For all the pro-lifers on this site, both Josh and Timothy, someone please answer my question, does the uterus owner have the right to control the contents of her uterus? does uterus owner lose her rights to her uterus and now it belongs to the embryo/fetus? if i as a pro-choicer come up to you and tell you that i am pregnant, (5 weeks or so) and tell you that i refuse to be an incubator for 9 months and go thru childbirth, that i think it is disgusting and de-humanizing to be pregnant, what you would say to me?
Sometimes when I'm dialoguing they ask what I'm doing here, and they're very suspicious. So I say what that we're out here doing a free speech poll about abortion to try to hear what people think, then talk to them about it. Some of these people seem deceived when I start asking questions, because they feel misled that I said it's just a poll when really I'm trying to change their mind. Is there a better way to answer their initial question? Also, in response to this article, I suppose I can't exactly picture where in the conversation to say this. Is it right after your first question?
When I'm doing a poll table event and people ask about the event, I prefer to be more direct and transparent about it. If you give a misleading answer, it's just going to come back to bite you. I typically say something like, "We're doing an informal poll, we're interested in what people think about abortion." If people ask what side I'm on, I answer very directly. "I think abortion is immoral," or if I'm feeling a little cheeky, "I think if the unborn is a human person, then abortion is immoral." I'm actually very quick to volunteer that the poll isn't that interesting. We count the results of the poll but it isn't a scientific poll and we don't care about it that much. Really, we just want to have productive conversations where people don't yell at each other because we think the issue really matters. People tend to respect that. As far as when to say it, that all depends on the conversation. I wish I had an easy formula to give you but I really don't. It's one of the things I look for an opportunity to non-awkwardly say. If they say something like, "My views might be considered controversial," or in some other way express a hesitancy to be straightforward, I'll say it then. I might say it when I'm talking about how important I think dialogue is and how frustrating it is when people are polarized and won't listen to each other. I think everyone should be intentional about saying this, but when they should say it comes down to personal style somewhat.
you said; "I think if the unborn is a human person, then abortion is immoral" The problem with this statement is that no person born or unborn, have a right to be gestated inside another person's body. If the issue of abortion was just about the unborn "having a right to life", that did NOT require gestation, then i say it can have all of the right to life it wants. The problem is for the unborn to live at least until viability (outside the body), it requires a willing host and a uterus. You cannot compel someone to gestate a life in their body against their will. I am pro-choice because, i believe women have a right to refuse to gestate a pregnancy , regardless how they got pregnant. It is violation of her bodily autonomy to be forced to gestate against her will, just like it would be a violation to of your body to take your kidney or suck your blood. Uterus owner has a right to refuse gestation. An embryo/fetus does not have a right to uterus just because it needs one to live , not trying to be callous, but i put the pregnant woman's right FIRST.
This blog post isn't really about the bodily rights objection, though I've written about that elsewhere, and I'm working on another post that relates strongly to the forced gestation objection. No spoilers. ;) I do think a bodily rights position like yours is a far superior pro-choice argument than most.
you said : I do think a bodily rights position like yours is a far superior pro-choice argument than most. Of course it is, i wish more pro-choicers used this argument, i think everything else is irrelevent, because i know even pro-lifers do NOT believe in forcing a woman to gestate against her will, they know deep down a woman has a right to refuse.
If all she was doing was refusing, than I'd say she has a right to do it, in the same way that you'd have the right to refuse being hooked up to a violinist. The problem is that abortion isn't refusing to gestate a child, abortion is intentionally killing a child. You don't have the right to dismember the fetus any more than you have a right to take a machete and dismember the violinist. Hypothetically, if we had a way of helping a woman not have to gestate a baby that she didn't want to gestate, and without killing the baby (like if we had awesome artificial womb technology), then I'd fight alongside you to prevent women from being forced to gestate against their will.
"Hypothetically, if we had a way of helping a woman not have to gestate a baby that she didn't want to gestate, and without killing the baby (like if we had awesome artificial womb technology), then I'd fight alongside you to prevent women from being forced to gestate against their will. the problem is their is no way to stop gestation WITHOUT killiing the embryo, their are no artificial wombs for it to be transferred, So basically you are saying you are for forcing gestation? So you are saying the embryo/fetus HAS a right to a uterus, and the woman has no right to to refus gestation.
I think the language of "forcing gestation" is incredibly misleading. I'm saying "don't intentionally kill children." As it happens, that removes all of the alternatives to continuing gestation. That may sound like the same thing to you, but think of it in terms of a toddler. If you wanted to kill your toddler and I said "don't intentionally kill children," and you responded with "how dare you FORCE me to be a parent," I'd say you're using misleading language there too, even if there were no adoption services for you to turn to.
Only problem is... I don't think there is a right of toddlers to be cared for by a particular person, any more than there is a right of fetuses to be gestated by a particular person. If you want to feed toddlers or gestate fetuses, you will not be stopped. The fact that you can't or don't want to doesn't create a right to force others to do so. Tell me: Do you think Bill Haast should have been strapped down and forced to donate blood to Snake bite victims if he didn't want to? Or is it only the uterus and not blood that is up for grabs?
