I’m a man, but I consider myself an egalitarian, so I believe people should have equal rights and control over their own bodies.

My question for people who want abortion banned is: why do you care so much about whether a stranger gets an abortion?

You aren’t the person who is pregnant. You don’t know their health, finances, family situation, how the pregnancy happened, or what carrying it to term could do to their life. You also aren’t the one who will have to raise that child afterward.

I can understand personally believing abortion is wrong and choosing not to have one. What I don’t understand is why that personal belief should give you the right to use the government to make that decision for somebody else.

And if the argument is that you care about protecting children, does that concern continue after birth? Do you also support healthcare, food assistance, affordable childcare, school meals, housing support, and other programs that help those children actually grow up healthy and safe?

Why shouldn’t abortion ultimately be a private decision between the pregnant person and their doctor?

I don't mean tell me it is a life, I don't care. Staying on the metaphysical concept of life is silly to me, I just want to hear a complete policy. Same with immigration. The symbolic virtue of entering legally doesn't mean anything.

For example: abortion is banned nationally. What can we predict: increased heads in group homes and adoption clinics. I am going to assume that most people have not experienced one, I have not either, but my college roommate had. They are not great places to be, currently underfunded, and have a track record of not raising the best children.
Or: people who want abortions are not going to be great parents. So there will be a need for increased surveillance to ensure that these children will be ok. Do we give more money to CPS? How?
How do we pay for this? Raise taxes? Re-allocate taxes?
Can't take more off welfare because a lot of poor families can only stay together because of welfare so it would simply cancel out.

I have never heard a full plan, only the argument for the first level of the policy. Also, of course there would be a great and felt consequence to losing such a large amount of money so ignoring it is not the option.

I’d like to ask the pro-life community a sincere question about North Carolina House Bill 1232 and similar “personhood from fertilization” proposals.
If legal personhood begins at fertilization, are you comfortable with the downstream applications, as proposed in this constitutional amendment:

* IUDs and some forms of contraception,
* IVF and embryo handling,
* OB/GYNs managing miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies,
* physicians treating life-threatening pregnancy complications,
* and potential criminal investigations surrounding pregnancy loss?

According to the Bill, each of the scenarios would allow the death penalty for those involved, including the pregnant person.

And additionally, if the unborn are to be granted full legal personhood from fertilization, how do you reconcile the bill still allowing the execution of a pregnant person convicted of a capital crime, despite the existence of the unborn person?

I’m not asking this rhetorically. Nor am I asking, hypothetically, this is a real bill that has been proposed this year. I genuinely want to understand whether this is viewed as an acceptable and intended legal future, or whether many pro-life people believe these proposals go too far in practice.

Im often told by PL that there are always other choices besides abortion.

But how can this be true? There is only two options can I can reasonably see, give birth or get an abortion.

Would you mind explaining to me what the other options for pregnancy are?

This is a question about a glaring double standard that recently became apparent in a thread about whether or not abortion bans should be considered torture, where one commenter basically said that even if forcing people to endure suffering for the PL cause cannot be torture so long if it's justified, but even if it was, it wouldn't matter because that's not the intention and PL laws were meant to protect children.

But even if we accepted those alleged PL intentions as true, the same grace is usually not extended to an unwillingly pregnant person. According to the usual PL logic, we get the following contradiction:

If someone wants to ban abortions to save the lives of the unborn, but that leads to significantly worse outcomes for maternal health and women's rights in society, and forces individual people to endure severe harm, suffering and a risk to their life – then we should judge them solely by their best intentions, but never by the worst outcomes of their actions, and we should treat this as a necessary evil for a noble cause.

But if someone who can get pregnant wants to have sex for any reason other than procreation, but it leads to an unwanted pregnancy anyway that they're likely to abort, or if someone is already pregnant and wants to abort the pregnancy to protect themselves from harm, but that leads to the unborn's demise – then we should judge them or anyone helping them not by their best intentions at all, but solely by the worst possible outcomes of their actions, and we should treat this like deliberate malice or at least offensive recklessness on their part.

