I voted for the right to kill the baby I decided not to kill
This entire post is an interesting, contradictory, happy/sad read, but here’s the start…
Pro-lifers are voting today to save babies like Jessica’s daughter from mothers like Jessica who sometimes prefer to kill them rather than bear them.
Pro-lifers are also voting today to save Jessica’s grandchildren from the same fate.
And pro-lifers are voting today to save mothers like Jessica from themselves, because they don’t understand that abortion is dangerous to their health and safety.
Nov.02, 2010 10:29 am |
Voting |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
What a load of paternalistic BS. Stanek, take a hike.
Classy, Megs. Paternalistic? Hardly.
How is “abortion” a “reproductive right”??? Especially since it DESTROYS.
Jill:
Great point! Thanks for your tireless efforts on behalf of life.
I voted for the right to kill the baby I decided not to kill
What a load of paternalistic BS. Stanek, take a hike.
LOL, this is Jill’s blog, so if anyone should be “hiking,” it’s you. :D
MaryLee, I’ve always wondered that myself. Once “reproduction” has occurred, it doesn’t naturally follow that you have the right to destroy a living human being.
Sounds like Jill struck a nerve, Megan.
Sadly, laws against murder are necessary in this society. I’m puzzled as to why you don’t feel the same way.
Carla, you just took the words right out of my mouth! You’ve sumed this gal up in one sentence.
It’s paternalistic to imply that women need to be “saved from themselves” as though they can’t be intelligent enough to find things out for themselves, to know their own lives better than you do, and to make a decision based on their OWN values and morals, on which you don’t have a monopoly.
LOL, this is Jill’s blog, so if anyone should be “hiking,” it’s you.
Yeah, I started laughing.
Megan, you realize that you don’t do anything productive here, right? No one reads your comments and decides to switch from being pro-life to being pro-choice. I think you comment here so you can feel like you’ve “done something” for your cause, when in reality you’re wasting your time.
I would think Kat then you would be for “informed consent” for women before they abort? You know. Ultrasounds shown and explained, fetal development in detail described, shown and understood, a list of possible risks of abortion, a certainty that a woman is not being forced or coerced to abort, parental notification of parents that their young daughter is considering an abortion.
You are all for those things right??
Sadly Planned Parenthood is not.
Kat, I don’t think women need to be “saved from themselves.” I think women do NOT have the right to kill their children, the end. That’s about it. I think women are strong and brave and smart and resourceful and I believe their unborn babies have a right to live no matter what. I believe women should love their bodies, and love their unborn babies, even when those babies are “inconvenient.” Nobody has the right to kill anyone, ever. Nobody has the right to take away the baby’s bodily autonomy, and snuff out his or her life in the name of some abstract, non-existent “reproductive right.”
PP doesn’t really explain anything. Everytime I’ve been there, when I was younger, they explained the birth control they RX’d to me and what would happen in case I miss a period. Sadly, I do remember them telling me my ‘baby’ was a blob until 6 months along, I was 13 and believed them! I really thought those blob’s were real blob’s and not babies.
Wow, I’m so happy I grew up!
Megan,
Did you just tell the owner of this blog, that you are visiting to read and comment on, to leave? (Sounds a little paternalistic, perhaps even a touch narcissistic, to me…)
I note in Jessica’s writing that she “will have given birth to her daughter” soon, which means she must have identified her baby’s gender before the birth. I wonder what Jessica thinks about China and India’s 100 million missing little girls and whether that demographic timebomb fits into her definition of acceptable “reproductive rights.”
If she knew the gender of her child, did she pick out a name for her non-person uterine hitchiker, or is she one of those pro-choice-to-poison-or dismember-my-own-children people who so scientifically argues that a fetus is a baby when the mother decides that it is?
Did Jessica talk and sing to her little non-person? Did she recognise family traits in the features shown by the ultrasound images of her blob/cluster of cells/POC/tissue? Did she pretend that the first few times she heard her daughter’s heartbeat, it was only “heart tones?”
I hope that when she held her daughter for the first time, the scales dropped from her eyes.
I’m all for informed consent…though not for parental notification, because I don’t think people can legislate family communication. Why should fetal development be described? The woman isn’t there for education on fetal development – she’s there for a medical procedure to STOP fetal development – the only information needed is what that procedure entails, the risks of that procedure, the choices she has if she decides NOT to have the procedure (an abortion). If a woman wants an ultrasound, she’s free to ask and get one. I also think pregnancy should come with a list of risk factors, as there are far more involved in pregnancy and labor than in an abortion, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon.
And Planned Parenthood, while not perfect, DOES want women informed – they just happen to think that forcing an ultrasound on a woman isn’t informed consent and want that information to be medically accurate.
I don’t understand why they call abortion “reproductive rights”. We all have reproductive rights. We can have babies when we want to. We can prevent pregnancy if we want to. But TERMINATING babies/pregnancies should never be an option unless to save the mother’s life.
PP tells women it’s “just a bunch of cells.” Is that medically accurate? Is that how to “fully inform” a woman?
PP doesn’t do ultrasounds routinely. They may not have an ultrasound machine. So the woman that asks for one? Too bad. How is an ultrasound not medically accurate?The law can force PP to do ultrasounds but they fight it tooth and nail. Why is that?
Cause 95% of women who see the ultrasound choose life! Bad for the abortion biz.
PP lies to women.
Parental consent is needed for my daughter to take an aspirin at school. PP would be glad to take the $$$ to kill my grandchild, harm my daughter and not let me know. Yeah, they care about young girls and women.
