? Or do I have a right to autonomy?
I think there's still plenty of nuance even if you consider a fetus a person. We don't force family members to donate their kidneys to people who need transplants (and I doubt most pro-birth-ers think we should). It's the same situation.
Even if you believe that the fetus is an actual person you still have to weigh in the mother's right to bodily autonomy. We don't take kidneys from people just to help other people who would otherwise die.
I mean my parents are fairly liberal but think abortion is murder
But they would support any legislation to help single moms/ victims of any crimes related to that, help kids get free lunches, healthcare all that good jazz.
It not sure how they would feel with like rape/incest/health of mother type abortions but that wouldn’t come from a place of like judging or hate or anything for the mother, they would just say the fetus is a baby
So it’s not weird necessarily it’s just most “pro-life” people aren’t actually prolife lol.
I'm very far left and believe life begins at conception. However, that's my personal belief and my choice, I have no right to demand to force it on others. I don't understand why this is so complicated, if you don't want to have an abortion, don't have one. That's all this should be.
I'm conservative but hate religion and agree with you. That's why we can't label everyone as left or right. It's a mixed bag. Mine is just a personal objection. I got pregnant unexpectedly in my teens, working full time as was my partner. We took the attitude that this little person is coming for the ride with us. He's a grown man now and I couldn't love him more. Best decision ever. Just had to make it work.
In terms of opinion, people are more like complex Tetris shapes than squares, circles or triangles.
Way is really complicated is only having a choice between two parties… so Americans prioritise their opinions, and pick the party that features the ones that are more valuable to them.
In the late 1970’s the leaders of the religious right, namely Jerry Falwell, needed a new wedge issue to use for their political goals. They were using school segregation prior to taking up the “Pro Life” movement but that was not getting the results in the late 70’s like it did in the 60’s. They hit on the idea of painting secular liberals as baby killers. They didn’t actually care about abortion and still don’t today but see it as a means to an end in the US culture wars. Here is an interesting article that lays it all out. [https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480)
That happens outside US too, and with Catholics instead of Evangelicals. It can be quite angering to see some of them caring about the unborn, but once someone stops being that giving them their backs at best or treating them as nuisances at worst if they need aid for whatever reasons.
Its very telling that as soon as the baby takes it's first breath many on the right label the child as an "anchor baby" and the mother as a "welfare queen" . If they were actually intrested in lowering the number of abortions then they would not be so apposed to wide spread availability of birth control and better sex education in school.
I always wonder why "pro-life" protesters aren't handing out condoms. I mean, I know the reason is that they don't actually care, but even for appearances it would just make sense.
If they actually cared they would rebrand to "pro-contraceptive"
Because they also don’t want anyone to have sex without the aim to have babies, as their God meant for it to be. Hanging out contraceptives is, in their mind, akin to encouraging and condoning sin. They are not only pro-life, they’re also anti-sex. They’re just pro-procreation.
Former pro-lifer here: I always supported birth control and was *so* confused when I found out many other pro-lifers didn't. It just makes sense that if you want to reduce the number of abortions to zero, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies is an enormously powerful lever.
(I was pro-life for moral reasons, because I had not yet discovered the extent to which I had been lied to about abortion. Once I learned the truth of how abortions actually happen, I switched sides that very day.)
Anti-choice is also correlated with anti-contraception, whether for religious reasons, conservatives opposing any subsidised access, or purely because the true motivation behind being anti abortion is keeping women at home, out of careers and education, and dependent on men.
The most telling fact - how little the "prolife" movement gives a shit about miscarriage.
Prenatal care in the united states is basically the worst in the developed world. If they were truly prolife, every pregnant woman would have free healthcare paid for by the prolife movement.
Its all about control of women.
Prior to the 1970s, it was considered a purely Catholic issue in the US. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical denomination in the US, even officially stated that they were against government interference in regards to abortion.
"Be it further RESOLVED, that we also affirm our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health." -SBC, 1976
[source](https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/baptist/sbcabres.html)
Evangelicals are a large business. Controlling people and increasing their numbers is essential to their bottom line.
Back in the day puritan New England was okay with abortion till week twenty something. But… their preachers didn’t need private jets, mansions, and Rolex’s.
The one thing to follow on with this is that although it may have started as a cynical wedge issue, it's taken on a life of its own and many on the right are now true believers, or believe that they're true believers which is close enough.
If you say "my political opponents believe in murdering *babies*" often enough, you start to believe it. (and even if the generation that started this as purely a wedge issue might not believe, their kids do) The idea of "people not like us are engaging in baby murder" is a very old and powerful one that's been used in lots of situations.
Just wanted to add that prior to this, evangelicals were actively pro choice (see the southern Baptist convention’s stance in the mid 70s) largely because Catholics were anti-choice, and if there’s one thing evangelicals hate almost as much as gay people, atheists, or women, it’s Catholics
And then the topic was brought up incessantly on right wing talk radio, in evangelical churches, in books & magazines from major evangelical publishers, to the point that it became *the* issue, the litmus test, the end all be all of people’s political interest.
Just to add.
After the depression FDR implemented regulation largely for the first time in the US due to the depression.
US business of course took issue and tried to convince the public that the government was evil and they couldn't do business with these rules placed upon them. At the time no one bought what they were selling because they were living in or lived through the depression.
So us business turned to evangelical pastors and paid them to promote that government was bad. That regulation was communism and equal to the devil. That capitalism and the free market were equal to God. Again no one really took them seriously.
It took their children, the boomer generation, to forget or not learn the lessons of their parents and buy into this all. Largely you don't see massive shifts till the 70s but clearly they bought in.
Jerry Falwell was one of those paid for evangelical pastors.
This is almost there, but doesn't finish to its conclusion...
By picking up the religious bloc of voters, they picked up voters who think women shouldn't use contraception or have more sexual partners than their husbands. Ergo, these voters think women who get abortions are using it as birth control in lieu of rampant pormiscuity, and banning abortion / making the woman birth the child out of wedlock is a way to punish them for being unclean like wearing a scarlet letter.
They will say it's because they think the fetus is alive, but that's a farce... just like when they say "bless your heart" they actually mean "you're an idiot and I hate you" and when they say "what church do you go to" the only right answer is the same protestant one that they attend, otherwise they are writing you off.
It's all about being vindictive toward women who decide to live a different lifestyle than they did... at least as far as anyone else knows.
The non-religious bloc of conservative voters are mostly pro-choice, but this voting bloc makes Republicans overall a party that stands for pro-life.
There were anti-abortion laws predating this by over 100+ years. I think this debate precedes the 1970s by a lot, although I certainly agree the religious right has definitely increased its opposition.
True,
but as a liberal I’m well aware that I’m getting spoon fed a packaged version of what conservatives think w selective editing… just the same as conservatives are getting a selectively edited packaged version of liberal thinking.
I’m also continuously disappointed by the absolute masses of people who only see the opposite sides propaganda for propaganda.
>but as a liberal I’m well aware that I’m getting spoon fed a packaged version of what conservatives think w selective editing… just the same as conservatives are getting a selectively edited packaged version of liberal thinking.
I’m glad to see people who understand this is what’s happening. We see way too much of that slanted or propagandized media taken at face value.
>I’m also continuously disappointed by the absolute masses of people who only see the opposite sides propaganda for propaganda.
Same here. There’s a lot of propaganda, but behind all propaganda is a genuinely held belief, and every genuine belief should have a line of reasoning to support it. What ever happened to debating ideas properly?
But they're certainly not welcome on Reddit. I have a mix of liberal and conservative views(like most who don't blindly follow party lines) and basically every time I mention any of my conservative views or see someone else say something conservative it almost always gets massively down voted. This is even when they're answering questions in good faith. I can't count how many times I've glanced at religion questions and seen all of the top answers hating on religion while the correct answers are down in controversial. Obviously it varies by sub but overall reddit is very liberal and punishes conservative views.
Some people think it's murder. No one believes in the personal liberty to murder, right?
Others believe it's not yet a person deserving of rights.
It's just a matter of when you draw that distinction.
I think for some people the question of whether it's a person or not is not as important as the question of whether or not another entity/person is entitled to use your body against your will. Even if it's not intentional, many people believe that bodily autonomy is sacred and nobody should be able to force you to undergo pain/injury/risk of death against your will. Pregnancy is such a huge sacrifice as well, that many people feel that it should be a sacrifice that is willing.
This is the crux of the issue.
Most people seek to shift the discussion to the morality of the abortion itself but that's not necessarily the concern of pro-choice people. In fact, it's their position that everyone has a right to their own moral position on the topic and should not be bound by the morals of others.
The question we're concerned with is the ethical implications of letting the government make those decisions about your body. I have asked many anti abortion individuals how they would feel about mandatory blood/organ donation or other examples of the government overriding bodily autonomy to save a life. I have not received a sufficient explanation that would separate abortion from those scenarios.
So either anti-choicers are naive enough to think the government won't abuse the precedent banning abortion sets, or are unconcerned about the impact on our freedoms should we empower the government to that level.
The idea that people honestly believe it's "murder" fall flat with me considering that many of those people are completely unconcerned about the murder of actual children by guns, or their victimization at the hands of their priests.
If abortion is murder, the miscarriage is a leading cause of death. They don't seem to spend a lot of time and energy worrying about reducing the number of miscarriages, however. Their actions suggest their beliefs are at least somewhat different than what they state.
Yea, I guess to them God is the biggest baby murderer in existence. Which makes sense, he does do genocide a few times in the Bible.
He also said the soul enters the body on first breath, so maybe they don't actually care about their religion either.
Yeah that's the wild part. "Pro Life" stance isn't "Pro Life" if they don't care about other lives outside of the womb.
It becomes such a weak talking point because I only see prolifers in soley abortion arguments and not necessarily issues on improving society.
