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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Okay this argument is hypocritical AF. First, your two month old niece isn't about to risk killing you and then die. Second, if she was going to die without you giving her an organ transplant, do you think it's okay for the government to force you to do that surgery against your will? What about if it wasn't your niece? What if you're 10?
You don't respect the autonomy of a woman if you believe in forcing decisions on them about their body, hard stop. There is no wiggle room for you to argue that the fetus matters, because you wouldn't apply that to any other situation in life. Stop acting like it's the moral choice when it's literally forcing woman to risk their lives against their will. Those women are already alive, why don't their rights and lives matter to you?
I'm not arguing in the case that this post is of.
I was simply saying that no, it's not my goal to enslave women. I just think the fetus is a human life that should be protected.
If you think "The fetus is a human life that should be protected" by the government, my reply would be exactly the same. It's no different. The government protecting a fetus is the government taking away a woman's right to her own life and body. Whatever grey areas exist in the debates that have gone on over the decades, this is not grey area. It's black and white.
If I told you I wanted the government to protect homeless people's right to live by forcing you to donate blood, I'm putting the homeless person's rights above yours. If you want the government to force women to literally risk their lives for 9 months you're putting a pile of cells's rights above a woman's. There is no fallacy here, there is no "but what about", it's plain and simple. Either you see women as humans with equal rights and value as yourself, or you believe a fetus has more rights than a woman. The only other possibility is you are the type who actually does want the government to force people to donate blood and organs. I met one once, quite the lunatic.
One could easily argue that the government letting the woman end the fetus' life is ruining the fetus' right to his/her own life and body.
the likelihood of a life risking event is fairly rare, and I'm for exceptions to that
Your first sentence says that even if I believe the fetus is a human life that should be protected, your reply would be the same, so why'd you switch your terminology back? You should have said "You're putting a human life that should be protected above a woman's" - once again, you try and pull this emotional terminology rather than being consistent.
I think all 3 have equal rights, and that none of us should be able to end the life of the others.
I agree, it's a tough moral dilemma, which makes it hard to have honest conversations about this. That's the biggest argument on the pro-choices corner, in my opinion. But the fact that it's the mothers intentional actions that brought the life to the world makes me lean towards the pro-life side. Contraceptives are easily accessible, I'm for policies that make them available freely to all women. I'm for policies that increase sexual education on pregnancies. I'm for increased funding to the adoptive care system along with foster care systems. I'm for policies ensuring proper healthcare for pregnant women.
I wish more republicans will say this - if we want to be pro life - reduce unwanted pregnancies, provide care to pregnant women and fund options for the baby if they want to provide that baby to a more willing family.
No, not really. Unless you're going to argue some stranger on the street who needs an organ donated to live is having their rights infringed by the government not forcing you to give them your organs to save them. The only difference is the location of the "human". Also, regardless, if you are making this argument, then either you're still saying the fetus has more rights than the woman, or the government shouldn't intervene because both have equal rights.
I don't believe a fetus is a human. But sure, put the word human there instead, because if your argument is that this unborn human's life should be protected above a woman's, you're still taking away that woman's rights.
The fetus can not live on its own. Saying an abortion is ending the life of the fetus is like saying taking someone off life support is ending their life. While technically true, are you the type of person that would also argue the government should disallow the removal of life support?
I'm sorry, but if you honestly think it's up to a woman whether or not she gets pregnant, you're incredibly out of touch with reality. Contraceptives aren't 100% effective. Rape is a thing. Hell, humans make mistakes sometimes. Women don't just go around getting abortions because they felt like it, it's not a fun procedure and it's not without risk. The biggest factor that makes this an irrelevant argument is there is literally no other example of a policy you would support that would infringe on someone's rights in the same way. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of examples where people put other people's lives in danger but they still have rights. Why focus on this one specific issue when there are so many others? The only answer is sexism. Not respecting Women's rights. There are zero implemented policies that would force someone to feed someone else who's dying, shelter them, donate blood to them, or do anything that would keep them alive. And I doubt you would argue for them if there were.
This is fine, but what's not fine is supporting government policies that force the decision on women. Especially blanket ones with no exceptions.
I mean literally. I don't know how you can sit here and say 'okay, well someone might believe that it's a human life in the womb, but absolutely no way in hell could they argue that a woman ending it's life could be wrong!!' - if you can't grasp a basic concept that ending a human life could be considered immoral, we shouldn't continue this conversation.
