# "Pro-lifers want to control women's bodies" - Okay, but........why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 22, 2019, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330 "2019-05-22T02:24:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/321 "2019-05-29T16:13:39Z")
Right now, a couple struggling to have a baby can try as many times as they want, no matter how many miscarriages it takes to get there. Four or more miscarriages before a success occurs are not unheard of. Sometimes success never occurs. None of this is regulated by State. Do you think it should, **Max S**? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/322 "2019-05-29T18:22:39Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Right now, a couple struggling to have a baby can try as many times as they want, no matter how many miscarriages it takes to get there. Four or more miscarriages before a success occurs are not unheard of. Sometimes success never occurs. None of this is regulated by State. > > Do you think it should, **Max S**? We can expect fertility clinics to charge a lot more for their services under an abortion ban. If you plant two embryos and only one “takes”…OMG WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT PRECIOUS BABY!! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/323 "2019-05-29T18:51:23Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > For you to see my argument, you _must_ adopt for the sake of argument that a fetus has rights. No, I don’t. I only need to recognize that you think that it does. For me to _agree_ with your argument, I would have adopt not only the idea that a fetus has rights, but also that it has specifically the rights you’re ascribing to it. But in order to _see_ the argument, no, I don’t. > [@Max\_S](#): > > I’m not trying to impose my will upon others. Sure you are. If you were only trying to convince people to agree with you and to act accordingly, you wouldn’t be proposing laws on the subject. You’d only think that laws are necessary if you’re trying to impose your position by force of the law. > [@Max\_S](#): > > I do not wish to pass a law without the general support of society. I hope that remark removes any lingering fears as to any tyrannical motive behind my position! You never heard of the phrase “tyranny of the majority”? There have been plenty of times and places in which society generally supported laws that had the effect of tyranny on members of that society. > [@Max\_S](#): > > Well, as I said the main arguments are of a “religious” nature. There are also secular arguments, none of them rigorous enough to convince me personally. That’s interesting. You’re agreeing that you want to impose a particular religious view on people who don’t believe that particular religious view. > [@Max\_S](#): > > You were once a zygote, and I assume you desire your own self-preservation. What if your parents wanted to abort you? Could you still endorse a law that might have prevented your own existence? Sure I can. I agree that my mother should have had the choice whether to carry me or not. (I’m not sure whether she felt that she did; she might, in her particular life, have had access to reasonably safe abortion even though it was illegal at the time. Too late to ask her now.) If she’d decided not to, there wouldn’t have been anything of me to be upset about it. If she’d decided not to have sex at the particular time at which I was conceived, there also wouldn’t have been anything of me to be upset about it. You seem to be strongly in favor of her having had the right to make that choice. > [@Max\_S](#): > > You say that the fetus is part of the woman’s body. But what about the father’s rights? A father can sue if his wife refuses to share custody of a child. Why do we say the child, once born, is the “father’s son”? At what point does the father have some vested interest in the child? Is it at birth? When the father pays for food and housing? What if the mother pays for food and housing? How can it be that something goes from being part of the woman’s body to being a joint responsibility of the man and woman? Because at birth it is no longer part of the woman’s body. So long as it is part of the woman’s body, her right to her own body overwhelms the rights of anyone else to her body. After birth, that no longer applies. > [@Max\_S](#): > > Try as I may, I cannot personally justify _any_ universal system of morals without assuming certain tenets of religion _a priori_. Have you not noticed that non-religious people have systems of morals, some of them consciously developed? They may not convince you; but your religion doesn’t convince a lot of other people. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > My mind is not blown, because I’m well aware that women who have had children (who are, I strongly suspect, overrepresented in the “pro-life” contingent) have a much deeper understanding of what it means to carry an unborn child inside you than I possibly could. To attempt to move on from arguing with Max S. for a bit: I’ve no idea whether women who’ve had children tend to oppose abortion rights; I certainly know some who are strongly pro-choice, but that’s anecdote. ([59% of women in the USA who had abortions in 2014 had already had children](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states), for what that’s worth.) But I do think I see a type of motive for opposing abortion in some people which hasn’t been discussed and which has nothing to do with hatred. I think many humans have a bad case of what I would call Everyone Must Really Be Like Me, Even If They Say Otherwise. I’ve met women who flat out couldn’t believe that there are women who don’t want children. They wanted children. They were women. What they wanted must be Right and Proper and – from that point some people who have a case of something like EMRBLMEITSO think ‘therefore wanting something else is Wrong’. The people I’m thinking of didn’t go there; they went somewhere else, and wound up with ‘therefore other women must of course want children too, they’re just deluded somehow into thinking that they don’t and when they actually have kids it’ll be just fine!’ No, sometimes it’s not just fine. There really are women who don’t want any children, and if they do wind up raising them there’ll be hell to pay, often by the children. And in the same fashion, I think there are people – of all genders – who want children, who were happy about pregnancy even if physically uncomfortable, and who remember how they anticipated the birth of children and how they thought about those fetuses and embryos and maybe even blastocytes and zygotes when they were within their/their partner’s wombs. And they think, on some level of their minds, that that’s really how every pregnant woman must feel about her pregnancy; and that women who say they don’t want to carry the pregnancy are saying so not because they genuinely feel invaded, and/or desperate otherwise not to be pregnant, and/or think that what’s inside them is an annoying clump of cells that’s not inhabited by anybody; but that they can’t actually feel like that, and therefore must be rejecting pregnancy for some trivial reason that can be put into the description of ‘temporary inconvenience.’ ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/324 "2019-05-31T12:28:32Z")
