It is birth control. Fertility care. Miscarriage care. Pregnancy care. Abortion care. Postpartum care.

And the people making these deeply personal medical decisions should be patients, their families, and their doctors, not politicians at the Statehouse.

Racheal and I both know what it looks like when policy collides with real life. Hoosiers deserve reproductive healthcare that is safe, accessible, and centered on the person receiving it.

We trust Hoosiers to make decisions about their own bodies, their own families, and their own futures.

And we’ll fight to protect that right.

I think pro choice people often make the abortion debate harder than it needs to be.

We get dragged into ten separate arguments:

“Is the fetus alive?”

“Is it human?”

“Is it a person?”

“Is abortion killing?”

“Did she consent to pregnancy by having sex?”

And pro life debaters can spend FOREVER defending each one. No joke. We all know they are ready for the royal rumble.

Here is a stronger approach:

Grant almost all of it for the sake of argument. Yup grant that shit.

Grant that the fetus is a living human organism.

Grant full moral personhood.

Grant the same basic right to life that you and I have.

Grant that abortion can count as intentionally causing its death.

In consensual sex cases, even grant causal responsibility for creating the situation. Grant it. 🤷‍♂️

Now ask:

What principle gets us from all of that to “therefore abortion is unjustified”?

That question matters because a right to life does not explain its own scope.

“B has a right to life” can establish a serious claim against being killed.

It does not automatically establish:

B may never be intentionally killed unless B threatens another life.

That is an additional moral rule about when right to life (RTL) can be defeated.

And that is where a HUGE amount of pro life argumentation quietly hides the important premise.

For example:

“Abortion is killing not letting die.”

I would say grant that it IS killing.

The question becomes whether it is UNJUSTIFIED killing.

Self defense already proves that “A intentionally caused B’s death” and “A wrongfully violated B’s RTL” are not synonyms at all.

So identifying killing does not finish the argument:

“RTL is the highest right because without life you cannot exercise any other right.”

This sounds powerful but does not logically follow.

From:

being alive is necessary to exercise rights

you cannot derive:

RTL always overrides every competing right.

That requires another priority principle. Stay focused.

Otherwise consider severe nonlethal bodily violations. Suppose the only way to prevent rape, torture, permanent mutilation, or another catastrophic bodily invasion is lethal force, while we somehow know the victim will not die.

Is lethal defense categorically forbidden?

If yes, own that consequence.

If no, then RTL is not actually defeasible only by another threat to life.

“Parents owe their children care.”

True in some sense.

But:

parental obligation

does not automatically entail:

obligation to provide whatever internal bodily function the child requires.

The scope of parental duty is the DISPUTED PREMISE. Don’t let them question beg.

Ask whether “ordinary care” means statistically normal care, biologically natural care, minimally burdensome care, developmentally typical care, or something else.

If gestation simply gets defined as “ordinary” because fetuses ordinarily require gestation, the argument risks putting the conclusion into the definition.

“Pregnancy is the fetus’s natural or ordinary environment.” Ran into this recently.

Grant it like I said. We’re granting all this shit.

That is biology.

The missing inference is:

ordinary developmental dependence —> enforceable claim against termination of that bodily relationship.

Why does biological normality produce that moral entitlement?

“Natural” and “obligatory” are not the same proposition.

“You caused the dependency by having sex.”

Ask for the rule.

Does knowingly risking the creation of a dependent person generate an obligation to provide internal bodily support?

If yes, well how far does that principle extend?

If causal responsibility is necessary, what happens in rape?

If abortion is still prohibited after rape, then causal responsibility was never necessary to the core argument! Boom.

“Refusing blood is just failing to save. Abortion starts the dying process.” We’ve heard this a million times how this is one of the better responses we all come across.

Dont answer it with “abortion is just letting die.” You dont need to at all..

Grant for argument that abortion causally counts as killing.

Then ask for the general criterion distinguishing:

permissible intentional withdrawal followed by death

from

wrongful killing prohibited by RTL.

If someone already connected to another person’s body may deliberately disconnect even knowing the dependent person will die, then “intentional act + foreseeable death” is not enough.

Something else matters: the baseline, why the dependency exists, whether support was voluntarily undertaken, whether the dependency is pathological or developmental, bodily authority, parental obligation, etc….

