• ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    “Because there is no legislation in the history of America that legislates a man’s body, so why does mine have to be legislated?”

    I love what this man is saying except for this part. It drives me crazy every time I’ve heard it. Has nobody heard of the fucking draft? I would say forcing someone to go die in a war is the ultimate legislating of a person’s body.

    • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      That is a false equivalency and patently not valid. There were deferments, medical or educational. It was Federal, most posts were not direct combat with an 031* MOS. Many men went to Canada, or AWOL or were conscientious objectors. Also at the end of it all a large part of society considered them having completed their sevice and honored them as heroes and veterans if they finished their tour/rotation.

      I’m not going to get into how terrible the VA is, or how useless the GI bill was during 'nam. But no, the draft does not equate to the looooooooong history of legislation that was levied on women, everything from there not being marital rape to being required to carry a rapist’s insemination to term. Fuck that whole trail of logic there.

      Yes men can be sexually assaulted and yes the draft sucked, but it does not equate to female bodied or female presenting people’s plight under the patriarchy.

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Why is a false equivalency? It is a law that controls men’s bodies. My uncle and father were forced to go to war against their wills. They survived but they both knew many people who didn’t. My uncle ended up dying from problems caused by his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

        Many men went to Canada

        Would you accept the excuse for banning abortion that women could just go to Canada to get one? Of course not. Fuck that.

    • SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Legislating autonomy isn’t what’s being talked about when discussing legislating someone’s body. And while I’m sure there has been legislation on a mans body in American history, forced sterilization comes to mind, I think a pedantic linguistics debate isn’t really the pertinent issue in this conversation.

        • SquirtleHermit@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          a pedantic linguistics debate isn’t really the pertinent issue in this conversation.

          Just to reiterate my last point, a disagreement over these definitions is literally is just agreeing on words, which is a waste of energy in the face of the core conversation.

          But to waste that energy with you, yes it is referred to as bodily autonomy, so perhaps I had a poor choice of words when trying to highlight the difference. That however does not mean there is no difference, it just means we are having a linguistics debate on word choice.

          By “legislating autonomy”, I was referring to the freedoms to move about freely, choose a job, and engage in leisurely activities. The kinds of things the draft and being sent to prison prevent. The draft was a specific type of this that affect men specifically and directly.

          By “legislating someone’s body”, I was referring to legislating what they are allowed to do with regards to actions taken to their own body. This would include abortions, gender reassignment, and access to healthcare. These have of course included men, but none have been specific to only men. Abortion rights are a specific form of legislation on a person’s body that is gender specific, which men have never experienced.

          You can die on the hill of “these words have multiple meanings, and therefore someone must have intended all possible interpretations when using them”, or you can realize that women do have a unique form of legislation on their bodily autonomy (again, referring to what they can do in regards to their body, not with) that men by and large do not share, and that this is what is being talked about when this is being discussed. If you can’t recognize the difference, at least please consider that you are derailing a more important conversation when you bring your original point up.

    • cobysev@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      I would say forcing someone to go die in a war is the ultimate legislating of a person’s body.

      As someone who served in the US military for 20 years and got regularly mortared in Iraq, I can easily say that serving in the military, even during a time of war, is not an automatic death sentence. Sure, you could argue that forcing you to join up and travel to dangerous places is restricting your freedom of movement, maybe some civil liberties at times. But the ultimate goal is not to die.

      Plus, we’ve expanded the Reserves so that we don’t need to do a draft anymore. The draft is ancient history. There are so many people who voluntarily signed up for the Reserves that we would probably need 3/4 of America completely overrun by enemy forces before we’d need to enact a draft again. We’re a 100% voluntary force nowadays.

      Heck, during the Iraq War, most of my fellow active duty members didn’t really need to change their daily work routine because the Reserves were the first ones sent to war. We had so many people volunteer to serve that our active duty military didn’t need to do all that much. I didn’t go to Iraq until 4 years later, when things started to get a little heated and they needed more active support to hold our positions.

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        What you are talking about is the difference between choosing to carry a birth to term and someone being forced to do the same. It’s a big fucking difference. And the draft is still on the books. It can be reinstated at any time (just like all those anti-abortion laws on the books were reinstated after Dobbs).

        • cobysev@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          Yes, and I’m saying that we’ve fixed the problem of being forced to send people to war against their will by providing an option for people to volunteer. And it was wildly successful; so much so, that we don’t need the draft anymore.

          We need to do the same for abortion. Provide the necessary tools to help those in crisis without forcing them to carry a birth to term. If we put the knowledge and power in the hands of those affected, they can make better and safer decisions. Then we’re not forcing women to hold onto a baby that might kill them, or raise an unwanted baby in a home that will only harm the baby mentally or physically, or put the mother and/or baby at risk with abusive partners, etc. Whatever the situation, it can be more directly and effectively managed by those involved instead of a faceless figure making an inflexible blanket law.

          Historically, abortions always go down under Democrat officials because they tend to provide better resources and education for abortion AND prevention. Republican officials just preach abstinence-only diatribe and restrict access to safe abortions and prevention resources. We end up with more unwanted pregnancies and more deaths due to childbirth.

          But because Republicans preach about banning abortion and Democrats allow it, most people won’t pay attention to the actual statistics and go straight for the emotional response: “killing babies is wrong, ban abortion!”

      • eldavi
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        19 hours ago

        what about the psychological damage?