Sometimes hypocrisy needs to be pointed out in unconventional ways. I’m a firm believer that if men got pregnant then the right to have an abortion would be written into the constitution.
Beyond the obvious, it seems to me that being pro-life aligns very closely with the boner many conservatives have for their punitive brand of personal responsibility, i.e. it’s your fault that you’re in a tight spot so you get to suffer the consequences.
Many pro-lifers won’t give a shit about you until you’re pregnant:
- They teach a 1950s-era ideal of sex in their families and churches (if they talk about sex at all), preaching abstinence at all costs and at the expense of knowledge of, and access to, statistically effective contraceptives and medicinal birth control
- They don’t want your employer to cover your birth control
- They don’t want to empower demographically disadvantaged groups with the knowledge and resources to prevent unwanted pregnancies
and they stop giving a shit about you after you’ve delivered:
- They’ll let the biological father abandon you.
- You’re on your own caring for yourself and the baby; they don’t want to pay for anything.
- They don’t want you to be better equipped or better educated so that you don’t make the same mistake again.
If they were truly “pro-life” in the literal sense of the word then they should at least be willing to budge on any of that shit. Even disregarding the subject of abortion, I think both sides could get a lot done. Instead, there’s simply no room for nuance in the discussion; their cause is righteous and just and there can be no compromises. A cynic might conclude that it’s not about saving babies at all - that it’s just their (and/or their Old Testament God’s) way of punishing you.
Meanwhile, as someone said above, a cadaver has more agency over their body than a pregnant woman. I simply can’t get behind that sort of cognitive dissonance.
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What you see as a “hypocrisy” just furthers the pro-life view that pro-choicers see abortion as equivalent to any other form of birth control.
Again, this fails to comprehend many people’s view that this is the taking of a human life. Most people don’t have nuanced discussions about that subject.
Which of my random beliefs would you be ok to have forced on you?
I get your point, but I view the “when does life begin?” debate as beside the point. It’s an ephemeral philosophical question posed against a concrete issue of physical autonomy.
People would have justifiably lost their shit if Obamacare permitted the government to require a person to give up one of their kidneys in order to save the life of someone who required a kidney transplant to live. That would be a gross intrusion of the government into a person’s body, but would certainly promote the interest of “life.” A pregnant woman should deserve the same respect as the kidney-haver has as to what occurs within his or her body or what the law can compel that person to do with his or her body.
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The hypocrisy isn’t in the procedure, it’s in the administration of rights.
I would like to be forced in your random belief of a Democrat fanboy.
Joking aside, your question begins by assuming that our justice system isn’t already set up at legislating morality. In this instance of morality you happen to draw a line at a different place than I do. Doesn’t make either you or I superior in belief (your position is from belief too). Surely we can have a conversation about why we believe what we do and come out better understanding each other but also ourselves by being challenged.
And that’s where civil discourse becomes impossible. When one side says “it’s a human life” and the other says “so what?”, what discourse is there to be had?
I literally know no one who has ever said that.
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Waldo, if I embrace each of those points, AND work to support mothers with unwanted pregnancies, AND work to help find homes for children who would otherwise be aborted, AND work to support implementation politically of each of your points, then maybe could you concede that I’m sincere in my beliefs?
“All/most pro-lifers just want to punish women” is about as productive as “all/most pro-choicers just want to butcher babies.”
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You must view “beside the point” and “so what?” as semantically further apart than most.
Ok, but the example falls apart IMO when noting that the kidney is the same DNA as the kidney-haver. The DNA of an embryo has it’s own unique sequence. It is not the embryo-havers DNA
In Bench’s context, yes. Your seemingly concrete view of either side shows one having a point and the other void of one.
There are some in the pro-choice view that will insist that life begins at birth. There are others that will state that, as Bench seemingly did, the mother’s rights outweigh the rights of the child, regardless of when life begins. Just because I see those points doesn’t mean that I agree with either of them.
This is my feeling as well.
No, it’s about people deciding what to do with their own bodies. The alternative is that when a woman becomes pregnant, the government has a greater say in what happens to her body than she does.
People may believe that it is appropriate, as MusicMan alluded to, to say that the interests of the pregnant woman should be subverted in favor of those of the fetus/baby/potential person/however you want to couch it. But you can’t take that position while denying that you are taking away a woman’s agency over her own body in a manner than cannot be and is never done to a man.
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No, it’s about people deciding what to do with their own bodies.
That’s the difference of where we are coming from. It’s not just her own body. There is another body that to me has rights that should be taken into account.
People may believe that it is appropriate, as MusicMan alluded to, to say that the interests of the pregnant woman should be subverted in favor of those of the fetus/baby/potential person/however you want to couch it. But you can’t take that position while denying that you are taking away a woman’s agency over her own body
It’s not just her body. There is another sequence of DNA that is not the woman’s own body.
in a manner than cannot be and is never done to a man.
This is certainly true
This is absolutely not the conversation that happens and that you think that it is just shows how far up your own cultist ass your head is.
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This, right here, is nuance. And if you truly agree with all of those points then you are not the average pro-lifer.
We probably agree more than we disagree, BTW.