Kat, what makes you think that most people are educated enough about fetal development and what’s truly going on inside their womb when they can’t even get accurate birth control information because Planned Parenthood doesn’t want them to have it?? Also, most women going into an abortion clinic isn’t totally sure if she wants to do it. Sometimes it takes just a little more information to make that final choice and the abortionists know that an ultrasound has the power to change a woman’s mind to keep her baby. It’s called “meeting up with a mother’s natural instinct to protect her young”.
Kat, the pro-abortion community is AGAINST informed consent. They lie about the babies’ development, they are against parental notification laws, the entire movement is based on obfuscation and slogans. The pro-abortion movement is based on lies and subjectivity. Yes, it was inconvenient for me to admit my unborn child was a separate person; but when I found out I was pregnant (at the worst time of my life), I had respect for my child’s life and her little body from the get-go. Unborn babies are NOT parasites. They are not tumors. They are not part of the woman’s body. Pregnancy is not a disease. Until all women stand up and refuse to give in to these lies, we will never, ever have peace. How can we have any peace in this world if women are told their children are their property, their children’s bodies can be dismembered and disposed of like garbage, at their mother’s whim?
Jill, the last three lines.
Excellent.
Sad that the woman in the photo has is holding a sign that says “I have a voice,” when the unborn are silenced all the time. I don’t see how their lives and their bodies are of less value simply because they’re tiny.
I want to kiss those precious baby feet!!
Baby feet are the best! Along with baby peach fuzzed heads…awwww…I miss babies!I need a baby fix!
Krystal,
I felt the same way on Sunday. I grabbed a friend’s little boy and inhaled Baby Magic.
Ahhhhhhhh.
Megan… seriously, get some help. Get some help from someone stable, and who has a functional moral compass. You were starting to sound level-headed there, for a while, but something seems to have pushed you back over the edge into hysteria and mental/emotional fragmentation. Until you get a grip, there’s really nothing anyone can do except pray for you, and ignore your flames and diatribes.
Kat, are you serious? Why would they explain fetal development? Because it has bearing on the medical procedure a woman is going to potentially undergo. Because a woman has the RIGHT to have ALL the facts before she makes her choice, not just the facts that you paternalistic pro-aborts deem necessary for her. ALL the facts, got it?
But you pro-aborts just don’t want women to have all the facts because you know if women had ALL the facts the majority would choose NOT to have their fully formed living babies dismembered and suctioned out of their wombs. They would choose NOT to subject themselves to physical and emotional risk. And that means less money to the clinics and you just can’t be having that! So withholding information is the name of the game for you proaborts. You just showed your paternalistic true colors Kat.
Megan… you don’t have to come here and read this blog if its going to keep making your blood pressure shoot up. Take a hike yourself and save us all your poisonous personality. Sheesh.
Carla, we call that “sucking up the youth” from the popular sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.
Ladies, women don’t need to be saved from themselves, but their children need to be saved from them at times. If you think that a child who is neglected and not fed at age 5 deserves to be placed in a home where he will be fed properly, then why do you think a younger child deserves to be killed merely because he can’t speak for himself because he’s so tiny? That’s bullying.
An abortion is a surgical procedure. Before entering other surgical procedures, parents are notified. No difference should exist there.
Just a few points.
“Reproductive rights” would literally mean “rights to reproduce”, isn’t? Well, noone can deny a right to reproduce to any given woman or a man. That doesn’t include the “right to kill your offspring” though. It’s a completely different category.
Also – I just got a notion reading the article and the comments on HOW did we get to this place, where we can cold-heartedly choose wether to let our child live or die. It is the loss of the morals. Once the family has been dismembered (ha, we know another place where someone is dismembered, interesting coincidence), the life of the child lost a value as well.
If you think 100 years ago, you could only have sex and children once you were married and commited for life to each other. The whole sex-without-consequences idea is a bogus. It brought HIV, STD (ok, it existed in the past too, but only the occasional promiscuous person would be able to catch it, two people who were chaste before marriage had no chance of getting infected), divorce, abortion, single parent families.. List could go on and on and on. Sure, pro-choicers could argue that in those days there were some single/teenage parents as well and they were treated poorly, but if you look at life in general, there weren’t SO many cases of it like now…. Why? Because there was a pressure from society to stay pure until the marriage. And you can bet thousands upon thousands of people who got injured by HIV, STD, abortion, divorce, etc these days, would have been able to stay away from it in the old days simply because of the norms in the society. They WORKED for the better of everyone!
Spoken by someone, who didn’t have pre-marital sex with her husband (or not even anything close to that), used NFP to avoid pregnancy in the first year (successfully) and is deliriously happily married for more than a year now. And we didn’t do that in the last century….
Can anybody send some “baby dust” our way, please, if you have any? Would love to have a little miracle sometime soon :)
PS. Sorry if that doesn’t have anything to do with the original article :)
Sydney M: If they’re fully formed, living babies, then they’d be persons under the law and able to live without being physically attached to their mothers….and if fetal development has something to do with the abortion, then it would be explained under the heading of “because of this stage of pregnancy, the procedure we have to do is….”Then the woman would decide.
DirtDartWife: I don’t think women are unresourceful, need someone else to, as Jill put it, “to Save mothers like Jessica from themselves”, or are always uninformed, though some are. I think women just need accurate places to get information. In my experience and those of people I know, Planned Parenthood or their own doctor was far more accurate and truthful than other places, such as crisis pregnancy centers or an anti-abortion website.
If, Sydney, as you say, “pro-aborts don’t want women to have all the facts” because women who had them wouldn’t choose an abortion – then I would have to say, she shouldn’t have one…I don’t care what she chooses and if it’s someone I know I’ll do everything I can to help them with whatever their decision is: I’m not pushing abortion if that is HER CHOICE. Not yours. Not the governments. Not Planned Parenthood’s or the Catholic Church’s or her boyfriend’s/husband’s/rapist’s…it’s hers, since she is the only one who knows her life. And I really resent being immediately characterized as someone who is dishonest toward women or who would lie to them, since you don’t know me or why I think the way I do.
