Pro-Life: A Youth Movement

Well I've been hearing for a while now that the teens and twentysomethings of today are very pro-life. Secular Pro-Life states that this generation is the most pro-life and least religious since Roe V. Wade. We have groups like Students for Life, and Pro-Life groups, marches, and rallies are having increasing amounts of youth. We really are the pro-life generation.

It makes sense that the youth would be the most pro-life for a number of reasons. For one thing, abortion is the most ageist/childist act, so of course the youth, given that they were not as far away from being in utero as their elders, as well as the fact that they still have to constantly go through lots of ageism as you aren't treated as a real human being until you are a legal adult (or then some), would be pro-life and fight for their fellow youth just like they would with any injustice put on one of them. This is a big reason why I always hated it. Being very liberal, I always had a sense of realizing the youthism there is, wanting a teenage revolution, and being anti-establishment, so I definitely saw abortion as the worst human rights violation against kids.

Also, the kids of today have had abortion legalized for their whole lives and then some. It's a bit different for someone in their 40s who is pro-life, becuase they never had to think about how they could have been a casualty to this, and it would be perfectly legal. Abortion was only legalized in the 70s, so for those who are in their 30s or below, there is a much greater sense of being a survivor. Those who are just like us have fallen victim to abortion. Some of our classmates and potential friends are gone because of this. A third of our generation is gone because of abortion. I definitely have had that creepy feeling while thinking of how it feels to be this lucky to have been given life when my mother could have aborted me. I often wonder how many abortions were performed the year I was born. Abortion has always been around, but not to this extent and not legalized like this. So really it would be like any group fighting for others in said group. Really it just makes sense to fight for our younger brethren. We may not be embryos, but we are still youth. Think of gay people who don't plan on getting married fighting for marriage equality so that their kind who do wish to can have that opportunity. It hits so much more close to home for the younger generations. It's personal.

Another thing is that, well really a big reason why most Americans are pro-life now, we have better technology and access to the internet, and you know how the stereotype goes... The kids are the ones addicted to the internet and their smart phones and tablets and texting, and the older folks are the ones who can't figure it out. Sure, some older people are very technology wise, but the youth really are the ones who use this stuff more. We are the generation who grew up around it. It comes as second nature to us. And of course, you can find out the humanity of the unborn on the internet. You can go and look up different stages of fetal development and what happens at conception, find out the heart starts beating at 3 weeks after conception and the brain is the first organ to show up, at 2 weeks, and science says all over the place that it is indeed another unique and individual living human being that just happens to be growing inside of the woman but is not part of her, and so on and so forth.

There are better ultrasound/sonogram pictures than ever before, progressing past the very hard to see black and white original ones and moving to 3D and 4D. You can find pictures or video of what the embryos and fetuses look like inside the womb on the internet. You can even take home 3D statues of what your little one looks like in utero. The Endowment of Human Development has a lot of good videos of the unborn. You can literally see the heart beating, the blood pumping, as the skin is a bit translucent, at only a handful of weeks after conception. The truth is, most pro-choicers are pro-choice because they either don't know or don't understand the humanity of the unborn. Science and technology help them realize it little by little, and the kids are at the forefront of the technological age. If they are pro-choice, they can be smug and say "It's not a human, here, I'll prove it to you" and actually bother to look it up with the intentions of schooling those pro-lifers, but in reality realize how very wrong they were. I've heard it time and time again: Knowledge turns people pro-life, and the pro-choice side has a great fear of knowledge. If the kids are lucky enough to realize this, and the internet and better technology makes it easier, they become more and more pro-life. It is definitely not "just a clump of cells", sadly most pro-choicers still believe this, but it's easier than ever to find out how wrong that is.

