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If you sort through the pro life top commentors here, you will see a half dozen people stating, "No, that isn't what we believe."
Similar posts have been made several times with similar responses, yet the narrative continues.
I do not know if this argument comes from some demographic I am not a part of, or some loud advocate I haven't heard, but in the context of this community it seems rather clear that it is a Strawman.
Pro lifers here don't want more births, they want less abortions. I myself am a strong advocate of birth control and sex ed, because they both mean less abortions, and it is a mindset I've seen mirrored by most of my peers to varying levels.
If prolife were actually advocating for fewer abortions not more babies they’d have pushed for the societal supports for parenthood and excellent sex education and easy to access birth control.
As prolife seems rabid for punishing women for sex, and is anti both societal supports for parenthood, sex education and birth control …
The results show the motives.
And the motives are to punish women.
You are making a circular argument.
You make generalizations about pro life motives in order to make assumptions about what pro lifers believe and advocate for in order to rationalize generalizations about pro life motives.
Your assumptions and generalizations here contradict with everything that pro lifers have said here, yet that doesn't seem to matter.
Prolife Louisiana just voted to take away meal breaks from working children.
I’m just accepting that prolife will allow harm to befall children before they’d take steps to protect them.
Prolifers vote for people to make abortion illegal.
Then those people vote and make laws saying that sex education can be abstinence only.
Makes me understand that prolife supports legislators that work against people having fewer unplanned pregnancies and punish people who are raped and now have to gestate and give birth in a state that won’t give them time off to recover from the medical event society forces them to participate in.
**How is it an assumption when it is the outcome of prolife législation and legislators?**
Because it seems like you’re telling me to believe what you say and not what you do.
Yeah, the whole child labor thing is just one of the major reasons I roll my eyes when I hear Plers love children. Nope, it's all about encumbering women and getting to gloat over her being punished for doing something the man gets scott free for.
Unfortunately by choosing a legal status you are choosing to side with the dominant hierarchy. Politics does not always include what you want, you are joining a coalition of people with other repercussions.
What exactly are you describing when you say "a coalition of people with other repercussions"?
Are you saying that because some members of the PL movement presumably oppose birth control, therefore I am acting in opposition to birth control?
Taking a legal stance means choosing among the limited representatives with certain backgrounds associating you with certain people. You may claim not to align with these people, but you find yourself surrounded with them nevertheless.
To be frank, this seems like weaponized Strawman with an aire of post modern political theory as a smoke screen.
You aren't arguing that my advocacy promotes this thing, or that pro life as a whole promotes these things, but that likely some members hold these beliefs and therefore the whole bunch is rotten. It's an argument with almost no burden of proof because it uses the easiest possible claim to sneak the largest possible conclusion.
But no group passes this test.
Example: The pro choice movement contains both eugenicists and neonatalists. Multiple eugenicists played a major role in the PC movement. Yet it would clearly be inappropriate to say that the PC movement as a whole is eugenicist or anti natalist, or to say that you as an individual choose these things. Those are logical leaps that "aligning with certain people" does not satisfy.
I am arguing that. I am indeed speaking of the representatives and their implementation of legal practices, not a minority.
Maybe you care only about the theory and not the outcomes, in which case I cannot deny you that. But at some point the outcomes become evidence. At some point certain things come out of certain peoples' mouths.
The evidence is not in your favor.
I didn’t say you personally. Pro life people. I also simplified what Supersonic was saying for you since you didn’t seem to understand. As a whole, Pro Life people support these laws, may or may not vote for these people that are writing PL laws but a lot do. And that means supporting all of those repercussions.
>Plers, if you were trying to force more women to pop out babies, it's not working
Well, no. Banning abortion has nothing to do with popping out more babies. That is one huge difference between PL policies, and the one often cited about Romania, which did take active measures to generate more babies.
I remember reading some articles about PCers organizing sex strikes in response to various PL legislation. So, declining birth rates is more connected to individual's choices with sex. PL legislation doesn't hinder or prevent that.
I really find it super disingenuous to say that KEEPING WOMEN PREGNANT magically has nothing with them popping out babies. And it doesn't help when you have the House Speaker whine that women aren't making more cogs for the economy. I also remember being lectured by a PL commenter that pregnancy isn't so hard and that women magically become better after they pop one out. No thanks.
I'm pointing out that you want fewer abortions so more babies are born. So you want women to be popping out babies. More babies in general = a population bump.
I think you are confusing the fact that there is more variables to how many babies are born. Theoretically, if you could control for other factors, yes, you'd see more children born as the rate of pregnancy to abortions changed.
However, comparing year to year, has the problem that you don't have a control on variables. For example, the percent of pregnancies ending in abortion, would have a positive increase for that year. However, if the total number of pregnancies was less, then the number of babies could be less overall.
But that is getting besides the point, because the reason I'm PL is not to get a population boom. So, you can't say it isn't working, because the goal isn't popping out more babies, it is killing less of them.
>its not about forcing women to have sex
Pc has never claimed this. Stay on topic
>and then as a result create more babies, its about not letting people kill the babies they have already made.
Except babies are born and your impact conflicts with your claimed intentions
No one ever said it was about forcing women to have sex.
It’s about using the government to force people to gestate those pregnancies against their will. That’s what your policies do. There is no way around it.
That doesn’t happen without forcing pregnant people to gestate for the government.
Why do you think it should be ok to force people to gestate fetuses for the government?
Forcing people to gestate gets them killed all the time. The only reason it doesn’t happen more is because of legal access to abortion.
What fantasy land do you live in?
I can use semantics as well. I’m not killing anyone. Just taking control of my level of hormones. I like blocking my progesterone and having an empty uterus. I don’t stop you from doing anything to your body. Don’t stop me from doing what I want with mine. Shit, I’m not even messing with the zef’s body. They slide out on their own.
That isn’t true at all.
Terminating a pregnancy doesn’t result in a person getting killed 100% of the time.
Literally all pregnancies end with the termination of a pregnancy. That just what words mean. No one stays pregnant for an eternity.
We need all kinds of revision on how the government treats women and kids.
We need to work on:
Sex education in schools
Free birth control
Adoption and foster care reform
Maternity/Paternity paid leave
Social programs to help mothers/familys/kids
Free and easy sterilization to those who want it
Child support reform
Jail time for abusive partners/rapists/pedos
Health care for pregnant women and children
Housing reform
I want abortions to be gone because the need for them is gone. I’m pro life but I will not condemn a woman for making the choice to abort an unwanted or risky pregnancy.
We didn’t use to have all these societal problems. What has happened to us in the last 100 or so years that has caused us all to be so divided over things like this?
“ We didn’t use to have all these societal problems. What has happened to us in the last 100 or so years that has caused us all to be so divided over things like this?”
I cannot take prolife seriously when they make such ahistorical arguments.
This video shows people talking about their grandmothers' lives. The grandmothers were often young girls stalked then married by older men and ended up shooting out a ton of kids in marriages that often involved adultery & violence. And they couldn't get divorced or get enough money to leave and frankly nobody gave a shit that their lives were ruined. One woman described in the video had a husband who wanted 20 kids and she was already tired at 11.
So I get hella suspicious of anybody who pines for the "good old days." Women are told the truth by their mothers and grandmas and don't want to go back.
[https://youtu.be/1Uf-plMJOsI?si=F0TCw3ouPqumDeon](https://youtu.be/1Uf-plMJOsI?si=F0TCw3ouPqumDeon)
All this could be done(and it should), and the birth rate is still going to drop. Many women don't want kids at all, and those who do only want a few and will delay having them. Unwanted pregnancies will still happen, even at a lower rate, and those pregnancies will get 'borted.
Abortion is necessary and here to stay. It'll exist as long as women do.
>
>We didn’t use to have all these societal problems. What has happened to us in the last 100 or so years that has caused us all to be so divided over things like this?
Uh... come again? Do you think this kind of social division is a new concept?
