Is there anyone who's both pro-life and pro-LGBT rights?

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One of the elements that goes hand in hand with the anti-abortion and anti-GLBT rights crowd is the belief that the state has a role in controlling the behaviour of people.

Some take the liberal position that the state has no business regulating private behaviours, and that homosexual behaviour and abortion are personal choices into which the state has no business interfering.

Others take the statist position that the state may criminalize private behaviours, and that both homosexual activity and abortion can be subject to penal sanction.

Most views, however, fall somewhere in between these extremes.

I draw a line that says that a woman's right to security of the person is abridged at the time when the fetus that she is carrying could be viable if born prematurely. Presently the lower limit of viability is 21 weeks gestational age, which is about 19 weeks from conception, or slightly over halfway through the second trimester.

Many anti-GLBT folk are actually perfectly fine condoning private behaviour, but draw a line at public acceptance through the extension of legal recognition. The lines here are many. Some only oppose adoption rights. Others include marriage. Still others throw in marriage-like relationships. And then there are those who oppose protection from harassment and discrimination. And then there's the, "don't say gay," crowd.

It seems to me that you (the OP) have manage to draw a nuanced line, where you maintained a liberal understanding of individual liberty, and are only willing to see that curtailed in the most exigent of circumstances (the life of another individual).

I cannot pretend that I agree with your view, and I would staunchly oppose any attempt to legislate that view on a woman who didn't share it. But I respect it as honestly held, and as a valid approach by which you can lead your own life.

Actually, nope.

If you state that everyone has the right to do whatever he wants to do with his(her) body right before saying that pregnant women make the exception... Well, that is pretty misogynistic. Perhaps he does not hate women, but what goes inside your mind is not as relevant as what goes out of the mouth or the hands.

Everyone has the right to control his/her body. Removing the right from just a group of people does sound like you have something against that group of people. So, I guess the question is what do they have against pregnant women...

"Shouldn't have gone pregnant in the first place", doesn't cut it. So, what about rape? what about that 1% chance of condom failure? So, what do you suggest? That women are not allowed to have heterosexual sex. And that's the golden thing, men don't have to go through all that crap. I can go out and make somebody pregnant and not worry about my body going through hell for an unwanted glorified sperm.


It is not Vexcalibur's fault that the position sounds so misogynistic.

I am pro-life and pro LGBT rights.

I believe everyone has the right to life and to live it the way they choose.

All of the AR people I know (and I know quite a few, since I frequent AR forums) are pro-choice; what they care about is sentience (the ability to suffer, most importantly), which animals have and zefs (prior to the 3rd trimester) do not have.

Well I believe you, I was speaking in principle but that's the attitude here in Portland, but I didn't want to base it on a slightly more radicalized sample of people, but I suspect it holds true for a great many AR activists.

Not accounting for the PETA types and those to extreme of them, like those who just want to offer animals shelter and a loving home like some who voluteer at the habitat for humanity, I wonder what the less radicalized AR opinion is on pro-life / pro-abortion.

What is their position on the human "animal" suffering, and do they put that on equal footing with cow suffering or chicken suffering or do they feel that there are enough human sympathizers for the human cause, and therefore don't need to give humans much representation, and rather, be the voice of the (human)voiceless, like the Cow and the Chicken?

The species that declares that intelligence means prezackly what that species got and assumes the cockroach is less evolutionatily advanced naturally assumes that it uniquely is qualified to define what is life and what is suffering - which happens to be what is convenient for the dominant members of that species.

I am somewhat pro-life & pro-LGBT rights to a certain extent.

Pro-life: I have a fairly uncommon view that abortion needs to be a private matter between a woman and a doctor. It is something the government should not control. Sex is largely considered a private matter, and I deem pregnancy to be as well. Whatever happens should be with a licensed doctor and the pregnant woman.

Myself, I am pro-life in every case except if incest and/or rape is involved or that 1% contraception failure. I really dislike seeing videos of almost full term babies being taking out, still breathing & alive, and then just being thrown in the trash because the mother was so irresponsible to not use contraception or bother getting an abortion before the baby was so full term.

