Tired of the pro-choice lie

[Honesting]

I keep seeing people bring this up again, especially after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, that he once said if his 10-year-old daughter became pregnant through rape he’d insist she carry the baby. People call it misogynistic and vile. To be clear, that’s not my view and I’m not here to argue the pro-life case.

I actually have mixed feelings about abortion. I'm okay with the MAP and not okay with abortion up to the point of delivery. Where to draw the line is something I haven't decided yet.

What I do want to say is that it’s dishonest to pretend CK's position comes from hatred of women. The pro-life stance is very consistent and, internally, very coherent. If you genuinely believe an unborn child is a human being with rights, then ending its life is always wrong, no matter how it was conceived. We’d never allow a raped woman to kill her newborn, even if it was the product of rape. So if you see the foetus as having equal rights, then by that same logic, it shouldn’t matter whether conception was through rape.

I know the other side, and I understand it. I’m not dismissing the complexities. But the idea that the pro life argument is born of misogyny is simply false. It comes from a clear and reasonable moral framework: once human life begins, it carries human rights.

it is not good that one person is in charge

If one person submits to the other, then the other IS in charge. Or how do you think submission works?

It's impressive really that Hamster kept complaining that other people were twisting their words earlier and yet has gone on to interpret 'submit to your husband' as somehow meaning equal standing in a marriage. It's quite something!

Medic here - in some traditional marriages, husbands decide whether or not the wife can carry a pregnancy to term. Husbands request, and obtain, the abortion. I've seen it happen.

Likewise: in a setting of non-accidental harm to children, if the husband is the perpetrator, a financially dependent wife can do very little to protect her children. I've seen it happen.

Lastly: even in a happy marriage, child-rearing is not about being passive and submissive. It is about projecting routine, firm boundaries and humanity. In short, it's about leadership.

Submitting to your husband and putting children first are not the same thing.

"Erm, you do know newborns need their mother to survive, to feed them?"

Erm, as you acknowledge yourself, that is totally untrue. They certainly need someone to feed and care for them, but it could be anyone with access to formula milk and a bottle; in the past wet-nurses were not uncommon. That is the crucial difference between abortion of a foetus that cannot survive on its own and murder of a baby that could, given the right care.

What you write criticising "my body, my choice" is completely illogical. "My body, my choice" does not "deny biological reality" at all. Your argument seems to reduce women to mere baby-bearing machines who should have no say in the matter and should be labelled "selfish" if they have the temerity to put their own needs and wishes first.

If you had a life-threatening medical problem and the only thing that could save you was some sort of medical "donation" from me, I still couldn’t be forced to agree to it. We all have bodily autonomy. Even if you were a proven wonderful person and my refusal would lead to your death and the orphaning of your numerous dependent children, it would be my choice and my decision. Why, then, should I be denied the choice when the life at stake is that of a bunch of cells with no dependants and no or limited consciousness? Or do you think I should be forced to, for example, donate one of my kidneys to you if we are a perfect match and you need it and I probably don’t?

I do know this argument and to a certain extent I believe in it which is why I would not want abortion to be banned completely. Rape victims, incest, health threats to the mother - I totally get it. But these are a tiny proportion of abortion - serious risk to a mother's life is well under 1% of the 272,000 abortions per year in the UK.

So what of the other 269,280 abortions? It's a lot of abortions that are not in the camp of being rape or threat of life to the mother.

Not wanting to be pregnant should be a good enough reason.

So, practically speaking, you can't put a policy in place that ensures only the abortions you deem acceptable take place. Rape conviction rates are extremely low. It would be impossible to get a rape conviction in between conviction in between conception and birth, far less the abortion cut-off date. Many rapes are not reported. That means you can't possibly know what percentage of abortions arise from rape. And you can't enforce a ban for abortions that don't arise from rape, because how would someone prove this at six weeks/twelve weeks/twenty four weeks or maybe ever?

