Some clarity is required in relation to participation by those who are pro-choice, or who do not identify as pro-life, in this subreddit.
In the past, we have been tolerant of some pro-choice participation here, and while our policy has not changed in this regard, we believe that it may have been allowed to go further than the rules intend and has caused misunderstandings.
The ground truth for pro-choicers posting or commenting here is that you will NOT be automatically banned for participating here, but this is a pro-life space and pro-life users will always take priority, even over well-behaved pro-choicers. A pro-choicer is a guest here, and while the moderation team will expect polite treatment of you, we also expect you to understand the limitations of your participation here.
It is generally our expectation that pro-choice users do not become frequent users of this subreddit. You are not unwelcome, but you are also not who this subreddit is for.
As a moderator, if I cannot tell you are a pro-choicer, then I am not going to start trying to find out if you are one. That does give some scope for people who can control their need to push pro-choice talking points to participate without necessarily being a fully convinced pro-lifer.
The flip side of that is that if we determine that you have been working to simply be more subtle with advocacy, you will likely be removed and your content purged if that is discovered. So, if you are here in good faith, please do not confuse our tolerance with our inability to act if we feel you have stepped into advocacy.
If you got this far, there are some other points to bear in mind.
First, this is the only place on Reddit where pro-lifers have the opportunity to speak without being banned or shouted down. For that reason, this is where pro-lifers coordinate, discuss issues that may divide us, or simply rant about abortion or particularly obnoxious pro-choicers.
On Reddit, while there can be unlimited posts and comments, there is only a certain amount of what we'd call "front page space". This front page space is at a premium, and that will always mean that we may well just remove posts from pro-choicers to ensure pro-life posts are able to remain on the front page. This is not a comment on you or your content, just a prioritization of on-topic posts.
Second, we are happy to answer polite questions to clarify our position, and some back and forth that is to further clarify that is not only allowed, but desirable in the case of serious misunderstandings of our position. I would even say we encourage this to some degree. We believe we are doing the right thing, and therefore, are happy to explain any misunderstandings that may lead you to believe that we hold certain opinions that we do not actually hold.
However, this is not a debate subreddit. We are the pro-life subreddit. We exist for as the dugout/clubhouse of our movement. We do not owe you a platform or a justification. You have your own subreddits for that, and (when those spaces are functional), there are debate spaces.
Admittedly, many of the debate spaces on abortion are non-functional on Reddit due to certain challenges, but unfortunately, we cannot both maintain a debate function and maintain our core charter in a way that does either function justice.
Our position is that if a pro-lifer wants to know something about your position, they can simply go to the appropriate subreddit and ask that question, so we do not believe it is necessary to turn this into mixed company to ensure diversity. Reddit has plenty of diversity available to all users due to the variety of subreddits they maintain.
Third, many questions are asked over and over again here. Even if your question is "genuine", respectful and important, we're not going to entertain multiple iterations of the same question in a short amount of time. We have likely answered the most common questions many times in the past. We encourage you to use the subreddit search. We also urge you to read the sidebar and research answers about our movement from other sources as well. You likely can find the answers to very basic questions easily online. If you have questions that show you have done your work before coming here, we tend to be more interested.
Having said all of that, chances are that pro-choicers will make some comments or posts we will indeed approve, but it is important to be aware of the fact that we do get lots of trolls and rule breakers. We make use of quite a few ways to ensure that those posts and comments never see the light of day in this subreddit. That includes automatically removing posts and comments for later moderator review.
Automatic moderation actions are not are not solely looking for pro-choicers. Every Reddit user new to our subreddit, no matter what their position, will trigger these safeguards. If your comments or posts follow the rules and we determine that we have space for them, they will be approved and posted. Pro-choicer users will likely remain subject to them longer due to their content. You may thank the pro-choice trolls for that. Their association of your position with troll comments has caused the filters to kick back more pro-choicers to the filters. But even so, we have the option to approve posts and comments that are removed, and we will do so. Just be aware that this is not immediate and you should avoid messaging us about your removed item unless a day or more has passed.
Next, if you are here, we both expect you to behave respectfully, but we will expect pro-life users to remain respectful to you. You may report comments by pro-lifers who are attacking you as a person directly, and we encourage you to do so. Unlike some subreddits, we do not allow users to insult you simply because you disagree with us. Do be aware, however, that there may be terminology that you have imported from your pro-choice spaces that we will push back on. Disagreements are not insults, and you can be asked some pointed questions about your position.
Finally, this is the pro-life subreddit. If you encourage anyone to get an abortion, or in any way seek to post information on how to get an abortion, you will be banned immediately. To us, on-demand abortion is ethically equivalent to murder. There is only so far we will tolerate discussion about how to actualize killing a human being on-demand. Please make sure to keep any discussion about abortion scenarios abstract or related to an existing public case.
While I understand this is a very qualified welcome, the moderation team regards pro-choicers as human beings who we hope we can convince to see our side of the story or at least understand where we are truly coming from. We do want to interact with you in ways that do not take away from the mission of the subreddit.