The dualities of pro-choicers talking when it isn't about abortion vs. when it is

So I came across this standard medical video on fertilization, and first of all, in the beginning it says, "Fertilization is the epic story of a single sperm facing incredible odds to unite with an egg, and form a new human life. It is the story of all of us." and at the end, "The two sets of chromosomes join together, completing the process of fertilization. At this moment, a unique genetic code arises, instantly determining gender, hair color, eye color, and hundreds of other characteristics. This new single cell, the zygote, is the beginning of a new human being." and I notices that one of the comments was about how this was the video that person was shown in school. We learn this stuff by the time we are in highschool. Yet I noticed there were no debates about when life begins in the comments section. Not a single comment about abortion at all. Not a comment even from the pro-life side saying "See we told you" and not a comment from the pro-choice side trying to say they must be wrong and it must be propaganda. I always thought it was weird how we are all taught this same stuff, yet when debating abortion, pro-choicers seem to forget it. I realize now that they totally accept it when being taught it or when it is in the context of learning about fertilization, but suddenly when it comes to abortion, they forget it all, and they say science says the opposite of what it says. They could be talking about conception or the unborn in general and know what it is and be correct with it, but then when it comes to abortion or "choice" suddenly they turn their backs on everything they just said, and say the opposite. It's like the issue of abortion has been so politicized that everyone forgets their common sense and everything they ever learned about the unborn just to take a jab at the other side. Once again, I blame the abortion industry/higher ups in the pro-choice movement, using all those slogans and dehumanizing and really trying to sell abortion, and making people think they have to be pro-choice if they are this or that. It's times like these I wish somehow, something like this could be an apolitical thing.

Also, when talking about babies and pregnant women, everyone everywhere will say that what is in the woman right now is a baby, is a child, is a being, is alive, is growing etc., but suddenly when talking about abortion, it isn't a baby, child, or being. You can watch any commercial with a pregnant woman in it and they will make it clear that what she has inside of her right now is a baby, yet if it's an abortion, it's a "clump of cells" or "product of conception" or "contents of the uterus." A wanted baby is a baby, yet an unwanted baby is a parasite. The most pro-choice people will recognize it is a life or baby or what have you when not talking about abortion, yet suddenly when that's the nature of discussion, it becomes something totally different.

In addition to that, when it isn't about abortion, they would never, ever advocate for killing or there not being people because of things like poverty and death and people having not-so-good lives. They know that the people that are here, even though they may have hardships, are worth being here, and they will probably get through it and be stronger for it. They actually advocate for helping these people, and looking at them not as burdens or not as people who are doomed, but rather people who should be loved and are worthy as we all are to be here, and take even more care of them and loving them all the more than people in general. Sure you still have the population controllers/eugenicists who do advocate for killing off people left and right and controlling the population because life isn't perfect, but even a lot of pro-choicers don't like those ideas. But when talking about abortion, suddenly all of that changes and it becomes "But what about poor women, single women, babies who have disabilities, people who grow up being abused, how evil can you be to think that they should have to go through lives like that?" First of all, these are people born who are having lives like this, and second of all, tons of them are wanted and planned. If you want to advocate for killing people in the womb because they may possibly have horrible lives, you'd have to advocate killing all the people that are born who have horrible lives.

Nothing ever GUARANTEES that someone will have to suffer or be in that situation anyway. You DON'T know how their lives will turn out. You can't tell the future. If someone is born disabled in some way, that DOES NOT mean they will grow up hating life, being bullied, or having parents who hate them or treat them poorly (and saying that a woman who has unwanted children will abuse them is VERY anti-woman. Lots of born people weren't wanted but their parents never hurt them and they grew up just fine), and for those that do, that does NOT mean they would be better off dead or would want to die. Even if they were bullied, it would be by people like you who point out how they are different and say they should have been aborted because of it. If someone is born to a poor mother, that DOES NOT mean they will have an awful, terrible life, or even that it will always be poor and that there will never be a way out. To say so is total discrimination against those people. Pro-choicers coming across someone who was making fun of a poor person and saying their life sucks or they shouldn't be alive or anything of the sort TOTALLY would call that person out on being prejudiced against poor people. To those that may have abusive parents, that DOES NOT mean they absolutely, positively, will have horrible lives and no good can come out of their lives or that they will want to die or wish they would have never been born. For those whose parents did not want them., or were conceived in rape and the mother is remembered by the rape, that DOES NOT mean their parents will be horrible to them or they are destined to live horrible lives. Plus, there are still people choosing to keep their babies on purpose, even if they weren't planned, aren't necessarily wanted, are poor, are single parents etc. so really, you wouldn't get your world of all these people being aborted anyway, and you would have to force people to abort and take away their choice in order to do so. To those that think we should kill off babies in the womb because they *may* have not so perfect lives, well first of all, life sucks in general, no one has that great of a life, but it is still worth living for a lot of people, and second of all I would counter "Then why don't you go and kill the ones who are going through lives like that right now if you think it's so evil for people to not be doing that?"

