#not a pro/anti- natalist by any means but i do have my own issues with existential dread + this flesh prision

[balancefrost]

Does anyone else see pregnancy/birth as profoundly existential and deeply horrifying or is that just me?

[fineillsignup]

I'm one of those readers that aren't mad about the ships,honestly they're a low standard.What I am fucking mad about is that kishi inserted the concept of peace into the story.How would the story work if that happened?What conflict would there be for a story?Making an effort for peace, but are the shinobi really suited for such a task?Doesn't their economy thrive on conflict?Missions focus on assassinations,information retrieval,politicians one upping each other? That sort of thing?

I’m really glad you asked that anon because that’s become one of the driving forces behind my story Your Most Important Person.

I don’t know why I can’t write simple id-scratching trope fiction, but for some reason I seem to be incapable of it. So much like Heart Under a Blade quickly became “can an ABO fic treat female characters better than canon?”, YMIP has somehow become “can a soulmates AU have more coherent and satisfying worldbuilding and societal development than canon?”

And the big question is, suppose Kishimoto didn’t rely on aliens to supply external conflict in a supposedly peaceful society? What would be a logical next big obstacle for Naruto & friends? Suppose Kishimoto didn’t ignore that the Konoha shinobi forces have been cut by at least 75% in five years and that hardly any shinobi have kids? How would they handle that challenge? Suppose Kishimoto didn’t only remember that the shinobi economy is based on war and unrest when he can use it to mock a female character (Tenten’s failing shop and Sakura’s mortgage)? How would the shinobi world adjust? Suppose Kishimoto didn’t sacrifice the other characters’ principles, hopes, dreams, and motivations in order to let Orochimaru continue to experiment on children? What would that open up?

These questions all have more than one possible answer of course. Some possible answers (spoilers for YMIP) under the “read more”.

1. Just because there isn’t war, doesn’t mean that petty conflict goes away. By petty I mean gangs, illicit trade, murders, kidnappings, etc. Even in canon, we see plenty of missions that aren’t war-derived. So I think that the downturn in business is exaggerated, especially when we get to point two.

2. Kishimoto loves to tell the reader that lots of ninja die in this or that conflict, but it never makes any impact because the dead ninja don’t have any connection to any named character and very little impact on the story outside of it being the supplied reason why Shikamaru has to scramble together genin to get back Sasuke. If the drop in personnel were realistic, the problem wouldn’t be that there wasn’t enough business, the problem would be that there weren’t enough shinobi to complete business.

3. Orochimaru being allowed to basically do what he wants post-699 is some bullshit let me tell you. Not only isn’t he remorseful for anything he’s done, he doesn’t show any sign of having decided to amend his behaviour in the future, other than a vague statement that he wants to observe. Surprise! As of Boruto, he’s still performing involuntary medical experiments on human beings! Team Taka and Yamato also have to atrophy and languish for this. 

Giving second chances and redeeming villains is a noble idea, but redeeming has to involve actual redemption. A supposed redemption where an abuser is happy and his former victims are all not only extremely unhappy but also watching him abuse new victims is not a redemption. I can’t believe I have to point that out, but there it is.

But given that canon says that Orochimaru is basically contained within every curse seal, and given the number of curse seal victims we saw spilling out of Orochimaru’s prisons, eliminating Orochimaru from the world would be a big challenge... gosh, you might say that it’s the kind of long-term, potentially episodic monster-of-the-week challenge that suits a series like Naruto down to the ground.

