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Originally Posted by wittynickname
But you don't see that there's a difference in the way you view it--as someone who cannot actually be personally affected by the outcome of a bill passed about women's reproductive rights?
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Yes. But - and this is a longer conversation - I don't believe in identity politics. My view is that diversity is important to political discussions and perspectives only to the extent that it produces diversity in opinion, and diverse opinions are still something that should be agreed with or not.
Consequently, being a woman (or for example having had to have an abortion) would give someone a perspective that I don't have, that may contribute to them putting forward a different argument for why they believe in the necessity of reproductive rights. Without that background, I might be unable to make that argument; it simply wouldn't occur to me because of my different life experience. However, the argument is itself no better or worse inherently because of its source - it has to stand on its own merit like any other.
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As such, as women who can become pregnant, whose rights can be taken away by someone such as Pence, you cannot see how we would be more personally concerned with this particular kind of political rhetoric?
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I can see how you would be more personally concerned. I can see how it would make you personally angry. This has no bearing on whether or not you're right or wrong, at the end of the day.
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You have very interesting views on the topic, but that doesn't change the fact that even if abortion became illegal tomorrow--it wouldn't directly affect your life. The fact that companies are now legally allowed to stop a woman from accessing birth control does not directly impact your life.
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I care deeply about things that don't affect my life. The fact that Pence supports therapy as a treatment for homosexuality as if it were a disease makes me angrier than, I'd bet, a lot of gay people.
Making the case that you have to be directly affected to have a valid opinion on a particular topic, or that it makes your opinion more valid inherently, is just wrong. I don't have to be a woman to care strongly about issues that affect women, and you don't have to have had an abortion to care strongly about women who are put in that position. Suggesting the contrary is just alienating people with valid perspectives who want to be involved in dealing with an issue that's really hard to deal with. That goes for literally anything, not just abortion.
Or, more eloquently put,
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Originally Posted by Barack Obama, 2004
It's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we are all connected as one people.
If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief - "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper" - that makes this country work.
It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: "E pluribus unum," out of many, one.
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