In the video below Rebecca Watson, a rational and articulated youtuber makes the case, sarcastically, for why we should outlaw childbirth based on the findings of a study that shows that more people regret having children than regret having abortions.

After seeing the video and getting an idea of where I’m heading with this, please read on to see a number of reasons why those who argue that are pro-life are in fact doing more damage than good and they’re practically the very same people that we, as sex workers, have to deal with quite frequently, especially on the Internet.

“A new study published in Plos One has found that 99% of women who have had abortions say that in retrospect having the abortion was the right decision to make at the time.

This is only news because conservative Christians are constantly trying to tell women that they’re going to regret their decisions even going so far as to suggest that having an abortion will raise your chance other depression or suicide – both the which are completely untrue but they use these ideas to try to push for abortion to be outlawed it’s so ridiculous that we need research like this to continue to argue for women to have access to basic health care an abortion demonstrably makes the world a better place.

Research shows us that in areas where abortion is restricted or outlawed women continue to have abortions at the same rate but more women die in other words outlawing abortion doesn’t save any unborn babies it just kills more definitely born women you know I almost said adult women there, but let’s be honest, lacquer access to abortion doesn’t just kill adult women it’s also killing teenagers who are getting pregnant due to rape or lack of sexual education.”

Did you notice any similarities between this rationale and the one we’re dealing with when it comes to sex work? They have a lot in common.

Pro-life people are the same people who want to “rescue” the sex workers.

1. Most women don’t regret having had abortions.

Just as most women who’ve had abortions say that, in retrospect, having the abortion was the right decision to make at the time, most sex workers not only that they don’t regret doing this business, they actually enjoy their job. They repeatedly said that they want more rights and better laws instead of your rescue BS, because  you cannot rescue someone from making more money using their bodies as they see fit by forcing them to use their bodies in a way that you see fit while doing a dead-end job for much, much less.

2. All women should be able to decide what they do with their bodies

Beyond the moral debate of the right time and following the specialists’ recommendations, whatever you’re trying to push as good or bad are simply half baked morals with little support in the real world.

First of all, if you don’t allow women to make decisions regarding their bodies, then you have no gender equality. And this concludes our discussion on abortion, because I refuse to let you take away my rights and we’re obviously discussing about something else here and not morality.

If you accept that I should have the right to determine what’s happening with or to my body and that women need access to abortion in order to enjoy equality as men do, we can forward our discussion to the point where little or no debate is necessary, because the morality of abortion is surpassed by the importance of having the power to decide for myself what I want to do with my body.

By extent, people who decide to use their bodies to offer a certain type of services like escorting (that don’t harm anyone involved, might I add, when respect for human body and mind is due and the law enforces this standard adequately) instead of another should be allowed to do so if we are to respect equality amongst ourselves and empower everyone to make important and informed decisions about their own existence

3. It’s not dangerous in itself, it’s dangerous because you make it so

“An egg is not a chicken” / Source

The decisive majority of medical abortions are safe and effective (with better odds of success without complications when they’re performed earlier). This is because these procedures take place in highly controlled environments, are legal, are performed by professionals after the patients have been properly informed about everything they need to know, including the possible unwanted outcomes. These women are making an informed decision to which they are absolutely entitled and no one should be able to take this decision away from them or pressure them into not having an abortion because they don’t believe it’s moral to do so.

Whenever you intrude into someone’s life and push your moral agenda – and this happens too often with religious groups – you’re causing these women a great deal of stress, sometimes to the point where they change their minds despite their best interest and better judgement.

Sex workers often go through the same processes, on both counts. In the countries where sex work is legal, all services related to this one are regulated by professional bodies or have standards in place, meant to ensure that everyone involved is properly informed in order to make rational decisions and reduce the chances of unwanted outcomes to almost none.

When the social conservatives, who are generally ill informed and pass judgements based on religious morals instead of accepting that is not a decision they should ever make, simply intrude and put pressure on sex workers to use their bodies to flip burgers instead of selling sexual services, they’re only causing harm to the escorts and other sex workers, because stigma and hatred can never do any good to anyone.

Moreover, when you criminalize people for offering sexual services (or having abortions, for that matter), you push it underground and only then it becomes a real problem, because you’ll create a system where no help exists – yet abortions won’t just end and sex work won’t just stop being in demand – and all sorts of people will take advantage of this situation, from corrupt police to human traffickers.

When sex work is legal, magic happens: violence against sex workers goes way down, the police does its job properly, there’s accountability, transparency and standards in place. And no, absolutely no one will ever be forced to have sex with any sex worker just because it’s legal, in case the moral issue still bothers you.

When good laws are in place and they’re based on well conducted research that takes into account human conditions, needs and treats and we put respect for human beings and their need to be able to make informed decisions about their own bodies ahead, sex work is not dangerous. As it happens, the more conservative and religious-morals-based our laws are, the more people tend to suffer.

Can you really not see why we’re pushing for better sex education and the right to decide for yourself instead of forcing you by law to things a certain way?

4. Pro-lifers aren’t out to make the world they live in a better place.

Pro-life people are set on a moral crusade to punish those who don’t follow their rules, which it happens that are based on their narrow interpretation of a book and ignore everything that we have learnt in the past 100 years about human body, human sexuality, our physical and psychological needs, everything.

If anything, the pro-life people are causing more suffering, angst and psychological distress than any abortion can, when they go full-mental on doctors, establishments and, more importantly, on those women who decided that it simply wasn’t the right time, the child would have been unwanted, the change would have caused too much distress or unnecessary suffering in their lives or whatever reason, because the no one else but the potential father should have a saying in this, and even that can be discussed on a per-case level.

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To quote a commenter on the video, for social conservatives, women dying from abortions is a feature, not a bug. They don’t give a crap about children. If they did they would be fighting tooth & nail for universal, tax support pre-natal and post-natal care. They would be fighting for paid maternity leave. They would be unfunding the Pentagon and funding schools. Social conservatives want to punish women that have sex they personally do not approve. Social conservatives are wrong concerning abortions. Social conservatives are always wrong.

This, you will agree, applies quite literally to the adult industry as well.

It’s worrisome when social conservatives get to influence the freedoms and lifestyles of everybody else but it’s plain dangerous when these people are allowed to decide on more serious matters, like education, access to health resources or even the right to abortion because they will not consider science-based evidence but put forward their morals as a basis for making decisions that determine the fate of others.

Rebecca Watson is one of our favourites on Youtube and you can support her advocating and educational efforts by sponsoring her on Patreon.