What about International Men’s Day though?

I did a little unofficial survey today.

I wished everyone that I’m in regular contact with a Happy International Women’s Day! Of the men that I sent it to, 50% of them replied: “but when is International Men’s Day?”

To which I of course replied: It’s on the 19^th of November.

So, leaving aside that I’m apparently more in tune with MRA than these people who apparently are so worried about one day a year not being about men… let’s break down why this is a shitty thing to say to someone who’s wishing you a happy IWD.

For one thing, having a day to promote women doesn’t stop you from celebrating men. If you’d like to celebrate a man, or men in general, crack on. My celebrating International Women’s Day doesn’t stop you.

Of the men who asked “what about IMD though?”, 100% of them were “joking”. This is an issue because, so what if it’s a joke? It’s still a shit thing that you said. You can hold all the best beliefs deep down in your heart of hearts but, as Diane says in Bojack Horseman: “I don’t think I believe in deep down. I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do”. And, by that logic, what you believe doesn’t matter. It’s what you do that counts. And if what you do is, when someone mentions something that exists to promote equality like IWD, say “but what about me though? :’-( ”, then that says something about you. And what it says is not good.

Another counter to the “joke” defence is that jokes do not exist in a vacuum. Everything you do has an effect on the people around you. Studies have shown that, when you create ambiguous comedy about a circumstance, people who already agree with you will understand that you’re satirising, but the people you’re supposedly sending up… they think that you’re on their side, helping them speak truth to power. An example of this is Loadsamoney, a character played by Harry Enfield. Loadsa Money was supposed to be a commentary on the money-obsessed 80s culture in Thatcher’s Britain. And people who were already bothered by this, got that. But the people who it was supposed to be making fun of actually thought that Harry Enfield, and everyone else laughing along, agreed with them and their dubious morals, and this belief made them more confident. So, when you make a joke about International Men’s Day, or women staying in the kitchen, think about who’s laughing along with you. Are they the people that you want to side with?

Even if we allow this question to be termed a “joke”, then is it comedy worth performing? I believe that comedy works best when it punches up and makes fun of the people doing the oppressing, rather than the oppressed. Contrapoints talks about this much better than I possibly can in her video The Darkness. She points out that comedy can’t be purely social justice, but equally it shouldn’t be the verbal equivalent of shitposting – getting laughs at any cost, with no regard for what you’re saying or how it can make the world a shitter place. Jokes like this turn into, as Natalie Wynn says, “Just a privileged person with a platform punching down at a politically besieged group he understands nothing about… like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire.”

And that’s the problem with making jokes like this. The people making these jokes are almost always the people with the least to lose. It’s easy to joke about taking away women’s rights when you’re a man and it won’t affect you, or to think it’s hilarious joking about deporting immigrants when you’re white and have never faced racism. It’s only funny to you because, should the worst happen and the joke come true, you won’t be the one up shit creek without a paddle. It’s much less funny when the barrier between you and having your rights taken away seems so thin that you feel like you could poke your finger right through it to the dystopian future that waits on the other side.

So Happy International Women’s Day everyone. I hope it was a good one for you. And, if it bothered you, IMD is only 256 days away.

Who’s afraid of trans rights?

It’s half past three in the morning and I can’t sleep. So, let’s talk about trans rights.

Once, in my innocence, I thought that it was generally accepted that everyone was entitled to certain rights: the right to equal pay, equal opportunity, to not worry about being murdered for merely existing.

Hilarious, right? I know better now.

To clarify, I am not trans. This is not my struggle and I am not trying to claim it. But I watched an amazing Contrapoints video on a trans issue and now I have some Thoughts.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. I’d like you to think about vegans (or, if you’re a vegan, think about carnists). Summon the feeling of discomfort that you get when someone tells you that they’re vegan. How you feel just a little bit attacked. How you suspect, deep down, that they are judging you and everything you do.

Now, imagine that 90% of the people around you all the time are vegan, and many of them are vocal about how disgusting you are for eating meat and dairy. They tell you that you should be ashamed and just stop. This barrage is constant and inescapable, to the point where you fear for your safety. Doesn’t that seem unfair? Well, quite. And that’s just for a dietary choice. Imagine if it was literally because of who you were as a person.

The main objection to trans rights that I see is: it’s just a ploy for men to invade womens’ spaces and attack them.

