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.

Only read the first page but they rather prove your point OP.

I love feminism. But I love evidenced and fact based reasoning more.

Human life clearly does start at conception, not birth. It is blindingly obvious that the further the pregnancy progresses, the harder the moral case becomes for ending the life of the foetus/ unborn child.

Both pro-choice and pro-life positions have a really strong case to make.

The pretence in many feminist arguments that the pro-choice argument, is a simple clear cut moral case, just doesn't stack up. Ditto the pro-life argument.

Pretending that everyone who is pro-life is a misogynist is as intellectually and morally bankrupt as pretending that everyone who is pro-choice just wants to kill babies ( or indeed, is as nonsensical as saying every woman who wants to maintain single sex spaces just hates trans people).

This is a moral case where the enactment of one position causes harm to another human life, whether the mother's or the child's/ foetus'.

I can't respect arguments that pretend otherwise. We should be able to have a honest, respectful debate on an honest basis.

Human life clearly does start at conception, not birth.
This is an opinion shipped as a fact. It is impractical, harmful and cruel.

Let's ignore abortions for now and take only natural miscarriages into account. About half of all conceptions fails to develop and ends with a miscarriage. Yes, the numbers differ depending on how early you detect the pregnancy, but when you say from conception, you need to count all those "biochemical" pregnancies, pregnancies which end by a day or two delayed periods, foetuses which failed to nest and so on.

Forcing the life definition that early means applying it on many situations which clearly aren't life and never will become one in the name of religious ideology which failed to catch up with the science.

From conception/from birth is a false dilema.
In reality the life starts when a mother-to-be declares her pregnancy.
Before that, it is a stomach ache and nausea which might go away or which she might decide to treat. After that she typically changes her behaviour to support the new life (stop drinking alcohol, limits medication for her other health conditions, ...) and mourn the natural loss if it happens.

"Human life clearly does start at conception". No it doesn't. It's obvious (blindingly obvious) this could not possibly be true. That's what I (and many others) say, anyway.

So, what now, @brighterraven?

Perhaps read Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion, Philosophy & Public Affairs (1971)? And go from there?

[(The late, lamented) JJT's paper is fairly well-known; it's easy to find online even if you don't have institutional access. I recommend it to you.]

Comments like this assume he accepted that guns lead to more deaths than laws banning or regulating them. The pro gun people believe things would be worse without guns. Worse in terms of criminals having guns when regular people can’t have one to defend themselves and also they believe the government would crack down on them if the population isn’t armed. So I don’t think they necessarily believe more die.

I feel quite sorry for people who have to the deny the humanity and rights of an unborn child in order to justify their support of abortion. It speaks to a level of cognitive dissonance that might account for their vociferousness. The vast majority of people acknowledge both and still support abortion. Life is messy and sometimes difficult choices need to be made. People who believe absolutely in the sanctity of life will never support abortion, no matter hard people jump up and down screaming misogyny/fascist/far right etc.

If you don't agree with abortion you don't have one.

What other women decide to do with their own bodies is entirely up to them and doesn't affect me.

I wish other people felt the same way.

And if men don't like the idea of abortion they can keep their dicks in their trousers. Easy.

I love feminism?

What is it about feminism that you love @brighterraven? If potential for life trumps the actual lives of existing women and children, how can you possibly say you love feminism?

Feminism is about the human autonomy of real, existing women who grew up being girls. Feminism centres women. Not men. Not zygotes. Not the foetus. Not potential lives, but real lives.

People who oppose abortion do not believe in the sanctity of life. As explained repeatedly throughout this entire thread, when abortions are banned or restricted then the maternal mortality rate increases. So, people who oppose abortion do not care for the sanctity of women's lives. Women die as a result of their belief.

I think brightraven has a bit of a cheek reading just the first page and then dismissing all the arguments that disagree with the OP as 'morally and intellectually bankrupt'. If you can't be bothered to read people's arguments, you can't characterise them.

If it's a numbers game, the number of women who die as a result of abortion prohibition is miniscule compared to the numbers of unborn who die when abortion is legalised. So not a very convincing argument for those who believe in the sanctity of life.

compared to the numbers of unborn who die when abortion is legalised.

Spurious. You do not know how many would go to term anyway. Where do you start this unborn life? At 24 weeks when viable? Abortion under 12 weeks is a potential life not a guarantee . Tfmr is a subjective sometimes view of potential life sometimes very clear cut . But no one is forced to abort.

Nothing spurious about that. And potential life is not a thing. Something is living, ie developing and growing or it is dead. Whether and when you choose to value that growing and developing thing is what is subjective. Those that believe in the sanctity of life would probably place that point at implantation. And the fact that living things sometimes die of natural causes is a very poor justification for the purposeful killing of said thing.

There is an argument that until an unborn child can survive independently outside the mother it is only a potential independent life. Before then it is to some extent a parasite.

It is not life. It has the potential to be life, but until it can survive autonomously, it is potential.

I understand that some believe differently, but their beliefs should not supercede the rights of those with different beliefs.

True. And I've no doubt that is how a woman burdened with an unplanned pregnancy feels. And she should be no more demonised for that subjective viewpoint than someone who cannot see beyond the emerging child's humanity.

Only one of those groups seeks to remove the legal rights of women.

Because they don't think women's suffering and women's lives matter. So, they are misogynistic. Human life is not 'a numbers game'. Women's pain, their health and their rignt to life is real and not theoretical. People who disregard that are misogynists and they do not care about the sanctity of life; that's what they pretend in order to justify their hypocritical and contradictory belief.

This argument has already been had on the thread. Don't come in calling it a poor argument when you can't be bothered to read what people have patiently and comprehensively explained already, post after post on here. Your sweeping statements are condescending and ill-informed coming after hundreds of intelligent and thoughtful posts that no one has the time to rehash on your behalf.