So abortion has to be the woman's choice. You have to take her word that she was raped or risk denying rape victims the abortion you agree she should be allowed to get.

Incest is even more complicated and less likely to be reported at the time. Risk to the mother's life is a doctor's call and these decisions are not infallible. There is an error rate. So again, you could end up with a situation where the doctor isn't sure, delays action and she dies as a result.

Theoretically you can take a stance that you only condone abortion in those circumstances, but in practice you can't enforce that. Any attempt to do so will deny women abortions in cases that will re-traumatise victims and possibly kill women.

I don't know....I am not sure that is good enough reason.

I don't want to do many things, but I do they - sometimes out of duty, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because I have no choice.

When we are talking about a human life, that seems quite flippant and callous.

Sure, I think that is right, but I really don't like the casual attitude that people have to abortion and I think we can do better in supporting women when they are pregnant.

I remember the moment I found out I was pregnant and I was surprised at the primal reaction I had to it - it was very much a "fuck, can I have this child? Is this man up to the job" feeling - it made me look at him in a very different way - it was just so crystal clear I needed something new from him that I hadn't needed previously. It was terrifying. My point about that is that it is truly terrifying to be pregnant, and I am not sure we do enought to support women in those times of fear - and the more we say 'just have an abortion' the more we do not create a culture where women's fears around pregnancy can be relieved. I mean things like more expectations on men to support their children and focus on a two parent family, I mean better working contracts to support women, even better child benefit - all of those things seem preferable to a continuing climbing abortion rate.

I presume you mean things like chores and work. Comparing them to being pregnant against your will, giving birth against your will and then possibly raising a child against your will is pretty callous and flippant in my eyes. And I say that as someone who probably wouldn’t be alive is abortion was legal where I was born.

No one has the right to force me to do anything with my body I don’t want to do. Bodily autonomy and the right to say no.

I am so intrigued by your last sentence?

I have quite a few adopted relatives and I think one of the reasons I question abortion is that I know they wouldn't be here if abortion was as freely available as it is now.

You can't police people's attitudes though. You're all over Mumsnet right now defending anyone's right to talk about their suspicion of black people and beliefs about women's submission to men. If people are allowed to believe those things, other people can be casual about abortion if they want.

You can't police people's attitudes though. You're all over Mumsnet right now defending anyone's right to talk about their suspicion of black people and beliefs about women's submission to men. If people are allowed to believe those things, other people can be casual about abortion if they want.

Also, you don't have to raise the child - there are plenty of people wanting to adopt babies

I think you are making things up now.

Defending people's right to talk about their suspicion of black people and women's submission to men?

I believe in Free Speech if that is what you mean, yes. But that doesn't mean that I have those beliefs. For not the first time, I ask you if you understand the difference?

My friend who is adopted would roast you for that and tell you how offensive that is. So maybe have a think hey?

Short story, I was born in a country where abortion was illegal. My mum was a 16 yo boarder from a rural background who hid her pregnancy, gave birth alone a few days before Christmas, left me in the hospital and went home for the rest of the holidays. I was adopted by one of the midwives there. The reasons are just are flippant and callous.

To have an abortion you had to have money and/or connections and many women and girls died or were permanently maimed/left unable to have children again.The disregard for their safety was flippant and callous.. Thousands of babies were abandoned back then and grew up in awful conditions, to the point many of them became disabled or institutionalised for life. Their treatment was flippant and callous.The “lucky” ones were adopted. I put lucky in inverted commas because there was a lot of corruption and selling of babies abroad that no one kept track of. That was flippant and callous.

My childhood wasn’t great to put it mildly, but better than an orphanage.

I’m a pretty decent person, I work with kids, I do my bit, but with, or without me, the world would still keep turning. I was a dime a dozen and still am in a way.

