To think men shouldn’t be allowed to express pro-life opinions?

[purpledaze24]

Was just watching (by accident, went down a bit of a rabbit hole!) a YouTube video of this infuriating American far-right man talking about how abortion shouldn’t be allowed (even in the case of rape). Watching it made me angrier and angrier. It’s bad enough hearing anyone bang on about banning abortion, but of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion. However, when it’s a man who has no clue what a woman’s body goes through, and has no regard for the giant responsibility and completely life-changing effect a baby has on a mother’s life (cos let’s be realistic, many fathers find it pretty easy to walk away or continue living life completely responsibly-free), I feel like, how dare he express these opinions, he shouldn’t have a say, it’s just not his place. AIBU or should men be allowed to express anti-abortion opinions? I’m not talking about men whose partner gets pregnant, I’m talking about politicians and men with power talking about banning abortion in general. Watching them talk about it gives me the ick

Nah they should be allowed to express an opinion and we are are allowed to tell them their opinion is wrong

@wavymavy ,

That is a fantastic post and you put it far better than I ever could.

We seem to have passed the time of intelligent respectful debate and be determined to sling slogans at one another.

If you look back 100 years ago, people would have viewed all kinds of human life as unimportant that we now view as sacrosanct. Thankfully people discussed these and opinions changed.

The reality is that if you ask women and men up to what point in pregnancy abortion should be legal, women on average would put a shorter limit on it than men.

And if they were pro-life, they would also be the world's strongest advocates for consent, men paying CS, men abstaining if they don't want to both parent and pay, they would be fervent supporters of child protection (not just when the perps are brown).

They aren't. They just hate women.

If you like evidence, the very clear evidence is that countries with free, legal abortions, have fewer of them. Places like Nicaragua, where it is illegal in all cases, have many more. They are just unsafe, expensive and illegal.

Another way you can tell it's about hating women, not preventing harm.

My friend is pro choice but was he allowed to be sad when his ex decided she wanted an abortion? He supported her right to choose but it crushed him.

Men say all sorts of things and I barely listen to any of them. They have proved themselves to not be up to the job of being decent members of society. En masse, of course. Individually some are basically fine, most of the time but rarely all of the time.

What I don't want is men having unequal power, and in the case of power over women's bodies, minds, actions, they should have precisely zero.

And what saddens me is the women who merrily go along with it all. I know at a societal level it has benefited women in the short term to agree with men to gain protection, but long term there is no benefit and it is detrimental to women on a societal level.

I think they should be allowed to express pro-life opinions. I don’t think they should be allowed to manifest those opinions into law.

Where does it end though? Would you want the father having no right to an opinion after birth too?

And that is why I believe abortion should be legal, because of the harm of illegal abortion. I don't think you can conclude that higher abortion rates when abortion is illegal is due to abortion being illegal. That may be a correlation but you would need much more evidence to decide on the (doubtless multi-factorial) causation..

But by making this point you are avoiding what I was actually talking about. Which was perhaps deliberate.

It depends. Expressing sadness to his friend, of course he should.

Emotionally manipulating the women, of course he shouldn’t. Doesn’t sound like he did if he was supporting her right to choose.

Plenty of men are ‘feminists’ until it goes from giving them woke cookies to actually affecting their lives.

OK I’ll address your other points. I don’t believe debate is heathy in this case. It’s all about moving the Overton window.

But if there is a debate to be had, women can have it. The billions of women around the world are capable of having a debate about women’s rights and women’s healthcare without men.

Interestingly my very Christian aunt, who goes to Christian conferences, and has views about abortion I don’t share, agrees. She was horrified that a panel on it included men. She wants to debate, also agrees it’s women talking, not men.

Forced birth is a terrible form of violence.

Of course they can have an opinion what a bizarre post

You see, I can't agree with that positioning. Because it depends on one side deciding unilaterally what the debate is about, - women's rights.

Pro-life people see this as a debate about protecting human life of unborn humans.

I see it as debate fundamentally about when we value life, and what sort of lives we value.

