I have a modest proposal :-) anyone who feels really, really deeply and viscerally that no woman should be allowed to terminate an unwanted pregnancy... should be willing to put their abdominal cavity where their mouth is, and serve as surrogate birth-mother. medical technology is almost there... if our technociv does not collapse entirely, then surely both men and women of such strong convictions will soon be able and willing to be surgically implanted (with artificial wombs and constructed birth canal in the case of men) with the unwanted fetuses of unwilling mothers. after all, if bearing an infant to term, giving birth and taking responsibility for its life is no big deal -- nay, is a moral imperative -- and anyone should be willing to do so regardless of the circs of conception, then why not the kibitzers? let them step forward.
as the old saying goes, "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a Sacrament."
alternatively, when the anti-abortion crowd put their weight behind laws that would mandate vasectomy for all males over the age of puberty -- to be surgically reversed only on marriage, with a binding signed and witnessed prenuptial agreement covering parenting responsibilities and child suppport -- then I might start taking their moral fervour a bit more seriously... if they allowed that moral fervour to extend for one moment into interference, kibitzing, and reduction of bodily sovereignty affecting males, instead of using women's bodies only as the chalkboard on which to write their sermons. until any such evenhandedness is manifested, I have to regard their tender concern for fetal life as merely a decorative wrapper in which to package the age-old patriarchal agenda of controlling/owning/punishing women.
while I'm on a roll: all this rightwing lala about "without remorse" and frivolous abortions bears no resemblance to the experiences of any woman I have personally known who decided to abort. in every case, and I am going back to the supposedly licentious 70's here, the decision was made with a lot of thought and often some agonising. "remorse" is what you feel when you have committed a sin or a crime, so even the use of the word is spin and framing; the women I knew who decided not to continue a pregnancy felt mixed feelings, made a choice that was often very difficult. some were raped or impregnated by guile (there really are some men who will claim to be using contraceptives, but sabotage them in an effort to gain control over a girlfriend by getting her pregnant) and others became pregnant accidentally during consensual sex, but felt they could not offer a child a safe, secure, and happy life at that moment in their own lives. some went on to have a child later, others remained nullipara. none took the invasive and painful procedure lightly or casually. the idea of Happy Hippie Chicks frolicking into the abortion clinic and reading a mag during D&C, then rushing out to have some more promiscuous sex, is a wingnut cartoon.
I would have had a sibling, had my mother not stumbled and fallen heavily in the garden early in her second pregnancy; she miscarried as a result. should all pregnant women be confined to the home -- perhaps strapped down and spoon-fed -- so that they are prevented from taking any action that might possibly harm the developing cell bundle within? there are wingnuts who are heading in exactly that direction.
our inheritance of mediaeval misconceptions (ahem) about the nature of semen (i.e. that it contained entire microhomunculi and that the woman's body is merely a passive growth medium) conditions beliefs that the fetus "belongs to" the impregnating male, or to the State, and that the woman is a mere vessel or container for someone else's property. biological fact is quite different: semen is not seed, contrary to its ancient and ignorant etymology, but pollen. males are butterflies and bees, not farmers, in the mammalian reproductive game. their investment is very slight; but they keep trying to leverage it into a takeover bid on the entire enterprise. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
OOps no. One thing to add. All killing of sentient self-supporting humans is wrong. But dying is a choice. IMO. I find it the greatest hypocrisy that one can be an anti-abortionist AND support, in particular, a war that has created so much innocent death. Iraq, to name just one. You can't be me, I'm taken
In 1973, the first year of Roe v. Wade there were about 740,000 abortions or 4.5/female ages 15-44. That dramatically kept rising until 1990 when there were over 1,600,000 abortions or 27.39/female aged 15-44.
And their reasons in 1987? Unready for the responsibility (21%), cannot afford baby now (21%), concerned having baby would change life (16%), wanting to avoid single parenthood (12%), too immature to have a child (11%). The legitimate reasons for an abortion that most agree on are: possible fetal health problems (8%), mother has health problems (3%), or rape or incest (3%). It appears to an objective observer that the overwhelming majority of abortions were a result of, shall we call it, lifestyle inconvenience.
During the 1970s I was a young guy in the ad business in Manhattan and abortions were not a badge of honor but they were treated like any other medical condition and I certainly did not experience anyone having second thoughts about it.
Abortions have been steadily declining since 1990, which has been attributed to sex education among younger people, better access to different forms of contraception, to the HIV/AIDS crisis, and, yes, also to increase in religious belief.