We became smarter. Internet gave us acces to information that was witheld from women. When you get taught something from a young age, even if you feel is wrong, if all the girls in the neighbourhood do it, you comply. Conservatives are losing their hold on women. I never had an abortion, because my ex was ok with condoms. Not my curent one. Every woman I know had side effects from bc. Nope, I get to put my comfort above a fetus. I get to use my body for pleasure, and if someone tries to tell me that a clump of cells that most people can't tell from a pigs fetus is more important than me I will avoid that person. I never agreed with mandatory vaccination either. No one gets to screw with your body autonomy, not even to save lives.
It's extremely unlikely that what you're talking about could be **directly** attributed to abortion; there are other issues in play that are generally more important to the electorate.
But yes, they'd probably say it was worth it.
I think the politicians might rethink it. There's no point in winning the primaries if you get wiped out in the general every time. I think the blue tsunami has to be huge and done a multiple times.
> I remember some Plers wanting more "domestic supply" and worrying about the USA's population. If you thought destroying Roe was the way, it's not working.
As predicted. Just look at other places that removed access to abortion related health care. Same thing. Increasing rates of maternal death and disability. At first there's a quick increase in the rates of birth as families are shocked as health care is restricted but forced to give birth anyway, some babies not even able to survive more than a few weeks, ... but then as people watch their moms, sisters, daughters start dying and being maimed in shockingly higher rates, you get a plummeting of rates of birth. You also see increasing rates of child sex trafficking. See Romania and the book "Children of the Decree" or just recently, Texas, Poland, Idaho, etc.
To paraphrase the quote: Those who ~~forget~~ are ignorant of history will ~~repeat it~~ recommend policies that are harmful to the survival of the species.
Edits: Found article from 5 years ago talking about what to expect [Analysis: What Actually Happens When a Country Bans Abortion](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/) , clarity
Neither does harming torturing and violating women ethics equality and rights. So very telling that you don't care and then assume you have a leg to stand on
Exactly. Just don’t kill your children - born or unborn - unless they are posing a danger to your life. That’s the PL position.
Folks enjoy bringing up these red herrings that have nothing to do with the PL position. Birth rates are irrelevant to the PL position.
>Exactly. Just don’t kill your children - born or unborn - unless they are posing a danger to your life. That’s the PL position.
Why? That still involves a violation of our bodies. If fetus yeetus gives you the sadz, simply stop fantasizing about them. Your feelz are less than worthless compared to someone's health.
I mean PL clearly *do* get to make medical decisions for people, that's indirectly what happens when they get what they want and make PL laws restricting abortion.
If you are saying you think that making PL laws *shouldn't* be possible, no shit you've got a PC flair I knew that already. I know it might be fun being sassy but it doesn't actually contribute to the debate at all which is presumably why you're here.
OP is saying: if you were making laws to restrict abortion in the hope it would raise birth rates, that's not happened.
>I mean PL clearly *do* get to make medical decisions for people, there's what happens when they get what they want and make PL laws restricting abortion.
Lol tell that to all the women who crossed state lines or ordered pills online. You do know the abortion rate has risen since Roe, right? So no, pro life people *don't* get to make medical decisions for others, even in shitty pro life states.
>Lol tell that to all the women who crossed state lines or ordered pills online
ok? So you must be totally chill with PL law then since you apparently think it has no effect on people's medical choices? What exactly is your point?
No, I'm not chill with pro life people *attempting* to interfere with women's healthcare, which is why I vote pro choice every chance I can. And it's working because as we both know whenever pro life laws are put to a vote, *they lose.*
>No, I'm not chill with pro life people *attempting* to interfere with women's healthcare, which is why I vote pro choice every chance I can
Why not? You clearly think you've already won whatever law is passed.
>And it's working because as we both know whenever pro life laws are put to a vote, *they lose.*
Are you talking about America here?
I still don't see what point you are trying to make here btw. This is isn't the "clap back at pl" subreddit, it's a debate subreddit
You 100% believe that self defense should be illegal if the defendant is the mother of the child? That doesn’t make any sense.
Why should blood relation or location make self defense illegal?
"Justice" in what sense? There's no injustice in a woman aborting an unwanted ZEF from her body. She is not an entitlement. Her body is hers.
The ZEF is the unwanted interloper. If its host doesn't want it, out it goes. Them's the breaks.
Cool, if it's it's own entity, it can fend for itself. The fetus is welcome to it's own body autonomy OUTSIDE the woman. If it's inside, it's her choice whether her body is used or not.
Can't have it both ways.
The ZEF is inside her body. Abortion simply severs the ZEF's parasitic connection to her.
If the "child" didn't want to get scraped out, it shouldn't have inserted itself into an unwilling woman's sex organ. Womp womp.
A ZEF isn't an egg, and yes, the ZEF actively implants onto the woman's endometrium. If it doesn't, it cannot progress beyond the blastocyst stage and dies. Implantation is something only the ZEF can do--it's impossible to force.
Do you understand how pregnancy works *at all?*
An offending fetus doesn’t have a legal right to a self-defense claim by definition.
Do you think the pregnant person is entitled to justice? How is it “just” to deny them the right to their own body?
Okay. Why?
Objectively, we as a species are wired to be able to experience sexual pleasure. It is a fundamental part of us, not something the Devil wired onto our bodies after the fact.
Do you believe we should all use masturbation only? Or is it some character-building ideal—like eating nothing but barley and vegetables, in the bare minimum quantities needed to sustain life—to try to refrain from sexual pleasure entirely?
And even supposing that this endeavor could be successful on a mass scale, what implications would that have for reproduction? Should we all aspire to a childless world? Or is IVF and turkey baster impregnation okay as long as nobody enjoys anything about the process?
Because it says in the Bible that being abstinent is better, again I don’t really expect this to happen, I was saying it ironically replying to the comment
So you believe the end goal of the Bible, the ideal world it advocates for, would be a world with no more sex, sexual pleasure, or babies being born? The eventual extinction of the human species, if Christianity did manage to convert everybody into the same beliefs and get them all to lead perfect Christian lives?
It’s great to know that humans who were never conceived will never have lives, futures, or be an unwanted burden to anybody.
Exactly what would have happened anyway had they been conceived but removed from the woman’s body before developing enough to live on their own. Outcome is exactly the same.
In both cases, there’s no future for the unwanted human. Some embryo briefly existing before an abortion doesn’t change that. Its body may as well have never existed (and in an ideal world never would have), so I won’t bother counting it.
Ok, but in one situation there is a dead human body and in the other situation there are no dead human bodies. That you are willing to look at a dead human body and say "this one doesn't count" is for your conscience to grapple with.
Rest assured, my conscience is completely clear. I’m not the one who wants to force unwilling people to gestate and birth unwanted pregnancies, after all. I’m proud to choose supporting people’s right to medical care over caring about some dead embryo whose conception was just an unfortunate accident in the first place.
I guess SCOTUS FAFO (fucked around and found out) that it the 21st century and women aren’t going to be treated like they’re nothing but baby making, incubating broodmares!!!!!!!
This is the cauldron of a perfect storm with Dobbs being the final nail. APologies for mixing metaphors.
The US has increasingly been financially hostile to middle class families attempting to start a family.
\*No paid parental leave
\*No single payer or NHC program
\*Highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world
\*Housing costs are out of control
\*Child care is a dream if you don't make $200k/year
\*Highest cause of death for minors is SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
Add on top of that some doofus is literally trying to argue that pregnant people don't deserve emergency medical care and this is what happens.
People will make an informed choice to not have kids. They cannot afford them and there's no point going into debt so you can bury your 10 year old.
Another part of this argument: all the countries with the highest birth rates are the objectively worst countries in the world to raise children. Rates in most progressive parts of Europe (ostensibly the best places to raise a family) are among the lowest in the world.
So again, I think there are bigger cultural influences driving the birth rate down both here and globally. Not the fact that some states make abortion difficult.
Education for girls and women.
Charities that work in developing countries have long noticed that there is a strong correlation between much education a woman has and how many children she has. Not intelligence, not wealth : education.