What accurate birth control information is Planned Parenthood leaving out? That abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy and STDs? http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/abstinence-4215.htm
That there are many different types of birth control or family planning and you have the right to choose the one that works best for you? http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control-4211.htm
Carla: a lot of things are a bunch of cells so I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description of a blastocyst/embryo/fetus. And if that clinic can’t do an ultrasound and a woman wants one, then perhaps she could ask if another clinic provides one or if they have another place they normally do one – since PP ALSO provides prenatal care and ultrasounds are pretty standard of prenatal care.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/pregnancy/prenatal-care-4255.htm.
And they fight tooth and nail against FORCED procedures, not the procedure itself. At least in my experience and talking with other pro-choice people. Just like pro-choice people fight against FORCED sex, FORCED pregnancy and childbirth, or FORCED abortions – though I’m not saying they don’t happen, which is sad.
I’ve never had the misfortune to be lied to by anyone at Planned Parenthood – the clinics I went to had staff that was kind, patient, helpful, informative, and worked with me.
Kat,
I was told it was “just a bunch of cells” I was shown a filmstrip of a bunch of red circles. And you are fine with that. Abortion is a matter of life and death and you believe that “just a bunch of cells” allows a woman a fully informed choice? I was 10 weeks along but was told I was 8. I was not given an ultrasound. I was not told ANYTHING about the risks of abortion or what the procedure was going to be like. My abortion was the most horrifying experience of my life and I am not alone in that. Thousands of women testify to the lies and deceit of abortion clinics.
Not to mention that I went into the clinic pregnant and left my dead daughter there.
64% of abortions are coerced/forced. Where have you been?? A 16 year old girl was dragged by her mother by her hair into a clinic just a couple of weeks ago. Young women are killed by their boyfriends for not getting an abortion. Happens at least once a week. PP routinely releases young girls back to their abusers after their abortions, without reporting the suspected sexual abuse to authorities.
Of course you and your proabort friends will agree that PP is the next best thing to sliced bread.
I am glad they were so wonderful to you, Kat. It is enough that fellow women are treated the way they are and you shrug your shoulders. Not to mention that half of all abortions are female. You must love women as much as PP.
“PP ALSO provides prenatal care and ultrasounds are pretty standard of prenatal care.
”
Not routinely. Most clinic’s prenatal care begins and ends with a pregnancy test.
Kat
November 2nd, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Sydney M: If they’re fully formed, living babies, then they’d be persons under the law and able to live without being physically attached to their mothers….
Are you implying that a 24 week (for example) baby (fetus, if you like) is NOT living? By the way, not a single person is fully formed until they’re adult, does that mean they’re not persons? Have you heard of babies who are born early (22-24 weeks) and live? That’s because they ARE formed enough to survive, just need a little help to grow and mature, does that mean they are NOT persons as well? Is a newly born baby not a person, because it is pysically attached to his/her mother by an umbilical cord? Do you support abortion throughout pregnancy? Even knowing that a lot of the 3rd trimester babies (fetuses, if you like) would survive in the outside world? At what point, in your opinion, a baby gets the rights of the person? When he/she is born? When the ubilical cord is cut? When he/she becomes “fully formed”, eg 18yo or something?
Your comment raises more questions than gives answers I’m afraid.
Kat
November 2nd, 2010 at 4:05 pm
PP ALSO provides prenatal care
Maybe I’ll sound a little ignorant, so you’ll have to exuse me, as I don’t live in the US, but being involved in a pro-life/pro-abortion battle for a couple of years now, I haven’t heard once about PP providing prenatal care…. Do they provide you with ultrasounds, tell you if your baby is developing correctly, advice you on your diet/exercise/birth plan, refer you to another specialist if they suspect something’s amiss, give you information/lessons about labour/birth/breatsfeeding and all the like? I’m sorry, but that’s just new for me….. I thought that’s what midwives and ob/gyns do… :S NOT the abortionists! If that’s true, then I’m totally creeped out! Imagine having a first check-up for your long waited child in the same room where thousands upon thousands of babies the same age were butchered? Or hearing the sobs/screams of the woman who is having or just had an abortion????? THAT woud seriously freak me out! I think I’d rather go with no prenatal care, than the one provided by someone who dismembers babies on a daily basis!!!
Vita,
PP does not routinely provide prenatal care. They do not bring pregnant women in for OB checkups in the same room as those killing their babies. They do not deliver babies to the happy couple in one room and abort a mother in the next. That would be bad for business.
Pregnancy Care Centers offer everything a pregnant could need or want and more. Through pregnancy and beyond.
Hi Carla,
I knew about the pregnancy centres, and I’m sure they do a great job, I just wasn’t sure what prenatal care PP offers. What EXACTLY they do for pregnant women who want prenatal care, instead of abortion… From what I’ve seen/heard, they would first and foremost do their best to prove how horrible pregnancy is, how expensive, how dangerous, how inconvenient and how your best option is definitely an abortion (from info provided by Abby Johnson and Lila Rose, oh I wish I could walk into the PP pretending I’m pregnant and listen to their lies for real to get a better idea). But then again, however much they tried to separate the two lines of their business (abortion and prenatal care) I wouldn’t even want go into the building of PP to get my pre-natal care… And also wouldn’t want to pay them for my pre-natal care, because that’s supporting a company who has no problem with killing millions of babies! That’s just wrong!
Agreed, Vita!!
I would like to see the kind of prenatal care they provide. They do more abortions than adoption referrals but continue to trumpet that they do adoption referrals. Just like saying well we hand out condoms!! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain suctioning a baby out of a woman’s womb.
kat said: to make a decision based on their OWN values and morals, on which you don’t have a monopoly.