Short story, I was born in a country where abortion was illegal. My mum was a 16 yo boarder from a rural background who hid her pregnancy, gave birth alone a few days before Christmas, left me in the hospital and went home for the rest of the holidays. I was adopted by one of the midwives there. The reasons are just are flippant and callous.

To have an abortion you had to have money and/or connections and many women and girls died or were permanently maimed/left unable to have children again.The disregard for their safety was flippant and callous.. Thousands of babies were abandoned back then and grew up in awful conditions, to the point many of them became disabled or institutionalised for life. Their treatment was flippant and callous.The “lucky” ones were adopted. I put lucky in inverted commas because there was a lot of corruption and selling of babies abroad that no one kept track of. That was flippant and callous.

My childhood wasn’t great to put it mildly, but better than an orphanage.

I’m a pretty decent person, I work with kids, I do my bit, but with, or without me, the world would still keep turning. I was a dime a dozen and still am in a way.

I never said anything about rape or incest or health threats to the mother, though I certainly think those who would insist that a raped ten-year-old continue with a pregnancy are utterly despicable in their wish to see their own beliefs as more important than the well-being of the rape victim.

However, it’s simply a question of the principle. Either woman have the right to choose what happens to their own body (short of terminating a late-stage pregnancy of a healthy, viable foetus) or they don’t. I believe they should have that right, whether or not others believe their decision is correct.

I've been questioning if that's as true as it once was. It was the Leiland Corkhill case that made me start to question if there really are all these "wonderful" people out there that are desperate to adopt babies. Then add in all the people who prefer to buy them from surrogates and I really wonder.

This is some of my problem with the pro life position. What would we even do with the babies? We already do a really poor job for looked after children. We also do a piss poor job with the traumatised postnatal women that we already have. I don't think we are in a position to cope with even more of these people.

That said I think that you do have a point that we have a huge culture of fear around pregnancy and motherhood. There is a need for nuance here.

I do understand it. But I think it all ties together. In terms of creating a more supportive environment for women, I agree with that but not the way you state. Firstly, a rising abortion rate doesn't necessarily mean that women are more casual around abortion but that there might be more circumstances that make it harder to have a baby - namely, the cost of living and people's diminishing ability to feed and house their families even on two salaries. Or the high cost of childcare putting some women out of the workforce and reducing their independence and financial security going into older age.

So, we could support women by tackling social inequality and child poverty. Redistribution of wealth from multimillionaires and billionaires via fairer taxation to pay for public services and to raise living standards across the board.

We could support women by ensuring we protect sex education and access to contraception, but also education around relationships - in particular, recognising emotional abuse and coercive control to empower people to get out of toxic and damaging relationships before pregnancy occurs.

We could support women by fighting back against regressive rhetoric that places them as secondary to men, and ensure that a decision to have children won't leave them trapped, powerless and dependent.

We could challenge violence against women and tackle the low conviction rate for sexual assault. We could challenge the rise of misogynistic influencers like the Andrew Tates of this world and push for men to see women as equals, not inferiors or enemies. That would help the 'male loneliness epidemic' as well as promoting healthy and respectful relationships.

I think all of this might contribute to a lowering of unwanted pregnancies or pregnancies that are wanted but are logistically too difficult to continue. But even if it didn't, we'd be living in a better world.

We agree then!

You shouldn’t be concerned about my slightly anti abortion stance, I’m totally in a minority of people who think this way, and there is no chance of laws being changed in the uk

Even if you feel you do something out of "duty" or "necessity", that’s still your choice. Others might choose differently.

You seem to have great respect for the sanctity of human life, even if that life is still just a clump of cells. I don’t. Miscarriages happen naturally all the time. Billions of sperm are "wasted" and unfertilised eggs shed every day. I don’t see that there is anything magical in the fact that a new human life has been started, any more than if it was a new insect life, for instance.

I understand that you disagree, but I don’t see why your views should trump (pardon the expression) mine.

It seemed like there was no chance of it happening in the US, until it did. Progress can easily be undone.