Though I’ve previously discussed my thoughts and opinions on abortion, the topic has become hot yet again with the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. Since then, we’ve seen an influx of hot takes and viral posts. I’d like to use this article as an opportunity to highlight some of the most ridiculous responses to the recent SCOTUS decision:
#1:
The first to make the list is actually something that one of my coworkers asked me at work. He asked: how does it feel to have less rights than a gun? Utterly dumbfounded, I made him repeat his question and decided it was best not to give a response once I confirmed that I hadn’t misheard him.
Funnily enough, I later saw that this same phrasing was being used all over social media and to surprisingly high praise:
I’m not quite sure where to begin with this one…
Guns don’t have rights. People have gun rights. I get the shock value that this argument is supposed to have… but it ultimately weakens the argument because it’s nonsensical. If you’re trying to argue that we can legally own firearms, but not legally obtain an abortion, then you’ve misunderstood what the overturning of Roe actually means. The issue of abortion is now simply left to the states, many of which have already legalized it. So, it might be more accurate to say that people have more gun rights than they do abortion rights.
And, if you’re one of the people making this argument, then don’t be mad at the Founding Fathers for crafting the Constitution in such a way that it excludes the specific term ‘abortion.’ Be mad at the current “old, white men” for not codifying Roe into federal law all the times they had an opportunity to do so.
Or - hear me out - perhaps we should think about this argument on different terms. Maybe the Founding Fathers could have never imagined the horror of 60 million voluntary abortions being conducted and, therefore, we shouldn’t even argue this. Abortions were not part of the old-timey “norm,” and so they couldn’t think for abortions to be one of our rights. As such, we cannot call for the expansion of our rights in this regard and heed totally to the wise men from so long ago on this matter. After all, they also could never have imagined the creation of an AR-15, so if we want to read the Constitution for what it really is, then we should stick strictly to muskets and not abort our babies… am I doing this right?
#2:
The second bad take on Roe is one you’ve likely already seen. It is likely one you find yourself agreeing with. But I, for one, have several issues with it:
Ah, yes, the ol’ “pro-lifers only care about people when they’re in the womb” argument. This ultra-viral post and age-old argument drives me crazy.
So, pro-lifers are supposed to be the bad guys because they expect the parents to care for the child, or adopt the child out to someone who can?
And pro-choice people are supposed to be the good guys because they expect the government to bear the responsibility of caring for their family via never ending welfare programs?
I feel like I’m missing something here. When did the government - or the fucking taxpayer who supplies the government with its money - start making anyone have sex? Did I miss the headline that read, New Government Operation Forces Women to Have Unprotected Sex with Men Who Do Not Want Children?
If that’s the case, then by all means, give these people their damn reparations. This sounds awful and, quite frankly, super rapey.
But this is not the fucking case. The people who are engaging in risky sexual behaviors are responsible for the outcomes of their behaviors - at least, people should assume responsibility, but I have seen this post so many times that I’m getting the vibe that my opinion here is not the reigning sentiment.
Rather, what this post tells me is that the popular opinion is something like: if you want this baby to be born, then you have to pay for it!
How does this even compute in people’s brains? Imagine saying: if you want me to reduce my carbon foot print, then you have to buy me a Tesla!
It’s a ridiculous position to take.
What this really comes down to, in my opinion, is the old “teach a man to fish” predicament.
If you just give someone a fish when they’re hungry, then all you’ve done is feed them once. If you teach that person how to fish, then you’ve supplied them with the skill to feed themselves for a lifetime.
The folks who have helped make this tweet viral, I can presume, favor the “giving” option here.
I prefer the “teaching” option and here’s why: if children are raised in a society where government programs are the norm, then these programs become expected for generations beyond the one in which they were implemented. Thus, this idea of just giving people stuff via programs will become bloated and omnipresent over time. People will always be dependent on the government because that’s how their parents and grandparents lived.
Rather, if it were the norm to take care of your own damn business, then we ‘d have a wealth of generational knowledge and skill sets. Parents and grandparents would teach their children how to handle their households, finances, relationships, and livelihoods themselves. In turn, government dependence would decrease and hopefully vanish over time.
And - and I don’t fucking know - maybe in some wild fantasy if people were taught that they are, in fact, responsible for the choices they make rather than relying on welfare programs to get them by, maybe - just maybe - we’d have more men and women engaging in responsible sexual behaviors rather than risky ones and maybe - just maybe - we’d have less occurrences of abortion in the first place.
I digress, but that’s how much I hate this post. It conflates the original argument and promotes not only a dodging of personal responsibility on behalf of pregnant women, but goes so far as to promote a total reliance on government programs for years after the child is born.
So this whole post is ridiculous to me. People had sex willingly and probably should have done a better job of making sure a baby didn’t happen. Full stop.
#3:
And, finally, here’s the worst take thus far:
I’ll be fair and acknowledge that Anna Navarro does not come out directly and say: we need federally protected access to abortions because how else are we going to terminate pregnancies after learning the child has a mental or physical disability?
But how can this not be the fucking takeaway?! Sure one might argue that she’s merely calling for more government funding, community support, services and such for the disabled - and I would agree with that takeaway if she wasn’t discussing how hard life is for her disabled family members in the midst of an abortion argument!
