Can Pro-lifers be feminists?

[DevilsAdvocate123]

I am personally pro-choice, but in my 60 years, I have encountered pro-life feminists. Many of which asked that many other feminists try to "revoke their feminist cards", since they are pro-life.

I've asked them if it were sexist to be pro-life, and they explained these points to me:

-They entirely believe in the equality of men and women
-The reasoning behind the pro-life stance has nothing to do with sex
-If men could bear children, their opinion of abortion would be the exact same, as the reasoning behind the pro-life stance has nothing to do with sex
-They want to save babies of all genders, as the reasoning behind the pro-life stance has nothing to do with sex

I'm a fairly reasonable person. I've had discussions with liberals that think socialism is evil, I've had discussions with gays that believe a private business can do business with whomever it chooses, and I've talked with gun rights advocates that staunchly believe in background checks. I like to hear people out. I get things.

In this instance, I believe I understand where the pro-life feminists are coming from when they say they are still feminists.

Should the feminist community embrace these people into the community and work together, or should these people be shunned from the feminist community and not welcome?

“To address those that are talking about abortion in context with our society: None of that influences the morality behind killing the unborn child“

Well, no, it doesn’t. I agree. But that’s a separate discussion , isn’t it!

To address those that are talking about abortion in context with our society: None of that influences the morality behind killing the unborn child

I don't accept your premise. Abortion is not killing an unborn child.

“killing the unborn child”

Well if it wasn’t obvious before that these opinions belong to you and not your “friends”, it sure as hell is now.

These aren't pro-life feminists I've to asked. Some I would consider friends. Some I wouldn't consider friends.

Not exactly sure how saying "the unborn child" is a crime.

Sorry, autocorrect fucked me. Here's what I said:

These are opinions of pro-life feminists that I've talked to and aske questions. Some I would consider friends. Some I wouldn't consider friends.

Not exactly sure how saying "the unborn child" is a crime.

Well, if we lived in the imaginary land where men can carry babies, perhaps the babies aren't actually alive until birth? Maybe they're in sort of a dormant state and aren't at all conscious?

As we can apparently make up impossible pretend scenarios that nicely fit our thoughts on the subject...?

“The unborn child” is forced birth rhetoric.

Anyways, back to the discussion.

BeyondDeadlySiren, the scenario was brought to the picture because it shows how the philosphical reasoning isn't coming from a place of sexism. It's coming from a place that believes killing the unborn child is murder.

To address those that are talking about abortion in context with our society: None of that influences the morality behind killing the unborn child.

Perhaps it doesn't. But it offers an analysis as to why to be anti abortion in reality (that is within the context of the real world and the reality of women living in a male supremacy) is to be misogynistic.

The morality of abortion is a society wide issue and a class issue. It is not the moral issue of the individual pregnant woman alone. The anti abortion stance is therefore blinkered and anti-woman whilst letting both men and wider society off scot free. Which is hardly the ethical stance with shining superior morals it professes to be....

Maybe in imaginary land, all foetuses appear from parthogenesis and aren't alive til birth. So maybe, the poor MRAs who are so upset that their unwanted child (who they had no real intention of supporting or seeing) is being aborted, will all be obsolete?

Maybe in imaginary land, a baby will only grow when it's wanted?Otherwise it does the thing Ive seen some republicans claim is actually possible now (re rape) and self aborts?

Perhaps then I'd happily accept that feminists can be anti-choice. But possibly then, I'd be a completely different person to who I am now, so who am I to guess what my opinion would then be?

I'm anti abortion because I value the life of the unborn baby

Unless that baby was conceived through rape - at which point suddenly you'll consider the mother's mental wellbeing at the expense of the life of the unborn baby (comparing it to self-defense)

If a woman doesn't have the will or means to support a child, if she's (perfectly reasonably) scared to have a child because of the danger of pregnancy and childbirth, why doesn't that woman get to choose to have an abortion? Is it because she willingly chose to have sex?

In which case, it's not about the baby, or the woman's mental health at all really is it, it's about whether that baby was conceived through consensual sex - that's the only differentiator there.

I'm against the death penalty because I don't believe it's right to kill people. But if someone could prove to me that the death penalty was a massive deterrent and would stop 90% of murders, I'd have to examine my position. Because on a population level the death penalty would prevent murders.