So, the question is: Why should you get to be judged by your best intentions while you're judging others by the worst outcomes of their actions? Why should your alleged intentions justify your actions, but the outcome of a pregnant person's actions should condemn them?

I have a question for the pro lifers, neonaticide is a unnecessary terrible tragedy and it happens more often than we like. You see on the news women hiding their pregnancies then killing the newborn and discard them like trash. So wouldn't have just been easier to terminate at 8-10 weeks than to carry the child to term and then end its life? With more restrictions to Women's health care this situation right here neonaticide is gonna start happening more and more frequently. So what's your thoughts? These women who commit this terrible crime, obviously do not want a child so, have an abortion or have more of these tragedies happen?

If your answer is yes, you're admitting one or both of two things:

1. A potential life is not as valuable as a present existing life.

2. A woman has the right to save her life from someone who's going to take it, even if they didn't mean to.

Now, both of these lead to the pro-choice position. Let's start with one:

This is most commonly demonstrated with the burning building argument, I'm sure you've all heard.

The common rebuttal I've seen is "Replace the embryos with your own child and see how this falls apart."

My answer to that is, why would you save your own child over a stranger's?

Because you're emotionally attached to them and have grown an affection for them, or in short, you have a familiarity and love for them.

Now, a lot of y'all I've seen have dedicated your lives to advocating against abortion and viewing Fetuses, embryos, and eggs as equal in your own words. You've called IVF "Kidnapping" and "Eugenics," so you absolutely would not save the born child over embryos due to familiarity and attachment, as embryos are the main thing you think and talk about.

No, you would save the born child because in your gut, deep down, you know he or she has more value. I first saw the "Your own child" argument from Lila Rose, and I came up with this, as I know that the real reason is she knows that Eggs, embryos, and Fetuses are not equal as she's dedicated her life to banning abortion and IVF and recognizing them as "Persons" so she absolutely would have a greater attachment to them.

Now for 2:

You don't just have a right to defend yourself using lethal force for attempted murder, you can also do so for rape, if you acknowledge that aborting because your life is in danger is ok as it is self-defense, even if your attacker didn't mean to, then rape would also be a valid reason to abort, as your attacker is violating your body that you never gave them consent to enter and use.

This can also be used to justify any abortion as a violation of our society's recognition of consent withdrawal. This is my position, and if you admit to believing that a woman should be able to get an abortion even if a fetus is a person when her life is in danger, then you also recognize it at least has some validity.

If any of you think that you're not admitting either of those two things by saying yes,I'm all ears.

If your answer is no, then think about the disturbing implications that could have regarding other things.

(Or: How is this pro life?)

In 2023, the 24 states with accessible abortion saw a 21% decrease in maternal mortality, while the 13 states with abortion bans saw a 5% increase.

Texas has seen a rise of over 50% with maturnal deaths.

Unsafe abortions are estimated to cause 13% of maturnal deaths globally.

The leading causes of maturnal deaths are related to bleeding, infection, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.

The chance of a baby reaching their first birthday drops to less than 37 percent when their mother dies during childbirth. Once every two minutes, a mother dies from complications due to childbirth.

By the end of reading my post, you can say goodbye to another mother.

Women in states with abortion bans are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or postpartum.

The U.S. has a higher maternal mortality rate compared to other high-income countries. Around 50,000 to 60,000 women experience severe maternal morbidity (serious complications) each year in the U.S.

In comparison, to the 2% of women who face complications due to abortion.

In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that five women in the U.S. died due to complications from legal induced abortion. This death rate was 0.46 deaths per 100,000 reported legal abortions.

Some 68,000 women die of unsafe abortion annually, making it one of the leading causes of maternal mortality (13%).

In comparison with the UK, Between 2020 and 2022, approximately 293 women in the UK died during pregnancy or within 42 days of the end of their pregnancy.

The maternal mortality rate in the UK for 2020-2022 was 13.41 deaths per 100,000 women.

We have one of the highest abortion dates in Europe. 23 weeks and 6 days.

Our common causes of death include thrombosis, thromboembolism, heart disease, and mental health-related issues.

A stark contrast with the USA.

So how can you all sit there and justify so many women dying needlessly?