Everyone should be allowed an opinion, we live if country of free speech, however that doesn't mean you have to give it any air time, just ignore it.

They can have all the opinions they want - but they should have the decency to shut up...

Pro-life people see this as a debate about protecting human life of unborn humans.

They are simply wrong. You don't prevent abortion, as is evidenced in literally every country in the world. You prevent safe, free, legal abortion.

And let's be honest, a lot of the people having the 'debate' are misogynists. If it was about protecting babies, they would care about those babies. They don't, it's all about forcing women to give birth to punish them. They're not building schools, giving women money to live, helping.

Everyone from the Catholic Church to Trump is clearly not doing it because they love little children. Everyone from the Catholic Church to Trump has actively supported pedophiles in fact.

Well, if that's the premise.... we have 'forced birth' now, if that's what you want to call it. If I am beyond 24 weeks pregnant and the there are no medical reasons for me to have an abortion then I am forced to give birth. Am I inciting violence if I say I support the UK's policy on abortion? Obviously not and that's true if I am female or male.

Of course he's allowed to be sad. He's allowed to the his relationship with her if he can not abide her decision. That's his autonomy, he is allowed his reaction.

He's not allowed to stop her from having an abortion or coerce or threaten her to deny her her autonomy.

I would also like to add that the pro-life position is often frustratingly simplistic. Men who preach at women are the kind of humans that I personally want to avoid and fight as much as physically possible. I hate how binary they make it all sound. Abortion is not about whether or not we value the life growing inside the woman. That is a horrible moral judgement to pass on the woman. Whatever the motivations behind a termination, it's usually about a set of complex considerations that means the woman is not in a position to proceed. Men will never walk in those shoes. If they are really that bothered, they should plough resources into developing a male pill or a male coil, not berate us when we can't grow another human being.

I don’t think we should ban free speech but should men be making decisions about women’s bodies, probably not. But where does it end, gay people make decisions about Gary rights. Trans people making decisions about trans rights. It’s a difficult one.

In that hypothetical situation, you will have had 24 weeks to decide. You have to assume that at the cut-off point, the number of women suddenly deciding they don't want a healthy child is very very low indeed. At the point of viability, it is indeed too late. But that's not what the forced birthers are talking about. The people OP is referring to are the absolutists who consider the MAP to be an unacceptable form of contraception. They're the ones who consider any legal termination to be murder.

Most of our laws don't stop things from happening. They hope to reduce them and to set a line of what society considers acceptable. Our law against FGM does not stop it from happening, but I don't think any feminist would argue for NHS funded FGM on the grounds that if it is going to happen, then it may as well happen safely.

And let's be honest, a lot of the people having the 'debate' are misogynists
it's all about forcing women to give birth to punish them

I simply don't believe this. Are there some people like this? Sure. This does not at all reflect the views of the pro-life people I have known. I don't think it is beyond comprehension that people simply have a moral perspective that human life should be protected, regardless of whether it is born or not. I don't see why we have to pretend all pro-life people are just evil arseholes to make the case for abortion.

And we do have schools and welfare btw. And the only pro-life group I came across does provide support for mothers who keep their babies. I rather suspect that those who say ' pro-lifers give no support to mothers' have never actually done any research to see if this claim is true.

I don’t like it, but I suppose that’s how free speech works. A while ago I drove past a bloke wearing a pro-life shirt (there were protests that day at the hospital) and I wound the window down to shout twat. His right to wear it, but the beauty of freedom of speech is that I get to respond.

Thankfully, DD was too young to talk back then so I didn’t have to worry about her repeating it!

I disagree with authoritarianism, no matter how ‘reasonably’ it’s presented. You may be in support of this, but what happens when the same rationale is used to silence you?

Shutting down opinions doesn’t stop people from holding them, if anything it only cements and motivates opposition to the permissible one. Personally I would also prefer to know where someone actually stands, rather than have them merely parrot the party line to me.

That isn’t to say I agree with, or indeed respect, pro life opinions, because I don’t. I do however respect that others have the right to their own opinion regardless of how odious I may find it.