Well, the first thing I’d say to that is: womens’ spaces are being invaded anyway. All you need to do is look at the reaction to any female spaces; the womens’ tent at Glastonbury or the red tent in Greenbelt, for example, and you’ll find any number of men giving their opinion about it, imposing their views on whether it’s fair on the discussion whether they are wanted or not.

Even the comments section of Contrapoints’s video is full of comments beginning “as a straight man…”. Honey, no one asked.

My point being, if a man is so determined to abuse women that he is willing to pose as a trans woman to gain access to female spaces such as female toilets or female dressing rooms, then that man would find a way to do that any way he can. If trans rights weren’t a thing, these men would find another way to access these areas. It’s not the fault of the trans community that someone is using their legitimate struggle for equality as a means to abuse women.

Besides, men abusing women in women-only spaces is nothing new. Women have been raped in female spaces by men since female-specific places existed. Men didn’t have to pretend to be women to gain access to these spaces before, so why would trans women having access to womens facilities make a difference?

The danger that trans women face when using a mens bathroom is much greater than the threat that trans women pose to other women in a female toilet. Trans women already experience violence and abuse on a scale that’s much higher than most people will ever have to face. Add into that a confined space and a high concentration of the demographic that most often perpetrates that abuse (i.e. men), and you have a recipe for trouble. And all this for a person trying to go about their life and perform functions that every human has to do.

Another argument that I’ve recently seen is that accepting trans people is a “slippery slope”. They argue that, if we accept people who say that they are not the gender that they are assigned at birth, then we will also have to accept people who identify as younger than they are (as popularised by a well-known European troll), or accept people who are legally adults but who wish to identify as a baby. This kind of bad faith attempt to cancel out the struggle of an entire community based on claims that have nothing to do with them is not helpful, and can be used to discount anything. I could come up with a similar claim to ask why accepting people who choose to have their ears pierced is okay, for example, as you could count it as body mutiliation and who would choose to do that to themselves? – but I won’t because that is clearly ridiculous. And besides, they are someone else’s ears and they can pierce their ears if they want.

Concentrating on trans women also ignores half of trans people: trans men. If trans rights are a conspiracy to bring male violence on women, why do trans men exist? As an extra layer of cover so that we don’t notice the trans conspiracy? Or, could it be because they are people with their own identities who do things not for other people or attention, but for themselves? So that they can live their life in the way that best represents them? We may never know.

Also, I’m pretty sure that more women would feel more intimidated by a male-presenting trans man walking into womens’ bathroom than a female-presenting trans woman using it.

Even if you don’t agree with what I’m saying, I hope that you will agree that we are all human. There is more in us that is the same than is different, even in trans people. We’re all just trying to survive. The least we can do is be civil to each other. Life is bad enough without the added stress of everyone trying to tear each other down all the time.

Trans people getting more rights doesn’t affect anyone else’s rights. Just because someone can use a certain bathroom doesn’t mean that you cannot. Just because someone has a right to a career, healthcare, personal safety, doesn’t mean that you don’t. The only “right” that might be affected is someone’s rights to use transphobic slurs. But free speech is not infinite and all-encompassing. Hate speech is illegal for a reason: it spreads and continues dangerous stereotypes and fear that can genuinely lead to violence and death. Also, it’s a shitty thing to do. So maybe, don’t use slurs? How much will that truly affect your day-to-day life?

I’m not denying that some people will use greater trans awareness to try and hurt people. But some people will use any excuse to carry out their disgraceful, hateful impulses. But that is not the fault of the people they imitate. That is the fault of the awful people who carry out the crimes. You don’t blame the flock when a wolf in sheep’s clothing eats a lamb.

Three-letter F-word

Hello friends. I am angry.

I was going about my evening as normal, and then I suddenly became SO angry.

Let me tell you for why.

I remember when I was two. I was two and I was two stone. I really wanted to be heavier, because that would mean I would be bigger and more grown-up.

That didn’t last long.

By the time I was eight, that had changed. When we went back to school after the Christmas holidays, my teacher told us to write down a resolution that we would seal in an envelope. At the end of the academic year we would open that envelope to see if we had achieved our resolution.

My resolution was to lose weight. At eight years old.

How had I got to that point?

I’m glad you asked. Most of it was society at large. Little comments about my weight and others’. Things that added up over days and weeks and months and years until it infiltrated my mind enough to be the one thing about myself that I wanted to change the most.

Not to be kinder, or cleverer, or work harder, or learn a skill. To be thinner.

Because that’s what’s important, right?

