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What I realized just how miraculous birth of another human being is and how incredibly fast its' development is from the time of conception. By the 5th or 6th month organ and appendage development is almost complete.
While the decision of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. was necessary to stop the illegal abortions and threats to women's health, it led to the view of many that abortion was victimless and it became as vogue as doing a facelift.
A woman has all the control when it comes to reproduction. That control is education, birth control pills or devices, but most importantly is personal responsibility. The decisions this past year by the US Supreme Court in upholding a relatively new law still allows for this partial birth abortion if it is to save the mother's life. She can still have an abortion in the first few months after conception, which morally I still have a problem with.
So what right does a woman lose? She loses the right to treat life as an inanimate toy.
Years ago when my son was in 5th grade, they were learning sex education and the teacher spoke about abortion. My son objected to abortions and when the teacher asked him why, he said, "I am lucky to be sitting here because the mother of the 15 year old girl who was my birth mother did not believe in abortions - otherwise I would never have had the chance to have a life."
My son objected to abortions and when the teacher asked him why, he said, "I am lucky to be sitting here because the mother of the 15 year old girl who was my birth mother did not believe in abortions - otherwise I would never have had the chance to have a life."
Now, sing along, please:
I'm pretty sure that I am a character. I find this far more valuable than having character. More fun too!
Cheers to you too!
someone's comment above was very much on topic - or do you deny that sexual intercourse requires two people, and that both are responsible for it to happen or not?
The difference with pregnancy and abortion is that it will affect one person a lot more than the other, so the decision has to be assymetric there. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Not that I disagree with someone's sentiment (and any comment quoting Monty Python is a-ok in my book), but I see why one would react in that way... "The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
And, as someone points out, apparently no thought whatsoever to his father's role. Pointing out that we're all here because our parents didn't use contraception is entirely on point. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
The story is very true and was repeated to us by his teacher who was taken aback by his very thought through comment at such a young age. I had never thought much about the topic until I heard this and then questioned my own values concerning the sanctity of life: death penalties and abortion.
The birth mother was only about 16 and not able to make her own decision, so she relied on her mother who believed that the child should be allowed to live and the right couple selected for adoption.
Do you think it's ok for your son to believe his birth mother would have gladly aborted him if not for the intervention of others? What would your reaction have been if he'd said he was relieved his mother didn't leave him in a dumpster? Would you have said, yeah, you're mighty lucky that's illegal or she might have?
Perhaps you should try to be more wise than a fifth grader and reassure him that his birth mother probably loves him and has his best interests at heart, instead of reinforcing his fears that she'd have wiped him out of existence if given the chance. You and his teacher should be ashamed of yourselves. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
you are the media you consume.
Snowflake children is a term used by organizations that promote the adoption of embryos left over from in vitro fertilization to describe children that result, where the children's parents were not the original cell donors.... President George W. Bush has made public appearances together with snowflake children while speaking about his support for adult stem cell research and his opposition to embryonic stem cell research.
Thus, I felt an appropriately sarcastic, dismissive and insensitive response was in order.
"Oh, I'm glad that my parents got really drunk one night in High School and got knocked up, or I wouldn't be here."
OK, I'll volunteer to go too far: "Thank God " ... no on second thought even I cannot bring myself to type the "logical extreme" version of that. No asbestos suit is thick enough. -----sapere aude
Yes, positions are firmly entrenched so that's probably the wisest. -----sapere aude
"You may be right. After all: "Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character." That still begs the question, however: which is more important?"
Your criticism should be directed to back to him unless feel it is acceptable to poke fun at my son.
I do not feel up to putting bones on it - maybe Bob could bring in the voice of reason. This is somehow the base subject from which all else springs. You can't be me, I'm taken
In that grey area goes personal morality and belief: thus abortion should be left to the choice of the pregnant woman. Whether you or I like the decision is irrelevant.
Besides, alive is clearly not the criterion to use here. Animals and even plants are alive, yet they can for the most part be killed at will. I think 'alive and sufficiently human-like' is closer.
