{"id":26864,"date":"2022-08-15T16:34:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T23:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=26864"},"modified":"2022-08-15T16:34:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T23:34:37","slug":"cartoon-pro-lifers-in-everyday-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=26864","title":{"rendered":"Cartoon: Pro-Lifers in Everyday Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

If you like these cartoons, then you probably like chocolate, because who doesn’t like chocolate? And, similarly, who doesn’t like my cartoons? They’re basically the same thing, Also, patreon link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

I don’t bring this up a lot, because it’s really just a weird thing about me, not a relevant policy argument. But I’m genuinely insulted <\/em>by the pro-life idea that I – an adult human being with thoughts and desires and consciousness – am morally identical to, and no more valuable than, a fetus which not only lacks all those things, but is physically incapable of having any desires or thoughts or consciousness at all.<\/p>\n

You need a brain for all that stuff. And until fairly late in a pregnancy – long after virtually all abortions take place – a fetus doesn’t have a functioning brain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many pro-life arguments emphasize that a “preborn” baby may have fingers and toes and eyes, often accompanied by photoshopped images of a fetus made to look especially cute. But none of that is relevant. A person born without fingers or toes or eyes is still a person. A mannequin can have all that stuff and it’s not a person.<\/p>\n

Personhood is our personality, our thoughts, our selves. And all of that is contained in our brains.<\/p>\n

I’m especially annoyed when the “fetuses aren’t morally different from any other human!” argument is made by referring to the Holocaust – “if we say fetuses aren’t people, isn’t that like the Nazis saying Jews aren’t people?”<\/p>\n

Sure it’s like that, as long as we accept that Jews are brainless creatures incapable of having any consciousness at all. I myself am not prepared to accept that.<\/p>\n

\n

The non-personhood of the fetus is not, to me, the most important argument against the pro-forced-birth position. The most important argument, I think, is that it’s simply immoral to force people become involuntarily life support systems. (An argument famously made by Judith Jarvis Thomson in her “A Defense of Abortion”<\/a> back in 1971). (I’ve done a couple of cartoons on that theme, like “Forced Kidney Donation<\/a>” and “Fight Medical Tyranny<\/a>“.)<\/p>\n

\n

This cartoon was oddly slow to draw. Looking at it now, I’m not sure why it took forever. It does have fairly detailed backgrounds (at least for me), and all the backgrounds were drawn with actual perspective lines, and that does take longer to do, but not that <\/em>much longer.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it just doesn’t go smoothly. But other strips come out of my stylus quickly and easily; I guess it all balances out on the imaginary cosmic comics scales.<\/p>\n

\n

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON<\/strong><\/p>\n

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows a different scene of two people talking. A caption at the bottom of the cartoon says “PRO-LIFERS IN EVERYDAY LIFE.”<\/p>\n

PANEL 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two women are talking in a store that has large displays of laptop computers – a Best Buy or something like that. \u00a0One woman, who is dressed a sales associate (skirt, vest over collared shirt, nametag), is grinning and holding up a laptop to display it. The other woman, who has an undercut and is wearing a zip-up hoodie and carrying a purse, is leaning down to look at the laptop skeptically. )<\/p>\n

CUSTOMER: I’m not buying that <\/em>– there’s no operating system or hard drive and the CPU is missing.<\/p>\n

SALESPERSON: It’s still a computer!<\/p>\n

PANEL 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man and a woman are in a home kitchen. The man, who is youngish but balding early, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that says “Band Name” on the front, is basically squeeing with joy while looking at the woman’s plate. The woman, dressed in a flower print shirt and plaid pants, is holding a plate with an omelet on it and looking annoyed.<\/p>\n

MAN: Wow, you got a chicken<\/em>? What’s its name<\/em>?<\/p>\n

WOMAN (thought): Oh god not this <\/em>again<\/p>\n

WOMAN (aloud): It’s an omelet!<\/em><\/p>\n

PANEL 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

A woman wearing a sleeveless shirt, and with a heavily tattooed arm, and her black hair in a messy bun, is holding a paint roller in one hand, while the other hand is on the rung of a ladder. She looks annoyed. Behind her, a man with glasses and a polo shirt is leaning in her window from outside and yelling at her.<\/p>\n

MAN: That paint color isn’t<\/em> the choice I’d<\/em> make.<\/p>\n

MAN (yelling): It should be banned!<\/strong><\/p>\n

PANEL 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

An annoyed man stands in the door to his house, arms folding, blocking the way. He’s staring down at a tiny child on the front step. The child looks surprised.<\/p>\n

MAN: You expect me to take care of you even after<\/em> you’re born?<\/p>\n

\n

This cartoon on Patreon<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you like these cartoons, then you probably like chocolate, because who doesn’t like chocolate? And, similarly, who doesn’t like my cartoons? They’re basically the same thing, Also, patreon link. I don’t bring this up a lot, because it’s really … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights","category-cartooning-comics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26866,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26864\/revisions\/26866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}