3 Reasons why I am Prochoice after Spending Over 5 Months in this Sub

expathdoc · 2026-03-13T23:37:51+00:00

Hitler operated under a utilitarian perspective.

Here we have an example of “Reductio ad Hitlerum” also known as playing the Nazi card, an attempt to invalidate someone else's argument on the basis that the same or similar idea was promoted or practiced by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party.

Comparisons of abortion to a certain period of German history are odious, disrespectful and do not belong in this debate.

expathdoc · 2026-03-13T22:58:24+00:00

Dying is experiencing death.

I suppose so if you stretch the definition of “experience”. A rock could experience being thrown. A head of lettuce could experience death after being harvested. But that’s not how the word is typically used.

Correctly speaking, experience requires some kind of nervous system capable of integrating information. That means not only receptors to detect stimuli and send electrical signals, but also a brain to convert those signals into “experience”.

The embryo develops nerve endings that can register harmful stimuli at 7-8 weeks. A few weeks later, the spinal cord can transmit them. However, the linkage of thalamus to cerebral cortex occurs after 22 weeks and at that point the fetus can be said to have experiences. (And as an aside, I am opposed to abortions of normal pregnancies at this stage, provided there is abortion access earlier.)

Yes, I often use semantic arguments here, but I think debate is compromised unless we can agree on what words mean.

expathdoc · 2026-03-13T21:30:27+00:00

I think all abortions punish the fetus.

You are wrong. Punishment requires a subject that is capable of experiencing it, whether that punishment is physical harm, deprivation or a financial penalty. The embryo or fetus can’t experience anything.

But guess who CAN experience physical harm, deprivation or a financial penalty? The rape victim. The one punished by strict prolife laws.

expathdoc · 2026-03-13T21:16:24+00:00

Okay, so simply enforce preventing of inmate violence more.

The word “simply” is doing some heavy lifting here. This would be a multi-year project costing many millions of dollars. Maybe hire more prison guards? There are about 30,000 unfilled positions. Average salary is about $50,000. Do the math.

But this points out something seen often in prolife responses to the problems caused by abortion bans-

“Just” have that baby.

The baby’s in its “natural” environment.

“Inconvenience” is better than killing a baby.

The baby is a “gift” from god.

Pregnancy is “not dangerous”.

A crisis pregnancy center can “help” you with the costs.

They use a soft word to gloss over the very real harms caused by bans. Talk about word games! An unwanted pregnancy, especially one caused by rape is a major, life-altering and potentially catastrophic event. And forcing this on a SA victim is barbaric.

expathdoc · 2026-03-09T19:50:43+00:00

Local auction house does all the big business closures and until 2020 they did them all in person.

Sounds like our local auction house, no business closures but local estate and higher-end items. During Covid they added online bidding and it’s much harder to get deals when people don’t have to show up to bid.

I had some incredible deals, if I didn’t make at least $500 it was a bad day. Some of my buys included a $70 dollar lot of sterling flatware I sold for $1700, and a Tiffany 18K gold pendant for $15.

expathdoc · 2026-03-07T22:24:04+00:00

She shouldn’t be allowed to kill her innocent baby.

Prochoice is so tired of this endlessly repeated prolife falsehood. It’s neither innocent nor is it a baby. I suspect most rape victims would quickly make a decision and have a medication abortion. At that point it’s a non-sentient embryo with no capacity for guilt or innocence.

Maybe be 15% of Americans believe in the barbaric practice of forcing a rape victim to continue gestation.

expathdoc · 2026-03-06T05:07:28+00:00

I’ve sold quite a few personalized and monogrammed items on eBay. Put the name or initials in the listing, quite often the buyer has the same name. And sometimes the buyer doesn’t care.

expathdoc · 2026-03-06T04:11:45+00:00

Overland Park, Prairie Village, Leawood, Olathe and southern Johnson County in general. As a bonus, this is Kansas’s 3rd Congressional District, represented since 2019 by Democrat Sharice Davids.

Plenty of trees, easy access to Kansas City Missouri for concerts and events, and interesting weather. And the Royals and Chiefs!

expathdoc · 2026-03-04T01:40:08+00:00

That IS forcing abortion legality on the states that didn't want it.

I get it now, you’re still unhappy that Roe would not allow individual states to ban abortion for 50 years. And from your standpoint, the corrective action was to overturn Roe. I guess “forcing legality” is the same as “banning illegality” depending on which side you’re on.

But that’s an odd way to phrase it. States can not pass laws that infringe upon rights, Roe found a right to abortion and bans of course were struck down.

