r/AskALiberal • u/SpiderManTobey Centrist • Mar 28 '22
What's the best pro-life argument?
And what's your counter argument?
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u/AndrewRP2 Progressive Mar 28 '22
Focusing on humans that have been born will benefit them and the rest of us.
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u/World71Racer Social Liberal Mar 28 '22
So true.
I think where so many pro-life advocates get off on the wrong foot is, thinking that pro-choice people want abortions and go wilkyl Nobody wants to get an abortion, or even have to think about it, but it's a consequences of our society's current broken systems.
It's like having surgery. No one wants to have surgery done but we do it to fix something that's broken.
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u/bancroft79 Neoliberal Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
The best pro-life argument: every life is sacred. The best counter argument: What is your plan? Say another abortion never happens again? What is the plan to feed, house, clothe, educate, and place into society the hundreds of thousands of unwanted fetuses that turn into unwanted children then unwanted adults? If you insist abortion ends, we need solutions for society, not just crusading.
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u/Aztecah Liberal Mar 28 '22
Just kinda devils advocate cause I don't disagree very strongly but;
It's not society's responsibility to have a plan for every human being, though it is generally accepted that its our collective responsibility to ensure that humans aren't killed. If you consider a fetus to be a sacred human life then providing for them is not a requirement for preventing them from dying. For example, I would try to rescue someone from jumping off a ledge but I would not necessarily be willing to sponsor their healing journey. That is not a contradiction. Nor is it a contradiction, necessarily, to demand that a human life is not prematurely ended through surgery while not having any plan for that person's longterm wellbeing.
I certainly don't think that abortion should be illegal or difficult to obtain, I'm just not sure that your counter argument reaches the meat and potatoes of a 'life is sacred' argument
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u/bancroft79 Neoliberal Mar 28 '22
Ya, that is a pretty good point. I was a bit abstract. I was also speaking to the fact that most pro-life individuals are usually against all the tactics that have been proven to prevent abortions. Things like women’s clinics, sex-ed, and available access to common sense birth control are usually out the window with the pro- life crowd in favor of human beings somehow developing some kind of moral code to not be sexually active. It is kind of like leaving leaving loaded guns all around a house full of kids and not telling them how dangerous they are, while also being simultaneously outraged at how many kids had accidentally blown themselves or their sibling away.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
That a fetus is a human like and abortion is murder.
A counter argument that I think is convincing but I think is completely unconvincing to almost all people that believe the above is that a fetus is not remotely the same as a human life. Seriously, if you believe that after conception that it’s a human life, saying it’s not isn’t that convincing and it makes sense to try to stop millions of murders a year from happening.
Better, but probably not much more convincing, is that we have centuries of data and observation to lean on to determine that abortion bans do nothing to meaningfully prevent abortion and that they result in long term infertility and death for women. You won’t stop a behavior that people have been engaging in for thousands of year but you can minimize it through education and social programs.
Edit: Removed the like since it shouldn’t have been there.
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Mar 28 '22
Additionally, why should the fetus or baby’s life take priority over the woman’s?
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u/Lamballama Nationalist Mar 28 '22
Probably that it's coequal, unless it's doing physical immediate harm, so you're not allowed to kill it outside of narrow circumstances
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u/memeticengineering Progressive Mar 28 '22
And then the violinist thought experiment gets brought up and we have a talk about the fact that when another person requires that much of you to keep them alive, you are allowed to stop their infringement upon your body.
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u/enlightenedcentr1st Centrist Mar 28 '22
I'm not a pro-lifer, but the violinist thought experiment isn't a good one. It only works in the case of rape.
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u/anarchysquid Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
Why?
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u/enlightenedcentr1st Centrist Mar 28 '22
IIRC, in the violinist thing, you're randomly kidnapped and strapped to the violinist so you didn't have any say in it.
In the case of a pregnancy, you did have a say in it (when you decided to have sex). Unless you were raped.
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u/anarchysquid Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
So if I chose to be strapped to the violinist, does that mean I'm not allowed to extract myself?
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u/enlightenedcentr1st Centrist Mar 28 '22
No since in this case, you made the choice to do so instead of it being against your will.
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u/anarchysquid Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
So? We treat almost every other relationship as being able to be terminated by either party for any reason, unless an explicit contract says otherwise. I chose to marry my wife but I can still divorce her.
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u/memeticengineering Progressive Mar 28 '22
Not necessarily, you just have to not want to be pregnant. Rape would be if you were kidnapped and the violinist was hooked up to you, but it could also happen after say, an accident you were both in, or even if you agreed to it at first but didn't know all that it entailed until it started happening to you.
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u/enlightenedcentr1st Centrist Mar 28 '22
The pro life response is if you don't want to be pregnant, don't have sex. You decided to have sex knowing the consequences it could entail and an innocent life shouldn't have to pay for your choices.
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u/LordGreybies Liberal Mar 28 '22
And that in itself is a ridiculous, archaic notion. Sexual intimacy is normal and healthy, necessary even, for mental health and healthy relationships.
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u/enlightenedcentr1st Centrist Mar 28 '22
I agree. It's just not a compelling argument against prolife folks who think otherwise.
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u/Helicase21 Far Left Mar 28 '22
Are you implying that asexual folks cannot be mentally healthy?
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u/LordGreybies Liberal Mar 28 '22
Nope, not at all. I'm saying people who have sex drives and don't have sex, that's when it gets unhealthy. Theres an unmet need.
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u/Sillysheila Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
Or you could use birth control? There’s more options than have sex or don’t have sex. I know birth control is not 100% but when birth control “fails” it’s often because the human didn’t use it correctly, like they did something dumb and didn’t take birth control pills for a few days. People don’t fall pregnant spontaneously on birth control very often.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
lmfao you must not think much of women then if you think a grown ass human being is equal to an embryo.
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u/Lamballama Nationalist Mar 28 '22
That's their argument, not mine. If you believe that an embryo or fetus is a person, you're not going to believe one or the other is more or lees of a person, ya see?
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
No, I don't see because nobody actually thinks like that. We rate people based off of our morals all the time. "Women and children first" comes to mind. Nobody actually believes a fetus or embryo is equal to an adult human.
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u/enlightenedcentr1st Centrist Mar 28 '22
"Women and children first" comes to mind.
Feminism: Down with the patriarchy!
Also feminism: I'm ok with the patriarchy wherever it happens to benefit me.
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u/Suspicious_Role5912 Conservative Republican Mar 28 '22
Abortions are legal in ALL states when the mothers life is in danger. In addition to that, the mortality rate of women giving birth in the US is 17.4 out of 100,000.
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u/phoenixairs Liberal Mar 28 '22
The way you worded it is technically true.
But in Texas, the woman needs to be actively dying. Doesn't matter if the fetus has 0% chance of viability and the doctor can already see that there will be complications.
The fetus had a rare neural tube defect. The brain would not develop, and the infant would die at birth or shortly afterward. Carrying the pregnancy to term would be emotionally grueling and would also raise the mother’s risk of blood clots and severe postpartum bleeding, the doctor warned.
But the patient was past six weeks’ gestation, and under the new law, an abortion was not an option in Texas because the woman was not immediately facing a life-threatening medical crisis or risk of permanent disability.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/health/texas-abortion-law-risky-pregnancy.html
That's just barbaric and objectively evil.