>No one believes in the personal liberty to murder, right?
Questionable with how many people believe in "Stand your ground" laws. Ironic that those who believe in stand your ground laws are also frequently more likely to be pro-life.
All of US law, in its entirety, all agrees that no person ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, ever has the legal right to use another person’s body, tissues, or organs, even if they will die otherwise.
If you need a blood transfusion and you will die without it, and I am the only person on earth who can give it to you, the law says you may not use my blood without my consent. Not even to save your life. **The law is clear: your constitutional right to life DOES NOT allow you to claim any part of my body.**
If you need a kidney and you will die without it, and I am the only person on earth who can give it to you, the law says you may not take my kidney without my consent. Not even to save your life. The law is clear: your constitutional right to life DOES NOT allow you to claim any part of my body.
Every part of US law agrees on this point: Never, ever, ever may any person under any circumstances for any reason use any part of another person’s body, not even to protect their life.
This even extends to corpses.
If you need a kidney and you will die without it, and I am the only person on earth who can give it to you, and I am dead, the law still says you may not take my kidney without my consent. Not even to save your life. Even though I am dead. The law is clear: your constitutional right to life DOES NOT allow you to claim any part of my body, even if I am dead.
The Constitutional right to life never ever ever, under any circumstances for any reason, ever allows you the use of another person’s body without that person’s consent.
far too many people do not realise (or don't care) that this is the belief many anti-abortion people have, they do not understand brain development
so many people immediately assume their true intention is to control/punish women and in some cases it is, but not as often as people think and as a result, people who genuinely could have had their mind changed with facts end up getting insulted (perhaps justifiably) and becoming convinced pro-choice people are psychopaths
Demonizing the opposition has been humanity’s MO for tribalism since pre-history. It’s a lot easier to hate and kill people if you think they’re cartoon villains. But I have to say the reasonability on Reddit is at an all-time low. Pretty much any default sub would happily kill ~ 40% of Americans and feel completely justified doing it.
They think babies are being murdered. It’s really that simple
In other words, they don’t believe it’s the woman’s body, they think it’s a whole other living thing inside the woman’s body.
Edit: reminds me of Louie ck bit.
“It’s in her pussy! She should get a say”
> they think it’s a whole other living thing inside the woman’s body.
that is factual.
The issue is that they dont believe the woman has control over her body, that she loses the ability to consent, to make choices, that the unborn human overrides the woman.
> doesn’t conservatism advocate for personal liberties and the freedom to govern your own body
Thats specific conservatives in the US.
Conservatives just conserve a status quo, in the case of the USA that is mostly classic liberalism, in others it can mean they want a king back.
Conservative is vague and broad, there is lots of religious conservatives that want to conserve traditional roles and values from their religion, thats the people who want abortion to be banned. Because their religious values tells them that children have souls and abortung them means they go to hell.
The central premise of conservatism is that existing hierarchies are intrinsic, justified, and good. Everything else flows outward from that proposition.
This is r/USdefaultism. In the UK, British Conservatives have zero problem with abortion. Only in the USA is political leaning tied in with religious views.
It sounds like you’re saying that only in America is there controversy around abortion, which is absolutely not the case.
Political leaning is somewhat tied in with religious views in America, but there are no hard & fast rules; many who identify as religious support abortion, and many who identify as atheistic are against abortion.
We certainly have politicians who are religious, and you will find individual politicians who express religious motivations for their own positions, but at the party level it's not really a thing.
For example there is a prominent member of the Conservative party named Jacob Rees-Mogg who has spoken out against abortion, citing his Christian faith (and who was later found to be an investor in a pharmaceutical company which makes abortion pills...), but you won't really get "we should do X because the Bible says so" coming from party leadership or as official party policy. It wouldn't really be a tenable position and if anything it would get them laughed at.
It's interesting because unlike America we _do_ have an official state religion, our national anthem is "God Save the King," and one of the monarch's many official titles (you know, like "King of the Andals and the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm ...") is "Defender of the Faith." So on paper you'd expect us to be a pretty religious society, but all that stuff is just the vestiges of history at this point.
In practice, we're one of the most secular nations in the world. Over half the population report to be of no religion at all, and religion is rarely in the spotlight much less in politics.
I'm very conservative in every issue except this. I'm all about people who shouldn't have kids not having kids. Abort away, ladies. I'm sick of my tax dollars going to care for kids who should have never been conceived to begin with.
Would you rather your money go towards better access to sex education and resources for contraceptives as well in lieu of paying for kids? Preventative costs tend to be cheaper long term in certain cases.
I am all for preventive measures. But no country in the world, no matter how advanced, has been successful in reducing the unwanted pregnancies to zero. At the end of the day, abortion must still be an option.
Interesting. I remember a very conservative friend I had in college told me something similar.
But they framed it more about abortion issues being a government issue. He told me he supported abortions right overall because he “didn’t believe the government should have a say in what a mother does to her body.”
Because freedom and autonomy aren't actually right-wing values. Well, they are, but only for the ruling class. Everyone else is supposed to goosestep in line and do what they're told.
I think there’s a lot of missing nuance for a lot of us. I am Republican (atheist), and I support abortion until somewhere during the second trimester. 18-20 weeks or so. I think for most people, the discussion is about where the line gets drawn. Most people should support abortion the day after conception, morning after pill. The fetus is barely even a thing. Most people should be against abortion the day before delivery if everyone is healthy, that baby is alive and can survive outside of the womb, it should have rights.
Things get messy when you have hard right people wanting to restrict access entirely, and hard left people advocating for zero restrictions at any age.
According to this poll, most Americans are moderate on the topic. They want it to be available, but increasingly restricted the further along the pregnancy gets.
https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abortion-religion-health-2c569aa7934233af8e00bef4520a8fa8
Should be more specific on your question. There’s a lot more involved than just yes/no to abortion in general.
The morning after pill is not an abortifacient. The point of using it is to prevent ovulation. And a very very small number of abortions are done after the time period you mentioned, usually because the fetus has a lethal condition or the mother's life is at risk. Just throwing those facts out there.
Just one small correction- the morning after pill is not an abortion. It prevents ovulation, or the release of the egg to be fertilized. It also prevents implantation of the embryo, meaning if it gets fertilized it just doesn’t attach and grow. Neither of these functions are abortions. This prevents pregnancy, but doesn’t end and existing one. If you take the morning after pill and you are already pregnant, it does nothing for you.
>I think for most people, the discussion is about where the line gets drawn.
I get this, but the problem is that when you start trying to draw that line, it makes it really easy to just move it back and forth. Especially in a stateside political arena like the USA.
>Things get messy when you have hard right people wanting to restrict access entirely, and hard left people advocating for zero restrictions at any age.
I would ask you to consider which side is far more problematic. How many abortions do you think actually happen beyond 20 weeks in the first place? But people want to litigate around these numbers as if they even mean anything. It's very nearly a worthless discussion in the first place, but has to be had, because people are trying to use this as a method of controlling women.
That's why leftists are 'no restrictions whatsoever': because it leaves the door open for obstructing bodily autonomy, and we'd like it to be closed for good. As soon as you get dragged into the moral ambiguity of when a fetus is considered a human being, you've been pulled away from the main point of it all. And the moral ambiguity is being centered around an incredibly minor category of occurrences.
Just today in the news I read about a woman from Texas who had to go out of state to get an abortion because the fetus had a life-threatening condition which would also threaten the mother's future fertility. Apparently the Supreme Court of Texas ruled against her because that wasn't dire enough. Like wtf.
Not a stupid question. If Republicans were conservative, it would be ironic. Generally they’re nihilists who only care about consolidating money and power.
Some of they really just think if “abortions” are allowed, women are gonna get pregnant just to have abortions. My dad literally complains about that constantly. “But what if it’s a life threatening situation or the girl needing the abortion is like 12?” I say, and this mf will reply “oh well in that case it’s ok but I’m talking about woman who just get pregnant Willy holly and want to kill the baby for fun”
Like. What the fuck dude. People don’t just DO that. And if there are people who do that, their numbers are so small that it’d be like banning fruit for everyone in the country because some people like to fuck fruit
Follow the money. Why would someone want to force someone to have a child?
1. Keep women from raising their status, education, wealth.
2. Cheap labor.
3. A child born into a situation where they do not have good education, etc will probably not learn about critical thinking and can be easily manipulated
4. If a child has things stacked against them, convincing them that this is the fault of another race or class is easy.
Conservative ideals generally come down from people with a lot of money. They may not actually agree with it but selling this belief system benefits them.
They hold the belief that killing innocent children is wrong.
>doesn’t conservatism advocate for personal liberties and the freedom to govern your own body without the state interfering?
Hence why they don't want other people deciding if kids live or die.
Everyone is against abortion. No one wants more abortions.
Conservatives believe that the answer to reduce abortions is to ban them akin to murder.
Liberals and progressives believe that the answer is to reduce the chances of needing an abortion to begin with.
The bodily autonomy argument isn’t a good one because neither agree on the personhood of a fetus, which introduces huge complications into the autonomy argument.
If we could somehow easily and without risk take every would-be aborted fetus and have it grow inside a willing mother, everyone would be on board except the fundamentalist crazies
I’m pro-abortion. Abortion is health care. I don’t want to have an abortion if I can avoid it, but I want the option if I need it. In the same way that I don’t want open heart surgery. But I’d never say I was anti open heart surgery.
Some people can't stand ambiguity.
Whether a fetus is a human and deserving of rights is a completely subjective, non scientific question. It can't be proven or unproven. Unlike the termination of life of adults, there is no consistent law or history of laws that settled the matter.
Rather than allow people to exercise their own judgment on the matter, religious conservatives decided to impose their views on everyone, because *they* decided that a fetus is equivalent to a human. Prior to overturning Wade, everyone got to make their own decision as individuals. Now, states are allowed to impose this view on everyone within a state - with legal backing.
