I am not religious, and am pro-life. I know a lot of other pro-life folks who are deeply religious. All of us share the same basic motivation: human life is inherently valuable and worthy of protection. For my religious friends, their faith is just one additional reason to believe in the value of human life.
I assume you and your friends also advocate against the death penalty, for sex education and access to contraceptives, and for a robust social safety net?
Some are against it in all cases, others argue that violating other people's right to life means you forfeit your own. (Personally I'm unsure)
> Sex education and access to contracepion
Pretty low-salience issue for most of them. Many believe premarital sex is wrong, no strong opinions beyond that. I've never known any of them to argue against condoms, for example.
> robust social safety net
They tend to be skeptical of massive government welfare programs, but they are not Ayn Randists to any extent. All recognize that a culture of life needs to support mothers and their children at every step; many volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers to help with that.
I think this is a filter bubble situation, because policymakers in certain states don't seem to be pro-life so much as anti-women's rights. And if policymakers are like that, a good portion of the populace either agrees or doesn't care. Perhaps they have different conditions for abortion but don't care to object. It's wrong to malign all Christians in the US as such, but some people are using religion as a facade. I think the facade is quite effective, considering the abysmal level of critical thinking in the US.
Not the OP, but there are many documented cases where the recent lack of access to safe abortions have risked women’s lives. These are what I found just with a quick search.
>“She was denied an abortion in Texas - then she almost died”
”Doctors told her she had cervical insufficiency, which is a weakening of the cervical tissue that causes premature dilation, and that her unborn daughter would not survive. She and her husband were devastated.
"She was a baby that we desperately, desperately wanted," she said.
A standard course of medical treatment for an unviable pregnancy at that stage of development is to terminate, and extract the foetus. Waiting to miscarry naturally can put the mother at risk for infection, which can prove fatal.
But doctors told her they couldn't terminate her pregnancy, as under the state's laws, it was a crime to perform an abortion when there was a foetal heartbeat, unless the mother's life was threatened. Essentially, the message was that she was not sick enough yet to legally justify an abortion.
Three days later, Amanda developed a life-threatening infection and went into septic shock.”
>“Texas abortion law means woman has to continue pregnancy despite fatal anomaly”
“At her 20-week ultrasound appointment, Beaton said her physician discovered the fetus had a rare, severe anomaly -- called alobar holoprosencephaly -- in which the fetus's brain does not develop into two hemispheres as it normally would, and the major structures of the brain remain fused in the middle.
The brain splitting into two hemispheres is a "critical stage in the development" and can impact the development of the nose, mouth and throat, Dr. Katie McHugh, an Indiana OB-GYN and abortion provider, told ABC News. The condition can result in a very painful life and death for the fetus, McHugh said.
Beaton said her physicians told her the baby could survive out of the womb for a couple of weeks, at most, in the event that the pregnancy ends in a live birth. Rouse agreed with this assessment, pointing to what she said is a lack of development of normal brain tissue and empty fluid filling the head.
"This anomaly is typically lethal for most infants within days to weeks," Rouse said.”
>“8 women join suit against Texas over abortion bans, claim their lives were put in danger”
“The suit alleged that Texas' abortion bans have denied the plaintiffs and countless other pregnant people necessary and potentially life-saving medical care because physicians in the state fear liability, according to a draft of the complaint shared with ABC News.
Texas has several abortion laws in place, prohibiting all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, except in medical emergencies, which the laws do not define. One of the bans -- called SB 8 -- prohibits abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which kept several plaintiffs from accessing care despite their pregnancies being nonviable, according to a draft of the suit.
Under Texas' bans, it is a second-degree felony to perform or attempt an abortion, punishable by up to life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The law also allows private citizens to sue anyone who "aids or abets" an abortion.
The lawsuit is asking a judge to temporarily and permanently suspend the Texas law due to the uncertainty surrounding the meaning of the exception in the state's abortion bans.”
>”Most Abortion Bans Include Exceptions. In Practice, Few Are Granted.”
“Last summer, a Mississippi woman sought an abortion after, she said, a friend had raped her. Her state prohibits most abortions but allows them for rape victims. Yet she could not find a doctor to provide one.
In September, an Indiana woman learned that a fetal defect meant her baby would die shortly after birth, if not sooner. Her state’s abortion ban included an exception for such cases, but she was referred to Illinois or Michigan.
An Ohio woman carrying triplets faced a high risk of dangerous complications, including delivering too early. When she tried to get an abortion in September through Ohio’s exception for patients with a medical need, she was turned away.
The abortion bans enacted in about half the states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June do not prohibit abortion entirely. Most make exceptions in certain circumstances, commonly to protect the health or life of the patient, or in the case of rape or incest. And as conservative state lawmakers prepare to take up new restrictions on abortion in upcoming legislative sessions, exceptions will be at the heart of the debate.
But in the months since the court’s decision, very few exceptions to these new abortion bans have been granted, a New York Times review of available state data and interviews with dozens of physicians, advocates and lawmakers revealed.
Instead, those with means are traveling to states where abortion is still broadly legal or are obtaining abortion pills at home because the requirements to qualify for exceptions are too steep. Doctors and hospitals are turning away patients, saying that ambiguous laws and the threat of criminal penalties make them unwilling to test the rules.
