Thread by @susanbenton611

Abortion laws aren’t about babies. They are about controlling women. Here’s why:

A 100% fully functioning human woman should not be forced to suspend all of her rights as a human being and essentially hand them over to a non-human being for nine months regardless of all of the consequences.

Using science to help us determine what to do is the only way to be fair to all involved.That way u can practice your religion &I can practice mine without either of us being in the position of telling others they can’t get an abortion because someone’s religion doesn’t allow it.

Women also have 100% of the emotional bonding that comes with carrying a life in their body, rendering most women devastated if they must allow the child to be adopted for any reason.

In summary, women have 100% of the medical risk associated with pregnancy and birth. Women have 100% of the financial risk if the father won’t take responsibility.

In a series of judgements the Supreme Court established that a woman’s right to have an abortion depends on the science of fetal viability, and it should stay that way.

Science is neutral and because it’s neutral we can all have the same rights and responsibilities under law that is based on factual information. And that is precisely where the law stands today.

Many wars have been fought and millions have died for religious causes. In fact the earliest settlers in America came here precisely so they could worship any way they wanted to.

Make no mistake, forcing religious beliefs on others for any reason isn’t desirable or sustainable in America.

Science helps determine when a fetus is able to survive outside the mother’s womb & allows us to write laws accordingly. Science doesn’t pit religions against each other. It applies to all w/out having to give up our precious right to practice any religion we choose.

Religion is based on faith, science is based on demonstrable facts. So instead of having one religion dictate how all women in America must live, we can invoke science.

It’s not fair or logical that I must live my reproductive life according to someone else’s religion. There is only one way to settle this problem-use science.

According to the First Amendment of
our Constitution we have the right to practice the religion we like or not practice any religion.

Different religions have different ideas about these issues so how do we choose which religion should govern us in this regard and which one would be fair to all involved parties under all circumstances?

But if we leave it to the religious to determine when, how and under what
circumstances a woman can be forced to give birth, which religion is the “right” religion?

Many people who are devoutly religious believe that it’s inappropriate to use science to determine when, how & where abortions should be allowed.

They don’t carry the child inside their bodies, so they don’t have the emotional attachment to it that women do regardless of how it got there. It’s easy for men to tell women to put the child up for adoption because they can remain emotionally removed from the situation.

If a woman is impregnated by a rapist there’s no accountability possible. Men confronted with this hypothetical usually say the woman can put the child up for adoption. Yes, a child can be adopted but that’s a pretty cavalier attitude & an easy excuse for men.

One way to do that is to legislate that since a man’s ejaculate contains many potential humans it a crime punishable by life in prison if men ejaculate in a woman’s body without first putting $5,000- 10,000 or more in escrow in case their ejaculate becomes a person.

Let’s also say the explanation for it is because a fetus is a potential human. With that legal precedent it follows that
there can be another law to, as some say, level the playing field.

Let’s say there’s a law removing a woman’s body autonomy by forcing birth under all circumstances with a criminal penalty of spending the rest of their life in prison if they break that law.

Assistance like welfare, social security, early childhood learning, medicaid, state funded daycare & more, which is exactly what most men in the republican party want to do.

With that in mind, forcing women to give birth can easily be an 18 year sentence to live in soul-crushing poverty, especially if the men who created the law forcing birth also remove financial assistance for those mothers.

Women can’t force men to take responsibility unless they go to court, which is an extra & costly burden with no guaranteed outcome.

In addition to forcing women to put their lives at risk they are also forced to take on all of the financial risks if the father abandons his responsibility.

The bottom line that must be justified is the fact that these laws reduce women to mere chattel or sub-human property.

What gives men or the government the right to force millions of woman to risk their lives and risk suffering from chronic post-natal health problems in order to give birth?

Most of these conditions can be dealt with but they require frequent visits to clinics and conscientious mothers who understand the risks.

But even if you set aside the issue of maternal deaths there are still medical issues from pregnancy that can last beyond pregnancy& birth, like high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, &serious infections.Persistent nausea & anemia aren’t uncommon and require close monitoring.

Let’s talk about risk. Women have all of the medical risk involved in incubating & birthing a baby. Men have none. Maternal deaths in this country have been climbing in recent years.

I can’t help but wonder how men would like it if they were forced to give up control over their bodies for 9 months or spend the rest of their lives in prison.

What these newer abortion laws do is take a human woman’s rights, including autonomy over her body, suspend them and give them to a non-human fetus that may or may not ever become a human.

A fetus is a potential human being. A man’s ejaculate contains many potential human beings. But a woman IS a human being, with all the rights of every other human being, including having control over her own body.