Some other plotlines this opens up:1. Suigetsu’s quest for the swords2. Actual control of Juugo’s curse, which is a plot hole in Boruto. If only Sasuke can control him and Sasuke buggers off to “atone”, what the hell kind of agony has Juugo been going through?! Because you know Orochimaru doesn’t give a fuck about Juugo or anyone Juugo might kill in his rages.3. KARIN DESERVES TO LIVE HER OWN LIFE DAMMIT and I want to see Naruto and Karin connect too4. Yamato just wants to belong and be acknowledged and included oh my goodness protect this precious wooden baby

4. Ninja world demographic collapse. Yes hello this is my pet peeve but really. REALLY. You cannot just apply a birth rate less than that of modern Singapore to a high death rate society like Naruto’s and expect everything to be hunky dory. I feel like a lot of people choose to willfully suspend disbelief on this one because they also aren’t interested in large families but it really bothers me let me tell you. Especially because can you get a more pro-natalist philosophy than everyone chattering about unborn children as the “kings” of Konoha?! It’s just so contradictory that it drives me absolutely bazonkers.

A lot of anti-ending people repeat the line that “everyone gets hetero paired off” in Naruto 700 but this just doesn’t match the facts. Kishimoto doesn’t pair off anyone he can get away with not pairing off in order to produce a kid for the Boruto cast, with the one exception of Kiba, whom he pairs with the cat girl for the laughs. Everyone has one kid, at the exact same time. Naruto, as the old main character, gets rewarded with a bonus younger sibling for the new main character. The teacher generation? No new couples. No new kids. Not to mention that in Naruto’s generation, everyone is either an only child or has one sibling max.

In a world where people genetically inherit superpowers and clan identity is strong, this kind of reproductive pattern just makes no sense.

A more coherent Naruto ending would have to deal with this issue, especially coupled with the 75%+ reduction in shinobi in five years.

5. It’s not like shinobi powers only have deadly applications!!!! Medical ninjutsu is obvious, but almost all the powers have peaceful applications if you think about it. Aburame could use insects to pollinate plants effectively. Inuzuka animals are the best search and rescue. Yamanaka as psychologists, healing minds. Genjutsu entered into consensually for entertainment. Yamato’s Wood Release’s practical applications we all know already; presumably Lava Release and similar could do similar things in stone and other mediums. There’s nothing stopping people from developing more and more peaceful jutsu.

6. The daimyo power structure has outlived its agency. In a more logical post-699, I would foresee the Hidden Villages taking over their nations outright.

I’ll leave it there, but there is soooooo much potential for new plot, exciting plot, in a war-free Naruto. Not to mention stuff like tournaments. I’ve barely scratched the surface here.

[jerumebrunneng]

As you may be aware, there's a movement out there which is dedicated to, among other things, forcing women to become and/or remain pregnant against their will. It may sound like the sort of bizarre fringe group that's only relevant in places like Iran or Saudi Arabia or Uganda and which civilized countries make a point of keeping on their toes with the occasional drone strike. Sadly, this is not so. In fact, this group controls legislators in first-world nations such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and above all, The United States of America.

Members of this movement call themselves "pro-life". There's a long, long list of reasons why that name is completely, laughably, tragically inappropriate, which I won't be getting into today. What’s important right now is that this blatant contradiction had led many people to refer to this movement as "pro-birth" instead of their preferred moniker.

While I appreciate my colleagues’ irreverence, I cannot in good conscience join them in using that term. And here's why.

Let's imagine that this movement was motivated by a more or less sincere philosophy of Natalism (which is, after all, just the fancy word for "Pro-Birth"), and that all that pesky "depriving women of their fundamental human rights" business was just an unpleasant side effect of this core belief, rather than a primary goal. Natalism is a pretty scary philosophy on its own, and it would have a lot of very scary consequences, a few of which do line up with the anti-choice platform. At the very least, it's much better at predicting their behaviour than the "they sincerely believe that abortion is murder" theory.

But there's one issue that would be a no-brainer, one issue on which an essentially Natalist movement would do the right thing, if only for the wrong reason. Specifically, it would provide an enormous level of support towards pregnant women, to help them do the one thing (or so they believe) that women are good at, which is pumping out a continuous stream of babies.

Now, of course, these "pro-life" people don't spend all their time advocating for the death penalty or trying to murder doctors and their children. A lot of their hatred is directed at a relatively small organization known as Planned Parenthood, and attempts to criminalize it, or at the very least, to stop the government from giving it any money.

