>Let’s set some ground rules for this article.
The right to have an abortion will never ever be a solved issue. We will forever be subjected to the debates and arguments that surround it. It’s difficult to even talk about without having to use politically charged terminology. In fact, you can immediately tell the political leaning of an article or piece of work by the terminology it uses to describe the whole process. Is it “healthcare”? Is the thing in the womb a “life”? Could abortion be described as a “human right”? Do you use words that describe the fetus as a human life, or do you use words to describe the baby as something that isn’t a life? Do you call the pregnant woman a “mother”? In the United States it’s pro-choice OR pro-life, each carrying a tonne of emotional baggage. Even to imply one way or another will immediately lose those on different ends of the argument. All of these terms are politically loaded, and as such, the reader must be tolerant of some of my terminology, as neutral language in this issue is nearly impossible. However, in this article, I will be referring to the “clump of cells” as a baby and the pregnant person as a woman and/or mother, both for ease in language but most critically, to constantly re-stress how desperately important this debate is.
Now, to be clear about the perspective I will be coming from, so you can be aware of what my biases might be, I’m a fan of the way the U.K. does it (surprise). We have easy access to pre-, during, and post- coitus contraceptives, and abortions up to 24 weeks are accessible, albeit ever so slightly cumbersome; the pregnancy needs to pose a risk to the mother’s physical or mental health, or her current children’s physical or mental health, and 2 doctors need to agree on this. In practice, especially considering the relative vagueness of the term “mental health”, it means if a woman wants an abortion, she can get it. After 24 weeks, there needs to be serious physical risk to life as agreed by 2 doctors before an abortion can be performed.
Firstly, I will outline the nature of the debate and the issue, and my opinion that this issue in particular will likely never be “solved”. Secondly, I will then outline the nature of “Buffer Zones”. Third, I will present to the reader the non-mainstream side of the debate, to give the reader a taste for the reasonable and justified belief in some people that abortion is not “healthcare”. This is not to try to convince the reader one way or another, but to at least create an understanding that there is more than enough reasonable justification for someone to be of that opinion. After this, I will give my opinion that the government cannot ever be trusted to provide accurate, truthful, and unbiased healthcare advice, and that government approved centralised healthcare opinions are easily corruptible from within government, and even from industrialists who can lobby change in their favour. I will close the issue on the discussion with my thoughts, and give a solution-driven conclusion that starts with the man (or woman) in the mirror. Finally on an endnote, as we like to do at Government Lies News, we provide a small and simple action that the reader can engage in to substantiate change.
>This particular issue will never ever go away.
I am of the opinion that it is vital that we, both as a society and as custodians of our liberal democracy (in the classic sense), always allow both elements of this debate to speak unhindered. But I believe it is truly an issue that can never be solved. One group of people will always see it as a way to control your own healthcare, and believe it is a fair way to control whether or not you have a child with your intimate partner. Unwanted pregnancies can and do cause great distress to everybody involved. The other group of people see the life as akin to a baby. They believe the baby is deserving of all the rights and protections of a human life in our society, and has an inherent right to life without being artificially terminated before the baby sees the light of day.
Typically, those that lean towards abortion rights will be younger, less religious, own less wealth and are more likely to be university educated. Conversely, those that lean towards making the practice illegal will come from an older, more conservative and religious background. This is a fair generalisation, but individuals from either of these groups can and do identify their beliefs in other ways. On the extreme ends, certainly the most fervent abortion supporters will be very likely to be young, polygamous, promiscuous and active, and the most fervent anti-abortion supporters will be very families with strong connections to religious groups. People from both of these groups will always exist. The less sexually responsible, and the more sexually conservative, are two categories of people that have always existed.
As such, I am of the opinion that this issue can never go away. There’s no way to bridge the gap in a way that can satisfy everyone. This is known as a dilemma. Problems have solutions, but dilemmas have two or more choices and they each have certain trade-offs. Abortion rights is a most classic of dilemma, and I strongly believe that it would be wrong for the government to take a strong stance either way. In this article, I will not be arguing a pro- or anti- stance to the issue. I will be arguing from a point of view that the UK government takes a very strong and stubborn pro-abortion stance, at the detriment of everybody involved, and that there is a cultural mainstream that denounces any kind of advocacy for the other side of the debate. I believe both the government and corporations are culturally in lockstep on this issue, and it is both to the detriment of this most important of debates, and to the liberty from the standpoint of democracy as a whole. I believe that the government and its bureaucratic centralised healthcare advice lies to women about abortion, and censors viewpoints that are not government approved. I believe that the powers the government have granted itself in pursuit of their signalled virtues is a danger to democracy and grants far too much authority to an increasingly authoritarian approach to anything that isn’t deemed politically correct.
