I think that believing that laws should enforce morals, regardless of the consequences of those laws, is at best stupid but is more likely monstrous. We mostly agree it’s bad for parents to abandon their children, but people set up safe places for parents to abandon their children and even laws to shield parents who do so safely from prosecution. We do that because it saves the lives of children who would otherwise be abandoned in much more dangerous ways.
If someone were to say, “Abandoning children is wrong, we need to find and prosecute these people,” then they would be putting some kind of urge for vengeance (their own desire to hurt other people) above the lives of children. People love their punishment theater, it’s all over the news (person X sentenced to Y years) because it puts asses in the seats. I’m not putting that down as a difference of opinion. They are wrong morally and pragmatically.
That’s the essence of the debate. It’s a debate between people who think that their morality ought to trump other people’s rights - despite the fact that it will cost more lives than it saves - and people who say that’s a bizarre and completely unsupportable position.
But I agree a reasonable person can be pro-life. Reasonable people are wrong about all kinds of things all the time.
False equivalencies are false. “Anti-choice” accurately and literally describes their position. They don’t wish for anyone to have a choice about whether to have an abortion or not - that’s literally what distinguishes them from their opponents! I know some people who are anti-abortion but pro-choice - that is, they aren’t for abortion (and certainly wouldn’t have one themselves), but they also don’t think it’s right to force that on anyone else. Which is one of the reasons why pro-choice isn’t accurately called “pro-abortion.” Sure, “anti-choice” sounds harsh compared to their preferred term of “pro-life” but the anti-choice movement labeling themselves “pro-life” is some disingenuous bullshit. Right off the bat it demonizes their opponents as monsters as it implies that they’re “pro-death;” it’s meaninglessly, misleadingly vague (are they anti-capital punishment? anti-war? No, mostly not), and fails to actually address their stated position - that women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term without any say in the matter. There are a lot of other, completely accurate terms that could be used to describe their position in far from neutral terms that could be objected to, but it’s damn ridiculous to object to a term precisely because it accurately and objectively represents a position.
Our family has always been big on personal autonomy. Our primary philosophy is about being kind and helpful to as many people as possible, but also not letting other people impose their will on us. The idea of someone using their religion to make medical decisions for any one of us is deeply offensive. My kids share this view. We have discussed abortion and other issues, but I do not have to tell them how to think about most specific issues, because we have taught them a basic set of moral rules, which they can use to make their own decisions.
We have a lot of English and Dutch and Scottish and Korean and Japanese and Spanish etcetera here. From all walks of life. I actually think many Americans are afraid. But when they meet good people from across the pond, they enjoy the company and knowledge from a different heritage. I remember 20 years ago travelling through the southern states, and meeting some beautiful people. Well, I am dark skinned but I wasn’t shot.
This is a large part but I don’t think even gives the best view of the issue. To connect it to abortion for instance at least depends on the answer to the question: how much sacrifice can we obligate someone to make, or risk to take on, if it is necessary to preserve another life? That’s where viability actually comes in; it’s at least a point where that starts to go down.
But it’s really not unusual to have people whose answer is very close to none in most contexts, who would not accept a requirement for a person to so much as give blood or vaccinate against their will to save lives, yet still expect that women should have to hazard full pregnancies to save a fetus. While it’s certainly possible to be consistently pro-life in general, in cases like that it’s obviously a misnomer, and they must have some other reason this one difficult type of giving blood is insisted as obligatory.
Looking for the middle ground is a shortcut to being reasonable. But there are no shortcuts to being reasonable. You have to think about every goddamned thing.
This is a riddle that’s long intrigued me, and one in which we perhaps “catch the conscience” of the anti-abortion movement: If extreme anti-abortion forces define life as beginning at fertilization, then why don’t they oppose IVF treatments, which routinely destroy many excess embryos? Why don’t we see them picketing outside of fertility clinics instead of abortion clinics?
But pro choice people are in favor of certain unwanted people being killed before those unwanted people ever get the choice of being anti choice people or pro choice people.
If I fail to plant a seed did I kill the plant?
If I plant the seed but do not water it, did I kill the plant?
If I plant the seed and water it but do not give it light, did I kill the plant?