Once again - you're the one that said 'even if I believe the fetus is a human life that should be protected' - so I don't care if you actually believe it or not, you set that up to be the basis of your argument.
My argument is they are equals, and ending either life is something that is a moral question, not an objective answer like you portray it to be.
No, but I think that there should be some sort of consent (generally a medical POA would suffice) necessary to have someone make the decision to remove life support. If you can get a medical POA from the fetus, then I would buy into this argument.
It actually is. the vast vast vast majority of adults know that if they have sex, there's a risk of pregnancy. You know this, right? That's like me walking up at softball and swinging, hitting the ball and getting pissed because I didn't know that swinging could end in the possibility of me hitting the ball.
99.9% effective for some, and combining contraceptives makes the rates extremely small.
I'm for exceptions in the case of rape.
Sure, but that doesn't give one the right to end another's life.
Did I say that?
There's an argument that abortions don't respect the babies lives, male or female.
If you have 1 year old baby and you don't feed him and in result they die, do you not think there's a policy that punishes you for this?
They didn't force women to have sex. They didn't force women to get pregnant. They are simply saying that if a human life is created, that it has inherent value and with such there's a moral question on whether ending a human life without their consent is wrong.
I've already mentioned multiple times about exceptions. If you want to keep bringing this up, you can. My answer has stayed consistent.
I don't believe a woman aborting a fetus is ending it's life any more than refusing to feed someone starving on the street. Maybe you could debate that, but it's so cut and dry to me that it's just so hard to see the other arguments as compelling.
Awful analogy. Your intention in softball is to hit the ball. The intention in sex is to follow your human instinct and desire towards pleasure.
There are 175,000,000+ women in this country. 0.1% of that is 175,000. That's a lot of women you're saying intentionally got pregnant.
You say you believe in having exceptions for specific cases like rape. I'm guessing you would put nonviable pregnancies in there too. The thing is, almost every single abortion performed fits into an exception category. So by arguing in favor of more restrictions, you are indeed saying that.
Okay, but that argument isn't in a vacuum. By forcing the decision, you're choosing which life you respect more. The baby or the woman carrying. If I truly believed a fetus was a human, I would still say the government doesn't get to choose who's rights are more important. Also, as a matter of opinion I would still say the woman who is actually alive and has an actual brain and memories and experience should actually have more rights than the fetus.
Then why aren't republicans fighting to stop people pulling the plug on life support? Every day thousands of people who can't consent are taken off life support because they're brain dead or because their insurance won't pay for it any more. Yes, that moral question is valid to ask. What's not valid is forcing the choice on others based on your own personal beliefs, especially if you acknowledge that the topic is debatable.
I thought you had, but I couldn't find it for some reason so I went under the assumption you thought otherwise. Here's the thing about this though, we already have term limits and restrictions pretty much everywhere. Banning abortions with exceptions is already a won battle. There are so many other issues, the very fact that people care so much about this one particular issue is sexist on its own. No republican is talking about water supply quality, about domestic terrorism, about the atrocities being committed at our borders, homelessness, police brutality, school shootings, veterans being denied healthcare they were promised, companies extorting people with things like insulin prices or healthcare costs in general, climate change, asbestos, literal slavery in our prisons, actual Nazis rallying, the fact that the people died in the insurrection. They're focused on ruining the lives of women over clumps of cells that don't even have brains.
Wouldn't it be more akin to feeding your own 2 month old? Do you think parents have an obligation to feed their child?
In my scenario, I clearly didn't.
The way the %'s work with contraceptives is if someone is consistently sexually active and reasonable pregnancy age. Simply taking a % of total women in the united states is a huge misstep in your calculation. Woman past the age of 40 have 1/6 of the chance of pregnancy as a 30 YO, is it fair to represent the 175m woman as prime pregnancy age? only 65m are between age 15-44. 30% of people haven't had sex in the last year. So right off the bat, you drop 175m women to some 40m. It would reduce further if you included women who don't have consistent sexual activity.
If you have a good argument, you don't need to misrepresent facts.
According to some quick sources I googled, only 12% of abortions are because of health complications.
Once again, the vast majority of abortions are 'choosing between the life of the mother and kid' - it's simply that the baby is 'undesirable' to the mother. I don't think killing my twin brother simply because I don't desire him is a morally acceptable situation.
