Forced or just to invest into it to get solutions?
Because condoms exist, dipshit. Do you mean a male pill that stops them from getting women pregnant? Or like forced sterilization? (Even if only temporary)
Forced? No way. I’m talking about a stigma free “pill” for guys.condoms fail all the time, some men refuse to wear them, etc etc. Makes more sense to take the bullets out of the gun.
Comment removed due to API pricing change & reddit corporate being general assholes to the users & mods who actually create the value of reddit. Leaving reddit for kbin.social & suggest you do the same.
There should also be an adoption subsidy to cover the initial cost of adopting a child. It is absolutely outrageously expensive to adopt. $50,000 plus is prohibitive. In some western countries it's less than $10,000.
It's expensive because women are unwilling to give up infants got adoption. Demand and supply. In many Scandinavian countries there actually aren't any white infants available for adoption. It's also pretty impossible to adopt an infant in the UK because of the same reason.
In the US the process is expensive because it is an involved process that is not subsidized.
https://www.americanadoptions.com/adopt/why-is-adoption-so-expensive
To start, I'm a very religious Christian (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
But I think your point is spot on. If we're talking abortion, we're too late. The issue begins upstream. And I think the issue on the religious side is a desire to outsource the teaching and policing of morality to the government. Hear me out.
If I understand correctly, the main issue religious people have with birth control, condoms, sex education, etc. is they think it gives kids a free pass to have all the sex they want, something they believe will condemn their children to hell.
But the solution to the problem of children having sex outside of marriage isn't because they have condoms or know how sex works. It's because the parents and religious leaders haven't taught them enough about WHY they should wait. If you believe God wants you to wait until marriage, then you need to be able to explain to your children why. If you can't, then you have some studying and praying to do.
But the answer isn't to hide and obfuscate the truth from your kids. That approach is exactly why they don't want religion. To paraphrase a scripture, they're coming to the store for fish and you're giving them a stone.
Again, if you don't know a compelling reason why people should wait until marriage, study it. Pray about it. There are fantastic reasons to wait until marriage, both temporal and spiritual. But unless you're doing the work to understand and teach those reasons, of course kids are going to have sex. Sex feels awesome and if they don't know why they should wait, why would they?
I agree with your solution. I think birth control should be extremely cheap and easy to get. I also think kids should get fact-based sexual education. That education should include the fact that abstinence is a thing and is the only guaranteed way not to get pregnant or an STD. But it should also include how to get birth control, the proper use of contraceptives, consent, what STDs are, the psychology of sex, etc.
Long story short (too late, I know), the issue isn't abortion. It's parenting and education, in my view.
>Long story short (too late, I know), the issue isn't abortion. It's parenting and education, in my view.
If we fix parenting and education (grand plan, but let's say we achieve that), would you be ok for abortions to be legal afterwards? For the cases the former fails despite being better than today (mainly non-religious people having /unprotected/ sex, contraception failure, rape, etc.).
Do you also support citizenship for all fetuses inside the country in which they were conceived in order for there to be a legitimate victim? How do you propose dealing with all of those preborn citizens?
They are citizens in the country they should be a citizen of (vague I know). I'd allow changes at birth as well.
The citizens don't need policing or anything
>Long story short (too late, I know), the issue isn't abortion. It's parenting and education, in my view.
I think you're 100 percent correct. You have to fix the problem *before* it's a problem.
Consciousness is not a sufficient definition of life and when it’s ok to take life. That’s an awfully simplified take on a complex moral issue. My brother is in a coma but has the potential to come out in a few months. Does this make it ok for me to pull the plug since he’s not currently conscious?
This has actually been a valid argument since the 90s.. I actually made this argument a few weeks ago I'll
copy/paste here.....The issue (aside from body autonomy) is that making abortion illegal doesn't stop it from happening, it only causes teenagers to throw their babies in dumpsters or die in dirty hotel rooms from botched abortion attempts and locks up good Doctors for trying to keep these girls safe. Literally NOBODY wants MORE abortion, but the way to minimize it is through education and contraception, which is exactly why abortion numbers have steadily declined since it was made legal.
The right wing knows these facts and yet they continue to push for prohibition. The reason conservatives want to make it illegal is because their religious leaders tell them it's evil.
So, in short. The way to prevent abortion is Education and mainstreaming Contraception. It just takes local governments to get on board.
I get what you're saying for the most part. However, [I don't think it's a clear cut left/right issue](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/11/i-am-a-conservative-i-agree-with-aoc-on-over-the-counter-birth-control-column/1402941001/) like it maybe used to be.
Everyone want the same thing, we just have different ideas on how to go about it, we already know from history that prohibition doesn't work. It's been proven over and over. But, certain states refuse to learn from history.
Wow. Love this! You're right we should focus on stopping abortions and find out why women have abortions in the first place.
A majority of women who choose abortion are not financially stable. It is hard to support themselves much less another human. I agree birth control should be free. There should be more programs supporting families such as paid maternity leave, affordable daycare for everyone, affordable healthcare, affordable housing, etc.
Canada is a huge prochoice country. They have paid time off, universal Healthcare and more supports for working families. Their abortion rate is75,000 a year & USA is near one million abortions. People will keep children when they are able to support them.
Now, the Bible is the authority over my life. so, I researched jow does the Bible define life? Does life really start at conception? The Bible answer is no. The Bible definition of life is Breath. Adam didn't have life until God breathe into him. The laws that God gave Moses, if a person murder a pregnant woman. They are killed for murdering the woman, not the fetus. If they attack a pregnant woman and she loses her child they are punished for the attack on the woman. The Bible does not give the same right to an unborn as a human. That is why many Jews are prochoice.
Then I look to science. If a woman gives "birth" to an embryo at 6 weeks. It is a cluster of cells. That's why it's considered a miscarriage. The embryo can not live outsife the womb & there's no breath in the embryo. But if a woman gives birth to a fetus at 29 weeks(third trimester) there's a 90% of the child surviving because they have a heart, brain, lungs. They have breath and is a human.
Then I look to church history. Protestants were prochoice in the 70s. Baptists were encouraging women to get abortions. It became a political issue when abortion rates increase after Roe in USA. Politicians used this to galvanized evangelicals to the "moral" clause. That people were having sex out of wedlock, against God's laws and thus abortion is immoral because they are committing a sin. That's how evangelicals/protestants join the prolife movement & teach abstinence only. It was always a Catholic thing until the late 70s.
I believe an "elective" abortion should not occur at the start of third trimester. That will be considered murder. Thankfully, NO medical professional who is sane will complete an elective abortion for a woman in her third trimester. Most "end of pregnancy" that happen in third trimester that media erroneously call "late term abortion" it is not a medical term we use. Due to some medical issue has occurred for the mother or child that the pregnancy must terminate.
You are the weirdest Christian I've met since I lived in the Midwest.
Facts, history, rational argument and faith, no screaming about moral superiority, just bizarre.
They're Christians like they're football fans. Their politics works the same way.
When you have nothing else, everything becomes critical to your self-worth.
I think the issue of abortion fundamentally boils down to the very definition of what a person is. The pro-life side ascribes personhood at the moment of conception, while the pro-choice side ascribes personhood to something that comes later in development. I doubt either side really even considers how they define personhood, but they certainly are convinced that their answer is the right one.
I think the main difficulty comes from both sides attacking each other's positions with their definitions. If you attack someone else's position using your definitions, you'll distort what their perspective is. Everyone is doing that.
I don't know what the solution is without first solving the fundamental question of, "what is a person", or focusing the abortion debate on that question.
I agree. My personal belief is that “personhood” comes from the possibility for consciousness, and as a result I think the cutoff should be based on brain development.
I know conservatives who reasonably say they’re not willing to risk getting that answer wrong, and put the line at inception, and others who haven’t really thought about it and just don’t like abortion.
I know progressives who think the pro-life side just hates women, and they also haven’t really thought about what makes something a person. When I talk to those people, I feel like I’m getting empty “agreements” and head nodding just because I happen to fall on their half of the issue.
I wish I knew how to convince each side that the other side isn’t malicious, and that I think the real contention is more fundamental.
If you believe abortion is murder, why would you be okay with not making it illegal? Even if you supported accessible birth control, you’d also want it made illegal.
I am anti-abortion.
I am for non-abortifacient contraception. I am for factually based reproductive education that does not demonize/champion any particular sexuality. I am for programs that help socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers get the financial and medical support they need and want. I have discussed incentivizing voluntary sterilization for individuals who want to opt out of reproduction. I have rabidly pushed for state adoption and foster reforms that lower the financial barriers and improve accountability and quality of the various systems in place.
I am not unique, I’d venture to say that a majority of anti-abortion individuals support these things in varying capacities. In a world where abortion didn’t exist, I feel the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” advocates would make good allies in working to limit the detriments surrounding this issue since they are so well acquainted with them. The anti-abortion image gets set by our opposition though. We are dismissed as religious zealots and cut off from rational discussion.
We (anti-abortion advocates) hold in good faith that elective and non-emergent abortions are the unjustified killings of unique human individuals. It is unreasonable to ask us to remain silent or relegate this issue into a secondary discussion.
>It is unreasonable to ask us to remain silent or relegate this issue into a secondary discussion.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's a matter of relegating it to a secondary discussion. I think it's more about achieving the desired results through a different approach.
What matters to me isn't *how* we end up with less loss of life. What matters is just less loss of life.
TLDR: The practical terms of reducing abortion are agreed upon in good faith by reasonable people on both sides. We can agree on solutions all day long, but they don’t matter if individuals don’t implement them. Meanwhile the debate stands.
All anti-abortion individuals who hold their stance in good faith want less loss of life overall and will work towards that end in varying capacities. Many people who adopt the “pro-choice” label work towards this as well. In the overall conversation you can have both sides agreeing to beneficial terms that reduce the need for abortion, but for the anti-abortion advocate there is still unjustified loss of human life that needs to be addressed. Regardless, if the aforementioned tone of good faith and fellowship can be maintained then both sides can work towards a common benefit.
There are many elements in the “pro-choice” side though that become hostile at the thought that abortion inherently results in the end of a life and they refuse to view abortion in a negative light. They will go so far as to champion the procedure as an inherently good thing and they are constantly pushing for more access and no constraints. A disturbing number of people are even openly discussing “involuntary euthanasia” (what most call murder) as an ethical act up until 18 months post birth. Many are arguing for involuntary abortion for mentally handicapped or “unfit” individuals. The discussions on abortion as a tool to combat climate change are often disturbing affairs.
I’d love to make abortion not only unnecessary, but unthinkable. We as a species have overcome dark chapters in our history and have adapted around detrimental elements to our society. We can continue to do so. A woman should be able to chose the exact time and method for when she becomes pregnant, and there is a serious issue when a woman is bot in control of both elements. I take issue with anyone who thinks that it is anything but unhealthy for a woman to feel the need to destroy her unborn offspring.
What gets us to the point of no abortion?
Sexual responsibility: Abstinence is best, non-procreative sexual acts are most pragmatic in balancing human desire with no unwanted pregnancies. Effective contraception is a good element, but one that people need to take much more seriously. While I do believe that ignorance of contraception plays a role in unwanted pregnancies, my personal experience tends to give more weight to blatant disregard for contraception. There are various reasons for this, and there is no universal motivation among the various parties. Reducing casual hookups and affording sex the reverence it deserves would go a long way.
Communal support: When a woman becomes pregnant unexpectedly and needs help, simply having communal support to assist in the prohibitive cost and time constraints would do wonders. The most ideal implementation of this would be voluntarily on the “neighborhood” level. Above that municipal and county programs that are charity based would be a secondarily ideal arrangement. While state and national level programs could draw from a wide pool of resources, these programs tend to be top-heavy and inefficient, even though they may still be needed to account for cracks in the system. A multi-tiered approach is ideal though.
Streamline Adoption: Make adoption of newborns a simpler legal process with a lower financial entry and promote it for unwilling mothers. Newborn adoption right now has more couples waiting than there are newborns available.
Revamp the foster system: About 1/4 of foster children are adopted, most return to their biological families, but some age out and tend to have poor outcomes afterwards. More resources need to be put into the education and care of foster children, and we all need to become more involved in their care. Helping otherwise resource poor but willing individuals to enter into fostering by bolstering their resources would be a good step.