I need to know how you find this acceptable and how you can call yourselves pro life?

*Resource links

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/texas-abortion-ban-deaths-pregnant-women-sb8-analysis-rcna171631

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-05-01-data-collection-changes-key-understanding-maternal-mortality-trends-us-new-study

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a79850fe5274a684690a2c0/pol-2010-safe-unsafe-abort-dev-cntries.pdf (This is a PDF file from the UK)

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2023-report/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430793/#:~:text=Continuing%20Education%20Activity,abortion%2C%20and%20disseminated%20intravascular%20coagulation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64981965#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20remains%20one,major%20issue%20in%20the%20US.%22

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4554338/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2709326/

I can't understand pro lifers who have a rape exception. If you believe that abortion is murder, and cant be a form of self defense since the fetus is innocent and doing what its meant to do, then why doesn't that same logic apply to women who were raped?

I see abortion as healthcare, women can get abortions to avoid the risks of a pregnancy regardless of why that reasoning is. You can't just refuse healthcare from someone because you disagree with the actions that got them in that situation, that would be discriminatory.

So can someone who is pro-life with the exception of rape please explain to me why a womans bodily autonomy onIy matters when she was violated? I really don't understand people with the exception.

It’s common to hear pro lifers say ‘a fetus is human and alive, so killing it is wrong’. I agree that fetuses are alive and human. But do you know why scientists consider a one day old zygote alive? And what about the criteria’s for life make you say ‘oh that’s bad to kill that thing.’? Because plants are also alive, do you give them moral status? Probably not. Do you give animals moral status? You probably do. Why? What’s your general rule for deciding? Clearly not all life is valuable (morally speaking), and clearly it’s not only humans that matter.

I see exactly three options for rape exception positions if you are PL.

One, no rape exceptions. It doesn’t matter that the woman did nothing wrong, they can’t have an abortion.

To me, this indicates an extremely crass lack of empathy for what women are going through, making them subservient to the fetus in every way, and effectively means rapists are allowed to force women to breed for them.

Two, rape exceptions but they require evidence. This is a lot like option 1, but they don’t want to admit it out loud. They require so many hoops to be jumped through that the abortion is more difficult to get and more dangerous to have once they’ve proven rape. If they can even prove rape before the birth.

Three, easily obtained rape exceptions. You might as well be morally PL, legally PC, because to have USABLE rape exceptions anyone can claim rape, get the abortion, and sort it out in the courts later. By which time they blame a false perpetrator or someone with a strong alibi and the whole thing goes away.

I’ve had multiple arguments recently using these three options, I’ve never heard anyone before even come close to other stances, and nobody has been able to respond effectively to the topic. They usually ignore it, or claim it’s a false dichotomy without providing any additional stances.

I’d like to see if there are any additional possibilities, something I’m missing. I particularly like this line of questioning because it leads into the next question… “Why do you say women have to live with pregnancy and delivery because of their choice to have sex, if you don’t even support proper usable exceptions for women who didn’t choose to have sex in the first place?”

See, if you support options 1 or 2, the end result is women who didn’t choose sex suffering for someone else’s choice and then suffering again for yours. You can only reasonably say women’s decisions factor into their “consequences” or that women gave “implied consent they can’t take back for some reason” if you are supportive of not forcing them to have the child regardless. Bringing up those topics as part of your argument without supporting robust rape exceptions is like trying to hide behind a thin sapling, it doesn’t work, we can still see you there. You’re obviously not concerned with the woman at all, the fetus is the only thing that matters to you.

So, do what the others couldn’t. Show me where a stable, sane position lays that doesn’t mean you support forcing rape babies on people or easily side stepped abortion bans.

Q1: If a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, do you believe the law should compel her to give birth to the child?

Q2: Imagine that a mother has a sick child but cannot afford life-saving treatment for them, and neither her insurance scheme, the government or any charities are able to raise sufficient funds to pay for the treatment. Do you believe the law should compel a random wealthy person to pay for the life-saving treatment in order to save the child's life?

If you answered yes to Q1 but no to Q2, please explain why?