Because of medical POA's, or other legally recognizable authority given by the person on life support, to another individual. I've given my parents the right to decide what happens to me in such an event. A baby doesn't given that consent, to my knowledge.
It's clearly not. In some states, women can get abortions freely until birth. To some that matters, to me I see it as a states rights issue and they can have that if they'd like.
I agree. there are a billion issues we can talk about and I think they're too stuck on stuff like abortion and would like them to focus on other problems too. That doesn't change the fact that me being pro-life doesn't mean i simply want to enslave women.
Damn it Lemmy deleted my reply.
I had a whole lot to say, but I'll just reply to the last point, at this point we're disagreeing on the same things on repeat anyway.
I wouldn't go as far as saying slavery, especially since we do have forced prison labor protected by the constitution. But it is stripping women of many of their rights. I don't think holding pro-life beliefs is a bad thing, or makes you a bad person. I do think holding the belief that the government should enforce your religious beliefs on others is pretty awful though. I'm making the assumption that it's religious, because I have never heard of someone thinking a fetus is a human before it has a brain who wasn't also religious. Apologies if I'm wrong on that. But I firmly, strongly, without a doubt believe that a woman should have the right to make the choice for herself, and that your beliefs shouldn't prevent her from having her own beliefs, or her doctors from having their own beliefs.
I realized something recently, too. Conservatives aren't anti-government like they claim they are. They're anti "not-their-government". Conservatives don't care if state governments stomp all over the constitution, they only care if the Federal government does. As a leftist, I don't want any government stepping on anyone's rights, state or Federal, and I believe the rights guaranteed by the constitution are above state law.
Dang I've had that a few times, it sucks. I thought we actually were getting a bit closer.
I responded to a lot of your points with statistics, and other solid arguments, I don't thinbk it's fair to continue a convo at this point where my criticisms to your points are all ignored now (due to a deleted comment, not blaming you), and instead reducing the conversation to that very last subjective point.
That's valid. I'll come back and reply later, but I need to focus on work right now
also valid, thanks for revisiting. I agree, I should be working right now too, haha
My Lemmy instance has been down for like a week
I wouldn't say that, because there's a guardianship responsibility there. When the choice has been made to have a child, there is legal responsibility.
I still don't get the analogy. People have sex to have sex, not to get pregnant. Animals have sex too, and they're likely unaware of the consequences. It's natural. It feels good. It brings people closer together. If you're batting at softball and don't want to hit the ball, swing somewhere random?
I used simple numbers out of laziness/simplicity. But you've also simplified your numbers. The probability applies to every time birth control is used, not just how many people use it. So let's say it's 30,000,000 instead of 175,000,000. If all of them had sex with protection exactly once you would be taking away the rights of 30,000 women. Average sex frequency is about once a week, which boosts that number to 1,560,000. Let's say the average is heavily skewed, cut the number in half, every year you're taking the choice away from 780,000 women who did not intentionally get pregnant.
If the mother doesn't have the means to take care of the kid, that kid is going to have an awful life, and so is the mother. If there is a man supporting the woman and he's threatening to leave, it's an even worse situation. You act as if the choice is as simple as "Oh, I don't really feel like having a kid right now" but in reality it's "Do I want a chance to live a comfortable life with food and housing, or do I want to bring a baby into the world right now and be struggling for the rest of my life, both to support the baby, take care of the baby, and raise it. Growing up in poverty fucking sucks, because Republicans keep gutting aid to these people. Your take on "It's simply that the baby is 'undesirable' to the mother" is an incredible over simplification that leads me to believe you're either affluent or have no idea what it takes to raise a child.
I was surprised to find that there are states that don't have term limits. My personal position is the government doesn't have any business interfering with this, so it's not a state right one way or the other. People used to also debate the death penalty as a state right, and many republicans said "The federal government should ban abortions" while simultaneously saying "States should be allowed to choose the death penalty". I'm not saying you feel that way, but I strongly believe it's not any of your business to choose what decision a doctor and a patient make about their own lives, and it goes against everything conservatives claim they stand for.
I already replied to this in the previous comment
That's the thing with exceptions. They're very hard to legislate.
Rape exceptions might as well not exist. Laws I've heard on this require the rape to be proven in the court of law. Even putting aside the fact that most rape cases are never processed and prosecuted, there's a very low likelihood that the case will conclude before the pregnancy does, thus rendering the exception useless.
