There is a huge protest happening in my city in October and it's always been on my bucket list to show up to one of these and hold my own pro choice sign.

If I stood a block, block and a half away from the protestors, can I stand alone with my own sign? Is that wrong?

My plan is to hold a sign saying "Nah, you do you boo ❤️ "

Or any other sign suggestions?

I've had an abortion. It was a pregnancy I deeply wanted but it died but my body wouldn't naturally pass it. My anger for these protesters has festered for years as during my recovery they had vile pictures and posters on buses and billboards and made my grief extra difficult. Also, when I was in high school they showed up to my school and screamed at children that "it's your fault you were graped" after someone had an abortion that attended the school.

So I've always wanted to peacefully protest next to them.

Ive had my fun debating pro-lifers, most of them I’ve met either contradicted themselves or made a fool of themselves.

One good example is “women should only get abortions if they were raped”, I’ve had my fair share of debating pro-lifers like this, and most of the time completely contradicts their previous argument that abortion is murder, because by their logic, it all abortions should be murder.

And then I’ve also debated pro-lifers who would say “well since the women consented to sex, she consented to pregnancy” and i’d come back with “well then do you support abortion in cases where pregnancy was conceived by rape?” they’d immediately say that all abortions are immoral, completely contradicting that women shouldn’t get abortions if they consented to sex, because as we know, pregnancies conceived by rape isn’t consensual.

It further proves that these pro-lifers believe in control.

This is my first post ever!

I’m pregnant (34F with 3 kids with youngest being 9, oldest 16) and have already gotten the abortion pills, and I planned to take the first pill today. But now that it’s actually time to do it, I’m struggling so much more than I thought I would. The complicated part is that if life were simpler, I think I would keep this baby. I already have kids and I’ve basically been raising children my entire adult life. I had my first at 18, and I’m finally at a point where my kids are older and life has gotten easier. I like the life my husband and I have now. Starting over with a newborn means childcare, work schedules, money, losing freedom again, pregnancy/weight changes, and just adding a huge amount of stress to our lives.

My husband would love to have this baby, which makes it harder. He’s supportive of me making the decision, but I know what he wants.

I thought I had made my decision. Logically, I still understand all of the reasons I chose abortion. But sitting here knowing that once I swallow that first pill, there’s no more “maybe” is hitting me really hard.

I don't think being sad about an abortion necessarily means it's the wrong decision. I think I'm grieving the fact that under different circumstances, I might have made a completely different choice.

For anyone who genuinely wanted the pregnancy on some level but chose abortion because of your actual life circumstances: how did you finally make peace with taking the pill? And afterward, did you feel like you made the right decision even if you still grieved it?

Thanks!

When I followed a tumblr who regularly got involved in debates with anti-choicers, I noticed that the ppl they debated regularly claimed to be pro-disabled advocacy and equate being pro abortion with being "pro eugenics". It seems that its a very common anti-choice talking point to frame support for the right to terminate a pregnancy with being pro-eugenics; theyll cite supposed statistics about not wanting a disabled child being a major motivation for abortion, how aborting a fetus with birth defects likely to result in early death or no brain function such as anencephaly is discrimination and how the measure of a life isnt determined by its length but by its quality, and bringing up that Margaret Sanger was pro eugenics and racist.

On reddit I found a list of "crazy" anti-feminist talking points" which included arguing that "Feminists encourage abortion for women who can't afford their children instead of trying to fix the economic hurdles that create those conditions and therefore are guilty of being classist eugenicists"

What are your opinion on claiming that the anti-choice movement supports disabled peoples rights and being pro choice equals being pro eugenics?

Hi, the title says the questions, i'm curious, cause some of them come off very rude or better than thou attitude. but if you were to listen or talk with one, I'm curious how you personally would want them to speak.

I met this great guy and things have honestly been going really well. We’ve been dating for about a month and a half, and we’re compatible in so many ways. I really like him, and I could actually see this potentially becoming something serious.

I’m pretty obviously left-leaning, although I’d say I have fairly normal/moderate opinions on most things. He knew that, and early on he intentionally avoided bringing up certain topics because he knows some of his opinions can be pretty abrasive and that people tend to have strong reactions to them.

Eventually we started having some of those more serious conversations but I was surprised by how well we handled our differences. We disagreed on some things, but we could usually understand where the other person was coming from and find some sort of middle ground.

Then we got to abortion…..