Further, how far does this principle go? If the pro-choice crowd would prefer disabled babies are aborted so that way their life and the lives of their families don’t end up being harder, then why does anyone live? Whose life isn’t fucking hard?
Kid is gonna be born with Downs. Abort it!
Kid isn’t gonna grow up with both parents in the household. Abort it!
Kid is gonna grow up financially disadvantaged. Abort it!
I’ll admit: each of these scenarios are unfortunate. But are these really the bars we have set for whether or not to have an abortion?
It seems a little low, honestly.
Why are we making unborn children pay for things that are way out of their control? It’s not the kid’s fault that their chromosomes got all fucked up. It’s not the kid’s fault that the parents didn’t set themselves up better financially or emotionally prior to conceiving a child together. It’s not the kid’s fault that the parents chose to have careless and reckless sexual behaviors.
So, here’s where I stand on basically every topic I can think of, especially this one:
As long as no one else is harmed in the process, people should have the power to choose to live as they please.
And I think this is where the abortion discussion actually matters.
When a woman has an abortion is she committing an act of aggression upon another person?
Your typical pro-choice proponent will say: no, the mother is not committing an act of aggression because only at the point during pregnancy when the baby is viable to live outside the womb is the baby considered a person.
Your typical pro-life proponent will say: yes, the mother is committing an act of aggression because the baby is considered a person at the point of conception.
The completely deprived say that babies “aren’t really people”:
They claim that the baby’s personhood is dependent on whether or not the mother wants to keep it. They claim that the mother is more of a person than the “clump of cells” in her womb, therefore her life matters more. I just want to know if the people who use this argument are aware of how this sort of reasoning has been historically used…
So, which argument holds more water?
Let’s begin by examining a central idea - if not the actual foundation of - the pro-choice argument: a woman should have the power to choose what to do with her own body (i.e. the “my body, my choice” mantra). This is an entirely agreeable position. After all, if we do not have total control and ownership over our own bodies, then we are not truly free.
But is this even true? Are the mother’s body and the baby’s body one in the same?
One way the “my body, my choice” idea is quite nearly debunked is with another argument that comes from the pro-choice crowd:
For full context, Google says that a parasite is “an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.”
So, how exactly can a baby be both part of the mother’s body and a separate organism altogether at the same time?
I get what they’re trying to say, even if it is vile to call a baby a parasite. They mean to say that without the mother playing as host, the child is unable to sustain its own life, therefore there is a sort of parasitic relationship between mother and unborn child.
But, by making this comparison, they themselves admit that the child’s body is, in fact, a separate entity from the mother’s body. The existence of two organisms is vital in the parasite-host relationship per the definition. So, by their own baby-parasite comparison, they are contradicting and basically nullifying the “my body, my choice” argument.
Still, there will be those who say: well, the baby is still inside the mother’s body and she gets to decide if she wants it in there or not!
Though I’m extremely tempted to make a joke here, I’ll refrain and state instead that this rationale still disproves that the mother’s body and baby’s body are one in the same.
Another way the “my body, my choice” argument doesn’t make sense is in the act of abortion itself.
If a woman gets gangrene on her foot and it’s serious enough, a doctor will amputate whichever part of her foot is affected. She has lost functionality as well as physical mass. In effect, her body has been changed forever.
If a woman is pregnant and has an abortion, this is what occurs:
Her body is not permanently affected. She gets to walk right out of the clinic, womb intact, ready within weeks to start using her reproductive organs once again.
The baby, on the other hand, dies. It doesn’t get to walk or crawl out of anywhere. All of its functionality - current, future, potential - is lost.
Ultimately, the pro-choice ship leaks quite a bit of water, at least as far as the coveted “my body, my choice” argument goes. And, incidentally, the pro-life ship doesn’t leak for the same reasons the pro-choice ship does.
They’d be better off just saying something like: look, I fucked up and got pregnant. I was just trying to have a fun night with this dude and we’re not ready for this life. I recognize that abortion is closer to murder than any of my other options, but I’m getting one anyways out of sheer convenience and selfishness.
I would prefer this sort of honesty over the feigning morality that the pro-choice side parades around.
And I’m not some single-minded monster. I’ve had friends and family who’ve had abortions and I don’t hate them or look down upon them. Rather, my heart aches for them.
As a woman, getting pregnant at the wrong time or by the wrong person has been my number one fear. Because of this fear, I’ve been on birth control consistently for the past decade. I can’t stand it most of the time, but it’s better than the alternative. And I’ve never slept with a guy that I wasn’t in a serious relationship with. These choices have helped keep the 27 years I’ve lived pregnancy-free.
I just wish more people - men and women alike - would make similar choices. I wish more people would ask themselves before getting into bed with each other: am I ready to make a baby with this person?
And, if the answer is no, then both parties need to try their best to keep that situation from happening.
So, I guess this is why all the Roe outrage has me bent out of shape. It’s very telling of the state of our culture. People would rather argue over whether or not women should kill their babies under the guise of virtuousness than find it within themselves to work at maintaining healthy partnerships, taking birth control measures more seriously and remembering that actions have consequences.
Roe Worst Takes