Video Transcript
Sami Parker, Mom and Content Creator
“Women can never be equal to men without abortion!” Ever hear that? It’s a common misconception. The now overrulled 1992 Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, phrased the idea this way:
“[t]he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/833/
This is how this “pro-abortion” argument goes: The demands of pregnancy fall disproportionately on women. Carrying a child for 9 months presents obstacles to the woman that men never face. What if a woman feels she has to drop out of school or work fewer hours? Men don’t need to worry about these things. So, in order to remain on equal footing with men, women must be able to abort their children.
Now there are A LOT of problems with this line of thinking, so I’ll just address the most important ones.
Number One: there is no equality without an equal right to life.
The right to life begins with the equal right for all innocent human beings not to be killed. Without the right to life, no other rights matter. We can’t kill innocent human beings in the name of equality for human beings, because the destruction of innocent human lives is never a legitimate solution to any problem.
Secondly, pregnancy does not make women unequal to men.
Biological differences in height, athleticism, intelligence, and many other traits are an inescapable fact of human nature. Some people are born with the inability to see certain colors. Some people can hear a sound and tell exactly what frequency its pitch is. This guy can have 500W of electricity flow through his body and not die. But these differences, these inequalities between people don’t make anyone better or worse, more valuable or less valuable than anyone else.
The same is true of the ability to get pregnant. While pregnancy does present difficulties and challenges unique to women, treating the ability to get pregnant as some kind of biological disadvantage is ludicrous. Pregnancy isn’t a disease that needs to be cured. It would be like telling this 7 foot 7 woman, she needs to chop her legs off to be equal to average height people. Of course,being that tall definitely presents unique challenges - but there’s nothing “wrong” with her. Treating pregnancy like a disease frames women merely as defective men. The reality is that, the ability to carry a brand new human life through their first moments and months, is an incredible superpower, and an experience that men will never have.
There are things women can do that men cannot do. And there are things that men can do that women cannot do. This does not mean one is more or less valuable. The differences should be celebrated and respected.
