Can Pro-lifers be feminists?

Because @larrygrylls other women, even 99% of them, don't own my uterus. I am perfectly happy for them to make any decision they like about their uterus. That's a feminist position.

And your uterus. You make any decisions you like about any uterus you own.

It's coming from a place that believes killing the unborn child is murder.

Yes. Which is often a place which talks of "conjugal rights" and wifely duty to husband and child.

If you really think abortion is murder I hope you are campaigning hard against rape culture, men's sense of entitlement to sex, absent and lazy fathers, prostitution, pornography, domestic violence, unequal pay, unaffordable childcare, a capitalist system that makes it hard for mothers to work whilst undervaluing child rearing, and all the rest of the patriarchal crap that makes reproductive rights a women's lib issue of huge importance.

Because otherwise it just looks like misogyny on top of misogyny.

There is nothing intrinsically logical about believing that the right to abortion on demand until birth is a feminist position. The arguments used are contradictory and confused.

'In law the foetus is not a person'

If you want to use the law as an argument, in law abortion is illegal after 24 weeks on demand.

'Women are people and should have bodily autonomy'

A demand for surgical intervention is not how bodily autonomy is defined in law or any other sphere of life. It is a right to NOT have your body interfered with without consent.

It is incredibly hard to justify without the most amazingly contorted leaps of (false) logic why a baby born at 30 weeks should not be able to be taken off life support if the mother so chooses, and yet a foetus of 36 weeks gestation should be able to be 'aborted' by an injection of potassium chloride into its heart.

Finally, how can you justify something as a 'feminist' position if 99% of women disagree with you?

I'm against the death penalty because I don't believe it's right to kill people. But if someone could prove to me that the death penalty was a massive deterrent and would stop 90% of murders, I'd have to examine my position. Because on a population level the death penalty would prevent murders.

Even though the death penalty would still be immoral, on a population level it would prevent deaths.

Free, accessible abortion correlates with less abortions and far less maternal deaths. If you still want to make abortion illegal, your position is pro-death.

I'm anti abortion because I value the life of the unborn baby

Unless that baby was conceived through rape - at which point suddenly you'll consider the mother's mental wellbeing at the expense of the life of the unborn baby (comparing it to self-defense)

If a woman doesn't have the will or means to support a child, if she's (perfectly reasonably) scared to have a child because of the danger of pregnancy and childbirth, why doesn't that woman get to choose to have an abortion? Is it because she willingly chose to have sex?

In which case, it's not about the baby, or the woman's mental health at all really is it, it's about whether that baby was conceived through consensual sex - that's the only differentiator there.

Perhaps then I'd happily accept that feminists can be anti-choice. But possibly then, I'd be a completely different person to who I am now, so who am I to guess what my opinion would then be?

Maybe in imaginary land, all foetuses appear from parthogenesis and aren't alive til birth. So maybe, the poor MRAs who are so upset that their unwanted child (who they had no real intention of supporting or seeing) is being aborted, will all be obsolete?

Maybe in imaginary land, a baby will only grow when it's wanted?Otherwise it does the thing Ive seen some republicans claim is actually possible now (re rape) and self aborts?

To address those that are talking about abortion in context with our society: None of that influences the morality behind killing the unborn child.

Perhaps it doesn't. But it offers an analysis as to why to be anti abortion in reality (that is within the context of the real world and the reality of women living in a male supremacy) is to be misogynistic.

The morality of abortion is a society wide issue and a class issue. It is not the moral issue of the individual pregnant woman alone. The anti abortion stance is therefore blinkered and anti-woman whilst letting both men and wider society off scot free. Which is hardly the ethical stance with shining superior morals it professes to be....

“The unborn child” is forced birth rhetoric.

Well, if we lived in the imaginary land where men can carry babies, perhaps the babies aren't actually alive until birth? Maybe they're in sort of a dormant state and aren't at all conscious?

As we can apparently make up impossible pretend scenarios that nicely fit our thoughts on the subject...?

“killing the unborn child”

Well if it wasn’t obvious before that these opinions belong to you and not your “friends”, it sure as hell is now.

To address those that are talking about abortion in context with our society: None of that influences the morality behind killing the unborn child

I don't accept your premise. Abortion is not killing an unborn child.

“To address those that are talking about abortion in context with our society: None of that influences the morality behind killing the unborn child“

Well, no, it doesn’t. I agree. But that’s a separate discussion , isn’t it!

Exactly TheButterflyOfTheStorms.

Women should at the very least have the choice to continue with a pregnancy or not as too often their being pregnant is not a meaningful choice and they are inevitably the ones left holding the baby when the father acts like a dick.

I have no time for prolifers who are not spending significant amounts of time fighting against the abuse, exploitation and disregard for female reproductive capacity that we see the world over.

Good point @Beachcomber

I support a lot of young mums professionally. Young mums, pretty much always. Because the fathers are; absent, high, in jail, violent, with someone else, not interested... these women are 100% left carrying the emotional, physical and financial burden alone.

But some of these men are the types who think men deserve equal say in pregnancies continuing.

And a lot of these women had underage or coercive relationships so their 'free choice' to get pregnant was non-existent.

Just because one gender is only applicable for being the child's carrier, doesn't mean that the pro-life stance is coming from a place of sexism.

Except it does. For someone who says they are pro-choice, you seem very invested in your friends' views....

The thing I find with most people who are anti abortion is that they are considering the issue of abortion as though it has no context.

Abortion does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within male supremacist society; a society which oppresses girls and women both for and via our reproductive capacity.
Abortion exists within a society in which fathers are let off from their share of child rearing. And within a society in which girls and women are expected to provide sex for men regardless of the risks PIV poses to women.

I am pro choice to term. I wish I didn't have to be because I would prefer abortion to not be necessary. But it is necessary and most of the reasons why it is necessary are because of Patriarchy.

This is why IMO anti abortion arguments are not feminist. Because they do not include feminist analysis of the wider issues many of which are out with women's control.

The US system does seem very sexist. Men can still get Viagra on Medicaid, or a sex change. Women who have had a termination can lose their job and home.

But is that such an unreasonable position from someone who genuinely believes the foetus is intrinsically human?

Yes, because it suggests that they are putting the woman last, behind the interests of the foetus.