Back in March, 2023, I said Trump election lies will not save unborn babies. I argued that the Trump MAGA cult seduces pro life advocates by offering an illusion of support for unborn babies, when in fact, the Trump MAGA cult only hurts pro life credibility because millions of pro lifers offer millions of excuses for Trumps unacceptable behavior.
Pro life Trump supporters argue that Trump is not using them to gain power; they’re using Trump to make policy. Whether or not Trump is a crook or a wannabe tyrant is irrelevant. Since life is sacred but most Americans want abortion, the pro life minority must use radical measures to save unborn babies, even if that means looking the other way when a wannabe tyrant violates the law and common decency. Besides, the press exaggerates Trump’s flaws because the system is out to get him because Trump challenges the system.
Down deep, pro lifers know Trump is a liar and his behavior is unacceptable, but they embrace his MAGA cult anyway because they don’t see any other way to offer all unborn babies a chance to grow up.
But what if there were a better way?
Instead of forcing the pro life minority’s will on the pro choice majority, what if we could protect unborn babies without buying into criminal behavior and wacky conspiracy theories that not even the people still spewing them believe? What if we defended a pro-life agenda with well-formed arguments and maybe some empathy? What if we focused on changing minds to build a pro life majority? Almost thirty years ago, my wife used well-formed arguments and empathy to change my mind. Why not try it on a large scale? Because when minorities impose their will against the majority, the long term outcome often turns into a disaster.
So, what are the arguments?
The classic pro choice argument says unborn babies are body parts and mothers should make decisions about their own bodies without government interference. It’s basic human rights. Nobody should impose medical decisions on women. After all, we don’t impose vasectomies on men.
The pro life argument – the one I favor – says unborn babies are the most vulnerable human beings of all and deserve the same protection as any other human life. Women hold a sacred obligation to carry new human beings inside their bodies and a special responsibility to protect them. Here comes the even-more controversial part. This applies no matter how they were conceived.
But, wait a minute. What about rapes, or incest, or other pregnancies from undesirable circumstances? And what kind of perverted society grants parental rights to a rapist? How is forcing the mother to endure a full pregnancy under these circumstances and maybe even fight a rapist for parental rights fair?
Of course it’s not fair. This is a woman’s worst nightmare.
But killing an unborn baby is an even worse solution than the problem. The situation is not the baby’s fault. Babies have no input around the circumstances leading to their conception. Why should an innocent baby die because somebody violated their mother?
Instead of using abortions to sweep ugly situations under a rug, how about serving unpleasant consequences to perpetrators and offering empathy and support for victims through a difficult period? The choice should not be whether or not to kill the baby, but whether or not to offer the baby for adoption. And we should never grant any parental right to a rapist.
And then we have cases with tradeoffs between a mother’s life and her baby’s. Those decisions should be up to the mother, consulting with family and medical professionals as appropriate for her unique circumstances. Of course government should stay out of these situations.
Pro choice advocates argue – persuasively – that many pro lifers are really pro birth, not pro life. We want to force women into carrying unwanted babies to term, but then we abandon them after birth. Pro choice advocates have a point. If we care about life, as we claim, then we should offer ongoing support for children in need.
I heard a repulsive pro-choice argument a few years ago. The argument asserts that the question about whether unborn babies are body parts or independent people is moot. Since pregnant women provide an environment for babies to develop, free of charge, these women therefore retain the exclusive right to terminate that arrangement any time they want, for any reason they want.
This argument is even more horrifying than the radical arguments on the other side who really do want to manage women’s bodies. Pro life advocates should have a field day with it. Beat it by appealing to common decency.
But if Trump cult members get their way and impose their will on the majority of pro choice Americans, we will never engage in the dialog, and, sooner or later, the majority will topple the minority, and all those compromises to save unborn babies will be for nothing.
Or we’ll end up in a dystopian civil war nightmare.
So, for my pro-life friends, let’s stop embracing lies and start using persuasion with facts. We can win support with good dialog. Forget MAGA. Make facts great again.
