We Can Work It Out - Politics & Philosophy | Page 112 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

AppleScruffJunior said
I’ll just repost my ‘banning abortion post’ from last year @Dark Overlord . By supporting a nationwide ban on abortion, you are supporting the death of women.

Fortunately, today Argentina voted to legalise abortion, people who are faced with unexpected and unwanted pregnancies will no longer have to put their own lives at risk to terminate their pregnancies.

In countries where abortion is not legal, women who are unable to go abroad to get an abortion (generally due to financial restrictions or their country banning travel for abortion) die.

Last year a woman died in Argentina after inserting parsley into herself to induce a miscarriage.

Women use knitting needles and coat hangers puncturing their uterus and potentially bleeding to death. They throw themselves down stairs. They go to backyard abortionists who accidentally kill them.

Three out of four abortions that occur in Africa and Asia are unsafe.

Seven million women in developing countries are admitted to hospital each year because they have undergone unsafe abortions. 

47,000 women die annually from unsafe abortions.

Women will want to terminate their pregnancy if they feel they cannot cope with being pregnant, have relationship problems, risk the shame and exclusion from their society because of their pregnancy, or simply do not want a child – whether abortion is legal in their country or not, abortions will occur.

By not allowing legal, safe abortions with a qualified doctor in a safe, sanitary doctor’s practice, women will die for reasons that are entirely avoidable or they will suffer complications that could permanently disable them.

Denying the right to safe termination of pregnancy is allowing the death of vulnerable women who feel they have no other direction to turn to.

Of course, the most important thing to prevent abortions in any country are comprehensive, detailed sex education and free contraceptives for everyone (regardless of age). But even with these, a few cases will fall through the gaps and abortion should be the available third option for those who don’t wish to continue their pregnancy.

If you are personally pro-life then that’s fine, I have no qualms about that however, if you want to ban abortion nationwide and therefore make ANY woman turn to dangerous ways to induce a miscarriage, then I don’t know what to say to you.

I’d hate to see women die from unsafe DIY abortions and i hate when Republicans just want to ban abortion and call it a day, this is why i also want to implement social programs that would educate women, assist them, and dissuade them from having an abortion.

However, i also find it deeply concerning how these women are so desperate for an abortion that they’d risk jail time or even their own life just to get one, which seems to suggest that they could benefit from having someone to talk to that can calm them down during this stressful situation.

Those are some very interesting videos. However, while i feel really sorry for those women and i hope they can sign their child up for adoption and continue their lives as usual, we can’t let emotional distress become an excuse to terminate a potential life. Instead, we should do everything we can to help these women that doesn’t include letting them have an abortion.

QuarryMan said

Dark Overlord said
I’d hope the fear of women facing criminal charges would scare them away from having one but regardless, i think we can all agree that the goal is to make abortion as rare as possible.

The problem is that abortion rates are broadly the same in countries where it is legal and countries where it isn’t, so clearly this strategy of deterrence doesn’t work. Have a look at this graph, for instance:

So your strategy is not only failing to achieve your stated goals of lowering use rates as much as possible, it’s also causing all the additional harm as detailed by ASJ.

Your chart shows that ~4,000 less abortions happen each year when it is only allowed to save the mother’s life then when it’s broadly legal which admittedly is a small decrease but considering that i’m fine with women having abortions in that scenario, my plan would work.

Not to mention, the only 3 countries where abortion is banned even if the mother’s life is in danger are Vatican City, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, the former being extremely religious and ~95% male and the latter 2 being undeveloped countries which lack universal healthcare, so i think that rate is misleading.

Exactly, and that’s the point of a dogwhistle – it’s coded enough to provide plausible deniability, while being obvious enough to signal the true meaning intended. This doesn’t mean that every time someone uses one of those talking points they’re being racist, but the fact remains that these are strategies politicians hoping to capitalise on racist sentiment have used in the past and continue to do so.

Good point.

QuarryMan said
That’s not the same thing as a federal abortion ban, though..

I should’ve said a federal abortion ban unless the mother’s raped or her life is in danger.

Not to mention that you could probably make the numbers in the first category much lower if you properly implemented the same measures we’ve been discussing.

But that’s true for all 4 categories.

The contraceptions and sex ed stuff is just part of it. Polling shows that one of the most common motivators for people choosing to have an abortion is financial insecurity; if we globally moved away from supply side economics and started prioritising home ownership, healthcare, union membership, child support and reducing wealth inequality, then young people would be much more confident and willing to have kids, and as a result abortion rates would go down.

Good point. However, we need to make sure that we don’t go too far left on economics. After all, billionaires aren’t the problem, the problem is that so many people are struggling to get by. Of course, these are all reasonable ideas (although i think people should decide for themselves whether or not they want to join a union) but we need to make sure that we still keep our capitalist base because abandoning it has historically failed.

That’s disgusting that anybody would suggest a woman should need to prove that she was raped in order to have an abortion. Have you ever been raped or know somebody who was? And have you seen what the reaction telling people usually gets? I can’t think of one person I personally know who wasn’t told they were lying or “asking for it” or that they were just drunk when they told people what happened. And if they do go to the police usually nothing is done anyways. But yes, lets force women who are raped to have to prove that they were raped in order to get an abortion.

And “unless the mother’s life is in danger”, but what about the baby’s life? If somebody’s a drug user and not willing to stop for the baby, you think it’s better to force them to have the baby who will be addicted to drugs instead of having an abortion before it’s even a baby? Then you’re also going to have all these kids born into homes where they’re not wanted and mistreated. Are you willing to foster or adopt kids who have severe medical and emotional struggles? Because if not then it’s not the baby you care about. 

Starr Shine? said
The world would be a better place if men could get pregnant

It would also be better if male contraceptive pills  existed