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Comment by akamaka | Hacker News Reader

> > Are against abortion? Then you’re a misogynist. > > Yes. This is correct.

Have you looked at the data of how many women are pro-life? Do you think half of women are misogynists?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/244709/pro-choice-pro-life-2018...

Yes, I’m aware of zillions of examples of people actively participating in their own oppression. I think you’ll also find that not nearly as many women are actually anti-abortion as claim to be, at least in their own personal choices. And the women who are are perfectly comfortable forcing other women to carry pregnancies to term. How is that not misogyny?

Why ask me? I don’t claim to know what they’re thinking, I’m just skeptical at the idea that misogynists are so evenly distributed between genders.

Why don’t you actually go talk to pro-life people and really listen to what they have to say? You might discover a better line of argument than just saying “stop being a woman hater”.

It’s not like this is a new concept for me. I’ve had plenty of conversations with women who want other women to carry pregnancies to term against their will. It’s almost always god’s will. One of my dearest friends takes a feminist perspective on it, but only in terms of cherry picked historical positioneering. I’ve yet to hear a single explanation for forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term that isn’t dehumanizing to the woman. Because it’s inherently is dehumanizing.

I’ll ask you again: isn’t forcing a woman to use her uterus to host another life against her will misogynist? You don’t have to be one of the women who share that view to agree that the women who don’t (and the large number of women who do but get abortions anyway) don’t deserve to be forced to be living fetus nurseries.

You certainly can label it as misogyny if you wish to, and you’re not wrong, but ultimately it’s little more than a pejorative. Outside the confines of a Foucauldian academic discussion, these words are used to define and exclude people, not to understand them.

It damages our ability to have a constructive conversation with people who have opposing views, because it implies that they carry some unreasonable inner hatred of women within them, and that they can never be persuaded, only defeated and disempowered politically.

I don’t wish to carry on a conversation with people who want to force women to carry fetuses in their bodies. It is worth excluding from any further conversation. I’ve learned all I need to know about it. I want to defeat and disempower them so they can’t harm more women.

I hope you reconsider your approach. It won’t help you much if you one day find yourself in a persecuted minority.

I’m several thanks.

I wonder if you'll someday see that this dismissive, self-satisfied attitude is actually harming your cause much more than it is helping. All you're doing is coming off as the same brand of ideologue you're specifically trying to take down.

I’m not sure where you got the impression that the problem I have with anti-abortion is ideology. The problem is moral: they want to force women to be pregnant against their will. What is there to discuss? What would it benefit women who don’t want to be forced to be pregnant against their will for me to consider it more? Who would it convince? Who is going “oh maybe I don’t want to force women to be pregnant against their will, but this guy is certain about it so I’m gonna have to go ahead and force them after all”?

Yes, plenty of women have been mislead into misogyny.

It's pretty misogynist to assume the only reason a woman could have a different opinion from you (a male) is because she was misled.

There’s a long history of oppressive systems favoring their target of oppression as champions of their oppressive views. It’s not misogyny to say that it is misogyny for some women to force other women to keep a fetus in their body.

The only reason for anyone to be bigoted is because they were mislead.

How's being bigoted relate to this? Most people oppose killing innocent people. What is and isn't a "person" is partially a subjective judgement; people who oppose abortion might believe that e.g. a one-month-old foetus constitutes a "person", while people who support abortion might disagree. People have a right to believe that killing one-month-old foetuses is wrong just like vegans have a right to believe that killing animals for food is wrong; there's no objective answer to moral questions.

No one believes that people shouldn't have the right to kill a parasite. If the embryo/fetus could survive outside the womb I would be pro-life, but it can't. If you were the only match for someone who needed a kidney transplant should you be forced to give up a kidney? Abortion is no different.

>If the embryo/fetus could survive outside the womb I would be pro-life, but it can't.

The youngest foetus to survive premature birth was around 24 weeks old, so does that mean you oppose abortion of foetuses older than that, as they could survive outside of the womb?

If the doctor believes the fetus can survive I can see the argument. Would have to think more to come to a conclusion. So I guess I was a bit presumptuous there, but I'm leaning toward save the fetus. Now that probably doesn't mean 24 week cutoff, since I assume many if not most fetuses would not be able to survive at that point.

So you are ok with people that just leave their babies to starve or in a trash can? After all, they can't survive without the outside help, those fucking parasites...

Well the government is willing to care for the baby at that point. So no, you should be obligated to drop the baby off with child services. If no one was willing to care for your child I'd probably be ok with that though.

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