"Pro-Choice" is Not a Small Government or Neutral Position
/Some people are under the impression that the “pro-choice” position is the small government position, the government has no right to tell a woman she can’t have an abortion, and it’s the neutral position for Americans to have.
This is false.
What is an abortion? It’s not simply the ending of a pregnancy because that would include every birth and C-section. It’s also not miscarriage management either. An induced abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy resulting in the death of an embryo or fetus. An abortion is not considered successful unless the mother’s offspring is dead, and their means of killing are suffocation/starvation, dismemberment, and poison.
The government is involved in many things it shouldn’t be in, but there are very specific reasons why our government was formed in the US: to secure our unalienable rights. Vice President Kamala Harris may have forgotten the first and most important natural or negative right, but I haven’t. It’s life. The right to life is a right to not be killed.
If you don’t believe the government has any duty to protect life, then you shouldn’t be for any laws against any killing.
To be “pro-choice” isn’t saying, “Well, I would never do it, but women should have the right to decide.” Being “pro-choice” is telling the government, “We should discriminate against certain groups of people and allow physical violence against them.” You may not think of it that personally or maliciously, but that’s what it is. People used to argue slavery was a states’ rights issue rather than looking at it as a human rights violation. You are not a neutral party when you actively vote to support deliberate physical harm against someone else.
You may argue, “Well, the government is granting a special right to a fetus that no one else has: the right to use a woman’s body and her resources.” The government isn’t granting diddlysquat. The government doesn’t have the power to make life, nor does it grant us rights. Whether we are intelligently designed by a Creator or we’re here through the natural process of evolution, literally everyone on this planet has been in a womb. We may consider it to be miraculous, but it certainly isn't special.
What pro-choice activists are requesting is a special right for mothers that no one else has: the right to kill their child without repercussions. Fathers certainly can’t suffocate or rip their children apart to get out of their parental obligations.
You may say, “It doesn’t matter if the child is alive. They have no right to a mother’s bodily resources. She doesn’t have to grant consent to them.” But what does her consent matter to a natural bodily function, that resulted through the act of procreation (most likely in a consensual manner)? She can’t will herself to stop caring for her child. She wants access to pills, suction equipment, forceps, medical professionals, and legal protection for her co-conspirators. Abortion isn’t merely an eviction; it’s an execution. You can try to dress abortion up by claiming it’s “healthcare,” but how healthy is the baby after the medical procedure?
Besides, if a mother doesn’t at least have a bare minimum obligation to not kill her offspring for nine months, how can any person have a moral obligation to anyone else? How could we possibly justify any social programs funded by taxpayers, since it’s taken from income generated from their labor, which obviously involves their bodies? How can we possibly justify child support? We make decisions based on the best interest of the child. Why shouldn’t we consider their well-being when their life begins?
Pregnancy is a unique situation when the bodily autonomy of the mother pushes up against the life of her child. But bodily autonomy is not absolute. Your bodily autonomy doesn’t grant you the right to actively kill another human. Besides, bodily autonomy is about your body, your life, and your future. Abortion is about ending someone else’s life, taking away their future, and expelling their body.
The question is how do we maximize the most liberty? The obvious answer is that if they can both live, they should both live. Sometimes, that’s not an option, and that’s why every state has exceptions to preserve the life of the mother.
Now, if a fetus or an embryo isn’t an alive unique human organism, it doesn’t matter. She should be able to terminate it, no problem. However, the reason why she wants an abortion is because the embryo or fetus in her womb is alive. If it were dead, it would be decaying, not growing. It's not cancer or a parasite; it's the mother's and father's offspring.
You can make “personhood” arguments to try and disqualify the unborn from protections against violence, but any reason you come up with is going to be inconsistent, and you do it with the foreknowledge of what a fetus doesn’t currently possess, rather than their inherent nature. How very convenient for you.
And if your argument is no one should have a right to life until they exit the vagina...it's not a magical portal. Besides, that would justify abortion up until the moment of birth, and I'm pretty sure news anchors like Dana Bash and Dasha Burns are currently pretending that isn't the position of the Democrat Party (though there are plenty of examples).
To be “pro-choice” is to be pro-discrimination and pro-violence, and you’re asking the government to take a proactive role in allowing this. How would you feel if everyone got together and voted for the right to kill black people or Asians, preventing the government from protecting them or bringing their aggressors to justice?
Your hands aren’t clean for supporting the "choice" to choose abortion.