“Having the legal right on the books to get an abortion and getting one in practice are two distinctly different things,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, the executive director of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, a group that supports abortion rights.”
Thanks for this comment, it must have taken you a while to put together. I agree that this issue is something we in the pro-life movement aren't doing enough to address. I think this is:
- partly pro-life legislators failing at writing legislation,
- partly doctors and hospitals being (understandably, there is precedent) terrified of the slighest risk of a malpractice suit, and
- partly pro-life legislators being (understandably, there is precedent) terrified that any slack put into the laws will be willfully miscontrued by activist judges to effectively nullify all restrictions.
In any case, it's an issue that we as a movement must have an answer for, and right now we don't. That's on us. Doctors need some amount of benefit-of-the-doubt to be able to do their jobs (though it can't be infinite either).
I generally agree that these are all issues that need to be addressed if these bans are to be put in place.
But— my biggest issues with these bans (aside from the ban itself- I am pro choice), is that they were hastily put into place with little to no thought into the actual implementation of the ban. It’s not like they didn’t have time to come up with reasonable legislation as this has been a major discussion leading up to the reversal of Roe vs Wade. But instead of taking time to legislate this properly (or talking to healthcare providers or doctors about what an emergency in cases like these might look like), they instead just pushed through these laws with zero clarity— in turn, affecting the quality of healthcare that women can now receive.
I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist or anything but leaving “emergency” in the legislation without a single definition of what that is suppose to mean, seems almost intentional. If that’s not the case, then these legislators are so incredibly inept at their job that they should not be legislating at all.
To your second point, I think it is unfair to leave any of the blame at doctor’s or hospital’s feet given that these laws don’t actually define in any specific way what would constitute what an emergency is. You cannot blame a doctor for not wanting to perform an abortion if it will land them in jail. Without certainty in the law, the risk is way too great. Your point might be more applicable if the laws clearly defined what would constitute a legal abortion. But right now, the law is so nebulous that it is basically up to individual judges and no doctor or business is going to risk their lives on such an uncertainty.
If pro-life legislators were actually concerned with their law being misconstrued, I’d expect that they would actually want to put more clarifications into the law, not less. With the recent laws an activist could right now rule that they think an emergency applies to an abortion case (just as much as a judge could rule that their was no emergency, even if there was one). As it stands, the current law creates so much uncertainty that doctor’s and providers will just not take any action that might put them on the other side of the law. I suspect that the purpose of this lack of clarity is to insert as much uncertainty into the law so that people will be just too afraid to act. To me, it appears that these legislators are not acting in good faith.
This gets thorny when you delve into the metaethics. Basically, why is murder considered immoral and should be punished (or at least addressed)? Well, is abortion murder? If it is, then opposing abortions is the right thing to do. Personally, I'm leaning towards supporting , but I'm struggling to develop a reasonable moral framework. I do think a society should be founded on a minimal, solid foundation so as to curb the moral relativism. I don't want to be tasked with answering "what kinds of abortion are allowed in your ideal society" anytime soon.
I can't speak for everyone. If you feel that abortion is a fundamental right, then go stand up for it. (Of course, you are doing that.) But who can say that their list of rights is right?
> Well, is abortion murder? If it is, then opposing abortions is the right thing to do. Personally, I'm leaning towards supporting , but I'm struggling to develop a reasonable moral framework.
I wasn't always strongly pro-life. I used to vaguely hold the standard European position (allowed up to 12-15 weeks with exceptions). What "radicalized" me, was the most cliché thing imaginable: photographs of abortion victims, from a clinic in my metropolitan area.
My memory of past events in my personal life is generally quite hazy. But the instant things "clicked" for me on this issue, is clearly fixed.
The images in question can be found here (WARNING VERY GRAPHIC):
You weren't wrong with the "GRAPHIC" warning. Abortion clinics should find better ways of carrying out abortions, to ensure minimal pain and, if possible, the gruesomeness. I'm not persuaded towards pro-life by the images, though. If abortions are considered morally permissible and the techniques are reasonably considerate of the fetus, I would be failing my own moral responsibility by letting images deter me.
I mostly borrow Don Marquis' notion that killing an adult human is often murder because the adult had a "valuable future" (not necessarily valued by the person themselves). A fetus also has such a future, as opposed to, say, a sperm cell. Roughly, I say this is because a fetus denotes an entity of a well-defined process of continued life (development, birth, further growth). In fact, I think all morals and whatnot are ultimately based on prohibiting the bad, no good, negative stuff that people do to each other. In other words, to ensure everyone has a reasonably "good life". Although a fetus therefore has moral consideration, though not necessarily a "person" in the moral sense, a full evaluation of abortion must also include an account of the woman's moral consideration. I'm still trying to determine where to draw the line.
An unborn child is an independent person, who (cases of rape excepted) came into existence due to a free choice of their mother. They deserve an opportunity to experience life according to their personal beliefs, just like everyone else. To kill them is to violate that right.
> Imagine forced abortions
Unfortunately, you don't have to imagine. Many US states allow surrogacy contracts with forced-abortion clauses.
This question is the crux of the debate, and has always been. But in my experience, many pro-choice advocates are reluctant to address it directly; they prefer to talk about "rights" and "personal beliefs." Probably because, when you consider it seriously, the answer is inescapable.