Pro-choicers value their "beliefs" over science

Ironically, while pro-choicers tend to assume that any pro-lifer is religious or tell them to "keep their religion out of it" even if they didn't even mention religion, their main arguments are much more religious and faith-based.

"Well I just don't believe it's a baby/child/human/human being/alive/life/person", "Life begins when the mother feels like it." "We don't know when life begins/there's no consensus/there's a debate going on/we all have our beliefs on this" More often than not, you will have pro-choicers arguing this. This is often coming from my fellow people who claim to love science and say that beliefs should be left out of things and we should look at facts. The great thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it, and it most definitely does say that the unborn are individual living human beings. You can't have your "beliefs" in this area. Science will tell you what is alive and a being and all that. I could just as easily say "Well I don't "believe" YOU are alive" but that wouldn't make sense as that's not how it works. Even pro-choice leaders have said things like this, like the president of NARAL, Ilyse Hogue, and the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, and others who work for them straight up belittling and telling people to ignore science, and MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry (though luckily there are some pro-choice advocates and abortion doctors alike that admit it's another living human being that is different from the woman and abortion is killing it.) If you're going to advocate for science, you can't be cherry-picking like the people you criticize for doing the same with the bible. I also have an earlier post going into more detail of how the pro-choice side hides and denies facts here

Why "Men can't have an opinion" and "Keep the government out of it!" are hypocritical arguments.

I'm sure we've all heard these arguments before. The, "Well you're a man, so you can't (have an opinion/speak about it/vote on it/even think about it) because you have no uterus and don't know what it's like to be a woman!" type of arguments are flawed when it comes to people whoa re pro-choice, because, guess what, NARAL was founded by 2 men originally, and only 1 of the 5 founders was a woman, and MEN passed Roe V. Wade, and MEN are abortion doctors, and yes MEN are pro-choice and vote as such. You (I'm talking about the pro-choicers that are like this of course) only seem to care about this if it is pro-life men. Where are all the people screaming at pro-choice men, "No uterus, no opinion!"? Same goes for the "government should stay out of it" argument. It was the GOVERNMENT that wrote in laws saying you could get an abortion in the first place. If you don't want the government in it, reject Roe V. Wade, and all other laws saying women have the right to choose abortion, and government officials who are pro-choice or vote that way.

The whole "No uterus, no opinion" thing is stupid and obviously sexist, and this is coming from a woman who does have a uterus. It's taking something about that person and saying that because of it, they don't get to have a voice. It's not like anyone would say a woman can't have an opinion on or talk about circumcision just because we don't have penises, and if anyone ever did, everyone would be crying "Sexist!" Same goes for a number of things. No one would say that white people can't talk about how bad owning slaves is just because they aren't black, and can't properly "understand". Perhaps they did say that in the day though, but now everyone would think that is stupid. People aren't defined by their race or gender or whatever else. To say they can't understand it because they don't belong to that group is even furthering the separation of groups.

