Here is a thing that goes without saying yet somehow we have to say it: science IS on our side.
Even as anti-choicers try to claim (at rallies and in the National Review) that technology is proving them right. It’s NOT.
Even as doctors find ways to save younger and younger premature babies, science is on our side. AND WE THINK IT IS GOOD THAT THIS IS HAPPENING. We would like no mother with a wanted pregnancy to have to watch her premature baby die. BECAUSE WE ARE NOT MONSTERS.
Even as ultrasounds get better, we still have science on our side.
Even as the other side draws a bunch of pictures of a PERSON’S BODY and is like “see how like, this part here ISN’T HER BODY” … SCIENCE IS STILL ON OUR SIDE!
Because as much as you want to argue that the fetus is a separate entity, it’s still very much inside of a person’s body, dependent on that person, and that person’s decision. That person still has to carry that fetus for 9 months (if they keep the pregnancy) and deal with it making them sick, effing with their hormones, and much more.
We’re not being unsentimental here. We’re just saying that sometimes people get pregnant who don’t want to be or can’t be because of money or can’t be because of an abusive relationship. And they should all get to make the choice whether they’re gonna subject their body to the ravages of pregnancy.
Science is on our side because it’s still our body that’s pregnant. We don’t just automatically become parents the moment we have unprotected sex or the moment our birth control fails us. We’d love it if everyone who wanted a pregnancy would get pregnant and nobody who didn’t want a pregnancy didn’t and nobody ever had any complications with their pregnancy. But that’s not how the world works! And that’s science too. Science that takes a viable fetus and makes it unviable. Science that turns a healthy pregnancy to a miscarriage. We guess, in this sense, science is also sometimes NOT on anyone’s side. It’s just science.
It’s not as simple as “look this ultrasound sneezes, you’re a MONSTER if you have an abortion” or “well, fingernails means a fetus is alive” or “every fetus is a miracle.” The world is messy and things fall apart. So the next time an anti-abortion loon tries to argue that science is on their side … remind them that biology has fucked us all over at some point.
