APPARENTLY SOMEONE read that I stated I was Irish Catholic and accused me elsewhere of, thus, again, being "anti-abortion" on the issue of Women's right to control their own body and the state having no overriding interest to regulate Women's bodies and lives that extends past their skin. The state having that overriding interest being something I reject. No one has a right superior to the right of A Woman to control HER BODY. No man has that right and no other Woman does, either. The state does not.
If that were just a matter of someone lying about me or someone else online, that's not worth a tenth of a 2021 penny, it's so common. So I thought I'd go into the concept of being "anti-abortion" which, itself isn't worth much until you ask what it would mean to be "pro-abortion."
To start with the position of the "pro-life" anti-abortion side that wants to outlaw abortions isn't anti-abortion, it won't do anything to prevent there being abortions because when abortion was illegal in almost if not all states there were many, many abortions of everything from modern safety available only to those who were rich or connected to a doctor or someone else who had means to provide that, down to to horrific and deadly with Women being killed, permanently injured, robbed, blackmailed, arrested, prosecuted, their lives destroyed, etc.
Ignorant of real history or aware of it, with full knowledge of what their legal aspiration will bring or in irresponsible ignorance or it, that's what they want to bring back by banning abortion and making it impossible to obtain in as safe a way as possible.
The choice then was only against legal, safe abortion, a choice prevented by the state which is not now as it was not then in the hands of the Woman, who are not making the law governing abortion in most cases. That is one of the most consequential truths of the side which is for making abortion illegal.
Though there were and, I'd guess, are situations when Women are coerced into having an abortion by those who don't have that right to control the bodies of the Women who have them.
It's an interesting convergence of practice if not in thought or result between the anti-choice side and those men or women who forced Women to have abortions they didn't want and it demonstrates that at bottom this is a matter of People getting to control their own bodies.
But I want to go farther because it defines what I think about the issue, which I hold men, who will not be governed by any laws made in regard to it, have no right to have a final say in. Believing that our rights to determine laws extend to laws that govern us and our lives are only legitimate with the consent of those so governed, Men have no legitimate right to make a determination of what laws solely governing Women's lives and bodies will be. There can be no just consent of the governed in Men determining whether or not Women can have a safe and legal abortion.
I'd go farther and wonder if you accept the proposition that laws are only legitimate with the just consent of those governed by them if Women who would not ever choose to have an abortion really have the right to make laws regarding what Women who choose abortion for themselves can legally do. Do anti-choice Women have any legitimate right to tell other Women how they should decide what goes on in their own bodies on the basis that they, too can become pregnant? Where is their overriding and legitimate interest in the issue that is stronger than any Man's interest in something that cannot happen to them because they don't become pregnant? And, as can be seen in the case of those women who either were "pro-life" but who had an abortion when the choice was theirs to make and even some "pro-choice" Women who may not have had an abortion but changed their mind about making that choice for other Women, there is no such thing as a guarantee that minds won't be changed on that issue. Is it really safe to allow them to determine what another Woman does with her body and live when they certainly cannot know what is her best choice at that time in her life?
If you can't tell me where any Man's or a Woman who will never face the issue of whether or not to have an abortion overrides the right of Women who decide to make that issue for their own body and life, I'm going to go with my conclusion that there is no legitimate interest and so no legitimate legal claim to be made that they do have such a right.
You might notice I have not said whether or not I'm "pro-abortion" which really boils down to whether or not I "like abortion" which is an odd concept but I'm sure that's what most people base their position on abortion on. It's about as meaningless as asking if I like a surgical procedure for myself.
Who likes a medical procedure which is not entirely painless, cannot ever be entirely safe from adverse consequences and cannot really be what anyone would like to be doing at any point in their life? I doubt any Woman has ever enthusiastically looked forward or planned to be in a position to choose to have an abortion.
The question of whether or not being "pro-abortion" wouldn't also mean being "pro" the conditions that lead Women to need or want to exercise their choice in favor of having an abortion. Unwanted pregnancy, unsafe pregnancy, pregnancy that is impossible in the life of the Woman with the right to decide to have an abortion, those are what lead to the choice to have an abortion.
The only real way to stop abortion is to stop unwanted, unsafe, or other pregnancies that lead to abortions. I can tell you I am entirely in favor of promoting and providing the information, the encouragement and means available to all Women to prevent unwanted, unsafe or practically difficult or impossible pregnancies. Tellingly, for the anti-choice side, huge percentages of the very same people are opposed to the promotion of effective contraception, the education in their use, the widespread and free availability of contraception. And "pro-choice" people generally are in favor of those abortion-prevention measures.
No one who is opposed to legal abortion who is also against the universal and free availability of effective contraception is really opposed to abortion, they are in favor of illegal, unsafe, dangerous abortions because that's what comes of their position. No one should ever be allowed to escape being answerable for the actual, knowable, known effects of their positions being adopted and turned into laws that govern real life, not the irreality of "legal theory" or moral theory.
The opponents of legal abortion and the universal promotion and availability of the most certain and known prevention of abortion, which isn't the law, it is effective contraception, don't get to divorce themselves from the known consequences of what they are asking to happen because we know what that will be. I would expect the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, other anti-choice men and women and groups have helped us to the point where the United States has a very high abortion rate for a developed country because they really don't mind that. They couldn't or they wouldn't prevent the only measures that prevent abortions from happening.
Scientistic-atheistic-materialists apparently find my position incomprehensible. Maybe because it doesn't fit into a slogan,ideological atheists, like trad-Catholics and fundamentalists never surprise me with their superficiality, anymore. I don't think my position is all that complex or difficult, it is based on a few basic principles that are not difficult to understand and extend.
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