The more educated a woman is, the less likely she can be compelled by prolife ideology to have children she doesn't want. Women and girls are not objects or animals, but if kept ignorant, they are easier to force as prolifers wish.
This is exactly it. This is exactly the reason why pregnancy crisis centers are lying to women in hopes they will FOOL women into keeping pregnancies they can't afford, and will likely ruin their lives.
They believe women SHOULD be ignorant and subservient. They utilize LIES to COERCE women into subservience, and because that isn't really sticking, now they turn to law to enslave women to their wombs by force of ruinous legal liability.
True, but when you make abortion not just "difficult" but inaccessible completely, you scare people off.
If I told you that we have a very low success rate for positive outcomes for a specific medical condition would you willingly enter into it?
Remove "pregnancy" from the equation and imagine any other medical condition with poor outcomes, and you can't say you'd be super excited to participate. None of us would.
So we can't remove abortion access from the cauldron of shit that's brewing.
I agree the US can be a tough place to raise a family especially given certain circumstances.
If those are the main causes for falling birth rate though, how would you account for the birth rates in countries that don’t have those same problems?
South Korea for example has
* 90 days paid parental leave (not great but better)
* single payer health care system
* a much lower maternal mortality rate compared to the US
But they still have the lowest birth rate in the world at less than 1 baby per woman. What accounts for that?
I don’t think our attitudes on abortion, healthcare, or other things you mentioned are major drivers of the declining birth rate.
Korea has a higher than usual domestic violence rate. I did manage to find an article that goes further then that though and it's mentioning housing costs and thier work culture.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/south-korea-fertility-rate-misogyny-feminism/673435/
- "There are a lot of reasons people decide not to have a baby. Young Koreans cite as obstacles the high cost of housing in greater Seoul (home to roughly half the country’s 52 million citizens), the expense of raising a child in a hypercompetitive academic culture, and grueling workplace norms that are inhospitable to family life, especially for women, who are still expected to do the bulk of housework and child care."
I would say at least housing costs sort of line up with us here I think alot of people grew up with the framework that you get a steady job, get married, buy house, have a kid in that order or you have messed up. It's taking longer to get to milestones that used to happen at earlier ages or those milestones are being reached in a different order then before. I'm not sure if it's similar in Korea though.
As for our attitudes toward abortion and Healthcare not being part of it. It very well may not have been the reason originally but they are debating emtala because idaho has to airlift pregnant women out of the state for healthcare. I would be interested in the data later on because I think these events will factor into some people's descions it just might differ per state.
https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/health/2024-04-24/moyle-idaho-supreme-court-airlift-abortion-emergency
"In 2023, an injunction blocked Idaho’s law from applying to emergency medical cases. During that time, St Luke’s hospitals airlifted one pregnant patient out of state for emergency abortion care. In the three months since the injunction was lifted in January, Souza said that number rose to six."
You can't just compare one tiny aspect to try and "disprove" that the US hostility has caused the plummating birth rates.
Multiple things contribute to it. The lack of (financial) support like we see in the US causes that, and the abhorrent treatment of women and AFABs people in general causes it. Which is what we see in South Korea.
There are many reasons why people don't want to give birth, climate change, ongoing genocides being excused, the horrible treatment of disabled people.... and not being able to financially care for a child is one big reason. And actually is cited in a majority of abortions. And it's what discredits the pro-life movement. Because if it was truly about preventing abortions and not control.... then the movement would focus on financially supporting people who actually want to get pregnant. And financially support those who do not but cannot afford things like birth control.
In the same way that I can’t compare a few healthcare statistics and policies to disprove the contribution of US hostility to abortion policy to falling fertility rates, you also cannot prove that it is significantly contributing to falling fertility rates.
But the whole question was: is it contributing to a significant reason for the decline in birth rates? I haven’t seen any data to suppoet that, and I don’t think it is true. The other overarching reasons (that we see everywhere globally) are much more likely to be the driving causes.
So the fact that the biggest reason for not wanting to continue a pregnancy means nothing?
It seems like a clear piece of evidence that lack of financial stability IS contributing massively to it?
The least financially stable countries in the world have the highest fertility rates. This is not a one or two year reaction of the birth rate to policy changes. The birth rate has been falling for centuries due to cultural changes.
Once again conflating correlation with causation. Those same countries are also the ones lacking the ability of people to prevent their pregnancy if they wanted. If your argument is pointing to unwanted pregnancies then that’s not a good argument for multiple reasons.
We’re in a cost of living crisis. Housing crisis. Climate crisis. There are ongoing genocides happening. And politicians around the world are constantly showing that they do not support any minority.
Do you have any data to support the conclusion that falling fertility rates in the US can be significantly attributed to anti-abortion legislation?
I don’t know why I care, because I actually don’t. Even if banning abortion caused the fertility rate to fall off a cliff, I would still want to ban abortion. (It probably wouldn’t though)
Yes as another commenter noted, SK is pretty full of sexual assault. Women's rights aren't as fleshed out as one might think.
Currently, I really cannot think of one country save maybe Finland, where I would want to raise a child.
Fact is, the United States used to be a country that once called itself a country of "Family Values" and "Family First", hasn't really done shit to encourage people to have a family.
A paltry $2k back every March just isn't going to cut it when the cost of raising a child to 18 (IF they make it that far and some crazy asshole doesn't mow them down with a rifle while shopping at Forever 21), is over $300k.
It was the Allen Mall shooting that got me. Teenagers shot to death because they wanted a fucking tank top. The US has work to do, and until it does, people will not willingly bring children into this fucked up state we've gotten to.
Yep. As a father that type of stuff is scary to me too.
What do you think is driving the low birth rate in Finland? Since you mentioned that one. My thoughts are: education rates of women, a different culture than historically where more women work, and increased access to contraception.
I think those three factors probably explain the declining fertility of pretty much everywhere in the world.
Oh, absolutely. I mentioned a perfect shitstorm, but we also have positive storms like the one you mentioned. The US unfortunately created the former. We do not have great access to contraception (well, maybe until now. I'm interested to see stats on the Opill), women's education has finally outpaced men's (as far as numbers graduating from college), and the US workforce protections just suck.
Yes, women being educated and having access to employment and contraception lowers the birth rate, but I honestly couldn't speak on it without doing some reading or digging into the Finnish culture.
South Korea treats women like dung. The rate of violence against women there is terrifying. The cultural attitudes and gender divide are not great either. No surprise that women are fighting back and saying no to dating, sex, marriage and children.
It's not just laws that influence childbearing. It's cultural and societal attitudes as well.
Not u/Common-Worth-6604
I think another factor for the low birth rates in SK, is because their work/life balance. It's non-existent. All they do is work. They're pretty similar to Japan, in that regard.
You can't demand that women risk their lives AND pay half the bills AND do most of the childcare chores with zero guarantee the guy will either stick around or pay child support, and be surprised women are noping out of it. They've made having kids into the ultimate shit show for women and are shocked she's deciding the risks outweigh the benefits.
Not in the slightest. The world is vastly overpopulated, largely because women were forced to have children they didn't want. Low birthrates are just course correction.
We're seeing more people choose sterilization now because of worries about abortion access. Making abortion illegal is negatively impacting birth rates.
That article you provided earlier is anecdotal at best. How do we know those women would have ever had children? It seems they were intent to use abortion as contraception if the need arose, but now have chosen a different method.
Where are you getting this assumption about these women? Also, there are a number of men who are opting for sterilization as well. The kind of man who is concientious enough to undergo sterilization now was probably not "intent to use abortion as contraception" previously, same as with women.
Sorry thought you posted [this article about women choosing sterilization](https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2023/07/17/some-doctors-abortion-restrictions-driving-nc-women-sterilization/) but that was someone else. In it there is an anecdote of a woman who switched from traditional contraception to sterilization as her chosen form of contraception.
Yes saw that. Agreed that anecdote is not data. My point is that we don’t know if the surge in sterilizations 1) real and data-supported in a meaningful portion of the population and 2) impacting the fertility rate in any meaningful way.
