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Kentucky James hit the nail on the head. All those more or less philosophical arguments about life is just a cover for the desire to control people.
Notice how religious conservatives are against both abortions and contraceptives.
They don't want women to be in control. How else can they morally chastise them?
(It's like with arguments against homosexuality that's just a cover for hatred. A story as old as religion.)

But since abortion is a legal matter we have to play along with their rhetorics, and exchange rational arguments.
 
It's heartbreaking what's going in Poland and Hungary too (and the current rulers of Slovenia wish to follow that road, but that won't happen unless the left completely collapses from in-fighting).
The key to non-ideological centrist rule (my favorite rule) again is economic recovery and less uncertainty about the immediate future. (And I plead with the far left not to contribute to far right recruitment with unhinged identity politics instead of helping the workers and the poor.)
 
Notice how religious conservatives are against both abortions and contraceptives.
Is this actually true? I've never met anyone who's against contraceptives but then I do live in the godless UK.

The disconnect that I see in it is that many of these same people in the US are--as others have already pointed out--against gov't intervention or support for vulnerable people. As eddie said, the money which goes into fighting abortion could be used to support unaborted pregnancies (soften the blow of missed or reduced work, extended maternity leave, guaranteed paternity leave, subsidies for child care for working parents), sex education, and increasing awareness of more forms of contraceptives. All of these things are shown to reduce abortion rates considerably without (de)regulating the procedure itself. Having a child is expensive and burdensome, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as American society makes it.
Yeah I can't disagree there, it seems to be one of those topics that's strongly tied to a group of other political beliefs that seem completely contradictory. Unfortunately I suspect most political activists are less motivated by altruism or empathy than they are by the feeling of righteous anger they get from their cause.
 
Is this actually true? I've never met anyone who's against contraceptives but then I do live in the godless UK.
That's because they cleverly hide it under opposition to abortion, or make it a financial/moral issue and slash funding for both contracepives and abortion - such as the fight to not see contraceptives as healthcare so employers don't have to cover it.
It's perfectly common for conservatives to see contraceptives as an opportunity for women to be promiscuous (again turning it into a moral/religious issue).

From 2018:
Yet two extreme anti-abortion measures passed in Alabama and West Virginia on Election day, both of which could criminalize certain forms of contraception and fertility treatment along with abortion care, if Roe v. Wade is ever struck down. And the day after the midterms, the Trump administration issued new rules allowing employers to deny contraceptive coverage, despite several pending lawsuits and two federal courts blocking them.

Apart from that many religious conservatives simply support abstinence over contraceptives. You don't have that many Christian extremists in the UK as the US has.

The mandate requires employers provide health insurance that includes contraception at no cost to employees. For many Christians, this directly conflicts with their “sincerely held beliefs” which hold all life is sacred.
 
Kentucky James hit the nail on the head. All those more or less philosophical arguments about life is just a cover for the desire to control people.
I don't get it. What religious, superconseravtive father's power fantasy is it to force his daughter to raise an illegitimate child she had with some one night stand junkie dj?

"Hahaha, yes, finally now I have her where I wanted. This was my plan all along. Feels good to be patriarchal!"' *rubs hands and laughs maniacally*

Like, what...I think they're against it simply because they hear it from a priest, rabbi etc or some other intellectual authority. There are/were societies with 1000x more patriarchy than modern Europe or USA and where abortion and even infanticide for any/all reasons was legal and common.
 
I think that Adorno is talking more about the people behind the propaganda and high level effort to push for this kind of thing than the regular people who go along with it.

Regarding contraception, it is very common with catholics, I saw that a lot in Italy. I have seen it less in the US but then I don't actually know many hyper religious people here (not because they are not here, but because I just don't have any contact with them, the pandemic started shortly after I moved to Texas). I will say that I did have contact with a fair number of mormons in the past and most of them seemed to be pretty reasonable for, you know, hyper religious people (as in they had no problem with contraception, were mildly supportive towards LGBT, and were against abortion but not for forcing pregnancies).
 