Even though the death penalty would still be immoral, on a population level it would prevent deaths.

Free, accessible abortion correlates with less abortions and far less maternal deaths. If you still want to make abortion illegal, your position is pro-death.

There is nothing intrinsically logical about believing that the right to abortion on demand until birth is a feminist position. The arguments used are contradictory and confused.

'In law the foetus is not a person'

If you want to use the law as an argument, in law abortion is illegal after 24 weeks on demand.

'Women are people and should have bodily autonomy'

A demand for surgical intervention is not how bodily autonomy is defined in law or any other sphere of life. It is a right to NOT have your body interfered with without consent.

It is incredibly hard to justify without the most amazingly contorted leaps of (false) logic why a baby born at 30 weeks should not be able to be taken off life support if the mother so chooses, and yet a foetus of 36 weeks gestation should be able to be 'aborted' by an injection of potassium chloride into its heart.

Finally, how can you justify something as a 'feminist' position if 99% of women disagree with you?

It's coming from a place that believes killing the unborn child is murder.

Yes. Which is often a place which talks of "conjugal rights" and wifely duty to husband and child.

If you really think abortion is murder I hope you are campaigning hard against rape culture, men's sense of entitlement to sex, absent and lazy fathers, prostitution, pornography, domestic violence, unequal pay, unaffordable childcare, a capitalist system that makes it hard for mothers to work whilst undervaluing child rearing, and all the rest of the patriarchal crap that makes reproductive rights a women's lib issue of huge importance.

Because otherwise it just looks like misogyny on top of misogyny.

Because @larrygrylls other women, even 99% of them, don't own my uterus. I am perfectly happy for them to make any decision they like about their uterus. That's a feminist position.

And your uterus. You make any decisions you like about any uterus you own.

Not exactly sure how saying "the unborn child" is a crime

Its not a crime, its just factually incorrect. A child is born, there is no such thing as an unborn child.

Silly argument. I own my car. I cannot do whatever I like with it if it affects other people. 99% of women believe extending the legal limit on abortion would be wrong. Maybe you should listen to them.

I don't understand what you mean by life starting at conception? Do you mean the moment the egg is fertilized?
To say life starts at conception is saying that it starts when it begins.
That is a nonsense statement.
An estimated 70% of fertilized eggs fail to survive gestation. Nature, or God if you will, is pro abortion, obviously.

Silly argument. I own my car. I cannot do whatever I like with it if it affects other people. 99% of women believe extending the legal limit on abortion would be wrong. Maybe you should listen to them

my body is not a car,and I can do whatever I like with it when it doesn't affect other people, which abortion does not.
I don't care what 99% of women think about my body, the only opinion that matters is mine. I will never listen to them.

I have no problem with early TOP, it should be easily accessible. Embryos are just a bunch of cells, a potential baby, with no possibility of survival outside the woman.

Termination of a foetus up to the point of viability also causes me no issues. That’s not to say the TFMRs my SIL and friend had were not very sad and terribly traumatic.

I would not support bringing the limit down below 22-24 weeks. Although many more 24 week premature babies survive now, the lowest viable gestational age has not really gone down by more than a few days in 30 years.

However, I do have a problem with termination up to term, and a greater problem the closer to term. A 36 week foetus would usually survive without any medical help, and the woman has no choice but to deliver the products of termination anyway. I have difficulty in seeing much difference between stopping a 36 week foetus’s heart in utero, and killing a newborn. So the balance tips.

But I wouldn’t judge a woman who feels differently, and in some circumstances the scales would definitely tip in the woman’s direction.

Larry it seems you don't have a good understanding of bodily autonomy and integrity.

From that hotbed of radical feminism, Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_integrity
Bodily integrity is the inviolability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy and the self-determination of human beings over their own bodies.

Women, even pregnant ones, are human beings.

“Not exactly sure how saying "the unborn child" is a crime.”

You conveniently missed out the word “killing” in your quote.

I didn’t say it was a crime, I said it was very telling of your position.

“Killing babies” or “killing children” is emotive language used by the anti-choice brigade to demonise and guilt-trip women who have abortions. In my opinion.

“99% of women believe extending the legal limit on abortion would be wrong“ What’s your source?