>I am not here to argue about abortion itself.
This debate could be about anything. The fact that it is about abortion is more of an extra layer of nuance to a more important classically liberal philosophy; that individuals have the right to express their opinions. However, given the serious nature of what is being discussed, it is in the depths of nuance that we need to submerge. To try to obscure or simplify the debate would be to not pay it the respect it deserves. The biggest take-away I want the reader to think about is whether these “buffer zones” are powers that we want our government to possess, and whether these sweeping powers are appropriate for this particular issue.
So now we have established some ground rules, and given a very high level view of what’s going on. As we go into the laws around abortion protest, I would encourage the reader, no matter which way they orient their belief system, to be more compassionate to the other side. When we allow contempt to seep into our hearts, we become the very monster we wanted to destroy. Most importantly, the reader must understand that the individuals on both sides of this ugly debate are primarily driven by the love and compassion they have for their human brothers and sisters. Both want to see their human brothers and sisters prosper, but see very different routes to that goal. Do not allow yourself to be fooled by those tiny few individuals who appear extreme in their opinion; usually, they’ve got a lot of other problems in their life, and heated political issues are an easy outlet.
>What justification do police use to arrest people for silently praying?
The United Kingdom has erected an invisible “buffer zone” around all abortion clinics. These are essentially free-speech “dead-zones”. The Public Order Act 2022 created these 150 metre free-speech “dead-zones” known in legislation as “buffer zones” around abortion clinics in England and Wales. Within these buffer zones, it is illegal to “interfere with any person’s decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services”.
Right off the bat, this sets a precedent within UK law that “interfering with a decision” as opposed to physically interfering is now in itself an offence. It’s one of the clearest cut forms of thought-crime in the UK; to discuss, to challenge, to debate, to expose and to present information that may cause another to think; these are now forms of crime in these free-speech “dead-zones”.
Some examples of the most egregious of anti-free speech offences committed by the government are as follows; an elderly woman arrested for handing out leaflets containing alternatives to terminating the pregnancy; 2 people arrested for silently praying near an abortion clinic; another arrested for holding a placard. The response is also swift and heavy-handed, much unlike the police response to riots, child abuse, civil unrest, robbery and assaults on the “unprotected” classes.
The charges are equally vague and ambiguous. One of those arrested for praying silently was charged with “obstructing the highway” and “causing anxiety”. Some of the other charges are slightly more specific, albeit even more dubious; “interfering with the decision to access abortion services”, despite offering no physical restraint or obstruction to the individual terminating her pregnancy. Do we allow the government the power to define what does and doesn’t cause anxiety? Do we trust the moral authority of the government so implicitly that we allow them the authority to tell us what is and isn’t right on this most critical of life-and-death debates?
One key aspect to remember about the dubiousness of these laws is that governments naturally leans towards expanding authority, not retracting it. Where they may find ways around vague legislation to create free-speech “dead-zones”, they may wish to apply this further and further into other hotly contested political areas. Let’s be clear; the precedent set in making “interfering in ones decision-making” is a prosecutable offence will not rest with these free-speech “dead-zones” around abortion clinics. You best believe that like ULEZ, like VAT, like the estate tax, it will continue to grow, and the definitions within it will continuously expand through legislation or vagueness.
There’s plenty of easily accessible arguments against such a concept as free-speech “dead-zones”. They violate that particular fundamental right, they violate freedom of religion, they create a “chilling effect” for other forms of expression, and they ultimately stigmatise abortion by creating a sort of demilitarised zone around abortion clinics, further driving the tension and heat associated with terminating a baby in the womb. Do these free-speech “dead-zones” get expanded to other areas? For example, where the Imams of the Green Lane Masjid discuss and promote stone age views on women, homosexuality and free speech, could the government create a “buffer zone” around it when people protest such intolerance? Could the government use the same powers to prevent protests interrupting HS2?
Remember, this isn’t the first time the government has created a free-speech “dead-zone”. CAZ, or Controlled Access Zone, is a free-speech “dead-zone” around Parliament and Westminster where you will be arrested for protesting. Most dubiously, it seems that the government and police pick and choose quite regularly what types of protests to shut-down. Politically expedient and ideologically captured protests are de-facto allowed, but if you are ideologically opposed to the culture-corporate-government goosestep, you will find yourself in handcuffs and being charged.
