Thread by @RoyalHoeliness

How to refute popular Anti-choice positions. A thread. #Prochoice #MarchForLife

Anti-Choice Position 1: Embryos are babies therefore they have the right to life.

This is really three separate positions (Life Begins at Conception therefore Embryos are Babies and deserve rights/protections) but they’re heavily intertwined.

The first position that“Embryos are babies” is intended to incite an emotional response from the Pro-choicer. It’s intended to challenge your perception of the word baby which is a colloquial term and can be used to describe anything from a newborn, a car or a significant other.

Anti-choice logic: If embryos are babies and babies are people then embryos are people and have all the rights that people have!

But the right to life doesn’t include the right to use another person’s body to survive.

Pro-Choice Response: Even if embryos were babies and had the right to life, they don’t have the right to life at the expense of the pregnant person’s body. No one has the right to use another person’s body to survive.

The government doesn’t force healthy people to donate blood, marrow or organs to people who would otherwise die without these things, nor does the government compel parents to donate these items to their children.

It has been empirically demonstrated within the guidelines set by civilized societies that the government should never be in a position to force people to share their bodies with others. Pregnancy is no different.

Note: While you CAN assert that embryos aren’t babies, I’ve found this avenue of discussion to be rather fruitless. No PERSON has the right to use another person’s body. Anti-abortion advocates wish to extend a “right” to embryos that no other person possesses.

Anti-Choice Position 2: Abortion is like Slavery/Abortion is like the Holocaust.
Anti-abortion advocates love exploiting the pain of others so this position – while genuinely offensive – should come as no surprise.

Again, the initial intent of this argument is to incite an emotional response from the Pro-Choicer. Anti-abortion advocates use this shit to challenge your understanding of historical events and if you’re relatively educated this argument WILL piss you off.

Anti-choice logic: Black people weren’t treated like people. Jewish people weren’t treated like people. Embryos aren’t treated like people. Since we were wrong about Black people and Jewish people, we’re wrong about embryo people!

Pro-Choice Response: The Jewish people never violated the bodily autonomy of the Nazis and they never caused detriment to their bodies by just existing. Slaves never violated slavers’ rights by just existing, either.

And more importantly, both groups of people were DENIED their right to bodily autonomy.

Embryos are incapable of having the right to bodily autonomy because without a uterus or being frozen, they die. And if Anti-abortion advocates were being intellectually honest, they’d be fighting for an embryo’s right to be REMOVED from the oppression of the uterus.

Anti-Choice Position 3: Gendercide: OMG U HATE GIRLS!!@!!
The latest propaganda in Anti-choice doublethink has certainly found traction amid some of the fence sitters. I mean, having an abortion because you don’t want a girl? Geez! This should be the bane of feminists everywhere!

Except...No.

Anti-Choice Logic: Feminists support abortion because they claim its necessary for equal rights but how can they support the elimination of their own sex? Hypocrites!

Pro-Choice Response: There’s nothing hypocritical in supporting a person’s right to abort regardless of the reason. This is something Anti-Abortion advocates often do; they intentionally conflate a person’s RIGHT to obtain an abortion with a person’s REASON for aborting.

When we look at the issue of gendercide, we see the inevitable result of what happens when you constantly devalue people without penises. When a penis dictates what type of opportunities you’ll be awarded, why is it shocking when people decide that they too, want a child with one

People with uteri have the right to bodily autonomy which entails the right to abortion. Their reasoning may be personal or conditional but that doesn’t change the fact that they have the RIGHT.

Anti-Choice Position 4: Abortion is detrimental to the health of pregnant people.
This has become a “go-to” position for many Anti-abortion activists. It includes just the right combination of fear, stigmatization, shame and martyrdom that they love.

Anti-Choice Logic: If Abortion is detrimental to a pregnant person’s health, then pregnancy MUST be healthy!

Pro-Choice Response: Pregnancy is a medical condition that can cause lifelong disabilities, illnesses and yes, even death.  Listed below are the complications associated with Pregnancy.

There’s a lot. I don’t have the time to screen cap then all.

People with uteri have the right to make medical decisions concerning their bodies, which includes the decision to either continue or terminate a pregnancy. If someone decides to terminate their pregnancy because they don’t wish to endure the risks associated with it,

That’s their right. And their right alone.

We need to be prepared to defend our rights from people who would happily take them from us. We need to be prepared to make an informative, intellectually sound and honest argument when our opponents rely so heavily upon fallacious appeals to emotion and religious hubris.

I hope this thread helps you, as a pro-choice advocate, to avoid the pitfalls of manipulative Anti-choice propaganda and eliminates any lingering self-doubt that you are anything but a person worthy of fundamental human rights.