I have talked to and spent time around countless pro-lifers and I have always encountered a fundamental inability to explain the deep, soul-crushing horror associated with just the concept of having something growing inside my body that will inevitably cause me excruciating pain, permanently alter my body including the most intimate parts of my body, and potentially kill me, and being unable to do anything about it
There is a fundamental mental block with pro-life people where they see "my body, my choice" as terminological nitpickery, instead of a simple explanation of a very viscerally real principle that underlies the ability to feel safe in the world
Agency over your own body is such an essential part of being safe that people sometimes do not even recognize it.
Rape is evil because it is one of the most profoundly psychologically damaging experiences possible for a person to have their body so intimately violated without their permission. It is wrong, and it is inherently violent. Sexual assault frequently does not do physical damage to a person. But it is innately violent. The brain and body literally, biologically process it the same way as an imminent violent threat to the person's life. Sexual assault is largely MORE reliably and intensely traumatizing than experiencing the imminent threat of death.
What this tells us is this: that which concerns the physical interior of a person's body and the private "space" of their body, concerns their literal physical safety. The ability to decide what happens to your body and have your decisions about it be respected is a need, in the same way the ability to live somewhere that isn't getting shot at with missiles is a need.
The impact of pregnancy cannot be captured by "inconvenience." It cannot be captured by "risk." It cannot be modeled by any analogy you may use for it, because your reproductive organs (and all your internal organs) are not your property or something you care very much about, they are parts of your body that are so personal, it is a monstrous crime for someone else to even TOUCH them without your permission.
And none of what I just said even takes into account that pregnancy is virtually guaranteed to physically harm you, and carries a risk of killing you. Many people find pregnancy and birth to be one of the most fulfilling and joyful experiences available to humankind, but this is because they wanted it. They chose it. This is why we talk about the ability to choose.
It is nearly universal common knowledge that childbirth is among the most painful things possible for a human to experience, even when nothing goes wrong. Pregnancy means being disabled for an extended period of time. It means weeks of recovery after the birth. It means being sick, sometimes horribly sick. It could mean having your genitals stitched back together again. Childbirth probably means shitting yourself in front of other people, and that alone should register some struggling spark of doubt in your heart about the ethicality of forcing an unwilling person to do it.
I want you to think separately about each of the things I just mentioned, including the risk of death part, and I want you to seriously imagine the circumstances where it is justifiable to force them on someone. Go over that last paragraph and literally say to yourself, "It should be legally required for a person to have to experience this when..."
Let's make this person a minor. Let's make this person a victim of a horrific, traumatic act of violence. Now let's make this person scared, alone, and uncertain where their next meal is coming from.
What if we made it about childbirth alone? "It should be legally required for a person to go through this life-threatening, excruciating event that will potentially horribly injure them and certainly change their body forever when..."
Make this person 16. Make them 14. Make them too young to really understand what is happening to them or why. Make them someone who made no choice that could have led to this, who could not have prevented it if they wanted to.
Even if you think this is necessary to save someone's life (the fetus's), this is a monstrous world. This is a world that, if it was logically consistent, would never be safe for anyone.
Why can't a doctor kidnap you and cut your kidney out with no painkillers to make sure someone else has a kidney? Why can't a 13 year old be drafted into the military? Why can't people be used as unwilling experimental subjects in medical experiments where they are purposefully infected with debilitating diseases and studied? Why can't we do awful things to unwilling people to potentially save the lives of other people? You tell me!
It's not even about whether a fetus has personhood, ultimately, though I will mention here that a fetus being aborted within the time period that 99% of abortions take place doesn't have consciousness and cannot feel pain. It's about should the government be able to force you to go through pregnancy and childbirth?
And if they can...what else will they be able to do to you?
