Pro Life Vs Pro Choice

[@SupachargedGaming]

First, so nobody gets confused, I am more closely represented by what is called "pro-choice". That said, the science is definitely sold on this. Life starts at conception. Cells are life, after all, just like your skin, kidneys, heart, lungs. All stuff you can have transplants for. That's not really up for debate. The question is the 'value' of that life. The flaw in the pro-life argument is not that "life begins at conception" its conflating that life with human life. It's just not. It "has the potential for human life". The earliest successful deliveries for pregnancies are at least 5 months, well into the 2nd trimester. That is clearly not the ideal, but it sets a minimum. Anything prior to that cannot exist on its own, and therefore has less value than something that can exist on its own. Someone's going to be thinking "oh but what about babies?" I am not referring to being able to care for itself, I mean literally able to survive without a host body. Most "late term abortions" are actually just early deliveries. If the "child" can survive outside the womb, that is the 2nd highest priority, after the mother. The better counterargument to pro life is this... We don't consider them "alive" by any other measure. If someone who is 17 (20 for USA) and ~3 months of age argued that they had been "alive" in the womb for 9 months, and therefore should be able to drink, smoke, gamble etc. it would not be an acceptable legal argument. Same thing goes for adults and ... "less savoury"... arguments for the age of maturity. We don't count a newborn baby as [roughly] 9 months of age upon delivery, or consider its date of birth to be the moment of conception. Clearly there is strong legal precedent for not considering an embryo, foetus, to be "human" or, at least legally, "alive". The other argument, though it falls on deaf ears to people who consider humans to be "special" in some way [For example, chosen by god], is the asymmetry, or the imbalance, between "avoiding suffering" and "experiencing pleasure". To simplify the idea not experiencing something pleasurable which you are unaware of the existence of does not intuitively seem to be of equal value [in terms of the value of life] to avoiding some experience of suffering, which you are unaware of. In a sentence; it's a "good" thing you aren't getting struck by a bolt of lightning, but it's not a "bad" thing you aren't winning some alien lottery. The best argument though is that regulation is always better than restriction. If people want something enough, they will get it, it's just a question of "how". Restricting abortions doesn't save the lives of children. Some, maybe, but more lives will be lost from underground, undertrained "operations". The lives of the children aren't guaranteed to be worth living, either. I'm sure some absolutely turn out to be good lives, but surely some after doomed to horrific conditions. Final point is this, and it's not exclusive to abortion. It's fairly universal. If you can't imagine a reason to do something, anything, it's your imagination that's lacking. Edit: Sorry, but it's not a baby. It's just not. At one month, it's roughly the size of a grain of rice. It's no more accurate to call it a baby than it is to call it a geriatric, or a middle aged person. It "might" become a baby, it "might" become a middle aged person, and it "might" become a geriatric.

[@haan3549]

I enjoyed your perspective. I am pro life. I do think all people and Americans have a right to feel the way they feel. Also I believe we should respect the fact that we all don't have to agree with each other. I also believe that we should all be respectful and kind. Love one another. Thank you for your post!

[@kontiuka]

I'm a fellow atheist and consider myself pretty liberal / progressive but I tend to agree with you on the left's argument for being pro-choice. Ya, it may be a fetus but there is a good chance it will develop into a fully functioning person. So then it really comes down to the moral argument which I won't even try to get into here. Bottom line, easy access to contraception and sex education and we can avoid a lot of this mess.

[@lovelove-jx9qt]

Haha no one better to talk about a man! It's nice that you have perspective from both sides

[@YoureEveryoneElse]

I may be teetering on man-splaning here, but lately I have been thinking that a better debate/conversation to have is how do we reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies (e.g., education, access to contraception, rape prevention, etc.). I am thinking that less unwanted pregnancies would mean less abortions. I can't imagine that getting an abortion is a pleasant experience, so I would think most people would prefer to not be pregnant to begin with. I am also thinking less abortions would make the pro-life/pro-choice debate less relevant. In other words, a win win win outcome. Unfortunately, it seems that many "pro-life" religious folk do not like talking about contraception (I believe it is because they think it encourages pre-marital sex). This makes me question whether these "pro-life" folks really want to reduce the number of abortions. Perhaps they actually just want a symbolic display of their version of righteousness with some law that tells women what they can and can't do. My wife's first miscarriage was really rough on us. Before the miscarriage I couldn't help but imagine what our child would be like. I would daydream about the future experiences I would have with the child. I knew it was foolish of me to think about such things, but I couldn't help it. When we had the miscarriage, I suffered a loss of a person that only existed in my mind. But it still felt like a real loss.

[@kontiuka]

I haven't taken a hard stance on P-L vs P-C because it is such a difficult topic but I don't take the right wing seriously at all (at least the politicians) when they talk about being pro-life and, at the same time, start wars, take away social safety nets, incarcerate millions for minor drug offences, allow big polluters to devastate the environment, etc. For the record, most centrist or even left leaning politicians aren't much better. But I tend to agree with you about access to sex ed, contraception, and rape reduction.