I’m sure you are not surprised to see me here. It is difficult to know where to start. How about with the illogical inclusion of the MAGA cult, or it’s ideology, which is, in fact, the same as the majority of the current conservative/republican (sans cap deliberate) ideology regarding this specific issue. I have always admired your truth telling about the nonsense of trump (sans cap deliberate), but trying to separate trump and his supporters from abortion is irrelivant.
Now let’s get down to the meat of the matter. 1. Unborn babies are body parts? I have never heard this comment. Sounds like unreasonable conclusions by uninformed, and ridiculously ideological people. No one has ever claimed that an unborn fetus is a body part.
2. The use of the word “baby” is disingenuous and scientifically wrong. NO ONE IS KILLING BABIES! Babies are humans that breathe and nurse and smile and gurgle and grow before our eyes. What is inside the womb of a woman (a human being with rights), especially in the earliest of development IS NOT A BABY!!
3. How can society FORCE any kind of “sacred obligation” on any human being, including a female who happens to get pregnant? It is interesting tht conservatives are all gung ho about individual rights, but thinks they can interfere in the decisions of women.
4. “Protection” of a fetus is forced medical care. No human being, since the holocaust, and Tuskegee should ever be forced into any kind of forced medical treatment. The irony of this is that there is also a lack of medical care with the current wants of the pro life movement. Women are dying because doctors are unsure of what they can and cannot treat in a pregnancy gone wrong. Women are the only “vulnerable human beings” in this scenario. Who is taking care of them?
5. “No matter how they are conceived?!?!” A woman is to be lowered to the status of a gestation or incubation machine for a clump of cells that is the result of a violent act against a woman?? OMG All I can do is shake my head at this repressive idea. Giving a woman no choice or a chance of living her dreams after being horribly violated? Wow!!! Just Wow.
6. Adoption. Have you done any research about this process and how many are waiting? How about the stats of those who were never adopted. Do you know what happens to them if they are never adopted? What kind of fantasy world do you and other pro life fools live in.
7. Your words imply that women choose abortion willy nilly. This is not the case. It is not used as contraception. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is a difficult choice to make. I, myself, had to make that difficult choice after having just given birth to twins and had contraception fail. With the recent use of dna testing, parents should have the choice of bringing a child into the world that will not live very long or have lifelong issues. The pro choice view is limited in its knowledge of science and the needs and rights of your so called”incubator.”
Finally, there is no divine intervention. There is nothing outside of the reality and reason of nature. The real human females have a say over their health care. Abortion is health care. Look it up.
Hi Toni. Thanks for the dialog. You have the right to your opinion, but your premise is flawed and your conclusions don’t make sense.
You say unborn babies are not babies and they’re not body parts. So, what are they? You like the word, fetus. It’s as good of a word as any. But whatever word you choose, it’s a baby developing inside their mother. This is not rocket science. Humans have been doing this for a long time.
So you start with the word, fetus, and then you build a bunch of conclusions based on your opinion and declare those as facts. C’mon Toni, you’re better than that. Don’t mistake philosophical differences for facts.
Adoption? Yes, I know a little bit about adoption. My whole family is based on adoption. If today’s adoption system is broken, then let’s fix it. Your solution sweeps problems under a rug by killing unborn babies that may eventually feed that system. I thought progressives wanted to fix broken systems, not look the other way.
The same comment holds for doctors afraid to treat women because the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. Instead of purposely killing babies who haven’t been born yet, let’s fix the system that puts doctors into that position. And let’s fix doctors who falsely claim they’re in an untenable position.
I am truly sorry you were faced with a difficult choice around your pregnancy. But you might want to go back and re-read what I said, and note what I did not say. I made no comment at all about why anyone chooses to terminate a pregnancy.
It is such a serious subject, but you make me laugh. “I like the word fetus????? AHAHAHAHAHAH. A fetus IS NOT A BABY. There is a science to the development of a human being. Calling it a baby is the rhetoric of the pro-life. It instills unnecessary and erroneous fear in the minds of some. We have the resources to do the research ourselves. We have the world at our fingertips if we have the wherefore to use it and navagate through the maze of deliberate disinformation. When one looks at things in a scientific way, they look at the statistics; the facts, like time. Time is as specific fact. The time of gestation is crucial to understanding development. I am not going to do the work for you so please do Google searches with the correct wording. Use words like viablility. At what point is a zygote or a fetus a viable human being? Since you give credence to the rubbish called the bible, I will use it’s own words, Genesis 2:7 .