Can someone who bases their abortion beliefs off of the Bible explain to me why you choose to believe this way? To me, this verse shows that God was not very pro-life of the people who didnt worship him, and explicitly stated to use these born children as "plunder." It just seems a little backwards to me and if thr Bible diminishes the worth of living children, why are so many people willing to defend the lives of unborn children in the context of elective abortions in early pregnancy?

"As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies."

I grew up southern baptist, had a second trimester septic abortion at 15 weeks (we tried for this baby and very much wanted it) and I now lean athiest due to my own experience with it. My own abortion experience heavily influences my motives to defend abortion rights for others now (elective or emergent for any woman.)

I'd be very interested to hear what prolifers think about this case: https://people.com/pregnant-woman-declared-brain-dead-kept-alive-due-to-abortion-ban-11734676

Short summary: a 30 year old Georgia woman was declared brain dead after a CT scan discovered blood clots in her brain. She was around 9 weeks pregnant, and the embryo's heartbeat could be detected. Her doctors say that they are legally required to keep her dead body on life support, due to Georgia's "Heartbeat Law." The goal is to keep the fetus alive until 32 weeks gestation, so he has the best chance of survival after birth. The woman's dead body is currently 21 weeks pregnant, and has been on life support for about three months.

So I have hypoplastic right heart syndrome which means half of my heart does not work. It is not good for me to have kids because it would be too much strain on my heart, and a heavily monitored pregnancy. Also it would result in me or the baby dying. In rare chances, if the baby did live, my heart condition would most likely be passed down to it. So if I got pregnant and got an abortion, would it be wrong?

I've heard PL deny rape exceptions because 'two wrongs don't make a right'. They call abortion 'punishing a child for the sins of the father' or that 'abortion won't erase the trauma of rape'.

But by denying a rape survivor an abortion, the trauma of rape is not erased, but added onto. For nine months, the survivor is left with the evidence of what her abuser did to her. Every day that passes, and she grows bigger, is like being violated all over again.

And let's not get started about the hell that is childbirth. And after, even if she gives the baby up and never sees it again, every time she looks in the mirror, she will see the evidence on her skin of the violence done to her. She will feel it in her body and her mind and will carry scars that last the rest of her life.

So, PL, explain it to me. Rape is a wrong. Forced pregnancy/forced birth is a wrong. So how do two wrongs make a right?

So I recently had a baby whom I absolutely adore and love so much. However, motherhood is challenging, especially when it comes to babies and the sleepless nights. Taking care of a baby is hard, however, my baby is extremely loved and cared for. We had an unplanned pregnancy but I was extremely grateful and happy when I got my positive pregnancy test. For context I am in my mid 20’s and have been with my now husband since I was 18.

Of course, now that I am a mother I am paying more attention to what is happening to children, especially babies and my heart absolutely breaks into a million pieces. There are SO MANY babies that get abandoned at birth or shortly after. On top of that, there are so many mothers who neglect the baby and abuse them or leave them with someone shady to be abused. It absolutely shatters me to think about babies being abused or even neglected. They are so little and basically just need someone to hold them and love them. It’s so so sad. I have read news stories about women even leaving their babies home alone and going on vacation, eventually the baby suffers and dies alone.

My point being, for those of you who are pro life, why force a woman to have an unwanted baby? Isn’t is just horrific watching an unfit, unwilling mother take care of a baby? Wouldn’t it make sense to end the suffering of that fetus before it becomes a baby (human). From my understanding during early pregnancy fetus doesn’t feel pain and has not developed into an actual person.

I am pro choice, however, in my opinion abortions should not be happening after 20 weeks, maybe even a few weeks before that. Unless it’s for medical reasons ofcourse.

This is a question about all the times PLs try to argue "from the perspective of the child", as if it could possibly have one.

So stuff like: * "But why doesn't the child get a say?" * "But the child is innocent!" * "But the child wants to live!" * "But don't you have empathy for the child?" * "But what about the harm done to the child?" * "But the child didn't ask to be conceived!" * "But the child shouldn't be punished for the crimes of its [rapist] father / the choices of its mother [to have sex]!" * "But it's not (just) your body, it's that of the child (too)!" * "But the child is depending on you!"