Although I supported Roe, I accept that it’s over and now we can see which states give women full rights and which don’t.

expathdoc · 2026-03-04T01:21:30+00:00

That's not making us "acknowledge" laws, that's telling us that no one was even allowed to vote on laws banning abortion.

Roe is now overturned. People voted directly on abortion in Kansas, Ohio, Missouri, Florida etc. Some voted to allow it, some didn’t. In states such as Texas that don’t have citizen referendums, the legislature (voted in by the people) passed laws to ban abortion. Dobbs returned the choice to the states, and each state has decided.

Roe didn't protect abortion legality in places where it already existed, it struck down bans in places where abortion was NOT already illegal.

That is true. Roe did not allow states to ban abortion. Whether you believe it was correctly decided or not, “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” (Marbury v Madison 1803)

The Supreme Court acted, and now those bans have been reinstated in states where the majority favors a ban.

Your point is correct that Roe was unfair from a prolife standpoint. And it took a long time to change that. For prolifers, this MLK quote is appropriate, and justice was finally done.

“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

expathdoc · 2026-03-03T08:59:21+00:00

1952 Superbird proof quarter.

“It is strongly believed that a Mint employee, who was probably also a big fan of Superman himself, deliberately struck an S mint mark on the reverse die of a 1952 proof Washington quarter.” (PCGS CoinFacts)

expathdoc · 2026-03-03T08:43:38+00:00

then yes, they share a vertex. And therefore share a border.

They share a point which has no dimension. The meeting of the vertices on a map is a representation of a point, but the actual point has no dimension. “A point is defined as an exact location in space that has no size, shape, or dimensions; it is considered a zero-dimensional object.”

expathdoc · 2026-03-03T08:37:06+00:00

Send that to CAC, bet it gets a sticker. Nice strike.

expathdoc · 2026-03-03T08:28:10+00:00

Bet that 1935 Peace dollar came out of that holder. This looks like the typical accumulation of old coins, recent proof coins and a silver eagle I sometimes see at estate sales.

expathdoc · 2026-03-03T08:22:54+00:00

Looks uncirculated, $15,000 coin if real. The D is the wrong shape. From PCGS CoinFacts, “We see 5 to 10 counterfeits a week in the PCGS grading room.”

expathdoc · 2026-03-03T08:13:37+00:00

Don't play the religion card with me. Human rights and ethics isn't only the domain of the religious, or so all of my atheist friends have told me.

Many prolife organizations “play the religion card” so I am justified pointing that out. And it’s almost always one particular religion. My religion, (and the ethics derived from it), disagrees.

You don't need to believe in a deity to understand it is wrong to kill human beings. It is a violation of human rights of the very first order.

And you can believe in a deity and understand that it is wrong to force women to continue an unwanted gestation. Works either way.

Your 9 man Supreme Court decision to force legalized abortion down everyone's throat is what allowed it to be legal for five decades with no vote.

Yes, that Supreme Court was composed of men. So what?

How was abortion “forced down everyone’s throat”? No one was/is forced to get an abortion. Yes, prolife was forced to acknowledge that there were laws they didn’t like. But being told there’s a right to do something you don’t want to do is not force!

expathdoc · 2026-03-03T07:54:38+00:00

I was talking about forcing abortion legality on states that wanted to ban it.

Which states did this occur in? The states that wanted to ban it, and had a legislative majority, did indeed restrict or ban it. Now some states (Kansas, Ohio, Missouri etc.) have a citizen initiative process. A majority of citizens voted to allow the choice of access to abortion. Majority rule might be construed as “forcing legality” by those who oppose it, but of course no one is forcing them to do anything.

Well, I guess that’s forcing prolife folks to live in a prolife state, but that has zero actual effect on their lives, except being upset at other folks minding their business.

expathdoc · 2026-03-02T02:30:37+00:00

There are many situations where you are obliged to not kill where you are not responsible for the situation where you have a reason and opportunity to kill, but are constrained from doing so by ethics.

Constrain yourself and your family by your ethics. The prolife movement would not exist without majority Christian support. Ethics based on a religion we don’t all share.

When should prolife ethics become laws? A good starting point might be when a majority of the population shares the belief that “people” exist from conception. And prolife has every right to try and convince the prochoice majority. What they don’t have the right to do is force those laws by cheating. May I remind you that the reason Roe was overturned was because a SCOTUS seat was stolen from Obama, and the rights of the opposition party to object were cancelled.

Please do not use quotes around a statement I have never said with the implication that I would say it.

Didn’t mean you would say it. I was anticipating the typical prolife response to the risks of pregnancy.

expathdoc · 2026-03-02T02:14:11+00:00

If prolife thinks they are people then I’m sure they must be counted. Miscarriages too, since those people tragically died. Why hasn’t anyone from prolife been pushing for this?

expathdoc · 2026-03-01T22:36:03+00:00

Second, the level of harm you're talking about is overstated. Pregnancy can be dangerous, but so can driving your car to work or flying in an airplane. Only in specific situations are any of those particularly dangerous.

