presenting my take on abortion. i'm of course positive on it, those who've read my other takes would know that's perfectly in character; there's several reasons why i support abortion, to name two important ones - because i support bodily autonomy and because it prevents dysfunctional families that originate from unwanted pregnancy - hurried, incompatible marriages, resentment towards the child in future, especially if the parents are young, or just people who don't have the predisposition for parenthood attempting raising a child and traumatising them as a result - too immature, not coping with their own issues, and whatever else.
more importantly though, and this is what i wanted to discuss here, i find most of the discourse surrounding the topic redundant. why? because it's focused around semantics. of course, language is an important thing; i wrote something about it in the past, though that essay needs editing. essentially, i believe the main purpose of words to be enforcing one's agenda in their environment, and humans are a social species, so other humans are often the environment; thus words are important, since they're chosen to provoke specific desired effects in another's brain.
did you ever notice how most of this topic is focused around discussion on whether a fetus is a "human" and if so, when does it start to be one? it's an open question; surely it's part of the biological species that humans are, and surely it's not the same as an adult human or even a human child in form the same way an egg is not exactly a chicken. its development is gradual, progressive, spectral in nature and any line will be drawn on sand, entirely arbitrary. have you ever heard of mola hydatiosa? it's, in simpification, a form of cancer that develops from a fertilized egg with damaged dna; so it develops from human dna and it replicates. is it human? open question, i suppose. does it matter? no. at least i don't think it matters. conservatives want feti to be a "human" because it amplifies the loss, and allows to portray abortion as a form of "murder", to which i'll progress. it is however irrelevant, and simply a distraction. the question of whether it's a "child" is pretty much a sub-category of this.
well, so is abortion "murder"? once again, depending on what definition of "life" we consider - whether it's one that's grounded in vital signs, though even they are arguable in case of a fetus and depending on the age of the pregnancy, or whether it's one based on replicating cells et cetera - it is debated whether a virus can be considered a living being, and the current notion is that it is not alive, but also not fully inanimate and is a "third secret thing". it also depends on the above mentioned issues with the definition of "human". it depends, and you know what? it doesn't matter. in most countries, murder is legal in cases where it's considered justified. what i mean is self defence or war - not naming euthanasia since it's a consensual killing, but it could technically be included. it's just a matter of whether the conservatives think a woman not wanting to be pregnant is "justified", and they don't think so. it's not a matter of whether it's murder, because it being murder or not would not resolve the question of legality, as killing another human is sometimes considered warranted in law in most places.
both of these rhetorical movements are supposed to provoke empathy responses in the audience and serve as a distraction. it's meant to make you feel guilty for defending or desiring it because you've been conditioned since birth to have a negative response to the concepts such as "murdering a child", and to get you tied into endless slapfighting on which semantic criteria are the best and which arbitrary cutoff line drawn in sand is the most acceptable. it utilises your socialisation as a moral person in society to instinctively oppose certain concepts and react to certain words. this language is meant to make you unable to defend it on the ground of your own instinctual moral hangups. it's not easy to say you support it even if it's murder, it's not easy to say you're fine with "killing children" in some cases, it's not easy to say bodily autonomy or the right to not experience a "second rape" should stand above big words such as murder and killing "humans" and "children". it's meant to tie you down, worse, to get you tied down by the societal limitations installed in your head. this ability makes the discourse uneven, not to mention it's meant to engage you into an argument that doesn't have a solution. all cutoffs will be as arbitrary, all definitions will be as imperfect, and you'll spend eternity resorting to publications and expert opinions and whatever else. you may have figured that's a waste of time. this lack of a clear resolution makes moralists think we're dealing with some deep, endlessly complex dilemma. they're going to nod over it and pat each other on the shoulders. one time i participated in a long lecture about this alleged depth and complexity, and the whole lecture i wanted to scream that i don't care if they're human and i don't care if it's murder, and the dilemma simply isn't there.
but why it isn't?
because it's not where the actual issue lies. it's unrelated. the actual issue is that no human being, child, adult or otherwise, is legally allowed to sustain off the body of another against their will slash without their consent.
you can't be forced to donate blood, even though that's relatively effortless; you can't be forced to donate plasma or bone marrow, you can't be forced to donate an organ even if it would save someone who will otherwise die. you can't be forced to give a kidney or a part of your liver even if you were the only genetically compatible donor for a fully fledged human person with a personality, talents, hobbies, and relationships. if they die, they die - there's no such thing as demanding of one that they allow intervention into your body and usage of their tissues to sustain and save another person. even if the alternative is death of a child. actual, non-debatable child. it likely wouldn't be acceptable for most people that someone else is connected to them with tubes all the time against their will even if disconnecting means the other person's death.
now in the case of a fetus, they're fully dependent on utilising another's organs - mainly the uterus, though not only that - and their liquid tissues, that is their blood, to survive, and they actively use these tissues all the time without the other's consent. therefore, if one values bodily autonomy and applies the same reasoning that's used for the above cases here, the owner of these organs is allowed to disconnect them anytime, even if they die. any other opinion means a predecence for considering things such as obligatory blood and organ donation to save more lives.
i have introduced this argument, and all the counter-arguments i've heard were either appeals to empathy and societal concepts of familial bond - "but she's their mother!" - or references to "responsibility", aka perception of pregnancy as punishment for sex for the woman, which attitude is often betrayed in case of so called "rape exception". i would prefer abortion only be legal for rape victims over a complete ban if someone put a gun to my head, but these people aren't being kind - they're betraying a more covert kind of misogyny. they believe - consciously or subconsciously - that forced motherhood is an appropriate punishment for having sex for pleasure, without reproduction in mind. which ultimately is not my circus and not my monkeys, given i am a homosexual, but i see through it and roll my eyes.
regardless, i have not heard a good, convincing counter-argument to this - it's probably the ultimate resolution of it as an actual "ethical problem". watch out for conservative manipulation, and don't let yourself be kept in the endless semantic game of ping pong.