No it is not misleading, the alternative to stopping someone from terminating a pregnancy is by "default" forcing them to gestate against their will . You are trying to avoid the issue, by re-labeling it as killing children, i will NOT FALL for that and i say it with all due respect. Removing a pregnancy to me is stopping a gestation process, and medically i am correct, since abortion is a medical procedure, to terminate a pregnancy. So if i become pregnant and stop me from procuring an abortion, you are forcing me to stay pregnant and that is a violation of my bodily rights. So from my perspective, yes , you are forcing a gestation process, since without it being interrupted, the embryo/fetus will continue to be in my body and continue to use my body against my will Does that make sense to you? So again let me ask you , are you comfortable with forcing women like me to stay pregnant against my will, and force me to endure 9 months of physical changes and the trauma of childbirth? Please do not answer with "killing children" please stay on topic which is GESTATION.
You have completely ignored my argument. I'm not attempting to trick you or get you to fall for anything. You said you thought the personhood stuff was irrelevant, it's all bodily rights. So for the sake of argument, we should treat the embryo as a human person, just like Thomson's violinist story does. No tricks here. The "forcing gestation" language is misleading, for the same reason that "forced parenthood" is misleading in the example I shared above. I'm well aware of the practical implications of saying "don't kill the embryo" given the lack of artificial womb technology. The implication is that she can't have an abortion, which means having to carry the baby to term. But that isn't forcing gestation any more than it is forcing parenthood to tell someone "don't kill your two year old, even though no one else will or can adopt your two year old."
So for the sake of argument, we should treat the embryo as a human person, just like Thomson's violinist story does. No tricks here. Actually, yes, there IS a trick. You need to define what you mean by the term 'human person'. If you mean 'mindless cells with special human DNA', there is nothing of value in that. If you mean a 'thinking feeling person with brain function'... the embryo doesn't qualify.
In addition you contradict yourself when you said that you are NOT against someone refusing to gestate, yet you are against abortion because it dismembers, well what, do you expect the embro to leave on its own? You never answered my question how else should a woman stop the gestation process? If a woman has the right to refuse gestation then she has the right to remove it from her uterus using whatever force necessary You cannot both say you are against forced gestation and then say you are against someone actually excercising that right because it might be ugly.
This kind of comment is exactly the kind of thing that convinces me that it isn't a good use of my time to bother arguing with you. There obviously isn't any contradiction in what I said. I'd be against forcing people to stay pregnant if we had a non-lethal way to remove the child, but currently we don't. That is not a contradiction. I'm sure there are people on the internet interested in having debates that go nowhere and where parties lob those kinds of distracting comments on each other, but I'll pass.
** There obviously isn't any contradiction in what I said. ** Do you support forced organ donation? Currently, we have no non-lethal way other than organ transplants to keep certain people alive, so unless you support forced organ transplants, you are a hypocrite, who wants the uterus and ONLY the uterus to be up for grabs against the will of the organ owner, and the human fetus and ONLY the human fetus, and no other needy person to have this special right. Which in turn would mean, yes, there is a contradiction.
Yeah to them the uterus belongs to others except the person who actually has it in their body. They think they have the right to tell someone what to do with their uterus. They are not for equal rights, but "special rights" for the embryo/fetus, it has a special right to a uterus.
you said "this kind of comment" Was i disrepectful to you in in any way? I just want a straight answer from you , do you believe as a woman that i control the contents of my uterus? and that as the uterus owner, i have final say on what grows there? Also answer me does an embryo/fetus have MORE rights than ME TO MY UTERUS? answer me this questions and we can stop the conversation if you like.
Ok then just say that you are for forcing women to stay pregnant, since their is NO non-lethal way to remove an embyro without it dying am i correct? Just admit that you believe that a woman loses the rights to her body and HER uterus and that the embryo/fetus HAS MORE RIGHTS OVER THE UTERUS, than the uterus owner? Am i correct? I say this with respect, you just dont want to admit that you CANNOT defeat my bodily autonomy/rights argument . i don't know about you, but i am willing to continue this conversation, and i am not the one that is trying to minimize bodily rights.
"I say this with respect, you just dont want to admit that you CANNOT defeat my bodily autonomy/rights argument" It is not respectful to say that I am ending our conversation because anything other than the reason I said. If you wanted to have a respectful conversation, you'd have responded to my last comment by apologizing for being so quick on the trigger to accuse me of a contradiction. Instead, you continue with the same tone and posture, and declare that I'm just afraid of your argument. Give me a break. If you read this blog, you should have a clue about the kinds of abortion arguments I'm interested in. This kind of obnoxious internet behavior is the opposite. I genuinely hope you have a nice day, and that you find people who enjoy sparring the way you do.
Tim - I've seen the game of pretending to be offended and making excuses for not responding to a particular question, because you can't refute it, thousands of times before. It's not some new and brilliant tactic. It's something done by immature idiots, and whenever you try it, you are telling the world loudly and clearly that you are an immature idiot, and your position can't hold up to the hard questions.