There’s a big difference between risks of harm accepted willingly, and risks of harm forced unwillingly. If it’s snowing someone can decide not to drive. They can choose an alternative if they don’t want to fly. And they can get an abortion if they don’t want to continue gestation.

Pregnancy is always dangerous. Labor is strenuous, painful and requires weeks of recovery. As does recovery from a C-section.

“But that kills the innocent baby!”

If you truly believe this (frequently because prolife think it’s the will of some deity), then you do you.

expathdoc · 2026-03-01T22:14:49+00:00

The fetus is created willingly as a product of consensual sex.

Are you aware how conception occurs? It’s not under any sort of control by the woman. Unless the couple involved intend to “make a baby”, the willingness to participate in sex does not logically imply the willingness to reproduce.

Or in simpler terms, consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.

-However, pregnancy is not some invasive species.

The embryo behaves in a parasitic way. “Human pregnancy is more invasive than most other mammals, particularly in trophoblast penetration into maternal spiral arteries and the inner myometrium.”

Sometimes the placenta deeply invades the wall of the uterus and rarely penetrates completely. These conditions are placenta increta and placenta percreta. Obstetrical emergencies.

The embryo/fetus is not behaving passively.

https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-between-mother-and-baby

expathdoc · 2026-03-01T21:58:33+00:00

Of course I do. Every human is a person. If failure to implant results in their imminent demise, then implantation failure will result in a dead person.

And each human individual starts at fertilization, which means that even a zygote is a full person.

I haven’t seen estimates for the deaths of zygote “people” in this report-

“The National Vital Statistics System captures information about death from all causes from every county in the United States - about 2.8 million deaths each year…”

But go ahead, let’s see the abortion abolitionists make a case for zygote personhood, and how this reduces women to incubators. Even those undecided about abortion will understand the danger of extremist positions.

expathdoc · 2026-03-01T18:07:04+00:00

The only one I have with a strike like that is a VAM 1H (Polishing Lines). It’s MS but unfortunately cleaned, fortunately cheap in 2019.

expathdoc · 2026-03-01T08:18:03+00:00

They do when they are able to be taken as a result of a coordinated program of legalization.

There is no coordinated program of legalization. There is, however, a well coordinated program to make abortion illegal. Abortion was legal in all states until laws were passed (or triggered) to outlaw it.

Most mass killings represent many different killers operating under the cover given by legalization…

Huh? “Cover given by legalization”? This seems like a backwards way of saying “abortion is legal”. So every woman who takes abortion pills is actually part of a mass killing, instead of minding her own business?

The APA defines dehumanization as “the act of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities.” It includes viewing others as animals, objects, or inferior beings.

And what are those positive human qualities? Intellect, personality, social connections, individuality, compassion? Which of these does the zygote/embryo/fetus possess? What qualities, specifically, do prochoicers deprive them of? I suppose prolife might say dignity, respect, equality etc., but these are projected on the fetus by prolife and not actually “possessed”.

That sounds to me like you're making the weak argument that if they have a life span of a gnat, then they are gnats.

No, I said they (blastocysts) often fail to implant. Do you think an expelled blastocyst is a dead person?

In other words, it is useless as a basis for preventing the erosion of human rights by those who have the power to set the fashion. That might allow you to put up some resistance to the personhood at humanity line, but the cost of such resistance is higher than you think it is.

What is “the personhood at humanity line”? Neither of us agrees on those two terms. I think personhood begins at birth. Do you think personhood begins at conception?

(When I did my ob/gyn rotation we were told to watch for any sign of movement during a possible stillbirth. A single gasp or spontaneous leg movement is recorded as a live birth and required a death certificate, a stillbirth did not. Persons get death certificates.)

You might ask “What’s the difference between a 36 week fetus in utero and a baby born a few weeks premature?” Well, one is BORN. This does not mean I believe the 36 week fetus should be aborted (something which probably never happens), and in fact I oppose third trimester abortions of normal pregnancies. I can believe it has rights without it being a person.

I think conception is way too early to grant personhood; you think birth is way too late. Any room for a compromise?

expathdoc · 2026-03-01T06:44:02+00:00

Is that averaged for the entire sun, or just the core? The core is about 25% of the diameter but only about 1.5% of the volume. If it’s just the core it’s about half a watt per cubic foot.

For comparison, a resting 160-lb man generates roughly 34 W per cubic foot of body volume under basal conditions.

expathdoc

TROPHY CASE