Exceptions for medical complications are also very hard to legislate because you have to decide when is the woman dying enough to be able to save her life. Is it when we are losing her now? When she'll die tomorrow? Next week? Dying now means risking that she won't survive the treatment or if she does, that she'll lose her fertility in the process. Is that acceptable? The much higher chance of, in your view, losing two lives rather than one? I would argue no. This is exactly what led to these situations: women forced to endure trauma because doctors are terrified of life in jail if someone decides that the woman wasn't in "enough danger" or "in danger at all". I don't see any way around this outcome.
Third, I've only seen one state that allowed an exception for nonviability of a fetus. In all the other states I've seen, women have to carry doomed fetuses who will die shortly after birth. I can't imagine the trauma of that. Isn't it more merciful to allow those women to abort?
I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater then.
I'm not too knowledgeable about the language of rape exceptions in many states. My state is pretty liberal, so that's not something I have in my state. I, along with others, think a good alternative could be that any woman who had a rape kit, or reported a rape (which I believe is the law in some states?). I'd even go 1 step further, I'd say that any woman that claims the baby is a result of rape, is allowed to have an abortion (up to some, fairly liberal point in the pregnancy, say 20 weeks for examples).
I agree, it's a tough line! if there's a 1% chance, is that high enough? 2%? 20%?
A lot of law says 'reasonable persons' - I think if a reasonable person would think there would be a high enough threshold of risk to the mothers health, that's fine. It's up to a jury of her peers, and court precedence. Many items in our law have these as gauges of what's 'reasonable.'
I don't know enough about the states laws, that sounds wrong to me, but maybe it's right. I disagree with that, if the baby is already dead, there's no reason for a woman to endure the pregnancy further.
I appreciate your reply, but I was talking about his things actually played out. But the idealized version where every exception case is allowed. This is how it's played out. This article forcing people into traumatic experiences. I was talking about how it's really hard to legislate for, not the most idealized version. Please, recognize that banning abortion unduly hurts people rather than actually saves people. Exceptions aren't really exceptions with the real, current requirements to take advantage of them. They are just lip service and a shield to hide behind.
To have individual rights, one must first be individual. If you don't know the definition of individual, pick up a dictionary.
You act like just because a couple words are related it's a 'gotcha' I can run with individual rights or human rights, or I can argue that definitions of words have no meaning besides conveying information, and they are actually fluid (see how the definition of 'woman' has changed).
Which would you like me to argue?
Congratulations, add context and nuance to the list of words you have no comprehension of. Your words have no meaning so I have interpreted them to say that you agree that you stance is inviable.
Someone doesn't understand the words "non-viable". You really should start by reading a dictionary before you start redefining words like fetus, life, and enslave.
Funny how you only care about the dead unborn child, not the living one or the mother.
I'm fine discussing viability, but don't be rude when that wasn't the topic in the comment you're responding to.
The comment you're responding to, I even said that I'm not arguing about the article, I'm saying more in general. My response was to someone saying I want to enslave women, because I'm pro-life.
In the specific case of the article, I agree with you, and this is an good scenario which many pro-lifers see an exception for.
If you'd like to converse, all I ask is that you're not hostile. You can state your case and I can state mine, without being a dick.
No you can't because your position is inherently dickish.
What a good way to shut down conversation. I think that's what's wrong with the political climate now days, you get in an echo chamber and any deviation from your echo chamber and you shut down conversation saying that any deviation from you is 'inherently dickish.'
If you'd actually like to discuss, I'm here.
If you can't help but to be a dick in your comments, I won't care to discuss.
It's been explained to you but you lack the understanding of the definition of words so your comprehension has failed utterly.
What's been explained? That you refuse to discuss this with me because you're always 100% right and that any other argument that deviates from yours is inherently 'dickish'? You've made that known.
Once again, I'd love to discuss if you'd like. Having an unpopular opinion really helps me engage with the other side and know where they're coming from. I think sometimes you should give that liberty to someone you disagree with.
Do you practice being this stupid or does it come naturally?
Once again, I’d love to discuss if you’d like. Having an unpopular opinion really helps me engage with the other side and know where they’re coming from. I think sometimes you should give that liberty to someone you disagree with.
So it's both.
Look man, you can insult me all you want, doesn't matter. I'm a young conservative in an extremely liberal state, I've heard it all.