Water usage is probably my biggest. Living in a high desert, my wife and MIL see no problem with filling one side of the sink with hot soapy water to wash a few dishes because “that’s just how I’ve always done it”, to watering the grass and plants for hours. All of this makes me mental.
Case and point.
You don’t actually expect me to believe that you think all Pro-life people believe that children don’t deserve a good home. Sure there might be some people out there like that. But it’s much more likely that the majority of people do actually care.
It is not even that their priorities are wrong or conflicting. I hope you can agree that being murdered is worse than those children having a bad childhood.
Please note that I am not taking either a pro-life or pro-choice position. My position is that until one side can actually understand the other the debate will never go anywhere.
If withholding lifesaving care is murder, everyone who hasn’t donated a kidney is a murderer. Everyone who didn’t donate blood this month is a murderer. Everyone who isn’t an organ donor is a murderer.
No one getting an abortion is a murderer, they’re just not agreeing to share all of their organs with another person for almost a year.
So yeah, I just don’t understand their position. They don’t call withholding medical care by sharing organs murder in any other context.
I posted this to another commenter but feel it also applies here.
Instead of appealing to your own incredulity, perhaps you could just look at the other actions of the people involved. If the people claiming to be Pro Life to prevent child murder, they would take actions to prevent that outcome through comprehensive sex education and contraceptive availability. Most of them don’t. They would also not vote to annihilate social safety nets for children once they are born. Most of them do. Taking those into account suggests that child welfare is not the only or even the dominant goal of the movement.
If your entire argument is that there exists some pro life people who care about these things then sure, you “win” that’s not relevant to the overall situation. The dominant views and actions of the pro life movement in the US stem from a concerted effort to create a political wedge and to create captive single-issue voters. It worked.
The US is not unique here in its diversity of views. All across the world people (even pro-choice people) don’t “like” abortion. There is no preference for it. It is for most people a (very) necessary evil. But most western countries have managed to deal with the the abortion issue in a healthier and effective way that is more aligned with the stated goals of the pro life movement than what the actual pro life movement has managed in the US.
Acting like this is some free, open ethical debate devoid of political manipulation between people trying to save children and people trying to maintain women’s bodily autonomy is hopelessly naive.
I’m not sure what exactly you are saying I am being incredulous about. You’ve brought up a lot of points here let me try to respond to each of them.
But, before I do that, I think you have lost what my original argument was about. I am asserting that the abortion debate will never end due to each side arguing about disparate things.
From what I understand, there are 3 primary ways that a debate can end; each side comes to an agreement about what is correct/what should be done, each side agrees that they will not be able to agree on what is correct, or one side decides they are unable to change the opinion of the other side.
Much of your posts discusses how one side (Pro-life) is incorrect. This does not touch on my central argument. If you proposed a situation in which one of the three outcomes could occur then that would disprove my belief.
You talk about education and how if Pro-life proponents actually cared about reducing abortions then they would fight for “real” education, not abstinence only. But this ignores one of their central beliefs; that abstinence only is the best education to reduce abortions.
Next you talk about dismantling social safety nets. From looking at a few Pro-life groups many of them do not really talk about changing social services for kids at all. The ones that do talk about increasing education, providing counseling, and promoting adoption as an option. I think what the misunderstanding might be is that many people who are Pro-life are also republican who also believe in a reduction of government social services in favor of private services. This assignment of belief is not transferable. What I mean by this is that being Pro-life does not necessarily equate to wanting to dismantle social safety nets.
You are right that child welfare is not the central part of their belief set. The central part is “life begins at conception. And ending a life is murder”. Take for instance a hypothetical attorney general who focuses mode attention on petty shoplifting rather than murderers. I would hope that you would agree that they do not have the people’s best interest at heart. This is how Pro-life proponents see this debate.
Last thing that you mentioned that I want to comment on is about single-issue voters. Of course I would encourage people to be aware about all the issues that affect them. But I do not agree with the demonization of single-issue voters. There is a reason why on a ballot you are not required to fill in every question or there might be an option for obtaining. If we were to legislate against people being single-issue voters then that might quickly devolve into a facsimile of literacy tests. Tests which have already been ruled as unconstitutional.
Since you’re apparently lost, I’ll make I’ll summarize - the two sides talking past each other is how this issue was engineered. This is a manufactured debate designed for political purposes, and not for the welfare of kids. There’s a reason this nonsense took hold in the US and nowhere else in the western world.
They absolutely don’t believe that lol. They believe it is the only acceptable option (even it demonstrably doesn’t work).
I simply don’t understand why you insist on taking what everyone says at face value while ignoring their actual actions - how they vote.
I’m not demonizing them lol. I’m calling them stupid. If you’re a single issue voter, you are completely captive. The guy who embodies your one key issue can do anything else they want because they know they have you. Single issue voters always end up being suckers in there end.
You are more talking about how this debate came to be. My central argument is more about how the debate cannot end.
I am not sure how abstinence only being the only acceptable option is any better than it being the best option. If anything it just strengthens my argument by showing that the Pro-life side will not accept any other form of education. And the Pro-choice side will also not accept any other form of education. This topic is a nonsequiter for both sides.
Again being Pro-life does not necessarily mean that they will vote for dismantling social services.
I simply don’t understand why you insist on assuming that they are lying.
Is that not what you are doing? You are blaming them for voting how they do.
Ultimately I think we have reached that 3rd situation. I have decided that nothing I say is going to change your mind on this and am choosing to walk away.
The distinction is important because perpetuating their only acceptable option despite it being demonstrably ineffective indicates that child welfare is not the primacy concern in play.
And yet, despite it not being necessarily true it is absolutely true in every practical sense in reality.
I simply don’t understand why you insist on taking political talking points as 100 percent sincere instead of looking at the tangible actions being taken in this space.
You don’t even know what to do with this definition after quoting it. If course I “blame” them for voting how they do. Is assigning someone responsibility for their actions “demonizing” them? Lol. You’re lost in the sauce bruh.
Other countries are able to have this discussion in far more healthy and productive ways. Instead of being content with your one insight that prolife and pro-choice are talking past each other, I suggest you ask yourself why that is, and why this positioning of the discussion is basically unique to the US. There’s a whole wide world out there.