Looking back at photos of myself from that time and after, I wasn’t fat. Not even nearly fat. I wasn’t skinny, either. I was a normal, healthy weight for my age and height.

But I didn’t know that. I couldn’t see that I was fine. All I could think was that I should be smaller.

And those thoughts limited me so much. There are so many things I wanted to do but didn’t because I thought I was too fat. That I would look ridiculous. That people would laugh at me. And so I didn’t do physical activities which meant that, if I didn’t have a weight problem before, I was more likely to develop one now.

So, I decided I’d diet to lose weight. Now, forgetting that the best way to moderate your weight is a mix of healthy eating and exercise, and dieting can just lead to yo-yoing and a myriad of other problems… anyway. The hours of my time I have spent thinking about dieting and planning dieting and trying to force myself to eat certain things or not to eat certain things…

This is time, from my limited lifespan on Earth, that is completely wasted. Time that could have been spent improving myself, or enjoying myself, that I will never get back. But it’s forever lost on these ideas of thinness.

Why?

The irony is, what I wanted isn’t even achievable. The perfect picture of lithe, bronzed, toned “perfection” doesn’t and can’t exist. At least, not outside of photoshop and someone’s imagination. Chasing that idea of happiness will never lead to contentment because you can’t have something that doesn’t exist, and that includes the perfect body.

Even if you have a person in mind whom you believe has the “perfect body”, I guarantee that if you actually spoke to them, they would give you a list of all their “flaws”.

Any person, especially women, can readily reel off a list of their biggest “imperfections”. Very few of them will tell you what they love about themselves.

This is ridiculous and unnecessary.

Even if you feel like society’s ideas of “attractive” and “perfect” haven’t affected you in any way, they clearly affect most people. This can be seen by the number of magazine articles about weight, from the individual anecdotes, the conversations at home and in the pub and in work and in clubs and everywhere about diets and weight and “oh I couldn’t possibly!”

I for one have had enough of this.

So, the weight thing is a cultural and social construct. Therefore, as a society we can deconstruct it. it’s too late for me and a lot of people – I will probably always have that voice in my head telling me that I am too big (too big for what, exactly? Whose space am I taking up?)but we can save others.

I am not encouraging people to put their health at risk by being overweight or not exercising. But I am advocating the end of size-based comments, of weight-based commentary, of photoshop, of impossible measurements being held up as the ideal.

It’s not healthy and it’s not fair to young people. Imagine your daughter, son, sister, niece, so on, being brought up in a world where they are taught that body fat is the biggest indicator of attractiveness and worth. That their brains, sense of humour, kindness mean less than the body proportions that they receive in the genetic lottery.

Think of that, and demand more for them. Demand more for yourself. You are fine. You are a valid, valuable human being in your own right. Don’t let anyone, even yourself, make you feel otherwise.

Don’t Feed the Yiannopoulos.

My colleague is a Milo Yiannopoulos fan. I found out via Facebook.

The next day I asked him if it was ironic, but apparently not. That night he linked me to a talk by Mr Yiannopoulos and, in an attempt to escape my very left-leaning echo chamber, I watched it.

Well. Forty-seven minutes of it.

I was sure that listening to someone like Mr Yiannopoulos would make me extremely angry. But it didn’t. He didn’t say anything at which I could get angry.

He didn’t argue against Left wing policies. What he did do (a lot) was insult left wing stuff, including left wing peoples’ appearances, leftist peoples’ weights and even Frosties cereal. But not the policies. Perhaps he couldn’t think of anything to say against them?

He didn’t defend any rightwing arguments either. Perhaps he couldn’t think of any good points about them?

It’s interesting that Milo chooses to verbally attack the physical appearance of people with whom he disagrees, rather than their politics. A person could have purple hair, blue skin and green fingernails but that wouldn’t affect their politics. Yet Mr Yiannopoulos seems to think that the way to counter someone’s views is to call them fat.

He also calls the POTUS “Daddy”, which is creepy on so many levels and makes you feel vaguely uncomfortable which is why, I suspect, he does it.

One of the few points he made was that safe spaces don’t work because “the way to overcome the issue is controlled exposure to it.”  The point that he misses here is that trigger warnings are a way to control the exposure. Without them, people can unwittingly expose themselves or be exposed to something which can cause panic attacks, flashbacks or other psychological problems. With a warning, the person can prepare themselves or excuse themselves, allowing them to avoid the issues when they aren’t up to dealing with it. This lets them control their exposure so that they can work through it healthily, rather than being forced into a relapse.

