AIBU to ask how much support Pro-Life believers provide for actual children in need? Texas just banned abortion in the US.

[thecranberries]

AIBU to ask what Pro Life 'supporters' do to actually help living children in need? Sparked by Rachel Maddow Show Podcast on MSNBC - which gives a brilliant coverage on what's going on.

PL seems to want to stop a woman's right to choose, even in instances of rape or incest. That's in Texas, US, but as we know, many of the 'trends' that start in the US migrate over here. And as we know, there are lots of Pro-Life (read anti abortion, anti women) believers over here.

So, my AIBU is to ask - what do these PL do to actually support actual living children in need in this country or the world? How much do they give to UNICEF/Save the Children etc charities? How much do they donate time, money and resources to actual children living in poverty, bad housing, experiencing harm or bad schooling to ensure that these actual living children get the best life possible?

Do these PL, who cite religious grounds, actually enable women to obtain proper contraception when they need it? And speaking about religion, how many religious PL turn a blind eye to religious organisations history of child abuse?

I don't understand anyone, especially men, who does not accept a woman's right to chose what happens to her own body.

So, AIBU to ask Pro Life supporters to tell me in detail what they do - as actively as supporting their 'cause' - when it comes to helping living children in need?

It's really a challenge to Biden to pack the Supreme Court and give conservatives fuel for culture wars, right?

“I don’t want to wear a mask! It’s my body, my choice!!!”

“Oh you want an abortion?! Tough shit. You don’t get a choice”

What happened to my body my choice?

Oh yeah….ones a woman who is forced to go through with a pregnancy she doesn’t want to give birth to a child that no one wants. Got it

I remember reading about the Kermit Gosnell case (very disturbing BTW) which made me think a lot about abortion. It's hard to justify abortion for one thing but not another. Eg are sex selective abortions OK? Are very late term abortions acceptable, if not, why not?
(I've never had an abortion or considered one so maybe I've just been lucky with contraception.)

There's extreme positions on both sides which muddy the waters as I think that a lot of people fall in the middle ground.

I had to think long and hard about late term and selective sex abortions and I’m still ok with it

The chance of anyone terminating a pregnancy at 38 weeks is incredibly minute and it won’t be just because she changed her mind.

Someone terminating because they wanted a girl and not a boy, im still ok with because what’s the point in someone having to raise a baby they don’t want? Being born a boy when they wanted a girl leaves that child open for abuse.

@Soubriquet

I am horrified that anyone can support forced birthers

If a 16 year old child wanted to adopt a baby, they would be told no. They are too young

Being raped and then forced to have a child is perfectly fine though. Adoption would not take away the trauma of having to carry and birth a child.

So rape and child abuse have now effectively been legalised in Texas. Congratulations

Someone terminating because they wanted a girl and not a boy, im still ok with because what’s the point in someone having to raise a baby they don’t want? Being born a boy when they wanted a girl leaves that child open for abuse.

I'm very pro choice but I do not support sex selective abortion unless it is for medical reasons. In parts of the world where sex selective abortion is more common it leads to an imbalance in the male/female sex ratio because boys are favoured over girls. Many men in China will never marry because there are not enough women to marry.

The sex of a fetus cannot be determined until 14 weeks at the earliest, I cannot support abortion at that stage of pregnancy just because you don't like the flavour nature gave you. There are many good reasons why abortions may take place later than this in pregnancy, choosing the sex of your child is not a good reason.

The sex of a fetus cannot be determined until 14 weeks at the earliest, I cannot support abortion at that stage of pregnancy just because you don't like the flavour nature gave you. There are many good reasons why abortions may take place later than this in pregnancy, choosing the sex of your child is not a good reason

Its very easy to say in a safe little westernised bubble that it's wrong. But girls In other countries are maried off as children. Thrown in the trash at birth. Left to die in menstruation huts. They die of treatable diseases because if having no male family member to agree their treatment. There are countries where domestic violence is the norm. They are shunned by their husbands and their families when their under developed immature bodies don't cope with pregnancy and child birth and they suffer complications. They are trafficked and raped repeatedly. Denied education. Rights to bodily autonomy and god knows what else in this world. If I lived somewhere where these things happened. I'm sure I'd think twice about whether i wanted to bring a girl into this world.