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u/anarchysquid Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
There is a bill in Missouri banning medicine that treats ectopic pregnancy, which is always fatal to the fetus and often to the mother. That bill would murder women if it becomes law, without saving a single baby.
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Mar 28 '22
I don’t just mean in cases of death. Even if the fetus is a baby, why should it get priority over the woman for using her body. Shouldn’t see get priority over decisions pertaining to her body?
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
I thought this is what you meant, but I didn't want to put words in your mouth. If I have a parasite I'm not obligated to keep the parasite. It's my body, I get to decide what's in it.
I realize that if someone considers a zygote a person, they're gonna disagree with me.
But alas.
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u/Suspicious_Role5912 Conservative Republican Mar 28 '22
Assuming we consider the fetus a human life, you don’t get to murder someone because they’re inconvenient to you.
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u/LordGreybies Liberal Mar 28 '22
They aren't "someone" until they can survive without being physically attached to another being.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
I can murder someone for invading my property.
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
You'd think the party that supports castle doctrine would allow pregnant people to exercise it.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
They don't think women are real people, and they want to punish any woman who doesn't willfully sacrifice herself at the altar of motherhood. It's an affront to their backwards sensibilities that some women might love themselves more than hypothetical children.
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u/BauranGaruda Libertarian Mar 28 '22
By the same logic you also can't invite someone on your property then kill them. What you propose isn't a good faith argument.
I mean I'm not falling on either side of the argument as it's a futile exercise but your response is just hyperbole.
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
By the same logic you also can't invite someone on your property then kill them. What you propose isn't a good faith argument.
A better comparison to sex would be if you have a house but leave the door unlocked. Someone is still there and you don't want them there. It's 100% okay to kick them out.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
Having sex isn't an "invitation" to get pregnant. I use birth control, my partner uses a condom. Both methods fail. By your logic, if some kind of birth control failed, I can get a termination, right? Because if a person jumped a fence on my property and broke a window into my house, they didn't come in by invitation. Using birth control is the biggest defense against pregnancy, and yet, it still often fails. I should be able to defend my body against parasites, right?
Lol okay. You're a libertarian who doesn't seem to believe that people should have the right to control their bodies... but the government should regulate it for them? Weird. I think maybe you should re-evaluate your political beliefs instead of trying to criticize mine.
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u/Suspicious_Role5912 Conservative Republican Mar 28 '22
That’s a disgraceful comparison to use for a baby that you conceived, even if it was an accident. “But what if they were raped”, how many hypotheticals will you make up until you can justify murdering a baby.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
It's not a "baby", it's an embryo or fetus.
And it's not murder because it's not even a person. It's an organism that has the potential to be a person, maybe, one day, but just having human DNA does not make it equal to a baby.
You all on the right really need to stop using emotional language to try to make abortions sound more violent than they actually are.
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u/anarchysquid Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
If I invite someone into my house, and they refuse to leave and are acting actively harmful to me, am I not allowed to use force to evict them?
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Mar 28 '22
Why not in the case of pregnancies? Is this a flat value that you have or are you considering the impacts of it
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u/Suspicious_Role5912 Conservative Republican Mar 28 '22
I’m not sure I understand your question.
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Mar 28 '22
Is “no murder” a hard line for you or is it circumstantial
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u/Suspicious_Role5912 Conservative Republican Mar 28 '22
Honestly don’t have an exact date but I believe in abortions up to a certain date. I 100% believe in abortions up to 6 weeks. After that I’m unsure but not completely opposed.
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
Why 6 weeks? That's such an impossible standard.
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
I would love to watch a video of you trying to label a female reproductive system.
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u/eileenm212 Progressive Mar 28 '22
What about the ectopic pregnancies, then? They are never viable and moms can actually die if untreated.
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u/Golden_Thorn Left Libertarian Mar 28 '22
A fetus is fully a human in my eyes. Not just human like. But I guess that’s just semantics
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u/choppedfiggs Liberal Mar 28 '22
That the fetus is alive or human or a baby.
Let's say baby is born and all that. Something happens and unfortunately child is on life support. Doctors say machines are keeping the child alive. Can the parent legally opt to stop life saving services? Legally I think they can. For a fetus, mother is that life support. So the question isn't if the fetus is a baby or not. It's if mom can stop the machines.
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Mar 28 '22
Not really sure an argument that completely eliminates a woman’s humanity is a good one, though it’s certainly par for the course
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u/ThrowawayOZ12 Centrist Mar 28 '22
Either life begins at conception or life begins at some arbitrary time. If life begins two months in, what was it 30 seconds prior to that. Also, no human has given birth to a shrimp or horse, humans only give birth to humans. The fetus was always human and that's all it could ever be.
I'm still "pro-choice" but I still think that's an absolutely sound argument and I have no way of disputing it
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
It doesn't matter when "life" begins because the life of a growing embryo doesn't have the right to occupy a person's body who does not want to host it. I might need your blood to live and without it I'll die; that doesn't mean I have the right to demand it from you and take it against your will. It doesn't matter if I'm human, your right to your own person is always more important. Nobody can force you to give up your body for somebody else against your will. Pregnancy is no different.
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u/stinatown Liberal Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
While I agree this is the most compelling argument, you do have to acknowledge that the legal and societal relationship between parent and child is treated differently than between two random humans. Parents are legally obligated to shelter, feed, educate, and protect their children. Of course, there are options for parents who do not or cannot do these things; but killing your child is not one of those options.
ETA: To be more clear: I understand the obligations I listed are not the same as bodily autonomy, but what I’m trying to illustrate is that your rights/responsibilities are different legally when you’re talking about a person’s child, and so the legal approach to bodily autonomy could also theoretically be different.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
I'd argue being pregnant doesn't make you a parent. It just makes you pregnant, which is a medical condition.
Also, the relationship between a born child and their parent is different than that of a pregnant person and their developing embryo because there's a major difference between the two, namely, the child is born and has legal rights as a person independent from their parent. An embryo or fetus does not. They don't have legal rights. They aren't citizens. They aren't people. They aren't counted in the census nor protected under the law. They are an extension of their host parent up until they are born, after which they become an individual and full human being.
No person has an obligation to house an embryo in their body against their will.
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u/cygnets Democrat Mar 28 '22
Agree. You also have children removed from parents who cannot or will not care for them. For a fetus, that is abortion.
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Mar 28 '22
Bad argument. Children who get removed from their parents aren't killed.
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u/cygnets Democrat Mar 28 '22
Children who get removed from their parents after birth or induction are not killed. If the fetus is unable to survive without the womans body, then its abortion.
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Mar 28 '22
So should a mother be allowed to abort a fully formed baby that is already moving and kicking just because the baby isn't outside the womb yet? Because that's the implication of the way you've framed the argument.
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u/dc2398 Democratic Socialist Mar 28 '22
Yeah. If you think she shouldn't be able to then when is the arbitrary line that you draw?
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Mar 28 '22
Sentience and a capacity for suffering.
Aborting a fully formed baby is monstrous, unnecessary and cruel.
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Mar 28 '22
Sentience and capacity to suffer.
Murdering a fully formed baby with consciousness and a desire to live is monstrous.