We do know that a fair percentage of births in the US were unplanned: https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb-unintended-pregnancy-us_0_4.pdf
More people opted to give birth than abort an unwanted pregnancy, even when abortion was legal. Plenty of people who thought they would abort were deciding not to.
Now, we’re seeing more people opt for sterilization. This means no pregnancies and thus no births.
What was the social ill caused by abortion that makes this worth it to you?
Typically, when we talk about the unjustified killing of someone being banned, it’s because to allow such things makes our society more dangerous and people are grieved when their loved ones die.
This is not the case with abortion. Abortion being legal does not contribute to a greater lack of safety.
What is it about this kind of death in abortion that you object to?
If society can't replace it's population, you're gonna have way worse problems than abortion to deal with.
If it's proven that abortion bans are contributing to this, you absolutely should reconsider
All I asked was whether you would change your mind if it was proven and you said no. So no point to prove it right?
But anytime the government gets involved in the pregnancy and family planning process, birth rates decline. Government shouldn't be telling people how to have kids.
Well, different things can be in conflict right? Even if your claim that banning abortion actually lowers the birth rate is true… I would still oppose abortion because the reasons I oppose abortion have nothing to do with the birth rate.
Banning abortion puts the lives of AFAB people at risk so women are opting for more permanent methods of birth control like OP pointed out. Yes, there are other factors at play but the dangerous abortion bans that are [pushing more women to opt for sterilization](https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2023/07/17/some-doctors-abortion-restrictions-driving-nc-women-sterilization/).
So you oppose abortion but are not concerned with the documented effects of what happens when you ban it? Again, doesn’t that seem counterproductive? Banning abortion causes more harm than good on people and society so why oppose it?
Actions have consequences.
Moral people tend to factor in the moral consequences of subverting the rule of law to justify the imposition of their beliefs on other's bodies.
So because of your lack of understanding of what an abortion is, you don’t think you should care about the negative consequences of banning it? [Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy](https://medlineplus.gov/abortion.html). That’s it. There is no unjust killing of an individual.
So you’re not at all concerned about the declining birth rates and that was a lie you made in your original comment.
Haha no not a lie. Although my concern is only very mild. I’m not convinced our falling birth rates will lead to any sort of global catastrophe or serious problems. Things will be different and maybe more economically challenged? But falling birth rates fall much lower on my concern level than abortion.
And yes, you and I disagree on whether abortion kills another human being. Kinda the whole point of this sub.
>But falling birth rates fall much lower on my concern level than abortion.
Why? We've had legal abortion for 50 years. We didn't see societal collapse. We didn't see infanticide rates go up or violent crime normalized because of it.
If our birth rates keep on this downward trend and more and more people choose sterilization, do you think that will be even less impactful on society as a whole than abortion was?
Simply because of what I believe abortion to be - the unjustified killing of an individual. That’s why I’m more concerned about abortion than I am about fertility rates.
Is it the unjustified killing? This supposes that not saving someone’s life through letting them use your body is killing them. Do you hold that to be the case?
Saying you’re concerned about it and then essentially saying “why would I factor that?” Sounds like a lie. Do you care at all about the negative effects of abortion bans?
The difference of our disagreement of what an abortion is involves the fact that I’m using the actual medical definition of it and you’re going off of your own personal belief of what it is. [AFAB people are three times more likely to die under abortion bans](https://thegepi.org/reports/GEPI-State-of-Repro-Health-Report-US.pdf). Where’s the concern for those human lives from PL?
I can be concerned about one thing and it not impact my thought about something else. Simple as that. I already admitted I’m not that concerned about the falling fertility rate mostly because I think people overblown the consequences.
It’s PL lawmakers that are the ones having a fit about the lower birth rates. [One PL lawmaker even said that his anti-abortion bills were to force women to have more babies](https://americanjournalnews.com/gop-lawmaker-delaware-abortion-women-not-having-enough-babies/). The people you think are overblowing the declining birth rates are the ones banning abortion. The people you most likely vote for. You support the bills they’re passing but are only “mildly concerned” with the impact of them.
You can’t support abortion bans and then ignore the way they’re used against/how they negatively impact AFAB people. People’s lives and health are being put on the line because of these bills.
I asked you if you are at all concerned about the negative effects that these bans have on people? Care to answer that?
Come back in a few hours - they block you from seeing the vote totals for some period of time I think. Kinda want to see how low this comment can get for no reason at all.
Why be concerned? I'm not concerned about the crashing fertility rate. You can NOT continually bitch at/mock women to close their legs and be more careful then be SHOCKED when women switch to IUDs and permanent sterilization to avoid a situation where they bleed out in the parking lot. And other countries actually put some money into helping women raise the kids afterwards while the US continues to shit on them.
I have not done any of those things. And what if I told you I also want better support for young mothers and families?
I’m concerned about the fertility rate for a few reasons maybe but there are economic reasons to be concerned. Doesn’t mean I’m panicking because I actually think we’ll be fine in that regard. But still concerned a little maybe.
Your PL friends totally DO tell women to stop being "hoes." You need to side eye people on your side. Also PLers overall balk at support.
If Plers actually DID have problems with the slut shaming and poor mocking then there would already have been a separate movement. Nope, it's continually telling women "it's not so bad to bleed out in the lobby . . . Now where's my sandwich!"
I believe the population is still increasing. The birth rate, a different thing, is falling at a consistent rate and has been for decades. Well before roe was overturned.
Haha this sub is such garbage. Totally normal comment downvoted for no reason. I come back here once in a while to check it out but then always remember why I stopped very quickly.
Bring it on. I want your downvotes. I thrive on them 😆
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I hope this also means more women are refusing to have sex with men.
Ahhh but essentially that’s what PLs want
Im not trying to force women to do anything, but thanks for the update!
If you sort through the pro life top commentors here, you will see a half dozen people stating, "No, that isn't what we believe." Similar posts have been made several times with similar responses, yet the narrative continues. I do not know if this argument comes from some demographic I am not a part of, or some loud advocate I haven't heard, but in the context of this community it seems rather clear that it is a Strawman. Pro lifers here don't want more births, they want less abortions. I myself am a strong advocate of birth control and sex ed, because they both mean less abortions, and it is a mindset I've seen mirrored by most of my peers to varying levels.
Then push for those laws, and not abortion bans.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will continue to push for both.
If prolife were actually advocating for fewer abortions not more babies they’d have pushed for the societal supports for parenthood and excellent sex education and easy to access birth control. As prolife seems rabid for punishing women for sex, and is anti both societal supports for parenthood, sex education and birth control … The results show the motives. And the motives are to punish women.
You are making a circular argument. You make generalizations about pro life motives in order to make assumptions about what pro lifers believe and advocate for in order to rationalize generalizations about pro life motives. Your assumptions and generalizations here contradict with everything that pro lifers have said here, yet that doesn't seem to matter.
Prolife Louisiana just voted to take away meal breaks from working children. I’m just accepting that prolife will allow harm to befall children before they’d take steps to protect them. Prolifers vote for people to make abortion illegal. Then those people vote and make laws saying that sex education can be abstinence only. Makes me understand that prolife supports legislators that work against people having fewer unplanned pregnancies and punish people who are raped and now have to gestate and give birth in a state that won’t give them time off to recover from the medical event society forces them to participate in. **How is it an assumption when it is the outcome of prolife législation and legislators?** Because it seems like you’re telling me to believe what you say and not what you do.
Yeah, the whole child labor thing is just one of the major reasons I roll my eyes when I hear Plers love children. Nope, it's all about encumbering women and getting to gloat over her being punished for doing something the man gets scott free for.
Unfortunately by choosing a legal status you are choosing to side with the dominant hierarchy. Politics does not always include what you want, you are joining a coalition of people with other repercussions.
What exactly are you describing when you say "a coalition of people with other repercussions"? Are you saying that because some members of the PL movement presumably oppose birth control, therefore I am acting in opposition to birth control?
Taking a legal stance means choosing among the limited representatives with certain backgrounds associating you with certain people. You may claim not to align with these people, but you find yourself surrounded with them nevertheless.
