Minnesota representative: Men use abortion to exploit women
Pro-abort feminists like Robin Marty are already mocking MN Republican Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen for his comments earlier today on the MN House floor stating the obvious: Some men “with a perverted view of women” use abortion to sexually exploit them…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZNu0ULdaEs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Mockery is all pro-aborts have to dispute truth, which this absolutely is.
How stupid it is for supposed feminists to deny the obvious: that a component of the male culture has come to rely on abortion as a tool to more freely use women as sex objects. Almost every day comes another story, like this one, of a man trying to force the mother of his preborn child to abort.
Abortion doesn’t free women. Abortion exploits women.
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.
Simple truths explained in the simplest terms. Thank you sir.
How can a person be exploited by something they choose to do? That’s like saying the tattoo you got with your ex’s name on your rear end was because he exploited you into it… It is not exploitation, it is free will. Ultimately it is the woman decision in the end.
If a woman went into PP and told the nurse she didn’t want an abortion but her boyfriend in the waiting room is forcing her she would be helped. She would call for a ride and the clinic staff would sneak her out the back door without telling the boyfriend, or if circumstances were worse the police would be notified. The woman’s wishes would be complied with within state laws” and help would be offered. If you do not believe me make your own call to your local PP and tell them you are pregnant but on the fence about what to do and ask them if they can refer you to an adoption agencyfor more information on adoption. Don’t believe Lila Rose’s B.S. make the call for yourself.
Let’s bring back the tattoo analogy… If all tattoos were outlawed in the USA and all tattoo parlors were shut down would all women stop getting them? No. They would get them at a party or a biker clubhouse or some other unclean place festering with infection… The same thing has happened in the past and would come back again swiftly with regards to abortion in this country. You cannot stop it. Cocaine is illegal but you can still get it from underground sources in any city in the country. Just be careful because those underground sources can kill you long before cocaine even has a chance.
Biggz, not all women choose abortion. Many are coerced into it by parents, boyfriends, employers, etc. They may “choose” abortion but it isn’t their choice, it’s because they feel they HAVE no choice thanks to the pressure of friends, family, etc.
All Women have a choice in the USA. A choice to have an abortion and a choice to stand up for themselves from whoever is oppressing them. You don’t stop a bully from taking your lunch money by outlawing lunch money… You stand up to the bully and if you can’t do it on your own you ask for help and there is plenty out there.
Cocaine is illegal but you can still get it from underground sources in any city in the country.
Yup. But the fact that cocaine is illegal stops many, many people from becoming addicted because they are not willing to take the steps it takes to get it underground. A great analogy for why abortion needs to become illegal as well.
Thank you Rep. Gruenhagen!!! You don’t know how refreshing it is to hear a man who totally gets it stand up for women! Nice change from the Biggzs of the world.
Biggz – Planned Parenthood just settled a lawsuit from a woman who told the PP staff she was being abused – they performed the abortion anyway – and when the family member was starting to prey on the younger sister – the older sister finally went to the police.
And it’s plenty easy to stand up – when you have the nerve and information to do so. When boyfriends, parents and even other women pull a girl into the clinic, she is cut off from those who could help her – they either confiscate her phone or insist it’s turned off; no other person can go into the ‘back room’ with her (we have only heard of an interpreter that was allowed to go in the back….
i even had a father threaten his daughter in front of me: If you don’t get in there for your abortion, I’ll leave you here!, and when she continued to talk with me, he insisted: “If you don’t get in there right now, I will throw you and your child right out onto the street!’
With that, she looked at me, looked at the ground and stated she could not lose the roof over her head.
Totally coercion.
So while one would hope that there would be women able to resist such tactics, without other help many women feel hopeless and give in to the pressure. And they and their child, pay the price. The men usually just walk away.
How can a person be exploited by something they choose to do?
Are prostitutes exploited?
Are those in the porn industry exploited?
Are girls who give boys sexual favors for popularity, etc, exploited?
One could say that women choose to prostitute themselves, or allow themselves to be photographed or filmed doing sexual acts, or give sexual favors, simply because they’re beautiful and they can. But it’s more likely that they do these things for reasons other than that they benefit women or further the cause of women.
Sometimes the line between between empowerment and exploitation is incredibly thin. A woman working as a porn star may “enjoy” it and the attention that comes with it, but in reality, these women are being used by a multi-million dollar industry. The abortion industry has its “empowered” victims as well…
That some men will use abortion as a tool to sexually exploit women is not an argument against abortion, it’s an argument against sexually exploiting women. Here are some other things that can be used to sexually exploit women that Rep. Gruenhagen might want to investigate: alcohol, chocolates, flowers, fast cars, money, etc. Of course, it would be patronizing and nonsensical to demand the banning of these things because they can be misused in such a way as to sexually manipulate people. Thus it is with abortion as well.
