From Secular Pro-Life, which many people think should not exist, since they think you need to be religious to believe life that starts at conception has moral value.
Responding to 16 pro-choice claims about Dobbs, the pro-life movement, and abortion bans
"1. Abortion bans mean women won’t be able to get treatment for ectopic pregnancy.
There are currently no abortion laws that outlaw treatment of ectopic pregnancy. Quite the opposite, many state laws explicitly exempt treatment of ectopic pregnancy from their definitions of abortion...
2. Abortion bans mean women won’t be able to get treatment for miscarriages.
Most abortion legislation explicitly exempts miscarriage management from the legal definition of abortion...
3. Abortion bans mean women will be prosecuted for miscarriage.
Some argue that while there may not be an intent to criminalize miscarriage, abortion bans will still have that effect, since miscarriage is physiologically indistinguishable from medication abortion. However an investigation would require some reason to believe the pregnancy loss was an abortion and not a miscarriage other than simply the fact of a pregnancy loss. Beyond that, abortion bans focus criminal penalties on abortion providers, not the women receiving abortions. So even if a woman’s miscarriage were mistaken for an illegal abortion, she still wouldn’t be prosecuted.
That said, rarely if ever have women been investigated only for miscarrying. If an investigation is involved at all, it’s typically either because authorities are looking into the miscarriage as it relates to some other criminal activity (such as illicit drug use or a child left to die or killed after being born alive) or because the investigating body is wrong about their state’s own laws. In the latter case, once attorneys get involved, they instruct law enforcement to drop the whole thing...
4. Abortion bans mean women won’t be able to get abortions when their lives are in danger.
Similar to #1 and #2 here, it is nearly universal that abortion laws include exceptions when her life is threatened. The exceptions (Oregon, Vermont, Washington DC) have some of the most permissive abortion laws in the country.
5. The Dobbs decision is a threat to contraception, gay marriage, and other rights found in the right to privacy.
The people worried about these issues are primarily focused on a quote from Thomas in his concurrence. Note that no other justices signed on to his concurrence, concurrences aren’t binding, and he was objecting to the methods by which past Courts came to their rulings (substantive due process), not the specific results themselves (such as expanding contraception use)...
6. The Dobbs decision is judicial activism.
Dobbs ended the judicial activism of Roe... Roe was a prime example of legislating from the bench, as even legal scholars who broadly support abortion access have attested to...
Dobbs did not impose any particular legal regime regarding abortion on the states. States like Colorado and New Mexico, which allow elective abortion at any stage of pregnancy, are still able to keep their uniquely permissive abortion laws. Dobbs made no argument about the nature of fetal life, bodily rights, or other topics prominent in the abortion debate. Instead, Dobbs simply said Roe was a terrible decision from a Constitutional law perspective. Dobbs is the opposite of judicial activism.
7. The Dobbs decision is an example of theocracy and Christian fascism.
As explained in #6 above, Dobbs is not imposing any particular worldview on anyone, other than the view that Supreme Court decisions should be based on reasonable interpretations of the Constitution. Dobbs doesn’t endorse any particular view about the nature of fetal life, the purpose of motherhood, or any other value-subjective issues related to abortion. It is Roe that imposed a specific moral view–namely, that fetal life is of so little importance that states are not allowed to meaningfully restrict abortion in the first 6 months of pregnancy. Roe inserted the Supreme Court into the moral and philosophical abortion debate. Dobbs took the Court back out of it.
Some people lamenting the rise of theocracy aren’t referring to the specifics of the Dobbs decision itself, but to the idea that the American pro-life movement is a religious movement made up of people who want to impose a Christian worldview on everyone else. As an anti-abortion atheist, I very much disagree. The fact is that abortion kills humans, i.e. human organisms in the earliest stages of our life cycle. This is not a religious view; it is a fact of biology. A person does not need to be religious to oppose killing humans, including prenatal humans. We view abortion as a human rights violation, and religious freedom doesn’t justify human rights violations.
8. The Dobbs decision puts the U.S. out of step with other first world countries.
Roe put the U.S. out of step with other first world countries. We are one of only seven countries to allow elective abortion after 20 weeks (approximately 5 months) of pregnancy. Roe made it impossible for states to impose restrictions near the end of the first trimester, which would be similar to those in much of the western world. Dobbs undoes the extremism of Roe without substituting any particular legal regime in its place. Dobbs doesn’t ban abortion across the country; it only returns the issues to each state to let them decide.
Some states will (and already have) passed total bans on abortion from conception onward. This makes them more restrictive than most of the West (with notable exceptions such as Poland and Malta). At the same time, some states have and will continue to allow abortion at any point in pregnancy, making them less restrictive than most of the West and the world. So, bizarrely, the U.S. will be out of step with other first world countries in that we will be both more permissive and more restrictive.
9. A strong majority of Americans supported Roe v. Wade.
Poll results vary and contradict depending on the specific questions, but the emerging picture is that many Americans did not understand what Roe allowed. It’s true that most Americans said they didn’t want to see Roe overturned, but it’s also true most supported abortion restrictions that Roe made impossible. For example, 65% of Americans said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases once the woman enters her 2nd trimester (4-6 months), but Roe didn’t allow states to significantly restrict abortion until approximately the 6 month mark...
