Spot the Irony

[naamah_darling]

Original Poster: I'm tolerant of most opinions, but I just can't respect pro-lifers.

Me: Right there with you. But, then, why should I? They have no respect for me as a woman.

Random Person: Speaking as a pro-life woman over here - it's not that we have no respect for women. We just place a life, or potential for life, above comfort. Does that

Comments

[vivian_shaw]

We just place a life, or potential for life, above comfort.

No. They place the potential for life above extant life.

Pro-lifers do not take into account the fact that hey, guess what, the woman in this equation is already alive, fully formed, functional, capable of paying taxes, whereas the thing she wants to abort is a clump of dividing cells. The inalienable rights of the clump of cells obviously trump the so-alienable rights of the woman inside whose body the cells are dividing.

All together now: MY BODY, NOT YOURS.

[naamah_darling]

They place the potential for life above extant life.

Thank you. I was trying to think of a way to articulate that.

[vivian_shaw]

It's like a reproductive version of the Animal Farm line.

All life is sacred, but potential life is more sacred than regular life (which should be sacrificed for its sake).

[siliconshaman]

What do you expect from a cult that believes that in order to get it good in the afterlife, you have to suffer in this one?

[vivian_shaw]

I love that. God loves you but you will never manage to live up to the tiniest fraction of his standards, so you will struggle all your life to be something you absolutely cannot be in the hopes that it might get you brownie points postmortem. The joke, of course, being that there is no afterlife.

[siliconshaman]

Pretty much.. well, except I tend to differ on the 'no afterlife'. I think there is, but it's a construct of your expectations and subconscious... and then you come back.

[flewellyn]

I'm Jewish, so my approach to afterlife is "That's God's business. What matters is making this life as good as possible, for as many as possible."

[flewellyn]

Then too, even if you do consider the fetus to be a life form on its own, it's using her body as a vessel and a source of nourishment. One person doesn't have the right to use another person's body for their own benefit, without consent; this is why we don't compel organ donation, it's why slavery is illegal, and it's why rape is illegal (although the way the courts treat it, rape might as well be legal in some places).

[pixxelpuss]

I love this argument. It's genius.

[flewellyn]

Why, thank you! But it's not originally mine. Or at least, I'm not the only person to think of it.

[tacky_tramp]

Yup, this is the argument that I try to use. You'll get nowhere trying to convince super-religious people that fetuses aren't "alive."

[flewellyn]

Well, it's also not really true, anyway. Yes, the fetus is alive. It's just as much a life form as your intestinal flora. It's even human life, since it contains human DNA and can grow into a fully viable person.

But it doesn't MATTER! Even presupposing that fetuses are worthy of equal rights to born humans (something I don't believe, but never mind), that STILL means abortion must be legal. Otherwise you privilege the fetus over the pregnant woman, and reduce her to a womb-slave.

This is the part that really blows their brains. That I could agree with them that 'life begins at conception' and STILL advocate unrestricted access to abortion at any time up to delivery...

[tacky_tramp]

I honestly wonder, though, how many of them wouldn't advocate laws that required parents to donate organs to their children.

[flewellyn]

No, because that might affect men.