These may seem benign to some individuals, especially as these government powers haven’t yet affected anything in their own lives (yet). But it is the end result of a critical lie told by the government; that this debate is in any way solved or certain one way or another, and that you can be prosecuted just for “interfering” with other people’s thoughts.
>No-one has all the answers, and it’s stupid to pretend we do.
The government will always be plagued by the belief that they have such moral superiority in all matters that it feels duty-bound to enforce its belief systems upon you. To counter the belief that this is some kind of “solved” issue, I will present a very small sample of good, “pro-life” arguments:
>>”No-one looks at their children and wishes they had aborted them.”
Of course they don’t. What a daft and obvious statement. But let’s internalise this and test it against these protest laws; if the end result of the anti-abortionist protestors and campaigners means fewer abortions, and more children, inherent in the philosophy that all children are precious is the conclusion that fewer abortions and more children would be a good thing.
There is a lot of social media evidence to suggest that there are many mothers that are delighted they were talked out of an abortion. This is because the truth is, we all want babies. It’s hard-wired into us. We like making babies, and we like raising babies. What could be more appealing than a little human combination of you and someone you love, growing and learning, loving and living?
Compounding this point is the fact that there is a growing discontent among the childless women entering their 40s, and the deluge of celebrity interview articles out there that talk about . There’s even a whole social media trend of childlessness coping mechanisms. The viral video “A Day In The Life of a Childless Woman” by “comedian” Chelsea Handler, documents how every morning she wakes up, takes drugs, masturbates, and goes back to sleep, unironically living a life we’d commonly associate with a depressed shut-in male virgin living in his parents house.
Case in point, childless regret is a booming business. The IVF industry has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. In-Vitro Fertilisation is the process where frozen fertilised eggs are placed into the womb when the mother has difficulty getting pregnant, mostly due to age. As these older women spend over $12,000 on each attempt (yes, most of the time it doesn’t work and you gotta try again), it’s clear just from this price tag that there is some serious desperation involved. In the United States from 1999 to 2019, IVF cycles performed have increased from <30,000 a year to well over 200,000. This continued to grow, with the latest data for 2022 stating that there were 326,468 IVFs performed [source: CDC]. If IVF was a stock, you’d be a sucker not to buy it. This, I present to the viewer, is evidence of a great deal of women reaching older ages, many of whom have had some kind of abortion, feeling a deep and unnerving sense of guilt and regret that they did not have a child.
>>”Lots of women regret abortions, and studies show abortions are directly linked to PTSD and depression in women.”
In the same vein as the previous segment, the never ending stream of TikToks, blogs, Facebook posts and other social media pieces seems to show that there is a highly unpublicised feeling of a deep, soul-crushing regret that comes with aborting a child. A creepy trend emerges where these women talk about not being able to look other babies in the eyes without suffering some kind of overwhelming and incurable emotional reaction. The Journal of Personality and Psychology in 2011 contains a study that suggests regret is as high as 20%, with many other studies finding this number to be much higher. Some “pro-lifers” may also argue with some accuracy that those who don’t regret it might not necessarily understand what they did, and that the regret is likely to come later either long after becoming barren or when they look into their first child’s eyes.
It’s a feeling that is difficult to imagine. There are many studies (and of course, there are always counter-studies) that suggest through data and case-study that there are women who get PTSD, depression, psychosis, and more, after an abortion. This particular area is an area where there are many government lies. The lie goes “abortions do not cause mental health problems, but restrictions to access do”. Government healthcare websites and ideologically captured institutions will repeat this lie again and again, despite the fact that there is a litany of unbiased and well respected and reviewed clinical literature that is very clear about these mental health issues being very real, and sometimes very severe.
>>”Abortion is murder.”
It’s provocative, but not incorrect. Without aborting a pregnancy, the end result is a healthy baby, all ready to eat and shit its way into becoming an adult, where the former baby can begin to eat and shit like an adult. Although I have attempted to dispel the ugliness of this topic with some humour, as Bill Burr puts it so eloquently; “I still think you’re killing a baby”. Too little heed is paid to this truth. One can obfuscate the truth as much as they can be using terms like “fetus” or “clump of cells” to dehumanise the growing human, but it’s still a baby, and aborting it is killing it.
