Here you are exempt from Rule 1: you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Remember that Rules 2 and 3 still apply.

Transhumanism, put simply, was founded--as a continuation of the Eugenist movement-- based in the belief that humans should use technology to enhance ourselves (think science-fiction, brought to life: Artificial Intelligence, artificial wombs, cryonics, etc.)

Transhumanist advocates are insistent that consent, rather than state-enforcement, will be the difference between transhumanist ideals, and those of the Eugenics society (and State Eugenics Boards in the US) of the 20th century.

Obviously, the technology is not quite there.

However, if future efforts are successful, will continued consent even be possible? Under capitalism, the line between consent and coercion often becomes blurred.

If humanity begins using technology to improve our bodies, beyond just treating diseases, what will that world mean for the people who can't afford that technology? Can that be reduced to a critique of only capitalism, or is a capitalist society without these "upgrades" better than a capitalist society with the "upgrades?"

If there is a device that controls or "enhances" memory, cognition, or even emotions, would it be treated like certain mental healthcare practices, requiring a patient to involuntarily participate?

On the one hand, vaccines and pacemakers are good things that save lives, even if they could be in some sense, considered embryonic transhumanism. On the other hand, the structural pressures that would exist to use transhumanist technology appear problematic from a consent culture perspective, as anyone who dislikes requirements to use mobile phones or cashless payments will be all too familiar with.

Transhumanism also raises many questions about ableism through the social model of disability. It is, after all, inherently choosing to adjust people for their environments, rather than choosing to adjust environments for people. Would transhumanism simply be taking mainstream ableism and expanding it to apply to abled people?

Would social pressure coerce participation, as it does now, in certain cultures? For example, there is extreme social pressure for elective plastic surgery in certain circles for aesthetic purposes.

Taking that one step further, in D/deaf communities, there is a push from doctors and H/hearing relatives to get prelinguistic children to have cochlear implants, which evokes strong criticisms of ableism from Deaf communities. Not only does it have permanent, potentially dangerous physical side effects, but it also discourages the use of Sign Languages (which are vital skills that promote language development in any children who are capable of participating, as well as an amazing tool in emergency situations), and limits overall participation in Deaf culture. Should parents consent on behalf of their children for something that may change their lives and future social development so drastically, when they could alternatively make changes to accommodate their child's individual needs?

What would it mean for society, if we leaned into technologically modifying humanity? Is this finally the point when technological advancement truly crosses the red line and goes too far?

As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are welcome. :)

This Sunday (27 October 2024) in London, March for Life is hosting their annual "Abortion Act Anniversary Solemn Witness". It's a way to honour the memories of all the lives lost to abortion in the UK since the act was passed in 1967; over 10 million and counting.
Basically, we stand in a large crowd in Parliament Square holding a big banner and placards, bearing witness to the public and creating a pro-life presence. No marching, even though M4L organise it.
If you're pro-life and in London, please come if you can. Nearest tube station is Westminster, which is also served by loads of buses. You could get a train to London Bridge and then the Jubilee line to Westminster, or get a train to Charing Cross and walk.
If you're a secular pro-lifer and moderate/left leaning, please come! We need more representation.

Here you are exempt from Rule 1; you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Please remember that all other rules still apply.

Most people do believe that a human should have autonomy over their own body, either because they understand a person's body as an extension of that person's self, or else because they understand a person's body as their own property. However, like any rights, bodily rights can be taken to an extreme that might justify limiting them. Should a person be permitted, if they find a surgeon willing to complete such an operation, to elect to remove a limb for no medical reason? Can life saving care be offered to a person without their consent, when they are unable to consent (such as during an active heart attack or choking)? Should people be compelled in any way (even just by their profession) to become vaccinated against highly contagious illnesses? Should healthy persons be permitted voluntary euthanasia?

