Rant..
The main reason the big issues never get resolved is because each side refuses to have empathy for the other.
In the latest – the Roe v Wade abortion snafu in USA – it’s pretty clear that whoever feels strongly about this doesn’t give 2 shits about why the other side also feels strongly. They just make ungenerous assumptions about the other side, allow the media and govt to paint the others as the enemy, and rant and rave without any progress being made whatsoever.
The “pro lifers” don’t seem to understand that it is incredibly rare for someone to get an abortion lightheartedly, and that for most women it’s one of the most painful decisions they’ll ever make. In the end, they’re making a choice between two evils, and ultimately what they’re choosing to do is not force a baby – who has yet to experience any awareness or consciousness – into having a miserable life. Doesn’t their decision to prevent that pain and suffering make any sense to you?
The “pro choicers” don’t seem to understand that biologically speaking life definitely begins at conception – there is no science-respecting biologist who can say that life doesn’t start until the 2nd trimester. Put it this way – when a willingly pregnant woman has a first-trimester miscarriage, have they lost their child or not? So these pro-lifers think you’re actually killing a baby. Doesn’t their reaction make sense in that light? How would you react to someone killing what you consider to be a baby?
And of course, both sides are human and therefore hypocritical.
The pro-lifers generally have a tendency to also support policies that harm people after they’re born, such as restricting healthcare access for the poor. They seem to care more about unconscious fetuses than suffering children and adults.
And the pro-choicers were generally also in favour of lockdowns, mask wearing, and coerced vaccinations for COVID, kind of undermining the whole “it’s my body my choice” thing.
There are exceptions to these generalisations, of course, but give me anyone on one side of the argument, and with a bit of research I’ll find some hypocrisy.
My perspective is somewhere in the middle – I think abortions are definitely killing a living human, however I believe some deaths are necessary, and aborting an unconscious embryo who is destined for a life of misery is probably the least harmful death imaginable – up there with assisted suicide for people suffering immensely with mortal illnesses. Abortion, in nearly all cases, probably prevents far more harm than it causes, however I also think the decision should not be easy to make, and that the real political focus should be on preventing unwanted pregancies in the first place.
The only thing I know for sure: if we see the “other side” as the enemy, this problem will not get any better. So be angry and lack empathy for them if you must, just know that by doing so you shoot yourself in the foot.