A lot of pro-choicers like to argue that if pro-lifers were really pro-life, they’d be supporting babies and single mothers, etc. after birth, not just caring about the fetus’ life pre-birth but then ignoring it post-birth.
I fully agree with that - however, just because someone opposes abortion, does not logically mean that they are on the hook to take care of someone after birth. The closest analogy would be PETA. PETA opposes animal experimentation and the killing of animals; however, that does not mean that PETA is ethically obligated to feed, care for, and host all the animals that would be released if the farmers and animal-experimenters really were to release the animals. The ethical obligation of PETA, from their perspective, is simply to stop the “animal abuse.” What happens after the abuse or killing is ceased, is not their responsibility.
Again, I fully agree that pro-lifers should do more to care for mothers and post-birth babies, but the idea that if you speak out against something you consider wrong, means you are therefore obligated to do Thing A, Thing B, Thing C, etc. in caring and responsibility doesn’t make sense. That would be like saying that you can’t object to your neighbors abusing their kids if you aren’t willing to rear and raise their kids yourself.
Of course they are. They are supporting policies and laws that, by their very nature, ensures that more babies will be born, often in shittier circumstances (because people choose birth control/abortion when they can’t support a kid at this point in their lives or relationships - if there even is a relationship to begin with). I don’t care if their argument is that women should in turn stop having sex - it won’t happen. There is a huge biological drive honed to a razor edge, to ensure it does not in fact happen. That’s why we’re here. We all descend from the horniest bastards of a group of horny bastards. Nature heavily selects for horniness. Sex is going to happen. Like, a lot. No matter how hard the Bible gets thumped.
If you’re responsible for creating a social environment where more kids are born in shittier circumstances, then you are absolutely on the hook for its safety net as well. If you don’t want to pay for it, then shut the fuck up and let people bathe in the blood of the murdered unborn, it won’t cost you a dime. In the immortal words of Butchie, “Conscience *do *cost”. Your argument is like saying that supporting mass incarceration/tough on crime crapola doesn’t necessarily mean it’s on you to make sure the inmates are treated decently or fed/housed humanely. Yes it fucking is. I don’t expect you to become a prison guard for consistency’s sake ; but you can’t expect not to pay for the foreseeable, expected consequences of the laws you support.
Since you’re, in part, responsible for the birth of the baby ; you get to pay child support. It’s in your own interest anyway, for a number of reasons that shouldn’t need explaining. But again, if you rate your finances above your morals, then you have the choice to not try and make your morals into laws.
They’re not even interested in supporting the health and welfare of the mother and unborn baby before birth. They’re not “pro-life” in any meaningful sense of the word. If they were even a little bit honest about their position, they’d drop the pretense and go back to being "anti-abortion’.
Are we supposed to see the words “Pro-Life” and just assume it means “Pro-Creation Of Life”? If so, then the “Pro-Life” movement is doing a pretty shitty job of getting this message across because there isn’t a damn thing in their advertisements, speeches or webglurge that even hints that this is true.
I think the more-or-less workable solution I proposed in another thread was that pro-lifers can continue to call themselves “pro-life” and their movement the “pro-life movement” and people who oppose those goals can translate that in their own heads to whatever they want, and if that crowd wants to refer to those people as “anti-abortion”, the pro-lifers can just translate that in their heads to “pro-life”, and hopefully less time will be wasted trying to tell other people what they can / can’t label something.
ETA: for the record, I don’t consider “pro-life” any more of a “deceptive euphemism” than “pro-choice”
The problem with calling it the “Anti-Abortion Movement” is that it would entail doing far more to help prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. If your honest goal is to prevent abortions as efficiently and effectively as possible then proper health education and ensuring access to effective, low-no cost birth control gets you the most bang for your buck.
Calling yourself “Anti-Abortion” while not giving a damn about usefully, effectively preventing unwanted pregnancies is just another form of hypocrisy.
I don’t think most people would point to PETA as a successful movement. Most PETA activists are dismissed as a bunch of crazies. Do pro-lifers really want to take their cues from PETA?
I just took a course in interest-based negotiation. I learned that everyone comes to the negotiation table with their own specific interest to advance, and it’s up to the facilitator of the negotiation to get everyone to see their shared interests, so that they can work towards a shared goal. “WE NEED TO STOP KILLING THE BABIES!” is a valid interest, but it presumes we all agree that fetuses are “babies”. “WE NEED TO MAKE PREGNANCY EASIER” is a valid interest too–one that we have a better chance of all rallying around. Even pro-lifers can admit that being pregnant comes with serious health risks and that it can be a very scary proposition to a woman. Some pro-choice folks may cosign the “WE NEED TO STOP KILLING THE BABIES” interest if it could be attached to the clause “BY MAKING PREGNANCY EASIER FOR WOMEN.” Even more may come on board by adding “AND BY PROVIDING MORE SUPPORT TO FAMILIES.”
