the problem is that just being a human does not translate that human organism has a RIGHT to LIFE that requires another person gestate that life in their body. A right to life does not entitle a born person or unborn person to be gestated or connected to another person's body and use their body to sustain their life. Being a human life is not enough to entitle that organism SPECIAL rights which is not the same as equal rights.
Athena, when a woman chooses to have sex she chooses the possibility of creating a life inside of her body and then yes she does become obligated to gestate that body that is growing inside of hers! Your right to sex is not more important than someone else's right to life! That is selfish, self-centered, self-seeking and immature!
Honestly, while this argument is really common, I’m not crazy about it and think it misses the point. I don’t make any assumptions about sex being fully consensual, nor do I assume that abortion rights are based on some sort of automatic right to not have parenting obligations unless you specifically agreed to them. Instead, I would say:
People should have the right to be free from sexual contact unless they consent to it (and consent means being old enough, competent enough, and sober enough to give consent). Consent can be revoked at any point, and it isn’t consent of refusal is not a realistic possibility.
We need to keep in mind that non-consensual sex doesn’t always look like a stranger leaping out of the bushes. It can look like someone who doesn’t feel safe refusing their partner, someone who has an intoxicated partner who doesn’t listen to them saying no, someone who says “please don’t” but doesn’t fight back because they were told that it is a wife’s duty to submit to sex, someone who was threatened with deportation without their children if their spouse ever decided to divorce them for not being exciting enough in bed, etc. We need to make sure that people can recognize sexual abuse, and that help is available so that they ha e realistic options if they are dealing with it.
Once a child exists, it has needs which don’t disappear just because the conception wasn’t intended or the needs were not anticipated.
Children do not exist to teach people lessons about responsibility or stop them from caring about their own needs. It isn’t about lessons or feelings at all. They are just people with needs that must be met. I hope that everyone, regardless of position on abortion, could at least agree on these points. The debate is really about whether a pregnant woman can control what is happening in her body and how it is being used, and also control what she does with her body while she is pregnant, whether this is subject to any limitations and if so, what those limitations are.
Yeah, religious arguments are probably about as convincing to atheists as chanting "Wololo" at them would be. (50 points to anyone who got that reference)
I don’t make any assumptions about sex being fully consensual, nor do I assume that abortion rights are based on some sort of automatic right to not have parenting obligations unless you specifically agreed to them.
Instead, I would say:
I hope that everyone, regardless of position on abortion, could at least agree on these points.
The debate is really about whether a pregnant woman can control what is happening in her body and how it is being used, and also control what she does with her body while she is pregnant, whether this is subject to any limitations and if so, what those limitations are.
(50 points to anyone who got that reference)