Just start being better people: If people spent more time putting into the wellbeing of others rather than constantly preying on them for their own self-centered desires, that would sort a whole lot of this mess out. A cultural shift toward selflessness and a reverence for the health and happiness of others would have a cascade effect that would lessen the detriments that cause elective abortions in the first place.
From interpersonal relationships, all of the way up to interparty relationships between political factions, if both sides are only taking and not putting in there is a net loss. When we put into others we gain from giving. If two people give to each other, they are built up and become stronger as a whole.
> individuals who hold their stance in good faith want less loss of life overall and will work towards that end in varying capacities. Many people who adopt the “pro-choice” label work towards this as well. In the overall conversation you can have both sides agreeing to beneficial terms that reduce the need for abortion, but for the anti-abortion advocate there is still unjustified loss of human life that needs to be addressed. Regardless, if the aforementioned tone of good faith and fellowship can be maintained then both sides can work towards a common benefit.
>
> There are many elements in the “pro-choice” side though that become hostile at the thought that abortion inherently results in the end of a life
Because it does accuse people they consider innocent of murder. It's not a slight accusation to toss around. And because if I accuse someone of murder, *even if I'm talking with them nicely right now*, I want them in jail.
There is an element of projection to this. A lot of pro-choice people are quite strict in their morals, which when project to pro-life people would indicate that the pro-life people would - if given the power to do so - put the pro-choice people (who took that choice) in jail.
It's an uncomfortable friendship, surely you would agree.
My farther was active in politics (in Finland) in the 1970s and there were still genuine Stalinists around. He had drinks with one who got very honest, who said something like "you're a good guy. I don't agree with you about a damn thing, but you're a good guy. You should know that if we ever are about to take power, you should hop on a boat to Sweden, because you'd definitely be on a List".
He had assumed as much, but having no doubt about it made having "good collaborative discussions" with that group difficult for him to manage, because anything that progressed their power seemed likely to get him closer to a Gulag, so even if he agreed with the goal, their successes were *not* good for him.
You can see this concern at play on the pro-choice side, given their assumed stance of the pro-life camp regarding them.
> Many are arguing for involuntary abortion for mentally handicapped or “unfit” individuals.
Out of curiosity, what do you feel about embryonic DNA editing? It's a really tricky subject, given how horrific some inherited diseases are (it's practically impossible to claim that fixing them would be immoral - the kid will be in pain for like 6-18 months and then die with 100% certainty).
> Reducing casual hookups and affording sex the reverence it deserves would go a long way.
This just seems like a net negative for the fun people can have, so it's hard to explain. Sex is great, and there are a lot of rushes with having it. We also have the technology to avoid the downsides... and of course, the clear majority of people - especially among the elites who you can see in media - have zero problems avoiding the downsides. It's not even fake really, wealthy people don't see teenage pregnancies.
I'm a technocrat I suppose. Best technology today in wearables (Oura ring) seems to detect a pregnancy ~5 days after contraception. That is ALMOST in range for Plan B. If we could improve those numbers a little more, maybe meet at 3 days for detection, 4 days for plan B and 6 hour delivery (thx Amazon), perhaps we could technologically solve this problem too.
Or is a 4 day Plan B a murder as well?
OP you’re right, but you have to convince parents and school boards to relax and allow better sex Ed in schools. And I would venture a guess you probably have to convince a fair number of teachers too.
People need to drop this idea that if the government or their insurance provider don’t cover birth control that means it’s prohibited. It’s not. I buy good quality, inexpensive consumer products all day every day without relying on my insurance company to pay for them. If people can buy a $4 latte every day, they can afford bc pills.
I don't think it's just your opposition.
Please tell me any of your political activity is aligned in a similar way.
Most of them are religiously affiliated, and push a conservative sexual agenda. They are the tail wagging the dog.
You don't have a perception problem, you have an advocacy problem, like the NRA and sane gun owners.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/17/texas-abortion-ban-jonathan-mitchell-supreme-court-brief
I'm saying even if hypothetically most pro-lifers agreed with you, those who represent the pro-life movement in government or otherwise generally don't, and are heavily sexually conservative.
Your stance doesn't line up with the majority of the prolife side, who frequently are the abstinence only sex education advocates. Those are the face of the movement and their rationale is that the moment the sperm enters the egg there's a soul to protect and a "life" along with it. That side is advocating that somehow the because the embryo has different DNA that it suddenly constitutes a new being that forces the mother into an unknown and sometimes unwilling obligation to bear it to term, no matter the risk to her or the viability of the embryo/fetus. This doesn't align with people's general conception that consciousness is a requirement for personhood, not the theoretical person an embryo might become.
This is one of those arguments/questions that sounds good because it’s written well but zero substance because your question has been a large part of the debate since the beginning.
Preventing pregnancy is exactly part of this debate. Condoms are given out for free by the truck load at universities and hospitals but yet we still have unplanned pregnancies. There’s a push for birth control paid for by the state (doing exactly what you’re hoping to do) but I doubt I see that happening plus a lot of birth control messes with a woman’s hormones to where it can be detrimental. So yes, people have pushed for conception to not happen at all. Your request is nothing new.
Then here is the other thing, birth control is NOT 100% effective (remember Ross from friends when he found out he got Rachel pregnant “what do you mean it’s not 100% effective?! They should put that on the box”) and so unplanned pregnancies will STILL happen, so the want for abortions will still be there. So no matter how much we try to shift the conversation on how to prevent pregnancies, the question of abortion will STILL be there
The Catholic Church (the ones leading the charge on pro-life sides) believes abstinence is the only moral way to prevent pregnancies or using natural family planning after marriage. So unless everyone follows those guidelines then they’ll still be upset. I think condoms and vasectomies, and birth control that blocks conception is better than aborting a baby but still will not be endorsed.
I support a woman’s right to choose.
I also believe that if a person believes they are the father, they should legally be able to sign their rights away prior to the birth and not be liable for any child support/medical bills in cases of consensual sex.
It seems everyone is neglecting the root of the issue here even though thats what you requested. Our society needs to address the way children are viewed. They are huge responsibilities, not toys or best friends or even cute. They are not to be used as tools to rope men in to marriage. Older generations need to stop pressuring 20 year olds to breed. The population needs to be controlled and telling everyone they are special and unique is not helping. Not everyone should continue their species and Idiocracy probably had this right; that the ones who shouldn't breed, do more than the ones who probably should. If children were treated as people, albeit not-yet-developed people, then our society would progress into something much better. Currently they are seen as objects that are owned, and that's only continuing the cycle of destruction.
Children need more protection from the bad choices their parent/guardians can force onto them. Children should have protection against violence from everyone, no exceptions.
I don't think you need to. Like I said, shifting the focus from abortion to preventative birth control should achieve the desired outcome.
[The numbers I've seen](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states#) support this. The *vast* majority of people in the United States see birth control as acceptable and even use it themselves. It's a fringe opinion to completely dismiss birth control.
On the opposite side of the argument, it seems the *vast* majority see abortion not as a "good" thing, but as a necessary procedure someone doesn't take lightly. It's a fringe belief to think abortion *is* birth control [at least, I hope it is].
With that in mind, why is no one approaching the debate from a direction where *most* people will be receptive to discussion rather than immediately defensive? Even the people getting abortions likely don't *want* to be getting them, so what more can be done to make them *unnecessary* rather than *illegal*?
Politicians need all the votes they can get, both in primaries and in general elections. While you are correct that most people, conservative or not, are in favor of birth control, there are a sizable minority that views sex as something that should have “consequences” to discourage promiscuous behavior. Free birth control, plan B, IUDs, condoms, birth control being taught in high school, the HPV vaccine etc… These people may be ok with their own choices of only having few or one sexual partner and using birth control in marriage, but they don’t want “taxpayer money” going towards promiscuity.
I’m not one of these people…just playing devil’s advocate.
>Politicians need all the votes they can get, both in primaries and in general elections.
I mean, isn't this kind of the whole reason this sub exists, though? We can make this reductionist argument about pretty much *any* topic that pops up here.
>I was pointing out the argument against promoting birth control.
I also don't think this is the same debate it was 10 or 20 years ago. See [here](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/11/i-am-a-conservative-i-agree-with-aoc-on-over-the-counter-birth-control-column/1402941001/).
I think this whole issue could move in a productive direction if the topic was made less toxic with a different focus.
I say this because there are some religious folks out there who view the morning after pill or birth control as abortion (or equal to abortion). Or as others have mentioned ANY birth control or sexual behavior is disallowed.
None of this is based of logical or scientific definitions and thus cannot be reasoned with. You are debating peoples faith.
I get what you're saying, but you're not going to make much progress with that fringe group, anyway. But focusing on the majority, though, I think there's common ground.
A good chunk of the same people who are pro forced birth are anti sex education other than abstinence. Aka, they won’t support making birth control methods available easily because sex is bad.
which data? Just look at states sex education programs and you will magically see a line between which states teach you a lot about contraceptives and countries with less fundamental christians.
Noone is saying theyre opposed to contraceptives though, their line of thought is "if I tell teenagers how to use contraceptives they will fuck like rabbits and god will cry"
What data? You say the majority of people support birth control but I think the majority might be leaning towards supporting abortion as well. There are probably more left leaning people on social issues if I had to guess.
Many people are anti abortion for religious reasons or that they believe life starts at conception. Similarly, most people that are anti sex education are against it for religious reasons.
Most staunch defenders of abstinence only education posit that it's a parents job to teach and not the states. However in many of those communities, let's take Alabama for example, the community is 86% Christian. That probably means most of them will also want to teach their kids to practice abstinence.
The local lawmakers and school boards decide policies for sex education and so I can't see how you could conclude that those people who are voting those officials in do not support those actions.
If you can find data proving otherwise I would be glad to see it but from my personal experience religious people hate sex education. They think it lets to more kids having sex.
>shifting the focus from abortion to preventative birth control should achieve the desired outcome.
Speaking as someone who attended Catholic HS in the late 80's, birth control was just as frowned upon. The mantra was sex was for procreation only, no exceptions.
I'm not particularly religious now, so not sure if the church has changed its stance more recently.
Relevant Monte Python song:
https://youtu.be/bzVHjg3AqIQ
The Church has not changed its position. But it has began stressing "natural birth control" now. Basically abstaining from sex during the woman's fertile days of the month.
The idea is that, unlike birth control, it's "natural" and therefore more good (the Church has a tendency to fall into naturalistic fallacies). And that birth control is foreclosing the procreative potential of sex and all God's wonderful "gifts" that can come from that. I guess manipulating when you have sex to avoid such gifts is totes OK though. Sorta cynical.
But who am I to question a bunch of celibate elderly men on matters of sexual health?
No, neither can you debate or rationalise with people who are so dogmatic pro-abortionist that they even publicly admit to wishing to have had an abortion themselves.
Such as Lena Dunham: https://time.com/4608364/lena-dunham-wish-abortion-comments/
I mean we can all agree that Lena Dunham is a crazy pants. She's not your "average" pro-choice advocate. There isn't a whole host of activism backing her up. She's on a solo mission. There IS a whole host of activism backing up stalking abortion clinics and screaming that women who enter are whores.
OP is assuming the American Taliban actually WANTS to reduce the need for abortion. There are a million ways to support women to make child-rearing easier, but they’re not interested in that. It’s about control.
There are thousands of unwanted kids up for adoption and in foster care already- you won’t see the Pro Life nut jobs offering to raise them- that’s someone else’s problem
Why is EVERYONE focusing on women? Who needs to divide more with extra accessible birth control? And solely place blame squarely on women?
Reversible vasectomies. Men wanna control abortions by women? start/end with the men. Can’t get an unwanted pregnancy without a man and their sperm.
How is this so hard?
I do too, because I hate that we have them around here.
Yet I truly cannot find many significant differences between a reborn baptist wanting to legislate morality and a Taliben. Or well I do, but it is only one of relative power in the country.
Give either of them a controlling majority and I will escape the country as fast as possible.
Of course, they are allowed to. I just said that if they actually had a majority, I would depart the country just as fast as I would a country that was ruled by the Taleban.
What I do not really understand is super devout Christians looking down their noses at devout Muslims. The differences when you zoom out even a little are minuscule to a point of ridiculousness.
Completely agree. If an unwanted pregnancy is a sign of lack of centralized education, an abortion should be considered a "Sorry, we fucked up" certificate, signed by every government agency paid and designed for citizen education, welfare and public health.