As our comments policy clearly states, our goal in moderating comments is to encourage an atmosphere where people can respectfully disagree and consider each other's ideas. We have no problem with people voicing their disagreement. We have a problem with people being nasty to each other and trying to control conversations with things like namecalling. You are banned for calling someone else in the thread an "immature idiot."
i have a question for you? You say that an embryo/fetus should have equal rights as a born person, yet you want to compel a woman to donate her uterus to PROVIDE that embryo/fetus life. That is NOT equal rights, that is "SPECIAL" RIGHTS. Having the use of another person's body to live is NOT equal rights. Equal rights would be for the embryo/fetus to be able to live outside a host body on its own. Why should the embryo/fetus have "special rights" that no born person has which is a uterus to live in that HAS to be provided by another person? If you say that the embryo/fetus is in its natural environment, well, why must the uterus owner have to provide it? why can't it find its own natural environment elsewhere or with another host? The fact that the embryo/fetus needs a uterus does NOT make it a right. Your answer to these questions would be appreciated.
Since we have no artificial wombs, i want you to answer the forced gestation question with the technology we have today, not in some hypothetical future. If i come to you and tell you that i refuse to stay pregnant because i think it is disgusting and humiliating , what would you say to me?
To me it is a contradiction (not trying to be snarky) to say that you are against forced gestation, yet, you want to stop someone from having an abortion , which by default forces gestation process to continue. You are very thinned skinned, if you asking me to apologize for simply misunderstanding you?
I disagree, an analogy is if I have a parasite in my body and you stop me from killing it , you are by default ALLOWING The parasite to live inside of me for it will not remove itself on its own. By stopping me from terminating a pregnancy , yes you are allowing the gestation to continue. Which is forcing by default to gestate for 9 months and endure childbirth. The fact that an embryo is human is irrelevent it has NO right to my uterus. My uterus , I own it so , I control its contents. Do you dispute that I own my uterus?
abortion is the only way to remove a pregnancy, it isn't like the woman can WILL it out of her body, it has to be forcibly removed either by an abortion pill to expel it out or suctioned out. Are you opposed to a removal for a pregnancy or are you opposed to the method of how it is done?
the embryo will die either way without a host body? Let me ask you what should a woman do than to remove an unwanted pregnancy, if the vacuum suction is unacceptable to you, how else does a a woman STOP a gestation?
"The problem is that abortion isn't refusing to gestate a child, abortion is intentionally killing a child. You don't have the right to dismember the fetus any more than you have a right to take a machete and dismember the violinist" You are wrong, the fact , the abortion pill if done early in pregnancy does NOT dismember the embryo, and if you are speaking about the vacuum 1st trimester abortion, the dismemberment is caused by the vacuum suction, it is not done maliciously. The removal causes the death, either way the embryo/fetus will die WITHOUT A
It seems like your last reply was cut off or something. The abortion pill does not dismember the embryo. I refer to dismemberment because 99.9999% of pro-choice people I've talked with defend first trimester surgical abortions. Defending the intentional dismemberment of a child on the grounds that it isn't done maliciously seems sketchy to me. I think there are Gosnell types that might be malicious, but probably most are not. Do you think you have the right to take a machete and dismember the violinist as long as you aren't having malicious feelings while you're doing it? Suppose for sake of argument that your body will have an easier recovery from the violinist removal procedure if he's dead when you unplug.
Pretty darn hard to 'dismember' an embryo/fetus, the size of a raisin to an olive. The violinist, my dear, is a conscious free-living human being. Embryos and early fetuses are not sentient, nor are they "children", nor are they "human beings".
i mentioned the abortion pill, they would probably be against in anyway (even if it does not dismember). They just insist that a woman that becomes pregnant has to stay pregnant and they won't just go ahead and say it because they know how it makes them look. They don't really want to admit how utterly disgusting and inhumane that is to completely disregard a woman's bodily autonomy, so they try to avoid the question and change the subject and talk about killing 2 year olds instead. The truth is they cannot refute the bodily autonomy argument and they know it. They don't like me using the words "forced gestation", though that is exactly what it is when you try to stop someone from terminating the gestation. I hope one day to speak to a pro-lifer face to face and they will most certainly have a piece of my mind, i will not be a coward and walk away, i would actually confront them.
well let me ask you, how else do you intend for women to remove an unwanted pregnancy? 1st trimester abortions are done by vacuum suction and or abortion pill. 2nd trimester abortion are the surgical ones by the way. So again if their is no better technology to remove an embryo/fetus, how else do you think a woman should stop a gestation process? If you are against abortion because of the method that is a weak argument for no matter how it is done, the embryo/fetus WILL DIE. so please answer my questions above? Are you against the method of removal or the removal? since you yourself said you are NOT for forcing gestation, then you are FOR the woman removing the pregnancy right?
sigh. You know, I am getting really tired about the sobs regarding 'dismembering, decapitating, burning' blah blah blah, the 'pwecious baybee'. As well as sobs about anatomical terms like 'blood', 'tiny arms and legs'. All of the above have NO moral meaning, unless they are applied to thinking, feeling beings, and I'm not going to feel sad when they are talked about regarding mindless embryos, no matter how many cute pictures of perfect, 8 1/2 month fetuses are waved around. The bait and switch didn't work on my the first 10,000 times it was tried, it's not going to work the NEXT 10,000 times it was tried, and it's getting to be a very boring tactic. You'd think they could come up with something else, just for variety's sake.