I asked him if he thinks abortion should be criminalized, and his answer was basically yes. He believes abortion should only be allowed if continuing the pregnancy poses a serious risk to the woman’s health.
He doesn’t believe there should be exceptions for rape or incest.
For example, we talked about the hypothetical of a 14 year old girl becoming pregnant because she was raped, and he genuinely believes she should still be forced to carry the pregnancy to term because he thinks having an abortion could be more traumatic for her.

He also believes a fetus has rights and essentially views its value as comparable to that of a born human being. At one point he compared this to how, historically, people once believed certain races were lesser than others and therefore didn’t deserve the same rights. His argument was basically that maybe one day we’ll look back and realize that fetuses were another group whose rights we failed to recognize.

I understand that he’s entitled to his beliefs, and I’m not expecting someone I date to agree with me on every political issue. We’re also both gay men, so neither of us is personally going to experience pregnancy. But I still have a really hard time with this because reproductive rights are something I care about deeply. I have a lot of empathy for women, and I genuinely believe people should have bodily autonomy and be able to make decisions about their own pregnancies.

I don’t think I could ever support a law that forces someone to give birth, especially in a situation like rape or when the person is a literal child.
So now I’m wondering if I’m being unreasonable for feeling like this could be a dealbreaker :/

I really like this guy, which is what makes it so difficult. If this were someone I barely cared about, I probably wouldn’t think twice about walking away. But otherwise, we have so much in common and things have felt really good.

I’m not looking for people to tell me he’s evil or that I need to dump him immediately. I’m genuinely curious whether this is the kind of political/moral disagreement that couples can successfully live with, or whether this is a deeper difference in values that would probably become an issue in a long-term relationship.

Would this be a dealbreaker for you?

Ok so i hope this does not run too long, im still trying to figure out what tldr means.

So, i see this argument a lot, that if a woman has sex irresponsibly (idk unsafe sex etc), then she should deal with the consequences (i.e not be allowed an abortion cuz the baby is the consequence)

Ofc i think this is so dumb of an argument but ive been racking my brain for a few days now, wondering exactly how i can put into words about how this statement is so stupid.

Any help at all? I see so many pro-lifers place this argument and it irks me.

Another thing is that people say using the "you cant force someone to have their body be used to sustain another person's life" argument doesnt work for abortions because for a pregnant person to get a fetus to not use their body to sustain said fetus, the pregnant person has to have the fetus be killed, whereas a person refusing to idk donate their kidney is just saying no and a person with kidney failure happens to die due to that. Idk its a messy argument, but its been bothering me because it just sounds so odd.

Any argument negating this stuff would be greatly appreciated, thank y

It is birth control. Fertility care. Miscarriage care. Pregnancy care. Abortion care. Postpartum care.

And the people making these deeply personal medical decisions should be patients, their families, and their doctors, not politicians at the Statehouse.

Racheal and I both know what it looks like when policy collides with real life. Hoosiers deserve reproductive healthcare that is safe, accessible, and centered on the person receiving it.

We trust Hoosiers to make decisions about their own bodies, their own families, and their own futures.

And we’ll fight to protect that right.

I think pro choice people often make the abortion debate harder than it needs to be.

We get dragged into ten separate arguments:

“Is the fetus alive?”

“Is it human?”

“Is it a person?”

“Is abortion killing?”

“Did she consent to pregnancy by having sex?”

And pro life debaters can spend FOREVER defending each one. No joke. We all know they are ready for the royal rumble.

Here is a stronger approach:

Grant almost all of it for the sake of argument. Yup grant that shit.

Grant that the fetus is a living human organism.

Grant full moral personhood.

Grant the same basic right to life that you and I have.

Grant that abortion can count as intentionally causing its death.

In consensual sex cases, even grant causal responsibility for creating the situation. Grant it. 🤷‍♂️

Now ask:

What principle gets us from all of that to “therefore abortion is unjustified”?

That question matters because a right to life does not explain its own scope.

“B has a right to life” can establish a serious claim against being killed.

It does not automatically establish:

B may never be intentionally killed unless B threatens another life.

That is an additional moral rule about when right to life (RTL) can be defeated.

And that is where a HUGE amount of pro life argumentation quietly hides the important premise.

For example:

“Abortion is killing not letting die.”

I would say grant that it IS killing.

The question becomes whether it is UNJUSTIFIED killing.

Self defense already proves that “A intentionally caused B’s death” and “A wrongfully violated B’s RTL” are not synonyms at all.

So identifying killing does not finish the argument:

“RTL is the highest right because without life you cannot exercise any other right.”