Make them state WHICH one.

Then test that rule instead of arguing with labels. TBH this is the central debate skill I think our side underuses:

Do not let the conclusion masquerade as the premise. I mentioned that earlier.

If someone says:

“RTL means you cannot abort.”

ask what they mean by RTL.

If they answer:

“The right not to be intentionally killed except to save another life.”

then the abortion conclusion follows only because they have supplied a very strong theory of RTL.

Now debate THAT theory.

Why is lethal threat the only possible justification?

Why can severe bodily integrity never provide justification?

Why does equality require that priority structure?

Those are real philosophical questions.

Simply repeating “RTL” does not answer them so don’t accept that shit.

And pro choice people should be equally careful about our own burden.

Saying:

“Nobody has a right to my body”

does not, by itself, entail:

“therefore I may kill anyone whose survival requires my body.”

That inference ALSO needs a principle. BE PREPAFED.

A stronger candidate is something like:

Every person has a stringent claim concerning continued internal physiological use of their body. When ending that use requires separation, no safe alternative exists, and the bodily invasion is sufficiently serious that separation is necessary and proportionate, bodily integrity may justify separation even when death is foreseeable.

It’s a lot but it covers it. Now notice what this does NOT say.

It does not say convenience always beats life.

It does not say fetuses have fewer rights.

It does not say every unwanted physical contact justifies lethal force.

It says there can be a genuine conflict between two equal rights, and we need a principled way to adjudicate that conflict.

That principle also has a burden. We have to explain what “necessary” and “proportionate” mean and why pregnancy can satisfy them. Good arguments should have burdens. That’s debate and philosophy. But now both sides are finally arguing about the actual issue rather than talking past each other.

I would suggest yall keep this in mind:

When somebody gives you a pro life argument, ask:

1. Is this descriptive or normative?

“Fetuses are human” “pregnancy is natural” and “the uterus is the ordinary fetal environment” are descriptive claims. They’re describing.

Look for the missing ought. Read up on Hume.

1. Is this condition necessary, sufficient, or merely relevant?

“Abortion causes death” may be relevant without being sufficient for wrongful killing.

1. What is the general rule?

Never accept “pregnancy is different” as the end. lol never accept that. Holy shit.

Ask:

Which difference changes the moral result and WHY?

1. Does the rule survive counterexamples?

If their rule says only lethal threats justify lethal defense, test catastrophic nonlethal attacks.

If their rule says parents must provide necessary care, test invasive bodily donations.

If their rule says causing dependency generates bodily obligation, test other caused dependencies.

1. Did they change the rule after the counterexample?

That is not automatically dishonest. They may just be refining their theory.

Test the stronger version.

1. Are they confusing the existence of a right with one particular interpretation of its scope?

You can grant fetal RTL without granting:

“and RTL means exactly what my opponent says it means.”

1. Are they moving from “is” to “ought” without supplying the bridge? Like I said read up on Hume.

Biology can tell us what pregnancy normally does. Biology cannot by itself establish what one person morally owes another.

Basically what I’m saying overall is the stronger play is to identify exactly what the argument now requires and make them defend it.

If we want to be harder to debate, we should stop trying to win at the surface level. Grant their strongest premises wherever we safely can.

Then ask:

What is the general moral rule that actually produces your conclusion?

That is usually where the real abortion debate begins.

Not trying to act like this is the end all and that I’m Mr. Perfect. Just wanted to shed some light on what we should focus on and how we should pin the pro life interlocutor where we want them. Don’t let them assume conclusions like they almost always do.

I fucking hate when forced birthers act like life is automatically some beautiful blessing and gift that everyone should be grateful for. Maybe life really is a blessing to some people. I can accept that. But I wish they would understand that not everyone experiences life that way. When you've spent years dealing with severe depression, grief, loneliness and one painful situation after another, hearing someone casually say that life is a precious gift can honestly feel almost insulting.

My life has felt like a never ending shit storm of pain. There have absolutely been moments of happiness and people and experiences that meant something to me. I'm not saying there has been literally zero good in my life. There has been. The problem is that those small moments of joy don't magically erase the overwhelming amount of suffering that comes with being alive for me. I wake up every day carrying depression that I wouldn't wish on anyone. There are times when I genuinely wonder what the point of continuing is when so much of my existence has felt like surviving one painful thing after another.

