It is frustrating. I am on one side of the abortion debate, but I understand the other side, yet I have no success in even explaining it to my side.
Bodily autonomy is probably a weak argument, because it assumes that the fetus isn't a living human being deserving of the same protections against slaughter that you and I enjoy.
If it is, bodily autonomy doesn't justify murder.
If it's not, then protecting it from abortion is absurd.
In neither case though, is bodily autonomy a compelling argument.
You seem to be saying that "personhood" should be the deciding factor of abortion rights, but "personhood" is never going to be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Bodily autonomy can and should be.
Bodily autonomy is usually clear in most instances, but it might be overridden by personhood, so it doesn’t help resolve the debate to everybody’s satisfaction.
We all just want to go about our lives within being forced by law to sacrifice our rights to our bodies.
My thing with the hypothetical kid needing a kidney wasn't that a parent refusing to donate would be a good person, it was that by principle of law it would be immoral to force them to do it. That was taking the "pro-life" perspective all the way to "it's a whole-ass person" and showing that the concept of bodily autonomy still protects the parent, even if you don't agree with what they do. I don't mind if you think I'm a monster for getting an abortion, I just want to ensure that that choice is there for those who want or need it.
I get that it's a really intense issue for a lot of people, but all I wish is that folks didn't feel like whether someone else carries their pregnancy to term is a criticism of what they've done or want to do. It's truly not. I know for myself I have a list a mile long of reasons I would never carry or raise a child; some are personal and some aren't, but I am still happy when my loved ones welcome a new member into their family.
I used to be pro-choice. I think a lot of women (and men) are because of the fear they might be in a position of needing an abortion themselves, or other abstract/potential concerns. Framed as a right to body autonomy, pro-choice seemed the obvious position of any feminist, and how could you possibly believe otherwise?
Then I was in the position of having to make the decision myself. Now, years removed, I still don't feel comfortable posting details online, even under a pseudonym. But suffice to say my partner and I were in a position of having to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy that we had really wanted, due to unexpected medical news. Suddenly all those clever pro-choice arguments seemed hollow, now that we were in the position of making the decision ourselves. This was a real thing. She had a heartbeat. We watched her move and react on the ultrasound. We had, for weeks, imbued our hopes and dreams into this unborn child. We could terminate, but it'd be our call. We'd be pulling the trigger. In that moment I finally understood and emotionally connected with the pro-life position and "abortion is murder!" slogans.
Now I recognize it is a much more complex, multi-faceted issue than I ever previously thought. Every now and then I look and my daughter and think: I almost killed you. How could I have possibly done that? I get the arguments on both sides of the issue, and I don't think that there is any simple solution. It now frustrates me to no end to see people being very loud and very vocal about what are essentially straw man versions of the opposing side's arguments, and vilifying anyone who thinks differently or has lived a different experience. Whatever happened to civil society?
Note that I am not saying that abortion should be illegal or unavailable. We still put serial killers to death, pull the plug with advance directives, allow for self defense, and we ought too allow abortions when the fetus hasn’t cross the threshold into being a human being (which is when?!?) or in carved out exemptions like rape, incest, life of the mother, etc. As far as I’m aware this is a rather centrist position.
The point of my story of my lived experience is that it made me realize the mainstream “pro-life” position is not trying to attack the autonomy of the woman (which is a straw man caricature of their view) but to be the defender of the baby, of which they feel needs but is lacking equal protection under the law.
That didn’t make me pro-life, and I don’t think I said I was. I said it is complicated and nuanced, and I can see the arguments made in good faith on both sides. It is easy to attack a straw man. It is much harder to reconcile with the steel-manned belief of the other side and not walk away without some certainty shaken. I still feel women deserve to have a right to an abortion when needed, but it is also not an unconditional right: society is allowed some say in determining rules and guidelines, just like other medical practices which affect the life of another are regulated. This isn’t a defiance of your bodily autonomy as a woman; it’s recognition that the child growing inside you is (after some point) a distinct human being with its own right to bodily autonomy. “Your right to swing your fist ends at my face” and all that.
1) trying to convince or manipulate someone else or themselves to their benefit, either to agree with them (which feels good), or do something they want (which feels good)
2) self awareness, especially on self mental health, is in extremely short supply.
Here is the thing, the majority of people who actually reason and think about these topics have heard the same arguments now for 20 years or more. There is nothing new being said, there is no movement on the position of people on either side, and thus there is no more discussion. All you see is propaganda, which I don't care to engage with. So I vote and donate so that "my side" wins and that's that.
Adopting a Least Convenient Possible World principle makes the questions even harder. If you could push a button to have a Star Trek style transporter instantly and painlessly teleport the fetus into an artificial womb, should you still be allowed to kill it instead?