If men are sad they have no one to marry they should ask themselves why.

Women are not mens property we don't have children just so men have someone to marry

@behindhereyes

I'm in America (not Texas) and in my town the PL people do a lot for children and women with unplanned pregnancies. I see drives for nappies and formula and baby clothes all the time that can be dropped off at pro- life centers to be given away for free. The churches really encourage people to foster kids, support groups for women etc. I don't know if I just live in a town that's very charitable but I have to say there seems to be a lot of genuine hands on support from the PL.

That's nice and everything, but free nappies are a drop in the fucking ocean of having to raise your rapist's child, or raise a child while still a child yourself, or not be able to go back to work/school because of a child you didn't want, or just purely go through having to bear and raise a child that you don't want to bear and raise.

If women are genuinely contemplating abortion because they don't know how they'll keep a baby in nappies and formula and otherwise want to keep it and that helps them, great. But a few free nappies and formula are nothing on the scale of what it takes - financially, emotionally, physically, logistically - to have a child, and forced-birthers shouldn't fool themselves that they've made it aaaaaaall better.

I'm very pro choice but I do not support sex selective abortion unless it is for medical reasons

Then you are not very pro choice are you? Can you honestly not see why some women would actively avoid bringing a girl into their world?

Sex selection isn’t an issue in wealthy and educated societies. Abortion in these cases reflects inequality and if women’s rights and roles are prioritised then the birth rate slows and the sex imbalance equalises.

'I want an abortion' should be enough reason for one.

Not allowing sex selection will also lead to unsafe backstreet practices and babies being abandoned at birth.

@Hereslookingatyoukid

Apologies of this has already been covered - I did read through but might have missed it. Would women in Texas who travel out of state either for an abortion or to discuss their options also be at risk of prosecution? I'm thinking of the women from Ireland who would travel to London/other parts of England to have abortions when abortion was not available legally there.

No. It is perfectly legal to drive or take a bus to another state for an abortion. Unfortunately, many of the states adjacent to Texas have similarly heavily restricted abortion. The woman would also have to pay for the abortion (most abortions aren’t covered by health insurance anyway), so affordability is a problem even in the liberal States that have abortion laws similar to U.K.

The law as it stands now is that anyone - anywhere - who 'aides and abets' any Texan woman/girl to have an abortion can be sued for $10,000 plus legal costs.

This is inaccurate. Texas law only applies within the borders of Texas. So it’s not “anyone -anywhere” but “anyone in Texas”. They also have to be knowingly helping her...if she calls a taxi and taxi driver has no idea she is pregnant, can’t be sued.

This means that a woman can legally drive herself or use public transport like a Greyhound bus or an Amtrak train or even an Uber to go to another State and have an abortion.

@mustlovegin

Perhaps more emphasis should be placed on contraception so that these pregnancies don't happen in the first places (with the exception of those resulting from rape and other exceptions, obviously)

As I posted before research done by Planned Parenthood discovered that roughly half of abortions are needed due to contraception failure. Think about that 99% effectI’ve at preventing pregnancy rate, sounds good, but it means for 1 in 100 women, 1 will fall pregnant due to contraception failure. When you considered hundreds of millions of women taking contraception, it is easy to see that you will need a millions of abortions just due to contraception failure.

@Tevin

I'm assuming this means any woman (or girl) who finds out she is pregnant after 6 weeks, is unable to access abortion in another state and then has complications during her pregnancy requiring extra medical care will have to not only continue a pregnancy she doesn't want, birth a child she doesn't want but also pay for the medical bills during the pregnancy and labour she didn't want?

Yes. And I think average cost of even a uncomplicated childbirth is eyewatering.

Although Texas did keep their judicial bypass for minors who want an abortion. So the 6 week limit applies to adult women, not minor girls.

@Knittingupastorm

Anti abortion is not anti women. It's clear that many people are both, but many others are pro-life partly because abortion is such a damaging experience for many women.

Oh so they’re protecting women from abortion by forcing them to give birth. This makes total sense.

This is a load of nonsense and anyone who pretends that by and large pro-life is at all about the women, is simply not being truthful.

Pro-life is about protecting the baby. Simple as that.