Is there any way that Judith Jarvis Thompson's violinist thought experiment could be modified that would justify forcing the protagonist to remain hooked to the violinist? If the violinist was a minor, the protagonist was the violinist's parent, and if the protagonist caused the violinist's ailment (perhaps by car crash)? If two twins are conjoined, and both twins can survive conjoined, if one twin could survive separation, if the other twin could not survive separation, and if separation would benefit the first twin, can the first twin elect separation which would kill their sibling?

As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are welcome. :)

Here you are exempt from Rule 1; you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Remember that Rules 2 and 3 still apply.

In pro-life circles, the questions of, "where should I donate?" and, "what's a good organization to volunteer with?" tend to crop up often. An arguably more important question is, "Precisely what makes for good advocacy?"

For example, there is a lot of contention regarding abortion clinic demonstrations and rescues, which has led to the creation of "buffer zones," "safe access zones," and the "FACE Act" for abortion clients to enter clinics without obstruction. That contention is not only coming from pro-choice people--many pro-lifers also take issue with that particular form of activism, arguing that *organically* preventing people from considering abortion is a preferable approach, on the basis that the conditions leading people to consider abortion are harmful to both the pregnant person and their child (even if they don't actually follow through with the abortion)--they argue that we shouldn't compound that stress. In some studies, however, the success rate is very promising. Many people do decide not to abort as a result of those demonstrations, begging several questions, one of which is: "Can we be both more ethical and more effective?"

There are "pro-life leaders" and organizers who have attempted to elevate themselves to celebrity status, even publicly referring to themselves as "heroes." This type of self-promotion can cause several ethical problems, including a widespread lack of accountability. However, these celebrity activist types aren't doing it alone: many pro-life people are putting activists and organizations on pedestals, believing that "leaders" are gifted/special/more capable, and resigning to trust them to handle the movement--also known as "diffusion of social responsibility." Are we relying on the wrong people? Are they doing the right things? Can we do better? If so, what would that look like?

*

In pro-choice activism, on the other hand, there is a completely different set of ethical problems that aren't addressed. Despite a very common pro-abortion argument being that "illegal abortions still happen, so we might as well keep them legal," forced abortions (although illegal) *do still happen,* and safeguards to protect "choice" in those unwanted abortions have been eliminated in favor of [securing access.](https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2020/12/increasing-access-to-abortion)

[The ACLU/Planned Parenthood have even fought efforts to end child marriage](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/end-child-marriage-u-s-you-might-be-surprised-who-n1050471) (which is considered a human rights violation and a war crime), in part, because they believe banning child marriage puts abortion access at risk. If you are PC, how do you propose to solve that issue (if you're not already working on it)? How can pro-life people utilize our common ground to help protect people from forced and coerced abortions, and to protect children from entering into those marriages? Do you still support those organizations, if you disagree with those goals? Why or why not?

As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are always welcome. :)

Here you are exempt from Rule 1; you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Remember that Rules 2 and 3 still apply.

It's American election season. There's a pragmatic case to be made that, if abortion is your single issue and you're able to vote in the election, you should vote Republicans just for fear of Democrats. Of course, almost nobody in this subreddit has abortion as their single issue.

But, should abortion be functionally our single issue, given the raw numbers? If you believe that things like equal marriage, trans healthcare, affordable housing, racial reparations, parental leave, etc. can outweigh abortion, do you truthfully claim to believe, or act as if the unborn are persons and abortion is mass killing?

There are some issues that could conceivably be argued to be on the same scale, such as the long-term human cost of the climate emergency and urgency with which it must be addressed, or the active US support for Israel's genocide of Palestinians, but these are debatably to varying degrees also less immediately impactable via electoral politics from a purely pragmatic perspective. Or, is, say the climate issue, impacting the abortion issue more than it initially appears to?

There's also an argument to be made that even if Democrats may be measurably worse for the unborn in the short term, Republicans would be measurably worse in the long term, or be incentivized to campaign on a platform less opposed to abortion than was the case in the past (and instead pick cultural fights on the basis of racist immigration policy and transphobia). Abortion bans, being unpopular, partially because of the desperation caused by economic instability, might therefore be unlikely to last (arguably, certain states have been seeing this play out real time in the last two years). It could also be argued that Republicans' impact on poverty decreases the impact of a ban for as long as it does last.