I think that some people, on the right and left, misunderstand what  “triggers”are.  A trigger is not just something that makes you angry, or scared. A trigger is something that causes such a strong psychological reaction that the person is completely incapacitated, suffering flashbacks and reliving their trauma or having a full-blown panic attack. Trigger warnings aren’t to stop inconvenience; trigger warnings are there to allow people to function on a day to day basis.

The more I watched Mr Yiannopoulos talk, the more I realised: I know him.

Well, not literally him. But his kind.

He was the kid who, for whatever reason, always needed more attention. And when they didn’t get it, they’d say and do ever more stupid, ever more theatrical things to get their fix. They don’t care if it’s attention for doing something bad; being noticed is the important thing. It doesn’t matter what for.

And that’s what Milo is doing. You can tell because he absolutely came alive when addressing people who are protesting. He insisted on going out to talk to the large crowd of people protesting his presence on campus, despite the warnings of his security team. He doesn’t do what he does to further the cause of the right, or to smash the left. He does what he does for money and attention.

I have met several people with that character trait, and I like to think I cracked how to deal with them. It’s very simple:

Ignore. Them.

This will make them worse in the short term. They will be angry at the lack of attention that they are getting, and shout and scream louder in the hopes of luring you and the attention they crave back to them.

However, if you stay strong and ignore them, they will eventually twig that you won’t pay them any more attention, and will leave you alone to sit in a corner and grumble at your treatment of them.

He has called himself a troll, and that’s an apt description. And what is the first rule about trolls? Stop feeding them. Protests and histrionics are meat and drink to the man. He has pushed back the publication date of his book so that he can include a section about people protesting his talks. So, for God’s sake, stop feeding him and he will starve.

I’m not saying let him get away with things, but don’t engage. Write a blog, do a vlog, talk to people about why his beliefs and methods are wrong. But don’t let him trick you into protesting him because that’s what he wants and besides, it gives him free advertising.

I can see why some people agree with what Mr Yiannopoulos say, especially people who are one or all of the following: straight, white or male. You have spent your life mostly just trying to get by, being as good a person as you can. And now all these horrible social justice warriors are shouting at you from all sides, telling you that you’re the reason for every problem, that you caused every bad thing in the world. It’s not fair!

And then someone brave, like Milo Yiannopoulos or Donald Trump, stands up and sticks up for you. Points out that these triggered special snowflakes are being ridiculous and they should shut up and stop whining. Phew. See? He understands.

Except he doesn’t. The trouble with living in a society which is built for people like you is it’s hard to see how this can make things difficult for others.

Try to remember a moment of injustice in your life. Perhaps your sibling blamed you for something. Maybe your teacher punished you unfairly. And other people in power, your parents or head teacher or whomever, took their side over yours. Remember how that felt?

Now. Hold that feeling. That is how marginalised people of all kinds feel most of the time.

Imagine how much better it would have felt if someone in power, that parent or that teacher, had taken the time to sit and listen to your side of the story instead of taking the side of the other person in power. Better?

That’s why people complain about injustice. Because they want someone, someone in more of a powerful position, to listen. They aren’t attacking you as a person; they just want to be heard.

The best thing that humanity can do for itself is to listen to each others’ experiences, learn from them, and make themselves better. Try it; listen to the story of someone different to you. You’ll be surprised at what you learn.

Lastly, Mr Yiannopoulos spent a lot of time laughing during his speech. But he didn’t say anything funny. I can forgive people a lot of things, but not making me laugh isn’t one of them.

I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Terry Pratchett

That title’s a bit dramatic. I would be alive. but I definitely wouldn’t be the same person I am today.

I was going to start this by saying that I started reading Pterry’s books at a pivotal time in my life. But I think that Pterry would point out that all points in every life are pivotal, if only at least to the individual to whom that life belonged.

So. This particular pivotal moment in my particular life was when I was eleven. I grew up on a diet of Disney and the stereotyping usual to British society (my family buys the Daily Fail. I’m so sorry.)

I remember, when I was young, my favourite colour was red. But, from everywhere, I was told that pink was for girls. The females that were held up to me as role models were good girls, they were pretty, and delicate, and graceful, and they liked pink. Oh, how I wanted to be like those role models.

So I started to claim that my favourite colour was pink. Because that’s what girls were supposed to like, right? Right. This went on for long enough that my dad agreed to repaint my room pink, even though pink isn’t a colour I truly like.