You answer with a non sequitur general comment about how abortions should not exist. Are you interested in talking, or just repeating the same point over and over ?
All parts of the human life cycle can't be sacred. After all, sperms and ovules are as much "human life" as embryos. And indeed, in the 19th century masturbation, homosexuality and contraception were considered as waste of human life, and forbidden.
All this has nothing to do with the destruction of an adult, sentient member of society. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
NB: Figures/stats when quoted should be footnoted. If the HTML for a URL is outside one's comfort zone, then pasting in the raw URL is next-best. But as to these putative explanations for the alleged decline...
Religious belief, certainly -- particularly when that religious belief involves bombing abortion clinics, murdering doctors who provide abortions, defunding state/fed programs that would pay for medical services including abortion, disseminating disinformation that exaggerates the risk of abortion, including wild claims that it causes sterility and suicidal tendencies [this plays oddly with claims of frivolity and lack of remorse among abortion-seekers], and so on. But what am I thinking -- this atmosphere of threat, disinformation and prurient/punitive oversight of (particularly young unmarried) women couldn't have anything to do with the higher incidence of teen pregnancy in the red states, of course.
"While organizations such as the National Abortion Federation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also collect information on crimes against clinics, the FMF annual survey provides the most extensive information on victimization and intimidation of abortion clinics and staff of any source in the nation and is the most comprehensive publicly available data set on this topic," Pridemore said. The reported victimizations involved many forms of violence, harassment and intimidation, including physical violence, bombing, arson, death threats, bomb threats, facility invasion, burglary, break-ins, broken windows, glue in locks, nails in driveways, graffiti, clinic blockades, stalking of staff or physicians, home picketing, posting of "wanted" posters and harassment via the Internet. Abortion-related crime and violence have a broad array of consequences, Pridemore said. In addition to direct harm to victims and physical damage to clinics, these politically motivated crimes intentionally create a climate of fear that affects abortion providers across the nation. Because of the resulting physical threat and emotional toll, some providers have stopped performing abortions, reducing the availability of the option of abortion for many women. Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties, representing more than one-third of the female population aged 15-44, have no abortion providers, and 31 percent of the nation's metropolitan areas do not have a provider, Pridemore said.
The reported victimizations involved many forms of violence, harassment and intimidation, including physical violence, bombing, arson, death threats, bomb threats, facility invasion, burglary, break-ins, broken windows, glue in locks, nails in driveways, graffiti, clinic blockades, stalking of staff or physicians, home picketing, posting of "wanted" posters and harassment via the Internet.
Abortion-related crime and violence have a broad array of consequences, Pridemore said. In addition to direct harm to victims and physical damage to clinics, these politically motivated crimes intentionally create a climate of fear that affects abortion providers across the nation.
Because of the resulting physical threat and emotional toll, some providers have stopped performing abortions, reducing the availability of the option of abortion for many women. Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties, representing more than one-third of the female population aged 15-44, have no abortion providers, and 31 percent of the nation's metropolitan areas do not have a provider, Pridemore said.
But no, the only reason why fewer abortions are performed is that young people these days are smarter and/or more religious (and/or more into sodomy); the harassment, intimidation, and terrorism practised against the clinics leading to their gradual disappearance from 87 percent of our counties and 30 percent of our metro areas has nothing to do with it!
they were treated like any other medical condition and I certainly did not experience anyone having second thoughts about it ... it strikes me that if the writer's attitude to women then was as controlling, unsympathetic and judgmental as it appears to be today -- based, I admit, only on the discouraging content of this thread and therefore far from a complete picture -- the possibility does occur that his women friends might not have been exactly leaping at the chance to confide in him and share their most personal and intimate 3am feelings on the subject :-) in any case, in my limited anecdotal database, women most always turn to female friends and family members for emotional support before, during, and after.
Ironically I, too, would prefer a world where it was rare for women to seek abortions (a painful and invasive procedure as noted above) -- not because they were threatened with prosecution, but because affordable, safe, and reliable contraception was readily available worldwide, because rape was no longer commonplace, because girl children were no longer considered a "failure" requiring a retry, because more men were taking responsibility for their semen, because RU-468-like "morning after" pharma remedies were cheap and easily available, etc. Perhaps membership in anti-abortion groups should be restricted to those who can provide proof of a tubal ligation (either gender's version) to demonstrate the sincerity of their desire to make abortion really, truly obsolete -- a relic of the bad old days of women's second-class citizenship -- rather than merely illegal?
