So, having the abortion debate with a friend I’ve known for 10 years. Morally, I’m not going to be able to change his mind about valuing life at conception, vs my perspective of valuing human consciousness being the determining philosophical perspective. His mother started and owned her own defense/immigration law firm for 20 years, so he is familiar with how debate is supposed to be done.

However, to my knowledge, that doesn’t even matter. Abortion restrictions/bans are just, flat out ineffective policy. From my research, total abortion bans in the US were accompanied with contraptive access being decreased, so using increased birthrates in red American states is questionable.

He brought up Poland and a couple other Euro countries restricting abortion, and specifically in Poland legal abortions fell by 90% (exceptions in the case of mothers dying). However, ofc finding reliable stats for illegal abortion rates in such countries is going to be difficult. In addition to that, women in Poland and other European countries, are able to just travel to neighboring countries to get abortions (I believe, I haven’t seen mention of American style persecutions of those seeking care across borders).

He discredited South American statistics, the continent with the most total abortion bans. Despite them having x3 the abortion rate as developed countries with abortion being legal, he disregarded that statistic as “they don’t have effective enforcement mechanisms”, and wanted to stick to developed countries.

These are the claims I am trying to prove:

“You inherently can’t have well enforced total abortion bans without infringing on women’s rights, in addition to total abortion bans being harmful to society as a whole and not actually accomplishing the goal of stopping fetuses from being murdered. I think the pro life movement has been pushed by either religious organizations, or nefarious, hostile to American democracy entities who have geopolitical goals in mind (ie, paralyzing American democracy with polarizing moral wedge issues).”

I figured Lemmy has probably had similar conversations in the past, and that you guys might have some helpful academic resources or arguments to point me towards. I’m trying to focus on the “the data shows this is garbage policy if what you care about (which he claims he does) is the optimal outcome for the most unborn fetuses and mothers, unless your goal is to be the sex police and trying to control women, then it totally makes sense to be doing what Republicans in America have been doing” angle. The leader of the pro life movement in Poland said for them, it’s about upping native Polish birthrates, with him blaming ‘young women going out and drinking’ on falling birthrates. After the abortion ban in Poland, birthrates fell by 11%, making them the worst in Europe.

Anyways, if you guys have relevant data you’d like to share, would save me a lot of time, thanks! The dude claimed to be a “non religious abortion abolitionist”, so an extreme pro lifer. That shit pissed me, because he thinks he is in the moral minority that future generations will think were in the right, and instead he’s a fuckin’ part of the problem.