I think that a large part of the reason that pro-lifers value the “lives” (“on-going mitosis”? “parasitism”?) of fetuses over the lives of the pregnant mothers is absolutely misogynistic, and very much based on punishing women for having sex. I will explain:

By *presuming* that the fetus is a “person” (which, I believe, it is not) pro-lifers try to reduce the debate about abortion to an issue of “which *person’s* rights outweigh the other’s, a baby’s or a woman’s?” This means that pro-choicers are automatically and unconsciously forced into arguing *against* some theoretical proto-baby’s rights, instead of focusing on the real issue of arguing *for* women’s rights. Obviously, it’s hard to win an argument that asks you to judge the relative value of two human beings, especially when you pride yourself on promoting equality and justice. It’s morally hypocritical and emotionally uncomfortable, particularly for pro-choicers and others who fight for minority rights. We aren’t generally willing to try sacrificing some group’s rights, even to help another group.

But it’s *not* uncomfortable for pro-lifers to argue in this situation, because they *are* willing to sacrifice a group’s rights. They have no problem picking a side in the polarized debate *they* define, leaving pro-choicers to try and argue a side purposefully weakened by the language of its framing. Pro-lifers ask “sacrifice a baby or a woman?” and answer “woman!”

So, even operating in the *false* frame of “women’s versus ‘babies” rights,” why do pro-lifers always decide that the women’s rights must lose? Are women not cuddly and soft enough? Does the loss of “cute factor” weigh in? Is it because “oh, the baby hasn’t had a chance to live yet! or “we must protect God’s children”?

Nope. The real problem is that women are *female* and have *had sex*. The “baby” never had sex so it’s still pure and virtuous and morally superior. The pregnant woman clearly *did* have sex, so she’s a dirty slut (yes, the married ones too) and so deserves to have her rights taken away. Also, the pregnant mother is clearly *female* while the fetus (assuming she goes through the pain and trouble of bringing it to term, and it manages to survive into adulthood) has a ~50% of being male! That means, by seeking an abortion, some irresponsible, female slut is trying to kill a future *man*! That’s terrible! (And really, he might be *white* too, which makes it a “murder” that other white people actually care about!)

Looking at it this way, with the dual forces of “slut-punishing” and male superiority acting to prevent legal abortions, is not obvious that a pro-life stance is/can be extremely misogynistic?

In summary, the issue of a woman (who should be recognized as having all the rights, dignity, intelligence and responsibility of a man) aborting a dividing and differentiating bubble of cells that is feeding off of nutrients provided through her uterus, is turned by pro-lifers into an issue of a slut trying to murder a man (who is actually *accorded* rights, dignity, intelligence and responsibility). This is not an accident. This is a strategy.

Pro-choicers and feminists (I won’t *force* you to equate the two) need to reject operating in the frame constructed by pro-lifers, misogynists and religious extremists (I won’t *entirely* equate these) of “don’t let sluts kill man-babies!” Half of winning is forcing the other side to argue on your terms, so *don’t* argue on these terms. Remember the issue is protecting women’s rights, and keep it about *that*.

Jessi – having done the pregnancy/childbirth thing twice now, if I were given a choice tomorrow between doing it again, and donating a kidney (neither of which do I actually *want* to do), I would choose donating a kidney without hesitation. You see, donating a kidney involves anesthesia.

LOL….my mother had a coffee mug when I was growing up that had a phrase on it I now understand fully.

It said, “I’d rather be 40 than pregnant” I can fully understand the genius of that now :>)

Whereas the last time I gave birth, it involved surgery without any.

So I’m not feeling the whole “you have a right to refuse donation, but not a right to refuse pregnancy” thing. Really.

a patriarchical society with its misogynstic gods cannot stand that this is something entirely within womens’ control. So, it co-opts it. It pretends that women are naught but an expendable flower pot to plant male seeds in, a flower pot to weak and silly to make its own decisions.

And its dresses this misogynstic premise in attractive “save the baybays!!” language to fool people into towing its line.

And who cares if its the expendable flower pots that suffer for it.

In real life, you are not given a life by being conceived. You are given a life by your mother. She endures discomfort, pain, weakness, possibly permanent health complications, possibly death, in order to make you live. When you are conceived you are a human potential in the process of becoming an autonomous being. Your mother *grows* you. She feeds and waters and shelters you with her own body and her own flesh. There is a cost to existing in this world, and until you are old enough to start paying the price for yourself, your mother pays the price. She is why you are alive.

