FAQ
1. You’re pro-life and a feminist? How does that work?
First, I will direct you here: http://feministsforlife.org/
Feminism, in fact, has a long legacy of being pro-life. Nearly all the women in the original women’s rights’ movement were strongly pro-life.
I see abortion as a repressive institution used to deny a woman’s basic biology and, somehow, convince here that her biology is “wrong.” By trying to make ourselves men, we devalue what it means to be a woman. We should be taking back this amazing ability we have to create unique human beings not trying to suppress it as much as possible.
I believe in working to eradicate the reasons women get abortions - poverty, pressure from family and friends, stigma against pregnancy, rape, - just as much as I work to abolish abortion.
2. What about rape or incest? The life of the mother?
Before you go any further, read this. It’s my story of my experience with abuse, rape, and an attempt at forced pregnancy - and it doesn’t even mention abortion.
That being said, 95% of abortions are elective. Using these rare exceptions to justify all abortions is immoral. A life is a life regardless of how it was conceived and violence should not beget violence.
In the case of the life of the mother, really the only case where this is acceptable is an ectopic pregnancy. Again, these are incredibly rare, but do happen. In an ectopic pregnancy, the fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tubes or somewhere else outside of the uterus. Even the Catholic Church recognizes that in this case, an abortion is the only option. The fetus would not survive regardless of what attempts were made to save him/her and it is pointless to sacrifice two lives when one can be saved. This does not make the blastocyst/zygote/fetus any less human, though. One life is lost, and mourned, while the other life is consoled and helped to heal.
3. Making abortion illegal won’t cut down on the number of abortions, it will just make them more dangerous and more women will die.
Let’s talk about “back-alley abortions.”
4. How do you feel about capital punishment? Euthanasia? War?
I am 100% against taking the life of any human being for any reason. The only excuse is self-defense. I do not actively support war of any kind. However, when we have no other choice, I do not actively protest it. A good thing to look up is “just war theory.”
5. What are your views on birth control?
I am, personally against birth control, but I’m not out to ban the pill or anything. I believe in the unitive and procreative nature of sex - meaning sex should be between a man and a woman within marriage and open to the possibility of creating new life. I will use Natural Family Planning to space out my children with my husband without the use of contraception or birth control and without separating the unitive and procreative natures of sex. If you want to learn more about this, there are lots of posts in my tag index under “birth control.”
6. Why are you pro-life? Who are you to force your morality on me?
First of all - let’s talk about objective morality. Saying that you can’t let your morality dictate what other people do is just plain false. We do it all the time. That’s all laws are - the regulation of morality. If I pick up your purse and start going through it and take things, you’d say that’s wrong, right? Well, who are you to enforce your morality on me?
Secondly, the major issue in the abortion debate completely centers around - is the unborn a human being? If the unborn aren’t human beings, then I have absolutely no problem with abortion and having one would absolutely be a medical right. If the unborn are human, then we are condoning murder. There are several separate steps we have to take here - 1. Does life begin at conception? 2. If so, is this new life human? 3. If so, are the unborn human beings?
1. So, are the unborn human? Science tells us unequivocally, yes. Any basic embryology textbook will confirm this. “The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, thezygote.” Here’s a large list of quotes from science confirming this fact.
And lest I get more trolls saying “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SPERMZ?” Sperm and egg are haploid cells - reproductive cells that only have half as many chromosomes as a re needed to create a new entity. In our case a sperm has 23 chromosomes from the father and an egg has 23 (n) chromosomes from the mother.
When these two haploid cells combine, they also combine their DNA creating one, diploid zygote with 46 chromosomes (2n). This zygote has entirely unique DNA - this new entity (I’m avoiding the word “being” here) is neither father nor mother.
2. Ok, so life begins at conception. Glad we got that straight. So this thing in its mother’s womb is alive, but is it human?
The answer to this is also yes. A human never gives birth to anything other than a human. The DNA within the zygote and developing embryo, fetus, etc, is uniquely human DNA. Therefore, it’s human. This one’s pretty simple.
This thing is alive and it’s human.
3. Yeah, but is it a human being?
Again, yes. Here’s a short summary of succinct arguments from Scott Klusendorf - a leader in pro-life apologetics.
Size
When someone brings up that the unborn is so small that it shouldn’t have the same rights as a newborn, then it can be shown that the size of a born person doesn’t matter to their value. A lineman in the NFL is obviously larger that a figure skater, but that doesn’t make him any more valuable as a person. A toddler is smaller than an adult, but they should be granted the same human rights to live. Thus, the unborn are nearly always smaller than a newborn, but that doesn’t mean that they have any less value.
Level of Development
Pro-choicers will often say that the unborn is less developed than a newborn, so they are not fully human. A newborn is less developed than a toddler. A toddler is less developed than an adolescent, and an adolescent is less developed than an adult. Even a mentally handicapped adult might not be as developed as a toddler. In all of these examples we wouldn’t think of killing a person because they aren’t as developed as someone else. But many believe we should kill the unborn just because they are less developed and can’t function as a newborn does.
Environment
Of the four parts of the SLED test, environment or location is probably used the most for justifying abortion. Just because people aren’t able to see the unborn, then they often think that it doesn’t deserve the same human rights as the born child. If you go from one room to another or walk from one house to another, you have the same value. What is unbelievable is that a premature baby can be delivered and given to the mother, but if that baby was just a foot away inside the mother it could be killed. Your geographical location has nothing at all to do with your value as a human being.
Degree of Dependency
A popular argument is that the unborn is less of a human because it is dependent on its mother for life. Through many stages of our lives we are dependent on certain people or machines for our well-being. Some are on kidney machines or pacemakers. The handicapped may be dependent on others just to assist them in routine daily functions. The elderly in nursing homes are dependent on the staff for support. The unborn is relying on the level of dependency from the mother that it is supposed to receive at that stage in life.(Source)
So let’s go over some pro-choice arguments as to why the unborn aren’t human beings.
Dependency - Infants are entirely dependent on their parents - without them they would die. Are infants human beings?
Sentience - A person with permanent brain damage or in a coma has little to no sentience. Are they human beings?
Pain - There was a little girl born in 2000 who can’t feel pain. Is it morally permissible to kill her simply because she won’t feel it?
Mental Function - Since when does our level of mental function or ability make us more or less human? People with down syndrome have a much lower IQ than those without, but we agree people with down syndrome are human beings, yes? And where does this stop? Should people in MENSA be considered more complete human beings than you and I? More than 90% of fetuses determined to have down syndrome are aborted. I don’t care what your reasoning in, that’s genocide and it’s wrong.
Many pro-choicers (I’m not necessarily saying you, just addressing the point) say that fetuses only become human beings at the point at which they can live outside of their mother’s womb. This is really arbitrary.
Over and over we see stories about babies who were born alive only to be killed by abortion doctors, ignored by clinic staff, or left in supply closets to die.
If I haven’t answered your question here, feel free to ask away!
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