I don't get it. What religious, superconseravtive father's power fantasy is it to force his daughter to raise an illegitimate child she had with some one night stand junkie dj?

"Hahaha, yes, finally now I have her where I wanted. This was my plan all along. Feels good to be patriarchal!"' *rubs hands and laughs maniacally*

Like, what...I think they're against it simply because they hear it from a priest, rabbi etc or some other intellectual authority. There are/were societies with 1000x more patriarchy than modern Europe or USA and where abortion and even infanticide for any/all reasons was legal and common.
It's not patriarchy (which is close to ubiquitous) but mainly religion, when people argue against abortion and contraception.
Of course there are societies where abortions are legal/common (I live in one) but the clergy/churches rarely have great power there.
Poland is a good example that was brought up. The church has gained power in alliance with conservatives/nationalists and now abortions are being banned.

forcing pregnancies
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Ok, so if it's not the regular fathers, but instead the powers that be, who are doingit for the sake of social control, then what kind of control is it to force women to have unwanted children. Any brave new world architect would do the opposite - terminate all unplanned, unwanted, random children as they face increased chances of of all kinds of pathologies. How is a clergyman's power increased by making a woman carry the child?

It would make more sense to me to see it as an expression of misogyny, forcing the woman to carry as a punishment for being just a gross, womanly blergh. But I don't think that such petty misogyny is so widespread and so intense, that the abortion (afer a certain point in pregnancy) taboo would become such a major institution that it often is. Also abortion, especially in the olden days, was a pretty painful experience, so if misogyny were the motive, why not force women to have abortions?

I think a more prosaic explanation is that it's a fairly predictable and natural consequence of the doctrine of individual, immortal and infinitely valuable soul, perhaps combined with increase of wealth, which made abortion of infanticide as a tool of population control unnecessary.
 
I agree with Adorno here, anti-abortionists are against women's rights precisely to relegate women to second class people who are required to breed and shut up. It also follows a general pattern of conservative thinking on other issues related to women and their autonomy.
Imagine if men could be pregnant. There's no way abortion would not be legal for men. I bet theologians would have made a pretty convincing argument why it's okay for men to extinguish tiny immortal souls, but not for women.
 
With Christianity, misogyny is implied.
But you know that more than 40% of Americans are pro-life. That includes millions of fathers.
The control is not to force women to have children, but to prevent them from having an abortion.
Believe me, if they could force women to have children they would do that too (that's what men have been doing for millennia, and the very purpose of marriage in a religious sense).
The basic theological reasoning here is that women are to populate the Earth with children, as God intended, and she should not be allowed to determine it herself.
 
Not everything is exclusively about power dynamics. If all you have is a hammer...

Yes, the commandment to be fruitful and multiply abundantly in the Earth is essential here and also common to all Abrahamic religions. And it applies to both sexes. Obviously men can't be pregnant, so they can't be punished for having abortions, but they can be and are punished for assisting, organizing or facilitating it, often even more harshly than the woman having it.

There is a negative sentiment towards single, un-reproducing men in those religions too (unless sanctified by ascetic devotion to God). Yes, usually not as intense as against equally single, un-reproducing women, but still quite a lot.

Btw there are religious restrictions on abortion in Dharmic religions too. Perhaps there is more to stuff than just oppression :unsure:
 
If you mean Hinduism, that's oppression par excellence (castes).
Buddhism not so much, but overly ascetic (oppression of the corporeal).
Religions feed on rules - whether they are rational or not - therein lie their power.
 
