The topic is Abortion and the creator who posted this screed about abortion reveals his true motivation for making abortion illegal. He is clever to disguise his intentions with subtle editing techniques, his self-righteous tone, and his severe appearance. In all, it’s a well-produced piece of propaganda for Anti-Choice advocates. However, he reveals the truth clearly amidst a bunch of false claims that make it seem like he is concerned about the life of a fertilized egg inside a woman that cannot host a human life yet. Here is my response: His claims are in bold.
Every Human being in society must have innate value.
Literally, no one disagrees with this concept and you are well aware of it. You are guiding your audience to view pro-choice advocates as morally insufficient right out the gate. You are simply being manipulative because you are trying to cover up your real reason why you want to make abortion illegal.
If human beings don’t have innate value then they have nothing and all notions of the social contract would be torn apart.
One can only assume that when you use the term “social contract”, you understand that it has little to do with the justification of the innate value of human life. It was used as justification for government overreach in the 15th-18th centuries.
Social Contract: An implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection.
You seem to be implying that for a woman to be part of society, she must agree to surrender her personal autonomy to the state for the social contract. Whether that is your intention or not, it doesn’t really matter.
In fact, there are a number of people who disagree with the notion that you should have to give up any human rights to be governed by the state. There are certain inalienable human rights afforded to us not by some social contract, but simply by virtue of our human nature.
This is nothing more than haughty drama designed to discredit pro-choice advocates as non-believers in innate human value. It’s specious at best and we can see right through you.
You continue with:
Describing an unborn child as a clump of cells is technically accurate but also inadequate because this description could apply to every other human being.
It’s unclear if you missed the point of referring to the fertilized egg as NOTHING MORE THAN a clump of cells when you claim that human beings can also be described the same way. In fact, it is all of the things besides our cellular makeup that distinguish us from a fertilized egg. If you were to list the characteristics of human life and compare all of them to the characteristics of a fertilized egg, you would see that being cellular is the only reasonable similarity and certainly not enough to consider the fertilized egg an unborn child. Anyone who was NOTHING MORE THAN a clump of cells could not sustain life and therefore would not be living. You need a lot more than a fertilized egg to host human life.
Your claim sounded cool until you think about how ridiculous it is. Nobody except you wants to claim that human life is nothing but a clump of cells.
This is a complete non-sequitur. Nobody was describing an unborn child. They were instead describing the clump of cells that do not have the discernable characteristics of a unique human life. People are not describing the cells as an unborn child because there is no guarantee that those cells will become a viable host for human life. 22% of pregnancies are aborted and 16% are stillborn or eliminated through miscarriage. So, the clump of cells has a 62% chance of potentially developing into a body capable of supporting life. The bodies being developed inside the women are not alive until they are capable of supporting life. At which point, they become a viable fetus and can be removed safely from the woman’s body.
Your claim that every other human being can be described as nothing more than a clump of cells is outright ridiculous. Among many things, human beings can be described as a collection of cells but nobody would be so foolish as to claim that human beings are nothing more than a clump of cells. Whereas a fertilized egg inside a woman’s body is nothing more than a clump of cells. The description is perfectly adequate and accurate.
But you dig in further with:
It is neither an organ nor a collection of tissues, it is, in fact, an individual organism forced to feed off its mother from circumstance and through no fault of its own.
This is nothing more than a lie. The clump of cells quickly divides into recognizable organs and tissues, so your claim is invalid regardless. But you make the claim that these tissues and organs developing inside the mother are an actual organism. This is wrong. When you look up the definition of an organism, you can see clearly that the cells and all of their developing complexity do not qualify as an organism until they are viable.
organism
[ ôr′gə-nĭz′əm ] Noun
An individual form of life, such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protist, or fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life.
The second word in the medical definition of organism is the key element that you are neglecting on purpose. While the cells are forming but unable to sustain life on their own as an individual, they remain part of the woman’s body and therefore should be well within her right to remove if she wants to.
What is brilliant about this medical definition is that bacteria are organisms. It is estimated that 1 to 3 percent of the cells in our body (10x the number of human cells) are actually individual organisms that can be removed from the body while still exhibiting the characteristics of life. The clump of cells-not at all.