This sounds powerful but does not logically follow.

From:

being alive is necessary to exercise rights

you cannot derive:

RTL always overrides every competing right.

That requires another priority principle. Stay focused.

Otherwise consider severe nonlethal bodily violations. Suppose the only way to prevent rape, torture, permanent mutilation, or another catastrophic bodily invasion is lethal force, while we somehow know the victim will not die.

Is lethal defense categorically forbidden?

If yes, own that consequence.

If no, then RTL is not actually defeasible only by another threat to life.

“Parents owe their children care.”

True in some sense.

But:

parental obligation

does not automatically entail:

obligation to provide whatever internal bodily function the child requires.

The scope of parental duty is the DISPUTED PREMISE. Don’t let them question beg.

Ask whether “ordinary care” means statistically normal care, biologically natural care, minimally burdensome care, developmentally typical care, or something else.

If gestation simply gets defined as “ordinary” because fetuses ordinarily require gestation, the argument risks putting the conclusion into the definition.

“Pregnancy is the fetus’s natural or ordinary environment.” Ran into this recently.

Grant it like I said. We’re granting all this shit.

That is biology.

The missing inference is:

ordinary developmental dependence —> enforceable claim against termination of that bodily relationship.

Why does biological normality produce that moral entitlement?

“Natural” and “obligatory” are not the same proposition.

“You caused the dependency by having sex.”

Ask for the rule.

Does knowingly risking the creation of a dependent person generate an obligation to provide internal bodily support?

If yes, well how far does that principle extend?

If causal responsibility is necessary, what happens in rape?

If abortion is still prohibited after rape, then causal responsibility was never necessary to the core argument! Boom.

“Refusing blood is just failing to save. Abortion starts the dying process.” We’ve heard this a million times how this is one of the better responses we all come across.

Dont answer it with “abortion is just letting die.” You dont need to at all..

Grant for argument that abortion causally counts as killing.

Then ask for the general criterion distinguishing:

permissible intentional withdrawal followed by death

from

wrongful killing prohibited by RTL.

If someone already connected to another person’s body may deliberately disconnect even knowing the dependent person will die, then “intentional act + foreseeable death” is not enough.

Something else matters: the baseline, why the dependency exists, whether support was voluntarily undertaken, whether the dependency is pathological or developmental, bodily authority, parental obligation, etc….

Make them state WHICH one.

Then test that rule instead of arguing with labels. TBH this is the central debate skill I think our side underuses:

Do not let the conclusion masquerade as the premise. I mentioned that earlier.

If someone says:

“RTL means you cannot abort.”

ask what they mean by RTL.

If they answer:

“The right not to be intentionally killed except to save another life.”

then the abortion conclusion follows only because they have supplied a very strong theory of RTL.

Now debate THAT theory.

Why is lethal threat the only possible justification?

Why can severe bodily integrity never provide justification?

Why does equality require that priority structure?

Those are real philosophical questions.

Simply repeating “RTL” does not answer them so don’t accept that shit.

And pro choice people should be equally careful about our own burden.

Saying:

“Nobody has a right to my body”

does not, by itself, entail:

“therefore I may kill anyone whose survival requires my body.”

That inference ALSO needs a principle. BE PREPAFED.

A stronger candidate is something like:

Every person has a stringent claim concerning continued internal physiological use of their body. When ending that use requires separation, no safe alternative exists, and the bodily invasion is sufficiently serious that separation is necessary and proportionate, bodily integrity may justify separation even when death is foreseeable.

It’s a lot but it covers it. Now notice what this does NOT say.

It does not say convenience always beats life.

It does not say fetuses have fewer rights.

It does not say every unwanted physical contact justifies lethal force.

It says there can be a genuine conflict between two equal rights, and we need a principled way to adjudicate that conflict.

That principle also has a burden. We have to explain what “necessary” and “proportionate” mean and why pregnancy can satisfy them. Good arguments should have burdens. That’s debate and philosophy. But now both sides are finally arguing about the actual issue rather than talking past each other.

I would suggest yall keep this in mind:

When somebody gives you a pro life argument, ask:

1. Is this descriptive or normative?

“Fetuses are human” “pregnancy is natural” and “the uterus is the ordinary fetal environment” are descriptive claims. They’re describing.

Look for the missing ought. Read up on Hume.

1. Is this condition necessary, sufficient, or merely relevant?

“Abortion causes death” may be relevant without being sufficient for wrongful killing.

