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Yay, another topic by me! (Arn't you tired of me yet? xd )

What I'm here today to discuss is Pro-Life's position about the roles of women. This is a concern because their viewpoints about what roles they feel women should play, and how that would affect how the fetus, if born, will be raised.

Already, we here on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate feel that pro-life is a threat to women's rights. For those who don't know why yet, pro-life's utmost concern, plainly stated, is to secure the fetus's life. However, the only way the fetus can live is within a woman's body. We have yet to invent a device that would enable a fetus to incubate in without requiring a woman's body. Ultimately then, the woman will have to relinquish her right to her bodily integrity for the fetus's sake.

So, we have to ask, what are the women supposed to do? How are they supposed to live like? The reason for these questions is that:

1) the copulation act (yes, thats having SEX, making WHOPPEE for the more blunt of our crowd!!! wink _)
2) the incubation of the fetus for 9 months
3) and the provisions for raising the child thereafter

all these three aboveformentioned stages are events in which the woman has to deal with. Pro-life has defined how a woman should act when faced with these events. (now, I address a question to the audience. Is it ethical to dictate whose one's roles should be?)

It is my belief that pro-life supports the traditional roles of women. My beliefs lean heavily on the observation that one's religious belief's influence their ways of thinking and life.

~ Under the copulation act, Pro-life likes to allocate reasons for how/why a woman had sex. All in all, they claim that the woman already made her choice when she "decided" to copulate (no doubt, a rebuttal to pro-choice arguments). It's not uncommon that the belief that women are whores, being irresponsible, etc, (which is based on the Judeo-Christian heritage) is thrown in with Pro-life's beliefs about how/why the woman copulated in the first place. Concluding this point, it is far much easier to defend the rights of the fetus when the woman is dehumanized.

~ The next point to address is pro-life's feelings about the woman keeping the fetus within her for its full term. Of course, it's firmly established that the fetus should live. The woman is to have little, if no say in the matter. So it would not be much more hard of a stretch to force the woman to alter her lifestyle to accomodate for this fetus. That is, if pro-life TRULY cared about the fetus. A woman who smokes, drinks, and does other reckless things to her body should be punished, if pro-life had its way, as it will be the fetus who suffers. A woman should have to deal with pain, morning sickness, other physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, psychological, financial, and social woes associated with pregnancy. It would just seem so strange if pro-life cared about the fetus developing into a child, but did not care about how the mother properly cared for her body as it incubated inside of her. (This could fit in with my argument about pro-life's feelings about the quality vs. quantity of life for the potential child, link located here).

~ ...Soooo, what is pro-life's beliefs about how the woman is to raise the child? Two that I can think of involve adoption, and raising the child. Adoption implies a sacrifice on the woman's part. The woman is supposed to be in a passive, sacrificial role to incubate, give birth to, and give away a "part" of her. She can only hope that with all of the resources she has given in those 9 months to ensure that the child has a healthy start, that the child will be given to a loving and sensitive family. There is no guarentee for that, sadly. But in the end, the woman has gained absolutely nothing, but she has given. As far as raising the child after it is born goes, the woman will probably be encouraged to pursue a traditional feminine role to care for it (afterall, its for the health and development of the child, right? that's what they say...). She will probably be encouraged to quit her job for it too. This fosters dependancy on the government and/or on a male provider, which results back to a form of slavery on the woman's part. BUT, you see, the Judeo-Christian heritage supports/allows the subordinated role of women.

For those of you who are thinking, "Hey Grippy, what's so wrong with traditional gender roles?". I'd like to throw out the idea of adrogony. Adrogony is when a person has characteristics of both male and female traits in their personality. Adrogonous people are considered to be more secure and have a higher self-esteem. Traditional gender roles, on the other hand, stress conformity regardless of the individual's actual self.

And now I present to you, a tacky slogan! xd

"Pro Life and the Bible say the same thing: It's always the women going a-whoring"

(alright, I know I missed talking about something, but I'll go ahead and post this now. Good god I talk too much xp )

Thanks for responding heart

I still have this distant yet guilty feeling that I may have been "putting words" into people's mouthes, when i say "pro-life thinks this, and says that". I realize that it's not everyone who is like that, but I have to focus on the group concensus on their feelings and issues.

One more thing I wanted to add about pro-life and the roles of women: Though some people are not outright against feminism or women's rights, it seems to me that the ramifications of pro-life's feelings/decisions spill out what the roles of a pregnant woman should be. And those ramifications would hurt women.

Mikami and Veled can feel free to raise any of my issues I present here to the pro-life crowd. smile

As for my feelings on how pro-choice feels about the roles of women:

I'm pretty sure the majority does NOT care about the how, who, what, when, whys of a girl getting pregnant. The important thing is not wondering about the incidence itself, but wondering about the woman's state of being and the future. Whereas pro-life is past and present oriented, pro-choice seems to be present and future oriented. (Because pro-life has shown more of a past orientation to solving the abortion problem, I am not confident that the position can adequately solve the unwanted children (the future) problem).

I feel that pro-choice offers a more empowering role of women. It seems to me that pro-choice emphasises getting a woman a decent education about sex, safe sex, abstinance, and a myraid of other choices concerning sexuality, her body, and pregnancy. An education usually does a good job at dispelling fear and dependancy (something, i might add, that religion doesn't do a very good job at sweatdrop ). This will in turn give the woman a sense of control over herself, especially if the pregnancy was an unexpected turn of events.

I like the point you bring up. I have felt that prolife people believe a women should not enjoy sex if she does not intend to get pregnant and have a child. They often bring up the "irresponsible teenage whore who doesn't not deserve an abortion" and then apply this stereotype with most women who have abortions.

What a good rant! I enjoyed it, and will use some of the knowlage in there to bash my pro-life aunt. 3nodding Thanks!

Thanks ladies. I'm flattered that you think my commentary has good points. But if you do use my points in a debate, try and see if you can also list rebuttals here afterwards. I'm thinking my commentaries may have some areas that were weak or not in touch with reality.

I love this thread! I very very much agree that it's wrong for people to expect a mother to give her child up to adoption instead of abortion. If you want the kid, fine, keep it, that's wonderful, but if you don't, why should someone expect that someone else wants it??