“Pro-life” and “anti gun control” - My views on the American far right

Approx. 5 min. read.

“You can’t be “pro-life” and also “anti gun control””. This phrase came into my head one day while I was at work. It doesn’t mean much where I live, in Denmark, because there are lots of regulations on owning guns, and very few people have one in their home. But it really stuck with me, because to me, the whole debate seems completely off the rails.

women protesting anti-abortion laws. Signs say "abortion is healthcare" and "trust women".

This may seem like a bit of a rant of a post, but I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on the matter, and this is my website, so here goes:

 

You can’t be “pro-life” and also “anti gun control”. Giving birth can kill. A gun can kill. 

You can’t say that every life is precious enough for women to destroy their lives and ruin their bodies for an unviable fetus, but then also protect the “right to bear arms” to a degree where you have school shootings ALMOST EVERY WEEK (27 in 2023 at the time of writing, 3rd of september).

How is that “pro-life”?

 

You can’t claim to fight for freedom when you take human rights away. Forcing people to give birth is taking away their freedom to choose. And a fetus IS NOT a child! At 12 weeks pregnant it is 6cm long (2,3 inches)! How can you call that a child? And how can you say that its life, which it can’t sustain on its own, is more valuable than the mothers choice?

At that stage it is comparable to a parasite, feeding on the mothers body. I said what I said.

 

I am not American (thank fuck!). So these are observations and opinions that have been informed by the American media, that are available to me. This is a lot of Instagram, TikTok and late night shows including “Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert”, Late Night with Seth Meyers (especially A Closer Look) and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. 

I am also Atheist, although Denmark as a whole is Protestant Christian, so my values have been shaped by this system.

 

Being an “outsider” and looking at America, I am afraid of the influence that country has on other cultures. Whenever Danish news media talk about what the (crazy) Republicans are doing and saying, I see a comment section FILLED with Danish people sharing their agreements and saying how we should emulate that. 

Denmark has a long history of having free access to abortion, free access to divorce for both genders, and women could even have and open their own earnings account in the banks in 1880. For American women it was 1974! This means that American discourse is shaping opinions in countries that are far ahead of it in terms of human rights.

YES, I said it: America is way behind the rest of the western world in terms of human rights. But the weirdest, most baffling part is that it’s going backwards. How does that happen? How can a government go “Yeah, human rights! That sounds good!” and then 50 years later go “Women? Nah, they don’t deserve human rights” (Roe v. Wade was originally passed in 1973 and was overturned in 2022).

Abortion is healthcare. Healthcare is (or should be) a human right. It’s that simple! Everything else is about controlling women and they should be honest about it.

I am (obviously) pro-choice. I am also childfree by choice, and earlier this year I was surgically sterilized. I do not want children and I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t even want to be a caregiver for children.

However I want the very best for the children that ARE being born. They are being forced to be born into this world that is cruel and unforgiving, and if you are a woman, a person of color, a member of the LGBTQ+ community or a combination of these, it seems like it will only get worse during the course of your life. 

 

It seems like people who are “pro-life” are really only “pro-forced-birth”. They don’t care about the already living children.

They don’t care about the children in the foster-care system. They don’t care about the children who are going to school hungry, because their parents don’t have the means to feed them. They don’t care about the children being shot, injured, traumatized or killed in school. They just don’t like AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) people having the right to choose what is RIGHT for THEM.

 

People who are anti-abortion don’t care about the pregnant person's health and well-being. Giving birth can be dangerous, and it will often have long-lasting side effects. People who are pro-forced-birth don’t care if the birth-giver has the means, whether it be physical, mental, emotional or economical, to take care of that child.

They only want to insist that the baby is born, they don’t care what happens to it after. It is cruel, plain and simple!

Now, the difficult thing is that the people that are making the arguments against abortion rights (and women’s rights in general) are tied up in a different belief system than “the rest of us”. The American far-right Catholic church has been its own echochamber for generations. Their values at this point are not born of logic, so it is fruitless to argue against them with logic. They will not listen.

So what can we do? 

My only answer is to keep trying. Keep shouting about it. Try to be eloquent. Hopefully we can change a few hearts here and there, and hopefully the effect will snowball. It means that voting is important, no matter where you live. Vote for people who represent your opinions and values as closely as possible.

 

Now, I think I’ve ranted on long enough (for now). As I hope you can tell, this is also very emotional for me, and I get really angry at the American far-right movement. I am scared of their influence. I will probably touch on similar subjects to this in the future, so I hope you’ll join me then as well. 

Until then you can catch me on my socials ;) 

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  • Rahna

Rahna

Gamer, streamer, writer, feminist.

https://RahnaRocks.com
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