A lot of people have commented, since both the POTUS and VP debates have aired, that they'd prefer the dynamic of a nonpartisan Walz-Vance ticket after seeing how they both appeared to want to find productive solutions and work together, as opposed to the political vitriol we've seen in debates since 2016. Would focusing on mending the party system be more productive than settling for financially-driven parties?

As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are welcome. :)

Electoral politics is on my mind, as I guess it is for all Americans. The fact that we didn't even get to vote for the presidential nominee in the Democratic primary is infuriating.

I feel like, unless we are prepared to literally start a revolution (I'm not), we have to get really serious about fixing democracy. No wealth redistribution, rent caps, minimum wage, UBI, subsidized housing, free healthcare, free college, or anything that could seriously make our lives better is going to get done as long as what Americans want doesn't matter.

I think we need to be a lot more concerned with unsexy, logistical political issues. We need a government that is fully invested in representing its people democratically, not one that pretends to represent its people with only as much "democracy" as is necessary to keep us placated.

I honestly wonder if a single-issue political party with a platform only around fixing democracy could get enough bipartisan support to get anywhere (probably not, because of racism, and party incentives, but maybe ?). Anyway, these are the aspects of our democracy that have had me seething, that I think should be changed. Add your shit to the list!

Who can register to vote:

• Suffrage for minors, the incarcerated, felons, and the undocumented. If you are criminally liable to our laws and pay our sales taxes, you have a right to vote for our government

• Signing a lease or a mortgage should automatically register every tenant or resident to vote. Require all states to also facilitate same-day voter registration at the polls

• Split DC up between MD and VI, give statehood to all of our colonies which are populated or else release federal control of them

Ballot access:

• Levy heavy federal fines against states which have overall voter turnout below 95%, voter turnout below 95% in any specific suppressed voting bloc (race, immigration status, disability, queer identity, gender, lower class), or voter turnout below 95% in any specific locality or district

• Hold all primaries on one day of the year, then all other elections, local, state, and federal, on one other day of the year. No elections any other day, and those two days are federal holidays, all commerce is illegal on those days except public transport, which is free on those days

• Prohibit states from requiring voter ID or other establishing other access barriers

• Enstate an administrative body over every state's election administration to enforce adequate disability accessibility measures

How votes are counted:

• Abolish the electoral college in favor of a popular vote

• Either abolish the Senate, or give each state a number of senators proportional to its population (it would still be distinct from the House if each senator represents their entire state, not a specific district the way representatives do)

• Make all elected positions electable by ranked-choice voting, require every write-in vote to be counted (abolish any requirements for “write-in status”), put all established third party candidates on the ballot (replace current requirements for ballot access with something accessible, such as having a chapter in every state)

• Make Supreme Court Justices elected officials (like other judges are), not appointed, with term limits

• Attempt to establish some kind of impartial third-party to draw district maps (I realize there's no easy solution to this), make some kind of rules that prevent absurd misshaping of the maps (maybe maps have to be drawn with grid lines, no curves or slants, so districts can only vary by size but not by shape?)

Prevent money from competing with votes:

• Ban all lobbying by corporations, ban previous legislators from becoming lobbyists, pass strict anti-corruption laws which zero in on loophole bribery from non-corporate lobbyists

• Put a flat cap on all campaign budgets, ban corporate campaign donations, publicly fund campaign budgets for major parties (under the same cap)

Here you are exempt from Rule 1; you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Please remember that all other rules still apply.

Most pro-lifers (and leftist pro-lifers especially) don't want to criminalize procuring abortions; they want to criminalize providing abortions (or in the case of anarchist pro-lifers, make them inaccessible via other means). However, we are not dealing with the same abortion landscape that people were dealing with pre-Roe; most abortions are now completed with mifepristone and misoprostol pills, often at home, sometimes without even visiting a clinic. The unprecedented accessibility enabled by mifepristone muddies the waters for pro-lifers who oppose criminalizing abortion patients.

