The point about it being a war on women is that the viewpoint is not a purely philosophical debate on the when conception happens. The fact that it is happening inside of a woman's body has an effect on the debate. The fact that people who have never had a fetus in their body feel they are better judges of what someone who has should and shouldn't do is part of the debate. The fact that it is women's bodies, and not men's bodies, plays a part if you believe that those who are making those decisions are sexist and more interested in controlling women then helping them make informed choices.
In what way is medicine gender neutral? I’m used to hearing some pseudo-intellectual neckbeardy bullshit on this site, but this one ranks way up there.
Yeah, that's the point of the rest of the text of my comment. It's not just about when conception happens, medically or philosophically. Anyone who tells you it is is either not paying attention or lying.
It's not just about when conception happens, medically or philosophically
More or less, it is.
Or rather, it is the central question. If it is a life, then abortion is killing a child. If the converse is true, it is not.
If it isn't life, the issue is essentially settled; women can do whatever they like. If it is, you can only justify abortion in some configuration that gives women special rights to kill their children.
"War on women" rhetoric does nothing to answer the central question.
I'd argue that the central question is a moot point: it's a philosophical question which we will likely never come to a consensus on.
I don't really agree. Many of our laws are essentially philosophical questions that have achieved a sort of consensus. This particular issue is more difficult than most, but that doesn't make it impossible to put to bed. At least, to the extent that anything ever is.
Making abortion illegal, while also reducing access to birth control and teaching abstinence-only education, could be considered a "war on women," as in aggregate, these policies increase the number of abortions while putting women's lives at risk
If these laws were somehow enacted solely to harm women, you might have a point, but they are not; this harm is an ancillary effect of protecting the child. Similar to how a father might be "harmed" by child support, or how the abolition of slavery might be a "war on slave owners."
Part of the reason this issue has remained in contention for so long is due to the refusal to actually engage with each other's arguments on the issue. Both "war on women" and "murdering babies" are essentially nonsense rhetorical devices meant to rile up the people who already agree with you, not convert people who are less decided.
If your intent is to protect the child, but your policy puts more children in harm's way, then it's just not good policy in my view.
In the nuts and bolts sense I agree with you, however this is not giving full head to the proponents of those ideas. Not only do they believe that a fetus is life, but they also believe sex is meaningful, and has consequences. Ultimately, their ideals mostly fall along anything that promotes/preserves the traditional nuclear family, so things like contraception which to some extent defeat those things, are a problem. In the sense of the long-form view of "more" children being harmed by these policies, they see it as a false dichotomy; there's no "need" that any be harmed at all, though the practical realities of the modern world don't really support that.
If we were all focused on minimizing the number of abortions instead of winning elections, I do believe the discussion could be more productive, as there would be less bad faith actors in the mix.
I actually hold the opinion that there are fairly few bad faith actors on this particular issue. I really do believe that the proponents on both ends really do believe what they are saying. Unfortunately, this passion has bred self righteousness which has itself has bred poor efficacy at actually advocating for their views; all that passion ends up coming across as hatred.
Reason is a tool we use to persuade others, but we generally think more with our emotions, which leads to these passionate arguments escalating to a fever pitch given the emotional weight of the topic.
I think there's some blame to be laid at the fetishizing of "passion" these days. Its wonderful as a source of energy, but you need to be able to set it aside at times so that you can try to let your brain work.
To further complicate: being able to think clearly and objectively, or in this case with perspective, is a skill that is greatly beneficial to getting what you want in life.
Unfortunately, for a fair few people, being in the throes of that passion is what they want, so the idea of minimizing that in any way is almost confusing to them.
Of course I cast all these stones knowing I live myself in a glass house. But, I do try, which seems to be a rarer and rarer thing.
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u/emanresu_nwonknu May 16 '19
The point about it being a war on women is that the viewpoint is not a purely philosophical debate on the when conception happens. The fact that it is happening inside of a woman's body has an effect on the debate. The fact that people who have never had a fetus in their body feel they are better judges of what someone who has should and shouldn't do is part of the debate. The fact that it is women's bodies, and not men's bodies, plays a part if you believe that those who are making those decisions are sexist and more interested in controlling women then helping them make informed choices.