HOME | DD
Rogue-Ranger — Pro-Life and Birth Control Stamp
Published: 2017-01-14 19:24:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 3166; Favourites: 31; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
Abortion is not birth control. It is an invasive medical procedure that becomes even more invasive as the pregnancy progresses. The descriptions of what both fetus and mother experience, especially in later term pregnancies, can be disturbing for many people.The truth is that most women who have an abortion don't want to have one. It's hardly a desirable experience. And obviously anyone who empathises with the fetus doesn't want abortions. So, what's the solution?
Most abortions are done because of unwanted pregnancies. Therefore, reducing unwanted pregnancies will reduce abortions.
Unfortunately, some people who are anti-sex have unintentionally increased the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions by restricting sex education and birth control. They believe that education and contraception encourage sex and that is what leads to unwanted pregnancies. However, the human sex drive is what leads to sex, not knowing about sex or using birth control. Someone can know nothing about sex and still desire it because it is part of our instincts.
The irony is that many people who are agaisnt abortion are responsible for abortions. While some people like to focus on rape, it's quite rare and most unwanted pregnancies are a result of consentual sex, as is the case with abortions. So, parents who demand schools don't teach about safe sex, businesses who refuse to allow their employees birth control, and the Catholic church's stance against contraception, have all continued to abortion. In these cases, they are not truly pro-life, but simply anti-sex.
Even if abortion were outlawed, some women would still find a way to have an abortion, but it would be dangerous or even deadly to her. If your reaction to this is that she deserved to die because she was going to have an abortion, you are not pro-life. Likewise, there would be an increase in unwanted children, an already epidemic problem and, if you feel that is acceptable, you are also not pro-life.
Unwanted pregnancies must first and foremost be reduced to reduce abortion before all else. This can be tackled multifold:
Learning Self Control:
Our society tends to place a burden on females to protect their virginity and learn to keep males from having sex with them. All males are expected to do is listen when she says no and put on a condom if she insists. This one-sided approach demonizes females with a sex drive as "sluts" and "whores" while encouraging males to simply find a way to trick females into sex. However, males must also learn self control and females must no longer be demonized for not being male.
While testosterone means that males tend to be more sexually aggressive on average and most rapists are male, it's not all biology. From an early age, boys are expected to be rough and cruel and sensitive boys are teased until they conform.
But males must be taught how to control sexual urges and this must start right at puberty, when the male sex drive is at its highest and self control at its lowest. This can be two tiered, both with a psychological approach and a biological approach, since some people have higher sex drives and so dietary changes can be made to make it easier to manage.
We should never place the entire burden of avoiding pregnancy on one sex because it takes two to become pregnant. This is basic biology.
Learning About Sex:
Self control is important, even for those who do have sex, as someone may inadvertently hurt their partner or have sex with them against their will. Date rape and even spouse rape is a real phenomena and should be prevented through education.
Imagine you care about the millions upon millions of children already born and in need of homes. Not becoming pregnant means you are more likely to be able to adopt and open your home to those children.
So, let's say you are either not ready for a family or are ready but wish to adopt. You may still desire the intimacy of sex with your partner or spouse. This is where learning about birth control and safe sex come into play.
Rushing into sex unprepared can lead to one partner not enjoying it or even being hurt or can result in an unwanted pregnancy. So, before anyone actually comes to the point where they are going to have sex, we must educate them about sex, both what it would be like for them as well as for their partner, and the preparations and potential consequences. The more taboo and off-limits we make sex, the more exciting it sounds. The more straight-forward and realistic we are, the more it can be understood and the safer we make it.
Making Birth Control Available:
Sex, when done right, can be a beautiful bonding experience that, biologically speaking, is primarily for uniting parents and creating a child between them. However, this world is already over-populated and filled with orphans. With birth control, couples do not need to spend their entire lives avoiding sex just to avoid pregnancy.
There are several methods, ranging from one-time approaches like condoms and oral contraception, to more permanent methods like tube tying or sterilization. The problem is that all of these cost money and the cheaper the method the less effective it is.
It's no coincidence that people with lower income on average have children sooner and in greater numbers than those wirh higher income. Not only does a higher income mean easier access to effective birth control but also not giving birth early and having to raise a child ensures that they keep high income. Whereas, being poor means not affording overlapping effective birth control and so becoming pregnant and either having an abortion or giving birth to more children and at a younger age. This means they will have to work more, have no time for a higher education and are stuck in poverty, typically for life. This poverty is also often passed on to those children.