I have a feeling that we have different dynamics in this whole discussion about abortion. Some things in particular sound very American to me, which for us, Europeans, might be a bit harder to relate to.
If I had to talk about how people in Eastern Europe feel about this matter, I would not say that religion or a desire to punish women are the main factors (sanctity of women is still a thing, but people can still be hypocrites on this matter). In my place, more than 90% identify themselves as religious, but if you asked how many of them have actually read the Bible or regularly go to the church, you'd be quite disappointed. People around here have no idea what Jesus said or believed to be true or false. At best, they might remember that there are 10 commitments, but they'd usually stop after naming two or three. Here, religion is either for swag or a cauldron to gather all the superstitions you've grown believing in.

I have noticed a particular pattern when talking to pro-life people. Their arguments are more emotional than ideologically driven. They either point out how awful the process is, or that they could not murder their own baby. The most interesting part is that most people I've talked about this aren't against contraception at all. They seem to care about the value of life when pregnancy happens. And yes, many, many people who share these opinions are women themselves. If I had to wager why this is the case, it's probably because they're trying to relate themselves to this process, or that the life of the fetus is too valuable to them (rarely heard of religious arguments). Surprisingly, you can get them to agree that abortion can be acceptable in some cases, such as rape, financial status of the pregnant mother or detected disabilities of the fetus.
My guess is that by being pro-life, these people may be trying to prevent some extreme cases that they view as 'immoral', such as irresponsibility, and thus proceed to advocate for the ban. This may partly explain the drive behind 'ban abortion, except when raped'.
I'm sure that pro-choice people, like me, also consider some select cases as immoral in some way or another, but trying to regulate all the possible cases is futile. People can have a gazzilion of reasons why they don't want to have a child, and the law simply cannot address them all, which is why the system entrusts the people to choose by themselves.

Edit: And then there are people who say that it's acceptable to have an abortion when unmarried, but not when married, in spite of financial difficulties and all that. It gets more interesting as you dive in.
 
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Well, if you talk to women, many will say how hard it was psychologically to go through with abortion. Some feel a profound sense of loss and take time to recover. These ("normal") women don't enjoy it, it's simply the much lesser of two evils. Both camps can agree that no one wants an abortion.
Fewer treat it as a practical remedy, like having their nails done (which I assume are the "immoral", sluttier ones) and not as the last resort it should be, but the problem here is only the attitude, not that they shouldn't have the right because they are irresponsible.
 
Fewer treat it as a practical remedy, like having their nails done (which I assume are the "immoral", sluttier ones) and not as the last resort it should be, but the problem here is only the attitude, not that they shouldn't have the right because they are irresponsible.
As much this attitude drives me mad - who am i to deny person's law to decide about her/his body.

Neglecting, beating, traumatizing children that happens all the time, everywhere in the world is unforgivable. I'd be intrested to see all of those "pro-life", righetous good catholics (and not only) finding remedy for that or at least trying...

As it was very well put by Kentucky and Adorno...this is not the case...those religious slogans are just a smokescreens
 
//unrelated to the discussion above
Whatever guilt you all have on your shoulders, nothing comes close to this:
 
Neglecting, beating, traumatizing children that happens all the time, everywhere in the world is unforgivable. I'd be intrested to see all of those "pro-life", righetous good catholics (and not only) finding remedy for that or at least trying...
On that subject, does Poland have the same history with Catholic schools and orphanages that western nations have or did the jump from communism to modern nation prevent that?
 
If you mean Hinduism, that's oppression par excellence (castes).
Buddhism not so much, but overly ascetic (oppression of the corporeal).
Religions feed on rules - whether they are rational or not - therein lie their power.
One of the core tenets of Buddhism is the emphatic rejection of both hedonism and asceticism and embrace of "the middle way". But whatever, my point was just that it's not "a Christian thing".

Yes, religion always creates power relations. Wherever there are normative statements, it is impossible to fully "keep it to yourself", but the aggressiveness varies considerably. If you define politics as the total sum of power relations, then religion will always at least partially overlap with politics.