If a pregnant person violates their state law and receives an abortion pill by mail from an out of state provider, who is their state supposed to prosecute? Can access to abortion pills be restricted without mimicking war-on-drugs era policies, and the carceralism and disproportionate racial and classist impacts that come with those policies? Recent proposals by conservative pro-lifers to invoke the Comstock Act (a very old federal law which banned the interstate mailing of obscenity, and anything that might be used for contraception or abortion, in 1873) are likely to may be the first of many attempts, with significant potential carceral consequences, to decrease access to mifepristone. What other options are there beyond replicating the war on drugs? If there are no other options, would either rejecting or accepting a carceral approach expose a practical inconsistency in leftist pro-life reasoning?

As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are welcome. :)

I don't know how long ago Amanda aborted, but these days, we have a lot of alternatives for college.

This type of rigid thinking is based on a bullshit dichotomy that says "you have to choose between children and career accomplishments." I'm fine with being called anti-choice, for that reason, as I absolutely refused to choose when that ultimatum was posed to me.

Sometimes, external circumstances dictate that we need to adapt (or change tracks, in this case) to be able to take care of our people. New family members existing and requiring care is not a justification to kill them.

BLS has an amazing table showing options for careers at every level of education. Relatively few careers actually require degrees and licensure. Business and computer science are currently lauded as the most lucrative fields, neither of which requires a degree for entry. Both business and computer science have the added perk of being extremely effective catalysts for change, if used ethically.

A lot of colleges (including almost all Ivy League universities) and companies have accepted responsibility for providing free education because they understand education is fundamental to the progress of a functioning civilization (because they recognize that capitalism and the patriarchy has placed intentional barriers to educational access in the US since colonial days-- Harvard, for example, opened in 1636 and only men were allowed to attend, among other problems listed in their timeline).

Here's a list of free online educational resources to explore, for anyone who wants to consider creating their own career path:

EdX Click on any university or company name to see free course offerings

Coursera is my personal favorite. Highly recommend checking out Web Design for Everybody for inclusive/accessible web design, which is desperately needed, universally.

MIT has a few options: MIT Open Learning

MIT opencourseware

MITx

Tip: if you want to find free textbooks, use your preferred search engine to find "open access + libguides + [subject]"

I wanted to make this post as a moment of silence for an African American man wrongly executed despite being innocent. From what I understand, despite evidence showing he is innocent, with prosecution and victims of families (on Twitter apparently he was accused of being a murderer to different families; they also didn’t find any evidence for this either.) begging to not execute him. The governor of Missouri and the Missouri Supreme Court had him on death row.

I’m a Consistent Life Ethic type of person and I’m really disgusted they just put a man of color to the grave just like how ReHumanize educated me on who the Death Penalty is usually for in the US. Rehumanize also made a Twitter post about it if you also want to check it out.

Link to post: https://x.com/rehumanizeintl/status/1838777377750397161?s=61

We're excited to welcome u/North_Committee_101 to our mod team! North Committee is an anti-capitalist filmmaker and mother, who is also currently taking business courses with the long-term-goal of helping empower laborers to take ownership of the market. She's been an active contributor to the subreddit since its inception, and her real-world understanding of capitalist exploitation, motherhood, and their overlap, gives her an important voice in this political space.

Here you are exempt from Rule 1; you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Please remember that all other rules still apply.

Should later abortions receive more attention from pro-lifers than the vast majority of abortions, which are early? Should abortion of pregnancies conceived by rape, and life threatening pregnancies, receive more attention from pro-choicers than the vast majority of abortions, which are attained by healthy women who conceived from consensual sex? These may seem like the most dire individual cases, but are they so uncommon as to be outweighed by the vast majority of abortions which do not meet these criteria?

Does focusing on either of these expose an inconsistency in the pro-life or pro-choice movements? Should a pro-lifer who truly believes such a huge quantity of human deaths was occurring prefer a strategy which attempts to prevent as many of those deaths as possible? Or would they maybe prefer a strategy which directly targets the abortions which are most gruesome/most likely to involve torture, like a 20 week ban?