I think it's better to just accept that abortion is prematurely terminating a life and thus the primary consideration should be the cost the parents and/or society can pay. Can society afford the cost of raising unwanted children and of the cycle of abuse that often comes along? and similarly, can society afford the cost of the lifestyle that makes people choose abortion to focus on other things? These things are much easier to discuss. As a 'bonus' this framework also handles the justification for countries which have legal abortion except with restrictions like barring abortions after sex determination.
There seems to be a large agreement that abortion within the first trimester is acceptable, so I think that while it's terrible that it has to happen, society on average currently puts the line between the first and second trimesters for where the costs of both sides balance out, such that even if the fetus could be teleported into an artificial womb, an unconditional abortion should be acceptable. I think the artificial womb point only works if it also somehow erases society's burden of raising the child.
I used to think that "abortion is rarely a happy decision but is still sometimes necessary" was the consensus position so it was pretty odd to me when I first became aware of the state of debate over it in the US.
I guess since this is your opinion I can't say it's wrong, but I can strongly suggest that this opinion is wrong. Is abortion the killing of a child? If it is not then why does a state like California have laws written about double homicide that say:
> defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being or a fetus with malice aforethought. [0]
If we already have laws like this in a state as liberal as California, then clearly the argument that an abortion is murder is reasonable.
Put another way, would you tell a mother grieving for her miscarriage that she didn't actually lose a child? She just lost a fetus after all, so it's not like there's much to grieve about.
Or would you say that a woman that had her unborn baby killed while having some sort of altercation or accident isn't entitled to prosecute the perpetrator? If she has the right to pursue legal action against somebody, then there is clearly some sort of "precedent" about an unborn child having rights. This is an argument that can and should be explored further instead of dismissed since it's a "touchy subject". The law is full of hard truths, and it's our responsibility to explore these to make sure we're not carrying out injustice.
[0]: https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/fetal-homicide-state-la...
These sorts of inconsistencies in the law can easily be sorted out. If the fetus is not a human with rights yet then if another person terminates it (against the mothers wishes) then you've clearly harmed the mother. This is literally the same argument for abortion, under some development threshold of X months, its called healthcare.
As I said, this same discussion has happened for the last 20 years. I'm never going to be swayed to your side on this. Maybe this is all novel for you. But nothing you said is new to me and I just don't care to debate it or discuss it. I completely understand you point of view, but I disagree and will continue to disagree and fight for women's health and rights.
I think that California treats killing a pregnant woman as double homicide to make it a harsher punishment rather than the other way around.
>Put another way, would you tell a mother grieving for her miscarriage that she didn't actually lose a child? She just lost a fetus after all, so it's not like there's much to grieve about.
I think it's slightly ironic you would suggest this, because my position is based on the belief that abortions are often just as emotionally difficult for parents as miscarriages. In which case it's equally insensitive to tell a woman who just had to abort a child from rape (or alternatively, due to a life threatening condition) that she is a murderer.
To further clarify my position, we can look at the two answers to the question "Is it murder to kill a fetus?":
1. It is murder. In this case, the surface level position would be that abortion should be illegal. But then we get to details and usually people are fine with allowing it in certain cases. Thus making murder acceptable in specific circumstances, making abortion about which circumstances are acceptable.
2. It isn't murder. In this case, the surface level position would be that abortion should be legal. But then we run into the examples you presented. Thus once again making abortion about which circumstances are unacceptable.
So in the end, as far as abortion is concerned, it does not matter if it is or is not murder, because the specific issue to be figured out is which circumstances are acceptable/unacceptable in a practical way (rather than the unrealistic ideological proposals that usually fly around due to the simple answers to "Is it murder to kill a fetus?" both being very extreme).
I think reading through a lot of these other comments definitely got to me, and put me in a negative emotional state by the time I got to your comment. But after a couple hours, and re-reading your comments it seems like you're taking a well balanced approach, and I think that I could learn a thing or two from that :)
After all, no matter how much we teach safe sex, some people will still make mistakes and often pro-lifers treat having to raise the child as a fitting punishment for the parents, which obviously isn't all that respectful of the child's life either.
And yes, I can understand getting into that mindset, which is why I generally avoid these discussions (on reddit for example) :)
It gets pretty frustrating to see people emotionally arguing for extreme positions without attempting to at least understand the other position's emotions.
There's no dots to connect between one thing and the other. Someone can be a hardcore Catholic and invent an abortion device or an atheist could come up with a fancy new way of manufacturing crosses. Their stance on religion is irrelevant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scient... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lay_Catholic_scientist...