Another time, I was arguing with my sister. I don’t remember what about. But I remember telling her: “One day when I grow up I’ll marry a prince, and then you’ll be sorry!”

I know. Bear with me.

Somehow, growing up, I couldn’t think of anything better than marrying a prince. That was the ultimate goal for young me. Not that there’s anything wrong with having marriage as a life goal, of course. But it shouldn’t be one’s only life goal. Besides, there aren’t enough princes to go around.

It came as a disappointment to me (I promise I’ll start talking about Pterry soon) to realise, as I grew, that I wasn’t a Disney Princess. I wasn’t graceful, or delicate, or pretty. I couldn’t sing or convince woodland animals to do household chores. I worried about this a fair amount. If I wasn’t how a girl should be, what could I do when I was older? Would anyone accept me? Was there something wrong with me?

It was then that CBBC aired their adaptation of Johnny and the Bomb. I saw it advertised and was desperate to watch it, but, being the sort of child that I was (i.e. an insufferable little knowitall), I had to read the book first.

That December, my Christmas list read: Anything by Terry Pratchett.

I was given The Wee Free Men and that is how I met Tiffany Aching. She was the girl who, when told “It had eyes the size of dinner plates,” went and measured a dinner plate to find out how big exactly that meant. Fact checking; it’s important!

Tiffany was the girl who was plain, unremarkable, unadmired, and in the background. But she is still a complicated, valid heroine.

Not only is Tiffany physically dissimilar to the heroines that I’d been exposed to before, but her character was different too. Tiffany is resentful. She is selfish. She is proud. Tiffany gets angry. She never once sings with animated creatures. But she is still shown in a positive light, an approving light. She literally hits the embodiment of the idea of putting on a facade to hide one’s true self and impress others (otherwise known as The Queen of the Fairies) in the face with a frying pan.

I had never witnessed angry heroines before. The ladies I had seen were allowed to be despairing in the face of adversity, or hopeful, or even faint. But they didn’t get angry. Tiffany gave adolescent me licence to feel my natural emotions without shame or fear.

Tiffany led me to other wonderful female characters in Pterry’s books, Discworld and otherwise. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Adora Belle Dearheart, Sacharissa Cripslock, Corporal Littlebottom, Susan Sto Helit, Agnes Nitt, Glinda Sugarbean, Polly, Captain Angua, Sergeant Jackrum, Daphne, Sybil Ramkin to name a few.

These women are a symphony of positive female characters. They all have different personality types, all have different methodologies, all have different body types.  They all do the job that needs doing, whether it’s nice or not and whether or not they look good while doing it. It proves that you can be amazing no matter your personality or shape. Even if that shape is occasionally a wolf.

Even better, they all support each other. So much media pits women against each other, but not in Pterry’s universes. Angua and Cheery, Esme and Gytha, Polly and Maladicta, Glinda and Juliet… they all hold each other up instead of clawing each other downwards. It’s so refreshing and uplifting and wrapped up in the intricately-plotted, ingeniously-written bow that is Pratchett prose.

I know that Pterry wasn’t predominantly a feminist author. He said himself that people were just people; weirdly, that includes females as well. He didn’t set out to write feminist prose (though arguably that is what he did), but he did set out to write believable female characters. In doing so, he helped me accept and understand who I was, and that who I was was okay.

This is the gift that Pterry gives. He would look at something so commonplace that no one ever noticed it, turn it around to a new angle, and present it to you in such a way that you said “Oh, shit.” And then made enough puns and references that you laughed until you cried.

Terry also looked at horrors and got angry. So angry. But then he used that anger to make something beautiful, a masterpiece like Monstrous Regiment or Nightwatch so that other people could get angry too, and maybe – just maybe – change the way they think and act, and make the world a little bit better.

The small change enacted on people who read Pterry’s work cause ripples which spread through the world, improving it one open mind at a time. And, as the man himself told us:  “No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…”

So, if you haven’t read them, I implore you to do yourself the favour of reading his books, for all of the above reasons. Also, they’re damn good books in their own right.

Thanks.

Gender neutral pronouns: THEY’re not so bad!

I’ve seen many tabloids today decrying the General Medical Council’s guidelines for practitioners regarding gender neutral pronouns being used regarding pregnant people, and I am baffled by the visceral response it has generated.

For one thing, a tabloid newspaper denouncing and contradicting the governing body for medical practitioners is worrying. Do these newspapers believe that they know how to care for patients better than the professionals who have gone through countless years of training, exams and learning to gain the qualifications to treat said patients?