I just wish people would keep their legs closed. If people only had children when they wanted them, both men & women, we wouldn't even be having abortion. Yet I know it is an impossible proposal for our horny species.

LGBT Rights: Same sex marriages should be legal and have the same protections & cover the same rights as heterosexual couples enjoy. However, churches or religions should not be required themselves to recognize the union. It is just separation of Church & State.

@zeronetgain: PETA is pretty extremist, even within the AR community. There's a lot of disgust over their use of sex to call attention to their cause. Most of the AR people I know are strongly pacifistic, and don't believe in violence against any sentient being (including humans), so are anti-death-penalty, etc; they tend to think, though, that humans don't *need* people advocating for them as much as animals do, since animals are still raised in horrific factory conditions and slaughtered cruelly by the millions every year (I'm an animal-welfarist, as opposed to an animal-rightist, but I agree with them on a lot).

@technoteen: what you are describing, w/ a full-term fetus delivered alive and breathing and thrown in the trash, is completely illegal on several levels here in the U.S, as well as stupid b/c the point of an abortion is to take the zef out of the mother safely, and delivering an intact fetus violates that goal. 3rd trimester abortions involve either dismembering the fetus in-utero (in which case, it comes out piece-by-piece), or colapsing the fetus' skull in-utero and delivering it dead (what the pro-life people falsely call a "partial birth" abortion). In either case, it is illegal to discard human remains, or even human tissue "in the trash." Even cotton balls with blood on them must be discarded in special red-bagged containers for incineration; a medical facility can be fined thousands of dollars for even a single violation. My hospital is so paranoid that even the trash in women's restrooms is treated as biohazardous waste in case someone throws a bloody tampon into it.
If you have indeed seen "videos" such as what you describe, they are either deliberate propaganda from the pro-life lobby, composed entirely of lies and 'special effects,' from another country with stupid doctors and no regulations, or from a clinic in extreme violation of multiple laws, stupid doctors, and a callous disregard for the life of the woman having the abortion.

I am pro-life, I favor rights equal rights for people of all genders and persuasions. Though I do not support gay marriage.

Yes, the worst thing in that description is the fact that it is falsely labeled.

brackets are for clarification, not an indication of which part of the issue being clarified is "the worst."

Why not gay marriage? In my case, equal rights for gender and gay marriage go hand and hand. I am transgender (female to male), and I identify as a heterosexual male. My whole entire life I had massive gender dysphoria. It is only upon transitioning that I have been able to live a better life.

However, since I cannot legally change my gender on my birth certificate due to a nightmare of politics and conservative stance on gender fluidity, I will not be able to marry someone I love or be able to leave them money behind. Civil Unions do not have the same rights & priveleges those in marriage. This means that if I was sick in the hospital, my wife could not see me. I could be f****n' dying, about to take my last breath, and I could not see her. I am tearing up as I write this because it happened to a close friend of mine. Her wife of over thirty year lay dying alone, my friend was all she had, as she paced outside the hospital.

If I had a life insurance policy to take care of my wife if I died, she would not get the money because we are not "married". People in civil unions could not open a joint bank account. Federal benefits that are given to regular couples like state tax breaks are not given to us. This is second class citizenship. It is open discrimination for someone like me who pays taxes, contributes to the society, and volunteers in community outreach to be treated this day. But you don't support gay marriage because...?

You are willing to allow me and my wife to be discriminated against because...?

Is that Martin Luther King in your avatar? Did you know I met a woman who knew Martin Luther King and not only did she fight against oppression as a black person but also against discrimination as a lesbian? She has experienced double discrimination. She told the group she was talking to that discrimination hurts no matter what you are discriminated for.

In her case, she asked the white people of her day, you allow society to discriminate me and my black fellows because...?

But what I write will probably be ignored or belittled. People don't care whose lives they ruin or whose souls they crush so long as they accomplish their agenda of keeping traditional marriage.

