I think this gives a little more nuanced perspective than simply "pro-choice" or "pro-life". This is my tier list. What is yours? If it's different, why? If it's the same, why?
Edit: Fixed tier format
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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So basically you are saying that abortions are a fact of life...
Glad to know that a country where women don't have unwanted pregnancies is a pure fantasy, so it isn't an objective that anyone should work towards.
Let's not try to reduce the maternal mortality rate so that women don't have to make the horrible choice between living and having an abortion
Let's not have safe, effective, and available contraception so that women don't get pregnant on accident
Let's not try to eliminate rape so that women aren't forcibly impregnated
No, a country with legal abortions that are unwanted isn't achievable so we shouldn't try to work towards it. Just like we will never eliminate gun violence, so why bother even trying to work towards it...
The point isn’t that we shouldn’t strive to improve those points but that it’s utopic. Accidents happen. Ectopic pregnancies, etc. can’t be solved by medication. And even if everybody who doesn’t want kids was on birth control, they don’t work 100% of the time. Also, humans are stupid so someone will forget or skip birth control for the thrill of it. And as much as I‘d like for rape not to be something that happens, humans are also assholes and while you might be able to reduce that, you can’t eliminate that entirely without mind controlling everybody.
Solving this, if it’s not completely impossible, might as well be.
That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t work on this. There’s always room to improve and ideally no one who wants to have a baby should have to lose it and no one who doesn’t want a child should need abortion to avoid having one. However, there should always be the possibility because there will always be some cases, even if they’re extremely rare. Life’s messy and humans are unpredictable.
No where did I say we shouldn't be working towards better. That's always the case. We will probably never eliminate murder either. That doesn't mean I think murder should be legal, or that we shouldn't try to prevent it.
Laws have to reflect reality though and not an ideal that can either never be achieved, or is very unlikely to be achieved. And that means women need access to safe legal abortions right now. In your ideal future, if it were to happen that we were able to completely eliminate the need for them by advances in medicine then you could look at changing the law if needed.
No, but you immediately dismissed my S and A tier objectives as fantasy and objectives that shouldn't even be talked about. If you dismiss an objective as fantasy you aren't going to work towards it. If I tell myself it is impossible for me to run a sub-3 hour marathon, then I am not going to put the effort in to train for it and I will certainly never achieve it, but if I believe it is possible, I will work towards it, and even though I'll probably never achieve it, I might get close and be much happier with the results than never having tried.
This is the same flawed logic that I pointed out is being used in the gun violence "debate". A country with no gun violence is an unachievable ideal that doesn't reflect reality, so we shouldn't try to restrict who has access to guns. You don't see the parallel flawed logic there?
I was trying to find a common platitude that people on opposite sides of this issue could work towards, albiet for very different reasons.
Do we agree that unwanted pregnancies are an undesirable thing?
Do we agree that abortions are a direct result of #1?
Do we agree that abortions are an undesirable thing? If not from a moral stance, then at least in the way having an appendectomy is an undesirable thing?
If we agree on these things, then can we agree to work towards things that achieve the desired end state where abortion is legal but completely un-utilized?
I would have the exact same objective for homicide. I would love to have a country where homicide is legal but there are no homicides. Obviously that sounds ridiculous and completely unrealistic. What is the point? The point is that I want a country where nobody is murdered because nobody wants to murder anyone, not because they are afraid of legal punishment. Legal deterrence only goes so far. I am 100% confident I could murder someone and face no legal consequences, so what effect does the law have on my decision making?
This is what I have come to realize with abortion: I hate abortion, but what does changing the law really change? I don't want mothers who only birth their babies because they are afraid of going to jail. I want mothers who love their children, both before and after birth. I don't want women to find themselves in incredibly difficult situations with an unwanted pregnancy. But changing the law isn't going to change anyone's heart, and that is ultimately what I care about.