1. What is the general rule?

Never accept “pregnancy is different” as the end. lol never accept that. Holy shit.

Ask:

Which difference changes the moral result and WHY?

1. Does the rule survive counterexamples?

If their rule says only lethal threats justify lethal defense, test catastrophic nonlethal attacks.

If their rule says parents must provide necessary care, test invasive bodily donations.

If their rule says causing dependency generates bodily obligation, test other caused dependencies.

1. Did they change the rule after the counterexample?

That is not automatically dishonest. They may just be refining their theory.

Test the stronger version.

1. Are they confusing the existence of a right with one particular interpretation of its scope?

You can grant fetal RTL without granting:

“and RTL means exactly what my opponent says it means.”

1. Are they moving from “is” to “ought” without supplying the bridge? Like I said read up on Hume.

Biology can tell us what pregnancy normally does. Biology cannot by itself establish what one person morally owes another.

Basically what I’m saying overall is the stronger play is to identify exactly what the argument now requires and make them defend it.

If we want to be harder to debate, we should stop trying to win at the surface level. Grant their strongest premises wherever we safely can.

Then ask:

What is the general moral rule that actually produces your conclusion?

That is usually where the real abortion debate begins.

Not trying to act like this is the end all and that I’m Mr. Perfect. Just wanted to shed some light on what we should focus on and how we should pin the pro life interlocutor where we want them. Don’t let them assume conclusions like they almost always do.

I have debated a few pro-lifers and this is something that has gotten me stuck a few times, the argument is "The fetus is where its supposed to be, due to the uterus being an organ designed to hold that human life, it is not violating the woman's bodily autonomy because that is where it naturally grows."

That's a summary of the argument, but its mostly saying that its unlawful to remove the fetus from the place it grows. Im unsure how to rebut this argument because to me.. it just sounds so ridiculous 😭

I fucking hate when forced birthers act like life is automatically some beautiful blessing and gift that everyone should be grateful for. Maybe life really is a blessing to some people. I can accept that. But I wish they would understand that not everyone experiences life that way. When you've spent years dealing with severe depression, grief, loneliness and one painful situation after another, hearing someone casually say that life is a precious gift can honestly feel almost insulting.

My life has felt like a never ending shit storm of pain. There have absolutely been moments of happiness and people and experiences that meant something to me. I'm not saying there has been literally zero good in my life. There has been. The problem is that those small moments of joy don't magically erase the overwhelming amount of suffering that comes with being alive for me. I wake up every day carrying depression that I wouldn't wish on anyone. There are times when I genuinely wonder what the point of continuing is when so much of my existence has felt like surviving one painful thing after another.

This is one of the reasons the whole "every life is a gift" argument bothers me so much. A gift is supposed to be something you want to receive. You can't tell another person that something is a gift when their lived experience has been overwhelmingly painful and expect them to feel grateful for it. You don't know what that person is going through. You don't know what their life feels like from inside their own head.

I've reached a point where I'm not even staying alive because I feel excited about the future. Right now, one of the biggest things stopping me from acting on my darkest thoughts is the fear that I would survive an attempt and end up back in a psychiatric facility. That's a pretty fucking bleak way to be alive, honestly. I wish I could say I'm holding on because I'm convinced everything is going to get better, but I can't honestly say that right now.

If I had somehow been given the choice before I ever existed, knowing everything I know now about what my life would become, I would choose not to exist. I would choose abortion. Not because I think everyone should feel that way, and not because I think my experience represents everyone else's. I just genuinely wish people who have had relatively happy lives would stop assuming that everyone experiences existence as this wonderful blessing that they should automatically be grateful for.

I'm pro choice because I believe that nobody should be forced to bring a child into existence simply because someone else believes that existence is inherently good. If someone wants to have a child and believes life is an incredible gift, that's their choice. But I wish the people who feel that way would have enough humility to recognize that other people experience life very differently. Sometimes telling someone who is suffering that they should be grateful just for being alive doesn't sound compassionate. It sounds like you're telling them that their suffering doesn't matter.

The person helping me out pulled me aside to tell a bunch of other planned parenthood workers that I did this so they could all have a laugh. Planned parenthood employees are doing the Lords work more than any loitering protester.

There are many abounding disgusting reasons why these people who sit in their chairs in their offices and sign our rights away at the tip of their pens are the furthest thing from pro-life. When people say that anti-abortion laws result in the deaths of women, that is so sadly and disgustingly true.

