Warped Tour’s Pro-Life/All Lives Matter Tent Drawing Criticism • Page 6

That's a really, really terrible and illogical argument.

 

Man, even if we're viewing it as a human rights issue, there are ways to see abortion covered by international law, whether it be through the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural rights wherein Article 12 delineates the right to healthcare and can be seen as encompassing reproductive rights, particularly abortion, or through other means, such as Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There have been UN panels and committees that have denounced countries for their stances and practices on abortion by making a case for a violation of human rights.

You can certainly argue about human rights and international law, especially about its effectiveness as being a harbinger of positive change, as well as other things. And you can certainly argue about whether the right to abortion is truly covered within international law as a human right. But to say, "Abortion is a human rights issue in which abortion should not be allowed" is foolish.

And that's not touching upon the point already made numerous times where abortion is truly, unequivocally a women's issue in which men should stand beside women in preserving and broadening the right of women to control their own bodies.

 

imo with abortion there is only one correct view. that is giving women the right to choose.

 

If you see a username striked out, it means that they've been banned. There's been a lot of trolling the past few weeks.

 

Because it's not a matter of opinion. It's a fact that can't be avoided, only obscured into misleading by close minded agendas.

 

There have definitely been a lot of shitty posts in threads about racism and sexism, that's for sure

 

striked out? I can't see that?

 

I can't either, but clicking on their username it says their profile is not available

 

i've been waiting for something to signify banned users for a while. super handy

 

The other side is understood. Their beliefs rooted in patriarchy, which is an objectively dangerous ideology.

 

There is only one view that does not exist to limit civil liberty - which is the right to choose. Call it what you want, but not all views are created equal when it comes to civil rights.

There was "another side" to the civil rights movement, too. Doesn't mean they were both correct.

 

You are absolutely correct. The point I was trying to make and failed, is that I think there is a difference between a "clump of cells" and most likely dead ones from a paper cut from just an emotional standpoint. I have seen that "clump of cells" make patients extremely happy or cause lots of sorrow. I just thought what Jason said was insensitive and could be found offensive to many people.

 

Yes, there is only one correct answer to this matter: the support of a woman's agency over her body. I know why the "other side" believes what they do, I'm 33, I've seen those arguments a million times by now. They're wrong. And I find it ridiculous that an opinion poll of the entire US population should matter at all in regard to a women's right to her body. But to discuss the "50/50" thing — no poll should be taken that seriously that makes it a question where it would be one side or the other. This "split" often cited by Breibert and other nut-jobs is how people self-identify. However, when you look at the specific breakdown of the questions that actually look at what people believe, not just what label they identify with, you see far different numbers and have going back three decades at least. But, still, if some guy answers that he wants to restrict a women's right to her body I don't give a fuck about his answer on that phone call anyway.

 

Straight up tho @Reese's Pieces restricting abortions leads to death, depression, and deterioration of women's mental health. Dom posted a great article on it. There is no humane alternative to letting a woman choose her own path.

 

Not to mention I'm pretty sure having to go through an abortion in the first place isn't exactly cupcakes and rainbows

 

I once knew a couple who were married. The wife got pregnant. She wanted to terminate the pregnancy; he wanted to her to have the child so they could begin their family.

She chose to have the abortion. That decision caused a rift which led to a divorce. Years later, they're both happy, healthy, and have families apart from one another.

I bring this up only to say this: every decision we make has consequences. Some consequences are good; some are bad. Some are good, but lead to bad; some are bad but lead to good. Life is funny that way.

But our lives are ours to live. And no one should have a say in the personal decisions we make with our own bodies. In the given example, it was the wife's choice to terminate the pregnancy, because it's her life. It was the husband's choice to terminate the marriage, because it's his life. And no one should be dictating that either party has to do anything they aren't comfortable with. In the end, both are much happier for not being together, because clearly, theirs was not a good match.

It isn't my or your or anyone's job to tell someone of either gender what they can or can't do with their body or their life. That's where it's a 'human rights' issue - the principle of the dignity that each person has over their own body applies to every person equally.

 

I just wanted to say thank you for actually talking about this issue in a civil way in this thread. 90% of the comments on this thread are full of anger and open hostility, and this is exactly what's tearing our country apart right now. It's a complete embarrassment, and needs to stop. My parents and grandparents tell me that it used to be that two sides could disagree, but that each side would respect the other's right to think differently. The two sides could discuss their differences to try and better understand the other side. Now, the state of our country, and definitely in this thread, seems to be full of bulldozing, shutting down dialogue, and escalating everything to a shouting match. If someone has a different opinion, they are automatically "ignorant", their opinion "shouldn't be legitimized", and their opinion "doesn't deserve a response." To those who respond like this on either side, please think about how you're contributing to the overall problem.