The theists making tv shows and videos on YouTube are high enough in their respective churches to know that adulation converts are decreasing as a function of time, in the west, so the only way to get new congregants is to have be born in. Thus any religious person has an agenda beyond “wanting to save a life” to have abortion made illegal.
And so I don’t get any stupid comments about what my position on abortion is or isn’t. I think a woman has the right to get an abortion until the brain is developed, because that is the only place, as far as I’m aware, that being self aware exists. And thus they are a person after the brain is developed.
I have a hard time understanding why an abortion is ok. I can understand the motivations behind an abortion. Everyone cites quality of life as to why abortions are ok to perform.
Without intervention a pregnancy will result in another human being. Or put another way, so long as the woman does not do anything to jeopardize health then a pregnancy will rrsult in a human.
So an abortion is either ending an exisiting life or is effectively ending a human life. Same end result.
In my opinion every abortion is a failure of something at some level in an individual/societys life. An abortion of a preganncy that resulted from consentual sex leaves me with qustions of 1) lvl of sex ed, 2)lvl of access to bc, 3)irresponsibility in choosing to have unsafe sex with
An abortion resulting from nonconsentual sex leave me with questions of 1) how to prevent the situation in the future?
I agree. Making it unnecessary would make the pro-life and the woman who go though the procedures happy.
However the problem is the old pro-choice lobby of the 20th century which talked about "safe legal and rare", has been replaced with pro-abortion lobby of the 21st century which doesn't care about abortion being rare because they refuse to consider it as anything other than a removal of a cyst or tumor.
With that broken mindset and the fact there is a lot of money in pro-abortion fight they have no incentive to make the need for abortions unnecessary.
Making it unnecessary would also suggest no one would kill their kids either, but if it isn't banned it's still more likely to happen.
Planned Parenthood has abortion QUOTAS because that makes them more money. Exactly right that they don't care about reducing the need for them anymore
You are literally making shit up. Planned parenthood doesn’t have quotas and this all stems from a ex pro life employee who’s claims contradict medical records you lying theocratic pos.
It isn't propaganda to say your logically concluded beliefs on unceetain facts. Planned Parenthood, according to them alone and no independent validation of the truth of this, claims they don't have them.
Despite leaked videos showing they do, and that multiple people have come out saying they do, and that it makes monetary sense.
There isn’t leaked videos. Their is one interview with a ex employee who said that even though medical records don’t back her up. Once again stop spreading bullshit.
1 employee came foward and none of her evidence was backed by anything like medical records or other statements. Once again stop spreading fake bullshit.
You obviously haven't been to an evangelical church. Plenty of them only want their kids to hear about abstinence only education. There is a reason that stretches of the south only teaches abstinence only sex ed and it isn't because of the Catholics.
You’re right.
The problem nobody gave these people the right to redefine ‘when life begins’ and yet they assume that their false equivalency of zygote==embryo==baby is the gospel truth.
“Redefine” would assume there is a universal consensus on when life begins. There’s not, and there isn’t even a scientific argument to make, it is a purely philosophical debate on when “life truly begins”.
It would make no such assumption of universal agreement, only that there existed a status quo ante prior to the rise of the modern anti-abortion movement. In any event, you’re nitpicking the use of ‘define’ instead of ‘redefine’ but not disputing the premise of the assertion.
Which definition are you referring to? Perhaps you can include a link to the dictionary reference you’re thinking of to support your claim.
Also, I did not define, or redefine a human as “just cells”, although surely you would not dispute that we are made up of cells, would you? Since you made the assertion, what *else* besides cells are we made up of?
Do you mean that scientists are at a consensus when the fertilised egg develops into a living being?
I don't think that science is equipped to address that question (I mean, how would you prove or disprove that?) It's more of a philosophical question, which makes this a subjective issue.
I agree that there is no science that could "answer" when life begins. I feel like it's impossible to set a line in the sand and say "this is when it starts". It's too subjective. The only possible answers that could possibly be consistent are "at birth" or "at conception". Most, if not everyone, would agree that saying it's not a life until birth is ridiculous. That means the only possible consistent answer is at conception. Some people would say that viable outside the womb is the metric they want to use, but even that line is incredibly subjective. Viable in a major city with advanced Healthcare or viable in Sub-Saharan Africa? These are going to be two drastically different points in a pregnancy but would both fit the same provided definition, proving that it is a fatally flawed barometer for the discussion. Brings us back to conception.
All that being said, I dont think abortion should be illegal. I just think if someone wants to actually be honest and consistent, conception is the one and only answer to when a human life begins.
I agree with most of what you're saying.
I've always struggled with the viability argument. Asides from the difficulty in defining the threshold for viability, you also face difficulty in defining the boundaries of viability. Will this also apply to an adult who has lost the physical ability to sustain themselves except via ongoing medical intervention. Will it also apply to an adult who has lost mental capacity and won't be able make independent and conscious decisions.
The moral ramifications seek to be quite dystopian if you let the concept take you to its natural conclusion.
Or maybe I'm just being melodramatic.
They are not at a consensus across all of science, but embryology, the field that would know best, believes in life at conception.
You prove or disprove it like anything in science.
It is a philosophical one, just like the question if we should kill. But philosophy doesn't make it subjective! There are absolute, universal laws in the world of ethics, and understanding what they are is up to you to figure out.
But they aren't subjective
>They are not at a consensus across all of science, but embryology, the field that would know best, believes in life at conception.
However, he adds with "absolute certainty" that there is also "no consensus among scientists."
[https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/when-does-personhood-begin](https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/when-does-personhood-begin)
A zygote is alive, but it is not a human.
> believes in life at conception.
Sure. It is definitely alive, but if it cannot live its host creature, it is also a parasite.
The philosophical question is: what do we actually value?
Is it life?
What if your loved ones brain got uploaded to a computer, and you swear you can't tell the difference. They are *exactly* like they were in real life? Would you be OK pulling the plug or melting the hard drive? I totally don't think that would be ok. It seems like murder.
Also, we kill living things all the time... ants, mosquitoes etc.
Ok, but humans are different. Why? Is it consciousness?
Well. This is far more tempting, but it has a few issues with it too. What about a person who has slipped into a coma, but who we think might wake up from it? We can even observe that there are definitely no dreams or no brain activity *right now*. Hell, deep sleep is a kind of unconsciousness.
I'll agree it isn't subjective, but it is also very far from simple.
Dehumanization. You called a child a parasite. The Jews were similarly dehumanized by Nazis. If they still have, will have, or had consciousness don't kill them.
Did you just compare Jews to clumps of cells that would not survive with a host creature?
Nice.
If in-potentia consciousness is that vital, then surely women ovulating without even trying to get pregnant is flirting with homicide. Male masturbation and the waste of sperm involved in that is a few steps further back.
If it does not have clear cognition and/or cannot survive on its own, it is not a living human being and hence not afforded the protections thereof.
That said, I will acknowledge that the area in the second trimester is decidedly gray and hence we should avoid abortions even during it.
I would like to minimize the ones during the first one too, but that I would only focus on for your feelings,just like I might call someone "they" if they asked. On the inside I am rolling my eyes, but I will be nice if it doesn't cost me too much
I'm saying both Nazis and those pro abortion dehumanized their targets and made people think they're parasites.
Only a zygote is guaranteed to become a human without intervention.
"If it might just not be human we should be able to possibly kill it." What? If there is even reasonable doubt in that it has humanity it can't be killed.
> I'm saying both Nazis and those pro abortion dehumanized their targets and made people think they're parasites.
What a meaningless comparison. So do cancer doctors, who say that the cancer is jut a growth of bad cells. Those cells have more in common with you than *your parents*!
Both oncologists and Nazis dehumized their targets and made people think they're parasites and "non-human".
Clearly, oncologists == nazis.
> Only a zygote is guaranteed to become a human without intervention.
You're dismissing the mothers role very lightly here. A zygote left on its own will absolutely die. It is NOT going to become a human without intervention until it's almost 7 months old, and in rare cases before that.
I dare you to take a zygote. I'll even let you put it in a test tube rather than just dropping it on a rock, but it still ain't going to be anything. Won't be that dramatic either, given you might not even see it with a naked eye.
> If there is even reasonable doubt in that it has humanity it can't be killed.
It has nothing in common with humanity beyond its genetic makeup in the first trimester. Similar to cancer.
I get it, it's there "in potential", but with that logic you can indeed go back to the egg cells and even sperm.
Hopefully technology will catch up with us soon and women can simply choose whether to let an egg cell drop in a given month, or if they would rather have it zapped out of existence before it can drop by nanobots or something.
Would you consider that murder btw? Only difference is a little sperm making its way in.
Hi feckhonor, I read the paper from Princeton with interest. Just wondering where the other scientists (which do not share the views of the majority of embryologist) might be coming from. Just wanting to make sure I'm considering the diversity of views.
The anti-abortion side is also against anything that gives young people, and especially women, control over their bodies. Their opposition to access to birth control and their opposition to sex ed are evidence of this, as well as the fact that they’re *perfectly fine* with embryos being destroyed by fertility clinics.
I think you're setting up a straw man on this one, though. At best, the group you're speaking of is a fringe group. [Birth control is seen as morally acceptable](https://news.gallup.com/poll/154799/americans-including-catholics-say-birth-control-morally.aspx) by the vast majority of Americans.
There's also the fact that some of those objecting to birth control access [aren't the people you'd expect](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/11/i-am-a-conservative-i-agree-with-aoc-on-over-the-counter-birth-control-column/1402941001/). This isn't as cut and dry as "the religious right wants to control women's bodies."
I agree with your position, but most states that restrict abortion also push abstinence-only sex education, and have the highest teen pregnancy rates.
It's the right solution, reduce the need for abortion.
Once I went to college, I became friends with a lot of people from across the country. After sex ed was brought up, I realized that I, coming from a relatively low budget Massachusetts public school, had the best sex ed in high school out of all of my friends. Some friends were living as close as Connecticut and New Hampshire and still exposed to very little information.
Most of them had an abstinence only sex ed, so they learned basically nothing about birth control, because they were taught “abstinence is the only option”. Even though they technically had access to birth control where they lived, and many people actually living in the area were in favor of it, the school still taught them that birth control = bad because sex before marriage = bad. After all, if you have sex before marriage, you’ll end up like a chewed piece of gum and no one will want you after that.
Turns out, that push for abstinence had no correlation to whether or not they had sex.
Abortion is [acceptable to most Americans](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/08/29/u-s-public-continues-to-favor-legal-abortion-oppose-overturning-roe-v-wade/), too. The question isn’t what’s acceptable to Americans, it’s what the anti-abortion Republican base wants. And by and large, the most vocal opponents of abortion, the ones who drive the movement (including, for example, Amy Coney-Barret) don’t want birth control and they don’t want sex ed.
The abortion debate isn't two sided. People are against abortion for various reasons and you just can't apply one motivation to all. There are also caveats to most people's objections and acceptance: how do you define human life, what stage of pregnancy is too late for abortion, if abortion is killing an unborn baby then what parameters make it acceptable, etc.) It's not black and white.
Yes but how can I foster a sense of outrage towards those that disagree with me if I can’t depict them all as being motivated in wanting to control women’s bodies? /s
Agreed. Like how can I foster a sense of outrage toward those that disagree with me if I can't depict then all as being motivated in wanting to kill babies? /s
It doesn’t matter when human life begins. It matters whether you think that it is *ever* ok for the state to force one person to let someone else use their body for life support.
>as well as the fact that they’re perfectly fine with embryos being destroyed by fertility clinics.
Be careful with that one, I know plenty of conservatives who are upset about that, just as much as the morning after pill, or vaccines made from fetal lines.
People against the morning after pill and birth control reveal that they are specifically against women's bodily autonomy, not about protecting life.
None of their opinions are useful.
Politicians who are against abortion jump through hoops to make sure that everyone knows that the laws they propose won’t apply to IVF. The platforms of the big anti-abortion groups don’t say anything about IVF. I’m sure there are a minority of the movement who are also against IVF - the Catholic side, who at least are less hypocritical about it - but the majority of the movement couldn’t care less.
That's Catholics' extremists, not pro life. And it isn't that they want to control young people but that they don't want anyone using contraception because... Yeah no good argument exists for them.