Are you actually stating women are entitled to their own morality?
How come that doesn’t work for rapists, murderers, polygamists?
How come that doesn’t work for the criminally insane? Don’t they too have a right to their own morality and values?
What about terrorists – who’s to say they’re wrong?
Are you seriously calling abortion a moral decision – as opposed to an immoral one?
Come now Kat – what’s your real basis for advocating killing innocent human beings?
“Are you actually stating women are entitled to their own morality?How come that doesn’t work for rapists, murderers, polygamists”
Because rape, murder, and polygamy (which is privately practiced) are criminal violations against those who have been born and who are deemed “persons.” (good luck with your Colorado “personhood” thing because it’s going down). Unfortunately for you, abortion is not a criminal offense and women have the right to determine what they want to do with THEIR bodies. Neither the church nor the state have a right to interfere with a decision, made freely, by a woman. (Oh, right, all those silly gals are just too stupid to ignore the siren song of Planned Parenthood.) Until there is a major sea change in American law, all the prayers and “sidewalk counseling” by the anti-choice movement won’t mean diddly. And despite a poll which indicates that a slight majority of Americans are “pro-life,” the vast majority favor abortion under a variety of circumstances. The scientific, political, academic, and religious communities are not in accord about abortion. But yeah, let’s criminalize it and send those stupid gals to jail. But the bottom line is that if I want to “kill” a fetus, in my body, it’s no more your business than if I want to “kill” my gall bladder.
Kat, honey, please go back to school. Take a biology class. They are fully formed living babies that are sucked out of their mother’s wombs. And do you expect our government to do the right thing all the time? The same government that once claimed blacks weren’t human beings? Get a clue, Kat. You can’t really be this dense. Study history and biology. The law is not always right. And btw, the law will change. We’ll see to it.
Vita, where do you live? I wish you baby dust (don’t really have any to send as I am wishing for some myself!)
DD, an unborn baby is not part of a woman’s body. Period. It is a separate person. It is only a matter of time until we legally recognize the unborn as the PERSONS they are, because that is the only thing they could ever be. Pro-abortion logic says we can make people turn into “persons” arbitrarily….but that cannot be done. You don’t become a person, you ARE a person. And your arguments are relativist and functionalist. Science and logic tell us that the unborn are separate human beings from their mothers. Their right to live trumps a woman’s “right to control her body.” That’s just ignorant and it’s very very dangerous.
All righty, it’s time now for me to put my gall bladder–I mean my daughter–into the bath.
BTW, Vita you bring up an interesting point for Kat to consider. There was a couple at my church who went into premature labor and gave birth to a daughter at 24 weeks. She died. Another couple I know also had a baby (can’t remember if it was a boy or girl) at 24 weeks and that baby lived. Obviously baby #1 was NOT a person and baby #2 was. If baby #1 was a person then she would have survived. Survival is the litmus test for personhood according to critical thinker Kat. lol
Hope your body is not attacked by cancer or any disease Kat. If you don’t survive (ya know without being attached to any machines or needing any assistance whatsoever) then clearly you weren’t a person. Survival on your own is the hallmark of humanity.
If we are now making presumptions about people that we don’t know then Chris are you equating women with rapists and murderers?
What is your reason with equating a woman’s personal morality with that of criminals? Do you think all women are criminals? Or just those who would choose to have an abortion?
I wouldn’t presume to think so, so please don’t presume to know another’s intentions when stating their own opinions.
The same government that once claimed blacks weren’t human beings?
Kat, Have you ever heard of the Trail of Tears?
DD – who says you’re a person?
Was this bestowed upon you? If so – then it can be removed.
Do you really want to argue that point?
Ramona – are you entitled to your own morality?
If women can define their own morality, then why have laws?
you said “please don’t presume to know another’s intentions when stating their own opinions”
Kat was making a claim, which I am questioning. You can drop the condescension, because all you’re doing is trying to tell me to shut up.
DD
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Because rape, murder, and polygamy (which is privately practiced) are criminal violations against those who have been born and who are deemed “persons.”
Wrong! Most of the states acknoledge personhood of those, who aren’t born yet as well, when they charge murderers of pregnant women with double homicide and those who attack/abuse pregnant women with two counts of assault! Try again.
what they want to do with THEIR bodies.
There lies the problem – it’s NOT their body, it’s a body of a new, unique, live human being with their own unique DNA and unique fingerprints and their own blood supply, heart, brain, arms, legs and internal organs. By unique I mean there never ever was a person exactly like that baby(call it fetus for now if you like), with exactly the same face, voice, fingerprints, hair and there will never ever be one exactly like that!!! And you dare to call that child a “gall bladder”??? But you probably follow “blob of tissue” religion, which makes any intelectual discussion, involving contemporary scientific knowledge, impossible.
siren song of Planned Parenthood.
You’re right there, every woman in a crisis pregnancy should do her own research into fetal development to determine what she wants to do next. Unfortunately, some panic and seek “help and advice” from PP, which in turn feeds them the lie of “a blob of tissue”. Let’s be fair, at least PP should tell the TRUTH about abortion and fetal development. Since it has been proven it has no intention to do so, I’m going to continue call them liars.
all the prayers and “sidewalk counseling” by the anti-choice movement won’t mean diddly.
You’re wrong here too, all the prayers and sidewalk counseling (also education of public through rallies, exhibitions, discussions, ads) has saved thousands and thousands of babies and mothers from abortions throughout the years in the whole world, not only in the US.
Ugh, I’m done for today, it’s late here, in Europe, goodnight. Enjoyed the thread though, will come back to it tomorrow ;)
Sydney M
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Vita, where do you live? I wish you baby dust (don’t really have any to send as I am wishing for some myself!)