I can probably be considered a fanatic on this topic. In principal I have nothing against early-life infantcide either, as little babies don't seem sufficiently human-like to me.
In principle I don't have a problem with the idea of extracting a viable child late on, though it's probably not a great idea medically for mother or child at that stage.
The problem with killing anything that isn't sufficiently human-like is that the line can be too easily redrawn - which is my main problem with euthanasia as well: opens up too many practical problems in real life.
No other conditions. Maybe a 4 week waiting period to not have people killing themselves due to temporary unhappiness. Otherwise, no conditions, no age requirement, or 'sanity' requirement.
I can think of nothing more inhumane than forcing someone to live against their wishes.
In the end, Rámon Sampredo (the protagonist), who's been paralysed from the neck down for close to thirty years, commits suicide by drinking a poisonous liquid through a straw from a glass standing on a table right next to his bed. Friends of his prepared the liquid and placed the glass right next to him, but ultimately the decision to drinking the liquid is his. I'd have a hard time convicting his friends for anything, other than being good friends. "The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
...and it became as vogue as doing a facelift.
This is as far as I know an anti abortion myth. I have not seen any studies to confirm it. When it comes to number of abortions the studies I have seen on swedish abortion statistics show a decrease after legalisation.
Times have changed here since and younger people have been raised differently and with more sense of responsibility regarding sexual acitivities and control.
I don't think the statistics of teenage sex, in the USA bear your argument out. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
I'm not sure why the scare quotes are there. It's obvious that the programs that are 'not working' are really just not working.
There was a superb diary on dKos earlier in the year from a gynecologist explaining why he was happy to perform abortions. It was one of the clearest and most moving pro-abortion pieces I've ever read, and made the point that sometimes it's for very real health reasons - pregnancy can be fatal, after all - and sometimes for quality of life reasons.
I don't think abortion should be casual, but I think it should be available on demand.
And I'm always baffled by the clear association that seems to exist between those who want to 'defend life' before birth and then treat life with contempt after it.
I'm not suggesting BJG is in that group, but it's hard to ignore the correlation in much of the rest of the US.
Looking at other posts in this thread, perhaps we could be calling them
When Gudrun Schyman, party leader for the left party tried to express this in a speach 2002, it was instantly converted to "all men are taliban" in the media. So you are probably right in your parenthesis too.
And yes, people can poke fun at your son, or at anything else. It won't kill him, and you and he will be more mature if you learn to accept fun, even jeers, without throwing a hissy fit. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience
and without remorse
What? You've got statistics on their emotional state as well and they all decided to check
Remorse? NO
Is that right? Please provide a little evidence.
I know. You can't. You can't because this is certainly unsupported by anything approaching scientific research, not to mention common sense. Having helped a few ladies walk to clinics in my time (and I'll happily do it again) the misery the US pro-life crowd --people with attitudes exactly like yours--have inflicted on these girls is reprehensible. When the pro life couldn't beat laws into submissions in the US, they just start breaking the laws, threatening the girls and threatening the abortions performers. "Pro Life" indeed. Bombing clinics, murdering doctors and in general creating their own little reign of terror for those who didn't buy into your pathetically paternalistic attitude about WHO gets to decide whether or not to have a baby is exactly why these things have happened.
You might feel you have some claim to decide about this yourself--and you do--legally, when you are the person carrying the baby. Otherwise, you have no legal right to intimidate or force the issue for someone else, and your emotional tone now vis a vis the 'remorseless' quip--as if you'd know-- reeks of something from the time of the inquisitions. Or, more precisly, reeks of a generally misogynistic attitude. Especially when coupled with your previous comment upthread that suggested the girls were doing it merely as "a matter of convenience". I wear a rubber for convenience. Am I also 'remorseless' and 'a baby killer'? Or does that only fall to the individual who must support another life for nine months, and significantly alter their own lives because some male decided not to be inconvenienced with birth control because 'it wasn't up to him'? So we punish her, right? And call her 'remorseless'. Prostitutes are treated with the same level of respect-- the Johns are never busted, but the hooker goes to jail. (As far as I know Sweden is the only country that flips this general 'rule' on its head, busting the John and letting the prostitute go...oh, yeah, and it works). But I guess you want to apply the same old set of inequities we use here for prostitution to baby making? Wow, that's fair.