Alas, that happy obsolescence date grows farther off, not nearer, thanks to the rampup of the religious Right's stealth campaign against contraception itself:
Take the current debate about pharmacists "religious choice". Now, on the surface, this sounds fine. No one should be forced to violate their religious beliefs. John Kerry got sucked right into this code word argument. But what it really is an attack on Griswold, which was the case which created the right to have contraception. Condoms had been sold as a disease prevention device, but the pill, which was designed to prevent pregnancy, was a very different matter. While the right has been quite vocal about abortion, their campaign against birth control has been a stealth one. They rarely talk about their plans to eliminate birth control, but it's as much a part of the "right to life" movement as their war against abortion. Now, pharmacists are deciding on their own to not fill birth control prescriptions. Married women, wanting to control the size of their families, are finding pharmacists who will not fill their scripts for the pill. This is no more about religion than bombing clinics. It's a concerted attack on reproductive freedom. Texas has 254 counties. You can get an abortion in six of them. This stealth attack on contraception is seeking to do the same thing, to limit the availability of birth control for women. The judge who decided the Schiavo case was forced to leave his church because the pastor didn't like the way he ruled. How many small town pharmacists can withstand the social pressure to continue to fill prescriptions for birth control? The social pressure will explode once this is permitted. This is the power of code words. No one will say that they don't like contraception, they will hide behind the words "religious choice". Now, wellmeaning people don't see the intent of these ideas and think this is a reasonable discussion when it is anything but.
While the right has been quite vocal about abortion, their campaign against birth control has been a stealth one. They rarely talk about their plans to eliminate birth control, but it's as much a part of the "right to life" movement as their war against abortion. Now, pharmacists are deciding on their own to not fill birth control prescriptions. Married women, wanting to control the size of their families, are finding pharmacists who will not fill their scripts for the pill.
This is no more about religion than bombing clinics. It's a concerted attack on reproductive freedom.
Texas has 254 counties. You can get an abortion in six of them.
This stealth attack on contraception is seeking to do the same thing, to limit the availability of birth control for women.
The judge who decided the Schiavo case was forced to leave his church because the pastor didn't like the way he ruled. How many small town pharmacists can withstand the social pressure to continue to fill prescriptions for birth control? The social pressure will explode once this is permitted.
This is the power of code words. No one will say that they don't like contraception, they will hide behind the words "religious choice". Now, wellmeaning people don't see the intent of these ideas and think this is a reasonable discussion when it is anything but.
The object of the great game appears to be to give males the ultimate control over pregnancy: superior size and strength (plus financial/material dominion) make rape and coercion ever-available strategies for impregnating women against their will and/or best interest, and the erosion of all options for women to prevent or terminate pregnancy leaves control exclusively in male hands -- just another form of Enclosure really.
When my grandmother was a girl, women who procured abortions -- or doctors who provided them -- ran the risk of life imprisonment or hanging. The result was not exactly a kinder, gentler society; it was a society in which women "knew their place" or faced barbaric punishments. And there were a lot of unwanted children even so.Here is a time travel ticket back to those 'good' old days...
All politics is about control: someone trying to throw off the yoke of control by another, or someone trying to fasten the yoke of control on another. Abortion politics is about the struggle over who controls women's reproductive capacity and hence women's bodies and intimate bodily processes -- women, or men? or so I read it. The rest is window dressing, smoke, and mirrors. Anti-abortion and anti-contraception initiatives are not just anti-something, they are pro-something: they are pro-forced-pregnancy, which imnsho does indeed earn them a place in the Dewey Decimal System a couple of shelf units away from our rock-throwing burqa-enforcers in the neo-dar-al-islam.
The punitive aspect of USian culture, already referenced above, seems to me to play an enormous role here... I sometimes think the next target of the neotalibs might as well be oncology: after all, heavy smokers who develop lung or bladder cancer deliberately did something immoral and risky -- indulging in an addictive vice, a frivolous abuse of the body G-d gave them -- so how dare they seek medical intervention in order to evade the wages of their folly and sin? They should carry their cancers to term, and accept their punishment as just. The vindictiveness and mean-ness of such a position don't strike me as all that dissimilar... but of course, many white rightwing xtian men smoke cigs -- so we won't be hearing any calls to bar smokers from receiving oncological services any time soon :-)
Well I'm done with this. It seems incredible that in this day and age it should even be a debate. I didn't think the Nineteenth Century was all that great the first time around :-) and as a warmed-over re-run it's definitely unappetising. which is one of many reasons why I am leaving (read 'fleeing') the US, or trying to. much as the USSR was in its early decline, it feels like living in a time warp. It's always Groundhog Day. We're still worshipping C19 economists, mining coal, fighting the Viet Nam war and rescheduling the Scopes trial... and arguing about whether women should or should not be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
"the only reason why fewer abortions are performed is that young people these days are smarter and/or more religious" - - - - Agree.