Your father didn’t sacrifice anything to make you live. He had an orgasm. Hardly a sacrifice. Maybe he will sacrifice for you once you are born, and if he is a good man he may sacrifice for your mother to help her endure the incredible task of making a human being out of parts she found lying around the house, but he didn’t sacrifice for you. He didn’t make you. He contributed half the blueprint, that’s all, but your mother not only contributed the other half, she was the entire construction crew as well.

But your mother is flawed. She’s human. Maybe she didn’t really want you. Maybe she treated you badly once you were born. Her body wasn’t the perfect environment for you, because perfection doesn’t exist, so maybe something went wrong. If you recognized that she is human you might feel guilty over the price she paid for your life. And, she’s a woman. We can’t imagine that we exist because of the work of a *woman*, that men sacrificed nothing to make us live and did next to no work. That breaks our sexist brains.

So we take the mother’s role in creation out of the equation. God made you! God, unlike your mother, is omnipotent! God is all-loving! God, being all powerful, wasn’t hurt in creating you, so don’t feel guilty about existing. God is perfect! God wanted you! God never neglected you or told you you couldn’t have a toy because we couldn’t afford it. God is all-giving. God is the perfect idealized image of a mother. And best of all., God is male! So no icky woman-thing was responsible for making you; it was God, and the role of that thing with the vagina that actually did all the work was just her punishment because women suck.

When we say that life begins at conception and that God causes humans to exist so it is a sin for a woman-vessel-thing to abort the life God put in her, we are denying the biological fact that pregnancy is a *process* that women *perform.* Saying that a zygote is a child is like saying a blueprint is a house. If no one does the work to build it, no, that zygote is not a child at all. Yes, it does literally do all its growing and dividing on its own, but it requires a supportive host environment with a constant supply of nutrients and it is *hard work* to provide all that shit. No, the woman doesn’t consciously do the work, but so what? She still does it. She *makes* that zygote into a baby.

To say that it is already a baby when it is a zygote is to say that the work a woman does to transform it is nothing. To say that God made you when in fact your mother made you is to say your mother is nothing, her work is nothing, her sacrifice was nothing. To say that a woman has no right to abort a child is to say that her choice to undertake nine months of increasingly harder work is nothing. We force people into nine months of hard labor when they are prisoners who committed crimes or slaves, no one else. Not against their will. Normally when people do work they agree to do the work and they agree that the compensation is worth it. Forcing someone to do the work of making a baby says that it isn’t work at all.

I am, in fact, in agreement with most laws about viability and abortion after 24 weeks except in the case of the mother’s life or health or if the fetus isn’t going to survive. I also would tend, as a person who works on big IT projects, to support forcing companies who have put eight months of work into a big project to *not* be allowed to cancel the project right then because someone got cold feet, because of the horrific emotional backlash on the people who’ve been working so hard, so I think I’m being consistent. If your baby can survive outside your body, by all means, get it out of your body if you can’t tolerate it being there. After 24 weeks there isn’t much difference between abortion and giving birth anyway, in terms of the strain on the body, so if a woman truly can’t bear being pregnant anymore for whatever reason and her fetus is viable and her health can support labor or c-section, get the baby out. Fine. Better to wind the project up prematurely without all the features you wanted then to never see the project come to fruition at all. But before viability, there is no way to avoid doing the work of making a baby inside you except to get it out, which will kill it. Fine. No human has the right to compel the labor of another human except as a punishment for a crime, and sex is not a crime. Your mother makes you. It must be her choice whether you are made or not.

Thank you, all, for shattering my faith in the compassionate and understanding side of activists.

Dude, seriously, try and keep the melodrama down to a dull roar. You expressed your opinion, other people expressed theirs, and some of them had the audacity to disagree with you. Such is life. If that “shatters” your faith in the compassion of activists, so be it.

While most advocates for choice i know of prefer to have quality of life over quantity, the “pro-life” adovcates have some strange delusion that human life is something extraordinary. What about the animals you eat or the bacteria you kill when you bathe? Why aren’t these forms of life special in your books? Because they aren’t human? Humans are animals too.

Then there is the issue of well, if humans are so special why do you prefer the unborn over the born? Is it because they are innocent? How can they be innocent if they are incapable of guilt? Is a kid innocent if it finds a gun and uses it on someone else? How do you define innosence and why does it apply to the unborn?

Childbirth isn’t a miracle since it happens every day. Life isn’t special because it has been around for eons (sperm and ovums are alive before they join).

So I will agree with everyone who said that Jessi needs to rethink her position although it sounds to me like she is a fence sitter and not truly “pro-life”.

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Pro-Family, Pro-Woman, Pro-Child, Pro-Choice. It’s a fact.