Therefore, to prevent this, we must make effective overlapping contraceptive methods available to anyone free of charge, possibly by a universal healthcare method. This must of course be coupled with proper sex education which includes methods of mutual self control as a primary focus. Contraception by itself without such education would be short sighted. In fact, education in itself is part of birth control.
Some people complain about poor people having access to safe effective birth control, saying it places a financial burden on society. However, contraception is vastly cheaper than the social and financial burden of unwanted children, not even considering all the resulting abortions it prevents. Besides, such complaints are not pro-life or logically sound, but based on fear and contempt. Fear of sex and animosity toward others is powerful, but in the end no better than promoting casual unprotected sex.
Only through these and other methods can we all work together, whether pro-life or pro-choice, to reduce unwanted pregnancies and thereby reduce both unwanted children and abortions.
What are some methods you would add?
Also of note: US Abortion Rate Hits Lowest Lovel Since 1973, Primarily Due To Increased Birth Control Access
Note
Related content
Comments: 70
I've met quite a few, possibly because the Catholic church is opposed to abortion and contraceptives/birth control and there are many Catholics where I live.
Personally, since I am pro-life and contraception can reduce overall abortion numbers, I am in favor of paying for it for everyone. I can't put a price on even one life saved.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Let me rephrase: I haven't met anyone who wants to ban OTHER PEOPLE from using birth control. TheArtFrog apparently has, but I haven't.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Where I live, it's mostly parents who restrict the access of minors to birth control and fight against sex education in schools. Some simply homeschool their children, but others are much more active and that has affected other people's children. Beyond teenagers, adults can encounter this when getting health coverage either through a religious employer or through a religious insurance plan, like MediShare. Money and poverty are a huge factor in unwanted pregnancies, which is why I want it free.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Why should MINORS be given birth control, especially if the parents disapprove? Did you know that for every study that shows that comprehensive sex ed works, there are plenty more that show that kids can actually be taught to keep it in their pants until marriage?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm not sure that I entirely understand. You make it sound like minors aren't people but some form of property. Obviously parents can influence their children, but wouldn't that form of control over another person's body go too far? I am pro-life because I value life as an individual. If even a teenager is property, obviously a fetus inside a woman is property. However, I believe no one is property of another. I understand not everyone believes this though.
As for sex ed, I agree that comprehensive sex ed should always include self control (the first part I mentioned in the description), including for males. But knowing what sex is can be very important. It of course depends on so many factors, from the sex drives and environment to what is taught and how it is taught, that studies will always have different results. I'm just personally in favor of teenagers not becoming pregnant, so I support all approaches that can help in any way reduce teenage pregnancy. Since everyone is different, the same approach may not work for everyone, but I definitely believe wholeheartedly that most people can control themselves. It's just that teenagers are at their sexual peak and often unprepared psychologically because of unrealistic social attitudes about sex, so I would feel neglectful if I assumed that abstinence only education would always work for everyone. For me personally, the stakes feel too high to overlook any area of prevention.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Minors should not have any say in their lifestyle until they move out of their parent's house. There's age of consent laws for a reason, even if two teens close in age to each other having sex does not count as "pedophilia".
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm not sure why pedophilia comes up in random conversions that don't seem on the surface to be related, including here with abortion, but I'll let that go.
To me personally, it seems reckless to think one could control another when the likelier outcome would be an uneducated teen having sex but simply being denied the means to understand it or be safe about it. Perhaps if parents were not afraid to talk about sex openly with their children, it wouldn't be as much of an issue, as my experience of sex ed in school was quite lacking. Unfortunatley, my parents were unwilling to talk openly about issues such as sex drive and how to curb it. My dad completely failed to muster up the courage for "the talk" and my mom ended our conversation the moment it became too graphic. Of course, I am responsible, but not everyone is. In an ideal world (not this one obviously), parents would have time and knowledge and spend both with their children, being open and honest, without fear.
I should note that I am not a parent and have no plans to reproduce. I would adopt older children, as those are the ones most passed up in adoption and most at risk if they age out of the foster care system (Unicornarama has several articles on this). Also, I have seen my parents and everyone else as equals since I was eight, when I realized that adults are just old children. This means that I have trouble understanding the biological instinct that makes parents think of their offspring as property to control rather than simply nurture and let grow by teaching consequences of actions and responsibility rather than shielding them from both. Also, never breeding means I will never have a chance to experience this and fully understand it. So, when I say that teens should be treated as equals rather than pets and that would lead to more responsible people (as it has done historically and in some other cultures), I speak from that point of view.
