I think I sprinkled some pro-choice arguments here and there, but mostly I’ve been anti-anti-abortion. I have one pretty straight up reason for being pro-pro-choice, but that’ll leave this post a little too short so let’s do a quick tour of some reasons off the top of my head.
We may move fairly quickly. Please remember to keep you hands and feet in the ride at all times. And doubly ensure that we’re talking about abortion legislation. Maybe you think life begins at conception and therefore abortion, without sufficient reason, is wrong. But just because abortion, generally, might not be the best, I don’t think criminalization solves anything.
No one is going out and getting pregnant on purpose because they love killing babies. And if you really want to decrease abortion, the tried and true method is to offer the population contraceptives, comprehensive sex education, and ensure gender equality. That last one should be self-evident. The person most concerned about what’s in their womb is going to be the owner of said womb. I’d also argue that a living wage would be a good thing to decrease abortions, because poverty is a major factor in deciding to abort.
1. Moving on. First up on our tour, the constitution. Anti-abortion legislation violates privacy (in America) and in Canada it violates s.7 (life, liberty, and security of person) with maybe more violations of s.2(a) freedom of conscience. As a fan of all of that shit, I gotta go pro-choice.
I know people seem to care much about privacy, but I’m sure most of us would be weirded out if Mark Zuckerberg, dressed as Uncle Sam, followed you to your doctor’s appointments. As for s.7, there are a few different arguments, but basically given that the baby is in your body, will wreck havoc to it, and will change the course of your life, the government doesn’t have enough justification to intervene nor a proportionate way to do so. Especially when legal abortions were a thing, there’s no way for that to be done without discretion and it was weird that women were trying to find doctors to give them the green light instead of being able to make that decision themselves [(s.2(a)]. Besides all that, one justice thought the government had a bigger duty to the already existing legal person than one without a birth certificate.
2. This one’s might come off a little social Darwin-y. I don’t know how much this motivates me; I’m just killing time ‘till number three. Not letting people abort is bad for society. A baby at a bad time is going to be a really bad time for a really long time. Most Canadians and Americans are in more debt than they can dig themselves out of. Most people can’t save enough to retire and need to rely on their kids for support. If those kids have kids of their own, it’s going to be real fucking difficult. Additionally, the “unwantedness”—which sounds a little unfair to me, I’d call it like unable-to-ness—ends up increasing metrics of social disorganization like crime rates. If you want the population to pump out the 2.2 kids to make this shit work, increase immigration and ensure a living wage.
3. Finally we get to the point that I feel a little uncomfortable making. Partly because it should’ve been obvious to me earlier than it was and partly because I’m a dude making it. But women are people too. Beyond their uteruses. Which means they got other shit to do and their autonomy should be respected. It also means they’ll know when they want to be parent, or at the very least they’ll know when they just can’t. Becoming a parent is a pretty big decision so the people it affects most should have most to say. Besides, I’m 100% sure that women are better than the government or doctors at knowing whether they’re ready to go through a 32-week contractual process before entering a life-long commitment.
Wake Up Sheeple! 