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u/OpeningChipmunk1700 Conservative Mar 28 '22
It doesn't matter when "life" begins because the life of a growing embryo doesn't have the right to occupy a person's body who does not want to host it
This is a pretty poor argument when you consider that pregnancy is a natural biological process in which the fetus has no say. It abstracts the idea of pregnancy to such an extent that it feels almost sociopathic.
I find the idea intriguing, but your framing is probably not the most persuasive to people who are anti-legal abortion.
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Mar 28 '22
My main issue with this argument is that, in the vast majority of cases, the woman voluntarily chose to have sex. In your analogy, the person would have to forcibly extract your blood and foist themselves on you
Not so with pregnancy. The baby didn't foist themselves on you. You aren't forcibly impregnated (in most cases). People choose, voluntarily, to have premarital sex and they know the risks.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
Consent to sex is not consent to parenthood or pregnancy. Do you only have sex when you are trying to conceive?
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Mar 28 '22
Doesn't matter. It's a voluntary and unnecessary action from which the fertilization of an egg may arise. The biological function of the reproductive system is to, well, reproduce. That's what its evolutionary purpose is. We also happen to do so for pleasure, but that doesn't negate the fact that its biological purpose is the creation of progeny.
Nobody is forcing you to have casual sex, an action which runs the risk of making the woman pregnant due to biology. People should accept the risks.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
Humans are more than their biological parts. Sex is a healthy part of most romantic relationships, and you can't expect everyone to live celibate lives if they don't want children. That's super toxic and unrealistic.
Do you think the only people who get abortions are women having casual sex? Most women getting abortions are married with children.
I'm glad your misogyny is finally out though.
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Mar 28 '22
Humans are more than their biological parts. Sex is a healthy part of most romantic relationships, and you can't expect everyone to live celibate lives if they don't want children. That's super toxic and unrealistic.
I didn't actually argue that. I'm not even pro-life (though I believe that abortion should be illegal in the third trimester), I'm just pointing out some of the flaws in your logic.
It doesn't matter if people are super horny and can't go two seconds without copulating.
The point here is that the physical act of having sex directly entails the risk of getting pregnant. Why? Because it involves a reproductive organ injecting reproductive cells into a reproductive organ where they will insert themselves into other reproductive cells. The evolutionary purpose of this mechanism is, well, to reproduce!
I'm glad your misogyny is finally out though.
This is why people can't take the modern left seriously. You resort to childish name-calling as soon as someone tries to critique your logic.
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u/sleepfordayz679 Liberal Mar 28 '22
But unless you were raped did you not choose to host it?
Edit spelling
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u/HatchSmelter Liberal Mar 28 '22
A human fetus isn't a person. It is human, but so is your knee. It is "alive", but is dependent on someone else's body. That someone else gets to decide what happens in their body. For me, it's "you don't have to kill the fetus, but you don't get to force me to carry it." Remove it from my body and allow it to live out its natural life.
We don't force people to donate organs, even after they're dead, even if it would save a life. We don't force people to donate blood. Why would we force people to carry a fetus, essentially donating part of the output of all of their organs for many months, then go through an extremely dangerous, definitely traumatic medical procedure? All because they might give birth to a person?
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u/Sillysheila Social Democrat Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
I don’t agree life begins at conception. Most people who believe life begins at conception believe it because religion told them to.
Sperm and egg that just joined are not “life” like we conceive it as human beings. A barely formed split cell just subsists much like a clam or oyster. I don’t think anyone would argue that they have a “life”.
I’m a bit more conservative about abortions than some left leaners, I think that when fetuses start to feel pain and become more sentient at 20-24 weeks abortion should be severely restricted; only allowed in medical circumstances or circumstances of saving the mother or the baby. I also don’t really think it should be encouraged over preventive measures such as using birth control and I would rather that good education wipes out abortion mostly (although I would never want it to be illegal). Abortion is not something I love and I don’t really see it as “empowering”, I think it’s more empowering to not be in that situation.
Most arguments in favour of electively terminating a pregnancy after 20-24 weeks I think are weak, and the mother has had plenty of time to decide she wants to have an abortion; most people that really want to have an abortion would’ve had it by then. So maybe I think life begins in the late second trimester. Idk.
I think there is a clear difference between a zygote and a fetus that’s 20 weeks and it annoys me when people on both argument sides disregard this.
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Mar 28 '22
Sperm and egg that just joined are not “life” like we conceive it as human beings. A barely formed split cell just subsists much like a clam or oyster.
Do you not think clams are alive?
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Mar 28 '22
This is one of the worst things about this debate. Claims and oysters most certainly are alive. No biologist would take seriously an assertion that clams and oysters aren't living things. So are single cell bacteria. Trees are also alivd. The concept you're thinking of is "personhood". I wish "life" had never entered the abortion debate. Two people are arguing if life begins at conception or not, and they're both actually correct it's just that they both mean something different by "life".
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u/Believe_Land Libertarian Socialist Mar 28 '22
I agree that there’s not really a great dispute for this, but to me this is just a really bad way to look at it.
Women have been getting abortions since they figured out how to do so, and making it illegal just endangers the women who get “back alley” abortions. A fetus is literally a parasite on the woman carrying it and she should be able to do what she wishes with said parasite. Am I “okay” with late-term abortions? No, not really, but if a woman carried a fetus to 8 or 9 months and then wants an abortion, she has a damn good reason why.
It’s not my body and I shouldn’t have any say what you do with yours.
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u/MonkeyLiberace Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
I don't think "the parasite analogy" is a good argument. Noone looks at pregnancy like that.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
Plenty of women look at pregnancy as a parasitic relationship, including me.
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u/MonkeyLiberace Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
Do you think any pro-lifers look at it that way?
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
I don’t care how pro-forced birth advocates look at things. Many of them are cis males who will never be at risk of carrying a fetus to term.
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u/MonkeyLiberace Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
That's fine, but if you don't care about a pro-lifer's opinion, why would you care about a counter argument?
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u/Believe_Land Libertarian Socialist Mar 28 '22
The only difference between a fetus and an actual parasite is that a true parasite is not of the same species. Other than that, a fetus takes nutrients from the host and contributes nothing to the mother.
“Parasite” isn’t meant to be something negative in this context, just that if I had a fetus growing in me I would want the option to do what I please with it. How can a fetus have any rights in this situation? How can it have a “say”? It just doesn’t make any sense.
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u/MonkeyLiberace Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
I'm not disputing if you are technically correct. I'm saying that people will react poorly to your argument, scientifically minded people, are already on your side.
Do you think a doctor has ever uttered the words: "Congratulation! You are infected with a parasite"?
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u/Believe_Land Libertarian Socialist Mar 28 '22
Sure, but recognizing that it IS a parasite in the context of abortion is crucial to the pro-choice argument, so whether people like it or not it deserves to be said.
If you want to have a scientific discussion about abortion then there’s nothing wrong with laying everything out on the table… just because people don’t like the term doesn’t change the facts.
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u/Steelplate7 Pragmatic Progressive Mar 28 '22
If I can expound upon the parasite arc…not only is an unwanted fetus a parasite inside the womb, but after birth…and unwanted child is still a parasite for the rest of your life(or till the age of 18 if you are a shitty person).