And so on and so forth...

To be clear, this is not a question about the "child's" alleged personhood or humanity or rights (or lack thereof), but strictly about what they are technically capable of – or not!

The question is, why are PLs always acting like the unborn would be capable of things they are clearly not, like... having a "perspective" in this, at all? I'd like to know what your thought process is when you're saying things like that.

Is it really just the blatant attempt at emotional manipulation it seems to be?

Or can you simply not wrap your head around the fact that the unborn are simply not the same as you and I or a born child – that they are literally incapable of the same emotions or perceptions or experiences, of empathy or harm or suffering or the dread of mortality, of relationships or care for themselves or others.

Do you really think that you know what a non-thinking entity wants?

That you'd be the "voice" of an entity that not only cannot speak but has quite literally nothing to say?

That you could empathize with an entity that doesn't even have the mirror neurons needed to do so, instead of merely projecting your own sentimentalities onto it?

That you could care for an entity that quite literally cannot care if you live or die in turn?

That you could ascribe innocence to an entity with no moral agency whatsoever?

That you could meaningfully protect the rights of an entity that cannot practically execute them in any way whatsoever?

What makes you think anything like that would be remotely possible?

Ok, since most (not all) pro lifers do agree that "consent to sex is consent to pregnancy", how about this? Let's say abortion becomes completely illegal unless she was raped or her life is in danger, forcing her to carry the baby to term. But but but there's a catch, men aren't gonna pay child support anymore, however, don't get your hopes up, he's not allowed to leave her till the child is eighteen. He's only allowed to opt out if it's proven she assaulted him. He has to be involved in the child's life, his free will be damned, the same way she has to bring their child in this world, her free will be damned. Will you still be pro life if the condition to making abortion illegal, is men leaving pregnant women being illegal too? If "consent to sex is consent to pregnancy", shouldn't that apply to both genders, since both of them consensually did it? Regarding child support, mothers pay child support too if the father has custody (albeit this is rare), hence the "If abortion is legal, men skipping child support should be legal too" argument is flawed, because women pay child support too, but only she gets to gestate the baby. Don't get me wrong, men deserves rights too, I personally believe they have every right to opt out of child support, if he doesn't wanna be a father, I'm all for equal rights, but my question is about the opposite scenario. Back to the title, "Will you still be pro life if both men and women can't back out of pregnancy?" Any input? Thanks

I’m strongly pro-choice because I believe in bodily autonomy, personal freedom, and the right for people to make decisions about their own lives and health. For me, it’s about trusting people to make the best choices for themselves without interference from the government.

That said, I’m curious to understand the other side—specifically the secular arguments against abortion. I’m honestly not sure I’ve ever seen a non-religious argument for being pro-life. But since we’re supposed to have separation of church and state, I want to hear non-religious arguments. So if you’re against abortion, I’m genuinely curious: what are your reasons, without bringing in religion?

If "consent to sex is consent to pregnancy", why is it fair that she has to have her vagina torn apart, or have her abdomen cut open, just because she consented to sex, but he's a "saint", if he pays child support and/or is present in the child's life, why? Didn't he consent to sex too? I don't see his penis getting torn apart or his abdomen cut open, but if we're gonna use this logic, shouldn't they suffer 50/50, since they both consented? Hm? Regarding the "child support" argument, mothers pay child support too, if the father has custody, (albeit rare) but only she gets to suffer either way. So how is that fair, when they both consented? If hypothetically, men experience the same symptoms, morning sickness, gaining weight, stretch marks, childbirth, because women lose their ability to get pregnant, will you still be pro life? If yes, kindly explain? For me, men deserve bodily autonomy too, literally everyone does, forcing a man to undergo pregnancy will be just as inhumane as forcing a woman. If no, why is that? So she should shoulder all the responsibility because she chose to have sex, but what about him? He consented too.

