#(like the ideas are there but they don't really feel thoroughly explored or deconstructed the way Tales games typically are)

[fortune-maiden]

Finally it looks like we are getting more plot in Tales of Arise! Alphen has a full face again, his memories, and unfortunately for Shionne, his ability to feel pain :(

[secularprolifeconspectus]

I read your entire zine. I have the means to support an unplanned pregnancy and I am in support of innate “personhood” and am against murder in all circumstances.

Your zine thoroughly identifies the connection between Neoliberal Capitalism necropolitics and abortion but could use more resources for alternatives like your testimonial for embryo donation. I say this because your true position is one that is actually pretty common—that abortion is traumatizing but necessitated by (forced) socioeconomic conditions. While you are clearly concerned with compassion, we are still living under these regimes with no light ahead in sight so labeling yourself as “pro-life” seems like a misappropriation of the contemporary term while also /feeling/ a bit sadistic.

On a philosophical note, how do you tackle the notion of bodily autonomy in this case? Pregnancy complications aside, how can we tell women that they necessarily must sustain someone else’s body with their own? Even in a just world, women who do not wish to experience pregnancy as a medical condition will exist and they would have that right as part of healthcare. Do you assign special rights to the personhood of an unborn human that supersede their mothers? Even if you suggest pregnant folks wait until they are able to donate their embryos, you are still implying some sort of regulation (assuming not legal since you are anarchist) against their bodies. While I agree that most abortions are ultimately coercive, I am uncertain that the exceptions are minuscule enough to limit my support to only “necessary” (prioritizing bodily health over mental health/wellbeing) abortions.

I really appreciated your zine. It was very thought out and well informed. I hope to see updates soon!

Well howdy, thanks for reading the zine in its entirety. You're right, in the zine I do focus on the socioeconomic coercion angle because its an accessible point of entry for folks with left-leaning ideologies. And I did make a ploy for compassion because you have to have a pathos appeal to compliment logos, right? HOWEVER, I want to clarify that my *actual* position (not just the idea I explore in the zine) is this:

Prenatal humans are in the same metaphysical processes as us, which makes them real people with the equal right to not be subject to deliberate violence. Bodily autonomy does not justify disproportionate use of force against a dependent person.

And that's all there is to it. Abortion is ethically impermissible and a human rights violation, irrespective of contemporary regime. So I hope that earns me the "pro-life" label in your eyes, or at least an "anti-abortion" ethos. I'll take either.

Noted on the alternative resources suggestion.

I've done a detailed deconstruction of the bodily autonomy justification for abortion in this post & this post. I don't think women MUST sustain preborn people within their own bodies, but until preborn people can be safely transferred elsewhere, I think everyone (not just women) MUST refrain from suffocating, dismembering, or poisoning preborn people. Because that is how abortion induces fetal demise: it deliberately deprives the person of oxygen, compromises their body integrity, or hijacks their vital functions.

I think when there is no option to remove a preborn person from her mother's body without knowingly killing her, then we must NOT knowingly kill her. I have no interest in forcing women to DO anything. I have interest in enforcing that everyone (women included) NOT do a few things, very specifically: knowingly cause the death of a tiny, powerless person.

I want every person to have the same right to not be deliberately killed. And I want every person to refrain from deliberately killing. I recognize that this puts an unequal burden on pregnant people in the present; but consider the burden preborn people shoulder when they are sacrificed to purchase our liberty, for which we never personally pay the ultimate price. It is brutal abuse of power.

When you really think about it, the bodily autonomy argument is a bit of a red herring, isn't it? I've never heard of a person who sought an abortion simply because they "do not wish to experience pregnancy". People most often seek abortions because they do not want a relationship to a living child. It's an issue of reproductive autonomy.

Sure I have an anarchist bent, but when it comes to a literal genocide, I am first a pragmatist. If a genocide can be stopped immediately with legal sanctions, then I will accept that for now. Lives are on the line. My ideal sociopolitical framework can wait.