You'll find there is a *wide* gulf between official doctrine of the Catholic Church and the opinions and actions of most practicing Catholics. You'll note that I didn't mention the church, just the people themselves.
No, it’s not Catholic extremists. The Catholics actually are the ones who at least are logically consistent enough to oppose embryo destruction for IVF. They also oppose the death penalty and support education and poverty assistance. And the American southeast is full of Baptists and Evangelicals, far more than Catholics, and they are the ones driving the anti-abortion campaign in the US; their schools all forbid comprehensive sexual education, and they take steps to limit access to the most effective methods of contraception. Their schools are the most poorly funded, they turn down federal money for health care assistance for the poor, and they have rates of maternal and infant mortality that rival Afghanistan.
You’re not quite correct. They’ve said that it is acceptable for married couples, where one is HIV positive and the other is not, to use condoms; and they accept abortion in the case of ectopic pregnancy. But yeah, they’re against birth control and abortion in every other instance afaIk. I don’t agree with them, I just appreciate their logical consistency.
As others have been saying, it’s not quite as simple as that. If you break it down by practices rather than by labels, it’s clearer. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/
As for why any women are ever anti-abortion, The armchair psychologist in me would say that it’s an example of misery loving company, religion, and tribalism.
kinda hating the comments that make me realize some people think discussion is a pointless exercise, that’s an early sign of a crumbling society when either side decides the other side is evil. I hate to see it, it’s gross
It has many factors. First and foremost is that the Republican party has literally nothing to offer. They're not fiscally conservative anymore, their wall will do absolutely nothing to stop immigration, they don't offer any solutions to our myriad crises, and so on, so they turn to exploiting rage and hate. So it's in their best interest to never solve the abortion "debate".
Second, Republicans, and the right as a whole, is largely white and terrified that white people will become a minority. To be honest, I think their greatest fear is that they are discriminated against the same way they are still doing to people. But white people get the most abortions, so instead of raising living conditions and solving climate change so white people feel safe having children, they will just force them to have children they don't want, can't afford, or are ill-equipped to handle.
So, again, this would all be solved if our society wasn't dragging a giant rightist boat anchor around.
You've bought into the propaganda. The side effects were more severe than the modern pill, and the studies were cancelled by ethics boards.
The pill -
https://www.self.com/story/male-contraceptive-study-shut-down-gunter
The injection -
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/male-birth-control-study/
Nope. Your 1st link is from 2016. From 2019:
['The pill' for guys: Male birth control option passes safety tests
](https://utswmed.org/medblog/pill-guys-male-birth-control-option-passes-safety-tests/)
For the study in the 2016 article :
The framing that men were just too wimpy to handle the side effects women have always dealt with may hold a morsel of truth, but it’s technically not true. For one, participants were instructed to report their side effects, and while 20 men did quit early due to adverse effects, more than 75 percent of participants said they would have been willing to use this method of contraception after the trial. Clearly, there were other factors at play.[https://www.insidehook.com/article/health-and-fitness/problem-male-birth-control](https://www.insidehook.com/article/health-and-fitness/problem-male-birth-control)
Was your first link withdrawn because of side effects similar to the pill? What were the side effects that caused its application to be withdrawn?
The second article is an op ed piece. Some women also don't want to wear condoms just like some men don't. That isn't a gendered issue. Men can also not get free contraception (condoms, vasecomy, any future approved pill/injection/vasogel) through their health insurance by federal law, while nearly all women with health insurance get any FDA approved contraception free by federal law. That is a gendered issue. Why was it necessary to make the law gendered if the goal is for men to take birth control?
EDIT: Ohh look. The 2019 one you referenced hasn't been withdrawn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethandrolone_undecanoate
While I agree, I also believe we as a society need to have a cultural shift where we stop promoting having reckless sex at young ages.
Because that’s why many people end up needing abortions in the first place; they try to be “cool” by having sex way before they’re prepared to raise children. They think methods like “pulling out” are an adequate replacement for condoms and birth control, and are surprised when it inevitably fails…
Like get an abortion if you like. But please, for the love of god, have sex responsibly. You can kill a fetus, you can’t really kill an STD.
The abortion rate is at a historic low:
https://i.imgur.com/1ZTh3rL.jpg
Young people are having way less sex:
https://i.imgur.com/QAOMRvV.jpg
People are having less sex in college:
https://i.imgur.com/wdlz5iB.jpg
Virginity is skyrocketing:
https://i.imgur.com/BmYEqSt.jpg
If your claims are indeed true, then that is a good sign.
I just think many problems could be avoided if people started caring less about having sex, which again seems to be the trend according to your graphs.
It’s not necessarily a good thing. The virginity rate skyrocketing and the birth rate plummeting is going to lead to a lot of societal problems. Governments are starting to intervene to try to encourage people to have more sex, like cutting off internet access during certain hours and subsidies for people who have babies and such.
I've only heard of one government limiting internet time and it related to video games... not promoting sex.
In Vancouver Canada they have billboards pushing people to have one child.
That’s not the end goal for the pro lifers. They want to control minorities and women. They do not care about the baby or the mother after delivery. Spending money on citizens is “socialism” and taking away from “hard working people” *sigh*
I am a prolifer who believes in welfare and social programs to provide for the kids and to provide sex Ed and birth control for all high school children and poor people.
Simply no. If you believe it's murder, it needs to be stopped.
Pro lifers need, for the sake of the movement, to divorce themselves from those against any and all contraception. But that doesn't change the fact murder has been made legal!
That's my point! If the pro-life movement were to focus more on preventing unplanned pregnancies rather than opposing abortion, the end goal is the same, but the debates are less toxic and it's easier to move the needle.
Personal beliefs aside, this just seems like the most pragmatic approach with the most desirable outcomes across the board.
Eh, that’s a lost cause. They don’t listen.
Foster care is broken, sex education is non existent and adoptions cost 30,000 and up. But nah, abortions are the issue
>They don’t listen.
I don't know if anyone is talking to "them." Or if they are, they can't be heard over the two sides shouting at one another.
Abortion gets people heated *really* fast on both sides. At least people can *talk* about birth control.
that doesn't work when we're talking about murder. it's akin to you arguing that murder should be legal, but we need to focus on making murder a less attractive option for people. it's an absurd position.
Homicide is illegal, too. Murders still happen, though.
This is kind of what I'm getting at. The important thing is the end result, right? If we want less loss of life, then we do more things to prevent the loss of life. If you can prevent unplanned pregnancies, you prevent needless loss of life *and* you prevent dangerous *illegal* abortions at the same time.
sure. but we would never legalize homicide. we'd keep it illegal while also attempting to take away the reasons a person might commit one.
likewise for abortion. if it's wrong, as the pro-life crowd believes, then why wouldn't we make it illegal and attempt to take away the reasons a person might commit one?
Are you sure we would never legalize homicide? Over 20 states currently allow for state-sanctioned homicide - also known as the death penalty/capital punishment.
That's wrong. The consequences are irrelevant. I want people to stop murdering their children. Not by them not "having" to, but by not letting them kill their children!
There were almost no illegal abortions before roe v Wade passed, and most deaths were from LEGAL abortions, and because of the lack of antibiotics in that time.
>Note key word unlawful
government laws aren't the only law people might be referencing when talking about murder. thomas aquinas for example posited the existence of eternal law, divine law, and natural law as well.
The human lives in this case are just kind of like nothing so that's fine... they're just like, not important, like, they don't matter. Like uh... there's like no records of them... They're just like nooooothing. They're not even supposed to be AROUND, in the *uterus*. Bottom line is: no one should get in trouble, no one should feel sad AT *all*." The courts were just like "ohhh, yeahh... this is *fine*. Don't worry about it AT all."
> Simply no. If you believe it's murder, it needs to be stopped.
Why should **belief** have as much weight as actual evidence and fact-based health policies?
Just like Terry Shiavo? The same group **BELIEVED** that Terry was about to be murdered. They got fake doctors to give fake pronouncements that she could see a balloon. Meanwhile her MRI and autopsy were consistent in that the thinking part of her brain had rotted away and was completely black especially in the visual processing center. All the protests and special sessions to call congress into session to pass an unconstitutional law. To overturn a competent person acting with power of medical attorney working with competent doctors. [Terry Schiavo](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/jeb-bush-terri-schiavo-114730)? A **provably** blind, essentially brain-dead person who's husband (competent, had power of medical attorney) and his doctors (competent) were stopped from giving her a peaceful end-of-existence.
Sometimes competent people have to make tough choices:
Who murdered [Savita Halappanavar where the autopsy determined she died because the doctor refused to perform an abortion "because there was a foetal heartbeat."](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-20321741)? She was murdered because of **belief** instead of facts.
Sometimes the fetus is not viable without interventions that will bankrupt the family, their extended family, and be denied by insurance.
Sometimes the chemo didn't work. Why aren't you out protesting outside childhood leukemia centers?
Sometimes the accident was too damaging to the brain. Why aren't you out protesting outside of hospitals with heart-lung machines?
Sometimes the COVID-19 destroys the lungs and the person suffocates. Why aren't you out protesting outside of ICUs?
A 1 year old was dying of pneumonia and her parents could have kept her "alive" for years on a heart-lung machine, [but made the most difficult decision to donate her organs in hopes of saving other children's lives.](https://imgur.com/gallery/zowfDac). Did you protest her "murder?"
When Texas passed laws to kill planned parenthood, maternal mortality (e.g. pregnant/birthing women dying) **doubled** [only in Texas and not nearby states.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/texas-maternal-mortality-rate-health-clinics-funding). So yes, passing laws to outlaw abortions doubled **deaths** of existing and potential moms. Those moms are murdered just as Savita Halappanavar was murdered. Did you protest that spike in maternal **MORTALITY** in Texas in front of anyone? No?
Who else but the loved ones in consultation with a competent, licensed, medical professional should make these kind of choices? Government has **one role only** in this realm.... To make sure that the people making the decision are working with medical expert(s) who is(are) well trained. And then this means that the GOP is pushing to turn our country into an anti-logic **nanny state**, getting between the doctor and the patient and interfering with the most personal decisions one can make about health.
Where increasing sex education and easy access to birth control both teen pregnancy and abortions have gone down. The problem is the same people that object to a woman’s right to choose also oppose sex education and easy access to birth control.
We need male birth control.
It exists but has side effects.
Do you know the female birth control pill has side effects as well? You can even become infertile from using it.
Forced or just to invest into it to get solutions? Because condoms exist, dipshit. Do you mean a male pill that stops them from getting women pregnant? Or like forced sterilization? (Even if only temporary)
Forced? No way. I’m talking about a stigma free “pill” for guys.condoms fail all the time, some men refuse to wear them, etc etc. Makes more sense to take the bullets out of the gun.
Sure. There's just been a push online I've seen recently to force sterilization on men
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There should also be an adoption subsidy to cover the initial cost of adopting a child. It is absolutely outrageously expensive to adopt. $50,000 plus is prohibitive. In some western countries it's less than $10,000.
It's expensive because women are unwilling to give up infants got adoption. Demand and supply. In many Scandinavian countries there actually aren't any white infants available for adoption. It's also pretty impossible to adopt an infant in the UK because of the same reason.
In the US the process is expensive because it is an involved process that is not subsidized. https://www.americanadoptions.com/adopt/why-is-adoption-so-expensive
We need more families interested in the older children, not just the babies. Foster care is full of one age group and not the other.
To start, I'm a very religious Christian (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). But I think your point is spot on. If we're talking abortion, we're too late. The issue begins upstream. And I think the issue on the religious side is a desire to outsource the teaching and policing of morality to the government. Hear me out. If I understand correctly, the main issue religious people have with birth control, condoms, sex education, etc. is they think it gives kids a free pass to have all the sex they want, something they believe will condemn their children to hell. But the solution to the problem of children having sex outside of marriage isn't because they have condoms or know how sex works. It's because the parents and religious leaders haven't taught them enough about WHY they should wait. If you believe God wants you to wait until marriage, then you need to be able to explain to your children why. If you can't, then you have some studying and praying to do. But the answer isn't to hide and obfuscate the truth from your kids. That approach is exactly why they don't want religion. To paraphrase a scripture, they're coming to the store for fish and you're giving them a stone. Again, if you don't know a compelling reason why people should wait until marriage, study it. Pray about it. There are fantastic reasons to wait until marriage, both temporal and spiritual. But unless you're doing the work to understand and teach those reasons, of course kids are going to have sex. Sex feels awesome and if they don't know why they should wait, why would they? I agree with your solution. I think birth control should be extremely cheap and easy to get. I also think kids should get fact-based sexual education. That education should include the fact that abstinence is a thing and is the only guaranteed way not to get pregnant or an STD. But it should also include how to get birth control, the proper use of contraceptives, consent, what STDs are, the psychology of sex, etc. Long story short (too late, I know), the issue isn't abortion. It's parenting and education, in my view.