Although little to no heed is paid here, the classic liberal philosophy as derived from Judeo-Christian values is that this is a life, and that the expectant mother has already made the choice to risk pregnancy by having sex, protected or not. A more traditional viewpoint might be for one to refrain from performing procreative acts with individuals whom you would not see as a good partner and parent, lest you create a life together. Even if you don’t believe in the soul, the soul can be used as a good analogy as to where you, the reader, thinks the “fetus” becomes a life that is deserving of its natural rights. Is a soul granted at conception, or at birth, or at the ‘heartbeat’ limit of 6 weeks, or at 24 weeks, or at 20 weeks gestation when the baby is thought to be able to feel pain? I would contend that this is categorically unanswerable.
I believe that it is a fair and nuanced understanding of the issue that takes into account both sides of the debate, and the ability to discuss this that allows everybody to make better decisions. Now, there’s a reason I have steelmanned one side of the debate and not the other. It’s clear that there’s very little in the way of a “pro-life” perspective when it comes to “politically correct” terminology, and there’s an air of dismissiveness in our culture for what will always be perceived as a highly valid and important point of view when it comes to abortion. It’s clear that the government approved centralised healthcare opinions do not take any “pro-life” opinions and perspectives into account. We all suffer when the government takes a hard-line stance and does not move.
>Centralised healthcare opinions will always become corrupted.
The centralised healthcare system has varying sets of approved healthcare opinions that are not always solely the result of cutting-edge healthcare knowledge. Firstly, the approved healthcare opinions change very rarely, and are never subject to challenge or debate. Secondly, those approved healthcare opinions are often steeped in political bias, where politicians are incentivised to “sell-out” principles for the sake of political expediency in some fashion. Thirdly, centralised healthcare opinions can easily be corrupted by political zealots with hard-line beliefs. Finally, and most critically, those centralised healthcare opinions can become corrupted by those unscrupulous industrialists who have a direct profit incentive that may supersede their dedication to actual health.
I would like to take this opportunity to list to the reader a number of government approved centralised healthcare advices that were the results of bad science, political bias, corruption and stubborn, even overzealous beliefs (and you best believe this is a tiny number of the many egregious examples):
Lead is safe for children. Lead was once a common ingredient in paint, gasoline, and other products. However, lead exposure can cause serious health problems in children, including brain damage and developmental delays.
DDT is a miracle pesticide. DDT was widely used in the 1940s and 1950s to control insects, including mosquitoes that carried malaria. However, DDT is also a harmful chemical that can damage the nervous system and cause cancer.
Thalidomide is a safe morning sickness drug. Thalidomide was prescribed to pregnant women in the 1950s and 1960s to relieve morning sickness. However, thalidomide caused severe birth defects, including missing or underdeveloped limbs.
Cholesterol is the enemy of heart health. For many years, the US government recommended that people eat a low-cholesterol diet to reduce their risk of heart disease. However, research has shown that cholesterol is not as big a risk factor for heart disease as once thought.
HRT is a safe and effective way to prevent chronic diseases in women. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was once widely prescribed to postmenopausal women to prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease and osteoporosis. However, research has shown that HRT can increase the risk of breast cancer and other health problems.
Opioids are a safe and effective way to treat chronic pain. Opioids are powerful painkillers that were once widely prescribed for chronic pain. However, opioids are also highly addictive and can lead to overdose and death.
We needn’t even go into anything covid related, and most people are aware at this point that they were told many, many lies about its origin, about the vaccines, and the disease itself. It doesn’t matter what side of the political aisle you sit on; you know you were being lied to every single day about everything during the pandemic. Right when we most needed the government to be reliable, they still lied, and obfuscated. You cannot trust the government on anything healthcare related. They have a history of lying, getting it wrong, and lying about getting it wrong.
Milton Friedman has a great quote, which I will paraphrase; “the reason I am against big government is because where there is big government, industrialists take it over”. By allowing the government a great budget and a great set of powers, we are providing a perverse incentive for industrialists to influence decision-making, and the decision makers have teeth. Again, without even needing to go into too much detail, we know that this was certainly the case during the pandemic. Where the government grants itself carte-blanche to decide the healthcare future of its people, industrialists will seize the opportunity to corrupt the process. Most importantly, we must realise, is that this is simply the most logical step for those healthcare organisations. They needn’t rely on the efficacy of their medicine and the espoused values of their business, but they need only take control of government powers to some degree. There’s a famous quote that’s often attributed to a certain mafia; “it’s no surprise that politicians can be bought. The surprise is how little it costs.”