It's time for a little guessing game. Each year, how many taxpayer dollars do you think Planned Parenthood spends to provide abortions? A million? A hundred million? A billion? A billion and one? From all those protest signs covered in poorly-photoshopped pictures of "dead babies”, it has to be a lot, right? Go on, take a wild guess.

Now take the number you were thinking of, and multiply it by zero.

The number you have now is what they actually spend. Federal Legislation already requires that no taxpayer money can be used to fund them (instead, the tiny fraction of PP's budget that goes towards providing pregnancy termination services comes entirely from donations and other sources). So where does that all that Federal money actually go?

It goes towards providing education, especially in districts where the schools' idea of "Sex Ed" begins and ends at the Stork. This lowers the rate of unwanted pregnancies, and therefore lower the rate of abortions. It goes towards making contraception more available. This  prevents the spread of STDs, and helps people deal with a laundry list of hormonal issues. This also lowers the rate of unwanted pregnancies, and therefore the rate of abortions. It goes towards providing crucial medical tests, which allows doctors to diagnose and treat conditions that might otherwise require a pregnancy to be terminated, which, guess what, lowers the rate of abortions. Name a service that actually helps lower abortion rates (rather than just increase abortion fatality rates), and it's a pretty safe bet that Planned Parenthood provides it.

Of course, even if no human being had ever intentionally terminated a pregnancy, ever, preventing unwanted pregnancies would STILL be unequivocal, absolute most efficient way to stop the deaths of fetuses. Because here's the thing - slightly more than half of all fertilized zygotes fail to implant in the uterine wall, and another 30% or so spontaneously abort early in the first trimester. If you're of the belief that "life begins at conception", this means that roughly three quarters of all human beings ever conceived were flushed away with their mother's next period, often before she realized she was pregnant.

And let’s not even get started on how dangerous pregnancy can get after that point - for most of human history, it was the leading cause of death, and in nations where medical care is not readily available, it still is. If there is a god, he is the most prolific abortionist in history by six or seven orders of magnitude.

In the interest of preventing all those needless deaths of mothers and children alike, much of Planned Parenthood's money goes towards providing prenatal care.

If the "pro-life" lobby succeeds beyond its wildest dreams in their rallying cry of "defunding Planned Parenthood", they will not have taken a single penny from the pockets of a single abortionist. What they will have done is deprive millions of women the resources they need to bring their pregnancy to term in as safe and healthy a way as possible.

How about the Affordable Care Act? Surely, getting rid of the dreaded "Obamacare" will stop some abortions, right? Wrong. The ACA had a similar provision to the one I mentioned above, preventing a single penny of federal money from contributing towards coverage that includes abortion services. In fact, many individual states have laws that prevent ANY health insurance plan from covering it. What the recent repeal of the ACA has done is, you guessed it, leave a whole lot of pregnant women without the coverage they need to help them survive pregnancy, to give birth, and to keep their children healthy if they manage to be born.

So, no. I won't be calling those motherfuckers "pro-birth".

That gives them WAY too much credit.

P.S. If you call yourself "pro-life", if you personally find the idea of abortions distasteful and would never want to get one yourself, even if you sincerely believe that a fetus is morally equivalent to a thinking, feeling human being, that does not necessarily make you a bad person.

In fact, so long as you don't believe in using those beliefs to take rights away from actual people, we are on the same side. Because guess what? I also want to see abortion rates go down, which is why I support sex education, contraception, and all those other wonderful things that accomplish what simple prohibition does not.

If you genuinely care about protecting those precious little fetuses, you're going to want pregnant women to receive better medical care, not worse. You’re going to want people to be educated, not ignorant. You're going to want Planned Parenthood to have more money, not less.

And you should probably think twice about whether you want the mainstream "pro life" lobby I’ve just spent the last thousand words describing to continue to publicly represent you.

If, on the other hand, you do believe in taking rights away from women, kindly go fuck yourself.