You aren't the target audience though. They're more going for people that actually have functioning consciences, not people that type out rape fantasies about people that disagree with them.
RE: "You'd think they could come up with something else, just for variety's sake." You'd think so...but wombsniffers aren't the brightest bunch when it comes to originality. For example, they ALL like to post mined-quotes from old developmental biology textbooks provided to them in a list by liveaction, to declare that "human beings" are created at conception. https://www.liveaction.org/news/40-quotes-from-medical-experts-that-prove-human-life-begins-at-conception/ I just got that self-same list posted to me from "myintx", a loon if ever there was one, and I pointed out to him/her that she, and liveaction, were quoting from the 7th edition of Keith Moore, The Developing Human, and to get with the times as the 10th edition is out--wherein the high incidence of loss of embryos is discussed and abortion.
As our comments policy clearly states, our goal in moderating comments is to encourage an atmosphere where people can respectfully disagree and consider each other's ideas. We have no problem with people voicing their disagreement. We have a problem with people being nasty to each other and trying to control conversations with things like name-calling. You are banned for calling someone people "wombsniffers."
they seem to approve of an intact removal of an embryo (no dismembering) and it being transferred into an artificial womb (which we don't have) otherwise a woman is HAS to STAY pregnant even against her will. Oh and they equate killing a toddler with aborting a 5- week embryo.
gladys, when considering your answer to the below, bear in mind that many forced birthers object to CEASEREANS, despite the fact that failing to use them can result in a dead or disabled 'precious baybee', on the grounds that having a cesearean is the 'easy way out' for the woman. Whatever that means, but bear that in mind when considering your answer. Despite their sobs about the 'baybee's very life' they would rather have the baby DIE, then have it live, if it means things might be slightly easier for the 'slutz'.
Correction - you mean that they 'approve' of the artificial womb for NOW. Should it actually be developed... do you that there will be a special tax on forced birthers to pay for it's use? Or that they will want it used if it is as cheap as an abortion, and no harder physically on the woman, or at that point will they somehow come up with an objection?
i love the dodging of the question about forced gestation, they never want to admit that they DO want to force a woman to STAY pregnant even against their will, they don't want to say it and instead change the subject and bring up toddlers , you will notice.
Thank you for your kind response. I may be an outlier, but yes the idea of gestating is utterly abhorrent to me and the idea of forcing another person to do so is abhorrent to me. That is why i am pro-choice, to me all of the issues of personhood, responsibility, when life begins and all of that are IRRELEVENT to me. My issue is you cannot force someone to be an incubator for 9 months PERIOD, does not matter to me if they the "life" is human, cat, dog, or a lizard. To me it is a no brainer that the person who owns the uterus gets to decide. The woman OWNS her uterus no matter what and she gets to decide what grows there.
Hi, I'm kind of curious as to your thoughts on this article, which has to do with the kind of causing offense that you mentioned: http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/05/allies-say-this-instead-defensive/ You said, "They are surrounded by a world of trigger warnings and microaggressions. They worry that they’ll be shouted down if they say something that could be perceived as racist, sexist, homophobic, or somehow bigoted. They also really don’t want to be any of those things." I've experienced this - a lot - when talking to other liberals. I'm terrified of causing offense, their shutting down the conversation so I can never speak to them again, bringing down the whole world crashing around my ears if I say something out of step, but I want to learn how to be more afraid to be unable to say truth than to say it, in and of itself. So what would you suggest for someone like me? How can you take stands for yourself in a nonabrasive manner, reduce fear when talking to people like that (this one is important), etc. One good way I've thought of is if they get nasty, tell them you won't talk to them unless they stop it.