It’s too disheartening to read this thread. Right-wingers will sue to keep their plastic straws and happily support the torture of children, but want the police to investigate miscarriages. :eek: Perhaps with these idiocies in full view Dopers will be more amenable to my suggestion: _ **Only female legislators should be allowed to vote on issues exclusive to women’s bodies.** _ ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/325 "2019-05-31T13:05:43Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It’s too disheartening to read this thread. Right-wingers will sue to keep their plastic straws and happily support the torture of children, but want the police to investigate miscarriages. :eek: > > Perhaps with these idiocies in full view Dopers will be more amenable to my suggestion: > > _ **Only female legislators should be allowed to vote on issues exclusive to women’s bodies.** _ I’m pro-choice and I think it is entirely an individual woman’s choice as to how she reaches her decision and who she consults. However, I don’t think we should even consider gender-segregated voting. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/326 "2019-05-31T14:23:30Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Yes, I would prosecute a woman for getting pregnant if she really wanted a baby but had a high chance of miscarriage _and knew about it_. I didn’t realize I contradicted this somewhere else. The “really high chance” would mean a doctor said “if you become pregnant there isn’t a reasonable chance that the baby will survive” preferably followed by “you can be prosecuted for having sex with this condition if it results in pregnancy and pregnancy ends in abortion, which it will”. If the condition is permanent the doctor might add “you are eligible for sterilization if you so wish, that way you can keep having sex”. If it is temporary, the doctor might recommend waiting to have sex. If after all of that, the woman still has sex, then yes, I would prosecute her. I wouldn’t recommend jail time if she had a bona fide wish to birth the child, possibly just the cost of the abortion and legal fees. **I try not to be a monster.** > > I’ll try and address the rest later tonight. > > ~Max You should try harder. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/327 "2019-05-31T14:32:57Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It’s too disheartening to read this thread. Right-wingers will sue to keep their plastic straws and happily support the torture of children, but want the police to investigate miscarriages. :eek: > > Perhaps with these idiocies in full view Dopers will be more amenable to my suggestion: > > _ **Only female legislators should be allowed to vote on issues exclusive to women’s bodies.** _ > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’m pro-choice and I think it is entirely an individual woman’s choice as to how she reaches her decision and who she consults. > However, I don’t think we should even consider gender-segregated voting. I disagree to some extent. I don’t think that we should have gender-segregated voting, but I do think that we should give a great deal of consideration to the possible effects of it. We’ve had gender segregated voting for most of the country’s (and world’s) history, and that segregation was that men voted on important issues, and women didn’t get a voice. It does seem a bit absurd that a bunch of old white guys make the choices that women have to abide by. The ideal would be to get more women into office. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/328 "2019-05-31T22:39:30Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And in the same fashion, I think there are people – of all genders – who want children, who were happy about pregnancy even if physically uncomfortable, and who remember how they anticipated the birth of children and how they thought about those fetuses and embryos and maybe even blastocytes and zygotes when they were within their/their partner’s wombs. And they think, on some level of their minds, that that’s really how every pregnant woman must feel about her pregnancy; and that women who say they don’t want to carry the pregnancy are saying so not because they genuinely feel invaded, and/or desperate otherwise not to be pregnant, and/or think that what’s inside them is an annoying clump of cells that’s not inhabited by anybody; but that they can’t actually feel like that, and therefore must be rejecting pregnancy for some trivial reason that can be put into the description of ‘temporary inconvenience.’ You’re on the right track, although your point becomes a bit muddled at the end. If every woman felt this way, why would any of them want to end the pregnancy for the sake of “temporary inconvenience”? What I would say is that I became much more tenderhearted about children generally after becoming a father. For example, in the movie “Trainspotting”, there is a scene in which the group of heroin addicts is roused from their stupor by the screaming of one of the women, who has discovered her neglected baby is dead. I first saw this movie before having children, and I didn’t even remember that scene (while there were a couple others, a scatological one in particular, that were seared into my memory). I saw it again a few years ago, and this scene absolutely \*wrecked \*me. In real world terms, I have become much more concerned since becoming a father about watching for abuse and neglect of children (and reporting it when appropriate), supporting nutritional programs in schools (like Michelle Obama’s, which was sadly torpedoed by the Trump administration), etc. So my feeling about those things, and about abortion beyond a certain stage, is not “I assume you must feel the same about your kids as I do about mine” but rather “I care about your child, even if you don’t”. Does that make sense? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2019, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/329 "2019-05-31T23:33:08Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You’re on the right track, although your point becomes a bit muddled at the end. If every woman felt this way, why would any of them want to end the pregnancy for the sake of “temporary inconvenience”? 1. Every woman does not feel that way, and I never said that every woman does. 2. The women who do feel that way are not the ones having abortions. 3. I very much doubt that anybody’s ending a pregnancy for the sake of “temporary inconvenience”. It’s the people who want to force others to stay pregnant who are using that phrasing. I really don’t see how you got the bit I quoted out of my post. My point was exactly that not everyone feels the same way; but not everyone recognizes that fact. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/330 "2019-06-01T01:52:29Z")
Sigh. I understand what you were getting at: my point was that if pro-lifers _believe_ that must be how other women feel, since they themselves feel that way, how does that jibe with their also _believing_ that those same women are willing to end their pregnancies because of “temporary inconvenience”, which strongly suggests they _don’t_ in fact feel the same way about pregnancy? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/331 "2019-06-01T02:52:11Z")
I think they don’t understand that what the other women are feeling is not ‘temporary inconvenience’; because they can’t imagine that the other women are actually seriously upset about being pregnant. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330/332 "2019-06-01T14:26:41Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Right-wingers will sue to keep their plastic straws Not only that, but [they support legislation to permit pink hunting outfits](http://kpq.com/governor-signs-bill-to-allow-fluorescent-pink-as-option-for-hunters/). The hypocrisy is overwhelming. 😕:smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-want-to-control-womens-bodies-okay-but-why/834330.md?page=16)