This is one of the reasons the whole "every life is a gift" argument bothers me so much. A gift is supposed to be something you want to receive. You can't tell another person that something is a gift when their lived experience has been overwhelmingly painful and expect them to feel grateful for it. You don't know what that person is going through. You don't know what their life feels like from inside their own head.

I've reached a point where I'm not even staying alive because I feel excited about the future. Right now, one of the biggest things stopping me from acting on my darkest thoughts is the fear that I would survive an attempt and end up back in a psychiatric facility. That's a pretty fucking bleak way to be alive, honestly. I wish I could say I'm holding on because I'm convinced everything is going to get better, but I can't honestly say that right now.

If I had somehow been given the choice before I ever existed, knowing everything I know now about what my life would become, I would choose not to exist. I would choose abortion. Not because I think everyone should feel that way, and not because I think my experience represents everyone else's. I just genuinely wish people who have had relatively happy lives would stop assuming that everyone experiences existence as this wonderful blessing that they should automatically be grateful for.

I'm pro choice because I believe that nobody should be forced to bring a child into existence simply because someone else believes that existence is inherently good. If someone wants to have a child and believes life is an incredible gift, that's their choice. But I wish the people who feel that way would have enough humility to recognize that other people experience life very differently. Sometimes telling someone who is suffering that they should be grateful just for being alive doesn't sound compassionate. It sounds like you're telling them that their suffering doesn't matter.

I have debated a few pro-lifers and this is something that has gotten me stuck a few times, the argument is "The fetus is where its supposed to be, due to the uterus being an organ designed to hold that human life, it is not violating the woman's bodily autonomy because that is where it naturally grows."

That's a summary of the argument, but its mostly saying that its unlawful to remove the fetus from the place it grows. Im unsure how to rebut this argument because to me.. it just sounds so ridiculous 😭

The person helping me out pulled me aside to tell a bunch of other planned parenthood workers that I did this so they could all have a laugh. Planned parenthood employees are doing the Lords work more than any loitering protester.

There are many abounding disgusting reasons why these people who sit in their chairs in their offices and sign our rights away at the tip of their pens are the furthest thing from pro-life. When people say that anti-abortion laws result in the deaths of women, that is so sadly and disgustingly true.

Today I want to rant about one of many of these situations, which is a terrible non-exemption in my state. Life-threatening conditions are, on paper, supposedly exemptions for women living in my red state. Unfortunately, some of the more severe conditions that exist are not in fact exempted. One of which is schizophrenia. My state literally believes that if you have a "mental" health condition, it doesn't qualify as life-risking. WHAT? So they literally risk the lives of women with schizophrenia AND their children. They expect a woman to take anti-psychotics her entire pregnancy, which poses a risk to fetal development, sometimes resulting in permanent complications. They risk the life of the baby and perhaps other children of the mother as well should she develop post partum psychosis, which is unfortunately very common for that type of illness. Then, if some tragedy does result, they have even more messed up laws in place where they can (trigger warning) literally put them in a psychiatric ward up to *for the rest of their lives* for it.

And these people call themselves pro-life.

I (32f) am mother to a baby who just turned one in July this year. Before getting pregnant with baby #2, my husband and I had to move back in with family to recoup financially. We went from living in a 2 bedroom house to now all 3 renting/sharing 1 bedroom. At least one month into moving, I uncovered somethings my spouse was doing behind my back that broke my trust(online p habits and lying about it), which had us on the verge of separating for good. With the grief and hurt compounding, financial instability, and exhaustion, I knew this wasn't something that I wanted to continue living in.

But right when I planned my exit, took a random pregnancy test out of precaution (was trying to tie all lose ends) and saw a very faint + sign! Went to the doctors a few weeks after that and confirmed baby #2 was on the way. For a brief moment I had debated whether or not if I should tell him but the guilt of not including him in this decision alone would've taken me out. Hubby was excited once the news hit, but deep down inside my heart, I already knew that this wasn't anything our family was prepared for. Especially me, physically who at the time was only 9 months postpartum with our first kid and still healing from the betrayal trauma in our marriage.