Biggz, you should read some of the *many* first hand accounts of forced abortions availible on http://www.theunchoice.com . Not only that but I have friends who were forced by medical personell into medical procedures upto and including surgery while pregnant or during delivery. To think that a member of the mainstream medical community in a public hospital is capable of telling a nurse to hold a woman’s legs open by force while telling the woman to shut up and stop yelling while she’s shouting “no! I do not consent!” And get away with it it’s obsurd to think a marginalized doctor/nurse in a private clinic won’t do it to a scared woman in private if she changes her mind/refuses/hesitates.
I’m glad you live in a world of doctors who never place conviences or money over a woman’s right to choose (any medical procedure). It means you haven’t experianced it, nor has your wife (I seem to remember you are married, if I missremember I apologize). Unfortunately many of us women do not live in such a world. While I haven’t personally been forced into any procedures via force, I have been cohersed through other means during the pregnancy and birth of my 2nd child, and I have been told bald faced lies by doctors to attempt to coherse me into other procedures. I’ve even had doctors admit to me they were lying to me and usually do to their patients as a matter of course when I called them on a lie.
Unfortunately your notion of a cohersed women simply going to the back and telling someone they need help to keep the pregnancy and to get away from their abuser/coherse-er is widely different than reality.
All Women have a choice in the USA. A choice to have an abortion and a choice to stand up for themselves from whoever is oppressing them. You don’t stop a bully from taking your lunch money by outlawing lunch money… You stand up to the bully and if you can’t do it on your own you ask for help and there is plenty out there.
Ah, yes, of course. Every woman has the capacity to physically overwhelm her abusive husband/boyfriend who forces her into a clinic. No women ever have to be afraid that he will try, possibly successfully, to kill her if she doesn’t do what she wants. After all, it’s not like any man has ever attacked or killed a woman because she wouldn’t have an abortion.
…Oh, wait. It’s exactly like that. That actually happens all the time. This is a real tool of oppression that real women really face. You might at least try to find a smidgeon more compassion than just telling abused women to cowboy up.
Chocolates and flowers? Really, Joan? You think chocolates and flowers come from the same “toolbox” as abortion?
Well, of course you do. You don’t even see the child in the womb so why would it occur to you that chocolates and flowers aren’t exterminating little people.
Abortion has no proper “use.” It is only abuse to everyone involved.
“…Oh, wait. It’s exactly like that. That actually happens all the time. This is a real tool of oppression that real women really face. ”
And in the absence of abortion being available as a “tool of oppression”, these abusive husbands and boyfriends would… not be abusive? What’s your argument, exactly? If a man is willing to use threats of physical violence or other methods of coercion in order to end a pregnancy via abortion, then what would he do if abortion wasn’t an option? Throw his hands up and just accept his fate as the father of an unwanted child? It doesn’t stand to reason that abortion enables domestically abusive behavior where it otherwise would not have existed.
“Chocolates and flowers? Really, Joan? You think chocolates and flowers come from the same “toolbox” as abortion?”
If that “toolbox” is “things men might use to manipulate women in order to have sex”, then yes, why not?
Joan, given that A) a history of abortion increases a woman’s likelihood of being abused, B) domestic abuse has increased since legalized abortion not decreased, and C) many people both men and women say they would not consider abortion if it were illegal…yes, at least some men abuse that would otherwise not if abortion were illegal. Yes, some men would still abuse some women, but the fact that abortion does cause some domestic abuse in and of itself is a fact. As a matter of fact I know of one divorce that happened after a cheating wife got two abortions to cover up her affairs. The husband didn’t turn abusive when he found out about the affairs but he was so distraught when he found out about the abortions, that she had killed children she claimed were his without his knowledge, that he flew into a blind rage and shook her so hard he cause her physical damage. There was no history of abuse, and her husband never laid a hand on her again, and yes this isn’t an instance of a cohersed abortion, but it IS an example of abuse occuring specifically because of the legality of abortion that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
My point is that Biggz is being an idiot to claim every woman always has a choice. Because it’s painfully obvious that is not the case. And while ending abortion will not end domestic abuse, that doesn’t magically make abortion okay, nor does it mean that it isn’t a tool of abuse. Often.
“Yes, some men would still abuse some women, but the fact that abortion does cause some domestic abuse in and of itself is a fact.”
A situation involving abortion could, in theory, present a motive for domestic abuse where it otherwise would not have existed (which, again, says nothing whatsoever about the propriety of abortion itself, because any number of other things could also provide such a motive). However, it is not only not a fact, but quite absurd to claim that abortion could trigger abusive behavior in a person who would otherwise not be susceptible to being abusive.
“The husband didn’t turn abusive when he found out about the affairs but he was so distraught when he found out about the abortions, that she had killed children she claimed were his without his knowledge, that he flew into a blind rage and shook her so hard he cause her physical damage.”