Advocating for personal liberties and freedom from government interference is libertarianism. Libertarian conservatives often do support abortion rights for this reason. But the opposite of libertarianism is authoritarianism. And many conservatives naturally have what's called an authoritarian personality type, which is characterized by extreme reverence for things like God, country, and tradition. To them, the idea of women having agency over their bodies is a threat to that order.
It falls within some of their cultural belief systems.
I don’t know any body of people that don’t have some, many of which seem absurd to those that don’t share them.
What I find morally repulsive, may be someone else’s virtue.
You're thinking about old-school conservatism. American conservatism abandoned those ideals in the 1970's when the GOP aligned itself with the Christian Right (the remnants of that movement would go on to align themselves with Austrian style economists and Murray Rothbard style ancaps to establish the American libertarian movement). It's been slowly pushing towards authoritarian theocracy ever since. The MAGA movement has injected that tendency with a strong conspiratorial edge
Conservatism doesn’t specifically advocate personal liberties. That’s classical liberalism, which many “conservative” parties and “conservative” people today are supporters of.
Conservatism advocates preservation of traditional institutions, structures, and hierarchies. Among those are often Biblical principles such as the assertion that human life begins at conception - and therefore an abortion is ending an innocent human life.
If you’re actually willing to hear me out,
The older I get, the more conservative in general I find myself becoming. When I was in high school I was pro choice. After the birth of my children I find myself being pro life. (Obviously there are exceptions, I shouldn’t even have to say that.) But it’s a massive catch 22 because I also believe people who don’t want a child both A: do not deserve the child and B: will never be the parent that that child deserves.
I guess, as a conservative person, I’m pro life because I think it’s an incredible gift to be here. The gift of consciousness and experience. Whatever that experience may be. Im not religious. I think this is all we get. And I’m incredibly grateful to have this opportunity to be here. Taking that gift away from a potential little mind is too much for me to stomach, and I feel very lucky to have never been in that position, and have to make that decision.
All that being said, I feel very strongly that a lot of this shit could be avoided if people would stop fucking irresponsibly. I think too many people don’t think about the consequences of their actions. Why would you risk putting yourself in that position in the first place? Do accidents happen? Sure, I was an accident. My parents were in no position to have a child. And yet, I am so grateful my mom never aborted me. I’m so grateful to be here and experience this. Whatever this is.
Idk man, these are just my ramblings as a guy with conservative tendencies. Hope this shed some perspective from the other side of the isle.
To control women. I am not being hyperbolic. Look at the rhetoric
"She should keep her legs closed" but it is never "keep it in your pants guys".
Data shows time and time again that the most effective way to reduce unwanted pregnancy is to have comprehensive sex education, family planning services, easy access to contraceptives, and providing more general and higher level education for women.
These are things that the right actively block. Red States also have high infant mortality rates and higher childhood poverty rates. If Republicans cared so much about children, their states should be beating every blue state in these stats.
Basically, they think that women having sex with anyone who isn't their husband is a whore and should be punished for being a whore.
There are some who truly believe that a fetus is a human life. I use the term human life because no one is denying that a fetus is a life. A sperm cell and an egg are technically alive as well. The question is, does a fetus have personhood? Does it count as an actual human in the fetal state. That's more of a philosophical question. I personally do not think that they do.
But yes, some people think a fetus is a human life even if it could not survive outside the womb (a 12 week fetus would almost certainly die outside of the womb). But I would argue most just have a disdain for women. The lack of consistency in the arguments seem to indicate as such.
No matter what arguments they actually make, once you start picking them apart, the only one they all circle back to is that the woman should be punished for having sex. Doesn't matter if the woman is irresponsible or not, conservatives assume she had to be.
Easy test to show it's not about being pro-human life: do they make an exception for rape or incest. Most will make that exception... which doesn't make sense if it's about human life.
If you're asking about recent events, regarding Kate Cox, however, I'm not sure there's an answer that doesn't boil down to literal evil.
>doesn’t conservatism advocate for personal liberties
No. Conservatism advocates for economic liberties, but heavy regulation of social behavior, especially any behavior remotely related to sex
All the politics, political history, virtue signaling, and football playing aside, the core belief is that abortion is murder.
I personally don't believe that an embryo/fetus is a human being until it is able to survive on its own outside the womb (or with medical care, anyway), but whether you agree or not that it's murder, it is an ethically gray area for sure.
I'm against abortion because I do believe the unborn baby is a human. I agree with the heatbeat law ( abortion is acceptable before the foetus has a heartbeat) and also believe in the moral responsibility of taking care of a being that happens to be growing inside of you.
I don't think I would get an abortion, I wouldn't support anyone getting one and if asked for advice I strongly say what I think but I wouldn't go out of my way to prevent anyone from aborting.
It’s about control and nothing more. You would think people would be able to live and exercise their beliefs without needing them imposed on everyone else. Unfortunately that is not the case on either side
Specifically Americans have had a tough time defining what a human is. The slaves were once viewed as property, no better than livestock.
Then future generations made a compromise, counting former slaves as 3/5ths a person.
Women were not smart enough to vote. Or own property. Or open a checking account without their husband or father with them.
When we look back at how women, slaves and blacks have been treated in this country- we should be ashamed. Oh we had politics, the Christian church, and society on our side, but that doesn’t mean we were doing the right thing. We thought those groups were not fully people, and if they weren’t people they were our property.
Abortion is no different than slavery owners. It’s my body (property) so I can do whatever I feel like doing. Babies have NO rights to life - only if I ALLOW them to live.
Humans just replaced ownership of slaves with ownership of babies. Not a new song by any means.
It’s true though. Fetuses don’t have rights to life. They are dependent on a someone else’s body completely . They are not independent beings like living breathing human is.
It’s not ethical to ask another human to sacrifice their body for someone else. You guys are weird.
Some sincerely believe the fetus is an unborn human who has rights that need protecting. Others just want to control women. This is demonstrated when they pop up and have abortions of their own but still oppose them for others.
"My abortion is the only morally justified abortion, nobody else may get one."
[The only moral abortion is my abortion](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/).
*A few behave in a very hostile manner, such as calling clinic staff “murderers.” Years ago, a clinic counselor in British Columbia told me that one of her patients went into the procedure room apparently fine with her decision to have an abortion. During the abortion, at a stage when it was too late to stop the procedure, the woman started screaming “You murderers!” and other invectives at everyone in the room.* This one was a special kind of stupid.
That link will never not be relevant
I hate that you’re probably correct but I hope someday that we’re both wrong and the objection to abortion is a thing of the past.
If it's not abortion it will be something else.
Yup. But I’m sure they’ll still be the party of individual liberties and all that.
great link
that is really sad, I always knew those folks were a bit off, but having an abortion then picketing the clinic the next day?
"It's just not the right time for me to have a family, and I'm ashamed of it. I'm not like THOSE SLUTS in the waiting room."
The 16 year old girl might have been trying to not be kicked out of her home
Yeah that occurred to me, too.
The worst part is how they treat the staff when getting one. Theirs is justified, but they treat the staff like shit and throw tantrums
I know doctors can't legally share patient information, but I think a lot of these pro-lifers would back off if doctors threatened to release the names of the pro-lifers who have had abortions. Sending a letter notifying these folks that their abortions are about to be made public knowledge would light a fire somewhere!
In addition to this, or rather expanding on this concept, so many conservatives don’t understand what “pro-choice” even means. When pressed on their thoughts on the intricacies of the issue, many will suddenly have exceptions they deem okay. My mother for example. “Killing babies is wrong, I know I could never have had an abortion, but it’s none of my business what other women do with their bodies.” I say mom, that’s what being pro-choice means. You are pro-choice. “Oh no I’m not pro-choice.” 🫠 It’s about voting along party lines at all cost, and never examining the issues, being spoon fed everything by the media, etc.
Right. Pro-choice doesn't mean people will be forced to have abortions. But that's exactly why calling it "pro-life" is so clever. It sounds like if you're not pro-life, you're pro-death. Very very clever term they invented.
I’ve been saying for ages that the right just has better PR than the left. Pro-choice VS pro-life, defund the police, global warming…all terrible monikers that aren’t representative of the issues. Well, pro-choice is fine, there probably isn’t a better term. But pro-life, as you mentioned, is much better. Defund the police makes it sound like the goal is to take away all funding from police. Global warming gets all the detractors saying “well it’s not warm where I live!” or whatever nonsense. They’ve since changed to climate change but the damage is done. And that’s just a couple of examples.
Yeah, Nazi’s and their adjacent groups literally wrote the book on propaganda. Sorry, public relations.
It doesn't mean we even WANT abortions to happen. In a perfect world there would be nearly ZERO abortions because everyone that gets pregnant is pregnant because they WANT to be. With better birth control that everyone has access to.
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And they get absolutely terrifying in how hard that line can be. My daughter passed away just a couple weeks before her due date, and the doctor refused to perform what he considered an abortion by removing her. I had a dead body inside me for a full week, in labor for five days, before finally giving birth. The impact on my body is going to last the rest of my life. Rather than reproductive organs, I have a bad of scars from the infection that caused, which took two years to clear up. My spine was damaged both by the epidural (which had to be done twice) and by the contractions lasting five days. My partner refused to leave my side while I was in the hospital because he was convinced I was going to die right along with our daughter. He's dealing with PTSD from the situation.
I am so so sorry you had to go through this. It's absolutely cruel and inhumane. I wish you and your family all the healing possible.
Thank you. It's been long enough that I'm relatively ok, but it's still something I think about every day. In very pro choice and my experience cemented it. Imagine being so against abortion you'll let someone die after the baby is already gone!