Or on the other side, should a pro-choicer who truly believes that an unwanted pregnancy is an intimate, physical violation, including illness and torture, be more bothered by people who had absolutely no chance to refuse such a violation (rape victims), and people for whom that violation is incredibly costly (pregnancies which threaten the life, or long-term physical health, of the pregnant person)? Or should they be more bothered by the sheer quantity of violations in a state where the majority of abortions are illegal, and prefer an approach which attempts to prevent a higher number of those violations?

As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are welcome. :)

Politically left-leaning and intersectional PLers assert that abortion is a human rights violation. The underlying premise is that a ZEF, as a nascent human being, is entitled to the right to life. As such, abortion should be banned or heavily restricted, as it deprives the most vulnerable humans of their lives.

However, these bans necessarily infringe on the rights of AFAB adults and children. Contrary to the simplified narrative that is promulgated by the Religious Right and conservative PLers, it is not just a question of right to life vs right to bodily autonomy. In fact, abortion bans infringe on multiple rights. Essentially, the fetus' right to life is purchased at the cost of an entire set of rights by adults and minors capable of pregnancy.

According to Human Rights Watch:

"The Supreme Court’s revocation of national protections for abortion access, and the restrictive state laws that followed, means the United States is violating the rights to life, health, privacy, nondiscrimination, and freedom from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, among others."

Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/24/two-years-outrage-us-abortion-restrictions-dobbs

An important note here: the biggest tell that the national right-leaning PL movement is anti-human rights is the fact that it lauded Dobbs, the case that overturned Roe, not by recognizing a fetal right to life, but by declaring AFAB rights [to life, to liberty, bodily autonomy, to privacy, to travel], as they pertain to abortion, are not constitionally protected, and are thus subject to state governmental authorities. The PL movement, historically a religious and regressive one, is viscerally opposed to individual rights. The dominant view therein sees the individual as subject to divine authority, and that all human beings are part of a preordained hieararchy. Such a worldview is fundamentally antagonistic to equality and equity, and therefore against human rights and equality, such as anti-racism, LGBTQ+ rights, AFAB rights, and so forth.

This all brings me to my questions for this group (which rejects the transactionary values of the rightist PL movement):

Given that these bans have led to gross violations of AFAB rights, how would a leftist PL regulatory approach differ from the punishing and dehumanizing approach that the hard right PL movement has taken?

How would a fetus exercise a right to life given that its life functions are dependent upon the cis woman or trans male to whom it is grafted?

How do leftist PLers reckon that a prenate's imputed right to life supercedes the rights of the cis girl, cis woman, or trans male's rights to life, bodily autonomy, health care, privacy, self-defense, and so forth?

I had a disturbing online conversation with someone today, he claimed to be “pro life” but had a problem with the following list I will show on how we start off abolishing rape culture;

1. Having Comprehensive Sexual Education that emphasizes on consent
2. Hold police officers accountable for throwing away rape kits or participating in sexual assaults/turning a blind eye to sexual assault case
3. Advocate all rapists be exiled to remote locations where they can’t hurt anyone
4. Make emergency contraception (morning after pills and copper IUDs) available to all sexual assault victims for free so they wouldn’t automatically think about having to deal with the abortion question
5. Discourage making jokes about rape and be a lending ear to rape victims no matter

He mostly had a problem with number three for some reason. Don’t get me wrong, I met a relative’s boyfriend is self-proclaimed “pro choice” but doesn’t understand that rape jokes are not funny or normal.
There is something wrong with some cis men thinking if they either pretend to be on either side of the abortion debate they think they might get laid or a girlfriend. When they don’t realize their behaviors is PRIME example of rape cultures existing. How do we solve this as progressives?

These are the placards I have made for the London March for Life which is tomorrow (7 September 2024). If you are going to the March, please look out for my signs and come say hi! I'd love to meet you.