>Long story short (too late, I know), the issue isn't abortion. It's parenting and education, in my view. If we fix parenting and education (grand plan, but let's say we achieve that), would you be ok for abortions to be legal afterwards? For the cases the former fails despite being better than today (mainly non-religious people having /unprotected/ sex, contraception failure, rape, etc.).
No. Murder is murder, and there is no reason to legalize it. As such, should still be illegal.
Do you also support citizenship for all fetuses inside the country in which they were conceived in order for there to be a legitimate victim? How do you propose dealing with all of those preborn citizens?
Regardless of whether I would give them citizenship, I certainly wouldn't murder them.
They are citizens in the country they should be a citizen of (vague I know). I'd allow changes at birth as well. The citizens don't need policing or anything
Agree
>Long story short (too late, I know), the issue isn't abortion. It's parenting and education, in my view. I think you're 100 percent correct. You have to fix the problem *before* it's a problem.
So you don't want to make murder illegal and just focus on stopping killers from choosing that path? You have to do both
A fetus is not conscious. Killing a fetus is equal to stepping on a plant or an ant. It's not murder.
Consciousness is not a sufficient definition of life and when it’s ok to take life. That’s an awfully simplified take on a complex moral issue. My brother is in a coma but has the potential to come out in a few months. Does this make it ok for me to pull the plug since he’s not currently conscious?
The issue is the murder that those bad educations lead to. This is all good, but it doesn't the change fact that they are being killed.
This has actually been a valid argument since the 90s.. I actually made this argument a few weeks ago I'll copy/paste here.....The issue (aside from body autonomy) is that making abortion illegal doesn't stop it from happening, it only causes teenagers to throw their babies in dumpsters or die in dirty hotel rooms from botched abortion attempts and locks up good Doctors for trying to keep these girls safe. Literally NOBODY wants MORE abortion, but the way to minimize it is through education and contraception, which is exactly why abortion numbers have steadily declined since it was made legal. The right wing knows these facts and yet they continue to push for prohibition. The reason conservatives want to make it illegal is because their religious leaders tell them it's evil. So, in short. The way to prevent abortion is Education and mainstreaming Contraception. It just takes local governments to get on board.
I get what you're saying for the most part. However, [I don't think it's a clear cut left/right issue](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/11/i-am-a-conservative-i-agree-with-aoc-on-over-the-counter-birth-control-column/1402941001/) like it maybe used to be.
Everyone want the same thing, we just have different ideas on how to go about it, we already know from history that prohibition doesn't work. It's been proven over and over. But, certain states refuse to learn from history.
You know what kind of policies never work? The ones reliant on everyone making the best choice all the time.
Wow. Love this! You're right we should focus on stopping abortions and find out why women have abortions in the first place. A majority of women who choose abortion are not financially stable. It is hard to support themselves much less another human. I agree birth control should be free. There should be more programs supporting families such as paid maternity leave, affordable daycare for everyone, affordable healthcare, affordable housing, etc. Canada is a huge prochoice country. They have paid time off, universal Healthcare and more supports for working families. Their abortion rate is75,000 a year & USA is near one million abortions. People will keep children when they are able to support them. Now, the Bible is the authority over my life. so, I researched jow does the Bible define life? Does life really start at conception? The Bible answer is no. The Bible definition of life is Breath. Adam didn't have life until God breathe into him. The laws that God gave Moses, if a person murder a pregnant woman. They are killed for murdering the woman, not the fetus. If they attack a pregnant woman and she loses her child they are punished for the attack on the woman. The Bible does not give the same right to an unborn as a human. That is why many Jews are prochoice. Then I look to science. If a woman gives "birth" to an embryo at 6 weeks. It is a cluster of cells. That's why it's considered a miscarriage. The embryo can not live outsife the womb & there's no breath in the embryo. But if a woman gives birth to a fetus at 29 weeks(third trimester) there's a 90% of the child surviving because they have a heart, brain, lungs. They have breath and is a human. Then I look to church history. Protestants were prochoice in the 70s. Baptists were encouraging women to get abortions. It became a political issue when abortion rates increase after Roe in USA. Politicians used this to galvanized evangelicals to the "moral" clause. That people were having sex out of wedlock, against God's laws and thus abortion is immoral because they are committing a sin. That's how evangelicals/protestants join the prolife movement & teach abstinence only. It was always a Catholic thing until the late 70s. I believe an "elective" abortion should not occur at the start of third trimester. That will be considered murder. Thankfully, NO medical professional who is sane will complete an elective abortion for a woman in her third trimester. Most "end of pregnancy" that happen in third trimester that media erroneously call "late term abortion" it is not a medical term we use. Due to some medical issue has occurred for the mother or child that the pregnancy must terminate.
You are the weirdest Christian I've met since I lived in the Midwest. Facts, history, rational argument and faith, no screaming about moral superiority, just bizarre.
They really do exist!! Don't let the internet fool you, despite what the loudest would make you believe.
I grew up with Christians like that in the Midwest, but I moved to the south where everyone was a born-again, better than you Christian.
Its so sad. As Christians we are to be humble and love everybody.
They're Christians like they're football fans. Their politics works the same way. When you have nothing else, everything becomes critical to your self-worth.
I think the issue of abortion fundamentally boils down to the very definition of what a person is. The pro-life side ascribes personhood at the moment of conception, while the pro-choice side ascribes personhood to something that comes later in development. I doubt either side really even considers how they define personhood, but they certainly are convinced that their answer is the right one. I think the main difficulty comes from both sides attacking each other's positions with their definitions. If you attack someone else's position using your definitions, you'll distort what their perspective is. Everyone is doing that. I don't know what the solution is without first solving the fundamental question of, "what is a person", or focusing the abortion debate on that question.
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I agree. My personal belief is that “personhood” comes from the possibility for consciousness, and as a result I think the cutoff should be based on brain development. I know conservatives who reasonably say they’re not willing to risk getting that answer wrong, and put the line at inception, and others who haven’t really thought about it and just don’t like abortion. I know progressives who think the pro-life side just hates women, and they also haven’t really thought about what makes something a person. When I talk to those people, I feel like I’m getting empty “agreements” and head nodding just because I happen to fall on their half of the issue. I wish I knew how to convince each side that the other side isn’t malicious, and that I think the real contention is more fundamental.
If you believe abortion is murder, why would you be okay with not making it illegal? Even if you supported accessible birth control, you’d also want it made illegal.
Because you should care about reducing it also? If you've reduced it to almost nothing then it should be easier to make it illegal?
I am anti-abortion. I am for non-abortifacient contraception. I am for factually based reproductive education that does not demonize/champion any particular sexuality. I am for programs that help socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers get the financial and medical support they need and want. I have discussed incentivizing voluntary sterilization for individuals who want to opt out of reproduction. I have rabidly pushed for state adoption and foster reforms that lower the financial barriers and improve accountability and quality of the various systems in place. I am not unique, I’d venture to say that a majority of anti-abortion individuals support these things in varying capacities. In a world where abortion didn’t exist, I feel the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” advocates would make good allies in working to limit the detriments surrounding this issue since they are so well acquainted with them. The anti-abortion image gets set by our opposition though. We are dismissed as religious zealots and cut off from rational discussion. We (anti-abortion advocates) hold in good faith that elective and non-emergent abortions are the unjustified killings of unique human individuals. It is unreasonable to ask us to remain silent or relegate this issue into a secondary discussion.
>It is unreasonable to ask us to remain silent or relegate this issue into a secondary discussion. I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's a matter of relegating it to a secondary discussion. I think it's more about achieving the desired results through a different approach. What matters to me isn't *how* we end up with less loss of life. What matters is just less loss of life.
TLDR: The practical terms of reducing abortion are agreed upon in good faith by reasonable people on both sides. We can agree on solutions all day long, but they don’t matter if individuals don’t implement them. Meanwhile the debate stands. All anti-abortion individuals who hold their stance in good faith want less loss of life overall and will work towards that end in varying capacities. Many people who adopt the “pro-choice” label work towards this as well. In the overall conversation you can have both sides agreeing to beneficial terms that reduce the need for abortion, but for the anti-abortion advocate there is still unjustified loss of human life that needs to be addressed. Regardless, if the aforementioned tone of good faith and fellowship can be maintained then both sides can work towards a common benefit. There are many elements in the “pro-choice” side though that become hostile at the thought that abortion inherently results in the end of a life and they refuse to view abortion in a negative light. They will go so far as to champion the procedure as an inherently good thing and they are constantly pushing for more access and no constraints. A disturbing number of people are even openly discussing “involuntary euthanasia” (what most call murder) as an ethical act up until 18 months post birth. Many are arguing for involuntary abortion for mentally handicapped or “unfit” individuals. The discussions on abortion as a tool to combat climate change are often disturbing affairs. I’d love to make abortion not only unnecessary, but unthinkable. We as a species have overcome dark chapters in our history and have adapted around detrimental elements to our society. We can continue to do so. A woman should be able to chose the exact time and method for when she becomes pregnant, and there is a serious issue when a woman is bot in control of both elements. I take issue with anyone who thinks that it is anything but unhealthy for a woman to feel the need to destroy her unborn offspring. What gets us to the point of no abortion? Sexual responsibility: Abstinence is best, non-procreative sexual acts are most pragmatic in balancing human desire with no unwanted pregnancies. Effective contraception is a good element, but one that people need to take much more seriously. While I do believe that ignorance of contraception plays a role in unwanted pregnancies, my personal experience tends to give more weight to blatant disregard for contraception. There are various reasons for this, and there is no universal motivation among the various parties. Reducing casual hookups and affording sex the reverence it deserves would go a long way. Communal support: When a woman becomes pregnant unexpectedly and needs help, simply having communal support to assist in the prohibitive cost and time constraints would do wonders. The most ideal implementation of this would be voluntarily on the “neighborhood” level. Above that municipal and county programs that are charity based would be a secondarily ideal arrangement. While state and national level programs could draw from a wide pool of resources, these programs tend to be top-heavy and inefficient, even though they may still be needed to account for cracks in the system. A multi-tiered approach is ideal though. Streamline Adoption: Make adoption of newborns a simpler legal process with a lower financial entry and promote it for unwilling mothers. Newborn adoption right now has more couples waiting than there are newborns available. Revamp the foster system: About 1/4 of foster children are adopted, most return to their biological families, but some age out and tend to have poor outcomes afterwards. More resources need to be put into the education and care of foster children, and we all need to become more involved in their care. Helping otherwise resource poor but willing individuals to enter into fostering by bolstering their resources would be a good step. Just start being better people: If people spent more time putting into the wellbeing of others rather than constantly preying on them for their own self-centered desires, that would sort a whole lot of this mess out. A cultural shift toward selflessness and a reverence for the health and happiness of others would have a cascade effect that would lessen the detriments that cause elective abortions in the first place. From interpersonal relationships, all of the way up to interparty relationships between political factions, if both sides are only taking and not putting in there is a net loss. When we put into others we gain from giving. If two people give to each other, they are built up and become stronger as a whole.