I live in the UK, which is pretty much as bad or similar to US when it comes to pro-life issues, but we’re fighting it :) Thanks for the baby dust (even imaginary) – fingers crossed wishful thinking and some prayers will work for both ;) I’ll send some your way if I find any real baby dust anywhere ;)
MaryLee
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:11 pm
All righty, it’s time now for me to put my gall bladder–I mean my daughter–into the bath.
Hahahahahaha!!!! Good one!!!!!
Can you imagine Jesus coming into a social setting and trying to teach by parables today?
“What do you mean, I’m a sheep? That’s offensive!”
“How can you compare my boss to a vineyard owner? My boss runs a car dealership! Those two are totally different!”
Lol!
I find it interesting how metaphors and similies are so totally lost on pro-choice people. I am positive that it is because of the mental illness of being pro-choice; it obviously damages one’s comprehension of ideas. No one with a healthy working brain would have had trouble with Chris’ comparison. If we all get to make up our own morality, then why do they have checkout stations at the supermarket. Why not just a voluntary donation if we like the apples or want to pay for our bread? Why can’t I just take everything I see around me that is not nailed down? Ramona shouldn’t ever file a police report if she’s robbed. After all, who is she to tell a car thief what is right and wrong. How arrogant! He might need that car and it’s not her place to tell him what to do with his own hands. Keep your laws off my thievery! Stop trying to push your morality down my throat! Lol!
How do we know the baby is intact? Maybe jessica simply changed her mind because it became inconvenient to have a baby, and this is just a picture of severed little legs and feet! Oh, I mean, a “blob of tissue” that LOOKS like two little legs and feet!
I don’t understand how any woman who has felt life inside her–the hiccups, the kicks and elbow jabs, arms and legs getting hooked under the rib cage, the very living presence of a child within her, can even think that it would be okay for anyone to destroy any preborn human being, and to defend that right proudly in the name of women’s rights! We are women, and we are made for better than that. I think we have forgotten what it means to be a woman. And men have forgotten how to be men. Women are not made to be used and abused. Men should not stand by when women are being exploited and babies are being killed. Motherhood is something to be cherished and defended. What a gift! As women, we are made to be loved, respected, cared for, and protected by men, and to be mothers–to love, respect, care for, and protect the lives entrusted to us. I love this poem:
Woman was made from the rib of man
She was not created from his head–to top him,
nor from his feet–to be stepped upon.
She was made from his side–to be equal to him,
from beneath his arm–to be protected by him,
near his heart–to be loved by him.
I’m sorry, but how can any of you take this woman seriously?
She condemns policy that HELP women carry their children to term. Supports tea partiers like Rand Paul who claim too many women in Kentucky are having their pregnancies subsidized by Medicaid. Loves scaremongering about healthcare reform. Extolls the virtues of Star Parker. All while bleating the conservative line that “women are strong enough to do for themselves.” But then Stanek has the gall to say women need the government and pro-lifers to “save us from ourselves”?
A case-in-point of this logical inconsistency:
The only involvement prolifers have had with the Indian Health Services has been making sure IHS doesn’t subsidize abortions for Native women. That’s it. End of advocacy. The result? Terrible prenatal care, difficult pregnancies, unhealthy women and children. FYI, the government spends less per capita on Native peoples than on prisoners. That’s care? That’s “compassion for women”? Right.
Who would we take seriously Megan? you? The troll who posts alternately as Negam and Megan and thinks she is oh so clever? The troll who spouts hate and bile all over the place? The one who seethes with rage over living children and triumphs over dead ones? Get real Megan. you’re absurd.
Seethes with rage over living children.
Where? How?
oh please……terrible pre natal care because abortions aren’t subsidized? Sounds more like trying to get RID of the native American women….you know, the agenda began by Margaret Sanger who HATED minorities.
Hi Liz,
See, you’re messing up the correlation deliberately. I’ll go over it again. Abortion is the health care cause/anti-cause pro-lifers hone in on. They succeeded in revoking that privilege for people who access care through IHS. They did nothing else to ensure better care for these women, including pregnant women. Conservative pro-lifers like Jill Stanek claim to be “pro-woman.” It is hardly “pro-woman” to oppose abortion and then to leave pregnant women hanging. Where are the “pro-woman” pro-lifers advocating for better access to prenatal care for these women?
I’ve seen a lot of pro-lifers on this blog who actually seek to make the world an easier place for pregnant women, especially poor women. This is commendable. But then there are prolifers like Jill Stanek whose politics are intimately bound up with notions of conservative morality. You know, the type of pro-lifer who condemns birth control, sex education, social service programs like Medicaid, and gay rights. It is not hard to see that anti-abortion activism for these folks is more about policing the “wrong” kind of sex than actually helping out women.
What in the freaking world does unsubsidized abortion have to do with pre-natal care being good or bad? And unhealthy children? Seems to me a child that has not been aborted is, in fact, healthier than one that has.
Oh boy, Megan.
So now Jill is your enemy, your scapegoat, yadda yadda. I wonder if you run around avoiding mirrors.
When are you going to face your abortion and stop spinning in circles like a broken sprinkler?
It’s the conservatives! It’s the Christians! It’s the prolifers! Its the (insert regurgitated womens study prof ‘fact’ here)! No, wait, Its big bad paternalistic Jill!
Maybe your problem is
You?
I wonder if years from now, the woman who wrote this article will show it to her daughter and say, “See sweety ! I’m all FOR allowing mom’s to kill their babies before they’re born…but I chose to let you live. Lucky for you.”
No doubt, the child’s reaction will be, “Yeah…but how many AFTER me did you kill ?”
You may have a point here Megan. Yes, it’s a good idea to pay attention both to abortion and other social problems.