But banging the “WE NEED TO STOP KILLING THE BABIES!” drum just discourages people from coming to the table. It presumes that we’ve been killing “babies” for no good reason or that those reasons will magically disappear by banning abortion. It’s like demanding we ban fossil fuels right this second, while refusing to discuss the fact that we have not yet developed the infrastructure to enable that without severe ramifications on our economy and livelihood. Maybe it would make sense to ban fossil fuels if we were all had solar panels and windmills in our backyards, but we don’t. Maybe it would make sense to ban abortion if we had the technology to make pregnancy a quick low-risk, non-life ruining, cost-free affairs, but we don’t.
I see your point. Anti-abortion rights activists don’t necessarily have to propose massive new spending to support maternal and child care in order to be ethically and logically consistent when they propose new restrictions on/banning of abortions. By the same token, people who want to abolish ICE and legalize most immigration aren’t automatically “on the hook” for caring for all those new residents and also seeing their taxes hiked to support workers who will find it more difficult to find a job and receive a living wage given competition from greatly expanded immigrant labor.
Wait…yes, both groups are under such obligation. Never mind.
If I prevent your murder, I am not automatically on the hook for supporting you. Simply asserting that I am doesn’t create that obligation, however loudly you assert it.
It’s not really a matter of not living up to some “pro-life” ideal, but just not thinking through the consequences of their demands. If someone was calling for life sentences for a broad range of crimes, but had no interest in building more prisons, we could be similarly skeptical.
As was mentioned in the other thread, suppose I want to murder my two year old child. You would be opposed to that, of course. Going with your theory, since you are preventing me from murdering my two year old and not having to care for it, shouldn’t you then be forced to pay for the care of my two year old?
This is an obviously false analogy, since you are already responsible for caring for your own two-year-old, and it’s already illegal for you to murder him/her.
What opponents of abortion rights are advocating is changing the status of abortion from “non-murder” to “murder”. If they get their way, then huge numbers of unwanted pregnancies that would otherwise have been terminated will instead result in unwanted babies that need to be cared for.
Yes, if self-described “pro-lifers” contemplate that entirely predictable result of their crusade and shrug their shoulders and say that all those unwanted babies aren’t their problem, then the hypocrisy of their calling themselves “pro-life” becomes very apparent.
Exactly. Likewise, I disagree with the OP that an organization like PETA has no ethical responsibility to propose and support solutions to the animal suffering that would be caused if they persuaded large numbers of people to stop owning and exploiting animals.
In fact, AFAICT even PETA doesn’t agree with the OP about PETA’s responsibility to deal with animals formerly owned by people who no longer want them. That’s one of the reasons for PETA’s controversial position on animal euthanasia as a “tragic necessity”.
ISTM that PETA would argue that they do have a responsibility to animals abandoned in a post-animal-exploitation world (if such a world is ever attained), even if that responsibility only takes the form of euthanizing helpless and suffering animals that are unable to survive on their own.
Let’s say there was a huge epidemic of people killing their two-year-old kids. The first thing I’d want to find out is what the hell is going on. Are these normal parents? Are these normal two-year-olds?
Let’s say the two-year-olds being killed are NOT normal two-year olds with normal problems. They are severely behaviorally disordered, and their behaviors are ruining their parents’ lives. Let’s say that in the past, these parents could have institutionalized these kids or called on social services for respite care. They could also turn these kids over to the state and make them the state’s responsibility. But budget cutbacks have eliminated these programs, putting all of the burden on parents. And the lack of affordable health care means that parents can’t even take their crazy-ass toddlers to the doctor to find out what’s wrong with them or get drugs to medicate them with. So parents are concocting their own medicines and accidentally poisoning their kids.
Would it make sense to tackle the problem by villifying the parents and throwing them in prison? Is that really going to stop the problem of parents being driven over the edge by their responsibilities? Or would it make sense to have some compassion by actually addressing the root problems–a lack of societal care towards healthcare and child protection services.
I mean, if there’s a rash of people randomly killing other people’s two-year-old kids, that’s likely a problem of criminality and people just not giving a fuck. Maybe the only way to address that is by throwing all the psycho killers in prison and throwing away the key. But if people are killing their own two-year-old kids, then that strongly suggests something major has gone awry. You don’t fix whatever that is by building more prisons and shaming people. You try to help them first, at least.