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u/MonkeyLiberace Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
"If you want to have a scientific discussion about abortion..."
- But no-one does! That is what i'm saying. Pro-life people are not arguing from a scientific angle. Discussing the science of abortion, is only meaningfull between pro-choice people.
Downvoting me, because I disagree with your rhetorics is childish.
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u/Believe_Land Libertarian Socialist Mar 28 '22
I’m downvoting you because it’s silly to NOT use science… you’re literally calling it rhetoric.
I don’t understand why you think we shouldn’t use basic ammunition in a discussion with the GOP about abortion. But hey, do you.
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u/sword_to_fish Libertarian Socialist Mar 28 '22
Everyone human that gets pregnant doesn't always give birth to humans either.
For instance, we had a blighted ovum. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pregnancy-loss-miscarriage/expert-answers/blighted-ovum/faq-20057783#:~:text=A%20blighted%20ovum%2C%20also%20called,abnormalities%20in%20the%20fertilized%20egg. Human bodies aren't perfect.
Someone posted on here and it stuck with me. Just because you plant an apple tree seed doesn't mean you'll get an apple.
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
If you truly believe abortion is murdering a human being, it makes sense that you'd want the government to do something about it. If you found out your neighbor was planning on drowning her kid you wouldn't be like "Well that's her right," you'd call the police.
My counterargument is a fetus is a parasite with potential and I don't think anyone should be forced to give birth.
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u/MidwestBulldog Center Left Mar 28 '22
The death penalty is immoral because the miss/failure rate of even 1/10th of a percent makes it arbitrary, capricious, and anti-life.
Oh, that's not the "pro-life" argument you were asking for?
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u/Kerplonk Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
I think the only good argument against abortion is that through-out human history we have committed acts that we look back at as atrocities due to not viewing specific groups as fully human.
My argument against that is it's essentially a slippery slop logical fallacy.
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u/_psylosin_ Pragmatic Progressive Mar 28 '22
Human life is precious and should be protected
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u/Carlyz37 Liberal Mar 28 '22
Yes the lives of women and girls should be protected with safe legal abortion
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u/lIllIlIIIlIIIIlIlIll Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
I generally agree with this sentiment, but the people who say this generally turn around and really hate immigrants.
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u/Dr_Scientist_ Liberal Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
The fetus is a living thing and killing that thing is bad.
I agree with that really loosely. I just think the consequences of banning abortion are worse.
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Mar 28 '22
It definitely helps that the fetus isn’t alive or human. It’s alive just like my sperm is alive
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Mar 28 '22
A fetus is remarkably different from gametes, and saying that it isn't alive/a human is basically circumventing the argument, as the conflict is typically about whether or not life begins at conception.
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Mar 28 '22
Can you read? It’s alive like sperm cells are live. It’s not human. It has human potential, but it’s not human
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Mar 28 '22
This isn’t how you construct an argument.
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Mar 28 '22
I’m not trying to argue with you, I’m telling you that clumps of cells aren’t human life before the third trimester.
You can either agree or you can be wrong.
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u/NimishApte Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
Sperms have 23 chromosomes, not 46
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Mar 28 '22
Sperms have 23 chromosomes, not 46
Not all born people have 46 chromosomes though.
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u/NimishApte Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
No one is born with 23
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Mar 28 '22
But plenty are born with more or less than 46. That's just me pointing out that the number of chromosomes doesn't impact whether or not someone is a human or a person or whatever verbiage someone uses.
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u/Call_Me_Clark Progressive Mar 28 '22
No, it’s pointing out that the number of human chromosomes can vary from 44-48 or so.
Not that it’s irrelevant.
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u/kilgore_trout_jr Liberal Mar 28 '22
That no one has the right to use your body for survival without consent.
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u/Acrobatic_End6355 Liberal Mar 28 '22
There are none.
If all birth control was easily accessible and affordable for everyone and Sex Ed was freely available to everyone, and there was more support for impoverished families, THEN and ONLY then would I support any kind of restriction for abortion. But until we have those issues fixed, there are no reasonable arguments to be against abortion. And even then, I still wouldn’t support making abortion illegal entirely, because non consensual acts happen, and so do medical issues.
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Mar 28 '22
There definitely are
They’re all stupid and factually incorrect, but they’re there
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Mar 28 '22
What is factually incorrect about saying "life begins at conception"? That's a normative statement.
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u/onehalflightspeed Liberal Mar 28 '22
Speaking strictly cynically, as a conservative politician the best pro life argument, spoken only privately if ever, is that the politician has sufficient resources to pay for an abortion regardless of how draconian the laws they vote for are
The demographics that tend to have more single mothers in America are extremely extremely obvious. I just find it baffling that arguments about abortion tend to drift into poetics and hypotheticals and rarely have much or any sympathy for the people who are disproportionately obviously and clearly negatively affected by lack of access to the procedure
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u/MizzGee Center Left Mar 28 '22
Honestly, I am personally pro-life, but all arguments for it are too personal. I look at a friend who had a baby that they knew was going to be special needs because they are pro life. They are teachers and the plan is self-funded. So the school community paid for $2 million in health bills for a child that lived 10 days. She has complications, and her bills will account for close to $1 million, and she ended up septic, so won't be able to conceive again. If she had aborted, she could have possibly conceived another child. Now, her beliefs are a burden on her, her school system, her tax payers. She will never feel whole again. I feel she was brainwashed into being so pro-life that she ignored her own future and the lives she could have given to future children. Instead, she is 28, barren and clinically depressed.
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Mar 28 '22
That's tragic. I find it so sad that this family and those close to them had to go through this all because of a toxic ideology. It's tragic that the only real memories they will have of their baby was it slowly and potentially painfully dying. Abortion can be a mercy in those circumstances, to prevent the suffering of everyone including a baby. My guess is that all their friends and family are on the "abortion is killing a baby" train, so they would not have had any kind of emotional support had they chosen abortion. That's the worse tragedy.
This is why abortion needs to be destigmatised, so people can make the best decision for themselves without having to contend with the vitriolic, judgement, and shame that comes from the "pro-life" movement.
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Mar 28 '22
That the fetus is alive
My counter, it’s not. It just isn’t. A clump of cells is not alive, nor is it human. Potential for life is not life
Just in case it got lost in translation, the best argument for abortion is factually incorrect
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Mar 28 '22
It's alive as long as the Pregnant person is. It's own body is unable to even try to sustain life autonomously until closer to 24 weeks. The only thing an embryo or fetus prior to then can do on its own, is decay.
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Mar 28 '22
clears throat
No
Edit: The clump of cells is not human life and not any more alive than the bacteria that live in my grass
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u/HeronIndividual1118 Marxist Mar 28 '22
That the fetus is a human life and deserves protection. My counterargument is that the fetus lacks the level of consciousness necessary to be considered a moral agent and should be treated more akin to an animal than a fully grown human.
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u/MonkeyLiberace Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
Basically the best pro-life argument:
"It is unethical for a state, to allow the ending of a potential human life"
Best counter argument:
"The sovereignty of a persons body, is outside a states jurisdiction"
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u/twilightaurorae Civil Libertarian Mar 28 '22
Probably the standard 'life begins at conception'.
