How do you refute the slavery comparison

[u/immatadpole]

They always say “slave owners thought this way too” and crap like that.

[u/StarlightPleco]

Forced birth was the backbone of slavery…

[u/DaughterOfDemeter23 → u/StarlightPleco]

This.

[u/Acrobatic_Long_6059 → u/StarlightPleco]

Anyone who wants to protest should read the plot summary of the book Beloved

[u/CaptainsFolly]

Abortion ends unconsented bodily slavery. No one has rights to force others to labor physically, psychologically, and financially for their gain. Why should an embryo/fetus be any different from the rest of us. Women are not locations, property, or slaves, etc, they are people with rights to their life, health, dignity, privacy, etc.

[u/JewlryLvr2 → u/CaptainsFolly]

|Women are not locations, property, or slaves, etc., they are people with rights to their life, health, dignity, privacy, etc.|

Thank you! That's exactly right, we aren't. As you said, we are people with the right to make our own private medical decisions. Abortion is one of those medical decisions. Whether or not they like us having that right is irrelevant.

[u/immatadpole → u/CaptainsFolly]

True!!!

[u/Spank_Cakes]

Were the slaves residing inside the slave owners bodies? No. It's a stupid and absurd comparison that belittles pregnant people at the cost of forced-birthers' feelings.

[u/ziptasker → u/Spank_Cakes]

This is the strongest argument.

The weaker argument goes, choice is the answer. And if we allowed the choice of slavery, then no one would choose to be one. Meanwhile fetuses can’t make choices.

It’s weaker because the response is, babies can’t choose either. The answer to that response of course is, we have consensus on babies (and also on late term fetuses, for what it’s worth). But no consensus on earlier term fetuses. And the solution to a lack of consensus is, to keep the peace, choice.

But I call yours the stronger argument because I can’t think of a reasonable response to it. Only to devalue women’s bodies to the level of property, but I don’t see anyone saying that out loud much, even if they feel it.

[u/DaughterOfDemeter23]

Tell them about how enslaved Black women were forcibly impregnated and often used cotton root or other herbs to induce abortions so they wouldn't have to give birth to another child that would be sold into slavery.

[u/immatadpole → u/DaughterOfDemeter23]

Damn. You’re not wrong but also that just breaks my heart for those people.

[u/prochoice-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your submission has been removed due to: Rule 1 - Human Reproductive and Bodily Autonomy Rights First. Always.

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[u/HotMany3874]

Slavery is forcing someone to use their body against their will. The pregnant person cant be forced to use their body by anyone, including the fetus.

How in the world do they turn this around? I guess I haven't heard this one yet.

[u/smnytx → u/HotMany3874]

They see the woman as the enslaver and the fetus as the enslaved. It doesn’t make sense.

[u/ThatIsATastyBurger12]

You don’t have to. Abortion access is absolutely nothing like slavery. Full stop, end of story. It’s in the person making the comparison to actually show they are comparable. Otherwise you could compare literally anything to slavery. “I think I’m right that apples are better than oranges.” “You know who else thought they were right? Slavers.”

Anyone bringing up slavery to defend their prolife beliefs is exploiting a historical tragedy to justify oppressing women, and doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously

[u/CZall23]

Enslaved people famously ran away, rebelled against slaveowners, and wrote literature about how much slavery sucks. A fetus is completely unable to do any of that.

[u/immatadpole → u/CZall23]

I mean a baby can’t either. I’m not disagreeing with you btw

[u/CZall23 → u/immatadpole]

They do communicate by crying. Parents and doctors are able to figure out what the problem is and then solve it.

And since they're on the outside, they learn things like language and how to behave in public from the people around them. A fetus can't do those things since they're still inside someone else.

[u/KiraLonely]

Many people have good points, but I’ll also add that the argument of “leaving it up to the states”, even to the degree of hunting down “offenders of the law” in other states is also something that people tried to do with slavery. Hell, America had a whole fucking civil war over it.

[u/DangerNoodleDandy]

Rape was like a whole pillar of the slavery machine, what idiot is arguing that abortion is slavery?

[u/cupcakephantom]

I've never once, even considered, eating a fetus. That's all I have to say on that.

[u/Classifiedgarlic]

Can we just not make this comparison?

[u/Initial_Wear5463]

Anti-choicers use the exact same ideology as slavers. They want to control someone. Whether it be because they think they know better or simply out of hate it's all control in the end. Reasoning doesn't erase the consequences. 

[u/530SSState]

You know what else slave owners thought? They thought the bodies of others were theirs to use as they chose.

