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.

I never said you need to be reasonable about your rape, I said be reasonable and read what I have written

What proof of rape do you think should be needed in order to facilitate abortion @hamstersarse?

There is no way to force women to carry a child that will be reasonable to rape victims. It’s that simple.

Any abortion availability or permission that depends upon proof of rape is very far from reasonable.

I was raped in January. Had I been of reproductive age I’d have a baby right about now.

The police haven’t even finished their investigations and it hasn’t gone to court.

so. What proof of rape would I have to provide?

I am tired of the Forced Birthers' lies that risk women's lives @Honesting .

Be it from a place of misogyny or the willful ignorance displayed on this thread.

While your ideal may be that women struggle with but ultimately overcome their initial feelings, bond with and love a child that would otherwise have been aborted... what actually happens when abortion is restricted is that women turn to unsafe abortions.

As they did in the past. For millennia. Pre-contraception and legal abortions. And will do in the future with any changes to legislation.

Maybe that's where the difference lies, in how much faith you have in most women being able to overcome their not wanting a baby and thrive regardless.

I'm all for looking at how we as a society can make motherhood seem less scary because it's a real issue. I think to describe unwanted pregnancy as an inconvenience is very disrespectful though. I found the experience of being pregnant, giving birth and the postpartum period horrible enough with my wanted babies. The thought of being forced to do that is disturbing.

Except contraception and abortion have been a thing for millennia, in some form or another. There are mentions of abortion in ancient Egypt.What does that tell you?

Look, you do not know what percentage of abortions come from rape. Where does this 'under 1%' stat come from? Do you understand that rape is an under-reported crime with a very low conviction rate? Also, has the OP just plucked that 1% from thin air or anti choice propaganda? Because giving it a quick Google brings up an array of wildly different statistics. And any statistics you do find on this are likely to underestimate it due to the nature of the crime.

So your argument is built on a false premise to begin with. Then, you've decided most women are afraid of pregnancy - this appears to be based on your personal experience and nothing else. So you can't really apply that to all women and assume their abortions are a panic reaction. When women seek abortions, they are given information and healthcare providers follow protocol to get fully informed consent. Women who are anxious and unsure can and do change their minds about going ahead.

You also draw a line between abortions you deem acceptable and fit your understanding of trauma and then you call all other abortions matters of 'inconvenience'. So, it's ok in your opinion for someone to have an abortion if the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother's life, but there are many health risks that aren't fatal. What if she's experienced severe prolapse from a previous pregnancy and another one would make that worse and have a serious effect on her quality of life? Or she has a chronic health condition that makes the prospect of caring for a child too detrimental to her wellbeing to contemplate? Or she has terrible hyperemesis and young children she already cares for? History of post-partum depression or psychosis? Issues that may not kill her but go well beyond a minor 'inconvenience'. Mothers who have disabled children whose needs are incompatible with having more children.

Many, many women who have abortions are already mothers. If they're afraid of the pregnancy, it's based on their real life experience and knowledge of what the pregnancy and baby will do to their lives. I think you imagine all abortions are sought by childless women but plenty are mothers already.

You agree that pregnancies arising from rape meet your criteria for abortion (with no means of putting this into practice) but what about emotionally abusive or coercive relationships? Again, it would be more traumatic than inconvenient to have your abuser's baby.

It's easy for you to dismiss the circumstances of a woman's life as just a bit of inconvenience she would overcome, but I think you lack the imagination and empathy to actually realise how many shades of grey exist and just how complicated life can be.

You have also mentioned two parent families a few times; I'm curious as to how you enforce this? Are we talking about restricting a woman's right to divorce along with her right to abortion? If couples don't wish to stay together as a two parent family, how will you make them?

Forcing someone to be pregnant when they don't want to be? Of course it's traumatic, no matter how they got pregnant and what reason they have not to want to be pregnant.