I am not saying that parental ownership over someone else's body is a wrong point of view, but that it is hard for me to understand because I am intellectually biased based on my thought patterns and experiences. I also have observed that people who embrace this biological instinct tend to then go on to think in terms of my family vs outsiders and my country vs foreigners, as the focus on biological and proximity creating bonds is incompatible with universal love and acceptance. But, again, I am biased and don't know everything by any stretch of the imagination.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm going to give my kids "the talk" as soon as possible.
But I still think it's irresponsible to not teach kids to abstain until marriage, and to enforce that until they at least move out.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you for being a responsible parent and not chickening out of the talk. Also, building an open relationship with your children in general is helpful, as they'll come to you rather than go behind your back.
And I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I completely agree that abstinence through self control must be the primary goal for those not in a position to become pregnant, whether teenagers or even married couples struggling to get by. I'm just saying that no parent can be with their children all the time, so abstinence can't be enforced only encouraged, whereas restricting education and birth control can be enforced, which is why only those two have been, resulting in pregnant teens.
For example, I had a friend in our freshman year of high school who became pregnant because her parents restricted education and birth control, naively thinking that would prevent sex. They didn't respect her as an equal and try to work on open comnunicaion but instead treated her as a pet and, free from responsibility because all control and responsibility was reserved by her parents, she naturally behaved irresponsibly.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
There used to be many in Ireland around the time the anti-abortion laws were put into law decades ago, some of which would go around putting needles through condom packets in shops.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Great! Nice to finally meet a fairly rational pro lifer! 
Consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want with their own bodies. If they don't want to be pregnant, then they should use birth control... but if birth control fails, then the resulting pregnancy should never have happened and they have every right to have an abortion. To deny them one despite the fact they were responsible and used contraception is in fact cruel and inhumane.
Up until 12-13 weeks, there's nothing wrong morally or ethically with abortion. The brain doesn't form until then, and before that it's just a neural plate, the blueprints for a brain, not one itself, so the earliest point that anyone can argue the unborn to be a person is at the 12-13 week mark.
However, after that point, abortion becomes a moral minefield, and I guess you could almost call me pro-life from then on.
Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy, and people are people, not incubators, so the choice needs to be there in the event that contraception fails to do the one job it's meant to do. Abortion should be used as a last resort form of birth control, not a first, and should be a decision not made lightly, but outright banning it is a seriously dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. If you've lived in Ireland or Brazil over the last 30 years, you'd understand why.
Some Pro-lifers Really Need to Understand This...Ireland has had anti-abortion laws for around 30 years now. It has proven time and time again that anti-abortion laws do not even prevent abortion, and they make it very dangerous for a poor woman to be pregnant, especially if she develops a lethal abnormality.
This is what anti-abortion laws mean in Ireland.
Sick women are legally unable to receive the help that they need until they are at literally about to die.Women who have illnesses like cancer, heart disease or organ damage are unable to get help at all during pregnancy.
25000 women have travelled abroad to the UK in just the last 5 years, desperately seeking much needed terminations. And these are just the lucky ones who can afford it.The women who can afford to go abroad still have to do so quite secretly, and oft
Forced pregnancy is a form of torture that no-one really should have to experience given the fact we have the means to prevent it.
---
P.S. Just another point worth making: when you say "the descriptions of the procedure are nothing less than horrifying", you'll wanna be careful which descriptions you read. Some descriptions are just cherry picked examples from some biased pro-life sites that blatantly lie about parts, or at best use rare examples from questionable doctors in the first place. And not only that but they're entirely feeling based arguments. Saying that something is "horrifying" doesn't make a good enough argument to say that it shouldn't exist. If you are to argue for your cause, you must use logic, and not logical fallacies: (yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appea… ) 
I think that you could benefit from this, so if you take solely emotional arguments out of your description and replace them with far more fact based ones, it'll help you convince people of your cause.
---
P.P.S If you're truly pro-life, instead of trying to stop abortions (which is actually more harmful to lives than beneficial), it makes far more sense to research ways of removing the unborn alive in a procedure safer than abortion, or to sponsor those who are looking into that. And also to fund research that can provide incubators specifically for the unborn so that women who don't want to be pregnant can remove the unborn alive and the unborn can be grown and developed in an artificial womb.