The funny thing is that while it apparently only applies to pro-life men, much in the same way they are "pro-choice" yet don't let anyone choose to be pro-life, the statement itself is only based off of gender and not content of their views. Everyone has to be like them. Frankly, if they think a man is saying something stupid about abortion, the fact that they are saying something stupid should be enough. They could just say, "Well that's ridiculous and makes no sense", but instead they opt for the ad hominems, which always is a cue to other people that they honestly have no idea how to argue that so they look for something else to argue. Do they say "You're not a woman, so quit talking!" to men saying they think a woman has the right to choose or people should stay out of it? No they do not. I wonder what they would say if they saw someone yelling at a pro-choice man who is talking about how he thinks women should get to choose what they want, "You don't have a uterus, so you don't get an opinion! So shut up!" One would wonder why these men would want to be part of a group that doesn't allow their gender to speak, have an opinion, or make laws depending on their viewpoint anyway. Also, some women don't have uteruses. Don't pro-choice men hate the whole, "Only women are allowed to talk about this" aspect of it? Not to mention it actually is sexist against women as well because you are making it out to be a "woman's thing."

Taking Back Bodily Autonomy

I have always been SUPER pro-bodily-autonomy/integrity and freedom of choice. My main philosophy in life has always been that you should be able to do whatever you want, whatsoever, as long as it doesn't hurt another body besides your own. This is exactly why I am against abortion. Bodily autonomy/integrity is why most pro-lifers are against abortion. If there wasn't another body that was being threatened or we didn't care about the body being threatened, we wouldn't be pro-life and there wouldn't be a problem. We'd say "Yeah sure violate and kill the unborn's body, it's not like I care what others do to bodies that aren't their own!" Get a hysterectomy, sure, but there is no greater threat to bodily autonomy than abortion. The right to bodily autonomy fits so much better with the pro-life side.

The thing about pro-choicers is that they don't really understand bodily autonomy. They think it's absolute (they seem to forget the "as long as you don't hurt another body" part of it, and there are many situations in which it is not absolute, such as helmet or other safety laws, drugs being illegal, or illegal in certain circumstances such as for those under a certain age, being taken away on a 5150 and forced in a mental hospital and watched to make sure you don't kill yourself, someone can't neglect their child and refuse to feed it because they don't want to use their arms to give it food (Refusing your child nutrients and survival because you don't want your uterus to go to this is basically the same. Children also have the right to not be neglected, and depriving the child of resources it needs to live, even if it wasn't wanted or planned or is an "inconvenience", is still neglect and still wrong) or kill or hurt their child if they wrapped themselves around your leg for instance and you can't get them off without doing so, and various other circumstances (regardless of whether or not you agree with them, they exist legally)), they think right to life can never come before it (right to life comes before at least most things as it is the ultimate threat against someone (and if you're an Atheist like me, you should really believe in it, as life is ALL we have, and without life, all other rights are meaningless as we wouldn't be alive to be able to use them, and this is why they put life first in "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", and it's almost like a lot of them don't even think right to life is a thing, because if bodily autonomy always exists in the context of "even if someone dies" as so many of them like to argue, then you can go around killing people an excuse it by saying "Well it was my body doing the killing so you can't do anything about it because bodily autonomy" ), when talking about abortion, they act like the only thing to bodily autonomy is whether or not you allow someone to use your organs (there's much more which I'll explain), and they think forget about the unborn's bodily autonomy because the woman's autonomy is the only thing we should really care about etc.

Now essentially bodily autonomy has a few different things to it (and no not all of them are legal.) It means you can do whatever you want to or with your body (get tattoos or piercings or body mods, take drugs, be a stripper or prostitute, have sex whatever way you want it however much you want it with whomever you want (unless they are underage or someone else non-consenting) refuse to shave or wear makeup etc.), no one can do anything to your body without consent or invade the personal space of your body (think of rape, molestation, inflicting pain or injury, even just touching someone without them wanting you to etc.), and yeah having control over your organs is part of it, but the main thing is that no one can hurt or kill your body without consent (this is actually sort of related to right to life as someone being killed means their body was killed and hurt to the utmost extreme, so they aren't even mutually exclusive in the first place). You get to be in charge of your body, and no one else can ever hurt it (unless you're into that sort of thing and it's completely consensual ).