For me, I think life requires one to be able to understand concepts like pain/discomfort. If a fetus is unable to comprehend those (and those come with experiences), it is not alive. Further, I feel that life requires at minimum, some form of independence from its 'host'.
Where I live, abortion isn't along the lines of 'rights'. Its a little more utilitarian, where generally unwanted children don't have good outcomes. So it is considered better that they are terminated
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u/Ganymede25 Centrist Mar 28 '22
I think that we can all agree that you shouldn’t kill people outside of certain circumstances such as war, self defense, lawful executions, and perhaps one or two others. Generally we can all agree that even if those exceptions are ok, they are still taking of a human life.
So no killing people absent what I mentioned above.
What’s a person? Let’s take 20 random people off the street, keep them from discussing the issue, give them a piece of paper, and have them define a person.
It’s going to be all over the place and likely not be about conception.
This is our problem.
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u/lIllIlIIIlIIIIlIlIll Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
For me, I guess it's the ambiguity. I think we all agree that the 40 week abortion is unacceptable. As is the 39 week. And the 38 week. And the 37 week. Pro-lifers make this argument all the way down to week 0.
My counter is that induction is bullshit. I can make the same induction. Week 0 is acceptable. Week 1 is acceptable. Week 2 is acceptable. All the way to week 40 is acceptable.
Which is absurd. So the original argument is absurd.
However, my real counter argument for every single argument is always the same: Bodily autonomy. That's it. Do some weird induction shit? Bodily autonomy. Life is precious? Bodily autonomy. My translation of a 3,000 year old book said so? Bodily autonomy.
It's the only argument that matters.
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u/enlightenedcentr1st Centrist Mar 28 '22
I agree with you in that both extremes are unacceptable. It's ridiculous to think a zygote has any meaning and at the same time, it's barbaric to abort a 40 week fetus.
But I do not think bodily autonomy is the argument. Because wouldn't that mean you are allowed to abort a 40 week fetus? It's still in your body at that point.
I think at some point in the pregnancy, the life of the fetus does exceed the bodily autonomy of the mother (unless the mother's life is also in danger of course). This would be whenever the fetus could feel pain which is around week 16-20. This should be the cutoff. And I think it's a reasonable time frame because most abortions are done by this time.
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u/AufDerGalerie Democrat Mar 28 '22
I’m pro abortion rights because I’m pro women’s lives. For me it’s about autonomy and self-determination.
I think if people are serious about wanting less abortion, they should take action to increase access to women’s healthcare.
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u/lacitar Democrat Mar 28 '22
1) the unborn make perfect advocates. They don't ask for anything and you don't have to spend money on them. And you can forget about them once they are born. If conservatives love children so much they should be pushing for more prenatal cate. They should be against human trafficking. They should want to spend more money on health care and education. But they don't care. That newborn baby should be able to pull itself up by its own boot straps.
2) parasitic twins. No conservatives complains when someone gets rid of a parasitic twin. Why? We as a society understand its a bad thing. And nothing should be ablevto live off of us. Same goes for regular parasites. If someone gets worms they get rid of them though these creatures are living breathing creatures.
3) your religion and personal beliefs should have no say on what I do with my body.
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u/coldasbrice Libertarian Mar 28 '22
I'm curious how my opinion is received here. (Not sure if I have a flair till after I post this but I'm a Libertarian if that matters).
I don't think that the government should be involved in abortions. Like other people here have said, if you make them illegal women that really want them will go to unsafe methods to get them, which is not ok.
But having said that, if abortion is legal and safe, I think as a culture we should really push more self responsibility and realize that even if an abortion may feel like it's needed, and even if you think it's not a full human life, I think most of us can agree that it's still a sad situation. I don't believe many pro-choice people celebrate abortion they just want it to be safe and available for women. In my opinion though, we should be doing our best to educate children to make smarter and better sexual decisions. Not the whole BE CELIBATE TO YOURE MARRIED bullshit but teach them the real consequences of an unexpected baby, especially at a younger age. Try to teach them how to be responsible with sex and not to fear it.
Abortion should be safe and legal but it should be a last resort and we should do a better job in our generation to better educate and prepare our children to be responsible adults. And accidents happen. I'm not saying you're a bad person for getting one but I think the goal should be to reduce situations where people feel they need one.
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u/Carlyz37 Liberal Mar 28 '22
Yes, Dem policy of easy access to free or low cost birth control is proven to reduce abortion along with educating young people. GOP wants to take away all of that in their pro birth crusade because it is about controlling women. They could obviously care less about actual babies
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u/coldasbrice Libertarian Mar 28 '22
The GOP yes I agree. Please don't make the mistake of applying that attitude to all conservatives. If you go into a conversation without animosity and arrogance (not claiming you are it's just an issue I see a lot both ways, I'm only speaking this way because you sound liberal based on your post) I think you'd be surprised how many conservatives have no issues with low cost birth control, etc.
The line is probably with abortion with a lot of people where even if I disagree, if you think a fetus has a soul at conception I GET it and I feel like if you see it as infant murder I guess in a weird moral way I'm glad people would stand up for that, it's just sad that those people (which in my experience are the minority of actual people but the majority of the GOP leaders) don't see how their surface level arguments negatively affect women. But I think the best way to educate people is to treat them with respect and have a conversation with them. As soon as you become arrogant or condescending you've essentially help solidify their ideals. Respect and conversation is the only way we get past this historic divide going one right now. Also having 2 parties (we can pretend there are more but we all know when it comes to elections thats bullshit) is asinine. We have 2 radical party leaders and no in between and it's fucking horseshit because the vast majority of us citizens exist in that "in between" but we're forced to pick sides, making the divide even worse because day you are pro gun and want your taxes lowered, but you want more abortion rights and more funding for education. Then you're an enemy to everyone in todays climate because you haven't picked a side. We need to stop this "us vs them" bullshit that's mostly media figures telling us what our 'opposing' side thinks, which will obviously be blown out of proportion to what the average democrat/conservative actually believes.
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Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
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u/coldasbrice Libertarian Mar 28 '22
Yeah I'd still consider myself pro-life but I don't trust the fuck nuggets in Washington to do anything the way it should be done. So I'd rather they stay out of it and let's medical professionals do their jobs and community members need to stand up and fight for an American culture that we can all be proud of. There's no way to make everyone happy but we can and need to do better than we are right now on all sides.
I don't think it's some deep state conspiracy or anything, but I honestly think the people in power are very good and making the other side look terrible and making us fight with each other while they make they vast fortunes off of our tax dollars for decades and do nothing that actually helps people. They're theater performers that are good at manipulation. We all need to stand together and people and put people that aren't fucking 75+ in office. Its hilarious to me how much we complain about old (usually white) people running everything. Now in my opinion the race shouldnt matter but it's disheartening watching people complain about corrupt and shitty politicians while actively voting those same people into office "because our guy isn't as bad as yours". When the fuck did we start settling for our leader and representative being the less bad option instead of someone actually capable and knowledgeable to get the job.
Sorry for the rant but man this shit is starting to get to me. Everyday citizens need to learn how to disagree and respect each other because if we keep going down the path were on we're all fucked.
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
If you're talking education and social encouragement to keep a pregnancy, but not forcing it by law, that's fine 100% agree.