But since I have never heard Jill say one word on this site about the question of health care for Native American for women or the other specific things you mentioned, don’t you think it would be better to wait and hear from her what her thoughts on these questions are before you tell HER what they are? You sure deal in a lot of generalities.
And here’s another thing. You think of us as hypocrites? What about Megan, who is all bleeding heart for pregnant Native women and their prenatal care – but what if one of those women is so desperate she’s thinking of killing her unborn child? Megan just shrugs and calls it “choice.”
For many people, this last is going to cancel out everything you say about the former subject. “Yeah, Megan really cares a lot about Native women and babies. Shes doesn’t really care, she’s just using them as a political point.” I realize that this is probably not true, but the thing is, even though you are hit over the head with this again and again, you yourself still have no idea how hypocritical you sound to others here.
I have an idea. Why not give up the hard -hearted pro-abort rhetoric and really learn to care about women and their children? Why not become pro-life? Then you would have a solid non-hypocritical stance from which to criticize the conservatives.
Mary Ann is right. There is something in you that you desperately don’t want to face.
The other aspect, Mike, of course, is if the child finds out about it and then at some point in the distant future Jessica isn’t seen by her daughter as being ‘viable’, she will get her own standard applied to her. Charming.
Hi Megan-
I think what you mean by “better access to pre-natal care” is better access to GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS funded by my taxes.
I am a pro-life woman who runs a non-profit organization providing free pre-natal care for over 500 women each year, without a single dolllar from the government, ever, and for less than the cost of two full time government employees from just about any sector.
I, like Jill, vote for candidates who seek to reduce welfare dependency (and the despair that goes with it) and increase our individual freedom to assist those in need by reducing taxes and encouraging business growth.
If you want to see a dollar shrink before your eyes, give it to a government department. However, if you want to see that same dollar stretched beyond your wildest dreams to help countless people, give to to a group of people who are motivated by love and a calling to serve their fellow persons, who give willingly, with joy, and whose only earthly reward is seeing changed lives all around them.
The others are right- you have unhealthy anger and it’s spraying out sideways at whomever you feel you can peg some of your misery on. I pray you can let go of your bitterness and find hope, healing and purpose for your life.
Let me clarify, once more.
I am not advocating for increased access to abortion for anyone, at the moment. That is not the purpose of this argument. What I am pointing out is BS pro-life public policy: restrict abortion access but revoke government funding for public service programs that help women keep their pregnancies. IHS is a case-in-point. Abortion is the ONLY reproductive rights issue pro-life policymakers care about. Women need to be saved from themselves, but apparently they can’t ask for any more help.
Michelle: Yes, YOUR taxes. This is where pro-lifers and pro-choicers put their money where their mouths are. Medicaid, CHIP, Well Child, Head Start: all programs proven to help women give birth to healthy babies, and raise healthy children. I think your prenatal care nonprofit is a wonderful idea, don’t get me wrong. But do you think shifting the responsibility of caring for disadvantaged people from the government to the third sector will provide access to everybody in need? Who will ensure that nonprofits serve women in the most remote regions of the country?
This is why I’m angry, by the way. Not abstract rage. Anger against conservative Christian, pro-life mentality:
“And pro-lifers are voting today to save mothers like Jessica from themselves, because they don’t understand that abortion is dangerous to their health and safety.”
Megan — These people are idiots. There is no convincing them of anything, bc they find reasons to justify whatever bs their wack leader throws at them. Going on this site is a great way to make yourself feel extremely frustrated with the blind ignorance perpetuated by hypocrites across this sick country.
G- Thank so much for your input! Your so insightful, kind & open minded.
Hope your day is a wonderful one!
“There is no convincing them of anything…”
You will NEVER convince me that I cannot be convinced of anything!
I’m not convinced.
you guys are so witty. i love how you never directly address the full scope of anything said to contradict your perspective.
Then why did you come back, G?
“i love how you never directly address the full scope of anything said to contradict your perspective.”
Wait, what did you say that should be addressed? I’m happy to address anything, but I didn’t think you made any claims that were substantive.
Carla, got to snuggle a warm 5 month old baby today! Ah I think I needed that….sweet, sweet baby smell.
Yay! We both got our baby fixes in!! :)
Babies are just wonderful. I wish I could have more though!
“What I am pointing out is BS pro-life public policy: restrict abortion access but revoke government funding for public service programs that help women keep their pregnancies.”
Women keep their babies, NOT their “pregnancies”. It’s hard to take you seriously when you can’t use the English language properly.
“Conservative pro-lifers like Jill Stanek claim to be “pro-woman.” It is hardly “pro-woman” to oppose abortion and then to leave pregnant women hanging. Where are the “pro-woman”pro-lifers advocating for better access to prenatal care for these women?”
I can’t think of anything LESS prowoman than abortion. Abortion destroys the most fundamental quality and gift of womanhood – namely a woman’s ability to bear new life.
And you are quite wrong. Most prolife women are on the forefront of prenatal care advocacy. Many work and volunteer for a myriad of organizations that help women. We are the silent ones who quietly toil helping women cope and adjust to problem pregnancies and difficult life situations.
On a “right to life:
Allow me to explain it VERY slowly so you can all understand…
A fetus/embryo/baby/whatever(including you!)’s “right to life” stops where my body begins. So, just like you (an indisputably fully human person) do NOT have the right to the use of my body (even if necessary to your survival) without my ongoing consent, nor does a fetus/baby/whatever.
For example, let’s say that you require my body for dialysis to save your life. And let’s even that I have previously agreed to this (not that I agree that consent to sex = consent to pregnancy, but just for the sake of argument), perhaps even signing a written contract. If I change my mind and want to withdraw use of my body, no court or law in this land would prevent me from doing so- even if withdrawing my body would cause you to die and even if I had previously consented to the use of my body.
