What "Saving Unborn Babies" While Protecting Women's Rights Over Their Bodies Looks Like
So you want to save unborn babies from being aborted. It's a moral bedrock for you, a do-or-die issue that you'll go to the most extreme barrier imaginable (or unimaginable) to accomplish.
It's about the UNBORN BABIES, not about controlling women, not about trying to restrict their rights, nothing to do with limiting their choices over their lives and their bodies. But when it comes to a choice between those rights, and saving the life of an unborn baby, something MUST give way, and to you, that's the already-born woman's autonomy and control over her body and her choices.
Let's start with a basic stipulation:
Even the most complete legal restrictions on abortion possible or imaginable- even dumping the whole Constitution in the shitter and going full-on "Handmaid's Tale" controls, COMBINED WITH unimaginably sophisticated medical technology, will not accomplish the goal of allowing every conceptus to be carried to term.
You can't even ensure that the majority will be carried to term. Somewhere around sixty percent of natural conceptions fail for one reason or another: They don't implant, they fail to develop, they spontaneously miscarry even before the mother has missed a period, etc.
And some unborn babies have such profound damage that even if they get past the implantation and begin to develop, they will spontaneously abort, sometimes in the process killing the mother.
And some mothers have various conditions in which the effects of the pregnancy may kill them before the unborn baby is even viable enough to incubate.
And some mothers will find ways to kill themselves and their unborn baby if forced to carry the pregnancy, no matter what you do. (There is virtually NO way to prevent someone who is determined to do so, from killing themselves.)
And some mothers will find ways to abort their unborn baby even if it means jail or their own execution for the crime.
But those last four contingencies, you'll say, are RARE.
(There is actually room for dispute about the "rarity" in that last case- women who will find ways to abort, no matter what, based on data accumulated during prior periods of history. But for now, we'll stipulate that women can be sufficiently coerced to make such attempts rare.)
We are also stipulating that you don't really want that level of totalitarian, draconian control. You just want women to make the "morally right" choice to carry every pregnancy to term, and want the law to provide some disincentives to keep women from making a "morally wrong" choice to end their pregnancy.
But disincentives are rarely as powerful as incentives. We're looking to assure maximum possible rights for women, minimum possible "murders of unborn babies".
Is it even possible?
Well, actually, it may be.
What would that look like?
First, contraception would be safe, would not interfere with sexual enjoyment, would be no-cost and easily accessible, and would be available equally to men and women. That is, it would almost always be a positive choice, requiring positive action and consent on behalf of both parties, for a conception to even be possible.
While such contraceptive options aren't quite available yet, they are easily within reach of existing medical technology and could almost certainly be brought into reality with a comparatively modest investment.
At that point, almost every intentional conception would be wanted, and the number of abortions would plummet.
There would still be some "terrible regret" pregnancies, perhaps forcibly initiated in criminal circumstances (that would be "RAPE" ), perhaps entered into willingly and then with a change of relationship or financial circumstances, appearing to be unfeasible for various reasons.
If we focused social resources on raising our boys and young men not to be rapists, that would reduce rape-related pregnancies to very near zero.
And by offering complete and unbiased mental health services, ongoing expert counseling, financial and social support, reliable judicial redress, top-quality health care, and generous adoption programs to the few remaining rape victims, it would be easier for the ones who share the socially-demonstrated value for unborn life to act on that value. They would have confidence in the availability of lifelong generous support for their recovery from the trauma of both the rape and the pregnancy.
It won't keep every single rape victim from exercising the option to abort, but it may substantially make a dent in the number who make that choice, and since we've already reduced rape to a rare occurrence, that would make such choices more than rare.
What about those other "regrets"?
Most of those are rooted in a woman's contemplation of the responsibilities of raising a child with the grotesquely inadequate social and financial support available to single mothers in our society. We could tackle that by making high-quality pregnancy and infant parenting support readily accessible at no cost, making quality child care services universally available and accessible, improving the public education system, subsidizing other costs of raising children for women without financial resources, making health care universal, making college tuition free or low-cost, and ensuring the availability of safe, attractive, affordable housing.
Do all that, and you'll get the "regrets" factor down to almost nothing, as well. Add in generous support for adoption options, reduce it further.
So if you're looking for a world where unborn babies are MOST likely to make it out of the womb and the rights of women to autonomy over their bodies are fully respected, try those three things:
1. Universal, safe, free contraception for both genders.
2. Eliminate the patriarchal fostering of rape culture and enabling of rape as a crime.
3. Provide generous and universally-available support for parenting and raising children.
Done.
Yes, there will still be some "RARE" issues to address. But once we've saved so many unborn babies, and rejoiced in their lives, we can probably find common ground and positive ways to address those as well, don't you think?
Or is it really just about controlling women's choices and keeping them from having full autonomy and rights over their bodies?
Be honest, now.
encouragingly,
Bright
= new reply since forum marked as read
Nice write-up, though.
will put that soul in a different woman's womb; that every soul that is supposed to be born will be born. An abortion is not the end of that soul; it will just go on to a new mother.
That's my take anyway.
Also ask any rabid pro-lifer if they donate to groups who hand out free contraception. If everyone had access to free contraception the number of unwanted pregnancies would plummet (I think you said that).
Great post!
or for the life of a fetus to have as much value as that of the mother.
"Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, none comments on abortion. One Mosaic law about miscarriage specifically contradicts the claim that the bible is antiabortion, clearly stating that miscarriage does not involve the death of a human being. If a woman has a miscarriage as the result of a fight, the man who caused it should be fined. If the woman dies, however, the culprit must be killed:
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
"And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . ."--Exodus 21:22-25"
https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/18514-what-does-the-bible-say-about-abortion
Furthermore:
"According to the bible, life begins at birth--when a baby draws its first breath. The bible defines life as "breath" in several significant passages, including the story of Adam's creation in Genesis 2
, when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Jewish law traditionally considers that personhood begins at birth."
