Ireland recently voted to repeal a personhood amendment to their constitution. By the words of the amendment, it could not have been more clear that they knew what they were doing.

It read:

“The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

That is the abortion question in a nutshell: Whose life is valued more? Ireland used to say, “They are equal.” Pro-choice people have managed to soften the language used when discussing the inhumane procedure, twist the debate into one about a woman’s autonomy, and convinced people that a tiny young human life is not a life worth protecting. But their arguments are full of holes. Here are twelve of them.

1. Pro-choice women love when men join the debate on their side, but pro-choice men risk nothing and gain everything. Since when do feminists allow men to champion a cause where women take all of the burden? If men shouldn’t speak on the abortion debate, it should be on the pro-choice side because nowhere else do they get one hundred percent of the rewards, none of the pain, and women still have to carry the burden of dealing with the after effects of abortion.

2. If diversity is an important and laudable goal (it’s written into law under affirmative action), then abortion is directly opposed to that goal. Abortion in fact eradicates far more minorities than white supremacy could ever hope to accomplish through segregation or genocide.

3. Abortion is oppression. It is a classic situation of the strong dominating the weak. Liberals say they stand up for the oppressed, for those who have no voice. Could this situation be any more starkly illustrated by someone with a voice subjugating someone without a voice? Unborn children have no ability to stand up for themselves, but only through their mothers or other adults who have a voice. Their mothers, who are only mothers because they have a human growing inside them, reject their autonomy. Not because it is a righteous rejection, but because they wield the power.

4. Many pro-choice arguments avoid the fact that a human life exists in an unborn state in order soften the reality of eliminating that human life, but they still acknowledge that the woman is a mother. The meaning of the word mother includes the idea that human life grows inside of a woman, and when a woman is in that state she is called a mother. You only get to call yourself a mother through the acknowledgement of human life, but they contradict the idea by denying the existence of human life, so to be consistent they should never say “the life of the mother.” Otherwise they acknowledge the existence of human life.

5. The use of women’s own children as a prop to support abortion is pathological and might even be mental abuse. What a disturbing message to send to a child – that if the mother had just decided differently that little tot may not be alive to smile into the camera holding a pro-choice message – an existence that is precariously balanced on whether mommy wants to disrupt her life or not. A child should never have that be a question in their mind, and being presented with that threat at an age where they have no skills to fully understand the implications could be detrimental to their mental health.

What do they think when they are doing it: “I am going to advertise that I have a child to show that I am compassionate and not a selfish evil barren witch, except when it suits me. My child is proof to show you how welcoming I will be when you decide to kill your own baby. I have mine, but don’t have yours.”

6. Pro-choice people frequently intersect with those fighting against “ableist” prejudice, but yet abort for reasons of imperfection and disability.

7. A woman choosing her life over the life of her baby is a paternalistic attitude. If women don’t want men to decide for them what to do, why do they think it’s ok for them to decide the fate of an unborn child. Feminists are supposed to be against the patriarchy.

8. The population of women is hindered by abortion. They destroy what would be their natural constituencies.

9. Pro-choice people frequently intersect with those passionate about animal rights, but they fail to acknowledge abortion is an inhumane practice that they would oppose if used on animals. They are against experiments using animals, and demand animals be killed humanely for slaughter. But they fail to acknowledge the grotesqueness and brutality that is abortion, performed on an equally helpless creature.

10. Ignoring science, pro-choice people draw an arbitrary line for when life matters in an effort to avoid taking responsibility for the homicide of another person. The unborn child is not really a person worthy of protection until some milestone is reached. Some combination of heartbeat, sentience, or ability to feel pain is used as the line to determine human value. The same people who support this arbitrariness try to use science as a support for all other causes, but ignore the science of reproduction. Science is everyday finding new information on pain, sentience – those things that pro-choicers use to draw lines. Their arguments fall into quick sand as new scientific developments prove these lines to be worthless in providing a clear demarcation as to when life becomes valuable. The only clear line for that determination is conception. That’s science.

11. Women actually do have a choice. That time comes at the moment of sexual intercourse, so really pro-choice and pro-life just disagree about where that line on choice should be drawn.  After intercourse, the consequences of that choice are set in motion and women should deal with them ethically. Abortion is the failure to accept that moral responsibility despite having the freedom to make that choice.

12. Women dishonor their uniqueness through abortion. They diminish the miracle of being able to cultivate another human being. This is an exclusive power given only to women, but they irreverently give it away.

Ireland’s vote is a harsh blow to the rights of the unborn, and it feels like once the culture rolls that direction it will never come back. But it must be rectified if we are ever to regain our humanity. Don’t give up.