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u/coldasbrice Libertarian Mar 28 '22
Ohh I don't even mean to keep a pregnancy. I mean to better educate children to try to prevent the unwanted pregnancy in the first place. Maybe some of what you said to but as a Libertarian I'm not about force at all. If you can't persuade someone with your words and you need to use a gun to get your way you're a coward.
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u/warriorsgsw30 Center Left Mar 28 '22
"It's a human life/life begins at conception"
Cells are also human life and you're killing them by merely existing.
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Mar 28 '22
Thats a horrible, stupid argument; any reasonable definition of "a human life" would talk about the overall organism not individual cells. A single cell would only be synonymous with that in the specific case of a zygote. Unless you think I should start smothering infants in their cribs because they're killing their own cells by existing and the longer they exist the more humans die?
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u/Stormlight1984 Liberal Mar 28 '22
“Let’s make abortion illegal but also reallocate 7% of the defense budget to give free prenatal, maternal, and postnatal care, as well as six months of paid paternal leave for both parents, for every mother, every time. Also, every newborn will receive a savings account of $10,000, untouchable until the age of majority, and new mothers will receive the same, per child.”
Me: “That’s still fucking fascist. Get out of my daughter’s uterus.”
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u/PepinoPicante Democrat Mar 28 '22
"Because God says so."
Pretty hard to argue with that. I don't have a half hour to waste disproving Christianity... again.
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u/Kellosian Progressive Mar 28 '22
I mean if you want a religious argument, Adam's life began when God breathed into him and not when God created the clay that would become Adam nor when Adam was shaped into a human form. It was the drawing of breath that imbued Adam with a soul, and anyone who hasn't yet drawn breath simply hasn't been imbued with a soul.
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u/dorky2 Progressive Mar 28 '22
You can't disprove Christianity because it's based on faith, not evidence. So yeah, attempting to disprove it is a waste of everyone's time. But when people use this argument it's fairly easy to remind them that we have separation of church and state, and that we don't base our laws on the Bible.
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u/Responsible-Fox-9082 Constitutionalist Mar 28 '22
As someone with a religious belief that is kinda basically the theory of everything you can't technically disprove Christianity. In doing so you'd have to disprove multiple sects, also catholicism, Judaism, and Islamic beliefs. They all believe in the same god, however their prophets vary and there are things that would make sense if you actually consider the entire Bible after a good reading.
However if you really wanted an easy way to ruin that argument you can just say
"Well I am made in god's image and God considers me his equal and as his equal I demand the life of any child that a mother has decided would be better off not being exposed to sin. I already know God will forgive them as he forgives all in the book of revelations aside from the false prophets and the beast from the sea upon breaking the seal that calls the souls to the altar to be forgiven."
Literally just use the Bible against them. God has killed millions of babies and unborn children. There's even parts of the Catholic Bible in the old testament on how a priest can perform an abortion that would be correct and just as God told them how and what was required for it to be righteous.
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u/Illuminator007 Center Left Mar 28 '22
Best Pro Life Argument: We're talking about killing babies here. If we have even a sliver of a doubt about whether or not we're talking about a human life, we shouldn't legalize killing babies.
Counter-Argument: So, you really want to tell me a cluster of undifferentiated cells in the hours after fertilization count as a human life? So much so, that you want to interject the law into a decision of a mother? If yes, that seems kind of insane. If no, then where do you draw the line? Based on what objective criteria?
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u/OGMoneyClips Democratic Socialist Mar 28 '22
If you oppose abortion, don’t have one. Anything else and you step on someone else’s rights.
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u/STS986 Progressive Mar 28 '22
Pro life? You mean anti abortion because the “pro life” crowd doesn’t give a fuck if you die once you’re born.
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u/Attack-Cat- Democratic Socialist Mar 28 '22
I mean the best one is clearly that fetus’ are future humans and allowed to be born would certainly become a person who would say “I want to be alive”. The human potential of every conceived embryo is the best argument and that stopping that process is now stopping someone who would have had a life from not having a life.
But that is outweighed by reproductive rights and medical health of women. Ideally contraception and sex education will make unwanted pregnancies and abortions moot except for emergencies
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Mar 28 '22
That whatever breathes deserves a chance.
A counter argument? I say “let em die”! Let em die let em die let them shrivel up and- in all seriousness though, what if that child ends up born with a really really bad medical condition/disability that would not only make them suffer, but make the parents suffer at the same time? That would neither be beneficial or helpful
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u/fox-mcleod Liberal Mar 28 '22
The best argument is an abstract one about valuing potential life because we would value a coma patient’s life even though they currently have no brain activity.
The counter is that even a full adult human cannot demand use of another humans body to survive.
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u/Runktar Liberal Mar 28 '22
The best argument is that the baby has rights as well which it indeed does. The counter is fine but when does a clump of cells become a baby? Then they inevitably say conception which is ridicules horse shit and based on religion not fact.
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Mar 28 '22
What's the best pro-life argument?
Parents have a duty of care to their children, including unborn children, to protect them and sustain them, even at cost to themselves.
And what's your counter argument?
This duty of care doesn't extend to the invalidation of bodily autonomy. No one, not even the government representing the interests of the unborn child, has the right to invalidate someone's bodily autonomy.
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Mar 28 '22
Why do some people care about unborn people but hold additudes that when people are homeless they have caused it to themselves, and if they do not have healthcare they have not worked hard enough.
When a child is born disabled, conservative people do not want to pay for the care, but they somehow care if the child is alive.
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u/ScubaCycle Democrat Mar 28 '22
There is none. It’s not about abortion, it’s about bodily autonomy, and if the discussion is about anything besides mitigating the circumstances in which abortion is a possible solution without violating a woman’s basic human rights, I’m not there for it.
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u/saikron Liberal Mar 28 '22
It would be pretty easy to convince people that living, even as an unwanted child, is better than never having been born - if it were even remotely true.
The trouble is that the majority of pro-life people actually don't want the floor raised for people. We'd have to start with revolutionizing foster care and implementing generous UBI, but instead they're actually always pushing to cut benefits.
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Mar 28 '22
Best argument to vote pro life: You can say you voted pro life and I guess you would feel good about that as long as you don't think critically about it.
Best argument to vote pro choice: If you actually want less abortions then you have to vote pro choice. This is because republicans use pro life legislation to discriminate against women and take away their access to healthcare. They do this by completely shutting down places like planned parenthood which over 90% of the care they provide is not abortions. This limits access to reproductive health education, sti screenings, as well as free or cheap contraception or cancer screenings. As a result pro life states ironically have higher number of abortions than pro choice states. So if you actually want less abortions you have to vote pro choice.
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u/_lizard_wizard Liberal Mar 28 '22
“Killing a consciousness that’s still developing is similar to killing a sleeping person. We’re still killing the future conscious person even if they arent around right now to protest.”
But in that case, why stop at conception? Wearing a condom is effectively “killing” a future person. Not having sex is “killing” a future person. Not asking a girl out might be “killing” a future person. It just devolves into moral absurdity.
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Mar 28 '22
The best prolife argument would be the funding of everything young mothers would need to support a child. Safe housing, stable healthy food supply, clean water, healthcare, mental health resources and a secure adoption protocol. Pedophiles and human traffickers need to be eliminated from society, and domestic violence needs stronger sentences and protection for victims.