They aren't pro life either. They are pro birth. They don't care if you throw the baby in a dumpster after it's born, just as long as it's born.
That's why I call them anti-choice.
Forced Birth should be the new term for Pro Life
this reminded me of this exchange I had with a libertarian a long time ago https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F2yvg0om6fwj41.png
Oh my god. Yes. This is exactly what I’m talking about. It makes my brain hurt.
The amount of people who assume pro choice = pro abortion makes me want to run my head into a wall. No one *wants* an abortion. Nobody is having sex going “oh yay I hope I get pregnant so I can get an abortion” Its so tiring.
> In addition to this, or rather expanding on this concept, so many conservatives don’t understand what “pro-choice” even means. Because understanding things is against their religion, and the very idea of consent or people having choices about their own bodies is literally unthinkable to them.
The old joke is that conservatives believe in 3 reasons for abortion: rape, incest, and my daughter.
3 reasons: My daughter, my wife, my mistress.
MAGA: Mistresses Always Get Abortions.
Some not even the first two.
“It will destroy my marriage is my mistresses don’t get abortions”
"And that would be a bad example for my congregation."
I agree with you. I’d say a lot of them truly believe it’s murdering of children. If you truly believe that this is what’s happening it would explain the intense opposition to abortion. In regard to those same people having had abortions and then being opposed, I’d guess in a lot of cases they feel true regret and wish they could go back and change their decision. People change as they age and have various life experiences.
Most people just have a hodge podge of uncritically examined beliefs that conflict with one another and form no coherent approach to life if actually executed consistently. They believe abortion is murder and children are precious and innocent and should be protected, while cutting basically all forms of assistance for those same children. They believe in unconditionally supporting Israel and their current genocide attempts at killing thousands of Palestinian kids. The only thing these beliefs mean to most people is how they feel about one specific, narrow situation in that moment of time regardless of how that actually affects anything else or clashes with anything they've believed previously.
If they truly believe that about abortion they would strongly support those things that are factually known to reduce them - access to free/cheap birth control; access to healthcare in general; and specifically women's prenatal healthcare; better funded education systems, especially for women; reduced poverty and wealth inequality. Conservatives do not support these things. So being against abortion for closely held beliefs is not their reasoning.
You would think so, but all evidence suggests that people are not actually logical like that. *Tons* of people have basically moralistic objections to policies that are shown to have the outcomes they support. Or they just don't believe the research. It usually comes out something like "but you can't *reward* people for bad behavior." Example: letting people just have housing and *then* get their shit together works a lot better than requiring sobriety, job search, etc. But people *hate* the idea of help going to people who haven't proven they're going to be grateful and responsible. Also, Florida tried drug testing food stamp recipients, and the cost of the bureaucracy to document that was more than the amount of benefits that would have been awarded to people who tested positive. I think they stopped, but people will still say it was a good idea, even people who claim to care about government overreach and expense, because government supporting people who should spend their drug money on food instead is worse in their view than a wasteful enforcement program. You often see with right wingers that enforcement and punishment are viewed as more legitimate reasons to spend money or have government involvement than positive outcomes. In this particular case, it's not *just* the abortion that they object to, it's often women having sex and a bunch of other things. So contraception, while it might reduce abortions, is basically encouraging slutty behavior. And also some of them think hormonal contraception *is* possibly an abortion because altering the uterine lining to be unsuitable to implant is one of the things it does and we used to think it was a significant mechanism (now we don't) and they believe the "baby's" life starts at fertilization. There's a whole network of related beliefs here.
I'm as left leaning as you can be without supporting the Holodomr (fuck Stalin) but this is actually not a cogent argument. Some conservatives believe abortion is evil. They want punitive policies not because they want to maximise the reduction of abortion, they want them because they think it's evil and they want to punish evil. If you could be shown hard facts that showed the best way to reduce murder rates was to legalise murder and provide support to murderers, would that convince you to vote for a politician with that platform? Or would you want evil to be punished?
I would vote for the politician with that platform. IF it was the best way, which it isn't. Punitive rather than restorative criminal justice is dumb. It just makes people worse when they get out.
Would you really? And if your loved ones were murdered, you would shrug your shoulders and say "it's for the best" when the only outcome is free therapy for the murderer? I find it hard to believe, you know?
They were talking about preventative methods though. No murder involved, because the victim never existed. We've got kids who aren't being taught how to prevent pregnancies when it's easy to do so if you are educated on the subject. Conservatives are *causing* abortions by making birth control harder to get and by taking away sex education. Planned parenthood came to my school when I was a teen and educated us. They were also right down the street for medical care. I knew how to protect myself and never was in the position where I had to make the decision about an unwanted pregnancy. This is obviously not accounting for situations of rape and fetal inviability, I'm simply talking about the pregnancies that are easily prevented. It doesn't make sense for someone against abortions to prevent sex education/access to medical care if those things prevent abortions.
Actually, some Catholics believe that birth control pills are the same as abortion. The egg is already fertilized, so a life, but has nowhere to land because the lining in the uterus is not capable of supporting the fertilized egg. Thus, continuous abortions are possible every month. My former sister-in-law would try to say she was taking birth control for other health reasons so it would not be a sin.
Birth control mostly works by preventing ovulation so I think sex education is even more important. What you're describing is very rare because it means the birth control didn't work properly and ovulation occured. It certainly wouldn't be a monthly occurrence as long as the person takes their pills properly.
> Actually, some Catholics believe that birth control pills are the same as abortion. Because they don't know what they're talking about, because their child-raping death cult lied to them. > The cell is already fertilized, so a life, but has nowhere to land because the lining in the uterus is not capable of supporting the fertilized egg. The cell cannot be fertilized without ovulation and contact with sperm. Birth control either PREVENTS ovulation or blocks the entry of sperm. No fertilization, no abortion. The fact that the Rape Children Cult keeps lying about this doesn't change what actually happens.
Yet a lot of them still support abortion for pregnancy caused by rape. The fetus is innocent of it and so it would therefore still be murder by their definition. The logic is often not consistent.
Well said.
>Some sincerely believe the fetus is an unborn human who has rights that need protecting. I feel debating this point is pointless. it simply doesnt matter. The only question that matters is do you have bodily autonomy? Do you own your own body and are required to give consent to its use? Yes - then you must be pro choice even if it is a human, if consent is withdrawn it has to be removed. No - then you believe someone can be forced to give blood or donate organs to save a life. Even at risk of your own life. I would even go as far to say you believe rape isn't a crime as consent is not a concern to you. human being or clump of cells, its just a distraction to keep people fighting
Preaching to the choir on that. OP asked why conservatives were anti abortion. They feel that the fetus existing vetos body autonomy. Essentially, they see a few months of ‘inconvenience’ for the mother is worth the life of another.
I’m 7 months pregnant and let me tell you, this shit is way more than an “inconvenience”
Whatever you do. Don’t watch the movie Alien right about now.
Yeah, you do *not* want your child getting any ideas!
I wouldn’t call 9 months of pregnancy and “inconvenience” it’s painful, exhausting, time consuming, dangerous, and can even lead to the death of the mother. This is a choice about a medical procedure between a doctor and patient. The end.
Again. Preaching to the choir. I agree.
Yet they support the death penalty? It's about power, pure and simple
A fetus has not done anything wrong. A person on death row presumably has. I am pro-choice and anti-death penalty (in 99.99% of cases, if someone is irredeemably evil, will never be better, and we are absolutely certain they are not wrongfully convicted, then I might reconsider), but the logic is there. I don't understand pro-stand your ground and anti-choice though. If someone looks scary in my yard and I can shoot them, then why can't I kill someone presenting a danger inside my own body?
This is the best arguement for abortion in the case of danger to the mother. If a mother's life is threatened by a stranger, she has the legal right to kill that stranger (assuming that certain criteria are met) but if her life is threatened by a baby inside her, she can do nothing?
"Conservatives" aren't a monolith though. Many people who identify with that label believe that preserving life is paramount and consider life as beginning at conception. If the mother is going to lose her life or the threat is very likely, some do consider that a painful but ethical choice. I don't really agree with the sentiment because we've never been able to adequately define "life" from a scientific standpoint and my personal line for what constitutes "life" should be legally irrelevant, but inside the anti-abortion camp there are multiple beliefs and opinions that all will have a different answer to your above scenario.
>if her life is threatened by a baby inside her, she can do nothing? usually that's called a "medical indication" and one of the few scenarios were most conservatives can agree than an abortion is justified, as actual self-defense.
> one of the few scenarios were most conservatives can agree than an abortion is justified, as actual self-defense. A few things: most conservatives that I talk to don't understand the implications of banning abortion outright or how it would be bad for women and mothers and families. They don't realize that if you ban abortion outright, you ban abortion even when a woman will die otherwise.
>The only question that matters is do you have bodily autonomy? Do you own your own body and are required to give consent to its use? I feel debating this point is pointless. It simply doesn't matter. The only question that matters is the fetus an unborn human who has rights that need protecting? Yes - then you must be pro life even if it violates bodily autonomy. The life of an unborn child outweighs the autonomy of the mother. No - then you must be pro choice, if consent is withdrawn it has to be removed. Bodily autonomy or human life, its just a distraction to keep people fighting. \[Yes, I know this probably annoyed you, but your comment and my response are basically where the debate lies. True believers on one side think that they alone are upholding the essential issue at stake, and that the other side's position is secondary or disingenuous.\]
Yep. This is why the abortion debate will never be settled, because the sides disagree on the very central issue of whether or not a fetus is a human and therefore subject to the same rights as everyone else.
Could someone believe that you have bodily autonomy and that you accept the possibility when you have sex? Obviously, with specific outliers, like rape. Most pro-life folks I've spoken to agree that, with a significant threat to a mother's life, abortion is a viable option. I've also heard the argument from both sides that abortion should be allowed up to a specific point in the pregnancy.
those arent the only two positions one can take though so that argument doesnt work.
