A prolife young man came to my door with a flyer.
I was in a good mood, so I talked to him about why I'm pro-choice:
1. women don't go through 7 months of pregnancy misery and suddenly wake up and make an appointment for an abortion like it was a pedicure.
2. I explained that the vast majority of abortions are first term, and later term abortions are usually due to fetal anomalies incompatible with life.
3. Continuing a pregnancy and raising a child with disabilities can bankrupt a family, and state help isn't consistent between states.
4. I don't want a Washington lawyer who doesn't know the ok of pregnancy, like what an ectopic pregnancy is, making that decision for me and my doctor.
5. If the government can tell you that you must have a baby, then they eventually will have the power to tell you that you can't.
6. I claimed the "prolife" mantle, explaining I am for a woman and her family making these decisions, not the government.
He had an enlightened look on his face.
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Last edited Tue Oct 18, 2022, 04:32 PM - Edit history (1)
Most contemporary Americans do not take the risks of pregnancy and childbirth anywhere near as seriously as they should.
There was a time when giving birth was a total crapshoot, and everyone knew it. For most of human history, no woman who got pregnant was able to take it for granted that either she or the baby would survive the birth, much less both survive and go on to live healthy lives. The dangers were, of course, greatest for poor women, but no one was exempt. (Case in point: Princess Charlotte of Wales, whose father would later become King George IV, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Charlotte_of_Wales_%281796%E2%80%931817%29?wprov=sfla1)
Modern medicine has now progressed to the point where, with proper medical care, few women die as a result of childbirth and pregnancy, and even babies who are quite premature can often be enabled to survive. This has lulled far too many people into assuming that those risks have been eliminated altogether, which has led to uninformed lawmakers enacting abortion bans that are predicated on the misconception (pun intended) that having babies is a "perfectly safe," routine activity which poses few, if any, risks to either mother or child.
These lawmakers see no need to provide exemptions for risks that they regard as non-existent, and they are both shocked and skeptical when anyone tries to point out situations where saving a woman's life literally depends on terminating the pregnancy she carries.
People who have never entertained the notion that an abortion might ever be necessary to protect a pregnant person's health, much less prevent them from dying, often have a very hard time grasping the fact that this can and does happen, much more often than they ever imagined possible. And so, as the saying goes, here we are. 
Also ask these guys why only the men go door-to-door canvassing for anti-abortion, and not the women?