Even if you found a way to rationalize that this clump of cells was an organism, it does not mean that it will become a viable human life. According to the CDC, there were 24,000 stillbirths in 2014. Those were bodies that could not host life. They were not children nor were they ever alive. They were physical structures built with the goal of supporting life that didn’t make it.
It is neither an organ nor a collection of tissues, it is in fact an individual organism forced to feed off its mother from circumstance and through no fault of its own.
You are entirely inaccurate in your assessment of what these cells are. If they are anything they are organs and tissues so your claim makes no sense. Then you invoke the innocent fetus meme claiming that through no fault of its own—give me a break. Your personification of these cells is specious at best.
Yes, a woman should benefit from personal autonomy just like every other free citizen, but the freedom to affect her body ends when it might affect somebody else.
While it is refreshing and unexpected to hear you claim that a woman should benefit from personal autonomy, you do so by granting citizenship to the clump of cells that are not capable of supporting a life yet. Now, just being a fertilized egg grants you citizenship? It’s not just that you want to claim that the cells are a unique living organism forced into feeding off the woman despite their innocence, now you want to grant them citizenship? Seriously, this is not even worth laughing about.
Why don’t we see a significant number of insurance policies on pregnancies. A life insurance policy seems like it would be perfectly in order from the time of conception if we followed your logic. But we know that until these cells can host life, they can’t be considered a person, let alone a citizen.
Again, if a woman wants her autonomy and the cells are viable for human life, she should be able to remove the cells and they should be allowed to live—granted citizenship if you will. But that’s the problem, the cells are not autonomous until they become a viable host for human life. You simply cannot grant or even infer citizenship for every fertilized egg when 38% of pregnancies fail to produce a human child. See Suggestions-Technology.
Especially when another human life has come to an end.
Once again, it is important that you are more honest with your appraisal of the situation. Nobody is advocating for the euthanization of a viable fetus. Nobody wants to end a viable life. Of the unwanted pregnancies that are not the result of rape, incest, or force, not a single person wants to kill a baby. This is why it is important to eliminate the cells before they become a viable host for human life. Until such a point that the life can exist separate from the mother (even if feeding has to be done through another host or machine), the cells are not able to support human life and are therefore still part of the woman’s body. It is only when the cells develop to support a living unique autonomous organism that these cells can be considered alive.
Rationalizing the decision to end an unborn life can lead to some dark ideas.
Though this is obvious fear-mongering and has little to do with your genuine desire to force a woman to follow through with the delivery of the unwanted child, it is pretty narrow-minded and lacks a reasonable reflection on modern pregnancy. Once again, your intention is to portray pro-choice advocates as evil, dark-thinking zealots that get pregnant just so they can kill a baby. It’s ridiculous, but when you need to hide your true motivation, you just as well go there.
There are those who suggest that an unborn life should end if it should otherwise be poor or disabled. That’s called Eugenics.
Again, you are dead wrong. Here is the definition and goal of Eugenics:
The study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable and decrease the occurrence of less desirable characteristics such as disability or deformity.
This has been done in some manner throughout history with varying degrees of success. Royal families have insisted that members of the family must marry other royalty to keep the bloodline safe. Some extreme situations like Sparta would cull all of the weak babies. In China, female babies were disposable. It is not an unreasonable desire to foster a healthy society of strong, intelligent, creative individuals. It is just that the methods were hideous and unspeakable. So much so that this distorted and horrific version of Eugenics was adopted by the Nazis and used to justify the elimination of Jewish people.
Today, however, the middle class and up all have access to medical doctors that will do genetic screening for compatible genes. We are even using CRISPR to genetically modify cells before they become viable to hopefully eliminate genetic diseases and mutations. They are selecting against the same things like deformity, disease, etc., but they are doing it in the context of an intentional pregnancy. The goals are the same and should a woman become pregnant by a man who is a poor genetic match, it is without a doubt better for everyone involved to terminate the pregnancy before it becomes viable. These kinds of abortions will always be available to the rich and middle class who would not want to suffer raising a deformed or challenged kid.
