YESTERDAY I hope I convinced some readers that since women are the only people who are governed in a serious way by laws about abortion that, as the governed, they are the ones who have a superior right to determine what those laws would be. If you take the principle that just laws are only just by the consent of those governed by them that is in the Declaration of Independence seriously, I don't see how you can possibly not believe that is the case. I am not going to entertain the claim that that is not true unless the one making such a claim is read to have the state nationalize their bodies in a similar manner to that discussed.
But a large number of people seem to believe that men in general and women who oppose the legality of abortion have a right to regulate the bodies and so lives of women who do not think abortion should be illegal or who decide, for themselves, that they need or want an abortion.
Whether or not there is a distinction that anyone else has a right to distinguish between the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion if she needs an abortion or wants to not bear a child, that isn't a distinction I feel I have any right to draw, no more than I would feel someone else has the right to determine anything about my body in opposition to what I want or need to do with it. If I gave people the right to dismiss a woman's right to determine how she wants her body to be, I would be morally obligated to allow them to also have that kind of a say over how I want my body to be. I know of no man who is prepared to allow the state or even a majority or plurality of voters to exercise that kind of a right over his body. Women who are opposed to abortion certainly aren't prepared to allow other people to make those decisions for them. I would hold up the accusations against the Chinese and other governments which have forced women to have abortions they didn't want to have or men who have prevented women from practicing birth control and so forced them to become pregnant as analogous usurpations of bodily autonomy and self-determination.
That people who oppose abortion believe, or claim to believe, that a fetus or even a fertilized egg cell have full status as humans cannot change the fact that women who are pregnant and who may or may not share their belief will and can exercise their ability to have an abortion. As I mentioned yesterday, women had abortions when it was seriously illegal in every state, going to extreme and dangerous measures to have an abortion,whether self-induced or, often, in the most dangerous and exploitative conditions. Often with the knowledge that they may have died in the process. While there is debate as to whether a fetus is a person or not, certainly not an independent human beings, there is no arguing that a pregnant woman or girl is a human being whose life may well be ended by a back alley or motel room abortion.
Clearly making abortion illegal will not end abortions. That is something that the anti-abortion rights side seldom if ever are confronted with, they certainly don't choose to bring up that fact, themselves. Nor do they ever address that they are demanding the state regulate the bodies of women in ways that the men AND WOMEN who oppose abortion would never tolerate be done in the case of what they want to do with their own bodies. There have been a number of instances of women in the anti-abortion movement who have had abortions when they chose to have them but, relieved of that possibility, they then want the state to prohibit other women from making a choice they already have made for themselves or, in some cases, those in their family. I strongly suspect that certainly many, perhaps most of the politicians who campaign against abortion would, if it was their daughter or their son's unapproved of girlfriend, would probably cut themselves and their loved ones one of the exceptions that those with power and money love to make for themselves.
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But I know there are poeple who sincerely do believe that abortion is immoral and who are prepared, in the absence of the possibility of preventing abortions, take the moral position that whatever can be done to minimize the number of them as far as is possible. Being an Irish Catholic, from a liberal Catholic family, having family members who sincerely believe that human life starts at conception, I strongly believe that is probably the position of many, most if not all of the prominent Catholic politicians who the Republican-fascists, especially those among the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, love to target using the issue of abortions.
The reality is the only way to prevent abortions in most cases is the prevention of pregnancy. The idea that you are going to do that by preventing sex is even more of a stupid denial of the realities of human life than the fantasy that you are going to end abortions by making them illegal. That wasn't the case when there were serious social stigmas and penalties and even laws preventing premarital sex, adultery, and other voluntary sexual behavior, and none of those are seriously the case now. Any priest or bishop who pretends that is possible should consider the scandals among priests and bishops who secretly farthered children out of wedlock as to what a ridiculous assertion that that is going to happen is.
There is a choice, either you can stop abortions by providing people with the knowledge and means of preventing unwanted or unsafe pregnancies and the support of WOMEN to make the decisions as to when they are going to consciously become pregnant, or you can refuse to do that and be part of why the United States has such an absurdly high number of abortions, conservatives and prudes and ministers and bishops and purity crusaders probably leading to more of those than were ever done by Planned Parenthood in their entire history. That is the only real way to stop abortions, to give women the means and knowledge of how to avoid becoming pregnant, to encourage them to take that initiative, to emphasize that abortion is not an ideal choice to have to make or to choose if you can avoid the problem to start with.* Having the Supreme Court overturn Roe, having all the Republican-fascist run states outlaw abortions will only ensure that the abortions that happen will either be in other states or they will be illegal and dangerous but they will happen anyway.
I would note that men have it in their power to prevent unwanted pregnancies, sometimes more unwanted by them than the women they have sex with, but men don't have the same level of interest in this as the women whose bodies are the ones which become pregnant and whose lives are altered by it. Men have not, by and large, practiced anything like responsibility in this area, only one more reason to demote their role in law making in this area. I will point out, as a gay man, that what can be said about that in regard to straight sex and pregnancy is also sayable in terms of having responsible sex and the spread of STDs. While noting that straight people aren't any more notably responsible when it comes to avoiding the contracting and spreading of STDs either.
Face it, people are stupid when it comes to sex in most cases, promoting responsibility is an uphill battle when the fight against unwanted or inadvisable pregnancies and STDs is taken on. Pretending you can do that by having an absurd and dubious figure of religion waving their fat finger at people is as ridiculous as any QAnon fantasy. Anyone who thinks a Cardinal Burke in his absurd clerical drag, or even the less absurdly dressed men in the Catholic hierarchy have any real credibiity on this issue should check the opinion polling of Catholics who think abortion should be legal and who practice birth control - and I don't mean the fraud of the rhythm method.
What we need is realism, not absurd poses and the lies by those who strike such poses. We need that about this issue as all others.
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