Can Pro-lifers be feminists?

Just because you call it a 'foetus' does not mean it is not an infant child. It IS a child. By a few weeks gestation it has a heart, arms, legs, a beating heart and it feels pain. It looks like a child.

It's like men deciding to call women 'woetus' and then justifying killing us all as, we're not human, we're just woetus's.

HotCross, I'm sure you believe that, but to me it's incoherent on all sorts of levels.

How?

Of course they can.

I think there's a difference between making a personal choice and enforcing a decision on other people.

But they can't have equality when people like you want to force them to have unwanted children, can they?

I'm pro-life. I believe a foetus is a human life from the point of conception and therefore only agree with termination in exceptional circumstances (rape, TFMR).
To me abortion isn't a matter of women's rights, it's about the life of of the the unborn child.
That doesn't mean I cannot be a feminist. I strongly believe women should have equality.

"But surely you can be pro-women's rights and pro-children's rights

Of course you can. But foetuses are not children and have no rights.

No.

'The fundamental question is “Do you think that women should have the final say in what happens to their own bodies, or should someone else? Yes or no” If you say no, then you can’t be a feminist.'

It just is not that simple.

Bodily autonomy, in the normal sense in which it is used, means a right from intervention, not a right to intervention on demand. Many women also believe that the foetus has competing rights to bodily autonomy, at least beyond a certain point. Of course it is absolutely dependent on the mother. But so are many vulnerable people dependent on others after they are born.

Abortion, in that sense, stands alone.

Most people see it as competing rights. I find it interesting that some 'feminists' would like to disenfranchise 99% of the people whose rights they claim to care about. It is a fact that only 1% of women would like to extend the current limit on abortion and many (maybe most) would like to reduce it. Most feminists would be happy with the current limit, it is only a small self-selecting group who see a right to abortion up until the moment of birth to be a woman's right.

bertrand I suffer from anxiety, so it wasn't really possible.

@BigDeskBob can it have a feminist unicorn, pleeeeese?

Fair enough. Sad you walked out rather than staying and proving them wrong, though.

"Where do I get my card, by the way?"

I'm stuck in the house all day, I might dust down the craft box and get busy. Expect one in the post soon

I believe you can be pro life and a feminist. They are exceptionally rare in my experience but they do exist. I am not pro life and I am a feminist so I am not speaking about me.

The principle of pro life is often based around the ideology that human life begins at conception (I do not share this view obviously) but I can understand that if you believe this then it is likely to override any of your other principles. Murder is considered to be the worst of human crimes so it stands to reason that you would believe if human life begins at conception that you would wish to see that right being vindicated above all others.

Bertrand Well those women did call themselves feminists. So that's why I am wary of putting too much stock in labels.

“Whether you would terminate a pregnancy yourself is a different story but if your feminism doesn't support a woman's right to choose it is bullshit. Substitute 'forced birth' for 'pro life' and it all becomes clearer.“

I agree.

“Bertrand There absolutely are, though. Plenty of feminists who'll turn up their nose at women who dress a certain way, look a certain way, act a certain way. I walked in and straight back out of one meeting because a woman looked me up and down and said 'you can't be serious'.

The only people I have ever, in 40 years as a feminist, heard tell someone they can’t be a feminist because of the way they dress are anti feminists. The “Call yourself a feminist- you’re wearing make up!” brigade. There are plenty of them.

I don’t see how you can be a feminist if you support the idea of a woman being forced to carry a pregnancy and all the risks associated with that and the subsequent birth - including her death - against her will.

I think there are a lot of areas around feminism where there is a broad spectrum of opinion and choice. This isn't one of them. If you don't support a woman's right to free and safe abortion then I don't believe you can be a feminist. It's kind of the central tenant.

Whether you would terminate a pregnancy yourself is a different story but if your feminism doesn't support a woman's right to choose it is bullshit. Substitute 'forced birth' for 'pro life' and it all becomes clearer.

Where do I get my card, by the way?

I'm anti-choice on a personal level (too much indoctrination as a child/teenager) but I find the idea of telling another woman what she must do with her body hugely uncomfortable. Pregnancy and birth can be hard, terrifying and dangerous, forcing someone to go through that for a child they do not want/might not be compatible with life is utterly horrendous and should not happen in the 21st century.

I support education about contraception, ante-natal testing and support for women who do want to carry to term and better peri-natal mental health support but if the Government tried to repeal the Abortion act I would actively campaign against it.

Pro children's rights once they are out of your body and breathing on their own absolutely. Before then, they have no rights as far as I'm concerned and I say that as someone who is 25 weeks pregnant. Do I do what I think is best for the baby, absolutely but there is a reason why I get to accept/decline all the tests/treatments on our behalf.

Sorry, whites, I misunderstood

OF course you can be anti-abortion or want limitations on gestational age at which abortion is legal and still support equality.

There is, I guess, a theoretical argument that the foetus was created from man and woman in equal parts and both should have custody over it. That won’t be a popular view!
Technically the debate has to centre on when life begins - and that differs for many people. If one is minded to believe conception is the start of life then the foetus has rights from that stage. Including the right to life. If it’s from viability, then it’s about legal limits on abortion timings.
Can you be equal to your male partner but share decisions over pregnancy and children? Of course.

Bertrand There absolutely are, though. Plenty of feminists who'll turn up their nose at women who dress a certain way, look a certain way, act a certain way. I walked in and straight back out of one meeting because a woman looked me up and down and said 'you can't be serious'.

Basically, OP, if YOU don't want an abortion, don't have one. But don't think that makes you 'pro life' or some kind of progressive feminist - it makes you just another person for whom insulting women is part of the politics.