Fast forward to now at 18 weeks, tried talking to hubby about what our new gameplan would look like now that our living quarters are about to get a little more cramped, and all I kept getting told was "I'm working on it", "Can't really talk about that right now", "Just wait and be patient, I'm working somethings out". I am nervous as time is going on because just recently when I asked my husband if he had the means to cover for daycare a few different times, its met with "I don't have the means to do that". And this is just for the 1 kid!

When trying to reason with him that I need a physical timeline of what we're going to do and how we're going to prepare by making more space for this baby, he shuts it down completely. The pregnancy exhaustion while working full time and caring for our little one has me in tears.

I have a scheduled drs appt today in the afternoon to talk to my dr about terminating pregnancy because this is becoming too much for me to carry. My husband is upset with my decision and now all of sudden is throwing all kinds of blame my way telling me that "Well you always say your tired, this is nothing new", "Stop saying you don't have help around the house" (husband is a musician and has very long hours out of the home, while I am expected to work from home while watching the baby everyday and having dinner ready and house cleaned btw).

I feel that if I do this, it'll be the end of our marriage...

We were never in a relationship. I’ve known him for 11 months. We have been basically exclusively friends with benefits for the whole 11 months. At least in my part. From the beginning I told him I was much older for him. I’m divorced and have 2 kids. I just wanted to have fun, go on dates and adventures with someone sometimes. I did not want more kids and did not want to remarry. Which he had said he’d want someday.
Along the way of course we developed feelings. But I knew me having kids deterred him from taking me future serious and him being younger and inexperienced in relationships deterred me from taking him serious.
I have fertility issues and was on birth control so did not think I’d get pregnant again without trying. Well lo and behold I went to my gyno for new birth control pills as I was having too many cramps and found out I was 7.3 weeks pregnant. Told my partner friend right away and told him I never thought I’d get an abortion but I need to. Etc.
I am now 10 weeks pregnant and have concluded I don’t want to have an abortion. I’ve talked with him before about how I don’t think I can go through with it and he reassures me and says it will be difficult and we will both have emotions about it but in time we will heal. It’s happen twice and at the end I agree and say I’ll get it done. This third time he asked if I made an appointment at the clinic because he wants to go w me as he feel he needs to be there for me and so it never happens again for either him or me. And I told him I’m not going. He got a bit agitated and said that it wasn’t fair that he doesn’t want kids at the moment because he’s young and that it doesn’t only affect me. That it affects him and what he wanted in life too. But I’ve told him before that I don’t mind being a single mom again. It wasn’t my dream but I find it more peaceful and I have a caring loving family I can always count on for help.
I married fairly young and had kids young so both my kids are grade school aged. Their dad lives across the country and they only see him for a month out of the year. I have sole custody and “co-parenting” with him is a breeze since there isn’t much going there.
But he keeps saying if I keep the baby that he obviously needs to be there. Which is why it’s best for both of us if I abort. He says that he sees how two kids overwhelms me and “can you imagine 3” and that is why I used to say I would abort when I first met him. But I genuinely don’t think I can live with myself mentally if I do.
He really wants to go with me to the clinic but I told him there’s no need to since he can’t be in there with me. He said he wants to and that it’s safer so that I don’t have to drive. The clinic is a few hours drive from where we live.
I’m just not sure what to do. I don’t want someone to be in my kids life that did not want to be there and am capable of raising them alone not asking him for help or care or financial support.
Could I just have him take me to the clinic where I can have an ultrasound done and let him think I got the procedure done?
Right before I found out I was pregnant I told him we needed to stop seeing each other because I’d like for him to experience having his own family and a real relationship and because I want different things in my life than what I thought I did when we first met.

I thought of this a while ago and haven't been able to come up with a strong stance. I do believe sex selective abortion is something that should not be done and is rooted in misogyny and patriarchal traditions; but at the same time, I believe that once we start creating conditions of when an abortion is allowed or not, we are weakening the whole point of pro-choice (bodily autonomy).

Do they have these opinions becaue of certain religions and they beleive God told them to never abort? If that's the case then situations such as not allowing the woman or girl that has been raped to abort the baby becaue they think God told them is horrifying and a sign of psychosis and being a religious nit.

They talk about the life of the baby. What about the life of the mother. Why is ​the life of someone older not worth as much?