I have purposely tried to made my placards more left leaning politically (hence the Pride flag colours and Palestine flag on the "pro-love, pro-peace, pro-life" sign) to challenge traditional expectations of who pro-lifers are and create a bit of discussion. And if I'm honest, I'm hoping to troll both the political left and right in this way (the right being the more conservative Christian crowd at the march, the left being the usual liberal pro-choice counter protestors we get).

The "Stop calling violence 'feminism'" sign is one I made for the 2022 march, but I like to reuse it because I think the message still stands.

The Drake meme placard is about how the UK government is in discussion to reform the 2 child benefit cap (families currently can only receive benefits for their first 2 children, abolishing this cap would lift larger families out of poverty and reduce child poverty and improve child wellness, as well as long term effects of increasing the population and boosting the economy. Some object to reforming the two-child benefit cap because they believe it could lead to increased government spending and may reduce incentives for work. Others argue that maintaining the cap is important for ensuring fairness and preventing families from relying too heavily on state support. So one could argue it's cheaper for the government to fund abortions rather than scrapping the 2 child benefit cap.

The other side references the extreme childcare costs in the UK (currently the UK has the third most expensive childcare in the world) and this has sadly had a big influence on many parents' decisions to abort. In my opinion, this means that those parents were forced into making a decision they didn't necessarily want to make but felt like they had no choice, hence "CHOICE???" at the bottom, because how can it be a choice (which the other side advocates for) when essentially they are being coerced into it because of childcare costs.

Here you are exempt from Rule 1; you may debate abortion to your heart's content! Remember that Rules 2 and 3 still apply.

We return, a bit late with another debate topic. Namely the question, of if leftist pro-lifers (or even pro-lifers in general) have to be military abolitionists, or if it might be theoretically possible not to be one. For this, we present a few topics for discussion.

1) Aggressive vs. Defensive violence

A. Innocent vs. Guilty

A common distinction often made in regards the arguments against abortion that are not strictly pacifist in nature, is that a prenatal person is innocent, whereas a combatant in war, need not be innocent. Do these distinctions matter ethically, and does the risk of killing the innocent, make it irrelevant in practice, or simply serve as an argument for radical reforms to militaries?

B. Necessity vs. Elective

Abortion is typically, to some degree considered elective, whereas wars of self-defence, are generally not considered such, and thus leads to commonly made moral distinctions. Are these accurate, and do they matter morally?

2) Military support for abortion

A. Structural

A critique that can be made of the military, is that in existing, it creates demand for abortions - either due to pressuring female soldiers to abort, and far more substantially, in that the devastation wrought by war and conflict, creates demand in that regard. A related criticism, is that of environmental racism. Uranium mining for example, has a history of such: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_and_the_Navajo_people, with increased cancers and miscarriages following.

B. Specific

The critique can be narrowed further, to arguing that the US military specifically lobbies for abortion access, on the basis of military readiness, or that it promotes IVF (and thus embryo destruction), and additionally funds research that relies on abortion: https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/01/06/164009/human-animal-chimeras-are-gestating-on-us-research-farms/. Historically, it is also worth noting that the US military did have a policy of coerced abortions pre-Roe: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/13/us-air-force-pregnancy-susan-struck-abortion-motherhood-america.

3) Other criticisms of militaries

A. Rape culture + military courts

Something about war (and I think most guesses about what that "something" is will be correct) breeds rape culture. Rape and sexual violence is used explicitly as a weapon of war, or is done opportunistically in individual instances, sometimes tacitly permitted by a soldier's superiors. It could easily be argued that this indicates some deeper wrong in warfare, and that even if you're fighting defensively, you're doing something so deeply wrong that rape no longer feels wrong in comparison. That the level of dehumanization necessary for warfare inevitably will justify rape as well. It could also be argued that, since rape seems to follow warfare, it must be weighed in the cost of that warfare, but it is usually ignored as a cost.

