I am ardently pro-choice. I believe that any human being should have complete control over their own reproduction, women included. But an area in which right wing (specifically pro life) women display extreme hypocrisy is in the arena of reproductive rights for women.
Take for instance this article by feminist Joyce Arthur, titled "The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion":
The article illustrates several pro life, anti abortion women who claimed that all abortion is murder, only to fall pregnant at inconvenient times and clandestinely scheduling abortions for themselves while still decrying other women for doing the exact same... No different from the televangelists who get caught having homosexual sex while making their careers condemning homos to the lake of fire.
To be fair, many of these women may be hiding their abortions simply because they come from dysfunctional Christian backgrounds where both male and female sexuality are rigorously policed, in some of these situations I would speculate that daddy’s little princess likely tired of living in a Christian chastity cult and found the nearest bad boy to give her a good pounding.
I’m aware that some in the conservative circles would consider these pro-life women our natural allies. I do not. I I believe that if they are this adamant about denying their own gender the right to control their own reproduction, they will attack male reproductive rights ten times more furiously. Child support and bachelor taxes will be the least of our worries should these wolves in sheep's clothing get their way.
And even in principle... Why would you support a movement that seeks to restrict our control over our own reproductive process? Why take that power away from the individual? Why take away womens' ability to get out of having to raise a child they cannot possibly afford - with the alternative being to reward their bad choices by giving them government handouts in the event that they do not have an abortion? Wouldn't that simply incentivize more welfare queens and socially parasitic behavior?
Too many questions, too much hypocrisy, help me figure this one out.
Because it is a human life... and killing human life for the convenience of not having to take care of the product of your decisions is wrong.
Fetuses can feel pain.... they have their own separate nervous system.... they have their own separate brain with its own brain activity.... they have their own circulatory system with their own blood type.... they have their own heartbeat.
If you are okay with killing babies because they are inconvenient to take care of, than you’d also have to be okay with killing off any infirmed person that is an inconveniece. The foundational element of a good society is seeing how it takes care of the weak, every society that has normalized killing children has a quickly approaching expiration date, the US is no different in this regards.
I guess it's a value judgement. I value reproductive control over the life of a fetus. And also, I value reproductive freedom.
Freedom for the father from a shotgun marriage and living a life of financial servitude for having a child he likely didn't want.
Freedom for the mother from having to raise a child she doesn't want to raise, or possibly can't afford to raise without government handouts (paid for in the majority by male taxpayer dollars).
And freedom for the baby, from having to be born into a single mother household in the ghetto with a father who is nothing more than a far-away detached billpayer... Or worse yet, to an abusive father who couldn't give less of a shit about the child he helped create.
These are slightly hyperbolic examples, but they illustrate the point. If the couple wanted to abort the child but were forced to keep it solely due to the state prohibiting it, would they really be the kind of couple you'd want raising children in the first place?
Well you are making an argument that human life is a lower value than people being able to make hedonistic choices without consequences. It’s a pretty shitty argument.
If a man doesn’t want to have to take care of a baby, than don’t have sex. It’s a choice.
If a woman doesn’t want to have to take care of a baby, than don’t have sex. It’s a choice.
Trying to remove consequences from decisions is the epitome of leftist ideology.
If you want to make an argument that it’s bad for the baby, than the correct conclusion is that a good society would have private charities, churches, NGO’s and a large number of people willing to step forward to care for unwanted children who are put up for adoption.... rather than killing children out of a faux plea of sympathy for the child.