But that’s not the kind of abortion that you are against because you are not concerned with the life of the future baby or the life of the woman. You are not concerned with women who want to have a baby but experience complications. Those abortions are fine because these are responsible women doing the right thing.
You make your claim about poverty only because the majority of unwanted pregnancies are unwanted because the woman has no way to support the child that may come as a result of the pregnancy, not just because they are poor and certainly not because they want to kill a baby. An unwanted baby born to a teenage mother that cannot feed it or care for it and literally does not want to feed it or care for it is not likely to make it. If a baby lives a short and torturous life before dying of neglect, it is hard to see the virtue in subjecting an innocent baby to such a thing while also claiming to be in support of life. Eliminating the non-viable cells by ending the pregnancy saves suffering for everyone. But there’s the rub, isn’t it? Ending the suffering is clearly the last thing you want.
NOW, at least, you are finally admitting the part that you have been so hesitant to admit. You could really give a shit about the baby’s life. You are entirely concerned about the mother.
Furthermore, there’s a point to be made about individual responsibility.
More important than the potential life is the need for you to make a point about individual responsibility. In fact, if you could be completely honest, you would have to admit that you do not mind if the woman dies during childbirth. Even if both the mother and child die during childbirth, it is not nearly as important as the need to punish the woman. This exposes your hypocrisy and underscores why men should have no say in what happens to a woman’s body. Men have no liability when they get a woman pregnant, but yet they want to make a point about individual responsibility.
Even if the pregnancy were unintentional, most are not the product of malice or force. Thus it would be unfair for the woman to seek the procedure because it is she who indulged in reckless or risky behavior and it is the unborn life that would pay the penalty.
If this were truly your motivation, it is important to note that a woman cannot singly indulge in reckless or risky behavior and get pregnant. No extreme masturbation toy is ever going to make a woman pregnant. The pregnancy could not happen without the man involved. Yet you do not see fit to instruct the man on his duty to be responsible and not to indulge in reckless or risky behavior. Where is the penalty for his half of the problem?
Next, you go on to bring back up the argument that nobody is claiming—the innate value of a human life bullshit, but you have shown your hand already. No matter how nefarious you try to make the system look that permits abortion, you are just doing so to cover the only real reason you care about abortion at all: women who have sex.
RESPONSE
Abortion is about teaching a woman to be responsible for her actions. Abortion is not about saving lives because without abortion, 16% of pregnancies do not produce a viable life through no fault of the woman. If you were honestly as invested in saving lives as you claim to be with regards to pregnant women, there are numerous ways that you could apply your conviction (see Suggestions) however, it is clear you just want to punish women for their part in having sex.
Some quick facts about abortion:
16% of pregnancies, both wanted and unwanted end in stillbirth or miscarriage.
22% of pregnancies end in abortion before the cells become viable.
The United States has one of the highest mortality rates for pregnant women and newborns in the civilized world.
The majority of deaths occur in areas stricken with poverty where access to adequate medical care is non-existent and babies are born without any prenatal observation or interaction.
25% of the women who die during during childbirth are black despite making up only 7% of the general population.
The number of abortions has gone down significantly since abortion was legalized.
Some quick observances about Anti-Choice (formerly pro-life) advocates:
There has been no coalition of conservatives dedicated to ensuring that high risk populations have adequate prenatal, natal, and postnatal medical care which conflicts with their claims of wanting to save lives. The most effective way to save a pregnant woman and her baby is through adequate medical care. In fact, free medical care to those who cannot afford it is contrary to the conservative platform and just further proof of the specious nature of their claim to support life.
There has been no coalition of conservatives dedicated to improving the foster care system for unwanted babies after birth. Since unwanted babies are more likely to be subjected to malnutrition, abuse both physical and mental, and neglect, someone who truly cared for the life of the unwanted baby would acknowledge the importance of prompt post-birth adoption and would organize to make this a reality.
There has been no coalition of conservatives to provide education and contraception that could prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. In fact, a recent Trump-supported candidate in Minnesota has made her platform out of making contraception illegal, abortion punishable by death as well as eliminating gay marriage—all factors that could help limit unwanted pregnancies.
We have seen conservatives pass trigger laws in 13 states that make abortion punishable by death despite the fact that they claim to care for the life of the fetus. This can only demonstrate that they do not care for the life of the woman whose uterus they want to control.