Since you chose to identify as a man, I'll speak to you like one. I do not support Gay Marriage because marriage deserves a privileged place in our society. I believe it should be set aside. I believe it is, as the word is defined, a relationship between a man and a woman, that exists in large part to create an optimal environment for children. I think it is best for a child to have a loving mother and father; because both love in different ways. A young man growing up, needs someone to tell him why he needs to restrain himself and a young woman needs a father to affirm her as a women in a non-sexual way; failing this, both will wander. A young man needs the unconditional and viciously territorial love of a mother and a young women needs a mother to teach her about being a woman and both need to see a real relationship at work, in a strong home. Other relationships can perhaps create images of this, but a proper marriage where each partner is faithful to their vows is the optimum. I also think Children have this right afforded to them at birth. Marriage is the optimum, it does not matter how many reach it, but the standard is high and should remain so.



That is a shocking story, I think you ought to have those rights. The right to one another property and to be next of kin, with the same rights as any other de facto relationship (excluding adoption but not children from previous marriages). I don't think you should even need a civil union to have those rights, they ought to be automatic for whoever you want them to be.



The legal entitlements of marriage do not concern me, I see no good reason why they should not be extended outside of it.



On the grounds that you are not a marriage, sorry, but yes. Marriage is privileged. In relation to legal issues like inheritances and bank accounts, I can and have lobbied for such in the past.



Dr. King certainly was against homophobia but I am unsure of what his opinion relating to gay marriage would have been.

the image of what is the "optimal" enviroment is so individiual that to say the institution of marriage is constructed to specifically bring this is ludicrous, they might aim for it but there is as many good as there is bad ways.
i will agree that a mother and father figure is extremely important but in many cases it doesnt have to be biological at all, foster parents can have similar relationships with their children.

now one can argue that marriage was a christian tradition for some time but the thing is our social and conceptual enviroment will always change, today marriage to many people is as much a financial or security issue as anything else.
sure you could simply provide an identical institution outside with no religious involvement but i think the concept and perception of such would only worsen a bad situation,

Is it too much of a dodge to say that I believe the very idea of an "unwanted pregnancy" is a tragedy and that I'd rather focus on things like sex education (not abstinence only!) and the availability of condoms and birth control to minimize the number of "unwanted pregnancies"? I guess I agree with the slogan that abortion should be "safe, legal, rare."

I support full civil rights for homosexual couples.

You just contradicted yourself there. Having a belief that puts the baby's autonomy over the woman's does not mean it is motivated by hatred for the woman. You can't call something misogynistic and say at the same time that a belief is pretty misogynistic but he might not hate women.

Only if you frame it that way. That's exactly what's wrong with loaded propositions. When you frame things in the worst possible light, pro-lifers seem like they have something against women or pro-choicers seem like they have something against fetuses/babies/whatever. That's why it's wise to interpret a stance from all possible angles rather than just framing everything to support one angle. It's exactly how confirmation bias works.

Don't ask me, I'm not pro-life anymore. But statistics show that the majority of unwanted pregnancies are a result of either not using protection at all or using it inadequately. I'll get back to you when I can find those statistics, I do remember posting them in the forums. Well I'm not exactly sure if it's a majority, but I do remember it was significant enough, like at least over 40%. As for rape, many pro-lifers either make an exception to that or suggest adoption as an option.

Sure, if it isn't a pro-lifer's fault that pro-choicers sound like infanticide apologists. Your biases are of your own making. Not that I'm saying "How dare you even look at it that way!", but if you leave your biases unchecked then that's a choice that you make.

EDIT: Found it:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 16 Jul 2011, 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why does marrige between a man and women deseve a privliged place in society? why should civil unions not have just as privliged of a place as marrige? And what do you mean a girl needs a father to affirm them as a women?...is there a set of rules and regulations I am supposed to follow as a woman? Are males supposed to stick to a specific code of being male as well? And most marriges do not last so a lot of kids end up only growing up with one parent...and there is no evididence that having same sex parents would do harm to the child.

And why should marrige be privliged in relation to legal issues, based on a religious definition of what marrige is?

Just some things to maybe think about...I mean none of those seem to be very good reasons.