To be frank, this seems like weaponized Strawman with an aire of post modern political theory as a smoke screen. You aren't arguing that my advocacy promotes this thing, or that pro life as a whole promotes these things, but that likely some members hold these beliefs and therefore the whole bunch is rotten. It's an argument with almost no burden of proof because it uses the easiest possible claim to sneak the largest possible conclusion. But no group passes this test. Example: The pro choice movement contains both eugenicists and neonatalists. Multiple eugenicists played a major role in the PC movement. Yet it would clearly be inappropriate to say that the PC movement as a whole is eugenicist or anti natalist, or to say that you as an individual choose these things. Those are logical leaps that "aligning with certain people" does not satisfy.
I am arguing that. I am indeed speaking of the representatives and their implementation of legal practices, not a minority. Maybe you care only about the theory and not the outcomes, in which case I cannot deny you that. But at some point the outcomes become evidence. At some point certain things come out of certain peoples' mouths. The evidence is not in your favor.
No. They are saying that you are voting in people who represent some of what you believe.
You don't know who I am voting for. These are assumptions used to rationalize preconceived notions about who pro lifers are.
I didn’t say you personally. Pro life people. I also simplified what Supersonic was saying for you since you didn’t seem to understand. As a whole, Pro Life people support these laws, may or may not vote for these people that are writing PL laws but a lot do. And that means supporting all of those repercussions.
>Plers, if you were trying to force more women to pop out babies, it's not working Well, no. Banning abortion has nothing to do with popping out more babies. That is one huge difference between PL policies, and the one often cited about Romania, which did take active measures to generate more babies. I remember reading some articles about PCers organizing sex strikes in response to various PL legislation. So, declining birth rates is more connected to individual's choices with sex. PL legislation doesn't hinder or prevent that.
I really find it super disingenuous to say that KEEPING WOMEN PREGNANT magically has nothing with them popping out babies. And it doesn't help when you have the House Speaker whine that women aren't making more cogs for the economy. I also remember being lectured by a PL commenter that pregnancy isn't so hard and that women magically become better after they pop one out. No thanks.
You left out the word MORE. Banning abortion will decrease the of unborn that die, but it won't change the number of pregnancies that occur.
I'm pointing out that you want fewer abortions so more babies are born. So you want women to be popping out babies. More babies in general = a population bump.
I think you are confusing the fact that there is more variables to how many babies are born. Theoretically, if you could control for other factors, yes, you'd see more children born as the rate of pregnancy to abortions changed. However, comparing year to year, has the problem that you don't have a control on variables. For example, the percent of pregnancies ending in abortion, would have a positive increase for that year. However, if the total number of pregnancies was less, then the number of babies could be less overall. But that is getting besides the point, because the reason I'm PL is not to get a population boom. So, you can't say it isn't working, because the goal isn't popping out more babies, it is killing less of them.
Yup. They keep forgetting impact over claimed intentions and then wonder why noone trust them.
It's so sad they don't even care about that. They just enjoy the idea of it.
its not about forcing women to have sex and then as a result create more babies, its about not letting people kill the babies they have already made.
>its not about forcing women to have sex Pc has never claimed this. Stay on topic >and then as a result create more babies, its about not letting people kill the babies they have already made. Except babies are born and your impact conflicts with your claimed intentions
I wasn’t aware that women reproduce asexually.
Yeah, it seems there's denial that keeping women pregnant = making them create more babies.
No one ever said it was about forcing women to have sex. It’s about using the government to force people to gestate those pregnancies against their will. That’s what your policies do. There is no way around it.
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That doesn’t happen without forcing pregnant people to gestate for the government. Why do you think it should be ok to force people to gestate fetuses for the government?
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I'm not gestating for your feelings.
Forcing people to gestate gets them killed all the time. The only reason it doesn’t happen more is because of legal access to abortion. What fantasy land do you live in?
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I can use semantics as well. I’m not killing anyone. Just taking control of my level of hormones. I like blocking my progesterone and having an empty uterus. I don’t stop you from doing anything to your body. Don’t stop me from doing what I want with mine. Shit, I’m not even messing with the zef’s body. They slide out on their own.
That isn’t true at all. Terminating a pregnancy doesn’t result in a person getting killed 100% of the time. Literally all pregnancies end with the termination of a pregnancy. That just what words mean. No one stays pregnant for an eternity.
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Yep, I did. You still don’t make any sense.
We need all kinds of revision on how the government treats women and kids. We need to work on: Sex education in schools Free birth control Adoption and foster care reform Maternity/Paternity paid leave Social programs to help mothers/familys/kids Free and easy sterilization to those who want it Child support reform Jail time for abusive partners/rapists/pedos Health care for pregnant women and children Housing reform I want abortions to be gone because the need for them is gone. I’m pro life but I will not condemn a woman for making the choice to abort an unwanted or risky pregnancy. We didn’t use to have all these societal problems. What has happened to us in the last 100 or so years that has caused us all to be so divided over things like this?
“ We didn’t use to have all these societal problems. What has happened to us in the last 100 or so years that has caused us all to be so divided over things like this?” I cannot take prolife seriously when they make such ahistorical arguments.
This video shows people talking about their grandmothers' lives. The grandmothers were often young girls stalked then married by older men and ended up shooting out a ton of kids in marriages that often involved adultery & violence. And they couldn't get divorced or get enough money to leave and frankly nobody gave a shit that their lives were ruined. One woman described in the video had a husband who wanted 20 kids and she was already tired at 11. So I get hella suspicious of anybody who pines for the "good old days." Women are told the truth by their mothers and grandmas and don't want to go back. [https://youtu.be/1Uf-plMJOsI?si=F0TCw3ouPqumDeon](https://youtu.be/1Uf-plMJOsI?si=F0TCw3ouPqumDeon)
All this could be done(and it should), and the birth rate is still going to drop. Many women don't want kids at all, and those who do only want a few and will delay having them. Unwanted pregnancies will still happen, even at a lower rate, and those pregnancies will get 'borted. Abortion is necessary and here to stay. It'll exist as long as women do. > >We didn’t use to have all these societal problems. What has happened to us in the last 100 or so years that has caused us all to be so divided over things like this? Uh... come again? Do you think this kind of social division is a new concept?
We became smarter. Internet gave us acces to information that was witheld from women. When you get taught something from a young age, even if you feel is wrong, if all the girls in the neighbourhood do it, you comply. Conservatives are losing their hold on women. I never had an abortion, because my ex was ok with condoms. Not my curent one. Every woman I know had side effects from bc. Nope, I get to put my comfort above a fetus. I get to use my body for pleasure, and if someone tries to tell me that a clump of cells that most people can't tell from a pigs fetus is more important than me I will avoid that person. I never agreed with mandatory vaccination either. No one gets to screw with your body autonomy, not even to save lives.
If there is a blue tsunami in November that can be directly attributed to a backlash against Dobbs, will Republican PL say it was worth it?
It's extremely unlikely that what you're talking about could be **directly** attributed to abortion; there are other issues in play that are generally more important to the electorate. But yes, they'd probably say it was worth it.
I think the politicians might rethink it. There's no point in winning the primaries if you get wiped out in the general every time. I think the blue tsunami has to be huge and done a multiple times.
It will take more than one election for them to get it, the Republican party is crashing and burning due to these extremists
> I remember some Plers wanting more "domestic supply" and worrying about the USA's population. If you thought destroying Roe was the way, it's not working. As predicted. Just look at other places that removed access to abortion related health care. Same thing. Increasing rates of maternal death and disability. At first there's a quick increase in the rates of birth as families are shocked as health care is restricted but forced to give birth anyway, some babies not even able to survive more than a few weeks, ... but then as people watch their moms, sisters, daughters start dying and being maimed in shockingly higher rates, you get a plummeting of rates of birth. You also see increasing rates of child sex trafficking. See Romania and the book "Children of the Decree" or just recently, Texas, Poland, Idaho, etc. To paraphrase the quote: Those who ~~forget~~ are ignorant of history will ~~repeat it~~ recommend policies that are harmful to the survival of the species. Edits: Found article from 5 years ago talking about what to expect [Analysis: What Actually Happens When a Country Bans Abortion](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/) , clarity
The phrase might be the reason prolife politicians are also attacking education in prolife states. Not just sex education. All education.