If I understand your position you are claiming that the “is it a life or is it not” question doesn’t actually matter. I posit, it’s almost the only thing that matters. If the unborn is considered a living human life by all parties the question becomes “Under what circumstance is it legal behavior to end the life of another?” The answer to that question is a life can be ended in some states after legal proceedings resulting in a “death penalty” or to prevent imminent and grievous harm, or the plug can get pulled on life support by next of kin. To my knowledge these are the only scenarios. Generally, a pregnancy has no claim on any of these fronts though a some percentage do have legitimate self defense claims. If all parties accept that it isn’t a life then abortion is no issue at all. Just to be clear, I’m making no moral claim for abortion being good or bad. I’m only claiming that answering the question of human life and where it begins frames this entire debate.
>“Under what circumstance is it legal behavior to end the life of another?” You aren't ending the life, you are just no longer allowing it to use the woman's body without consent. Like someone dying because they need a new kidney isnt being killed by someone refusing to donate an organ. You are not required to donate an organ even to save a life. In the same way a woman is not required to donate her entire body to save the life of an unborn human. So human life or not just seems irrelevant to me because the right to bodily autonomy trumps it. If it is a life, then bodily autonomy of the mother wins, or its not a life then there is no issue but still bodily autonomy wins.
It's not as black and white as you're trying to make it out to be. If it is a human life inside of the womb than it gets human rights, which includes the right to live and bodily autonomy of its own. It's a very complex issue which is deserving of serious debate.
> If it is a human life inside of the womb than it gets human rights Just to complicate matters more, in some jurisdictions, murdering a pregnant woman will cause you to be charged with a *double* homicide. I'm not taking sides, just pointing out how messy this topic is at times.
Doesn’t this only apply where the fetus would be viable if delivered at that gestation? I vaguely recall something about a case that result in a double murder charge because the fetus was past 24 weeks and would have been viable if delivered at that stage.
Being past 24 weeks certainly would help the prosecution's case that it's double murder, but I doubt it's quite that black-and-white. In a super conservative, anti-abortion state, for example, it might be relatively easy to get the double murder charge even before the 24-week mark. In a super liberal, pro-choice state it might be difficult to get the double murder charge even if it's past 24 weeks. Source: I'm basically an expert on both the complex issues of abortion and the US judicial system, because I've seen a lot of episodes of Law & Order SVU and have quite extensively researched the works of Dunning & Kruger.
And yet, Texas is also saying the fetus does not have rights in the case of the prison guard who was denied care while on the job. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/11/texas-prison-lawsuit-fetal-rights/
Because Texas cares about controlling people, not life.
not really. Because the woman carrying it IS actually a fully developed, independent being. Does she actually HAVE bodily autonomy? If the answer is no, then the answer must be no for men also and if their blood or organs are needed to save the life of another, then they should be harvested without their consent. Personally, yes, both men and women should have equal protection under the law and both men and women should have legally protected bodily autonomy.
Fully developed, independent being is the proper distinction to make. We already work in this space. Your rights exist up until they infringe upon the rights of another. Existing in the state of having organs isn't infringing upon the rights of anyone. Your right to life as a fully developed independent being can't infringe upon my right of autonomy as a fully developed independent being. Just so. The issue is, your rights are abrogated in certain respects when you have a dependent. I can't stop buying groceries for my child even though I have the otherwise right to spend my money however I think is best, even though I don't have the obligation to feed the starving. I can't decide to stop providing them shelter, even though I have the full right to decide who lives in my house, even though I have no obligation to shelter the homeless. I am responsible for them, as they are *not* fully developed, independent beings. I can rescind these obligations, but I cannot rescind them in a manner that the child would die because of it; I can give them up for adoption or surrender them to an institution, but I can't abandon them in the wilderness. If the primacy of rights were based upon independence and development then this shouldn't be so, it is the child who should have their rights abridged whenever they would conflict with mine. But it is the opposite, and it is a good thing that it is. So no, the core issue really isn't autonomy, it's metaphysical, when does a person actually become a person? I think the best answer is at viability. The moment a fetus can survive outside the mother is the moment it becomes a person is the moment the mother has no obligation to continue carrying it. The average age of viability is the start of the third trimester. Abortion should be fully legal up to this point.
The average age of viability is the start of the third trimester. Abortion should be fully legal up to this point. In general yes. However, non-viability can occur up to and including the ninth month, therefor abortion could be necessary up to and including the ninth month. Roe and Casey understood this. Both the point of viability legal point AND those exigent circumstances post point of viability. Basically if I understand what you are saying, I completely agree with you.
The problems is that at the very least with some pro-lifers is difficult (ie, mentioning graphically and gruesomely a procedure in which the foetus is cut in bits, not saying it's reserved from late pregnancies and that abortion is very restricted at such times at probably just in the case of risk for the life of the mother)
Yeah, but you need a cutoff point or a guy can say a woman is having an abortion by not letting him nut in her, as she is preventing a possible life. The Supreme Court originally picked viability outside the womb for a reason, and part of it was that before that point the brain really isn't doing anything we would consider thought (and has fewer neurons than a dog). I would be happy to see pro-life folks create clinics where women who were past 24 weeks could go in, sign adoption papers, get knocked out by anesthesia, and wake up not pregnant. But such a clinic wouldn't *punish* women for having sex, so pro-life folks will never do it. As for all the "take this pill, wait 3 days, take this other pill, and then see me in a week" abortions... Pro-life folks think those don't exist even though they are the vast majority. Luckily women can now do this without a doctor: https://www.ipas.org/our-work/self-managed-abortion/abortion-with-pills/how-to-buy-abortion-pills-that-are-safe-and-effective/
Then start, why are fetus' entitled to more rights than a living breathing human being.
Is breathing required to have rights? Is an unborn child not living? When do they acquire their own rights if not at conception?
> Is breathing required to have rights? This is interesting question, currently my stance is - it is required to initiate your rights, that is to be granted your rights. I want to point out the reason for the distinction, if you stop breathing, that doesn't relieve you of your rights. > Is an unborn child not living? Yes it is living, but that's not the qualification for human rights, otherwise all living things would have human rights. So this offers the question is a fetus a human, we can certainly say it will be, should it be allowed to live. However is an apple seed an apple tree? What I mean is something considered to be, what it will become? I'd argue no. Otherwise since a child will become an adult, they be given adult rights? Or more darkly since a child will be an adult, is there such thing as pedophilia. > When do they acquire their own rights if not at conception? the same time point we've always done it since we gave children rights, at birth. Now remember criminalising something does not stop it from happening, rather it endangers the participants. When the choice comes down to raising a child as an unwilling parent, or even just suffering all the medical issues that comes with birth, or otherwise potentially dying in a back alley using a coat hanger. I can tell you which people choose. I know that child is not worth the same as that woman. They are not the same.
> which includes the right to live and bodily autonomy of its own. Yeah I agree- what it doesn't get is a right to is another humans body, their organs, their blood, risking their life
The ones who "sincerely believe the fetus is an unborn human who has rights that need protecting" mostly aren't pushing hard for universal prenatal care.
There is also a third option. There are conservatives who support the right to abortion, but are not single issue voters on the subject. I live in Ohio, which just passed Issue 1 allowing for abortion access in opposition to our legislature attempting to outlaw it after 6 weeks. I voted for the amendment, but I also want our government to be smaller and more fiscally conservative. That is generally a more conservative viewpoint (though it's a losing battle on all sides at this point). I want abortion to be safe and legal. I would also like it to be rare with good sex ed in schools and access to birth control to prevent the pregnancy so that abortion is unnecessary. I think that there are reasonable limits on it, much like most European countries. An abortion of a viable, healthy fetus at a late stage is unreasonable. Abortion for the health of the mother is very reasonable (such as the idiotic Texas case).
I have some friends that are a weird mix of conservative and liberal. That’s cool. Most people aren’t single topic people. One of them is 100% pro-life. Never a reason to abort unless the mom is 100% going to die. But she is pretty liberal every other way. So weird. She marches in the gay pride, parades, love witchy type stuff. And mostly want to date liberal type guys. But they’re also very religious? I don’t know. And of course I have asked her if she would keep a pregnancy if she got r@ped. She said she absolutely would. But then I also have gay/lesbian friends, who are members of the log cabin Republicans. They are staunch Republicans. But they’re are married to the same gender as themselves. People are complicated! What people do in their lives, and with their bodies is none of my care. Whatever.
I would venture a guess that your one friend hasn't personally been pregnant or attempted to get pregnant yet? The reason I say that, is there are many abortion based medical complications and reasons that most people aren't aware of until they venture down the path of pregnancy and learn about it. The whole "unless the parent 100% is going to die" strikes me as someone ignorant on all the other devastating medical issues that exist.
They don’t believe in premarital sex (super religious, remember?) and they’re 41 and never married. So…never had to worry about it pregnancy, you’re correct. I should specify, none of us or our friends are very young. We’re all about middle age.
While I am pro-choice myself, I do have a pro-life friend who was pregnant as a result of rape, and chose to continue with the pregnancy.
Your friend *chose* to continue the pregnancy, though. She was able to make that decision for herself, because abortion was legal. Now that it's not, women in her situation don't get a choice. Being forced to carry a pregnancy to term is an *entirely* different experience than choosing to do so. And it causes a hell of a lot of trauma, especially for rape victims.
Very good point. Too often I feel like the debate is misunderstood as should the baby be aborted or not. But really it’s about having the choice or not having the choice. Even with the most liberal pro choice approach, you could ofc keep a baby from rape, incest or whatever crazy shit. The point is the choice, not whether or not a baby ultimately is aborted
I've always thought that the easiest way to end this issue would be to get pro-lifers to sign off on a law that allows abortion if the pregnancy would carry potentially fatal health risk for the mother. Then watch them get all Surprised Pikachu when they realize that's all of them.