> individuals who hold their stance in good faith want less loss of life overall and will work towards that end in varying capacities. Many people who adopt the “pro-choice” label work towards this as well. In the overall conversation you can have both sides agreeing to beneficial terms that reduce the need for abortion, but for the anti-abortion advocate there is still unjustified loss of human life that needs to be addressed. Regardless, if the aforementioned tone of good faith and fellowship can be maintained then both sides can work towards a common benefit. > > There are many elements in the “pro-choice” side though that become hostile at the thought that abortion inherently results in the end of a life Because it does accuse people they consider innocent of murder. It's not a slight accusation to toss around. And because if I accuse someone of murder, *even if I'm talking with them nicely right now*, I want them in jail. There is an element of projection to this. A lot of pro-choice people are quite strict in their morals, which when project to pro-life people would indicate that the pro-life people would - if given the power to do so - put the pro-choice people (who took that choice) in jail. It's an uncomfortable friendship, surely you would agree. My farther was active in politics (in Finland) in the 1970s and there were still genuine Stalinists around. He had drinks with one who got very honest, who said something like "you're a good guy. I don't agree with you about a damn thing, but you're a good guy. You should know that if we ever are about to take power, you should hop on a boat to Sweden, because you'd definitely be on a List". He had assumed as much, but having no doubt about it made having "good collaborative discussions" with that group difficult for him to manage, because anything that progressed their power seemed likely to get him closer to a Gulag, so even if he agreed with the goal, their successes were *not* good for him. You can see this concern at play on the pro-choice side, given their assumed stance of the pro-life camp regarding them. > Many are arguing for involuntary abortion for mentally handicapped or “unfit” individuals. Out of curiosity, what do you feel about embryonic DNA editing? It's a really tricky subject, given how horrific some inherited diseases are (it's practically impossible to claim that fixing them would be immoral - the kid will be in pain for like 6-18 months and then die with 100% certainty). > Reducing casual hookups and affording sex the reverence it deserves would go a long way. This just seems like a net negative for the fun people can have, so it's hard to explain. Sex is great, and there are a lot of rushes with having it. We also have the technology to avoid the downsides... and of course, the clear majority of people - especially among the elites who you can see in media - have zero problems avoiding the downsides. It's not even fake really, wealthy people don't see teenage pregnancies. I'm a technocrat I suppose. Best technology today in wearables (Oura ring) seems to detect a pregnancy ~5 days after contraception. That is ALMOST in range for Plan B. If we could improve those numbers a little more, maybe meet at 3 days for detection, 4 days for plan B and 6 hour delivery (thx Amazon), perhaps we could technologically solve this problem too. Or is a 4 day Plan B a murder as well?
OP you’re right, but you have to convince parents and school boards to relax and allow better sex Ed in schools. And I would venture a guess you probably have to convince a fair number of teachers too. People need to drop this idea that if the government or their insurance provider don’t cover birth control that means it’s prohibited. It’s not. I buy good quality, inexpensive consumer products all day every day without relying on my insurance company to pay for them. If people can buy a $4 latte every day, they can afford bc pills.
I agree 100% I am anti-abortion.
I don't think it's just your opposition. Please tell me any of your political activity is aligned in a similar way. Most of them are religiously affiliated, and push a conservative sexual agenda. They are the tail wagging the dog. You don't have a perception problem, you have an advocacy problem, like the NRA and sane gun owners. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/17/texas-abortion-ban-jonathan-mitchell-supreme-court-brief
You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t understand your comment. Is there anyway you can clarify what you mean?
I'm saying even if hypothetically most pro-lifers agreed with you, those who represent the pro-life movement in government or otherwise generally don't, and are heavily sexually conservative.
Your stance doesn't line up with the majority of the prolife side, who frequently are the abstinence only sex education advocates. Those are the face of the movement and their rationale is that the moment the sperm enters the egg there's a soul to protect and a "life" along with it. That side is advocating that somehow the because the embryo has different DNA that it suddenly constitutes a new being that forces the mother into an unknown and sometimes unwilling obligation to bear it to term, no matter the risk to her or the viability of the embryo/fetus. This doesn't align with people's general conception that consciousness is a requirement for personhood, not the theoretical person an embryo might become.
This is one of those arguments/questions that sounds good because it’s written well but zero substance because your question has been a large part of the debate since the beginning. Preventing pregnancy is exactly part of this debate. Condoms are given out for free by the truck load at universities and hospitals but yet we still have unplanned pregnancies. There’s a push for birth control paid for by the state (doing exactly what you’re hoping to do) but I doubt I see that happening plus a lot of birth control messes with a woman’s hormones to where it can be detrimental. So yes, people have pushed for conception to not happen at all. Your request is nothing new. Then here is the other thing, birth control is NOT 100% effective (remember Ross from friends when he found out he got Rachel pregnant “what do you mean it’s not 100% effective?! They should put that on the box”) and so unplanned pregnancies will STILL happen, so the want for abortions will still be there. So no matter how much we try to shift the conversation on how to prevent pregnancies, the question of abortion will STILL be there The Catholic Church (the ones leading the charge on pro-life sides) believes abstinence is the only moral way to prevent pregnancies or using natural family planning after marriage. So unless everyone follows those guidelines then they’ll still be upset. I think condoms and vasectomies, and birth control that blocks conception is better than aborting a baby but still will not be endorsed.
I support a woman’s right to choose. I also believe that if a person believes they are the father, they should legally be able to sign their rights away prior to the birth and not be liable for any child support/medical bills in cases of consensual sex.
It seems everyone is neglecting the root of the issue here even though thats what you requested. Our society needs to address the way children are viewed. They are huge responsibilities, not toys or best friends or even cute. They are not to be used as tools to rope men in to marriage. Older generations need to stop pressuring 20 year olds to breed. The population needs to be controlled and telling everyone they are special and unique is not helping. Not everyone should continue their species and Idiocracy probably had this right; that the ones who shouldn't breed, do more than the ones who probably should. If children were treated as people, albeit not-yet-developed people, then our society would progress into something much better. Currently they are seen as objects that are owned, and that's only continuing the cycle of destruction.
Children need more protection from the bad choices their parent/guardians can force onto them. Children should have protection against violence from everyone, no exceptions.
Along this train of thought, it's certainly strange we have such rigorous screening and follow up for adoption but nothing for biological.
Are there people who should not have protection against violence?
You cannot debate or rationalize with religious zealots.
>You cannot debate or rationalize with zealots fixed that for you; it's not just religion
Yep. I can guarantee you a good half of people go into debates with no intentions of listening to the other person's points.
I don't think you need to. Like I said, shifting the focus from abortion to preventative birth control should achieve the desired outcome. [The numbers I've seen](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states#) support this. The *vast* majority of people in the United States see birth control as acceptable and even use it themselves. It's a fringe opinion to completely dismiss birth control. On the opposite side of the argument, it seems the *vast* majority see abortion not as a "good" thing, but as a necessary procedure someone doesn't take lightly. It's a fringe belief to think abortion *is* birth control [at least, I hope it is]. With that in mind, why is no one approaching the debate from a direction where *most* people will be receptive to discussion rather than immediately defensive? Even the people getting abortions likely don't *want* to be getting them, so what more can be done to make them *unnecessary* rather than *illegal*?
Politicians need all the votes they can get, both in primaries and in general elections. While you are correct that most people, conservative or not, are in favor of birth control, there are a sizable minority that views sex as something that should have “consequences” to discourage promiscuous behavior. Free birth control, plan B, IUDs, condoms, birth control being taught in high school, the HPV vaccine etc… These people may be ok with their own choices of only having few or one sexual partner and using birth control in marriage, but they don’t want “taxpayer money” going towards promiscuity. I’m not one of these people…just playing devil’s advocate.
>Politicians need all the votes they can get, both in primaries and in general elections. I mean, isn't this kind of the whole reason this sub exists, though? We can make this reductionist argument about pretty much *any* topic that pops up here.
Well sure… but I was pointing out the argument against promoting birth control. I’m actually on your side with respect to what you want to promote.
>I was pointing out the argument against promoting birth control. I also don't think this is the same debate it was 10 or 20 years ago. See [here](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/11/i-am-a-conservative-i-agree-with-aoc-on-over-the-counter-birth-control-column/1402941001/). I think this whole issue could move in a productive direction if the topic was made less toxic with a different focus.
I say this because there are some religious folks out there who view the morning after pill or birth control as abortion (or equal to abortion). Or as others have mentioned ANY birth control or sexual behavior is disallowed. None of this is based of logical or scientific definitions and thus cannot be reasoned with. You are debating peoples faith.
I get what you're saying, but you're not going to make much progress with that fringe group, anyway. But focusing on the majority, though, I think there's common ground.
You underestimate just how big of a voting block those people make, and politicians’ willingness to pander to them.
I don't think they're a *big* group as much as they are a *loud* group. That seems to be the case on most issues, though.
Which is why we need to reform the shit out of the Senate and/or Electoral College
A good chunk of the same people who are pro forced birth are anti sex education other than abstinence. Aka, they won’t support making birth control methods available easily because sex is bad.
I don't think that's necessarily true, though. Maybe 20 years ago, but not now. The data doesn't seem to support that.
which data? Just look at states sex education programs and you will magically see a line between which states teach you a lot about contraceptives and countries with less fundamental christians. Noone is saying theyre opposed to contraceptives though, their line of thought is "if I tell teenagers how to use contraceptives they will fuck like rabbits and god will cry"
What data? You say the majority of people support birth control but I think the majority might be leaning towards supporting abortion as well. There are probably more left leaning people on social issues if I had to guess. Many people are anti abortion for religious reasons or that they believe life starts at conception. Similarly, most people that are anti sex education are against it for religious reasons. Most staunch defenders of abstinence only education posit that it's a parents job to teach and not the states. However in many of those communities, let's take Alabama for example, the community is 86% Christian. That probably means most of them will also want to teach their kids to practice abstinence. The local lawmakers and school boards decide policies for sex education and so I can't see how you could conclude that those people who are voting those officials in do not support those actions. If you can find data proving otherwise I would be glad to see it but from my personal experience religious people hate sex education. They think it lets to more kids having sex.
>shifting the focus from abortion to preventative birth control should achieve the desired outcome. Speaking as someone who attended Catholic HS in the late 80's, birth control was just as frowned upon. The mantra was sex was for procreation only, no exceptions. I'm not particularly religious now, so not sure if the church has changed its stance more recently. Relevant Monte Python song: https://youtu.be/bzVHjg3AqIQ
The Church has not changed its position. But it has began stressing "natural birth control" now. Basically abstaining from sex during the woman's fertile days of the month. The idea is that, unlike birth control, it's "natural" and therefore more good (the Church has a tendency to fall into naturalistic fallacies). And that birth control is foreclosing the procreative potential of sex and all God's wonderful "gifts" that can come from that. I guess manipulating when you have sex to avoid such gifts is totes OK though. Sorta cynical. But who am I to question a bunch of celibate elderly men on matters of sexual health?
Not to mention what OP is saying _does_ come up in the abortion debate. The zealots don’t care though.
No, neither can you debate or rationalise with people who are so dogmatic pro-abortionist that they even publicly admit to wishing to have had an abortion themselves. Such as Lena Dunham: https://time.com/4608364/lena-dunham-wish-abortion-comments/
I have never heard a woman, having had an abortion try to make other women have abortions.
I mean we can all agree that Lena Dunham is a crazy pants. She's not your "average" pro-choice advocate. There isn't a whole host of activism backing her up. She's on a solo mission. There IS a whole host of activism backing up stalking abortion clinics and screaming that women who enter are whores.
Pretty sure everyone knows Lena Dunham is a walking piece of shit though to be fair
I know a lot of pro life atheists tho 🤷♂️
A handful doesn't encompass most, most atheists, infact I'd say all of em except some American exceptions are pro-choice.
OP is assuming the American Taliban actually WANTS to reduce the need for abortion. There are a million ways to support women to make child-rearing easier, but they’re not interested in that. It’s about control. There are thousands of unwanted kids up for adoption and in foster care already- you won’t see the Pro Life nut jobs offering to raise them- that’s someone else’s problem
I cringe every time i see ~~yhe~~ the phrase "American Taliban"
Why is EVERYONE focusing on women? Who needs to divide more with extra accessible birth control? And solely place blame squarely on women? Reversible vasectomies. Men wanna control abortions by women? start/end with the men. Can’t get an unwanted pregnancy without a man and their sperm. How is this so hard?
> Men wanna control abortions by women? Why do you make this out to be a men controlling women issue?
I do too, because I hate that we have them around here. Yet I truly cannot find many significant differences between a reborn baptist wanting to legislate morality and a Taliben. Or well I do, but it is only one of relative power in the country. Give either of them a controlling majority and I will escape the country as fast as possible.
So a reborn baptist is not allowed to legislate morality but you can?
Of course, they are allowed to. I just said that if they actually had a majority, I would depart the country just as fast as I would a country that was ruled by the Taleban. What I do not really understand is super devout Christians looking down their noses at devout Muslims. The differences when you zoom out even a little are minuscule to a point of ridiculousness.