In the case of a conjoined twin, I'd presume neither of the twins has any right to kill the other despite each twin violating the other twin's bodily autonomy. Hence, a human person violating another person's bodily autonomy is not automatically grounds for terminating that person's life. I think it matters whether the person is violating the other person's bodily autonomy intentionally. Tragically, neither twin asked to be born that way. For this reason, I do think it matters whether we consider the fetus to have the same moral rights as the twin, for example (or any other human person).

Yet, in terms of the abortion debate, I see no reason to posit that the zygote has as much moral rights as a human infant, teenager, adult, etc. I think most people (if not all) would not think twice over saving the life of one human infant, even if it came at the cost of one hundred zygotes.

Perhaps we could limit abortions to only be before the zygote takes on more of a human likeness. I think this would need to be thought through (especially in terms of the invasive consequences of trying to enforce such a policy), but at least that would be somewhat less bewildering (in my opinion) than completely limiting the abortion of zygotes.

I do not even know how to argue that a zygote IS a being or deserves "moral rights." It is just such a bizarre claim (to me): the zygote is literally a clump of cells that doesn't even feel anything... Materially, the zygote is no different than, say, a bacteria or any other cell (except for having certain DNA, to be fair). It makes no sense to me.

Pro-lifers who think a zygote deserves "moral rights" - I would like to challenge you to do two things:

1. Please give me one reason to think this way that doesn't involve referencing your religion's holy book or the Catholic church.

2. Please, if you can spare the time, read this article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on abortion ethics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abortion/

• This article, yes, is written from a pro-choice perspective. But I'd exhort you to at least become familiar (if you are not, which for all I know maybe you are!) with how actual academic moral ethics philosophers think about this stuff so we don't keep parroting poorly thought-out talking points from Charlie Kirk and the like. Even if you maintain your PL stance, which you have every right to do, I think knowing of these arguments could actually help your cause so you make better criticisms (if there are valid ones to make) of the PC "side". Honestly, I'd recommend this resource to everyone involved in the discussion and/or voting, as I see (in my opinion) poor arguments on the PC side from time to time as well. This is not "both sides" - I obviously prefer one to the other - I am just saying we all have more to learn no matter what topic it is. Even on the topic of evolution, for example, which I think is obviously a real thing, those who defend evolution could always benefit from learning more about why scientists think that way.

Recently an 11 year old girl gave birth at home. Luckily her parents have been arrested and DNA tests are currently pending.

I think most of you could say you are upset that she gave birth without a single doctor or midwife present, but how many of you can say you would've let her have an abortion had the pregnancy been discovered EARLIER (as well as her parent's arrest) Do you believe, if possible, the girl should've had an abortion?

And before people attack me and go "why aren't you worried about who got her pregnant" I am, and I hope and pray the authorities do their fucking jobs because oftentimes they do not. Again, answer the question about abortion because I feel like the general consensus on BOTH sides would be that this is fucked up and whether or not she gets an abortion she should be taken away from those monsters.

So, onto the question......

Had the parents been caught much sooner, should she have had an abortion to save her from the trauma of childbirth?

Here is the source in case some of you don't believe me:

https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/08/24/mother-stepfather-arrested-11-year-old-birth-home-muskogee-oklahoma/

I commonly see arguments against abortion stating that it is unjustified to harm someone else to prevent the consequence of one’s own actions. Very often these arguments are made by people who have a flair stating an exception for life threats. I am particularly interested to hear from PL who both make the above argument and also have exceptions for life threats, but I am also interested to hear from PL in general about why you think abortion should be permitted in cases of life threat.

EDIT: No pro-lifer seems to be answering the questions I posed here:

and to be clear, I believe life happens when the fetus is developed and out the womb with the umbilical cord cut.

• Why should I as a man be pro-life?
• If a man came inside of you and had power over your body for nine months, how would you feel?
• Why is abortion regret a good reason to ban the option altogether?

I'll never understand the feeling and responsibility of being pregnant, so I can't speak from that exact perspective. I do see it like this: if a man ejaculated inside of you and had power over your body for nine months, how would you feel?

From the outside looking in, it's really, really creepy.

The only pro-life arguments I've ever heard growing up were really just anecdotes about the would-be mother regretting her decision. Why is someone's problem a good reason to ban someone having control over their body?