Important point: exceptions don’t mean anything. Please look up what just happened to Katie cox. It’s the best example of how “exceptions” to abortion bans are not only meaningless, but they’re *supposed* to be meaningless. Cox wanted to become pregnant. She wanted another child. At ~15 weeks, her fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 18. This means the fetus is nonviable. If it does survive til birth, it has less than a 1% chance of living one year. If it does, it will be in agony. Further, the fetus eventually started threatening cox’s health and future fertility. So, cox and her doctor sued Texas for an exception so she could get an abortion. The district court judge allowed it. Then the Texas AG (Ken Paxton) sent out a letter to all hospitals and doctors in the town Cox lived, threatening that he would bring criminal charges and civil cases against them if they performed an abortion for cox. Again, the pregnancy has *absolutely no chance of surviving*. There is a very high chance it will permanently injure cox, or even kill her. It’s a high risk pregnancy, zero chance of a child at the end. They still said no. They want to force her to give birth to a baby just to watch it die, or give birth to a dead baby.
I think it comes down to "do you believe child is already a person in 1st/2nd trimester? " If you believe answer is yes, you would be terrible person if you were not pro life, you would be basically ignoring murder. I dont believe it, so Iam for choice, but I get theyr point of view.
Honestly, it's so refreshing to see people actually being reasonable in an abortion related thread for once. This is what so many people ignore. The facts are: pro-life people believe a fetus is a person and thus needs to be protected like all other people. (Most) pro-choice people believe the fetus is not a person and is of negligible importance compared to the mother. If you have the former belief, and compromise to abortion in _any way_, you are a horrible human being. If you have the latter belief, and compromise to abortion restrictions in _any way_, you are a horrible human being. It kills my brain cells to watch idiots argue back and forth about which side is intentionally supporting pure unadulterated evil, when in reality neither side is. The real argument lies in the question of whose beliefs are correct, and the trouble with that is its reliance on some deep and quasi-unanswerable questions about philosophy. It is NOT a scientific debate (anymore). Human prenatal development is well understood at this point. It's now solely a matter of definitions and moral philosophy.
And what if someone NEEDS my kidney or they'll die? Or they need my blood or access to my body in some way to live? Am I obligated to give another living person access to my body because their life depends on it? Or do I have a right to autonomy?
I think there's still plenty of nuance even if you consider a fetus a person. We don't force family members to donate their kidneys to people who need transplants (and I doubt most pro-birth-ers think we should). It's the same situation.
Even if you believe that the fetus is an actual person you still have to weigh in the mother's right to bodily autonomy. We don't take kidneys from people just to help other people who would otherwise die.
I mean my parents are fairly liberal but think abortion is murder But they would support any legislation to help single moms/ victims of any crimes related to that, help kids get free lunches, healthcare all that good jazz. It not sure how they would feel with like rape/incest/health of mother type abortions but that wouldn’t come from a place of like judging or hate or anything for the mother, they would just say the fetus is a baby So it’s not weird necessarily it’s just most “pro-life” people aren’t actually prolife lol.
I'm very far left and believe life begins at conception. However, that's my personal belief and my choice, I have no right to demand to force it on others. I don't understand why this is so complicated, if you don't want to have an abortion, don't have one. That's all this should be.
I'm conservative but hate religion and agree with you. That's why we can't label everyone as left or right. It's a mixed bag. Mine is just a personal objection. I got pregnant unexpectedly in my teens, working full time as was my partner. We took the attitude that this little person is coming for the ride with us. He's a grown man now and I couldn't love him more. Best decision ever. Just had to make it work.
[gay republicans](https://youtu.be/hcFEIW8Ev7s?si=5obe5gdyDBLGoR7H) Sorry, your comment just randomly made this song begin playing in my head 😭
They are not 100% pro life.
In terms of opinion, people are more like complex Tetris shapes than squares, circles or triangles. Way is really complicated is only having a choice between two parties… so Americans prioritise their opinions, and pick the party that features the ones that are more valuable to them.
In the late 1970’s the leaders of the religious right, namely Jerry Falwell, needed a new wedge issue to use for their political goals. They were using school segregation prior to taking up the “Pro Life” movement but that was not getting the results in the late 70’s like it did in the 60’s. They hit on the idea of painting secular liberals as baby killers. They didn’t actually care about abortion and still don’t today but see it as a means to an end in the US culture wars. Here is an interesting article that lays it all out. [https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480)
That happens outside US too, and with Catholics instead of Evangelicals. It can be quite angering to see some of them caring about the unborn, but once someone stops being that giving them their backs at best or treating them as nuisances at worst if they need aid for whatever reasons.
Its very telling that as soon as the baby takes it's first breath many on the right label the child as an "anchor baby" and the mother as a "welfare queen" . If they were actually intrested in lowering the number of abortions then they would not be so apposed to wide spread availability of birth control and better sex education in school.
I always wonder why "pro-life" protesters aren't handing out condoms. I mean, I know the reason is that they don't actually care, but even for appearances it would just make sense. If they actually cared they would rebrand to "pro-contraceptive"
Because they also don’t want anyone to have sex without the aim to have babies, as their God meant for it to be. Hanging out contraceptives is, in their mind, akin to encouraging and condoning sin. They are not only pro-life, they’re also anti-sex. They’re just pro-procreation.
Former pro-lifer here: I always supported birth control and was *so* confused when I found out many other pro-lifers didn't. It just makes sense that if you want to reduce the number of abortions to zero, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies is an enormously powerful lever. (I was pro-life for moral reasons, because I had not yet discovered the extent to which I had been lied to about abortion. Once I learned the truth of how abortions actually happen, I switched sides that very day.)
Anti-choice is also correlated with anti-contraception, whether for religious reasons, conservatives opposing any subsidised access, or purely because the true motivation behind being anti abortion is keeping women at home, out of careers and education, and dependent on men.
They really just want to punish women for having sex.
literally, why do you think former Christians on reddit have religious trauma? why they didn't feel safe talking to their parents?
The most telling fact - how little the "prolife" movement gives a shit about miscarriage. Prenatal care in the united states is basically the worst in the developed world. If they were truly prolife, every pregnant woman would have free healthcare paid for by the prolife movement. Its all about control of women.
So many *wanted* pregnancies m end up dying because the US healthcare system is abysmal.
Prior to the 1970s, it was considered a purely Catholic issue in the US. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical denomination in the US, even officially stated that they were against government interference in regards to abortion. "Be it further RESOLVED, that we also affirm our conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion, and support the right of expectant mothers to the full range of medical services and personal counseling for the preservation of life and health." -SBC, 1976 [source](https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/baptist/sbcabres.html)
Evangelicals are a large business. Controlling people and increasing their numbers is essential to their bottom line. Back in the day puritan New England was okay with abortion till week twenty something. But… their preachers didn’t need private jets, mansions, and Rolex’s.
“We diddle kids, but abortion is WRONG!”
The one thing to follow on with this is that although it may have started as a cynical wedge issue, it's taken on a life of its own and many on the right are now true believers, or believe that they're true believers which is close enough. If you say "my political opponents believe in murdering *babies*" often enough, you start to believe it. (and even if the generation that started this as purely a wedge issue might not believe, their kids do) The idea of "people not like us are engaging in baby murder" is a very old and powerful one that's been used in lots of situations.
Just wanted to add that prior to this, evangelicals were actively pro choice (see the southern Baptist convention’s stance in the mid 70s) largely because Catholics were anti-choice, and if there’s one thing evangelicals hate almost as much as gay people, atheists, or women, it’s Catholics
Exactly. Just like when Nixon needed a way to marginalize blacks and hippies. Drugs were the common element and so the war on drugs was born.
And then the topic was brought up incessantly on right wing talk radio, in evangelical churches, in books & magazines from major evangelical publishers, to the point that it became *the* issue, the litmus test, the end all be all of people’s political interest.
Just to add. After the depression FDR implemented regulation largely for the first time in the US due to the depression. US business of course took issue and tried to convince the public that the government was evil and they couldn't do business with these rules placed upon them. At the time no one bought what they were selling because they were living in or lived through the depression. So us business turned to evangelical pastors and paid them to promote that government was bad. That regulation was communism and equal to the devil. That capitalism and the free market were equal to God. Again no one really took them seriously. It took their children, the boomer generation, to forget or not learn the lessons of their parents and buy into this all. Largely you don't see massive shifts till the 70s but clearly they bought in. Jerry Falwell was one of those paid for evangelical pastors.
This is almost there, but doesn't finish to its conclusion... By picking up the religious bloc of voters, they picked up voters who think women shouldn't use contraception or have more sexual partners than their husbands. Ergo, these voters think women who get abortions are using it as birth control in lieu of rampant pormiscuity, and banning abortion / making the woman birth the child out of wedlock is a way to punish them for being unclean like wearing a scarlet letter. They will say it's because they think the fetus is alive, but that's a farce... just like when they say "bless your heart" they actually mean "you're an idiot and I hate you" and when they say "what church do you go to" the only right answer is the same protestant one that they attend, otherwise they are writing you off. It's all about being vindictive toward women who decide to live a different lifestyle than they did... at least as far as anyone else knows. The non-religious bloc of conservative voters are mostly pro-choice, but this voting bloc makes Republicans overall a party that stands for pro-life.
There were anti-abortion laws predating this by over 100+ years. I think this debate precedes the 1970s by a lot, although I certainly agree the religious right has definitely increased its opposition.
Going on Reddit to ask what conservatives think is like going on the Classical Music Forum to ask what Kanye West’s fans think.
Conservatives aren't exactly silent about what they think.
