Pro-Life Is Anti-Equality Terrorism
Well, lets start this one off with a bang. If you are unaware of the anti-abortion violence that happens, let me introduce you to home-grown terrorists, the kind that Homeland Security doesn’t want to talk about much. They are politically active, nearly always fronted by some religious group, and while their targets often appear to be adults their real victims are almost always babies and women. Yes, I did just say that. One might think that it would take a good deal of talking to explain how it is that I can say that. Well, to the good fortune of both you and I someone has done all that writing and research.
As you are preparing to vote this year, this is a must read. No matter who or which party you vote for you will be voting either pro-life or pro-choice. It’s such a big part of all political platforms that you cannot help but make this voter choice. You should have the facts before you choose.
Now, you might well think I’m the last person who should be making statements about abortions. So it is that I don’t want you to take just my word for it, or vote based only on my opinion. That might be unwise. So lets point you to the source material. Libby Anne has a post at Patheos called How I Lost Faith In The “Pro-Life” Movement.
The premise is not simply stated but can be summarized:
And if you, reader, are one of those who opposes abortion because you believe it is murder and you want to save the lives of unborn babies, well, I hope to persuade you that the pro-life movement is not actually your ally in this, that you have been misled, and that you would be more effective in decreasing the number of abortions that occur if you were to side with pro-choice progressives.
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Don’t be confused. There are many facets to the issues surrounding birth control. Whether you’re a woman or not, they affect you, your taxes, the law you live under and so on. It is an important issue for everyone, not because we need to save the babies but because equality demands that pro-life supporters be converted to pro-choice supporters. Yes, I said equality, not feminism or choice or even separation of church and state. Equality demands that we not remove options from citizens in how they deal with the issues in their lives. We don’t prevent people from committing murder and abortion is not even considered murder under the law. If it were there would be women in prison for killing their babies.
The reality is that so-called pro-life movement is not about saving babies. It’s about punishing women for having sex. That’s why they oppose birth control. That’s why they want to penalize women who take public assistance and then dare to have sex, leaving an exemption for those who become pregnant from rape. It’s not about babies. If it were about babies, they would be making access to birth control widespread and free, and creating a comprehensive social safety net so that no woman finds herself with a pregnancy she can’t afford. They would be raising money for research on why half of all zygotes fail to implant and working to prevent miscarriages. It’s not about babies. It’s about controlling women. It’s about making sure they have consequences for having unapproved sex.
Read the whole post. If you want to act morally, choice is the right option. If equality is important to you, choice is the right option for you. Controlling women’s lives through healthcare is sickening.
But I am very sure that there are other dupes out there. If you’re sitting there reading this thinking “but I really am in it to save unborn babies,” I am sure you’re not alone. After all, I was one of you. If you are one who has been a part of the pro-life movement because you really do believe in “saving unborn babies,” it’s time to cut your ties with the movement. You may be an honest and kind-hearted person, but you’ve been had. You’ve been taken in. It’s time to let go. It’s time to support Obamacare’s birth control mandate, it’s time to call off opposition to birth control, and it’s time to get behind progressive programs that help provide for poor women and their children. It’s time to make your actions consistent with your motives.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
myatheistlife 
I have just found your blog, so I have bookmarked it.
Yes, Libby Anne is right about that. I’ve known that since the beginning of the “pro-life” movement.
I have… erm, matured in my views of the world since it began.
Glad to have a new reader 🙂 Hope you enjoy it.
Hej myatheistlife,
I believe women ought to have freedom to choose but I do think freedom to end unborn being’s life is beyond what “freedom to choose” means because if that was true, women could choose to end the life of born beings.
The question is what is unborn being? Are we justified to end unborn life to make our lives better? What good reasons could be offered to justifying the ending of unborn life?
Both camps on abortion can be violent, but that is not the case, maybe its true pro-life punish women for sex, but that by itself does not prove whether abortion is morally right or wrong.
I am open to hear cases from both sides. So far I lean towards protecting life for unborn unless they endanger their mothers life. I found protecting unborn case, as far as I read, stronger.
I am ready to change my view if presented with a reasonable logically sound arguments for abortion.
Your blog follower,
Prayson
Prayson, the article I linked to gave all the right reasons to make abortion legal. I’m not going to restate them in comments.