i'm the kind of sjw you have in mind... i think many feminists' opinion is that it's morally wrong to make abortion illegal. the only acceptable ways of being pro-life are education (but no fearmongering or inaccurate info), birth control, offering support for the poor and vulnerable and that sort of thing. (which is what you're advocating for, i've seen some of your comments) as for the other issues, i just wrote a comment here https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/responding-question-rape-wisdom-compassion/#comment-3588114986 it may not be as calm as you'd like but i hope you bear with me. the way many pro-lifers are christian and anti-lgbt+ is a big deal to us. (i myself was a progressive christian for a few years, until it no longer felt intellectually honest) i have to say i would be very impressed if i saw pro-life arguments that don't assume anyone who's pregnant is a woman. and for trans/non-binary people it's really important because this reduces them to their uterus. it says nothing else matters. also, gender&sexuality may be complicated but hopefully you genuinely care about not being racist, ableist, fatphobic etc. these should hopefully be much easier to just research and learn. one example is that from what i know, black people really don't like it when other kinds of discrimination or abuse are compared to racism, at least not as long as black people continue to be disproportionately killed by police officers. (i'm guilty of that myself because a lot of people don't consider sexism as bad as racism) in terms of ableism there are mixed opinions and many are just happy if you don't use words like r*tard... but i guess some arguments about special need kids may be ableist. also as a related point, i really hate the term "beautiful baby" (also as a feminist). like for example if someone was told to have an abortion, decided against it, and as a result there's a beautiful baby. would it be any less valuable if it were an ugly baby? and if you mean "healthy baby", don't use "beautiful" to mean healthy. if you're wondering why i mentioned fatphobia, of all things, well, all talk of intentional weight loss relies on some harmful stereotypes about fatness. as an example it would be seen as fatphobic to post some before and after pics of a happy mum who easily lost weight after birth, with a caption dismissing some concerns about pregnancy. (i have no idea what kind of stuff you post, it's just an example) there's also a site for sharing microaggressions, so this may help you understand what people mean by this term. generally i don't think it applies much to the abortion debate, at least not the way this blog teaches one to argue against it. a microaggression would be to laugh at a joke about "ugly women not needing birth control" with someone whom you consider an attractive woman and definitely not a target of this joke. microaggressions are often based on a belief that this specific person has no need to be offended (for example i'm a brunette and people often tell me jokes about blonds) honestly, simply caring about not offending people is already a big step. the next one is acknowledging that you may have the best of intentions and still offend someone ("intent isn't magical"). and as the article pointed out, most activists aren't really as frustrated with offensive remarks as with the defensiveness and dismissiveness that follows them. i hope i didn't offend you ;) and let me know if i can answer any further questions.
I think it's good for us to choose to not let things unnecessarily offend us. We're pretty much in control of that. Some people are going to be over-sensitive about what counts as offensive. When someone tells me that they think I said something offensive, I politely ask them why, and if I don't agree with their reasoning, I don't apologize, so I don't agree with the general thrust of the article you posted. Certainly I think it's appropriate to politely end a conversation where people are being persistently nasty. We've written a bit about that. https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/when-and-how-you-should-end-unproductive-conversations/ https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/dont-be-too-nice/
being offended is a feeling, an involuntary response. you can't control that. you can only control whether you express offence (including faking it). it's also common to claim someone is offended in an attempt to label them as emotional and irrational (especially women). from my perspective it's a tool often used when a woman is rightfully outraged about an attempt to control her body ;) also, the article already assumes you want to be an ally and do better. it's very frustrating when people use the outward signs like the rainbow flag or some kind of badge, but don't genuinely want to represent them better.
"Some people are going to be over-sensitive about what counts as offensive. When someone tells me that they think I said something offensive, I politely ask them why, and if I don't agree with their reasoning, I don't apologize, so I don't agree with the general thrust of the article you posted." Why do you see the article that way?
"Some people are going to be over-sensitive about what counts as offensive. When someone tells me that they think I said something offensive, I politely ask them why, and if I don't agree with their reasoning, I don't apologize, so I don't agree with the general thrust of the article you posted." Also, some people have good reasons to be offended, I think, so we should listen as much as possible. My method with that was to pick the second answer "I'll think about it" and if I didn't agree with their reasoning, attempt to rebut them when I'd thought through the answer. For the most part take their critique seriously because they've lived it and you haven't. I have read both articles you posted. But my question really was to do with how to reduce fear when talking to people who are likely to react with terms like "microaggression", screaming, blocking you out, etc. How should you respond to such people, and how can you reduce fear when talking to someone you think might react in that way before it happens? Is a good way to warn them in advance that what you say, they might not agree with, then present your views? Another opinion you might not agree with - conservatives have their own version of PC; they simply get offended over different things from liberals, like swearing, certain types of sexual topics, and non-Christian spiritualities, and might react by lashing out (I have experienced this as well).
The fact that someone has lived something and I haven't doesn't make their opinion true. It is a good reason to listen and consider, so as I said, if I don't agree with their reasoning, I don't apologize. It doesn't sound like we disagree much. If someone is being extremely poor at dialogue by screaming or yelling microaggression, I'm going to try to get them to calm down and have a rational dialogue, or I'm going to exit it. I don't have any grand techniques for trying to calm down hostile people. I listen a lot, I ask a lot of clarification questions, and I affirm their feelings as much as I can.
Yes that does make it harder, but the principle still applies. If people aren't willing to do anything but scream, I don't waste my time talking to them when I have better things I can be doing. I'm not sure what you're looking for.
How do you decrease the potential for a whole group of people to scream at and bully you, and reduce your own fears of mistreatment before presenting the potentially offending viewpoint?
if i as a pro-choicer come up to you and tell you that i am pregnant, (5 weeks or so) and tell you that i refuse to be an incubator for 9 months and go thru childbirth, that i think it is disgusting and de-humanizing to be pregnant, what you would say to me?
Also, in response to this article, I suppose I can't exactly picture where in the conversation to say this. Is it right after your first question?
As far as when to say it, that all depends on the conversation. I wish I had an easy formula to give you but I really don't. It's one of the things I look for an opportunity to non-awkwardly say. If they say something like, "My views might be considered controversial," or in some other way express a hesitancy to be straightforward, I'll say it then. I might say it when I'm talking about how important I think dialogue is and how frustrating it is when people are polarized and won't listen to each other. I think everyone should be intentional about saying this, but when they should say it comes down to personal style somewhat.