But, that doesn't mean that all there is to religion is power relations, hence
Not everything is exclusively about power dynamics...Perhaps there is more to stuff than just oppression :unsure:
The modern mind has been poisoned by decades, perhaps centuries of endless hammering by the politicians, public intellectuals and the media, down to blockbuster movies recycling the trope of the rebelling underdog protagonist, that reduces all human behavior and motivation to power dynamics. Is x oppressive or oppressed? That's all that matters.

The oppressor is then evil. He holds oppressive convictions, because they are oppressive. You are against abortions? It's because you hate women and want to control them. You think they are (sometimes) ok? You are a sadistic baby murderer, who enjoys killing babies. The only permissible alternative is that you are brainwashed and you need to be (re)educated by the Truth and Facts. If you still hold oppressive convictions after the Truth and Facts have been revealed to you, then that only leaves the option that you hold them, because they are oppressive. You are evil.

But this is all nonsense, people can and do hold convictions that have restrictive consequences for others, for all kinds of reasons, many of them in good faith.
Neglecting, beating, traumatizing children that happens all the time, everywhere in the world is unforgivable. I'd be intrested to see all of those "pro-life", righetous good catholics (and not only) finding remedy for that or at least trying...
Neglecting, beating and traumatizing children is very much against (not only) the Catholic doctrine. And what, until the Catholic church solves all world's problems it can't oppose abortions? Oh, you are against racism? Interesting you say that, since you STILL haven't solved global warming. Uh, hypocrite much?
 
On that subject, does Poland have the same history with Catholic schools and orphanages that western nations have or did the jump from communism to modern nation prevent that?
If by "the same" you mean, children sexual and mental abuse, beating as the best way to discipline and so on (like in Canada), than yes Poland was and probably is no different. Even late communism didn't do much about it...they infiltrated RCC and many of the priests cooperated in exchange for "peacful existence".

Neglecting, beating and traumatizing children is very much against (not only) the Catholic doctrine. And what, until the Catholic church solves all world's problems it can't oppose abortions? Oh, you are against racism? Interesting you say that, since you STILL haven't solved global warming. Uh, hypocrite much?
Felt like i was in my primary school, just made a mistake in a math equation and this was all revealed by the "follow the key" teacher in front of my class ... except i don't really care this time cause I am very much aware of hypocrisy within me and saying that someone is not - is simply swaggering...

Let me use your strategy for a while and let see where it will leads us: Do i have to solve everybody's problems to have the law to say that someone has to stop giving advices on things he doesn't know anything about ?

I don't give a (you know what) about what CC will oppose or not. They won't solve a s**t so this is pretty bad example - i wouldn't count on it but easy here... i know what your point was. But of course they can oppose whatever they want.. i just won't tolerate to give them public mandate to antagonize, publicly stigmatize people saying their names in churches, advocating on those things. You seem to not know how tangible it can be especially in a small society where everybody knows the priest. Including policeman, major, doctor, hairdresser, teacher, name it !

Whatever i say is based on a sum of my experiences which resonant to this very day. I am not some armchair expert saying i have the law to decide what is good and what is not. I am not saying that life is saint and later hide evidence of its abuse within my organization or family. I also don't say abortion is easy for anybody to decide or to live with. Without it being legal in Poland it will become very much increased in Czechia (and it has alrady started).. Is it good ? This means you won't get rid of it completely. Let say no clinic in the world will do it. Will it be still earsed ? Maybe it would be better to start thinking on how to support raped woman so they decide to ultimately give birth... how to professionally help them to carry this burden. And although it is so simple and easy to make judgement for all those male virgins (i know they are mostly not) and decide for everybody what is best for them... i do find it not so simple and obvious at all.

I was raised in a very catholic country, very catholic family / society and simply cannot advocate on protestant, islamic or hindi countries - so doctrines of other major cultures/religion are rather distant to me. But even then my point is valid to those cultures and religions. Contrary to your examples pointed in my face to clearly disincourage (i see no other point, as you sounded very upset - i have not proven to save the world and dare to say such things)... And you missed a point by far because i did say i want to see them at least "trying"...
 
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