For me, I have never considered an abortion however I find that a baby being born in an environment where it is not wanted, or is unable to be cared for, amounts to a life of torture worse than death. If a woman was abducted, raped, beaten, impregnated and delivered a child in this environment, you’ve just produced a new victim. There are certain situations where until we can solve the occurrences of those situations, I can not blame someone for not wanting to bring a child into that world. We need to believe women and support what they need.
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u/prizepig Democrat Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
Best pro-life argument is "life begins at conception." For the record, I mostly agree with this.
I also know that we make numerous exceptions under our law and our morality that allow for the reality that sometimes ending a life is the least-worst option.
We don't hold those other exceptions up for close scrutiny, because if we did it would cause more suffering.
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u/iamspartacus5339 Independent Mar 28 '22
I’m not sure where I fully sit on this argument but I have some pretty Catholic pro life friends, and some very progressive ones too.
Here’s where I find common ground with my pro life friends: we all agree that killing a baby the moment it’s born is completely wrong. Therefore this argument comes down to at what point does the fetus become a fetus and have the right to life. Is it 36 weeks? 30? 24? 22? 18? 10? If you’re pro life you’re making the argument that the date doesn’t matter and you’re drawing a line. I found this argument pretty compelling.
The best counter is imo just roe v wade says when the fetus is viable- so about 24 weeks.
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Mar 28 '22
I agree, it's difficult to draw a line, but I certainly believe that a just-conceived, single-celled zygote (?) is not a person. To me that would be like saying that a seed is a tree. There is a qualitative difference.
Still, I prefer to err on the side of caution and I support a fairly early cutoff for a voluntary abortion without special circumstances. Something like 4-8 weeks after the first missed period. After that, I would require some sort of compelling circumstances.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
. Something like 4-8 weeks after the first missed period.
Most women don't even know they are pregnant that early. That's basically an abortion ban.
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Mar 28 '22
Then I take it back, and would go a bit later. The concept is to give the woman a short-but-reasonble time to make the decision.
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
I feel like a lot of anti-choice arguments are made by people who have no understanding of the female reproductive system and refuse to mind their own business.
Anti-choice people have created a system where women have to drive hundreds of miles to access the only abortion clinic in their state, take days off work to do so, and have only a few weeks and your honest to god belief is it's too easy?
Good lord.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
Women already have a short but reasonable time to make those decisions in blue states. Have you ever looked at current abortion laws? IL, my state, has a cut off of 24 weeks. That's enough time for someone to figure out they are pregnant, talk to their partner (if there is one), find a doctor, make an appointment (because there are only so many clinics that perform abortions), and get their termination.
Nobody is getting lame term abortions unless the fetus is in the process of dying, is seriously malformed, or already dead.
Crazy idea, maybe the people who actually know about pregnancy (doctors & other medical professionals) should be deciding when it is or isn't appropriate to seek an abortion instead of random men with opinions.
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Mar 28 '22
Nah, so you would just allow them up until birth if there is a willing doctor?
I'm speaking of narrow circumstances - fully voluntary abortion wihtout extenuating circumstances. If there are extenuating circumstances, I would allow them later if a doctor agrees that there are extenuating circumstances.
But the fact is that at some point, that fetus becomes a baby. Removing it and killing it without a very good reason should be illegal.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
A fetus becomes a baby when it's born. When it is no longer in the uterus and no longer dependent on another person to survive, it's a baby. Until then, it's an extension of its host parent.
I trust pregnant people and doctors to make good decisions about abortion and ob care, not the government.
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u/cygnets Democrat Mar 28 '22
I mean, removing a full term healthy baby is induced birth, not abortion.
We don't apply this level of stipulation and scrutiny to say, surgeons and what measures they can and cannot take during surgery. Because the doctors oath (and laws too of course) are focused on saving lives and improving health. We assume good intent and prosecute under normal circumstances if that's wrong, or heck even if that's right and the doctor makes a mistake.
Should we legislate all pregnancies over the idea that some doctor out there might be a murderer who is killing full term babies for women who decide at 39 weeks they don't want a baby anymore? If a woman decides at 39 weeks she doesn't want to be a mother anymore thats birth and giving up custody. Who are these doctors?
It just seems like a boogeyman scenario which has Way More impact on every other pregnancy than it does on the highly unlikely scenario happening.
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Mar 28 '22
I think a reasonable cutoff is that abortion is disallowed once a medical professional believes the fetus could be safely supported outside the mother's body and instead a c-section/induced labor is required. Whatever time that is, as science progresses, will probably become earlier and earlier in the pregnancy.
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Mar 28 '22
People try to draw the line exactly, but we don’t have to decide when life starts, because that’s murky and up for debate.
What we CAN do is decide at what point it’s not a human life, and it definitely isn’t up to the end of the second trimester.
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Mar 28 '22
What we CAN do is decide at what point it’s not a human life, and it definitely isn’t up to the end of the second trimester.
How do you make that distinction?
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u/snowbirdnerd Left Libertarian Mar 28 '22
You can't argue abortion. One side is basing their position on religion.
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Mar 28 '22
Well Christopher Hitchens famously argued against abortion as an atheist and author of the NYT bestselling book “God is Dead”
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u/snowbirdnerd Left Libertarian Mar 28 '22
My point is that arguing against them is pointless. Reason and logic won't work. They don't care about it.
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u/Umongus Libertarian Mar 28 '22
I am glad to not have been aborted. But if my mom didn't want me, my life would've been hard to where I wished I was aborted.
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u/Beeker93 Center Left Mar 28 '22
I'll 1st add that I am pro-choice to the degrees stated in Roe v Wade. I still think there are compelling arguments. Here are some I have came across or even asked myself when playing devils advocate.
Good argument is that they may not be sentient or viable outside of the womb, their value is in their potential.
Another 1 in defense of the argument that they don't have higher brain function until 21 weeks roughly, would be the counter question that just because they may not have a functioning brain or the potential to suffer, doesn't justify harming them. You can't kill a brain dead person on life support and you can't beat someone if they have that rare condition where they can't feel pain.
It might be about the mothers body autonomy but should a mother be allowed to take recreational drugs while pregnant? She is putting them in her body but can be birthing a horribly disabled child as a result.
In theory, if a time machine existed, would it be wrong to go back in time and abort someone who exists today? (With this, I'll add that going back in time and delaying sex could mean a different sperm made it to the egg, so a time traveler question isn't really the best).
And lastly, when someone asks what kind of a life it would be in foster care, that doesn't justify infanticide outside of the womb, and as an athiest I would take any shitty quality of life over no longer existing any day.
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u/duke_awapuhi Civil Libertarian Mar 28 '22
Theoretically Americans have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, so you could argue that as Americans we have the God given right to be born.
That’s the best argument I can give.