The problem with this statement is that no person born or unborn, have a right to be gestated inside another person's body. If the issue of abortion was just about the unborn "having a right to life", that did NOT require gestation, then i say it can have all of the right to life it wants.
The problem is for the unborn to live at least until viability (outside the body), it requires a willing host and a uterus. You cannot compel someone to gestate a life in their body against their will.
I am pro-choice because, i believe women have a right to refuse to gestate a pregnancy , regardless how they got pregnant. It is violation of her bodily autonomy to be forced to gestate against her will, just like it would be a violation to of your body to take your kidney or suck your blood.
Uterus owner has a right to refuse gestation. An embryo/fetus does not have a right to uterus just because it needs one to live , not trying to be callous, but i put the pregnant woman's right FIRST.
I do think a bodily rights position like yours is a far superior pro-choice argument than most.
Of course it is, i wish more pro-choicers used this argument, i think everything else is irrelevent, because i know even pro-lifers do NOT believe in forcing a woman to gestate against her will, they know deep down a woman has a right to refuse.
The problem is that abortion isn't refusing to gestate a child, abortion is intentionally killing a child. You don't have the right to dismember the fetus any more than you have a right to take a machete and dismember the violinist.
Hypothetically, if we had a way of helping a woman not have to gestate a baby that she didn't want to gestate, and without killing the baby (like if we had awesome artificial womb technology), then I'd fight alongside you to prevent women from being forced to gestate against their will.
the problem is their is no way to stop gestation WITHOUT killiing the embryo, their are no artificial wombs for it to be transferred,
So basically you are saying you are for forcing gestation?
So you are saying the embryo/fetus HAS a right to a uterus, and the woman has no right to to refus gestation.
Tell me: Do you think Bill Haast should have been strapped down and forced to donate blood to Snake bite victims if he didn't want to? Or is it only the uterus and not blood that is up for grabs?
Removing a pregnancy to me is stopping a gestation process, and medically i am correct, since abortion is a medical procedure, to terminate a pregnancy.
So if i become pregnant and stop me from procuring an abortion, you are forcing me to stay pregnant and that is a violation of my bodily rights.
So from my perspective, yes , you are forcing a gestation process, since without it being interrupted, the embryo/fetus will continue to be in my body and continue to use my body against my will
Does that make sense to you?
So again let me ask you , are you comfortable with forcing women like me to stay pregnant against my will, and force me to endure 9 months of physical changes and the trauma of childbirth?
Please do not answer with "killing children" please stay on topic which is GESTATION.
The "forcing gestation" language is misleading, for the same reason that "forced parenthood" is misleading in the example I shared above. I'm well aware of the practical implications of saying "don't kill the embryo" given the lack of artificial womb technology. The implication is that she can't have an abortion, which means having to carry the baby to term. But that isn't forcing gestation any more than it is forcing parenthood to tell someone "don't kill your two year old, even though no one else will or can adopt your two year old."
Actually, yes, there IS a trick. You need to define what you mean by the term 'human person'.
If you mean 'mindless cells with special human DNA', there is nothing of value in that.
If you mean a 'thinking feeling person with brain function'... the embryo doesn't qualify.
You never answered my question how else should a woman stop the gestation process?
If a woman has the right to refuse gestation then she has the right to remove it from her uterus using whatever force necessary
You cannot both say you are against forced gestation and then say you are against someone actually excercising that right because it might be ugly.
Do you support forced organ donation? Currently, we have no non-lethal way other than organ transplants to keep certain people alive, so unless you support forced organ transplants, you are a hypocrite, who wants the uterus and ONLY the uterus to be up for grabs against the will of the organ owner, and the human fetus and ONLY the human fetus, and no other needy person to have this special right.
Which in turn would mean, yes, there is a contradiction.
They are not for equal rights, but "special rights" for the embryo/fetus, it has a special right to a uterus.
Was i disrepectful to you in in any way? I just want a straight answer from you , do you believe as a woman that i control the contents of my uterus? and that as the uterus owner, i have final say on what grows there?
Also answer me does an embryo/fetus have MORE rights than ME TO MY UTERUS?
answer me this questions and we can stop the conversation if you like.
Just admit that you believe that a woman loses the rights to her body and HER uterus and that the embryo/fetus HAS MORE RIGHTS OVER THE UTERUS, than the uterus owner?
Am i correct?
I say this with respect, you just dont want to admit that you CANNOT defeat my bodily autonomy/rights argument .
i don't know about you, but i am willing to continue this conversation, and i am not the one that is trying to minimize bodily rights.
It is not respectful to say that I am ending our conversation because anything other than the reason I said. If you wanted to have a respectful conversation, you'd have responded to my last comment by apologizing for being so quick on the trigger to accuse me of a contradiction. Instead, you continue with the same tone and posture, and declare that I'm just afraid of your argument. Give me a break.
If you read this blog, you should have a clue about the kinds of abortion arguments I'm interested in. This kind of obnoxious internet behavior is the opposite. I genuinely hope you have a nice day, and that you find people who enjoy sparring the way you do.