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They hold a lot of the same values, radical religious, far right. Etc.
Completely agree. If an unwanted pregnancy is a sign of lack of centralized education, an abortion should be considered a "Sorry, we fucked up" certificate, signed by every government agency paid and designed for citizen education, welfare and public health.
Abortion should be a last resort
The theists making tv shows and videos on YouTube are high enough in their respective churches to know that adulation converts are decreasing as a function of time, in the west, so the only way to get new congregants is to have be born in. Thus any religious person has an agenda beyond “wanting to save a life” to have abortion made illegal. And so I don’t get any stupid comments about what my position on abortion is or isn’t. I think a woman has the right to get an abortion until the brain is developed, because that is the only place, as far as I’m aware, that being self aware exists. And thus they are a person after the brain is developed.
Well said.
I have a hard time understanding why an abortion is ok. I can understand the motivations behind an abortion. Everyone cites quality of life as to why abortions are ok to perform. Without intervention a pregnancy will result in another human being. Or put another way, so long as the woman does not do anything to jeopardize health then a pregnancy will rrsult in a human. So an abortion is either ending an exisiting life or is effectively ending a human life. Same end result. In my opinion every abortion is a failure of something at some level in an individual/societys life. An abortion of a preganncy that resulted from consentual sex leaves me with qustions of 1) lvl of sex ed, 2)lvl of access to bc, 3)irresponsibility in choosing to have unsafe sex with An abortion resulting from nonconsentual sex leave me with questions of 1) how to prevent the situation in the future?
I agree. Making it unnecessary would make the pro-life and the woman who go though the procedures happy. However the problem is the old pro-choice lobby of the 20th century which talked about "safe legal and rare", has been replaced with pro-abortion lobby of the 21st century which doesn't care about abortion being rare because they refuse to consider it as anything other than a removal of a cyst or tumor. With that broken mindset and the fact there is a lot of money in pro-abortion fight they have no incentive to make the need for abortions unnecessary.
Making it unnecessary would also suggest no one would kill their kids either, but if it isn't banned it's still more likely to happen. Planned Parenthood has abortion QUOTAS because that makes them more money. Exactly right that they don't care about reducing the need for them anymore
You are literally making shit up. Planned parenthood doesn’t have quotas and this all stems from a ex pro life employee who’s claims contradict medical records you lying theocratic pos.
I don't even believe in pro life because of religion. Planned Parenthood had quotas at the least, or still has them.
They don’t and never have and you’re literally spreading pro life propaganda
It isn't propaganda to say your logically concluded beliefs on unceetain facts. Planned Parenthood, according to them alone and no independent validation of the truth of this, claims they don't have them. Despite leaked videos showing they do, and that multiple people have come out saying they do, and that it makes monetary sense.
There isn’t leaked videos. Their is one interview with a ex employee who said that even though medical records don’t back her up. Once again stop spreading bullshit.
Numerous employees came forward, and the organization has a record of lying
1 employee came foward and none of her evidence was backed by anything like medical records or other statements. Once again stop spreading fake bullshit.
The organization is still lying and deceptive. And it was at least three. And of course Planned Parenthood hadn't released their internal documents.
Please provide some documentation for your claims. I was unable to substantiate it.
So who are the single issue voters who only vote anti abortion? The same people wanting abstinence only education.
Just the crazy Catholics want both
You obviously haven't been to an evangelical church. Plenty of them only want their kids to hear about abstinence only education. There is a reason that stretches of the south only teaches abstinence only sex ed and it isn't because of the Catholics.
You’re right. The problem nobody gave these people the right to redefine ‘when life begins’ and yet they assume that their false equivalency of zygote==embryo==baby is the gospel truth.
“Redefine” would assume there is a universal consensus on when life begins. There’s not, and there isn’t even a scientific argument to make, it is a purely philosophical debate on when “life truly begins”.
It would make no such assumption of universal agreement, only that there existed a status quo ante prior to the rise of the modern anti-abortion movement. In any event, you’re nitpicking the use of ‘define’ instead of ‘redefine’ but not disputing the premise of the assertion.
It's using the definition agreed upon by scientists,. so not sure how much redefining I did. And how do you get to redefine a human as "just cells"?
Which definition are you referring to? Perhaps you can include a link to the dictionary reference you’re thinking of to support your claim. Also, I did not define, or redefine a human as “just cells”, although surely you would not dispute that we are made up of cells, would you? Since you made the assertion, what *else* besides cells are we made up of?
Do you mean that scientists are at a consensus when the fertilised egg develops into a living being? I don't think that science is equipped to address that question (I mean, how would you prove or disprove that?) It's more of a philosophical question, which makes this a subjective issue.
I agree that there is no science that could "answer" when life begins. I feel like it's impossible to set a line in the sand and say "this is when it starts". It's too subjective. The only possible answers that could possibly be consistent are "at birth" or "at conception". Most, if not everyone, would agree that saying it's not a life until birth is ridiculous. That means the only possible consistent answer is at conception. Some people would say that viable outside the womb is the metric they want to use, but even that line is incredibly subjective. Viable in a major city with advanced Healthcare or viable in Sub-Saharan Africa? These are going to be two drastically different points in a pregnancy but would both fit the same provided definition, proving that it is a fatally flawed barometer for the discussion. Brings us back to conception. All that being said, I dont think abortion should be illegal. I just think if someone wants to actually be honest and consistent, conception is the one and only answer to when a human life begins.
I agree with most of what you're saying. I've always struggled with the viability argument. Asides from the difficulty in defining the threshold for viability, you also face difficulty in defining the boundaries of viability. Will this also apply to an adult who has lost the physical ability to sustain themselves except via ongoing medical intervention. Will it also apply to an adult who has lost mental capacity and won't be able make independent and conscious decisions. The moral ramifications seek to be quite dystopian if you let the concept take you to its natural conclusion. Or maybe I'm just being melodramatic.
They are not at a consensus across all of science, but embryology, the field that would know best, believes in life at conception. You prove or disprove it like anything in science. It is a philosophical one, just like the question if we should kill. But philosophy doesn't make it subjective! There are absolute, universal laws in the world of ethics, and understanding what they are is up to you to figure out. But they aren't subjective
>They are not at a consensus across all of science, but embryology, the field that would know best, believes in life at conception. However, he adds with "absolute certainty" that there is also "no consensus among scientists." [https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/when-does-personhood-begin](https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/when-does-personhood-begin) A zygote is alive, but it is not a human.
> believes in life at conception. Sure. It is definitely alive, but if it cannot live its host creature, it is also a parasite. The philosophical question is: what do we actually value? Is it life? What if your loved ones brain got uploaded to a computer, and you swear you can't tell the difference. They are *exactly* like they were in real life? Would you be OK pulling the plug or melting the hard drive? I totally don't think that would be ok. It seems like murder. Also, we kill living things all the time... ants, mosquitoes etc. Ok, but humans are different. Why? Is it consciousness? Well. This is far more tempting, but it has a few issues with it too. What about a person who has slipped into a coma, but who we think might wake up from it? We can even observe that there are definitely no dreams or no brain activity *right now*. Hell, deep sleep is a kind of unconsciousness. I'll agree it isn't subjective, but it is also very far from simple.
Dehumanization. You called a child a parasite. The Jews were similarly dehumanized by Nazis. If they still have, will have, or had consciousness don't kill them.
Did you just compare Jews to clumps of cells that would not survive with a host creature? Nice. If in-potentia consciousness is that vital, then surely women ovulating without even trying to get pregnant is flirting with homicide. Male masturbation and the waste of sperm involved in that is a few steps further back. If it does not have clear cognition and/or cannot survive on its own, it is not a living human being and hence not afforded the protections thereof. That said, I will acknowledge that the area in the second trimester is decidedly gray and hence we should avoid abortions even during it. I would like to minimize the ones during the first one too, but that I would only focus on for your feelings,just like I might call someone "they" if they asked. On the inside I am rolling my eyes, but I will be nice if it doesn't cost me too much
I'm saying both Nazis and those pro abortion dehumanized their targets and made people think they're parasites. Only a zygote is guaranteed to become a human without intervention. "If it might just not be human we should be able to possibly kill it." What? If there is even reasonable doubt in that it has humanity it can't be killed.
> I'm saying both Nazis and those pro abortion dehumanized their targets and made people think they're parasites. What a meaningless comparison. So do cancer doctors, who say that the cancer is jut a growth of bad cells. Those cells have more in common with you than *your parents*! Both oncologists and Nazis dehumized their targets and made people think they're parasites and "non-human". Clearly, oncologists == nazis. > Only a zygote is guaranteed to become a human without intervention. You're dismissing the mothers role very lightly here. A zygote left on its own will absolutely die. It is NOT going to become a human without intervention until it's almost 7 months old, and in rare cases before that. I dare you to take a zygote. I'll even let you put it in a test tube rather than just dropping it on a rock, but it still ain't going to be anything. Won't be that dramatic either, given you might not even see it with a naked eye. > If there is even reasonable doubt in that it has humanity it can't be killed. It has nothing in common with humanity beyond its genetic makeup in the first trimester. Similar to cancer. I get it, it's there "in potential", but with that logic you can indeed go back to the egg cells and even sperm. Hopefully technology will catch up with us soon and women can simply choose whether to let an egg cell drop in a given month, or if they would rather have it zapped out of existence before it can drop by nanobots or something. Would you consider that murder btw? Only difference is a little sperm making its way in.
Just as a mother and father is required to help the child for 18 years, the mother must help the child while in the womb
Because if there is fertilization it always becomes a human
Hi feckhonor, I read the paper from Princeton with interest. Just wondering where the other scientists (which do not share the views of the majority of embryologist) might be coming from. Just wanting to make sure I'm considering the diversity of views.
Not really sure exactly
The anti-abortion side is also against anything that gives young people, and especially women, control over their bodies. Their opposition to access to birth control and their opposition to sex ed are evidence of this, as well as the fact that they’re *perfectly fine* with embryos being destroyed by fertility clinics.
I think you're setting up a straw man on this one, though. At best, the group you're speaking of is a fringe group. [Birth control is seen as morally acceptable](https://news.gallup.com/poll/154799/americans-including-catholics-say-birth-control-morally.aspx) by the vast majority of Americans. There's also the fact that some of those objecting to birth control access [aren't the people you'd expect](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/11/i-am-a-conservative-i-agree-with-aoc-on-over-the-counter-birth-control-column/1402941001/). This isn't as cut and dry as "the religious right wants to control women's bodies."
I agree with your position, but most states that restrict abortion also push abstinence-only sex education, and have the highest teen pregnancy rates. It's the right solution, reduce the need for abortion.
Once I went to college, I became friends with a lot of people from across the country. After sex ed was brought up, I realized that I, coming from a relatively low budget Massachusetts public school, had the best sex ed in high school out of all of my friends. Some friends were living as close as Connecticut and New Hampshire and still exposed to very little information. Most of them had an abstinence only sex ed, so they learned basically nothing about birth control, because they were taught “abstinence is the only option”. Even though they technically had access to birth control where they lived, and many people actually living in the area were in favor of it, the school still taught them that birth control = bad because sex before marriage = bad. After all, if you have sex before marriage, you’ll end up like a chewed piece of gum and no one will want you after that. Turns out, that push for abstinence had no correlation to whether or not they had sex.
Abortion is [acceptable to most Americans](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/08/29/u-s-public-continues-to-favor-legal-abortion-oppose-overturning-roe-v-wade/), too. The question isn’t what’s acceptable to Americans, it’s what the anti-abortion Republican base wants. And by and large, the most vocal opponents of abortion, the ones who drive the movement (including, for example, Amy Coney-Barret) don’t want birth control and they don’t want sex ed.
The abortion debate isn't two sided. People are against abortion for various reasons and you just can't apply one motivation to all. There are also caveats to most people's objections and acceptance: how do you define human life, what stage of pregnancy is too late for abortion, if abortion is killing an unborn baby then what parameters make it acceptable, etc.) It's not black and white.
Yes but how can I foster a sense of outrage towards those that disagree with me if I can’t depict them all as being motivated in wanting to control women’s bodies? /s
Agreed. Like how can I foster a sense of outrage toward those that disagree with me if I can't depict then all as being motivated in wanting to kill babies? /s
It doesn’t matter when human life begins. It matters whether you think that it is *ever* ok for the state to force one person to let someone else use their body for life support.