Now, back to my thoughts on the topic at hand. As I said from the start, I'm actually undecided on this topic, and am trying to learn from both sides. What I currently don't understand on the pro choice side from the arguments made here is why someone would think that a human, male or female, should be allowed to do whatever they want with their own bodies if it affects someone else. Obviously a person shouldn't be allowed to use their body to kill another adult human, isn't allowed to put an intoxicating amount of alcohol in their body and then go out driving, etc. So we do as a society place restrictions on what people can do with their own bodies. Our own rights typically end when they infringe on someone else's.

Now obviously abortion is legal, and the examples I mentioned are not. But from what I'm seeing, the pro life side views this "collection of cells" as something human, and so it sees it as an issue of one human (the woman) encroaching on the rights of another human (the fetus). If the "collection of cells" is indeed something human, then this bothers me, although I haven't gotten to the point where I believe that yet.

That's my two cents...now watch as I get torn apart, insulted, shut down, and called an ignorant sexist for thinking out loud. Or maybe we can take this down a notch and actually dialogue?

 

jesus

 

Even if it's a human rights issue, women are human and have rights in regard to what to do with our bodies. Forcing a woman to go through a traumatic birth seems like a huge violation of rights. Even if someone argues that the fetus has rights too, their "human rights" angle loses all legitimacy when they want to take away rights from the one who is actually living and breathing and like sentient. Like the fact that it's even still a debate is really terrifying.

 

Would you engage in a debate wherein the other side's explicit stance is that black people are non-people? No, you would not. Although the United States is incredibly racist and treats them as such, the justifications are far different because the center of the debate has shifted. Similarly, this is how I view pro-lifers. The center of the debate has shifted from men explicitly having control of the reproductive cycles of women through familial arrangements to that of a preservation of life. They've erected an entire political superstructure around it to obfuscate what the debate is about, but the content remains the same. This is why your view is rejected out of hand. It isn't that we are not open-minded or that we want an echo chamber, it is that the perspective being offered up is objectionable and representative of toxic masculinity that women see and experience every day in other aspects of their lives. Ask any woman on this site about their experiences in this scene and you will hear a slew of stories, in which men spoke down to them, attempted to make decisions for them, questioned their judgment, assaulted them, made them feel unsafe, etc., all of which gets materially expressed in the limitations of their abilities to navigate this world safely and, more horrendously, subjects them to indiscriminate violence; that violence, in itself, is the logical extension of control. We need not look any further than the Brock Turner case as another representation of a toxic masculinity that seeks total control; she did not consent, but he saw fit to do as he wished to her because he could, because she was not a person, but an object to be used for his own purposes, to be controlled. And control is really what this is about. We understand that this desire to control women's bodies is elaborated on many fronts, which includes anti-choice beliefs and rape culture. Their connective tissue are institutional and ideological beliefs that, at bottom, disempower women across those multiple levels. In fact, they mutually reinforce one another, as we see in the states in which abortion was previously restricted, there was a correlative culture wherein women were charged for rape kits, met with skeptical officers and so forth. This is not to say that anti-choice folks are pro-sexual assault, but to draw out how, in concrete terms, patriarchy, as a set of mutually reinforcing apparatuses that aim to maintain the status of women as subjects of men on both ideological and material levels,give birth to cultures in which women are less safe, have less access to our shared social institutions or formal avenues of redress for their grievances, and more importantly, less legitimacy as human beings. This is the side you are arguing for from my perspective and, as a man with privilege and all that this entails, my role is to support women and to refuse to legitimize the beliefs and practices that would lead to a more dangerous existence for women. This isn't about me, it isn't about you, it isn't about any of the men in this thread, it is only about how, when and in what form we can ensure the rights of women as equals, as human beings that are deserving of the ability to live free from the fear that a man may assault them, determine they know best for their bodies, or exclude them from any of the spheres in our society. That is the bottom line. There is no room for other discourse. It is hateful and illegitimate.

 

If a collection of cells / a fetus is potential life and needs to be protected, what's to be done about masturbation? Semen is potential life as well. Should we ban masturbation?

I completely understand that this is a stupid comment. I just don't know where the line is drawn with the pro-life crowd.

 

This is the absolute perfect sentence. I (and so many others of course) am so thankful you're on this site.

 

What are your views about women who are pro-life?

 

Honestly, @Anna Acosta, @kaylasananjou and the other women in this thread have spoken so much better on this topic than I have. I'm just reiterating what they've said and what I've learned from women more generally. The men on the other side have so much to learn if they just listened.

 

Is anyone with the pro life view really denying that pregnancy is difficult for a woman, that men have controlled women for most of history, that women deserve the same rights as men, etc in this debate? I always thought the modern day abortion debate was more focused on when human life begins than men specifically trying to control women? Again, as someone undecided here, I'm trying to listen and learn, but also ask hard questions.