It's not some new and brilliant tactic. It's something done by immature idiots, and whenever you try it, you are telling the world loudly and clearly that you are an immature idiot, and your position can't hold up to the hard questions.
Having the use of another person's body to live is NOT equal rights. Equal rights would be for the embryo/fetus to be able to live outside a host body on its own.
Why should the embryo/fetus have "special rights" that no born person has which is a uterus to live in that HAS to be provided by another person?
If you say that the embryo/fetus is in its natural environment, well, why must the uterus owner have to provide it? why can't it find its own natural environment elsewhere or with another host?
The fact that the embryo/fetus needs a uterus does NOT make it a right.
Your answer to these questions would be appreciated.
If i come to you and tell you that i refuse to stay pregnant because i think it is disgusting and humiliating , what would you say to me?
You are very thinned skinned, if you asking me to apologize for simply misunderstanding you?
By stopping me from terminating a pregnancy , yes you are allowing the gestation to continue. Which is forcing by default to gestate for 9 months and endure childbirth.
The fact that an embryo is human is irrelevent it has NO right to my uterus. My uterus , I own it so , I control its contents.
Do you dispute that I own my uterus?
Are you opposed to a removal for a pregnancy or are you opposed to the method of how it is done?
Let me ask you what should a woman do than to remove an unwanted pregnancy, if the vacuum suction is unacceptable to you, how else does a a woman STOP a gestation?
You are wrong, the fact , the abortion pill if done early in pregnancy does NOT dismember the embryo, and if you are speaking about the vacuum 1st trimester abortion, the dismemberment is caused by the vacuum suction, it is not done maliciously.
The removal causes the death, either way the embryo/fetus will die WITHOUT A
The abortion pill does not dismember the embryo. I refer to dismemberment because 99.9999% of pro-choice people I've talked with defend first trimester surgical abortions.
Defending the intentional dismemberment of a child on the grounds that it isn't done maliciously seems sketchy to me. I think there are Gosnell types that might be malicious, but probably most are not.
Do you think you have the right to take a machete and dismember the violinist as long as you aren't having malicious feelings while you're doing it? Suppose for sake of argument that your body will have an easier recovery from the violinist removal procedure if he's dead when you unplug.
The violinist, my dear, is a conscious free-living human being. Embryos and early fetuses are not sentient, nor are they "children", nor are they "human beings".
The truth is they cannot refute the bodily autonomy argument and they know it. They don't like me using the words "forced gestation", though that is exactly what it is when you try to stop someone from terminating the gestation.
I hope one day to speak to a pro-lifer face to face and they will most certainly have a piece of my mind, i will not be a coward and walk away, i would actually confront them.
2nd trimester abortion are the surgical ones by the way.
So again if their is no better technology to remove an embryo/fetus, how else do you think a woman should stop a gestation process?
If you are against abortion because of the method that is a weak argument for no matter how it is done, the embryo/fetus WILL DIE.
so please answer my questions above?
Are you against the method of removal or the removal? since you yourself said you are NOT for forcing gestation, then you are FOR the woman removing the pregnancy right?
https://www.liveaction.org/news/40-quotes-from-medical-experts-that-prove-human-life-begins-at-conception/
I just got that self-same list posted to me from "myintx", a loon if ever there was one, and I pointed out to him/her that she, and liveaction, were quoting from the 7th edition of Keith Moore, The Developing Human, and to get with the times as the 10th edition is out--wherein the high incidence of loss of embryos is discussed and abortion.
Oh and they equate killing a toddler with aborting a 5- week embryo.
Whatever that means, but bear that in mind when considering your answer. Despite their sobs about the 'baybee's very life' they would rather have the baby DIE, then have it live, if it means things might be slightly easier for the 'slutz'.
Should it actually be developed... do you that there will be a special tax on forced birthers to pay for it's use? Or that they will want it used if it is as cheap as an abortion, and no harder physically on the woman, or at that point will they somehow come up with an objection?
I may be an outlier, but yes the idea of gestating is utterly abhorrent to me and the idea of forcing another person to do so is abhorrent to me. That is why i am pro-choice, to me all of the issues of personhood, responsibility, when life begins and all of that are IRRELEVENT to me. My issue is you cannot force someone to be an incubator for 9 months PERIOD, does not matter to me if they the "life" is human, cat, dog, or a lizard.
To me it is a no brainer that the person who owns the uterus gets to decide. The woman OWNS her uterus no matter what and she gets to decide what grows there.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/05/allies-say-this-instead-defensive/
You said, "They are surrounded by a world of trigger warnings and microaggressions.
They worry that they’ll be shouted down if they say something that
could be perceived as racist, sexist, homophobic, or somehow bigoted.
They also really don’t want to be any of those things."