Why don't you wrap your head around another much more serious societal problem rather then your fantasy about what the girls might be feeling? You know, like population control. Like the fact that we've reached 6.6 billion and counting and getting a handle on taking care of everyone we've got here now, not making sure we keep reproducing more and more, might be the more intelligent--not to mention more humane--thing to be concerned about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
Today younger people are much better educated and more responsible when it comes to issues of sexual conduct. Birth control is much more available and sexual activity is not as reckless as it was.
sexual activity is not as reckless as it was
That's primarily due to AIDS and AIDS awareness. According to people I know that were sexually active in the early 80's, sexual behavior changed almost overnight.
I expect you back up that rhetoric with facts. Actually, I expect you to keep such discussion within the realm of fact and not resort to this kind of rhetoric at all.
A woman has all the control when it comes to reproduction.
That will only be true when rape, incest, abuse, access to reliable and safe education and health services, and the last vestiges of social pressure for women to be dependent on and submissive to men all disappear. We do not live in such a world yet.
A woman who has carried a child for months cannot be under the assumption that that child is 1)inanimate or 2)a toy. Unless they are genuinely mentally ill. No, what the woman loses is the right to make serious medical decisions, which will greatly effect her physical, mental, financial health herself with the advice of her family and healthcare providers. And she loses dignity when a stranger in Washington decides he is more capable of making that personal decision than she is. Esp. when the decision of the stranger is based on personal religious belief, which should not be legislated, and not a careful weighing of the common good against individual rights, which is the ultimate task of our legislators.
We are all entitled to our personal beliefs. But don't mistake your preferences and sentiments and experiences for being representative of that of all or the majority of the population. "This is nothing compared to how Putin rigged Eurovision."
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. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
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. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
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
This really sounds like a Republican taking-point. As an argument, it just does not fly.
There is a deep flaw in the logic that would remove the subject of abortion from the process of human life both biologically and socially, and the context in which the continuity of generations occurs.
To remove the subject of abortion from the question of who does childrearing and how is it done, and how are decisions made about having children--bearing children--and rearing them, is INHERENTLY dishonest.
Any society that is not wedded to both deceit and imbalance has to face the question of how population is to be managed, so that human numbers stay roughly constant over time, and in happy relation to the world that sustains all life including human life. In truth, history and anthropology indicate that the easiest way to resolve these issues satisfactorily is to let women make the childbearing decisions.
For reasons that may be obscure, when men make these decisions, society moves towards imbalance, oppression, war, exhaustion of resources, and collapse. These latter states are, of course, most familiar to us.
By taking abortion out of its context, you can then apply a moral standard about the value of life, but that value, out of context, is itself based on nothing--it is merely made up.
A real morality is compatible with human survival and well-being over time--generations and generations of time.
To particulars: Modern experience is that women always prefer other methods of birth control to abortion, when they are available. The basic faithlessness of the "right to life" movement is revealed in their opposition to the birth control that would reduce abortion of all kinds (legal or illegal) and in their reluctance to concern themselves with the well-being of the fetus once it is born.
That this dishonesty itself implies a deep and abiding hatred of women as a gender is a point I bring to your attention, as, if you are interested, there has been much thoughtful investigation of this matter and why it is, which I allude to but don't try to summarize here.
In societies where birth control is available in fact (and not just in theory) we find that abortions happen in pregnancies where the child was WANTED but something has gone wrong medically that makes the pregnancy non-viable. This happens more often than you might think: Pregnancy is a risky process, as spontaneous miscarriages alone should give proof. Bans on abortions thus target women who wanted their babies, and pregnancies that are not viable. It is hard to come up with a human explanation of why lawmakers anywhere would want to do this, but they have done and do. You will forgive me if I do not think much of their morals or character.