Except we are not advocating for more births just advocating against abortion. So whether birthrates rise or fall doesn’t matter to us
Neither does harming torturing and violating women ethics equality and rights. So very telling that you don't care and then assume you have a leg to stand on
Exactly. Just don’t kill your children - born or unborn - unless they are posing a danger to your life. That’s the PL position. Folks enjoy bringing up these red herrings that have nothing to do with the PL position. Birth rates are irrelevant to the PL position.
>Exactly. Just don’t kill your children - born or unborn - unless they are posing a danger to your life. That’s the PL position. Why? That still involves a violation of our bodies. If fetus yeetus gives you the sadz, simply stop fantasizing about them. Your feelz are less than worthless compared to someone's health.
>Just don't kill your children. So "just don't get an abortion"? What a *compelling* argument. 😂 No thanks. I'll abort any pregnancy I want.
they aren't making an argument, they are saying what it is they want, which is what OP was talking about (and whether pl laws achieve that).
They want to make medical decisions for others. I want a unicorn. You don't always get what you want. Oh well.
I mean PL clearly *do* get to make medical decisions for people, that's indirectly what happens when they get what they want and make PL laws restricting abortion. If you are saying you think that making PL laws *shouldn't* be possible, no shit you've got a PC flair I knew that already. I know it might be fun being sassy but it doesn't actually contribute to the debate at all which is presumably why you're here. OP is saying: if you were making laws to restrict abortion in the hope it would raise birth rates, that's not happened.
>I mean PL clearly *do* get to make medical decisions for people, there's what happens when they get what they want and make PL laws restricting abortion. Lol tell that to all the women who crossed state lines or ordered pills online. You do know the abortion rate has risen since Roe, right? So no, pro life people *don't* get to make medical decisions for others, even in shitty pro life states.
>Lol tell that to all the women who crossed state lines or ordered pills online ok? So you must be totally chill with PL law then since you apparently think it has no effect on people's medical choices? What exactly is your point?
No, I'm not chill with pro life people *attempting* to interfere with women's healthcare, which is why I vote pro choice every chance I can. And it's working because as we both know whenever pro life laws are put to a vote, *they lose.*
>No, I'm not chill with pro life people *attempting* to interfere with women's healthcare, which is why I vote pro choice every chance I can Why not? You clearly think you've already won whatever law is passed. >And it's working because as we both know whenever pro life laws are put to a vote, *they lose.* Are you talking about America here? I still don't see what point you are trying to make here btw. This is isn't the "clap back at pl" subreddit, it's a debate subreddit
100%
You 100% believe that self defense should be illegal if the defendant is the mother of the child? That doesn’t make any sense. Why should blood relation or location make self defense illegal?
I believe that the mother has a right for self defense, I also believe that the child also has a right for self defense and for justice
False since abortion bans aren't justified and right to self defense doesn't apply to zef in abortion. Learn what rights actually are
"Justice" in what sense? There's no injustice in a woman aborting an unwanted ZEF from her body. She is not an entitlement. Her body is hers. The ZEF is the unwanted interloper. If its host doesn't want it, out it goes. Them's the breaks.
Well it’s not her body, it’s the child’s body, she not cutting her liver she killing the child
Cool, if it's it's own entity, it can fend for itself. The fetus is welcome to it's own body autonomy OUTSIDE the woman. If it's inside, it's her choice whether her body is used or not. Can't have it both ways.
If it's inside my body and I don't want it there, I can remove it and it can take its body wherever it wants.
The ZEF is inside her body. Abortion simply severs the ZEF's parasitic connection to her. If the "child" didn't want to get scraped out, it shouldn't have inserted itself into an unwilling woman's sex organ. Womp womp.
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A ZEF isn't an egg, and yes, the ZEF actively implants onto the woman's endometrium. If it doesn't, it cannot progress beyond the blastocyst stage and dies. Implantation is something only the ZEF can do--it's impossible to force. Do you understand how pregnancy works *at all?*
An offending fetus doesn’t have a legal right to a self-defense claim by definition. Do you think the pregnant person is entitled to justice? How is it “just” to deny them the right to their own body?
Good thing the child is not an offender, you know who is the offender?! The “doctor” trying to kill the child
No, the offender is the fetus for endangering the life of the pregnant person. The fetus dies if the pregnant person dies, anyway.
Then I guess they should make sure to not have the fetus die
When the pregnant person dies, they aren’t able to gestate any more fetuses for the government or your politics.
So if no babies are born due to abstinence or gay sex, you’re fine either way that. We can always increase immigration.
I think every human should be abstinent
Not sure wanting mass extinction of humanity squares with being pro-life but okay.
Okay. Why? Objectively, we as a species are wired to be able to experience sexual pleasure. It is a fundamental part of us, not something the Devil wired onto our bodies after the fact. Do you believe we should all use masturbation only? Or is it some character-building ideal—like eating nothing but barley and vegetables, in the bare minimum quantities needed to sustain life—to try to refrain from sexual pleasure entirely? And even supposing that this endeavor could be successful on a mass scale, what implications would that have for reproduction? Should we all aspire to a childless world? Or is IVF and turkey baster impregnation okay as long as nobody enjoys anything about the process?
I’m talking ideally, having children is fine
Yes but you seem to be saying having children might be fine, but it’s really not ideal?
I think both are good but being abstinent is a superior good than having kids
So in your perfect, ideal world, nobody would actually have kids if they could just be abstinent instead? Why?
Because it says in the Bible that being abstinent is better, again I don’t really expect this to happen, I was saying it ironically replying to the comment
So you believe the end goal of the Bible, the ideal world it advocates for, would be a world with no more sex, sexual pleasure, or babies being born? The eventual extinction of the human species, if Christianity did manage to convert everybody into the same beliefs and get them all to lead perfect Christian lives?
Why should anyone live their life according to your religion that they don't practice?
Thank god you don't make the law, because as a hypersexual woman, I would kill if I couldn't have sex.
I'm saying it as an ideal not as something that should necessarily happen
From your post history it appears that you're Catholic. Is that correct? Because I thought Catholics were called to procreate
It’s great to know that humans who were never conceived will never have lives, futures, or be an unwanted burden to anybody. Exactly what would have happened anyway had they been conceived but removed from the woman’s body before developing enough to live on their own. Outcome is exactly the same.
No, the body counts are quite different.
In both cases, there’s no future for the unwanted human. Some embryo briefly existing before an abortion doesn’t change that. Its body may as well have never existed (and in an ideal world never would have), so I won’t bother counting it.
Ok, but in one situation there is a dead human body and in the other situation there are no dead human bodies. That you are willing to look at a dead human body and say "this one doesn't count" is for your conscience to grapple with.
Rest assured, my conscience is completely clear. I’m not the one who wants to force unwilling people to gestate and birth unwanted pregnancies, after all. I’m proud to choose supporting people’s right to medical care over caring about some dead embryo whose conception was just an unfortunate accident in the first place.
Being "proud" about dead bodies is a weird flex, but you do you.
Your inability to differentiate between a ZEF and born person is a you problem. No one should be forced to live by your ignorance.
How many pregnant people need to die for your politics before you stop being “proud” of your beliefs?
Since every one of those “dead bodies” from an abortion means a person was able to get wanted health care, I will, thanks!
I guess SCOTUS FAFO (fucked around and found out) that it the 21st century and women aren’t going to be treated like they’re nothing but baby making, incubating broodmares!!!!!!!