I've experienced this - a lot - when talking to other liberals. I'm terrified of causing offense, their shutting down the conversation so I can never speak to them again, bringing down the whole world crashing around my ears if I say something out of step, but I want to learn how to be more afraid to be unable to say truth than to say it, in and of itself. So what would you suggest for someone like me? How can you take stands for yourself in a nonabrasive manner, reduce fear when talking to people like that (this one is important), etc. One good way I've thought of is if they get nasty, tell them you won't talk to them unless they stop it.
i think many feminists' opinion is that it's morally wrong to make abortion illegal. the only acceptable ways of being pro-life are education (but no fearmongering or inaccurate info), birth control, offering support for the poor and vulnerable and that sort of thing. (which is what you're advocating for, i've seen some of your comments)
as for the other issues, i just wrote a comment here https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/responding-question-rape-wisdom-compassion/#comment-3588114986 it may not be as calm as you'd like but i hope you bear with me. the way many pro-lifers are christian and anti-lgbt+ is a big deal to us. (i myself was a progressive christian for a few years, until it no longer felt intellectually honest)
i have to say i would be very impressed if i saw pro-life arguments that don't assume anyone who's pregnant is a woman. and for trans/non-binary people it's really important because this reduces them to their uterus. it says nothing else matters.
also, gender&sexuality may be complicated but hopefully you genuinely care about not being racist, ableist, fatphobic etc. these should hopefully be much easier to just research and learn. one example is that from what i know, black people really don't like it when other kinds of discrimination or abuse are compared to racism, at least not as long as black people continue to be disproportionately killed by police officers. (i'm guilty of that myself because a lot of people don't consider sexism as bad as racism)
in terms of ableism there are mixed opinions and many are just happy if you don't use words like r*tard... but i guess some arguments about special need kids may be ableist. also as a related point, i really hate the term "beautiful baby" (also as a feminist). like for example if someone was told to have an abortion, decided against it, and as a result there's a beautiful baby. would it be any less valuable if it were an ugly baby? and if you mean "healthy baby", don't use "beautiful" to mean healthy.
if you're wondering why i mentioned fatphobia, of all things, well, all talk of intentional weight loss relies on some harmful stereotypes about fatness. as an example it would be seen as fatphobic to post some before and after pics of a happy mum who easily lost weight after birth, with a caption dismissing some concerns about pregnancy. (i have no idea what kind of stuff you post, it's just an example)
there's also a site for sharing microaggressions, so this may help you understand what people mean by this term. generally i don't think it applies much to the abortion debate, at least not the way this blog teaches one to argue against it. a microaggression would be to laugh at a joke about "ugly women not needing birth control" with someone whom you consider an attractive woman and definitely not a target of this joke. microaggressions are often based on a belief that this specific person has no need to be offended (for example i'm a brunette and people often tell me jokes about blonds)
honestly, simply caring about not offending people is already a big step. the next one is acknowledging that you may have the best of intentions and still offend someone ("intent isn't magical"). and as the article pointed out, most activists aren't really as frustrated with offensive remarks as with the defensiveness and dismissiveness that follows them.
i hope i didn't offend you ;) and let me know if i can answer any further questions.
Some people are going to be over-sensitive about what counts as offensive. When someone tells me that they think I said something offensive, I politely ask them why, and if I don't agree with their reasoning, I don't apologize, so I don't agree with the general thrust of the article you posted.
Certainly I think it's appropriate to politely end a conversation where people are being persistently nasty. We've written a bit about that.
https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/when-and-how-you-should-end-unproductive-conversations/
https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/dont-be-too-nice/
it's also common to claim someone is offended in an attempt to label them as emotional and irrational (especially women). from my perspective it's a tool often used when a woman is rightfully outraged about an attempt to control her body ;)
also, the article already assumes you want to be an ally and do better. it's very frustrating when people use the outward signs like the rainbow flag or some kind of badge, but don't genuinely want to represent them better.
offensive. When someone tells me that they think I said something
offensive, I politely ask them why, and if I don't agree with their
reasoning, I don't apologize, so I don't agree with the general thrust
of the article you posted."
Why do you see the article that way?
offensive. When someone tells me that they think I said something
offensive, I politely ask them why, and if I don't agree with their
reasoning, I don't apologize, so I don't agree with the general thrust
of the article you posted."
Also, some people have good reasons to be offended, I think, so we should listen as much as possible. My method with that was to pick the second answer "I'll think about it" and if I didn't agree with their reasoning, attempt to rebut them when I'd thought through the answer. For the most part take their critique seriously because they've lived it and you haven't.
I have read both articles you posted.
But my question really was to do with how to reduce fear when talking to people who are likely to react with terms like "microaggression", screaming, blocking you out, etc. How should you respond to such people, and how can you reduce fear when talking to someone you think might react in that way before it happens? Is a good way to warn them in advance that what you say, they might not agree with, then present your views?
Another opinion you might not agree with - conservatives have their own version of PC; they simply get offended over different things from liberals, like swearing, certain types of sexual topics, and non-Christian spiritualities, and might react by lashing out (I have experienced this as well).
If someone is being extremely poor at dialogue by screaming or yelling microaggression, I'm going to try to get them to calm down and have a rational dialogue, or I'm going to exit it. I don't have any grand techniques for trying to calm down hostile people. I listen a lot, I ask a lot of clarification questions, and I affirm their feelings as much as I can.