This was written on July 24th 2022 when Roe v Wade got overturned by a extremely reactionary supreme court I wanted to put my thoughts to paper

Roe v Wade got overturned today and so of course the abortion debate is on my mind, at this point there is no question of the need for the availability of abortion for women.

I believe it can be explained simply. We all, anti-choice or pro-choice, hope for a world were abortion is unnecessary were people only have expected/wanted pregnancies were modern medicine has become so available and advanced that pregnancies result in so little complications that abortion for the health of the mother has become a extreme rarity, no one would oppose this except for the misogynists who want to force women into reproductive slavery

However this is only a wishful thought experiment, many people have unwanted pregnancies and complications during pregnancy are still common. We are then put into a dilemma if abortion is to be banned women are to be massively oppressed: dying from complications during pregnancy, from the police who will regiment women, the trauma women will face because of unwanted pregnancies, poor and marginalized women will be unable to raise their children properly causing suffering of the child and the mother, and more generally many institutions and people are going to become more directly misogynist as a result of the strict regimenting of women this will effect women regardless. And on the other hand the life of the fetus.

Let me use an analogy. Say you have a forest of fully grown tree and a bucket of seeds of the same tree if forced to choose between destroying one which do you choose? Obviously the seeds, it is of far less value then of grown trese, in aesthetic value and utility. I do not mean to reduce the large, confusing, and hard to define group of qualities that define human personhood to aesthetic value and utility, that applies mostly to trees. The point is that organic processes in their early stages of development usually have less value then the same thing in a later stage. Most things in our world, save various laws of nature,are in constant change and development, we do not say a pebble is a boulder because the pebble develops from the erosion of a boulder. The ability for something to develop to another thing do not make those things one in the same.

Humans are ultimately social beings we depend on each other for everything one human can not exist without the labor of another and through our interaction with each we develop empathy, as an end in itself. What makes us human is our history with each other and the social connections we have developed. We care for each other because of common understanding of our social existence and our empathy. We recognize unborn fetuses can develop into fully developed humans, with a rich history and life, full of developed social connections and want to protect them for this reason. However we should also acknowledge that we can’t have both the rights of women and the protection of the life of the fetus, we have a burning house and the choice is clear, the value of a fetuses generally is far less then of women generally. Fetus’s have none of the history and developed social connections of a fully grown women, they have no social existence, they have no understanding of empathy.

Some may ask of the elderly and the disabled etc. I did not define person-hood on the ability to do work, but instead on the social connections and history people hold, and also that people care for other humans because of their empathy. The problem is that we have a burning house, there is no justification for the murder of the elderly and disabled their protection isn’t reliant on the slavery of half of the population.

Also a born life isn't a saved life, the same people that want the reproductive slavery of women are the same people calling for the upheaval of social programs that are essential for the livelihoods children, especially poor and marginalized children and their parents.

Didn't use gendered language here to exclude trans people, apologies I typed this up quickly and it was just for simplicity. Trans people are going to be the most affected by this facing medical discrimination because they have a uterus and because they are trans.

Its Disgusting, how people lack so much understanding, can be so misogynistic, or dishonest, to not see or care of the result of restricting abortion. That is the reproductive slavery of women. Infant mortality will rise, many will die, millions will suffer, The people who can't get abortions who can't afford to travel across state or country are poor and marginalized people your not "saving" a fetus your forcing them into existence, into families that can't properly raise them, where they will most certainly suffer.

There is no way to restrict abortion, to "protect" the fetus, without oppressing half of the population. It doesn't matter if you can conjure up a moral argument, argue for the personhood of the fetus, challenge the ideas of bodily autonomy, or whatever else. The practical reality and why bodily autonomy is so important, is that without it you have reproductive slavery.