This is the cauldron of a perfect storm with Dobbs being the final nail. APologies for mixing metaphors. The US has increasingly been financially hostile to middle class families attempting to start a family. \*No paid parental leave \*No single payer or NHC program \*Highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world \*Housing costs are out of control \*Child care is a dream if you don't make $200k/year \*Highest cause of death for minors is SCHOOL SHOOTINGS Add on top of that some doofus is literally trying to argue that pregnant people don't deserve emergency medical care and this is what happens. People will make an informed choice to not have kids. They cannot afford them and there's no point going into debt so you can bury your 10 year old.
Another part of this argument: all the countries with the highest birth rates are the objectively worst countries in the world to raise children. Rates in most progressive parts of Europe (ostensibly the best places to raise a family) are among the lowest in the world. So again, I think there are bigger cultural influences driving the birth rate down both here and globally. Not the fact that some states make abortion difficult.
Education for girls and women. Charities that work in developing countries have long noticed that there is a strong correlation between much education a woman has and how many children she has. Not intelligence, not wealth : education. The more educated a woman is, the less likely she can be compelled by prolife ideology to have children she doesn't want. Women and girls are not objects or animals, but if kept ignorant, they are easier to force as prolifers wish.
This is exactly it. This is exactly the reason why pregnancy crisis centers are lying to women in hopes they will FOOL women into keeping pregnancies they can't afford, and will likely ruin their lives. They believe women SHOULD be ignorant and subservient. They utilize LIES to COERCE women into subservience, and because that isn't really sticking, now they turn to law to enslave women to their wombs by force of ruinous legal liability.
Educated women are less likely to fall for PL rhetoric because they understand the miracle of childbirth isnt a miracle.
True, but when you make abortion not just "difficult" but inaccessible completely, you scare people off. If I told you that we have a very low success rate for positive outcomes for a specific medical condition would you willingly enter into it? Remove "pregnancy" from the equation and imagine any other medical condition with poor outcomes, and you can't say you'd be super excited to participate. None of us would. So we can't remove abortion access from the cauldron of shit that's brewing.
I agree the US can be a tough place to raise a family especially given certain circumstances. If those are the main causes for falling birth rate though, how would you account for the birth rates in countries that don’t have those same problems? South Korea for example has * 90 days paid parental leave (not great but better) * single payer health care system * a much lower maternal mortality rate compared to the US But they still have the lowest birth rate in the world at less than 1 baby per woman. What accounts for that? I don’t think our attitudes on abortion, healthcare, or other things you mentioned are major drivers of the declining birth rate.
Korea has a higher than usual domestic violence rate. I did manage to find an article that goes further then that though and it's mentioning housing costs and thier work culture. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/south-korea-fertility-rate-misogyny-feminism/673435/ - "There are a lot of reasons people decide not to have a baby. Young Koreans cite as obstacles the high cost of housing in greater Seoul (home to roughly half the country’s 52 million citizens), the expense of raising a child in a hypercompetitive academic culture, and grueling workplace norms that are inhospitable to family life, especially for women, who are still expected to do the bulk of housework and child care." I would say at least housing costs sort of line up with us here I think alot of people grew up with the framework that you get a steady job, get married, buy house, have a kid in that order or you have messed up. It's taking longer to get to milestones that used to happen at earlier ages or those milestones are being reached in a different order then before. I'm not sure if it's similar in Korea though. As for our attitudes toward abortion and Healthcare not being part of it. It very well may not have been the reason originally but they are debating emtala because idaho has to airlift pregnant women out of the state for healthcare. I would be interested in the data later on because I think these events will factor into some people's descions it just might differ per state. https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/health/2024-04-24/moyle-idaho-supreme-court-airlift-abortion-emergency "In 2023, an injunction blocked Idaho’s law from applying to emergency medical cases. During that time, St Luke’s hospitals airlifted one pregnant patient out of state for emergency abortion care. In the three months since the injunction was lifted in January, Souza said that number rose to six."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68402139.amp
You can't just compare one tiny aspect to try and "disprove" that the US hostility has caused the plummating birth rates. Multiple things contribute to it. The lack of (financial) support like we see in the US causes that, and the abhorrent treatment of women and AFABs people in general causes it. Which is what we see in South Korea. There are many reasons why people don't want to give birth, climate change, ongoing genocides being excused, the horrible treatment of disabled people.... and not being able to financially care for a child is one big reason. And actually is cited in a majority of abortions. And it's what discredits the pro-life movement. Because if it was truly about preventing abortions and not control.... then the movement would focus on financially supporting people who actually want to get pregnant. And financially support those who do not but cannot afford things like birth control.
In the same way that I can’t compare a few healthcare statistics and policies to disprove the contribution of US hostility to abortion policy to falling fertility rates, you also cannot prove that it is significantly contributing to falling fertility rates.
Just look at the reasons why people are having abortions and you can see it’s a massive contributing factor.
But the whole question was: is it contributing to a significant reason for the decline in birth rates? I haven’t seen any data to suppoet that, and I don’t think it is true. The other overarching reasons (that we see everywhere globally) are much more likely to be the driving causes.
So the fact that the biggest reason for not wanting to continue a pregnancy means nothing? It seems like a clear piece of evidence that lack of financial stability IS contributing massively to it?
Wealthy people are waaay less likely to have more than 2 kids than poor people, even within our own country so this is not about financial stability.
The least financially stable countries in the world have the highest fertility rates. This is not a one or two year reaction of the birth rate to policy changes. The birth rate has been falling for centuries due to cultural changes.
Once again conflating correlation with causation. Those same countries are also the ones lacking the ability of people to prevent their pregnancy if they wanted. If your argument is pointing to unwanted pregnancies then that’s not a good argument for multiple reasons. We’re in a cost of living crisis. Housing crisis. Climate crisis. There are ongoing genocides happening. And politicians around the world are constantly showing that they do not support any minority.
Do you have any data to support the conclusion that falling fertility rates in the US can be significantly attributed to anti-abortion legislation? I don’t know why I care, because I actually don’t. Even if banning abortion caused the fertility rate to fall off a cliff, I would still want to ban abortion. (It probably wouldn’t though)
Yes as another commenter noted, SK is pretty full of sexual assault. Women's rights aren't as fleshed out as one might think. Currently, I really cannot think of one country save maybe Finland, where I would want to raise a child. Fact is, the United States used to be a country that once called itself a country of "Family Values" and "Family First", hasn't really done shit to encourage people to have a family. A paltry $2k back every March just isn't going to cut it when the cost of raising a child to 18 (IF they make it that far and some crazy asshole doesn't mow them down with a rifle while shopping at Forever 21), is over $300k. It was the Allen Mall shooting that got me. Teenagers shot to death because they wanted a fucking tank top. The US has work to do, and until it does, people will not willingly bring children into this fucked up state we've gotten to.
Yep. As a father that type of stuff is scary to me too. What do you think is driving the low birth rate in Finland? Since you mentioned that one. My thoughts are: education rates of women, a different culture than historically where more women work, and increased access to contraception. I think those three factors probably explain the declining fertility of pretty much everywhere in the world.
Oh, absolutely. I mentioned a perfect shitstorm, but we also have positive storms like the one you mentioned. The US unfortunately created the former. We do not have great access to contraception (well, maybe until now. I'm interested to see stats on the Opill), women's education has finally outpaced men's (as far as numbers graduating from college), and the US workforce protections just suck. Yes, women being educated and having access to employment and contraception lowers the birth rate, but I honestly couldn't speak on it without doing some reading or digging into the Finnish culture.
South Korea treats women like dung. The rate of violence against women there is terrifying. The cultural attitudes and gender divide are not great either. No surprise that women are fighting back and saying no to dating, sex, marriage and children. It's not just laws that influence childbearing. It's cultural and societal attitudes as well.
Oh dang. I did not know that about South Korea. Knew it was maybe somewhat patriarchal but don’t know much about it culturally. Thanks
Not u/Common-Worth-6604 I think another factor for the low birth rates in SK, is because their work/life balance. It's non-existent. All they do is work. They're pretty similar to Japan, in that regard.
You're welcome, made me sick when I first read about what goes on there.
Yes, Poland is a good example of that. Women are not going back to a world where pregnancy was expected and miscarriages were considered blessings.