So, how is it that a fetus/baby/whatever has a “right” to life that infringes on my body, when you- an indisputably fully human person- do NOT have that same right?
On women:
It is both heartless and inaccurate to characterize women who have abortions as being cold or as unable to imagine a moment of love with a baby. 2/3 of women who have abortions ALREADY HAVE children. They know how much they can love a child, and they equally know what they are and are not capable of doing for them. Of those women without children who have abortions, most do so because they take motherhood seriously and do not want to do a half-ass or under-prepared job of its.
Here’s the core difference between pro-choice/reproductive justice and anti-choice/pro-life: WE TRUST WOMEN, to make the best decision for themselves and their families. Y’all… not so much.
On “informed consent”:
Pro-choice/reproductive justice advocates (including Planned Parenthood) are against so-called “informed consent” laws because they give MEDICALLY INACCURATE INFORMATION!! Making women listen while you tell them (untruthfully) that:
-abortion causes breast cancer (BS- ask the National Cancer Institute, or the American Cancer Society)
-or will make you infertile (BS again- ask the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists)
-or “post-abortion syndrome” (also BS- ask the American Psychological Association)
-or causes just general psychological/emotional distress (any number of quality social sciences research shows that two factors predict post-abortion distress: one, pre-abortion distress and two, a lack of supportive social network, i.e. being surrounded by judgmental people like the ones found here)
Also, because these laws presume that women AREN’T informed. Do we need “informed consent” for women giving birth? Because that has FAR more and higher probability medical risks.
On parental consent: ALL laws distinguish pregnancy care as distinct from other forms of medical care. In most states, teens who have given birth are automatically emancipated and in some pregnant teens are as well. Your minor child doesn’t need your consent to get birth control, to receive pre-natal care, or to give birth. Why should abortion be any different?
On “sidewalk counselors”:
You mean sidewalk stalkers? This is intimidation and harassment, plain and simple.
Y’All vs. Your leaders:
The reality is, regardless of what you people on this blog say, your leadership (including organizations and supposedly “pro-life” politicians) is not about “saving babies”. They’re about punishing women who have sex. Which is why opposition to abortion goes hand in hand with condemnation of birth control, sex education, social service programs like Medicaid, and gay rights. (Here, here, Megan!)
On fact-checking:
“95% of women who see the ultrasound choose life”?
“64% of abortions are coerced/forced.”?
“Thousands of women testify to the lies and deceit of abortion clinics.”?
You all totally just made these numbers up!!!
Show me evidence! While there do exist some few disreputable and medically inappropriate abortion providers, pro-choice/reproductive justice advocates work very hard to root them out (that is, in fact, a huge chunk of what the National Abortion Federation does).
Some facts to correct patently false statements:
95% of what Planned Parenthood does had NOTHING to do with abortion and they absolutely do provide comprehensive prenatal care. (This is information that is easily available from the PP website and any local clinic.) Other abortion providers vary, depending on how the practice is set up.
ALL (surgical) abortion providers routinely use ultrasound, including PP clinics that provide abortions.
Some facts about parenting and families:
-Single parents were as common in 1890 as they were in 1990.
-The teen pregnancy and teen birth rates peaked in 1957 and have been steadily declining ever since.
(The best historical reference on this is “The Way We Never Were” by Stephanie Coontz”)
“Most clinic’s prenatal care begins and ends with a pregnancy test.”
Uh… Most CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTERS prenatal care begins and ends with a pregnancy test (if that, you can find the House of Representatives investigation into this at http://web.archive.org/web/20080731092208/http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20060717101140-30092.pdf).
There is NO state with a law on the books allowing the murder of a pregnant woman to be prosecuted as a double murder. Although you people have tried this several times, it’s not a legal reality.
BY THE WAY, I am pro-choice (well, really, I’m pro reproductive justice!), so is my mom. And yes she DID have an abortion, and I’m thankful every day because it is what saved me and my sister!
:)
Abortion’s foes resort to deception: What I found when I went to a crisis pregnancy center
By Jennifer Carnig
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/11/05/2010-11-05_abortions_foes_resort_to_deception_what_i_found_when_i_went_to_a_crisis_pregnanc.html#ixzz14R55fhSO
Hi maiathebegrrl.
“For example, let’s say that you require my body for dialysis to save your life. And let’s even that I have previously agreed to this (not that I agree that consent to sex = consent to pregnancy, but just for the sake of argument), perhaps even signing a written contract. If I change my mind and want to withdraw use of my body, no court or law in this land would prevent me from doing so- even if withdrawing my body would cause you to die and even if I had previously consented to the use of my body.”
Sure, I agree. Here is why the analogy is flawed. In an abortion, you are directly and willfully killing an innocent human being as a means or as an ends. In the dialysis example, you are not killing someone as a means nor an ends. You are NOT taking an active step in saving their life. Allowing someone to die of a natural cause when it is a supererogatory work to do otherwise is not teh same thing as killing them. That is why the kidney analogy and this one do not work. It would be more akin if you argued that it was a moral choice to stab the person who needed dialysis in order to “unhook” yourself from him.
However, the idea that you can kill an innocent human being because he resides in your womb leads to absurdities. I didn’t receive a response to this scenario on a different thread, so I will repeat it. Consider the following thought experiment. In some parts of Africa, the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is quite rampant. Sometimes those parents who practice it on their children come over to the US and would like to have it done on their newborn daughters. Of course, this is a horrific and brutal act of mutilation, as I am sure many pro-choice feminists would agree. There should be no tolerance for FGM in our civilized society.