>This is why both sides of the debate are so important.
Because it’s not so clear cut, is it!
Let’s look at an analogy, and I will admit it’s a rather extreme one, and does not necessarily bare a relation to the choice to end a pregnancy, but the philosophy around how others will react and act is important to explore:
If I were to head to a cliff, determined to end my own life, I might be approached by kind strangers who will want to try convince me to turn the other way. Some may pray, some may hold up placards, some may beg me directly to reconsider my decision. Some might even be more extreme, telling me I will be doomed to burn for all eternity and that I’m ungrateful and disgusting for considering it. On the other side of this feeling, there may be some individuals who are compassionate in a different way, understanding the pain I may feel, and hold some sympathy with the decision I’ve made. These individuals may decry the alternative form of compassion of others.
Although the act of suicide is most definitely not akin to abortion, the story of the analogy shares a similar emotional charge and centres around his choice to jump, and those kind strangers choice to try convince him otherwise. At what point does the strangers intervention become harassment? Do they have a right to try convince him otherwise? Is he really aware of all of the ramifications on others? Is it indecent or grossly offensive for those strangers to tell him about the ramifications of my decision? Is it his right to do it anyway?
Now, of course this analogy doesn’t stretch all the way. In my analogy, you might be morally obliged to physically restrain him from doing it, whereas in the abortion debate, that would just be assault and harassment. This isn’t the only limitation; however, insofar as how others are allowed to voice their opinions as the individual in the analogy takes a lonely walk to the cliff-face, what rights do they have to discourage him? Most importantly, is it so morally clear one way or another? Some will say yes, others will say no. The most important part of any debate is the nuance and the ability to explore it unheeded.
On a side note, considering that Canada now performs medical executions by the wish of the patient, the analogy may not be that much of a stretch for long, and may soon take an ugly parallel. It is important we remain open to discussion, lest we become ruled by an ideologically closed-minded (and homicidal) government like Canada’s.
>Solution driven conclusion.
Let it not be said that we just criticise at Government Lies News. Let’s think of some personal philosophies together that we can adopt, and some virtues we can act out in life that helps improve the quality of such an important debate, and in other debates going forward. I will present these as opinions:
I don’t trust the government with arbitrary and vague laws that can be interpreted so widely and applied with such bias. I believe that the government creates new powers both through legislative vagueness and ugly legislative decrees on hot political topics. It is a form of corruption that is insidious in its application; decided at any particular moment by an armed government thug.
Those potential mothers (yes, that’s biased language) looking to abort their pregnancy deserve to hear everything; at the very least, deserve to have access to all viewpoints. This is a decision that demands the liberty to discuss, even at the most heated and contested of locations.
Remember to find more love for your human brothers and sisters, and forgive them for the sins and troubles you perceive them doing. Contempt is a base and infectious mental disease that gives us permission to become cruel and dismissive of others. Do not allow those excitable and eye-catching short videos or tweets to discolour our view of others. Forgive them, and humble yourself that you do not have all the answers.
Never let the government stop you from saying how you feel about an issue. We, as the custodians of our liberal democracy, have a very small and highly precise set of laws that affect the freedom to speak. Things like directly inciting a crowd to kill someone. But this is it. We must never allow the government to stop us from saying what we believe to be true, and especially to not let them force us to tell lies to each other at the threat of legal enforcement violence.
Never trust the government to be the arbiter of truth. The government is neither incentivised to or capable of understanding an issue like this with nuance. The government is highly incentivised to take one particular position, and glue themselves to it. Although they may not be quite as extreme as individuals may be on this issue, the government will certainly be stubborn. And as the name suggestion, the government will lie and obfuscate the truth to steelman their cause as hard as possible with no regard for the actual inconvenient truth.
We, as a voting public, should demand LEADERS, who take time to understand these issues, and know how best to discover the best compromise for the time. Leaders that are diplomatic and savvy enough to understand where the trade-off is most appropriate for the time, and to ensure that we never let the government shut down healthcare debate again.
>TAKE ACTION.
If you have been inspired by my article and feel like these restrictions and arbitrary laws should be removed, please write to your MP either via email or mail, and point them to this article. We need a higher quality national debate, and you need to make your voice heard. Make sure they’re aware that you do not approve of these unprecedented police powers, and that you will not tolerate the government having them.
When your MP hears your voice, it sounds like thousands of people. Take action today. Find your MP at the link below and write to them!
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