While pro-abortionists choose to confer human rights in the baby at viability or at birth, pro-lifers believe a baby has human rights and deserves the law's protection from when a heartbeat can be detected.

Either position is an arbitrary one, not backed by anything more than 'That's when I choose to consider a fetus a human being.'

Payment is another point. Even if some people will concede that - at least in certain cases - the woman can abort her fetus/unborn baby (depending on your view of the subject), there is no real argument for having the government pay for it.

@Soubriquet

“I don’t want to wear a mask! It’s my body, my choice!!!”

“Oh you want an abortion?! Tough shit. You don’t get a choice”

What happened to my body my choice?

Oh yeah….ones a woman who is forced to go through with a pregnancy she doesn’t want to give birth to a child that no one wants. Got it

Because according to pro-lifers it's not just your body but also the one of the unborn child.

Is this really so difficult for some people to grasp?

@MaskingForIt

I think many see adoption as the ideal outcome for “unwanted” children. By preventing abortion is means there is a steady supply of newborn babies available for childless Christian couples to adopt.

For a huge fee that goes to the Christian adoption agency too.

I believe the basic required fee for adoption agencies located in Texas is currently standing at $38,000.

$38K to buy a baby? No wonder they're anti choice, pro adoption.

@UpstreamSwimmer

Payment is another point. Even if some people will concede that - at least in certain cases - the woman can abort her fetus/unborn baby (depending on your view of the subject), there is no real argument for having the government pay for it.

What? Of course there should be universal healthcare and it should cover abortions. Otherwise it discriminates against poor women. Access to a legal abortion means absolutely nothing when it is unaffordable to on segment of the population. And abortions can cost several thousand...which is beyond the reach of even many FT working women. No, the universal healthcare system should pay for it for all women. I know US doesn’t have this, but they could expand Medicaid to include abortion and that would be easy enough to do.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Why? Why is the state obligated to pay for someone's choice on whether to keep their baby or not?

@Whatwouldscullydo

The sex of a fetus cannot be determined until 14 weeks at the earliest, I cannot support abortion at that stage of pregnancy just because you don't like the flavour nature gave you. There are many good reasons why abortions may take place later than this in pregnancy, choosing the sex of your child is not a good reason

Its very easy to say in a safe little westernised bubble that it's wrong. But girls In other countries are maried off as children. Thrown in the trash at birth. Left to die in menstruation huts. They die of treatable diseases because if having no male family member to agree their treatment. There are countries where domestic violence is the norm. They are shunned by their husbands and their families when their under developed immature bodies don't cope with pregnancy and child birth and they suffer complications. They are trafficked and raped repeatedly. Denied education. Rights to bodily autonomy and god knows what else in this world. If I lived somewhere where these things happened. I'm sure I'd think twice about whether i wanted to bring a girl into this world.

But if you lived in one of those countries where women are forced into marriage and have no bodily autonomy, then abortions would also be illegal?

So your scenario is highly unlikely to happen. Because it is part of women’s rights is to have reproductive rights to contraception and abortion. And no country without women’s rights has given women reproductive rights. Finally, in every country so far women’s right to equality (voting, Working, politics, etc) come before women gain reproductive rights.

[quote UpstreamSwimmer]@PlanDeRaccordement

Why? Why is the state obligated to pay for someone's choice on whether to keep their baby or not?[/quote]
I view abortion as part of healthcare and family planning and the ability to have an abortion should not be restricted by unaffordability. Every woman should be able to get one for free. If it’s not free, then you create a rich and poor divide where rich can have abortions, but poor de facto cannot have abortions.

We are not talking about buying luxury items or trips abroad, this is healthcare and healthcare should be universal.

[quote UpstreamSwimmer]@PlanDeRaccordement

Why? Why is the state obligated to pay for someone's choice on whether to keep their baby or not?[/quote]
Alright, so I'm a woman who can't afford an abortion- so am presumably not in a great financial position to have a child. But I have the child. Now, at the very least, the state is paying for 14 years of education for my subsequent child. It's also likely that I will be claiming some form of social security, due to being in a poor financial position. I'm not sure how Medicaid is funded, but I'm going to be pretty dependent on that for giving birth, any antenatal or postnatal care, any illnesses my child might develop...
From an economic standpoint, it makes no sense for the state to refuse to cover abortions for women who can't afford them.