Three plaintiffs testified about the trauma they experienced carrying nonviable pregnancies.

    • Shikadi@wirebase.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

        • Shikadi@wirebase.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          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.

          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.

          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 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.

          I think all 3 have equal rights, and that none of us should be able to end the life of the others.

          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?

          But the fact that it’s the mothers intentional actions that brought the life to the world

          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.

          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.

          This is fine, but what’s not fine is supporting government policies that force the decision on women. Especially blanket ones with no exceptions.

            • Shikadi@wirebase.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              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.

              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.

              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.

              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.

              99.9% effective for some, and combining contraceptives makes the rates extremely small.

              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.

              Did I say that?

              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.

              There’s an argument that abortions don’t respect the babies lives, male or female.

              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.

              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? Actually good counterpoint I hadn’t thought of. In my opinion it’s still different and a very special case because you’re the legal guardian in that case. If someone drops a baby off at your doorstep and you don’t feed it and it dies, there aren’t legal protections there.

              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.

              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’ve already mentioned multiple times about exceptions. If you want to keep bringing this up, you can. My answer has stayed consistent.

              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.

                • Shikadi@wirebase.org
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  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 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.

                  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.

            • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              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?

                • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  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.

        • Cabrio@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          To have individual rights, one must first be individual. If you don’t know the definition of individual, pick up a dictionary.

    • Cabrio@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      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.