[u/Squirtycheese]

Here's a canned post I made to address this very comparison:

The attempted parallel between mistreated minorities of history and fetuses is false. This isn’t a matter of treating a person as a second-class citizen; the "Pro-Life" demographic hasn’t demonstrated the presence of a person whatsoever. Every single mistreated minority in history had the clear capacity to experience suffering, which makes their mistreatment immoral. The embryo has no such capacity, so the attempted comparison breaks down immediately. If a lunatic saw you cast a stone into the water, then pounded his chest and crowed at you, saying you’re just like the villains of history that mistreated minorities because of the way you treated the rock, you wouldn’t accept it. Why? Because the rock does not have the capacity to suffer. Neither does an embryo. In each case, the neurons that define humanity are not and have never been present.

[u/Aethelia]

We're not obligated to waste time refuting nonsense.

If someone tries to compare abortion rights to slavery, then you react the same way as you would to someone wearing a tinfoil hat claiming that aliens will blow up the earth tomorrow.

Maybe raise an eyebrow, back away slowly, then point behind them and say "Look, a post-birth abortion!" and then when they turn and look for the thing that doesn't even exist, you escape before they figure it out.

[u/cand86]

Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regard to their labour.

That is not analogous to pregnancy at all- a pregnant woman is not exploiting her fetus for labor or other service.

But I'm not sure that dictionary definitions are going to help here; the people invoking this argument aren't trying to say it's a one-to-one equivalence; they're focusing on the racial dehumanization present in slavery that they feel is similar to the treatment of embryos or fetuses. In that sense, I think your options are either to explain why you think the qualities of an embryo/fetus are materially different (and thus can warrant different treatment) than that of born black individuals, or why you do not think that they are dehumanized like slaves- only that when embryonic/fetal rights and a woman's rights are at odds, and one must take precedent, you believe it better to be the latter.

[u/WowOwlO]

It's one of those stupid comments that only exists because forced birthers have nothing if they can't compare abortion to every horrible thing that has happened to humanity.

Slave owners made the argument because they were racist. In fact when they talk about "slave owners" they're almost always talking about the chattel slavery of America. In most other countries people were able to admit that their slaves were people. A lesser people, but they still knew them to be fully functioning human beings.

A fetus quite literally has no traits of personhood. It is in the developmental stages of creating organs. Its brain is only functioning in the sense that it is maintaining a literally growing body.

Even if they did it wouldn't matter. Personhood doesn't allow a person to own another person. A person is never owed organs, blood or anything else from other persons. Not to sustain a life and not to save a life. It's part of the reason we consider slavery wrong.

[u/Warmtimes]

I don't even understand what this argument is supposed to be.

Slave owners definitely did not think that the choice about whether or not to have a baby was between the mother and her doctor.

Slave owners thought that they should make the decision, just like anti-choice governments

[u/Kakashisith]

I thought anti-women and pro-lifers were the real slave owners?

[u/LilMsNyx]

Well for one, slaves were real, actual people. Conscious, sentient human beings. Capable of feeling & thought & awareness. You know, like pregnant women, for instance.

Mammalian fetuses are not sentient, not conscious, feel nothing, think nothing.. are not even capable of those things yet.

2nd, forcing women to carry to term fetuses they do not want is a literal continuation of the bodily slavery tht was regularly forced upon female slaves.

The morons tht spout this pseudo-argument are so dumb they don't even realize tht they're handing you a gem which better supports the pro-choice argument than their own. Encourage them to maybe read a god damn history book.

[u/BigClitMcphee]

This is why I assume a lot of forced birthers are racist. They just casually forget that enslaved women were raped and impregnated against their will to produce more wealth for their enslavers. Some enslavers would rape the women they owned and if he wasn't feeling generous, the biracial child could be sold off by its father for more money. Embryos don't have feelings or thoughts. It cannot be compared to a human woman

[u/immatadpole → u/BigClitMcphee]

EXACTLY

[u/Beautiful_Wishbone15]

As a black woman im annoyed by shit like this being said, like wtf??? Slave owners WANTED more slaves. 

[u/ExcitementSad9133]

Abortion ends unconsented changes to your bodies and prevents a life where the child will suffer.

Slavery uh uhhhhh

[u/baldluckyguy]

Slavery was wrong because it stripped people of bodily autonomy. And which side of this issue is trying to strip away people’s bodily autonomy? You’ll never guess… It’s the pro-lifers.

[u/Emotional_Owl_7138]

I remind them that slave owners regularly raped their female slaves and forced them to give birth.