I am sorry to say the article does not give a case why abortion is morally right.
Unborn growing in a woman’s body, unborn believed not to be a person, and banning abortion does not decrease abortion rates are not only weak arguments but I found think logically wanting.
So no, I don’t think the link gives good reasons why abortion is morally right.
Prayson
Morality is always subjective and always context sensitive. Whether you personally believe that it is morally right is of absolutely no value to other people when they make their decisions for their own lives. Morality has nothing to do with anyone removing or restraining the rights of others in this case. If you find it immoral, then don’t have an abortion, but don’t tell others that they cannot have one. It is not your right to tell others how they can treat their own bodies.
Just because you find trouble understanding an argument does not make you right.
Myatheist, I believe people ought to make decisions for themselves in many areas but not all. Example I am against people making their own decision to hate homosexuals, or take things that are not theirs.
As far as the case for and against protecting unborn life, I think the case of not allowing born being to take away unborn’s life powerful.
Your argument, “if p find x immoral then p should not have x” is logically wrong. Imagine I say to you, myatheistlife, if you find hating homosexual immoral, then dont hate homosexual, let those who hate them hate them, it is not your place to tell other people what to do with their own emotions/hate. What will you think of my reason?
I did not find the articles argument hard to understand, myatheistlife, I found them weak and logically false.
Prayson
All of that is okay… we are all different. I am not here to tell anyone how to live. I will explain what I think about life and issues etc. I will defend your right to speak even if you are wrong, but I will not stand by and watch others hurt someone if I can step in and change it, even if it is to my detriment. We don’t all have to agree on everything and you make a point about hating homosexuals… yet I find your logic weak and unconvincing.
How is my logic weak and unconvincing myatheistlife? True, I will defend also your right to speak even if you are wrong on the issue of arbortion but I too will not stand by and watch others hurt unborn, destroy their lives to make theirs better, to pick and choose which gender should be born and which should not.
So I step in and trying to ask for a moral justifying ground to end unborns lives.
Both philosophy and science of embryology witnesses that unborn is human being. Examples:
“Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being – a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.” (A 1981 U.S. Senate report)
“It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material that each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.” (Bradley M. Patten, Human Embryology, 3rd ed., New York: McGraw Hill, 1968, page 43.)
So I think new beings ought to be protected regardless of the stage of development they are in. You and I were once in that stage, if it is wrong killing us now without justifying reasons then I think its wrong to kill us then.
If the scientists in this field are correct that unborn is human being, with or without personalities,then it is reasonable to fight for their rights. Mostly when they cannot do it themselves.
Prayson
Well, I had an abortion – and it was not fun. You can read it on my blog. It’s called; “My Post Abortion Recovery Story”. I didn’t put it in there (because I didn’t think to) but sometimes the man suffers too. My husband suffered because of the abortion, not just me.
Not all women feel the same way that I did about aborting, that’s true, but there are many, and many more, out there who don’t know what they’re getting themselves into by doing this.
Also, it’s not a god-thing that one sex should be more careful than the other in regards to having sex, it’s a real fact. One side should be more careful than the other. Only one side deals with the pregnancy; and that’s a fact you can not dispute.
I don’t agree with the extreme right pro-lifer’s, that birth control should not be practiced but they, those people you are railing against, are a very, very small minority which most people who are against abortion do not sympathize with.
Anyway, you might want to read my personal story of aborting before you continue your argument. Have you ever aborted a baby yourself? If so, what happened regarding it? Maybe tell something personal?
I don’t know why you assume that I’ve never had any dealings with abortion and the mess it can make of life in general. Your assumption is wrong. I make my argument with full knowledge (or at least as much as I’ll ever be able to achieve) what it means to abort a pregnancy. My argument does not come from that, but in spite of that… logic and reason over emotion. Not one person has the right to tell me that I can’t experience what I did, nor that I shouldn’t, or even that I shouldn’t have had to, or that I’m going to hell and all the rest.
Life is. Experience it or don’t. Your life is your problem until you start making it mine. When you remove my choices you are doing just that. Not surprisingly, as a human ape, when I get pushed I will push back and am not afraid to pick up a stick or brick in the process. Every judgement in life is subjective so there is no one that can tell me or any woman what or how they should feel about life and its troubles. No one should be making decisions for me, or any woman.
Lets just say I have no biological offspring.