"the writer's attitude to women then was as controlling, unsympathetic and judgmental as it appears to be today" - - - not true and not even sure how you arrived at that.
"women most always turn to female friends" - - - true and it is called water-cooler conversation and general gossip that occurs in companies.
You can't make abortion obsolete or illegal or even legislate it only for specific purposes. All that can be done is educate and, as you said, make widely available all kinds of birth control for women and for men. I agree that the combination of those two (as well as the scare of HIV+/AIDS) has been responsible for the general decline in abortions over the last 15+ years.
Regarding the tactics of the radical right religious groups in bombing and protesting abortion clinics I don't think it was generally effective and have not read of any recently. I know that my wife's gynecologist had to close his abortion clinic but it was because of major increases in already high malpractice insurance he was experiencing as a result of just keeping it opened.
" . . . and arguing about whether women should or should not be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term." - - - - and this is where we have a very fundamental disagreement. You categorize it as "unwanted pregnancies" as if it were a material thing that had no use. In this day and age do you regard women as being helpless and unable to make their own decisions regarding their sexual activity? The statistics I provided as to reasons why women aborted children in 1987, while the actual numbers have declined the percents associated with the reasons have been about the same. In the past NARAL and Planned Parenthood have treated the right to an abortion as "the rule" and I believe it should be "the exception to the rule." I am a very strong believer in personal responsibility and the arguments of NARAL and Planned Parenthood in the past do not encourage that.
I am a very strong believer in personal responsibility and the arguments of NARAL and Planned Parenthood in the past do not encourage that.
I've always found this argument to be a bit simplistic. that the person who just sits and says I'm in this situation so I have to let this happen is the one that is being responsible, whereas the one who has sat down and considered all of the possible options and made a rational decision, often at the cost of social exclusion from a section of society if they come to know about it. is the one who is being frivolous. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I'm sure we can all agree that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare. But damn! Don't you think women who are faced with making that decision aren't under enough pressure as it already without being branded as evil and perpetrators of infanticide. "The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
Your answer to someone who questions your view automatically means that he is a "Republican" or some Right Wing religious fanatic.
I'm not sure exactly who you're writing to. We're all discrete individuals here on this site, so I would appreciate if you can actually respond to individual commenters rather than allocating all comments posted here to an anonymous you or to me, Jerome.
And you actually use DKos as an authority. That's deep.
I pointed to a story about how some Republicans are lobbying to limit all forms of contraception, and how they are discreetly supported by Republican candidates. The story uses as material a story form the Baltimore Sun and a study from the very same Guttmacher Institute which you quote yourself elsewhere in this thread. I write on DailyKos all the time. I read it all the time. I quote articles that provide relevant information and/or commentary. I wonder exactly how the story I posted fails to past any reasonable smell test in terms of credibnility of its content (as opposed to the gag reflex the site it is posted on seems to generate for you).
SO now, not only to you agree that it is okay to make satirical remarks about my son, you are also calling him a right wing fanatic. Keep it up Jerome.
So I'be curious to see where exactly I accused you of being a Republican (is that an insult for you, now?) or a "Right Wing religious fanatic", and, even more specifically, where I made any such comments about your son.
What I initally posted was the question if anyone saw the hypocrisy between such passionate humanity toward a convicted murdered and none toward an unborn fetus.
The passionate humanity is not to "convicted murderers" - nice try. It is among other arguments directed at the fact that not all people convicted are actually guilty (as the long string of cases in the recent past has shown). It is also about us - we think that democracies should not kill people, whatver they have done, because it means we are little better than them - killing for revenge. It says nothing about what we think of murderers, convicted or otherwise, guilty or otherwise. But no, you have to reframe the argument in a much more convenient way.
Same thing about an 'unborn fetus' - unborn immediately suggests alive, something which is quite disputed for at least a big chunk of any pregnancy. And, of course, it fails to take into account the woman that carries the fetus. Where's the care for her?
All I can say is that the people who chose to use this to defame either of us should now question their own morality - seriously. Especially you.
Who is "you"? You seem to have surprising difficulty to understand that we are individuals, not some kind of amorphous collective entity. I am the spokesperson of noone, and neither are they spokespersons for anyone else.
And do you see me questioning your morality? I see you questioning mine. Please don't. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