By the way, the phrase of yours I recopied is highly offensive on several levels, and if that was your intent, well and good--you succeeded, but if not, you might want to do some rethinking.
I am sorry for you son. The direct implication of his statement is that he is an unwanted child--and knows it. That is hard.
"I am sorry for you son. The direct implication of his statement is that he is an unwanted child - - and knows it. That is hard." - - - - You must be very lonely and desperate for attention. Where in what I wrote does this pathetic notion of an "unwanted child" come from? Be specific if you are making defamatory charges. He said he was lucky his birth mother did not choose abortion and I never said anything about how he felt about us. You make a charge. Defend it!
I do understand it. It is emotional manipulation. YOU are doing the manipulating--or trying to. If it were true, it would be horrible, as your telling of it reveals contempt for women AND children.
You must be very lonely and desperate for attention.
:D Not SO desperate! Thank you for a good laugh.
Be specific if you are making defamatory charges. He said he was lucky his birth mother did not choose abortion
No charges at all: Merely drawing implications from your own account of the matter. Don't accuse yourself unnecessarily.
and I never said anything about how he felt about us
You badly misunderstand. The question is how YOU feel about HIM. And at this point, I would rather not know.
I'm suspicious that this really happened to you, considering how many different people have claimed to have had the same experience.
As I said, the story sounded very familiar and I was suspicious. Long ago, I was a born-again-christian and was entirely immersed in the culture. I have first-hand knowledge of the tactics of anti-choice/forced childbirth advocates. For instance, transforming a discussion on the death penalty into an argument about abortion is a classic diversion.
BJ, as I said, I was suspicious of your story, not just because of the similarity to the "I'm lucky to be alive" urban myth.
For instance, while I suppose it's possible, a coffee table book showing the development of a fetus in an orthopedic surgeons office? I've seen that type of book in Ob/Gyn offices, yes, but it would seem out of place in an orthopedic surgeon's office. Another inconsistency I found is your original statement claims the birth mother was 15, and later you say she was 16 years old.
Also, you say this book made you realize that every fetus is sacred, yet you later say that after your son's teacher brought up his unusual declaration many years ago, "I had never thought much about the topic until I heard this and then questioned my own values concerning the sanctity of life" which would indicate that you'd come to the realization back then, rather than just a month ago. In subsequent comments you talk about women in your office walking around wearing their abortions like a "badge of honor," implying you were thinking about these things even further back.
You also imply that your son came up with the "lucky to be alive" scenario on his own, yet I find it hard to believe a child that young spontaneously made those connections. Someone had to tell the child of his "luck," otherwise how could he have made the connections in the first place? Not only that, I find it hard to believe a 5th grade teacher is conducting a sex education class much less a discussion on abortion.
Finally, as the mother of an adopted child borne of a schizophrenic mother, I can say I do have experience with agonizing over what I would tell my daughter when she asked where she came from. Like many adoptees, her questions arose from the fear of being unwanted or abandoned, and I was ever conscious that my answers could have a profound effect on her self-esteem and feelings of worth, which is why she was always told that her birth mother loved her very much, but was too ill to care for her. She now has contact with her birth mother and understands that she is loved and wanted by all involved. I find the idea of telling an adopted child that his birth mother wanted to abort him psychologically abusive; especially at such a young age, when children are already struggling with their identity and self-esteem. Obviously, you had the right to tell your child whatever you wanted about his origins, though you deny having told him yourself, which would indicate that someone else did - even worse, in my book. Of course you have a right to your opinions about abortion, just as others here have the right to theirs, but if you're going to use personal anecdotes to push your point, make sure they're internally consistent, because your credibility will be called into question.
As for this statement...
The question that was originally asked was if any one found an hypocrisy between the impassioned support of a convicted killer and the complete lack of passion for an unborn infant.
...no one was supporting a convicted killer, they were discussing the morality of the death penalty, which is a very different thing. And as far as I could tell, there is no "lack of passion" here; on the contrary, many argue