However, there is a compromise. Since the fate of the unborn in the womb is subject to teh woman’s wishes, as long as the mother wished, she could (hypothetically) have her unborn daughter’s genitals mutilated while teh daughter was still INSIDE her mother. Though we probably don’t have the science behind doing this down yet, I’m sure we could figure it out. It would probably be easiest to do right before birth, the time at which the fetus gains rights. Thus, since the fetus has no rights, there should be no moral qualms about mutilating a female fetus’s genital while it is still in teh womb.
Does that make sense? Do you support in utero FGM?
Talk to you later.
“The reality is, regardless of what you people on this blog say, your leadership (including organizations and supposedly “pro-life” politicians) is not about “saving babies”. They’re about punishing women who have sex. Which is why opposition to abortion goes hand in hand with condemnation of birth control, sex education, social service programs like Medicaid, and gay rights. (Here, here, Megan!)”
Suppose this is true and that our only reasons for fighting for the alleged “rights” of the unborn resides in our real agenda to punish women. How does it follow that abortion does not unjustly take the life of an innocent human being?
“Who’s a friendly, little bee playing oh-so happily.
Buzzing here and buzzing there.. Busy buzzing everywhere.”
:D
maiathebegrrl, thanks for bringing back some good memories. I hope you stick around for a while and chat.
@Bobby Bambino
“Sure, I agree. Here is why the analogy is flawed. In an abortion, you are directly and willfully killing an innocent human being as a means or as an ends. In the dialysis example, you are not killing someone as a means nor an ends. You are NOT taking an active step in saving their life. Allowing someone to die of a natural cause when it is a supererogatory work to do otherwise is not the same thing as killing them. That is why the kidney analogy and this one do not work. It would be more akin if you argued that it was a moral choice to stab the person who needed dialysis in order to “unhook” yourself from him.”
I wildly disagree with the moral distinction you’re making here. “Letting die” is not, in and of itself, any more or less moral than “killing”. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I accept this distinction.
“Letting” die is, in fact, what the VAST MAJORITY of abortions do. 89% of all abortions are performed prior to 11 weeks- this is still in the embryonic phase. At this point of gestation (regardless of what anti-choice propaganda says), an embryo/budding fetus is smaller than a dime, and is removed (generally) whole through vacuum aspiration. So, in vacuum aspiration (the abortion procedure performed in the vast majority of abortions today), along with in medical abortion, removing the embryo/fetus from the uterus is EXACTLY what is being done. This is, even in your cockamamie distinction, “letting die” rather than “killing”.
“However, the idea that you can kill an innocent human being because he resides in your womb leads to absurdities. I didn’t receive a response to this scenario on a different thread, so I will repeat it. Consider the following thought experiment. In some parts of Africa, the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is quite rampant. Sometimes those parents who practice it on their children come over to the US and would like to have it done on their newborn daughters. Of course, this is a horrific and brutal act of mutilation, as I am sure many pro-choice feminists would agree. There should be no tolerance for FGM in our civilized society.”.
One, I don’t agree with your set-up here for a number of reasons. For starters, you’re engaging in an other-izing and inaccurate discourse on genital cutting practices (while exceptionalizing U.S. genital cutting practices as “okay” or simply invisible). But, I will leave that to the side for a moment…
“However, there is a compromise. Since the fate of the unborn in the womb is subject to the woman’s wishes, as long as the mother wished, she could (hypothetically) have her unborn daughter’s genitals mutilated while the daughter was still INSIDE her mother. Though we probably don’t have the science behind doing this down yet, I’m sure we could figure it out. It would probably be easiest to do right before birth, the time at which the fetus gains rights. Thus, since the fetus has no rights, there should be no moral qualms about mutilating a female fetus’s genital while it is still in the womb. Does that make sense? Do you support in utero FGM?”
Regardless however, this is not an analogous situation. Cutting a fetus genitalia has no impact, positive or negative, on a pregnant woman’s right to determine the course of her won life (whereas removing a fetus from my body has a dramatic impact on my right to live my life as I see fit).
Allow me to say however, if you could make an argument that genital cutting in utero was somehow fundamentally linked to a woman’s ability to self-determine the course of HER life (not her fetus’s!) then I would support her right to do so.
A Clarification: I would like, at this point, to clarify my position. I am not arguing that ALL abortions are morally correct. Surely, there are immoral abortions (the history of forced abortions- committed by the State, not by a so-called “abortion industry”!- ar one example of this). But there ARE (many!) moral abortions (I know this because I talk to women having abortions regularly, and the overwhelming majority have GREAT, selfless reasons for aborting). There are also amoral abortions. Abortion is, I believe, like any medical procedure, morally neutral. Every situation is different. The question is- who do YOU trust to make the judgment call of which abortions are moral and which are immoral? The State? Your Church? A bunch of self-righteous dudes who’ll never have to face this situation anyway?
Me? I trust women.
On the movement: “Suppose this is true and that our only reasons for fighting for the alleged “rights” of the unborn resides in our real agenda to punish women. How does it follow that abortion does not unjustly take the life of an innocent human being?”
This point is, as should be obvious from the context, unrelated to the “morality” of abortion. My point is that your movement is hypocritical in that, for most of its most die-hard loyalists and leaders, “life” is not the point so much as is “controlling those bad slutty women that think they can have sex”.
If you want your arguments about the “poor dead babies” taken seriously, then perhaps you should do something about the fact that your movement is led by hypocritical, violence-endorsing, woman-hating zealots.
@Alexandra
Thanks for noticing the reference!
Funny story, when I was a kid, I HATED the MaiaTheBee references (my real name is actually Maia). One day, around about 5th-6th grade, I decided I was into it. I decided to use MaiaTheBee anytime I got to pick a nickname/handle and I started collecting bee stuff. Wouldn’t you know, all the teasers stopped referencing it!
:)