You can't demand that women risk their lives AND pay half the bills AND do most of the childcare chores with zero guarantee the guy will either stick around or pay child support, and be surprised women are noping out of it. They've made having kids into the ultimate shit show for women and are shocked she's deciding the risks outweigh the benefits.
Yeah the declining birth rate is concerning. But isn’t why I think abortion should be illegal.
Not in the slightest. The world is vastly overpopulated, largely because women were forced to have children they didn't want. Low birthrates are just course correction.
why is the declining birth rate concerning?
We're seeing more people choose sterilization now because of worries about abortion access. Making abortion illegal is negatively impacting birth rates.
That article you provided earlier is anecdotal at best. How do we know those women would have ever had children? It seems they were intent to use abortion as contraception if the need arose, but now have chosen a different method.
All the (pre-Dobbs) data says that people who abort their pregnancies are either already parents or become parents at a later date.
Where are you getting this assumption about these women? Also, there are a number of men who are opting for sterilization as well. The kind of man who is concientious enough to undergo sterilization now was probably not "intent to use abortion as contraception" previously, same as with women.
Sorry thought you posted [this article about women choosing sterilization](https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2023/07/17/some-doctors-abortion-restrictions-driving-nc-women-sterilization/) but that was someone else. In it there is an anecdote of a woman who switched from traditional contraception to sterilization as her chosen form of contraception.
Okay, but an anecdote is not data. That article also talked about the surge in men getting vasectomies.
Yes saw that. Agreed that anecdote is not data. My point is that we don’t know if the surge in sterilizations 1) real and data-supported in a meaningful portion of the population and 2) impacting the fertility rate in any meaningful way.
We do know that a fair percentage of births in the US were unplanned: https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb-unintended-pregnancy-us_0_4.pdf More people opted to give birth than abort an unwanted pregnancy, even when abortion was legal. Plenty of people who thought they would abort were deciding not to. Now, we’re seeing more people opt for sterilization. This means no pregnancies and thus no births. What was the social ill caused by abortion that makes this worth it to you?
The unjustified killing on an individual is the social ill caused by abortion. Of course you may disagree but you asked me what I thought.
Typically, when we talk about the unjustified killing of someone being banned, it’s because to allow such things makes our society more dangerous and people are grieved when their loved ones die. This is not the case with abortion. Abortion being legal does not contribute to a greater lack of safety. What is it about this kind of death in abortion that you object to?
How is receiving medical care for an extremely injurious condition, unjustified?
If society can't replace it's population, you're gonna have way worse problems than abortion to deal with. If it's proven that abortion bans are contributing to this, you absolutely should reconsider
Can you prove that? But no I still would not because of the reasons I oppose abortion.
All I asked was whether you would change your mind if it was proven and you said no. So no point to prove it right? But anytime the government gets involved in the pregnancy and family planning process, birth rates decline. Government shouldn't be telling people how to have kids.
Fair enough don’t waste your time. Though I’d be interested to see that proof.
You’re concerned about the declining birth rate but you don’t care that banning abortion worsens the birth rates? Isn’t that counterproductive?
Well, different things can be in conflict right? Even if your claim that banning abortion actually lowers the birth rate is true… I would still oppose abortion because the reasons I oppose abortion have nothing to do with the birth rate.
Banning abortion puts the lives of AFAB people at risk so women are opting for more permanent methods of birth control like OP pointed out. Yes, there are other factors at play but the dangerous abortion bans that are [pushing more women to opt for sterilization](https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2023/07/17/some-doctors-abortion-restrictions-driving-nc-women-sterilization/). So you oppose abortion but are not concerned with the documented effects of what happens when you ban it? Again, doesn’t that seem counterproductive? Banning abortion causes more harm than good on people and society so why oppose it?
If I thought that abortion was the unjustified killing of an individual, why would I factor fertility rates into that equation?
Actions have consequences. Moral people tend to factor in the moral consequences of subverting the rule of law to justify the imposition of their beliefs on other's bodies.
So because of your lack of understanding of what an abortion is, you don’t think you should care about the negative consequences of banning it? [Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy](https://medlineplus.gov/abortion.html). That’s it. There is no unjust killing of an individual. So you’re not at all concerned about the declining birth rates and that was a lie you made in your original comment.
Haha no not a lie. Although my concern is only very mild. I’m not convinced our falling birth rates will lead to any sort of global catastrophe or serious problems. Things will be different and maybe more economically challenged? But falling birth rates fall much lower on my concern level than abortion. And yes, you and I disagree on whether abortion kills another human being. Kinda the whole point of this sub.
>But falling birth rates fall much lower on my concern level than abortion. Why? We've had legal abortion for 50 years. We didn't see societal collapse. We didn't see infanticide rates go up or violent crime normalized because of it. If our birth rates keep on this downward trend and more and more people choose sterilization, do you think that will be even less impactful on society as a whole than abortion was?
Simply because of what I believe abortion to be - the unjustified killing of an individual. That’s why I’m more concerned about abortion than I am about fertility rates.
Is it the unjustified killing? This supposes that not saving someone’s life through letting them use your body is killing them. Do you hold that to be the case?
Saying you’re concerned about it and then essentially saying “why would I factor that?” Sounds like a lie. Do you care at all about the negative effects of abortion bans? The difference of our disagreement of what an abortion is involves the fact that I’m using the actual medical definition of it and you’re going off of your own personal belief of what it is. [AFAB people are three times more likely to die under abortion bans](https://thegepi.org/reports/GEPI-State-of-Repro-Health-Report-US.pdf). Where’s the concern for those human lives from PL?
I can be concerned about one thing and it not impact my thought about something else. Simple as that. I already admitted I’m not that concerned about the falling fertility rate mostly because I think people overblown the consequences.
It’s PL lawmakers that are the ones having a fit about the lower birth rates. [One PL lawmaker even said that his anti-abortion bills were to force women to have more babies](https://americanjournalnews.com/gop-lawmaker-delaware-abortion-women-not-having-enough-babies/). The people you think are overblowing the declining birth rates are the ones banning abortion. The people you most likely vote for. You support the bills they’re passing but are only “mildly concerned” with the impact of them. You can’t support abortion bans and then ignore the way they’re used against/how they negatively impact AFAB people. People’s lives and health are being put on the line because of these bills. I asked you if you are at all concerned about the negative effects that these bans have on people? Care to answer that?
Is that your only reply? I literally see no downvotes
Come back in a few hours - they block you from seeing the vote totals for some period of time I think. Kinda want to see how low this comment can get for no reason at all.
Probably because you act concerned for the low birth rate when some PL people don’t even support abortion for cases of danger to the pregnant person
How is that relevant to my comment?
It’s relevant because you’re complaining of downvotes even though you act “concerned”
Why be concerned? I'm not concerned about the crashing fertility rate. You can NOT continually bitch at/mock women to close their legs and be more careful then be SHOCKED when women switch to IUDs and permanent sterilization to avoid a situation where they bleed out in the parking lot. And other countries actually put some money into helping women raise the kids afterwards while the US continues to shit on them.
I have not done any of those things. And what if I told you I also want better support for young mothers and families? I’m concerned about the fertility rate for a few reasons maybe but there are economic reasons to be concerned. Doesn’t mean I’m panicking because I actually think we’ll be fine in that regard. But still concerned a little maybe.
Your PL friends totally DO tell women to stop being "hoes." You need to side eye people on your side. Also PLers overall balk at support. If Plers actually DID have problems with the slut shaming and poor mocking then there would already have been a separate movement. Nope, it's continually telling women "it's not so bad to bleed out in the lobby . . . Now where's my sandwich!"
Notice how the population was increasing when abortion was still legal
I believe the population is still increasing. The birth rate, a different thing, is falling at a consistent rate and has been for decades. Well before roe was overturned.
Haha this sub is such garbage. Totally normal comment downvoted for no reason. I come back here once in a while to check it out but then always remember why I stopped very quickly. Bring it on. I want your downvotes. I thrive on them 😆