The OP gave up a long time ago and it seems Hamsters Arse is too busy on the Kirk threads to come back here now. The anti-choice arguments just don't stack up in real life and you can see that demonstrated amply here. It only works in a very simplistic, idealised world but that's not the one we're all living in. So they can't keep on defending it past a certain point.

Tired of this, tired of that. There are a few of these threads from people who do not have women’s interests at heart, and very much do support the interests of rich right wing men, for whom subjugated women are a bonus.

I never argued for a position.

My point was that the anti abortion stance is at its core based in the premise that a fetus is a human being who should enjoy the human right of not being killed. It is not based on misogyny.

That was my entire point. I know there are counter arguments, which are at least as coherent and convincing. That was never my issue. What I hate is the framing of the opponent as a hater, when they have a reasonable position.

That isn't to say the opposite argument is just as reasonable or even more so.

How do you feel about me being told I need to “just get over it!” In relation to my rape in the hypothetical case if I was pregnant?

Thank fuck I’m too old to be, but if I was younger. 🤷🏼‍♀️

And you never managed to explain how the doubling of the maternal mortality rate after abortion bans are imposed fits with the 'logical, coherent and consistent moral position' of the supposedly pro-life movement - because it doesn't. It's a movement that values the potential life of a foetus over the actual lives of women. So how can that not be misogynistic?

Also. What about the human rights of the mother or is she, yet again, just a vessel to be used?

I understand the idea that people who are anti abortion see the foetus as a person with the right to life, and that they believe that it is wrong to take that life.

What disturbs me is that they completely dismiss the rights of a woman to have autonomy over her own body. It is as if she ceases to be a person with rights of her own, at that point, and becomes little more than a vehicle to carry the baby. I find that misogynistic.

While I am very much pro-choice in all situations, I could just about manage to get my head around the logic of the anti abortion lobby in cases where the woman has effectively consented to "hosting" the life of the foetus by willingly engaging in sex. But in cases of rape, in which the woman has already been deprived of her bodily autonomy in the most horrific manner, it is utterly incomprehensible to me that her rights over whether or not to proceed with the pregnancy should be pushed aside. I don't see how that could be viewed as anything other than misogynistic, because it is effectively ruling that the woman's rights over her own body are irrelevant. As for pregnancies resulting from the rape of a child...it is utterly repugnant to suggest that a 10yo child - who has already suffered the trauma of rape and abuse - should be made to go through the trauma of pregnancy and birth.

I don't understand how the right to life of a what is effectively a clump of cells in the early stages of pregnancy should be prioritised over the rights and over the wellbeing of women and girls who have already been made to suffer more than they ever should have been.

And you ignored posts which were arguing that seeing that position as coherent and logical is based on misogyny.
A coherent position would include recognising that seeing a foetus as a full human means evaluating conflict of rights with rights of the woman involved.

@Honesting can you answer this.

I don't know who said that to you but I certainly didn't. WADR and with the utmost sympathy for what you went through, you don't seem to be in a mental space to have a reasoned discussion.

I actually agree with you. But I can also see how for some people any act of murder is so heinous that even if the life of the foetus only came to be through the most tragic of circumstances, they still couldn't condone what they perceive to be murder.

I don't personally agree, but I think on balance it's more plausible they arrived at their position out of abhorrence to any act of murder, as through misogyny.

To just shout misogyny is to level a nasty accusation without any proof.

It’s exactly what I was told on this thread.

I’d like to know your opinion on it.

im perfectly calm and definitely in a perfect headspace to have this discussion.

You're asking me to step in to (an incoherent) debate you had with another poster?

But for argument's sake, I suppose a police report would be proof enough.

I didn't see any convincing arguments why the anti abortion side is motivated by misogyny. I saw good arguments for the right of abortion, and I think both sides have reasonable positions, but neither is primarily motivated by hate (or misogyny/misanthropy).

I am sick of this faux naive I never argued for a position stance.🙄

Let the anti-abortionists make their own arguments. Fuck knows they're well enough funded and more than capable of debating their beliefs by themselves.