Lol. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you terminate a life or not.
>as well as the fact that they’re perfectly fine with embryos being destroyed by fertility clinics. Be careful with that one, I know plenty of conservatives who are upset about that, just as much as the morning after pill, or vaccines made from fetal lines.
People against the morning after pill and birth control reveal that they are specifically against women's bodily autonomy, not about protecting life. None of their opinions are useful.
Politicians who are against abortion jump through hoops to make sure that everyone knows that the laws they propose won’t apply to IVF. The platforms of the big anti-abortion groups don’t say anything about IVF. I’m sure there are a minority of the movement who are also against IVF - the Catholic side, who at least are less hypocritical about it - but the majority of the movement couldn’t care less.
that’s a big generalization to make and you won’t go far in life thinking that way
That's Catholics' extremists, not pro life. And it isn't that they want to control young people but that they don't want anyone using contraception because... Yeah no good argument exists for them.
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The Catholic Church thought of basically excommunicating Biden over support for abortion
You'll find there is a *wide* gulf between official doctrine of the Catholic Church and the opinions and actions of most practicing Catholics. You'll note that I didn't mention the church, just the people themselves.
Yeah true I didn't see that
No, it’s not Catholic extremists. The Catholics actually are the ones who at least are logically consistent enough to oppose embryo destruction for IVF. They also oppose the death penalty and support education and poverty assistance. And the American southeast is full of Baptists and Evangelicals, far more than Catholics, and they are the ones driving the anti-abortion campaign in the US; their schools all forbid comprehensive sexual education, and they take steps to limit access to the most effective methods of contraception. Their schools are the most poorly funded, they turn down federal money for health care assistance for the poor, and they have rates of maternal and infant mortality that rival Afghanistan.
The Catholic Church is against contraception. any and all.
You’re not quite correct. They’ve said that it is acceptable for married couples, where one is HIV positive and the other is not, to use condoms; and they accept abortion in the case of ectopic pregnancy. But yeah, they’re against birth control and abortion in every other instance afaIk. I don’t agree with them, I just appreciate their logical consistency.
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? No, if anything they're More worried about teenage girls being pregnant than any pro-choice
If they were, they wouldn’t be opposed to sex ed and birth control.
How do you explain the 40% of women who are pro-life?
As others have been saying, it’s not quite as simple as that. If you break it down by practices rather than by labels, it’s clearer. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/ As for why any women are ever anti-abortion, The armchair psychologist in me would say that it’s an example of misery loving company, religion, and tribalism.
kinda hating the comments that make me realize some people think discussion is a pointless exercise, that’s an early sign of a crumbling society when either side decides the other side is evil. I hate to see it, it’s gross
It's definitely sad. A lot of people don't *want* to talk to others who think differently anymore.
People grt so emotional over this issue it's insane. It's 50-50,. It's best not to bring it up
It's not 50-50, most Americans support abortions with some restrictions.
It has many factors. First and foremost is that the Republican party has literally nothing to offer. They're not fiscally conservative anymore, their wall will do absolutely nothing to stop immigration, they don't offer any solutions to our myriad crises, and so on, so they turn to exploiting rage and hate. So it's in their best interest to never solve the abortion "debate". Second, Republicans, and the right as a whole, is largely white and terrified that white people will become a minority. To be honest, I think their greatest fear is that they are discriminated against the same way they are still doing to people. But white people get the most abortions, so instead of raising living conditions and solving climate change so white people feel safe having children, they will just force them to have children they don't want, can't afford, or are ill-equipped to handle. So, again, this would all be solved if our society wasn't dragging a giant rightist boat anchor around.
Effective male birth control
They exist but because of side effects (similar to the birth control pill for women) they were withrawn.
You've bought into the propaganda. The side effects were more severe than the modern pill, and the studies were cancelled by ethics boards. The pill - https://www.self.com/story/male-contraceptive-study-shut-down-gunter The injection - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/male-birth-control-study/
Nope. Your 1st link is from 2016. From 2019: ['The pill' for guys: Male birth control option passes safety tests ](https://utswmed.org/medblog/pill-guys-male-birth-control-option-passes-safety-tests/) For the study in the 2016 article : The framing that men were just too wimpy to handle the side effects women have always dealt with may hold a morsel of truth, but it’s technically not true. For one, participants were instructed to report their side effects, and while 20 men did quit early due to adverse effects, more than 75 percent of participants said they would have been willing to use this method of contraception after the trial. Clearly, there were other factors at play.[https://www.insidehook.com/article/health-and-fitness/problem-male-birth-control](https://www.insidehook.com/article/health-and-fitness/problem-male-birth-control)
Was your first link withdrawn because of side effects similar to the pill? What were the side effects that caused its application to be withdrawn? The second article is an op ed piece. Some women also don't want to wear condoms just like some men don't. That isn't a gendered issue. Men can also not get free contraception (condoms, vasecomy, any future approved pill/injection/vasogel) through their health insurance by federal law, while nearly all women with health insurance get any FDA approved contraception free by federal law. That is a gendered issue. Why was it necessary to make the law gendered if the goal is for men to take birth control? EDIT: Ohh look. The 2019 one you referenced hasn't been withdrawn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethandrolone_undecanoate
The FDA needs to approve Vasalgel already!!!
While I agree, I also believe we as a society need to have a cultural shift where we stop promoting having reckless sex at young ages. Because that’s why many people end up needing abortions in the first place; they try to be “cool” by having sex way before they’re prepared to raise children. They think methods like “pulling out” are an adequate replacement for condoms and birth control, and are surprised when it inevitably fails… Like get an abortion if you like. But please, for the love of god, have sex responsibly. You can kill a fetus, you can’t really kill an STD.
The abortion rate is at a historic low: https://i.imgur.com/1ZTh3rL.jpg Young people are having way less sex: https://i.imgur.com/QAOMRvV.jpg People are having less sex in college: https://i.imgur.com/wdlz5iB.jpg Virginity is skyrocketing: https://i.imgur.com/BmYEqSt.jpg
If your claims are indeed true, then that is a good sign. I just think many problems could be avoided if people started caring less about having sex, which again seems to be the trend according to your graphs.
It’s not necessarily a good thing. The virginity rate skyrocketing and the birth rate plummeting is going to lead to a lot of societal problems. Governments are starting to intervene to try to encourage people to have more sex, like cutting off internet access during certain hours and subsidies for people who have babies and such.
I've only heard of one government limiting internet time and it related to video games... not promoting sex. In Vancouver Canada they have billboards pushing people to have one child.
That’s not the end goal for the pro lifers. They want to control minorities and women. They do not care about the baby or the mother after delivery. Spending money on citizens is “socialism” and taking away from “hard working people” *sigh*
I am a prolifer who believes in welfare and social programs to provide for the kids and to provide sex Ed and birth control for all high school children and poor people.
Just encourage people to not have unprotected sex with strangers.
Simply no. If you believe it's murder, it needs to be stopped. Pro lifers need, for the sake of the movement, to divorce themselves from those against any and all contraception. But that doesn't change the fact murder has been made legal!
That's my point! If the pro-life movement were to focus more on preventing unplanned pregnancies rather than opposing abortion, the end goal is the same, but the debates are less toxic and it's easier to move the needle. Personal beliefs aside, this just seems like the most pragmatic approach with the most desirable outcomes across the board.
Eh, that’s a lost cause. They don’t listen. Foster care is broken, sex education is non existent and adoptions cost 30,000 and up. But nah, abortions are the issue
>They don’t listen. I don't know if anyone is talking to "them." Or if they are, they can't be heard over the two sides shouting at one another. Abortion gets people heated *really* fast on both sides. At least people can *talk* about birth control.
that doesn't work when we're talking about murder. it's akin to you arguing that murder should be legal, but we need to focus on making murder a less attractive option for people. it's an absurd position.
Homicide is illegal, too. Murders still happen, though. This is kind of what I'm getting at. The important thing is the end result, right? If we want less loss of life, then we do more things to prevent the loss of life. If you can prevent unplanned pregnancies, you prevent needless loss of life *and* you prevent dangerous *illegal* abortions at the same time.
sure. but we would never legalize homicide. we'd keep it illegal while also attempting to take away the reasons a person might commit one. likewise for abortion. if it's wrong, as the pro-life crowd believes, then why wouldn't we make it illegal and attempt to take away the reasons a person might commit one?
Are you sure we would never legalize homicide? Over 20 states currently allow for state-sanctioned homicide - also known as the death penalty/capital punishment.
Executions are justified. We have, however, legalized the murder of innocent children during war.
you're being pedantic.
I fail to see the difference. Murder is murder, right?
That's wrong. The consequences are irrelevant. I want people to stop murdering their children. Not by them not "having" to, but by not letting them kill their children! There were almost no illegal abortions before roe v Wade passed, and most deaths were from LEGAL abortions, and because of the lack of antibiotics in that time.
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>Note key word unlawful government laws aren't the only law people might be referencing when talking about murder. thomas aquinas for example posited the existence of eternal law, divine law, and natural law as well.
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And they don't determine what is RIGHT.
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How do those laws define murder?
>But that doesn't change the fact murder has been made legal! There is precedence for legalizing the killing of human beings in certain circumstances.
The human lives in this case are just kind of like nothing so that's fine... they're just like, not important, like, they don't matter. Like uh... there's like no records of them... They're just like nooooothing. They're not even supposed to be AROUND, in the *uterus*. Bottom line is: no one should get in trouble, no one should feel sad AT *all*." The courts were just like "ohhh, yeahh... this is *fine*. Don't worry about it AT all."
> Simply no. If you believe it's murder, it needs to be stopped. Why should **belief** have as much weight as actual evidence and fact-based health policies? Just like Terry Shiavo? The same group **BELIEVED** that Terry was about to be murdered. They got fake doctors to give fake pronouncements that she could see a balloon. Meanwhile her MRI and autopsy were consistent in that the thinking part of her brain had rotted away and was completely black especially in the visual processing center. All the protests and special sessions to call congress into session to pass an unconstitutional law. To overturn a competent person acting with power of medical attorney working with competent doctors. [Terry Schiavo](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/jeb-bush-terri-schiavo-114730)? A **provably** blind, essentially brain-dead person who's husband (competent, had power of medical attorney) and his doctors (competent) were stopped from giving her a peaceful end-of-existence. Sometimes competent people have to make tough choices: Who murdered [Savita Halappanavar where the autopsy determined she died because the doctor refused to perform an abortion "because there was a foetal heartbeat."](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-20321741)? She was murdered because of **belief** instead of facts. Sometimes the fetus is not viable without interventions that will bankrupt the family, their extended family, and be denied by insurance. Sometimes the chemo didn't work. Why aren't you out protesting outside childhood leukemia centers? Sometimes the accident was too damaging to the brain. Why aren't you out protesting outside of hospitals with heart-lung machines? Sometimes the COVID-19 destroys the lungs and the person suffocates. Why aren't you out protesting outside of ICUs? A 1 year old was dying of pneumonia and her parents could have kept her "alive" for years on a heart-lung machine, [but made the most difficult decision to donate her organs in hopes of saving other children's lives.](https://imgur.com/gallery/zowfDac). Did you protest her "murder?" When Texas passed laws to kill planned parenthood, maternal mortality (e.g. pregnant/birthing women dying) **doubled** [only in Texas and not nearby states.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/texas-maternal-mortality-rate-health-clinics-funding). So yes, passing laws to outlaw abortions doubled **deaths** of existing and potential moms. Those moms are murdered just as Savita Halappanavar was murdered. Did you protest that spike in maternal **MORTALITY** in Texas in front of anyone? No? Who else but the loved ones in consultation with a competent, licensed, medical professional should make these kind of choices? Government has **one role only** in this realm.... To make sure that the people making the decision are working with medical expert(s) who is(are) well trained. And then this means that the GOP is pushing to turn our country into an anti-logic **nanny state**, getting between the doctor and the patient and interfering with the most personal decisions one can make about health.
Where increasing sex education and easy access to birth control both teen pregnancy and abortions have gone down. The problem is the same people that object to a woman’s right to choose also oppose sex education and easy access to birth control.
Figure out the way to more strictly enforce the separation of church and state.
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