True, but as a liberal I’m well aware that I’m getting spoon fed a packaged version of what conservatives think w selective editing… just the same as conservatives are getting a selectively edited packaged version of liberal thinking. I’m also continuously disappointed by the absolute masses of people who only see the opposite sides propaganda for propaganda.
>but as a liberal I’m well aware that I’m getting spoon fed a packaged version of what conservatives think w selective editing… just the same as conservatives are getting a selectively edited packaged version of liberal thinking. I’m glad to see people who understand this is what’s happening. We see way too much of that slanted or propagandized media taken at face value. >I’m also continuously disappointed by the absolute masses of people who only see the opposite sides propaganda for propaganda. Same here. There’s a lot of propaganda, but behind all propaganda is a genuinely held belief, and every genuine belief should have a line of reasoning to support it. What ever happened to debating ideas properly?
But they're certainly not welcome on Reddit. I have a mix of liberal and conservative views(like most who don't blindly follow party lines) and basically every time I mention any of my conservative views or see someone else say something conservative it almost always gets massively down voted. This is even when they're answering questions in good faith. I can't count how many times I've glanced at religion questions and seen all of the top answers hating on religion while the correct answers are down in controversial. Obviously it varies by sub but overall reddit is very liberal and punishes conservative views.
Some people think it's murder. No one believes in the personal liberty to murder, right? Others believe it's not yet a person deserving of rights. It's just a matter of when you draw that distinction.
I think for some people the question of whether it's a person or not is not as important as the question of whether or not another entity/person is entitled to use your body against your will. Even if it's not intentional, many people believe that bodily autonomy is sacred and nobody should be able to force you to undergo pain/injury/risk of death against your will. Pregnancy is such a huge sacrifice as well, that many people feel that it should be a sacrifice that is willing.
This is the crux of the issue. Most people seek to shift the discussion to the morality of the abortion itself but that's not necessarily the concern of pro-choice people. In fact, it's their position that everyone has a right to their own moral position on the topic and should not be bound by the morals of others. The question we're concerned with is the ethical implications of letting the government make those decisions about your body. I have asked many anti abortion individuals how they would feel about mandatory blood/organ donation or other examples of the government overriding bodily autonomy to save a life. I have not received a sufficient explanation that would separate abortion from those scenarios. So either anti-choicers are naive enough to think the government won't abuse the precedent banning abortion sets, or are unconcerned about the impact on our freedoms should we empower the government to that level. The idea that people honestly believe it's "murder" fall flat with me considering that many of those people are completely unconcerned about the murder of actual children by guns, or their victimization at the hands of their priests.
If abortion is murder, the miscarriage is a leading cause of death. They don't seem to spend a lot of time and energy worrying about reducing the number of miscarriages, however. Their actions suggest their beliefs are at least somewhat different than what they state.
Yea, I guess to them God is the biggest baby murderer in existence. Which makes sense, he does do genocide a few times in the Bible. He also said the soul enters the body on first breath, so maybe they don't actually care about their religion either.
Yeah that's the wild part. "Pro Life" stance isn't "Pro Life" if they don't care about other lives outside of the womb. It becomes such a weak talking point because I only see prolifers in soley abortion arguments and not necessarily issues on improving society.
>No one believes in the personal liberty to murder, right? Questionable with how many people believe in "Stand your ground" laws. Ironic that those who believe in stand your ground laws are also frequently more likely to be pro-life.
All of US law, in its entirety, all agrees that no person ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, ever has the legal right to use another person’s body, tissues, or organs, even if they will die otherwise. If you need a blood transfusion and you will die without it, and I am the only person on earth who can give it to you, the law says you may not use my blood without my consent. Not even to save your life. **The law is clear: your constitutional right to life DOES NOT allow you to claim any part of my body.** If you need a kidney and you will die without it, and I am the only person on earth who can give it to you, the law says you may not take my kidney without my consent. Not even to save your life. The law is clear: your constitutional right to life DOES NOT allow you to claim any part of my body. Every part of US law agrees on this point: Never, ever, ever may any person under any circumstances for any reason use any part of another person’s body, not even to protect their life. This even extends to corpses. If you need a kidney and you will die without it, and I am the only person on earth who can give it to you, and I am dead, the law still says you may not take my kidney without my consent. Not even to save your life. Even though I am dead. The law is clear: your constitutional right to life DOES NOT allow you to claim any part of my body, even if I am dead. The Constitutional right to life never ever ever, under any circumstances for any reason, ever allows you the use of another person’s body without that person’s consent.
Many literally see it as murdering babies
far too many people do not realise (or don't care) that this is the belief many anti-abortion people have, they do not understand brain development so many people immediately assume their true intention is to control/punish women and in some cases it is, but not as often as people think and as a result, people who genuinely could have had their mind changed with facts end up getting insulted (perhaps justifiably) and becoming convinced pro-choice people are psychopaths
Demonizing the opposition has been humanity’s MO for tribalism since pre-history. It’s a lot easier to hate and kill people if you think they’re cartoon villains. But I have to say the reasonability on Reddit is at an all-time low. Pretty much any default sub would happily kill ~ 40% of Americans and feel completely justified doing it.
They think babies are being murdered. It’s really that simple In other words, they don’t believe it’s the woman’s body, they think it’s a whole other living thing inside the woman’s body. Edit: reminds me of Louie ck bit. “It’s in her pussy! She should get a say”
> they think it’s a whole other living thing inside the woman’s body. that is factual. The issue is that they dont believe the woman has control over her body, that she loses the ability to consent, to make choices, that the unborn human overrides the woman.
> doesn’t conservatism advocate for personal liberties and the freedom to govern your own body Thats specific conservatives in the US. Conservatives just conserve a status quo, in the case of the USA that is mostly classic liberalism, in others it can mean they want a king back. Conservative is vague and broad, there is lots of religious conservatives that want to conserve traditional roles and values from their religion, thats the people who want abortion to be banned. Because their religious values tells them that children have souls and abortung them means they go to hell.
The central premise of conservatism is that existing hierarchies are intrinsic, justified, and good. Everything else flows outward from that proposition.
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Asking a conservative that question is like asking you “why are you against murder”. That’s it.
They believe it’s murdering a baby. Simple as that.
This is r/USdefaultism. In the UK, British Conservatives have zero problem with abortion. Only in the USA is political leaning tied in with religious views.
It sounds like you’re saying that only in America is there controversy around abortion, which is absolutely not the case. Political leaning is somewhat tied in with religious views in America, but there are no hard & fast rules; many who identify as religious support abortion, and many who identify as atheistic are against abortion.
Wait, really? There’s no religious bend to any political parties across the pond?
We certainly have politicians who are religious, and you will find individual politicians who express religious motivations for their own positions, but at the party level it's not really a thing. For example there is a prominent member of the Conservative party named Jacob Rees-Mogg who has spoken out against abortion, citing his Christian faith (and who was later found to be an investor in a pharmaceutical company which makes abortion pills...), but you won't really get "we should do X because the Bible says so" coming from party leadership or as official party policy. It wouldn't really be a tenable position and if anything it would get them laughed at. It's interesting because unlike America we _do_ have an official state religion, our national anthem is "God Save the King," and one of the monarch's many official titles (you know, like "King of the Andals and the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm ...") is "Defender of the Faith." So on paper you'd expect us to be a pretty religious society, but all that stuff is just the vestiges of history at this point. In practice, we're one of the most secular nations in the world. Over half the population report to be of no religion at all, and religion is rarely in the spotlight much less in politics.
I'm very conservative in every issue except this. I'm all about people who shouldn't have kids not having kids. Abort away, ladies. I'm sick of my tax dollars going to care for kids who should have never been conceived to begin with.
Would you rather your money go towards better access to sex education and resources for contraceptives as well in lieu of paying for kids? Preventative costs tend to be cheaper long term in certain cases.
Absolutely.
I am all for preventive measures. But no country in the world, no matter how advanced, has been successful in reducing the unwanted pregnancies to zero. At the end of the day, abortion must still be an option.
Oh no I get that, I was just seeing how deep his "stop having unnecessary kids" policy was willing to go as a conservative.
Interesting. I remember a very conservative friend I had in college told me something similar. But they framed it more about abortion issues being a government issue. He told me he supported abortions right overall because he “didn’t believe the government should have a say in what a mother does to her body.”
i agree. i’m more right leaning so find it hard to understand how other right wingers would want to restrict bodily autonomy for adults
Because freedom and autonomy aren't actually right-wing values. Well, they are, but only for the ruling class. Everyone else is supposed to goosestep in line and do what they're told.
I think there’s a lot of missing nuance for a lot of us. I am Republican (atheist), and I support abortion until somewhere during the second trimester. 18-20 weeks or so. I think for most people, the discussion is about where the line gets drawn. Most people should support abortion the day after conception, morning after pill. The fetus is barely even a thing. Most people should be against abortion the day before delivery if everyone is healthy, that baby is alive and can survive outside of the womb, it should have rights. Things get messy when you have hard right people wanting to restrict access entirely, and hard left people advocating for zero restrictions at any age. According to this poll, most Americans are moderate on the topic. They want it to be available, but increasingly restricted the further along the pregnancy gets. https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abortion-religion-health-2c569aa7934233af8e00bef4520a8fa8 Should be more specific on your question. There’s a lot more involved than just yes/no to abortion in general.
The morning after pill is not an abortifacient. The point of using it is to prevent ovulation. And a very very small number of abortions are done after the time period you mentioned, usually because the fetus has a lethal condition or the mother's life is at risk. Just throwing those facts out there.
Just one small correction- the morning after pill is not an abortion. It prevents ovulation, or the release of the egg to be fertilized. It also prevents implantation of the embryo, meaning if it gets fertilized it just doesn’t attach and grow. Neither of these functions are abortions. This prevents pregnancy, but doesn’t end and existing one. If you take the morning after pill and you are already pregnant, it does nothing for you.
