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.

@Honesting might also be unaware if the recent case in Malta (which has very draconian anti-abortion laws) where an American woman on holiday was denied a termination - her pregnancy had gone catastrophically wrong, the baby was either going to die in the womb or die within minutes of birth - but the mother would absolutely die if the pregnancy wasn’t terminated. Malta wouldn’t allow it (and I assume the OP would agree with that, as the mother has no rights to her own body or indeed life as she’s pregnant) and initially wouldn’t allow her to leave Malta to travel to another country to have a termination.

Can I sit on this panel too? I had three kids, one late miscarriage and I’m a rape survivor.

what’s your qualifications to judge @Honesting ?

No, most pro lifers agree there should be an exception for threat to the mother's life.

Most pro lifers agree there should be an exception for threat to the mother's life.

I whole heartedly agree with you.

RIP Charlie Kirk.

Yes, that's concealed carry.

I find your arguments really problematic for several reasons

1. You keep saying that if people believe that foetuses have the same rights than a human being then the pro - life argument makes sense. Yes, it makes sense for the people who believe that. Then those people don’t have to have an abortion. But for people that don’t believe that and want to have autonomy over their own bodies they should have access to safe abortions. The problem with that argument is that anti abortion activists are preventing others of making choices for themselves. Pro- choice leave the choice for each women and don’t impose their views on others.
2. I completely reject the premises as an abortion being the same as killing an already born baby. I can’t even understand how you think those are comparable situations. If someone has a baby from their rapists once the baby is born they can walk away. It can be given up for adoption. Whilst it’s inside their body there is no walking away. I don’t know if you have ever been pregnant (I have 4 times and 3 children) all my children were wanted, and very much so, but a pregnancy is all encompassing - you have very little control over what is happening. So to compare something that is happening to a pregnant woman and once a baby is already born is in my opinion, comparing apples and oranges.

edited to add:
that yes there are many anti abortion activities that don’t believe in intervention even if the mothers life is in jeopardy - just listen to the stories of women that have been left without being able to have more children.

No, most pro lifers agree there should be an exception for threat to the mother's life.

There are evil people who disagree though

I understand concealed carry. I’m querying that anyone carries around an assault rifle in their handbag.

ALL pregnancies carry the risk of death land serious injury in birth. Every single one of them. Forcing a woman to carry a child she doesn’t want is not making the foerus as important is her it is making it MORE important to her

Compuksory (reversible) vacetomies would solve the problem (reversed when a woman wants it to be reversed)

The OP doesn’t appear to - she’s been clear that a woman’s womb is purely there for carrying a baby therefore once she’s doing that she has no rights over her womb. To carry that to its logical extension, she wouldn’t change that if the mother was going to die.

And Malta certainly didn’t care.

That's not the case. They overturned Roe vs Wade in the US and immediately the states where the Christian right-wing anti-abortionists have sway, there was an immediate pursuit of total abortion bans. The anti abortion rhetoric in America is overwhelmingly one of no exceptions, and woman die as a result of this.

While there might be some 'agreement' when it comes down to it alot of medica don't want to call it because of the fear of being sued resulting inaction and death to the mother. This has already happened but I cant find the case.

But why? If the stance is that all lives have equal value (rather than that a fully grown person already living their life has more value than a foetus/embryo), then for a logically consistent stance you wouldn't make an exception for the mother's life, unless the mother losing her life also meant the foetus losing theirs (so a situation where the mother couldn't be kept on life support or beyond the point of foetal viability). You'd flip a coin, or roll a dice and make the decision based on that.

To be clear, I think that that is abhorrent and disagree with it, because I believe the person living their life DOES have more value than something that has the potential to become an independently viable human being.

But if someone genuinely believes that the foetus and mother have equal value then making an exception for the mother's life doesn't actually follow logically.

Yes. Without legal abortions, three women in my family would be dead. One ectopic, one haemorrhage, one severe hyperemesis with complications. Women die when abortions are banned or only permitted when they are already dying.

Short version of, I can’t actually explain it, because it makes no sense so I’m going to pick and choose what goes. Like most Bible thumpers.

The Galway case was linked upthread. Savita's death is in no way an isolated incident. When you ban abortion, women die.

Some states : Alabama, South Dakota to name 2, have exceptions for danger to life. Some are v narrow, tho, and some do not include mental health at all.

And some states DO have total bans, which is terrifying.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&rct=j&url=www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/05/13/abortion-ban-exceptions-mothers-life/%23:~:text%3DIdaho%252C%2520for%2520example%252C%2520allows%2520for%2520an%2520exception,and%2520irreversible%2520impairment%2520of%2520major%2520bodily%2520function.%27%27&ved=2ahUKEwiU2NHI9diPAxW7QUEAHZF0GEsQmL8OegQIBhAC&opi=89978449&cd&psig=AOvVaw3n4YtMJxInM6IdHOayR5dq&ust=1757962174188000

Her name was Savita. I linked the case.

a ten year old child is at severe risk of death if they continued with a pregnancy and their life probably destroyed - why does the unborn child count more than the mother ?

for clarity - I cal it mysogenistic as its happy to destroy the life of the mother

I haven't got time to respond to every single post, especially as up to half haven't even properly read the OP, and misrepresent what I wrote. So let's get some points clear.

I haven't had an abortion.

Kidney donations and carrying foetuses are disanalogous.

The right to bear arms has no bearing on the pro life position. Neither does the death penalty.

I'm not here to argue the pro life position or any position for that matter.

My personal feeling is that abortion stops being okay somewhere between morning after pill and a moment before birth, but I haven't got a firm position of when that is. Though it's irrelevant as I'm not here to argue my personal position.

Absolutely abortion should be legal in cases where the mother's life is in danger.

I don't think women are just vessels and incubators - thank you very much. We have a unique ability to give life. That isn't the totality of our beings, but it is what makes us different to men.

Now to my argument: the pro life position isn't on the whole motivated by misogyny, but by the belief that a foetus is a human being which should be accorded human rights and protections. One such protection is the right to life, and the mere wishes of the mother don't supersede that.

Once again, that isn't my position, but the pro life position. However I do believe it is a coherent position no less than the pro choice argument. To portray it as primarily motivated by misogyny is disingenuous.

Yes, and my point is that the evangelical right-wing (with which Kirk was aligned) are pushing for total bans. That's the goal. So it's really not true to say that most pro lifers make an exception for the mother's life. They don't. They are not 'prolife' in any meaningful sense. And it comes entirely from misogyny. It is neither a moral nor a consistent stance.

Again - you fail to mention the rights of the woman or girl. You only mention the rights of a foetus. You say that the mother doesn’t trump its rights - but is the opposite true?

That is the misogyny.

the mere wishes of the mother don't supersede that.

And what about her human right to not be subjected to cruel and degrading treatment @Honesting ? What about her right to freedom? Why do they come second to the foetus' right to life?

And how can you say it isn't misogynistic to deny a woman her human rights in favour of a foetus?

Or do you not have time to answer that?

The question as well is, what happens to the baby a woman is forced to keep? if she is unable to care for it due to health, finances etc and would have chosen to abort does the state then pay for that child and house the family since they have made the woman keep it? I don't believe any woman sees abortion as the easy way out, it is a choice made because the circumstances around bringing a new lift into a current situation could have awful consequences - to the woman, to the child or to a family.