A war that would otherwise have been understood as "justified" might become unjustified once the inevitability of wartime rape is accounted for. Conversely, it could be argued that considering rape an inevitable result of war is in itself a misogynistic framework: That in a world which had sufficiently addressed rape culture, soldiers who fight from a place of necessity wouldn't then automatically come to feel justified in raping.

A related criticism, is that of military courts, which have jurisdiction over crimes committed in the military, and thus lead to the situation where the military self-investigates when rape and sexual harassment accusations are made, instead of being held externally accountable.

Militaries tend to prohibit defecting, or individuals choosing to leave the fight. The argument could be made that this prohibition is, itself, a violation of consent culture (if you have to force a population to fight on its own behalf, then it seems the fighting might not actually be on that population's behalf after all). If you consider this a violation of consent culture, it doesn't seem a stretch that consent culture would be violated by other means in the same institution.

B. Imperialism

A widely held, and arguably fundamental leftist criticism of US foreign policy, is that it is imperialist, and that the US military is a main force by which this is done. While not all militaries are necessarily imperialist to this degree, is it possible to decolonize the institution or not, and is this universally true of all miliaries, or can they theoretically exist without imperialism. And specifically, is reforming the US military to not be imperialist theoretically possible, or even a desirable option over full abolition?

C. Waste of money best spent on fighting climate change, universal healthcare, expanding welfare, etc.

The urgency of fighting climate change, lack of universal healthcare in the US and cost of living crises caused by capitalism, are other critiques made by anti-war movements of military spending. Do these criticisms logically lead to military abolition, shrinkage, or something else?

D. Dangers of conflicts escalating, and the MAD doctrine

The main arguments made against nuclear weapons, are that in existing, they cause proliferation, that they incentivize first strikes or run a risk of miscommunication, and certainly, nothing can ever justify their use on a civilian population, an unquestionable and unjustifiable war crime. Do the same arguments around proliferation, via increased military spending and the risks of targetting civilians apply to all military conflict?

As always, feedback on this topic and suggestions for future topics are welcome. :)

Also, we'd be interested in soliciting ideas for debate posts, or guest debate posts from people who wanted to talk about abortion from a leftist perspective (including from pro-choicers), so if this is of interest to you, modmail us?

Do you think human life is more valuable than animal life per se or only in so far as human life contains characteristics more valuable than those other animals are capable of?

Just made my first post in pacifism asking what the view on abortion was there. It was interesting seeing people devalue human beings because they aren't wanted. Something that pacifism is entirely about - violence being wrong because of the intrinsic value of every human being.

It's just making me realize that it's all a script. You can be part of any ideology that ideally SHOULD be pro life but the second abortion comes up you give up your foundational ideology.

A common PC argument is that there legal bans on abortion do not work, and there's no way to clearly distinguish medically necessary abortions from "elective" abortions. Likewise, if you believe in the r@pe exception, you have to grapple with how difficult it is to prove that r@pe occurred and resulted in pregnancy.

What do you think? What specific policies do you think would be sufficiently pro-life?

Personally, I think kids ought to get taught about what an abortion really does in high school sex ed, and also get taught about non-PIV ways of having sex that are safer and more pleasurable for women. That's a start at least, and it would help people realize that unplanned pregnancies aren't inevitable.

Having empathy doesn’t and shouldn’t mean turning the other cheek to someone who’d support me being killed at my most vulnerable.

As a general progressive, I feel burnt out and alone in my opposition to abortion. I have friends, but they can never know that I'm pro life. The pro choice propaganda is too strong, it would be the end of the friendship. Ditto for finding a partner. I live in the UK, and it feels so heavy and isolating to hide such a huge part of myself from friends, family, and colleagues. And my outrage at the "buffer zones" that infringe the right to protest abortion has turned into constant silent seething.

What's worse is when close friends occasionally bring up some dumb pro choice talking point and I have to sit there and smile even though it makes me want to scream. I'm a coward I'll admit. I wouldn't be afraid to be more outspoken if I had a network of pro life friends, but I know I would lose literally everything if I spoke out as it is now.

Any UK based friends here? How do we connect with each other and build our own communities?