10. A strong majority of Americans are pro-choice.
Polls asking people whether they are “pro-life” or “pro-choice” are less than helpful, because Americans have varying understanding of these terms. Some people think “pro-choice” means you support legal abortion at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. Some think “pro-life” means you oppose abortion in all situations from conception on. So if a person thinks abortion should be legal in cases of rape or to save the mother’s life, but not otherwise, where does she fit in?
Per Gallup, only about half of people who call themselves “pro-choice” say abortion should be legal under all circumstances, and only a third of people who call themselves “pro-life” say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Instead, 41% of pro-choice people and 59% of pro-life people think abortion should be legal “under certain” circumstances...
11. Abortion bans are about men making laws to control women’s bodies.
If this were true you would expect to see a pretty strong correlation between gender and views on abortion, but there is not...
Republican women are more likely than Republican men to identify as “pro-life,” oppose insurance coverage of abortion procedures, and oppose laws allowing abortion at any point in pregnancy in cases of rape. “It’s a reminder that Republican women, in many ways, are the backbone of the movement opposing abortion rights.”...
Even internationally, most countries don’t see statistically significant gender divides on abortion...
12. Abortion bans will result in more unwanted children (children in foster care/children being abused).
Several points here:
- The myth of a large increase in unwanted children directly contradicts the myth that abortion restrictions don’t decrease abortions.
- Abortion restrictions correlate with lower pregnancy rates. (See research here.)
- The vast majority of women denied abortion raise and love their children. (Related research here.)
- Children placed for adoption aren’t unwanted.
- Children in foster care aren’t unwanted...
Additionally, people who grew up in foster care or with abuse or other hardships don’t necessarily agree it would have been preferable for them to have been aborted...
13. Abortion bans will upend women’s lives.
The Turnaway Study compares women who were able to obtain abortions to women who showed up at clinics but were denied abortions (were turned away). News outlets regularly cover the study’s findings about how women turned away have worse financial outcomes than women who received abortions. What journalists almost never mention, however, is that the same study found that 96% of women who were denied abortion stated five years later that they no longer wish they’d received one...
14. Abortion bans don’t decrease abortions.
Decades of research finds that abortion restrictions significantly decrease abortion – and not just legal abortion, but total abortions (accounting for legal and illegal abortions). We’ve compiled links to many studies here.
Some people will cite international comparisons of abortion laws and rates that seem to conclude the legal status of abortion doesn’t affect its frequency. But these comparisons typically don’t account for highly varying unintended pregnancy rates. When you control for pregnancy rate, it becomes clear that the percentage of pregnancies aborted is higher in countries with permissive abortion laws.
15. Contraception decreases abortions more than laws do.
People making this claim usually assume that abortion laws have little or no effect on abortion rates, but that is inaccurate (see #14). Some will cite one or two studies suggesting contraception dramatically lowers pregnancy rates, but said studies don’t address whether contraception has a greater effect on abortion rates than the law does. I’ve seen only a few studies comparing the effects of contraception to the effects of abortion access (see “Which decreases abortion rates more: contraception access or abortion restrictions?“) These studies found that changes in abortion laws had a larger effect on birth rates than did changes in access to the pill. Still, the studies were looking at data from years and even decades past, and it’s not clear how well the results would replicate today.
Another complicating factor is that abortion laws are correlated with higher contraception use...
Secular Pro-Life is pro-contraception, but there is a lot of evidence to show abortion laws decrease abortion rates, and it is not at all clear that contraception has a greater effect than the law does.
16. You’re not pro-life, just pro-birth.
This accusation is typically a shorthand way of saying people against abortion don’t care what happens to women or children after the child is born. But there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
There are countless pro-life organizations offering help. Groups have focused variously on diaper drives, initiatives to offer resources to pregnant college students, and legislation advocating for child support and enhanced protection for pregnant workers. There are thousands of pregnancy resource centers nationwide that provide maternity and baby clothes, diapers, wipes, baby wash, strollers, bouncy seats, infant toys, parenting classes, and referrals for housing, employment resources, and educational, financial, and social assistance. If you’re interested in working with pro-life groups who offer and advocate for material support, we especially like New Wave Feminists, Abide Women’s Health, and Let Them Live.
Apart from formal organizations, pro-life individuals offer help too. Here’s a long list of examples ranging everywhere from funding anti-poverty work to fostering and adopting children."
Interestingly, this shows that more pro-choicers are extremists than pro-lifers, since abortion being legal under all circumstances would cover elective abortions at week 40.
Also, so much for claiming anti-abortion movement is about white men controlling women's bodies - presumably Republican women have been hypnotised by their men and have no agency.
Interestingly, we are told that the fact that most people who attempt suicide and fail regret it shows that suicide is bad and we should try to stop it (then again, with the mainstreaming of euthanasia, it's only a matter of time before the slippery slopes slips yet again and the discourse changes).
Too bad the "pro-birth" point doesn't go into the difference between positive and negative rights.