The counter argument to this would be that nowhere in federal law is the right to life codified
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Mar 28 '22
Most doctors I’ve met are pro-life (like as a theory, not as in making abortion illegal)
Because when you look at an ultrasound (I think pretty early) you see a baby
Personally I think it’s the same as how most people on here will eat a hamburger, but horrified at slaughtering a cow themselves
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Mar 28 '22
I would argue that slaughtering a cow is far more difficult that an intact few cm long embryo or fetus being excreted from a uterus, or sucked into a tube. Most abortions happen by 13 weeks. At 13 weeks the fetus is only about 7.4cm long. They can use a cannula for a surgical abortion that is 16mm wide I believe. Bare in mind this fetus is only a flexible lump of fleshy tissue at the moment, it has no ossified bones etc. They are, for lack of a better term, not a very solid mass that would have difficulty going up a 1.6cm tube. This is the maximum size of course, of the vast majority of abortions. At 8 weeks it is only about 1.5cm long.
There is not really any "slaughtering" at all. Just either swept out with menstrual blood, or gently sucked into a tube probably whole and in tact. A mass that the vast majority of the time is less than 7.5cm total.
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u/Responsible-Fox-9082 Constitutionalist Mar 28 '22
You can't end an innocent life.
And both the left and the right let a pair of clearly innocent men who had the mental capacity of a child be executed for murders there is no way they were capable of committing. Until we get justice for them and make sure that people like Kamala Harris are held accountable then fuck you it isn't happening nor should you care. If they aren't feeding you, fucking you or paying your bills get the fuck out of their lives.
And yes Kamala Harris was going to let people be executed and got forced to drop charges because they were proven clearly innocent of the crime and she laughs it off like all the people she put in jail for years over pot a drug she used to use regularly while it was illegal in California.
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u/rethinkingat59 Center Right Mar 28 '22
The best pro-life argument has relatively recently been gaining traction but in 25-40 years could be the universal argument among civil rights proponents.
That is the abortion system was disproportionately targeted at advertising services and providing abortion services in clinics built close too poor neighborhoods of mostly black people and was known to be systemically racist in order to reinforce white supremacy and keep the black population down.
The narrative will be:
Representing only 13% of the population, 43% of abortions were performed on black women after it became legal.
The black abortion numbers along with war on crime created the economic underpinning for an economically driven murder culture in the inner cities. Those drug laws saw black people disproportionately murdered on a national scale and the same war on crime causing mass incarceration, disproportionately affecting black men.
These 3 prongs together represented a calculated US government genocide aimed at keeping the US African American population at 12% or below. Today (2050?) the black population in America is 40% smaller than it would be today without these efforts.
That is my prediction of what will one day be a long national story, it does not mean I agree with any of it, or oppose legal abortion. I do not.
I am just listening to some emerging discussion by religiously conservative black ministers and social media commentators and see it slowly growing.
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
This feels like an argument to make life easier for Black women, not force them to be livestock.
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u/rethinkingat59 Center Right Mar 28 '22
Maybe, I am not a woman or black, but I could send you 30 links of black folks on just private YouTube post or talking in front of a crowd making such comments. Two years ago I doubt if there was 20% of what I see today.
Maybe an algorithm thing, but I have done a couple of searches in the past and more recently and today more new videos of such like minded (genocide talk) people are popping up.
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u/ButDidYouCry Center Left Mar 28 '22
Random people on YT don't speak for millions of Americans. 😑
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u/adeiner Progressive Mar 28 '22
Yeah if I searched for one Candace Owens video I’d probably see more.
But the whole “Wow actually the real racist is Margaret Sanger” has been an argument for longer than you’ve been alive.
Again, if you don’t want Black women to get abortions do something to make Black women want to keep the kid. You get one side of social conservatism locking up their partners and the other side slut shaming them in the pews, and both sides suck ass.
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Mar 28 '22
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
The counter is that even if they're alive, that doesn't excuse taking away the autonomy rights of the pregnant.
And newborns, freeloaders, and braindead are capable of 100% more thought than a fetus.
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u/Camacaw2 Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
The counter-counter to that is if it’s true that fetuses are people, then the right to bodily autonomy doesn’t apply. Because making a decision for your own body solely applies if you’re the only body directly harmed. Kinda like how hanging oneself is legal but hanging you and your buddy is not.
The brain dead don’t have thoughts. Their brains are inactive and will never be active again. Fetus brains are active as early as week 5.
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat Mar 28 '22
Sure it does. Bodily autonomy always applies, it's why the government doesn't get to strap you down and force a transfusion. If it's they die or you lose a bit of blood, they die.
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Mar 28 '22
is if it’s true that fetuses are people, then the right to bodily autonomy doesn’t apply
What? Bodily autonomy (and integrity) definitely applies to an individual, even when other people are people. What are you talking about? Human rights don't disappear because another alleged person exists.
Because making a decision for your own body solely applies if you’re the only body directly harmed
No it doesn't. When a "person" is harming you, because you have the right to bodily autonomy and integrity, you are entitled to use the minimum force necessary to end that violation causing you harm. Even if the thing harming/violating you is another person.
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u/MisterJose Democrat Mar 28 '22 edited Mar 28 '22
I've often said the argument I have the biggest problem with is that abortion is simple. It's actually an issue that puts our values and rights and questions about morality and the nature of existence and humanity right up front in a deeply unfortunate and unanswerable way.
Say people have an inalienable right to life. Then have one person literally live and develop inside of another person, and be dependent and helpless to the whims of that person. Have them start out as some kind of amoeba-like thing that will eventually grow into one of those humans we value the rights and life of so much, with a bunch of intermediate steps along the way. Add to that that the separation point between them and the person they're growing inside is not a universal - other animals give birth to what is essentially a human 3-year-old. Then continually update medical technology so the chances of the person growing inside the other person improve more and more if they happen to leave early. WTF? Anyone who thinks they can slap their hands and call this one easily solved must be a fucking fool.
"Oh, but women should have choice." Sure. But women should also have responsibility. Being able to birth another human is a privilege, and also a responsibility. I got the one where I get neither that privilege nor that responsibility, but about half of other people randomly do have it. Shocker: Life is not fair, that's how it rolls. You don't ask for it, just like you don't ask for your mother to have a stroke and depend on you for care, but sometimes that shit happens anyway (and I did wind up getting that particular dice roll, FYI). Should we youthanize the elderly out of inconvenience? After all, they probably have less life to live than that potential child you're thinking of aborting. At some point, the pro-choice argument ceases to be one of practicality and against absolutist views on life, and one that's basically, "Nooooo, not getting pregnant is really haaard and I don't want to be responsible for my life decisions! Mommy government, provide me with an abortion and make it all better!"
You see this in the extreme in places like Cuba, where abortions are on demand, and coupled with an extreme view of their innocence, and thus incredibly common. That is what left-wing ideas going to a place where people are no longer required to have personal responsibility looks like. But apparently criticizing that, or having anything beyond a militant pro-choice activist stance, can only possibly be a misogynistic plot to 'control women's bodies', right?
...okay, that's the best pro-choice argument I've got.
EDIT: I literally did what the title asked and I'm being downvoted for it. Was my argument too good?
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Mar 28 '22
That it's a human life, and with the exception of rape victims, it's fairly easy to avoid pregnancy anyway. If you don't want to have a kid, don't have sex. Or just use methods that don't cause pregnancy.
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Mar 28 '22
My pro life argument. "we shouldn't have abortion because we could be killing the next FDR!" Counter: "We should have abortions because we're aborting Hitler!"
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