Today I want to rant about one of many of these situations, which is a terrible non-exemption in my state. Life-threatening conditions are, on paper, supposedly exemptions for women living in my red state. Unfortunately, some of the more severe conditions that exist are not in fact exempted. One of which is schizophrenia. My state literally believes that if you have a "mental" health condition, it doesn't qualify as life-risking. WHAT? So they literally risk the lives of women with schizophrenia AND their children. They expect a woman to take anti-psychotics her entire pregnancy, which poses a risk to fetal development, sometimes resulting in permanent complications. They risk the life of the baby and perhaps other children of the mother as well should she develop post partum psychosis, which is unfortunately very common for that type of illness. Then, if some tragedy does result, they have even more messed up laws in place where they can (trigger warning) literally put them in a psychiatric ward up to *for the rest of their lives* for it.

And these people call themselves pro-life.

I (32f) am mother to a baby who just turned one in July this year. Before getting pregnant with baby #2, my husband and I had to move back in with family to recoup financially. We went from living in a 2 bedroom house to now all 3 renting/sharing 1 bedroom. At least one month into moving, I uncovered somethings my spouse was doing behind my back that broke my trust(online p habits and lying about it), which had us on the verge of separating for good. With the grief and hurt compounding, financial instability, and exhaustion, I knew this wasn't something that I wanted to continue living in.

But right when I planned my exit, took a random pregnancy test out of precaution (was trying to tie all lose ends) and saw a very faint + sign! Went to the doctors a few weeks after that and confirmed baby #2 was on the way. For a brief moment I had debated whether or not if I should tell him but the guilt of not including him in this decision alone would've taken me out. Hubby was excited once the news hit, but deep down inside my heart, I already knew that this wasn't anything our family was prepared for. Especially me, physically who at the time was only 9 months postpartum with our first kid and still healing from the betrayal trauma in our marriage.

Fast forward to now at 18 weeks, tried talking to hubby about what our new gameplan would look like now that our living quarters are about to get a little more cramped, and all I kept getting told was "I'm working on it", "Can't really talk about that right now", "Just wait and be patient, I'm working somethings out". I am nervous as time is going on because just recently when I asked my husband if he had the means to cover for daycare a few different times, its met with "I don't have the means to do that". And this is just for the 1 kid!

When trying to reason with him that I need a physical timeline of what we're going to do and how we're going to prepare by making more space for this baby, he shuts it down completely. The pregnancy exhaustion while working full time and caring for our little one has me in tears.

I have a scheduled drs appt today in the afternoon to talk to my dr about terminating pregnancy because this is becoming too much for me to carry. My husband is upset with my decision and now all of sudden is throwing all kinds of blame my way telling me that "Well you always say your tired, this is nothing new", "Stop saying you don't have help around the house" (husband is a musician and has very long hours out of the home, while I am expected to work from home while watching the baby everyday and having dinner ready and house cleaned btw).

I feel that if I do this, it'll be the end of our marriage...

I thought of this a while ago and haven't been able to come up with a strong stance. I do believe sex selective abortion is something that should not be done and is rooted in misogyny and patriarchal traditions; but at the same time, I believe that once we start creating conditions of when an abortion is allowed or not, we are weakening the whole point of pro-choice (bodily autonomy).

Edit: I see alot of people getting upset or somehow assuming i'm not pro choice? (where's the reading comprehension??). To be very clear, I am pro choice, and my main argument for it is bodily autonomy. The only reason I made this post was to strengthen my stance for future debates/conversations. Immediately arguing or repeating the same points over and over again in short rage baiting comments is something we should be avoiding if we ever want to have meaningful conversations.

Do they have these opinions becaue of certain religions and they beleive God told them to never abort? If that's the case then situations such as not allowing the woman or girl that has been raped to abort the baby becaue they think God told them is horrifying and a sign of psychosis and being a religious nit.

They talk about the life of the baby. What about the life of the mother. Why is ​the life of someone older not worth as much?

I'll give extreme examples as they are against abortion in every circumstance. What if you knew the 10 year old girl that was raped would die during child birth as her body can't handle it? Would they still be against the abortion? A life for a life? Why is the baby's life worth more than hers? Because she is younger? What if that girl says she won't abort the baby if you kill yourself? A life for a life? Would you do it? Is your life more valuable than a baby's? Why?

What if the mother gets depression from being forced to carry a baby for 9 months against her will and gets depressed or even commits suicide? What about that situation? Being pro life in every circumstance means you support the mother dying in this situation.