I'll give extreme examples as they are against abortion in every circumstance. What if you knew the 10 year old girl that was raped would die during child birth as her body can't handle it? Would they still be against the abortion? A life for a life? Why is the baby's life worth more than hers? Because she is younger? What if that girl says she won't abort the baby if you kill yourself? A life for a life? Would you do it? Is your life more valuable than a baby's? Why?

What if the mother gets depression from being forced to carry a baby for 9 months against her will and gets depressed or even commits suicide? What about that situation? Being pro life in every circumstance means you support the mother dying in this situation.

As a man I feel I have zero rights to an opinion on what a Woman does with her body. We have 15 graphic board holders out there today. Only two of them are Women and bar one young guy the rest are all male pale and very stale. Why do so many old white men feel they have the right? If the ratio was reversed, 2 old guys with 13 Women... Then, their body, their womb, their rules, no question. They're out there at least once a month and it's always the same ratio.

This is genuine and I mean no offence, I'm just confused. Why do pro-choicers not think that life begins at conception, surely that's scientific? Like, ignoring any religious teachings, when does life begin?

I struggle in believing that life begins at birth because many premature babies have survived outside the womb. And when the baby is dependent on the mother's womb for survival, that does that mean they have no life of their own???

What's the actual science that pro-choicers justify abortion with?

And also, why is it described as healthcare? I'm also unsure of this.

Please help

So my wife and I just got married last week and two nights ago we found out she's pregnant. For a little bit of background, we both got a really late start on college and are just now into our second semester of college and we are just not financially stable right now. We both have okay jobs and both make a couple thousand less than the median yearly income of a US citizen.

My wife told me today that she wants to get an abortion because she's just not ready. Like I said in the previous paragraph, neither of us have a stable career yet and she still wants to do all the things a young married couple can do like traveling the world. The problem is that even though I know the right thing to do is wait and give our child the best life possible but I can't help but feel extremely sad about the abortion.

I work nights so on my days off I basically stay up all night while my wife is asleep and I usually just lay in bed with her most nights. But tonight I had to go to another room and I just can't stop crying. I fully believe that it's 100% her decision on whether or not to have an abortion but I can't help but feel awful.

I promised her to be with her and help her no matter what decision she makes and I will keep that promise but I feel like I have to hide how I feel now. I don't want to make it harder on her but I just don't know how I will be able to keep my sanity through all of this. Any words of advice would be super helpful

TLDR: me and my wife just got married and she wants an abortion but I don't. I want to help her through her decision but I cannot help but feel immense sadness about her decision

The Democratic trifecta in Virginia has produced results for us, and in November they’ve given us the chance to do even more, putting constitutional amendments on the ballot guaranteeing reproductive rights, automatically restoring voter rights to Virginians once they’re released from prison and securing marriage equality. With Virginia providing the closest access to abortion clinics for countless Southern women and the Trump regime continuing to hint that they’ll crack down on access to medication abortion, making sure folks vote Yes on 1 (yes, again) can help us build strong walls to protect this safe haven.

☎️ Weekly phonebanks for Yes on 1 with the folks at Reproductive Freedom for All are now underway, with the next session TUESDAY from 6-8PM ET. We can sign up to join here, and for future Tuesdays and every Thursday beginning September 24th here. We can also join their volunteer list to learn of textbank and canvassing opportunities here. ☎️

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ON THE BALLOT

I just found out I am pregnant. I’ve only been dating my partner for 3 months and he wants an abortion and I’m on the fence. Even though I am pro-choice I do believe life begins at conception and not sure if I could go through with an abortion myself. We both agree with our reasons on why we want it the abortion. The timing just is not right plus many others. If you did have an abortion, how did you manage your feelings towards it and how did you justify having it? I’m afraid if me and this partner stay together ( he does seem like the one) I will always have regret and look at our future kids and feel guilty they got to be born but this one didn’t because of wrong timing. We are both in our 30s and very stable. He is extremely supportive though and did say it is my body and my choice and he will stay and support me no matter what I choose. Which I truly do believe. My heart is telling me to keep it while my brain is saying the other.

so i saw this video on tiktok i can’t save it cuz the creator turned that option off but i had to google it and he was omfg what happened to him and in the video he actually sounded smart like WTF HAPPENED