“adoption, let’s fix it” AHAHAHAHAHAHAH Shaking my head at the dismissive tone of that remark, especially given the decades of horror stories of not only the facilities themselves, but the policies that put people in untenible situations during the emotional process of adoption. This includes gays and single people trying to adopt. It is easier to adopt a child from another country than it is to adopt in the USA. Gee, I wonder why that is.
“Let’s fix the system that puts doctors in that position” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Again, how dismissive of women who medically need to terminate a pregnancy. There are many situations that require this health care procedure. It should not be as difficult as the pro life say it is because MOST AREN’T VIABLE (NOT BABIES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD).
I would love to hear your proposed “fix-its” for these systems that have been in place for decades. The conservtive idea that can fix this without the necessary legislation or funding needed. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Do you really think that the party of the conservatives, headed by the fool you apparently despise, can “FIX” these systems???
Who should the citizens of this country vote for next year, Greg? You are courageous to delve into this arena when the party you are connected to is the most despicable and least productive party in the history of this country. How can you claim, with a straight face, that the republican party, as it is today, can fix anything?
But, I digress. To summarize, do the medical research about viability. Sometimes the FEMALE body naturally rejects zygotes and fetuses. It is actually quite frequent. The medical and science community has chosen a socially accepted time of gestation that will result in viability. Some more research to develop a more informed conclusion is necessary
Put as much effort into the research of this issue as you might do for internet security to write books and you might have all of the information necessary to come to an informed conclusion about the physical nature of this issue.
While your research and, hopefully, informed conclusion is important, it is, as the same time, irrelevant, because IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!
Oh – happy New Year Toni. I just now noticed your comment. Sorry for taking so long to respond here.
We do agree on one thing – you digressed a whole bunch. But I think I can summarize what you said – we have lots of problems today and your solution for all of them is killing unborn babies. Or zygotes. Or whatever you want to call them.
And then you complain that I’m dismissive. C’mon Toni, you can do better.
You say we need legislation and funding to fix intractable problems around adoption and raising families. I agree. How about we go after that legislation and funding to really attack these problems instead of destroying the very lives who might come up with a cure for cancer in a few decades?
This is silly.
> AHAHAHAHAHAH. A fetus IS NOT A BABY.
I sooo want to ask you, well, then what is a fetus? A zebra? A goat? I know that’s ridiculous, but if you won’t acknowledge that life growing inside a mother – whatever name you want to give it – will be a fully-formed human being approximately 9 months after conception, then we need to deal with more fundamental issues.
And viability? I see a couple ways to look at viability. Is the developing baby not viable because it needs a few more weeks in the womb to develop? Or is it not viable because of some catastrophic condition?
You want to kill babies that need more time in the womb to grow a little more. If you want to call newly-formed unborn babies zygotes, go right ahead. But don’t hide behind words to justify killing a not-yet-fully-formed baby developing in its mother’s womb. No matter what words you hide behind, you’re still killing a not-yet-born baby. Viable or not viable outside the womb is irrelevant. This is just as barbaric as killing an adult who needs machinery or meds to survive. You and I will probably never agree on this.
Now the other angle on viability, where something is catastrophically wrong with the developing baby, that’s different. Let me paste what I said in the original blog post. Go back and read it again to keep me honest.
> And then we have cases with tradeoffs between a mother’s life and her
> baby’s. Those decisions should be up to the mother, consulting with
> family and medical professionals as appropriate for her unique
> circumstances. Of course government should stay out of these situations.
The recent Texas Supreme Court decision that forced a woman to leave the state to terminate a pregnancy where the baby would not survive was barbaric. The mother’s life was also at risk, as well as her future ability to conceive. That decision should have been up to the mother and her family and doctors, not the government. You and I should agree on that.
Sorry for the delay. I’ll keep a closer eye on comments.