It’s our first podcast with Emily Albrecht, the co-president of St. Olaf Students for Life and our next speaker/writer/coach! Josh and Emily discuss the recent HBO film “Unpregnant” because there are themes taught in this movie that may influence some of your conversations with pro-choice people who have seen it.
***SPOILER ALERT***
If you would like to watch the film before listening to our commentary, we invite you to do that. We will discuss the entire plot in this episode.
I think the most interesting question you can ask someone who identifies as pro-choice is whether they think abortion should have any restrictions at all. The phrase “pro-choice” means something different to almost everyone, and nothing reveals that quite as quickly as asking about when it’s okay to restrict abortion. For example, I was surprised to find out that two students from a college Planned Parenthood club were uncomfortable with third trimester abortions. Clearly, they weren’t just following the party line!
Maybe one of the most common responses when asked about restrictions is that “people should be able to have abortions, but they shouldn’t be allowed to use it as birth control.” There’s a certain image they seem to have in mind when they talk about abortion as birth control: an imaginary woman who doesn’t use contraception and keeps coming back for more abortions every time she gets pregnant.
Leaving aside how problematic their mental image might be, this restriction seems like a common ground point; after all, we don’t want women to use abortion as birth control, and they say they agree. But the agreement is only at the surface level. We’re using the same words to mean completely different things. As my contract law professor said, there’s no genuine “meeting of the minds,” so there isn’t any actual agreement.
Josh responds to three pro-choice people who pushed back against our recent video about the Responsibility Objection, one of the pro-life counter-arguments to Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous violinist thought experiment. Is this pro-life argument a red herring? Did we strawman Thomson?
Josh Brahm interviews Ali Rak, an incredibly effective community organizer and activist in Maryland, to explain the nuts and bolts of how she gets people involved in contacting their political representatives in order to accomplish pro-life goals.
An abortion advocacy group, Reproaction, has a national campaign called “Abortion Pills are Magic.” As you browse their website, you find they label their stance on abortion as “progressive.” They unapologetically push for easier access to abortion and an absolute right to abortion. They represent the extreme of the pro-choice end of the spectrum.
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
Their vision statement says (emphasis added):
Reproaction’s vision is to uphold abortion rights and advance reproductive justice as a matter of human dignity. We introduce a new culture of accountability, and empower and inspire the reproductive rights movement and the broader progressive community to openly and enthusiastically stand up for abortion rights.
Their closely-related mission statement also specifically addresses abortion:
Reproaction’s mission is to increase access to abortion and advance reproductive justice.
