[genewitch]

I just realized "reproductive freedom" sounds like an emotive conjunction. It isn't about the freedom to reproduce, it's literally the freedom to not reproduce.

I have a very reasoned and nuanced view on this topic that I probably will never share online. I don't know why I didn't notice this weird phrasing before.

[lynx97]

It struck me as an euphemism as well. But thats the whole abortion debate. After all, pushing the timeline up from conception to a convenient point where abortion "feels" like it isn't murder yet is a pretty deliberate move as well. All in the name of personal freedom. The freedom to not have to care.

[ToucanLoucan]

> After all, pushing the timeline up from conception to a convenient point where abortion "feels" like it isn't murder yet is a pretty deliberate move as well. All in the name of personal freedom. The freedom to not have to care.

It has nothing to do with whether it "feels like murder." It's about a woman's bodily autonomy.

Even if you ascribe the descriptor of "baby" to a fetus, which is entirely your prerogative to do, that baby is and will remain a parasite upon the mother's body until it is born and can subsist for itself (bodily anyway). And because of how bodily autonomy works (and should work) you are not required to keep other people alive by way of your own body. If you are at a car crash scene, and have caused another person dire harm via that crash, and they can ONLY be saved for some reason by way of a blood transfusion from you: you are not required to give it. There may be other civil or criminal consequences of that, depending how the crash investigation goes, but no reasonable person would say that you are nor should be tried as a murderer simply because you would not give up even something as trivial as blood to save this person.

Ergo, abortion is not murder. Abortion is a medical procedure by which a fetus is severed from the mother that is carrying it, and I must emphasize, the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, the fetus at the time this is done is literally a few million cells. You genuinely kill more living tissue than an abortion when you have a routine surgery. And in those handful of times when it is a nearly-ready fetus, there are almost every time, extenuating circumstances. The fetus is non-viable, for example, or it's outright dead and rotting inside the mother. And while they do exist, the weaponization of these traumatizing events by the pro-life movement is absolutely ethically indefensible.

These are not situations where women get kicks killing babies. These are women who wanted the baby. They're women who did their best for however many months to get them to that point. They may have named it. They've almost certainly got a home full of baby things that are about to become useless. Women come apart from this psychologically. Marriages fall apart. It's horrible, and again, co-opting such events to push a narrative of women who enjoy abortion is just, I cannot stress enough, ethically horrifying.

[lynx97]

I submit, given your example, if I refuse to give the necessary blood transufion, I am the asshole.

[ToucanLoucan]

I mean sure, I wouldn’t disagree. But also a blood transfusion is utterly trivial in terms of effects on your body compared to a pregnancy. I don’t know that I know any women who’ve had kids who don’t have like, parts of their bodies that are just numb 24/7 now, or mystery pains, hormone regulation problems, etc etc. Pregnancy is AWFUL on your body.

[sepositus]

> These are women who wanted the baby

That's an interesting point. I haven't interviewed an extensive number of post-abortive mothers, so my view is, of course, not representative of the whole, but in those few cases I have (via my community work), this was universally true. In every case, there were external factors pressuring the mother to abort the baby despite her motherly instincts pushing back on it at every level. Sometimes, it was a controlling boyfriend, parents, or some other peer pressure. In each case, though, the mother was left scarred for life.

I wish more people would openly talk about this.

[VincentEvans]

The meaning of the words “freedom” is for you to be able to make your own choice, and for others - theirs.

[lynx97]

However, in that particular case, her freedom trumps the "freedom" of the child, because for some reason, the child isn't allowed to make their own decisions growing up.