Some states even provide life in prison or the death penalty for miscarriage–an act of nature.
We have seen a constant campaign attempting to make abortion illegal again despite the fact that abortions are on the decline and making them illegal will likely increase the number of dead children and women subjecting themselves to coat hanger abortions or clandestine pseudo-medical abortions.
Despite claims of supporting the life of the unborn baby, we have seen no significant investment in technology that would allow surrogate births for unwanted pregnancies. No technological advances or advanced training in areas hit hardest by maternal death during childbirth. If you were as invested in saving lives as you are in punishing women, there would be new technology available to the riskiest pregnancies to ensure that they didn’t die during childbirth.
Every single possible measure to prevent unwanted pregnancies has been thwarted by conservative Anti-Choice zealots.
We have yet to see conservatives step up to the plate and provide a network of Christian homes ready to take in the unwanted, disabled, deformed, and crack-addicted babies they insisted be brought into the world. We don’t even see any concern whatsoever beyond ensuring that a woman has to pay the price for having sex with a man.
No matter how you look at the abortion argument, it is clear that conservatives are not really invested in saving lives, especially not the woman’s life. Conservatives are only invested in punishing women. They refuse to hold men responsible for getting women pregnant and they offer no support to stop unwanted pregnancies.
The conservative Anti-Choice advocate is a masochistic hypocrite whose only concern is the punishment of women and this is evidenced repeatedly by the lack of concern for anything other than punishment.
Suggestions
Temporary Castration
If a woman has sex with a man and the man gets her pregnant, the man should bear half the burden of the decision to force a woman to carry the unwanted pregnancy to term. Therefore, men should be subject to medical castration to prevent future examples of their irresponsibility. The procedure should be performed by women doctors and should be expensive—about the cost of a pregnancy. Failure to submit to the procedure would be a felony or potentially punishable by death in some states.
Financial Burden
Furthermore, exactly half of all medical expenses and medical obligations should covered by the man responsible for the pregnancy. Failure to do so should result in their incarceration.
Equal Liability
If a woman chooses to have an illegal abortion and is tried for murder, the man should receive the same penalty. If punishable by death, both parties responsible for the supposed murder should be put to death. The man would be considered an accomplice.
Focus on Care
Since poverty is the leading cause of unwanted pregnancies, the government that wishes to legislate a woman’s uterus should be equally invested in her health and should provide free medical support by qualified specialists for prenatal, natal, and postnatal care.
Focus on Prevention
Also, a significant focus on education and prevention of unwanted pregnancies should be the focus of any administration that wishes to make abortion illegal. There should be no law outlawing abortion that does not adequately support the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.
Focus on Training
For rural hospitals, specialized training should be required to understand not only the potential problems during childbirth, but also on the difference in requirements between races when giving birth. Long held myths about pain levels need to be reversed and hospitals in rural settings need to be capable of handling births more effectively.
Focus on Adoption
The government that outlaws abortion should also invest significantly in a foster care or surrogate birth program that would allow a woman to relinquish responsibility to care for the unwanted child she was forced to give birth to. Adoption should be handled as soon as possible, preferably before childbirth so as to ease post-partem depression and child liability.
Focus on Technology
Without a doubt, if conservatives are actually concerned with the potential life of the fertilized egg, the most effective measure to ensure viability besides the things already mentioned would be to develop a technology that would allow the fertilized egg to be removed from the woman’s body and either preserved or implanted into the body of a willing conservative for gestation and birth. Even artificial birth would be of significant benefit to unwanted pregnancies and could be achieved through a significant investment from conservative Anti-Choice advocates.
Summary
You have clearly demonstrated your real motive for your anti-abortion stance though you have cleverly hid it with pseudo-scientific and even false information about pregnancy and viability. Your production value was superb and your tone was perfect for the self-righteous and dishonest Anti-Choice movement. The fact that you are a man detracts significantly from your concerns since you will never have to face the penalty you are so adamant about enforcing. In all, you gave a good show and I am sure you will receive lots of praise from other conservative Anti-Choice advocates that have no problem with hypocrisy or lack of integrity in their claims against abortion.
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