Currently such procedures and tech doesn't exist (at least to the level needed to take care of early unborn foetuses/embyroes/zygotes), and abortion remains the safest way to stop an unwanted pregnancy.
Just something to keep in mind.
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
Thank you for your thorough comment and thoughtful take on this. Some people are compelled by emotional arguments, some like you by logic, and others like myself are compelled by a mix. So, I like that you instructed me not only on how to find more facts and logic, but also to be wary of information that has been manipulated to trigger emotions. After all, I can be swayed by many things.
However, this isn't really made to convince anyone to be pro-life. That's why I only mention it in the first paragraph. People tend to have their minds made up and I am not a biologist. What this is about is how to reduce unwanted pregnancies. And, yes, I agree that it's not foolproof, which is why I use the word reduce and never the word eliminate. So, while there will be unwanted pregnancies, there are many very effective birth control methods that significantly reduce the chances of pregnancy. You can see this with some of Planned Parenthood's stats. Poorer women say that they don't have as much knowledge about or access to birth control verses wealthier women. This is something that can be addressed.
And, as I say in the description, simply banning abortion, as has been done in some countries, results in potential health risks for women and more unwanted children, so it is not the panacea most people who are pro-life believe. Our best approach is to tackle the issue at its root, which is unwanted pregnancies.
After that, finding ways through technology to remove a fetus alive is defiantly a brilliant idea and something I will need to look into, although for a future topic, as this is more specific to birth control.
Thank you again for your thoughtful and encouraging comment. It definitely gives me more to look into. Also, as a note, I am extremely sensitive to even reading about someone bleeding a little, so what may be "horrifying" to me may not be to others and you're right that's highly subjective.
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
Suit yourself, but it can weaken people's views towards your opinion. People who aren't swayed by petty emotion and can see past it can be disappointed when people use appeals to emotion (which are fallacies) as arguments. But you're right that many people who hold stances often let emotion get the better of them and are swayed.
"However, this isn't really made to convince anyone to be pro-life." - You just keep impressing me with your thoughtful and relaxed attitude towards it.
It's rare to meet people who would voice their personal opinion but not shove it down people's throats. Even I can be guilty of that occassionally, but you don't seem to be. That kind of intellectual modesty is a rare trait, and one that will serve you well in life.
You have a very well thought out stance, despite some holes in it which are understandable. And your willingness to listen to other angles and views is awesome!
Btw, this conversation also inspired the creation of this stamp:
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Your feedback was very helpful. I've altered the first paragraph to be more neutral and less emotionally based. Since I'm not making emotional arguments with this, it wasn't necessary anyway. However there are times when emotional arguments are necessary. For example, with what I wrote for parents on focusing on their love for their children over what they've been taught to believe, emotional arguments proved more effective than cold logic.
Oh, I'm sure I've been forceful with my opinions before. In fact, I know I have when I'm more emotionally driven. But generally I respect that we are all different and so will see the world slightly differently and so have different beliefs. In fact, there are thousands of denominations of Christianity, but still go into one church of one denomination and I guarantee you won't find two people there who agree on every religious point exactly the same. That being said, I do still express my views because I believe in them.
Haha, I'm flattered I inspired a stamp, although I have no idea how you churned it out so fast. I'm very slow, even just at writing. In fact, I was already looking at the stamp as you sent this reply. You're just much faster than me.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Still, you're quite respectful.
I used to take ages making stamps, but I've figured out shortcuts and have eventually figured out that instead of slowly drawing lines around each letter, I can just use a blur effect to achieve the same result, so all I pretty much need to do is type the letters and make a background and I can churn them out. The description was copied and pasted from the comment to you, and adjusted slightly. And voila!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
What software do you use for your stamps? I use Photoshop and Adobe ImageReady because our computer had those on it.
I tend to be a bit indecisive. I can actually spend a good half an hour on picking the perfect font and getting sizing just right to be readable. And that's not even mentioning animating it. I think the advantage you have is you use a universally readable font that remains consistent. Do you ever get indecisive about anything, say even the phrasing? Spending too much time contemplating is why I've always been behind on any involved school assignment.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
MS Paint and Paint.NET, and I animate them with ezimba.com.
I use the same font and size as it's become a key aspect in my style at this stage.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
You presented a very good argument. I am pro choice myself and wish it would not be used for birth control but in some cases it is. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes, I agree. Ignorance can lead to a whole host of problems, especially when it comes to sex. But it's not too late to work toward education that promotes responsibility and reduces undesired consequences, be it pregnancy or abortion.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0