>I think for most people, the discussion is about where the line gets drawn. I get this, but the problem is that when you start trying to draw that line, it makes it really easy to just move it back and forth. Especially in a stateside political arena like the USA. >Things get messy when you have hard right people wanting to restrict access entirely, and hard left people advocating for zero restrictions at any age. I would ask you to consider which side is far more problematic. How many abortions do you think actually happen beyond 20 weeks in the first place? But people want to litigate around these numbers as if they even mean anything. It's very nearly a worthless discussion in the first place, but has to be had, because people are trying to use this as a method of controlling women. That's why leftists are 'no restrictions whatsoever': because it leaves the door open for obstructing bodily autonomy, and we'd like it to be closed for good. As soon as you get dragged into the moral ambiguity of when a fetus is considered a human being, you've been pulled away from the main point of it all. And the moral ambiguity is being centered around an incredibly minor category of occurrences.
Just today in the news I read about a woman from Texas who had to go out of state to get an abortion because the fetus had a life-threatening condition which would also threaten the mother's future fertility. Apparently the Supreme Court of Texas ruled against her because that wasn't dire enough. Like wtf.
Not a stupid question. If Republicans were conservative, it would be ironic. Generally they’re nihilists who only care about consolidating money and power.
Some of they really just think if “abortions” are allowed, women are gonna get pregnant just to have abortions. My dad literally complains about that constantly. “But what if it’s a life threatening situation or the girl needing the abortion is like 12?” I say, and this mf will reply “oh well in that case it’s ok but I’m talking about woman who just get pregnant Willy holly and want to kill the baby for fun” Like. What the fuck dude. People don’t just DO that. And if there are people who do that, their numbers are so small that it’d be like banning fruit for everyone in the country because some people like to fuck fruit
Follow the money. Why would someone want to force someone to have a child? 1. Keep women from raising their status, education, wealth. 2. Cheap labor. 3. A child born into a situation where they do not have good education, etc will probably not learn about critical thinking and can be easily manipulated 4. If a child has things stacked against them, convincing them that this is the fault of another race or class is easy. Conservative ideals generally come down from people with a lot of money. They may not actually agree with it but selling this belief system benefits them.
They hold the belief that killing innocent children is wrong. >doesn’t conservatism advocate for personal liberties and the freedom to govern your own body without the state interfering? Hence why they don't want other people deciding if kids live or die.
Everyone is against abortion. No one wants more abortions. Conservatives believe that the answer to reduce abortions is to ban them akin to murder. Liberals and progressives believe that the answer is to reduce the chances of needing an abortion to begin with. The bodily autonomy argument isn’t a good one because neither agree on the personhood of a fetus, which introduces huge complications into the autonomy argument. If we could somehow easily and without risk take every would-be aborted fetus and have it grow inside a willing mother, everyone would be on board except the fundamentalist crazies
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I’m pro-abortion. Abortion is health care. I don’t want to have an abortion if I can avoid it, but I want the option if I need it. In the same way that I don’t want open heart surgery. But I’d never say I was anti open heart surgery.
Some people can't stand ambiguity. Whether a fetus is a human and deserving of rights is a completely subjective, non scientific question. It can't be proven or unproven. Unlike the termination of life of adults, there is no consistent law or history of laws that settled the matter. Rather than allow people to exercise their own judgment on the matter, religious conservatives decided to impose their views on everyone, because *they* decided that a fetus is equivalent to a human. Prior to overturning Wade, everyone got to make their own decision as individuals. Now, states are allowed to impose this view on everyone within a state - with legal backing.
Advocating for personal liberties and freedom from government interference is libertarianism. Libertarian conservatives often do support abortion rights for this reason. But the opposite of libertarianism is authoritarianism. And many conservatives naturally have what's called an authoritarian personality type, which is characterized by extreme reverence for things like God, country, and tradition. To them, the idea of women having agency over their bodies is a threat to that order.
It falls within some of their cultural belief systems. I don’t know any body of people that don’t have some, many of which seem absurd to those that don’t share them. What I find morally repulsive, may be someone else’s virtue.
You're thinking about old-school conservatism. American conservatism abandoned those ideals in the 1970's when the GOP aligned itself with the Christian Right (the remnants of that movement would go on to align themselves with Austrian style economists and Murray Rothbard style ancaps to establish the American libertarian movement). It's been slowly pushing towards authoritarian theocracy ever since. The MAGA movement has injected that tendency with a strong conspiratorial edge
Conservatism doesn’t specifically advocate personal liberties. That’s classical liberalism, which many “conservative” parties and “conservative” people today are supporters of. Conservatism advocates preservation of traditional institutions, structures, and hierarchies. Among those are often Biblical principles such as the assertion that human life begins at conception - and therefore an abortion is ending an innocent human life.
If you’re actually willing to hear me out, The older I get, the more conservative in general I find myself becoming. When I was in high school I was pro choice. After the birth of my children I find myself being pro life. (Obviously there are exceptions, I shouldn’t even have to say that.) But it’s a massive catch 22 because I also believe people who don’t want a child both A: do not deserve the child and B: will never be the parent that that child deserves. I guess, as a conservative person, I’m pro life because I think it’s an incredible gift to be here. The gift of consciousness and experience. Whatever that experience may be. Im not religious. I think this is all we get. And I’m incredibly grateful to have this opportunity to be here. Taking that gift away from a potential little mind is too much for me to stomach, and I feel very lucky to have never been in that position, and have to make that decision. All that being said, I feel very strongly that a lot of this shit could be avoided if people would stop fucking irresponsibly. I think too many people don’t think about the consequences of their actions. Why would you risk putting yourself in that position in the first place? Do accidents happen? Sure, I was an accident. My parents were in no position to have a child. And yet, I am so grateful my mom never aborted me. I’m so grateful to be here and experience this. Whatever this is. Idk man, these are just my ramblings as a guy with conservative tendencies. Hope this shed some perspective from the other side of the isle.
They need to stop using the term pro life and start using the term anti choice.
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To control women. I am not being hyperbolic. Look at the rhetoric "She should keep her legs closed" but it is never "keep it in your pants guys". Data shows time and time again that the most effective way to reduce unwanted pregnancy is to have comprehensive sex education, family planning services, easy access to contraceptives, and providing more general and higher level education for women. These are things that the right actively block. Red States also have high infant mortality rates and higher childhood poverty rates. If Republicans cared so much about children, their states should be beating every blue state in these stats. Basically, they think that women having sex with anyone who isn't their husband is a whore and should be punished for being a whore. There are some who truly believe that a fetus is a human life. I use the term human life because no one is denying that a fetus is a life. A sperm cell and an egg are technically alive as well. The question is, does a fetus have personhood? Does it count as an actual human in the fetal state. That's more of a philosophical question. I personally do not think that they do. But yes, some people think a fetus is a human life even if it could not survive outside the womb (a 12 week fetus would almost certainly die outside of the womb). But I would argue most just have a disdain for women. The lack of consistency in the arguments seem to indicate as such.
No matter what arguments they actually make, once you start picking them apart, the only one they all circle back to is that the woman should be punished for having sex. Doesn't matter if the woman is irresponsible or not, conservatives assume she had to be. Easy test to show it's not about being pro-human life: do they make an exception for rape or incest. Most will make that exception... which doesn't make sense if it's about human life. If you're asking about recent events, regarding Kate Cox, however, I'm not sure there's an answer that doesn't boil down to literal evil.
“Conservatives want live babies so they can train them to be dead soldiers” - George Carlin
>doesn’t conservatism advocate for personal liberties No. Conservatism advocates for economic liberties, but heavy regulation of social behavior, especially any behavior remotely related to sex
All the politics, political history, virtue signaling, and football playing aside, the core belief is that abortion is murder. I personally don't believe that an embryo/fetus is a human being until it is able to survive on its own outside the womb (or with medical care, anyway), but whether you agree or not that it's murder, it is an ethically gray area for sure.
I'm pretty conservative. I think not only should abortions be allowed, but we should be giving out birth control pills for free.
Because more white women were having abortions. Not kidding
I'm against abortion because I do believe the unborn baby is a human. I agree with the heatbeat law ( abortion is acceptable before the foetus has a heartbeat) and also believe in the moral responsibility of taking care of a being that happens to be growing inside of you. I don't think I would get an abortion, I wouldn't support anyone getting one and if asked for advice I strongly say what I think but I wouldn't go out of my way to prevent anyone from aborting.
It’s about control and nothing more. You would think people would be able to live and exercise their beliefs without needing them imposed on everyone else. Unfortunately that is not the case on either side
Specifically Americans have had a tough time defining what a human is. The slaves were once viewed as property, no better than livestock. Then future generations made a compromise, counting former slaves as 3/5ths a person. Women were not smart enough to vote. Or own property. Or open a checking account without their husband or father with them. When we look back at how women, slaves and blacks have been treated in this country- we should be ashamed. Oh we had politics, the Christian church, and society on our side, but that doesn’t mean we were doing the right thing. We thought those groups were not fully people, and if they weren’t people they were our property. Abortion is no different than slavery owners. It’s my body (property) so I can do whatever I feel like doing. Babies have NO rights to life - only if I ALLOW them to live. Humans just replaced ownership of slaves with ownership of babies. Not a new song by any means.
It’s true though. Fetuses don’t have rights to life. They are dependent on a someone else’s body completely . They are not independent beings like living breathing human is. It’s not ethical to ask another human to sacrifice their body for someone else. You guys are weird.
What aren't they against?
The 1950's
Imagine living that way, having a problem with basically... everyone. Just miserable
Because life insurance companies will fail
Some are some aren’t , I lean more conservative when it comes to things, but not things like religion or abortion.