I for one would like to see these journalists’ credentials before trusting their opinions.

The disregard for peoples’ choices is also frightening. Misgendering has been found to be linked to many psychological problems as well as reinforcing sexism and cisgenderism (source 1, source 2). There is no danger in referring to someone in a gender neutral way; misgendering someone is genuinely dangerous.

Not only is ignoring peoples’ chosen pronouns cruel and dangerous, it is also illegal. The Equality Act 2010 gives everybody, including transgender individuals, protection against discrimination and harassment. Intentionally and knowingly misgendering people definitely falls under this umbrella. Medical practitioners refusing to use the patient’s preferred pronouns are breaking the law.

As medical practitioners, one of the most important areas of expertise that are used is putting the patient at ease. Any medical situation, including pregnancy and birth, have the potential to be extremely stressful. If the medical professionals around you, who are supposed to be helping and supporting you, are constantly using the wrong pronouns when referring to you, this will only add to an already stressful situation. It is the practitioner’s duty to ensure the patient’s experience is as stress-free as possible. If this includes using gender-neutral pronouns, then that is what they should do.

If a patient does take exception to being referred to in a non-gender specific form, they can always ask their practitioner to use their preferred gendered pronouns, and the practitioner will comply. You can still be called “mum” or “dad” if you like!

And finally, if the “millennial” generation of “special snowflakes” is causing you this much anger and anxiety over pronouns, I put this to you: maybe you are the special snowflake if you can’t handle people you don’t know being called by their preferred pronouns.

Thanks!

P.S. sorry about the bad pun in the title. I couldn’t resist!

How to stop abortion

I’m probably going to be unable to say anything that you haven’t heard before, but nevertheless, I feel it needs saying.

This anti-abortion article on abortion was shared on my facebook feed and it made me. So. Angry.

For one thing, the article itself is abhorrent. Comparing black women to the KKK and people who lynched people of colour is disgusting in the extreme.

Women do not want to get abortions. I guarantee that no one has ever set out to get pregnant just so that they can have that pregnancy terminated. The process is upsetting, uncomfortable and, at times, expensive. To imagine women who have abortions as callous, unfeeling people is unfair and cruel. One cannot know another’s experiences; do not judge someone who has had an abortion. You cannot know their circumstances or reasons.

For one thing, you can never stop abortion. You can stop legal abortion, and relatively easily. But you cannot stop abortion. People have been performing amateur and unsafe abortions almost as long as they have been conceiving.

The methods for amateur abortion are almost always unsafe, often causing an infection at best and death of the woman at worst. And any woman, desperate enough for whatever reason to perform or undergo these unsafe practices, may then be too terrified to seek medical help for their condition.

If life is sacred, then what about the right of a pregnant person not to die?

Legal abortion cannot be stopped, for that matter. There will sadly always be women who, for whatever reason, are incapable physically or mentally of carrying a baby to term and/or delivering it. in this case, it is a medical necessity to perform an abortion, even if the baby is desperately wanted. Any and all “no abortion is okay” rhetoric is extremely upsetting and cruel to people who cannot physically bear children.

There will also be foetuses that will not survive out of the womb. Abortion is a choice that some parents may make to spare their child the agonising minutes, days, or hours which would otherwise be their only experience of life.

Rape and incest are also, horribly, things which cannot be eradicated. But safe, legal, supportive abortion can help minimise the consequences for the victim.

There are some women, unfortunately, who are not in the financial or social situation to safely raise a child. To knowingly bring a child into a world where their most basic needs cannot and will not be met could arguably be called child abuse or neglect. Forcing women to have children that they cannot support forces more children to go through ill-health and suffering.

No one is required to risk their life for another person in any other circumstance. If someone is undergoing chemotherapy and needs a bone marrow transfusion, you cannot force a matching person to donate their bone marrow, even if the other person will die. If someone cannot be forced to donate bone marrow, a short and (now) mostly painless procedure, how can someone be expected to carry a dependent organism inside them for 3/4 of a year and then deliver it with no choice in the matter?

Anyone who is anti-abortion and reading this, I do however have some good news for you: abortion can be minimised. The number of them can be reduced dramatically, and easily.

Access to and education on contraception reduces the rate of teen pregnancy. Sources: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1400506#t=article

https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4755-11-1

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X13001213

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/5/886.short

So there we are. How to stop abortion!

Even if you don’t agree with any of the above,