Of course according to science, the unborn is another individual living human being and different body than the mother. The unborn's bodily autonomy is the one being threatened here as the act in question is abortion and the unborn is the one being aborted, not the woman. Abortion is forcing death (and various things with the various types, such as dismemberment which is also obviously a great threat to bodily autonomy) on it without it consenting and having a choice in the matter. That is the biggest threat to bodily autonomy.

Now trust me, I get that the woman has autonomy too and she might not want to be pregnant and share her body with the unborn. Talking about the unborn's right to bodily autonomy and right to life DOES NOT mean we think little of the woman's right to bodily autonomy (remember I'm a super liberal and radical feminist, super pro-bodily rights type, so don't use that stupid "they all just hate women and want to take away their bodily autonomy" misconception on me). I am female, I live with thinking about what it is like to be pregnant all the time, BUT abortion is still a greater threat to bodily autonomy. Someone hurting or killing someone else's body is obviously a greater threat than someone using someone else's organ to stay alive. Also the unborn has two violations pushed on them (right to life and bodily autonomy) vs. the woman's one.

Abortion being the greater threat to bodily autonomy is true even more so for various reasons. It is completely innocent in the matter, it could not have consented or chosen to be there, and it is already there before a woman can find out she is pregnant or an abortion can take place. It did not "take over the woman's uterus without consent" as it could never have consented to that, and comparisons like that imply intent, but it never could have made a conscious decision to do something like that or even be aware of what it was doing. Just like newborns and toddlers can't be held responsible for certain actions because they couldn't have consented to it or realized what they were doing (from needing to be fed down to more serious things like accidentally hurting someone) the unborn is purely innocent. It can't consent to being killed either, just like infants outside of the womb couldn't consent to being killed so since it's not legal to do that, it doesn't make sense to allow someone to do it to the unborn (other examples of how bodily autonomy still applies to those who aren't aware to be able to consent either way is how women who have passed out can't consent to having sex, so doing that to her is rape, or sleepwalkers can't consent to sleepwalking, yet they also can't consent to being killed). Usually people know that things like circumcision or piercing a baby's ears are against it's bodily autonomy, yet some of them do a 180 when it comes to abortion. Those aborting specifically decide to do so and DID consent and make a conscious decision. The abortion is a direct an conscious action on someone. The unborn being there was there by the actions of the woman and man, or in case of rape man and woman's body. It happens to be using her uterus because that is how science works and the only home it has. Once again, it didn't "force itself into her and take her uterus hostage." Other analogies I've heard are ones like you can't drag an unconscious person into your home and then shoot them because you want them to leave *or something like that*, and extensions of that.

Want of womb empty is definitely not an adequate excuse to literally, purposefully, consciously, and actively kill someone who already happens to be there and by natural circumstances made by other people/bodies, especially those who are the ones wanting to kill them, and without their own consent to be there or a conscious choice made, who is the most innocent out of anyone innocent ever. Anyone for bodily autonomy should be pro-life above all else. No one is saying they should get more rights, we're just saying give them actual equal rights, which pro-choicers don't seem to understand. Someone's rights to their own body stops where another's begins, and we know that that is at conception.

Also I never liked the "kidney transplant" type of analogies. Abortion is different than refusing to give someone an organ or something like that as that hasn't already happened and when someone gives an organ, part of them is gone forever and put into someone else, whereas with the unborn, it is only using the woman's uterus and only for 9 months and she gets to keep it in her, and it is already there and happening by the time she finds out, and she will have it back to herself in months. Also, one might say that if a parent were the one to make their child's organ non-functioning, they should be obligated to give them theirs, or if someone already had an organ transplant, they shouldn't be allowed to take it back (which is actually an actual thing. You can't take it back once they are already using the organ, let alone take tools to dismember and kill them, and the unborn is already using the organ) and anyone can also refuse to take an organ, and if they don't they agree and make a conscious decision to take someone's organ, but the unborn can't refuse to use the uterus, and like I said before didn't make the choice to use it in the first place, and then there is the difference between actively killing and letting die, but even beyond all of that, I'm sure even the most pro-choice people still think very poorly of those who just flat out refuse to give someone an organ if they really need it.