And in this entire, sordid affair, this one supposedly isolated violent incident is the fault of abortion? Really? What if this otherwise non-violent husband flew into a blind rage and shook his wife so hard that it inflicted physical damage because his favorite football team lost a game? Would that be an example of abuse, that otherwise would not have happened, occurring specifically because of the legality of football? The conclusion you’ve drawn from this anecdote is the very definition of a spurious relationship.
@ Joan, actually I used that specific story because I am intimately familiar with the man and, in 50 years that is the singular occurance of domestic abuse that has ever happened, and that was over 25 years ago. If I used a random example then yes, it would be (possible) spurious. But this man, who has had 3 wives and a total of 4 (born) children and 5 grandchildren never before and never since despite any number of difficult situations, has never raised his hand to another family member. That is a story of my father and his first wife. It is anecdotal, but it is NOT spurious. Your arguement only needs a single example to be disproven, I provided an example I was well familiar with and knew WASN’T spurious, but I did so initially being vague. Now you have details, a proof positive of abortion directly causing abuse where none would have existed otherwise.
I have a question; if men should have no say in abortion and abortion was made legal by five men, then shouldn’t we overturn Roe v. Wade?
“If a man is willing to use threats of physical violence or other methods of coercion in order to end a pregnancy via abortion, then what would he do if abortion wasn’t an option? Throw his hands up and just accept his fate as the father of an unwanted child? It doesn’t stand to reason that abortion enables domestically abusive behavior where it otherwise would not have existed.”
No doubt men have always wanted sex, but many now believe they have a right to sex that does not result in reproduction. George Akerlof, a Nobel prize winner in economics and a pro-choicer, acknowledges that contraception and legal abortion has strongly reduced the expectations of both men and women about male responsibility in the event of an unplanned pregnancy, leading to the feminization of poverty that is so prevalent now. It is now the woman’s “fault” if she decides to give birth to the child because she had an out. Thus, leaving a woman and child has become easier and far more commonplace with the rise of legal abortion.
I consider the abandonment of a woman who is pregnant with your child a horrible form of abuse. So yes, I think it is entirely possible and likely that the acceptance of abortion does in fact enable emotionally and physically abusive behavior.
b o is still making victory laps and spiking the ball over the execution of Osama bin Laden.
That new hood ornament prominently displayed on the front of b o’s campaign bus sure bears a striking resemblance to the head of Osama bin Laden.
Kinda reminds me of the hood ornament on my grandfather’s 1953 Pontiac.
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1953-pontiac-hood-ornament-jill-reger.html
I don’t know why folks are so upset about Osama getting buried at sea. The SEALs had already given him a 21 gun salute.
There really are some people who just need killin.
With any due respect to b o, other than sleepin, what was he doin for those 16 hours, before he came to the conclusion that Osama bin Laden was one of those kind of folks.
Maybe he was goin thru one of those ‘he loves me/he loves me not’ decision making processes and he ran out of pettles or time or he just said what the heck, go for it boys. Worst that can happen is you will kill one of the ‘worst people in the world’ or you will get wounded or get killed tryin.
Either way it is sacrifice b o is willing for you to make.
Jimmy Carter must really be jealous.
Just when it looked like b o was circling the drain into obscurious mediocrity, of all people, the United States military bail him out.
Not to worry Jimmy this little popularity bubble will burst in short order as soon as the euphoria disipates and reality re-asserts itself.
9% unemployment, rising inflation, rising interest rates, rising taxes, and the days of four dollar a gallon gas will have become a good thing……compared to five dollars a gallon.
[I remember my dad buying regular gas for 14.9 cents a gallon in the 1960’s.]
Misery index, misery index, misery index.
How may synonyms are there for ‘malaise’?
Hal, are you missin the good ole days of Carter’s reign of error?
My friend was coerced into her abortion by her family. It does happen. I’ve heard some of my husband’s friends say if they got a girl pregnant they would just “drop her at the clinic.” That happens too. But keep looking the other way pro-aborts. What does it matter as long as you get your dead babies?
“Mockery is all pro-aborts have to dispute truth, which this absolutely is”
So true.
Joan said: “If a man is willing to use threats of physical violence or other methods of coercion in order to end a pregnancy via abortion, then what would he do if abortion wasn’t an option? Throw his hands up and just accept his fate as the father of an unwanted child?”
Joan, before the decriminalization of abortion, the worst thing a man could do (in the vast majority of cases) was to abandon a woman he impregnated. Perhaps you are unaware that the leading cause of death of pregnant women is homocide? Or maybe you’ve missed the multiple accounts posted on this very blog of men harming the mothers of their children when they refuse to abort their babies? I fail to see how your “reasoning” holds water. We must have abortion as an option because men would resort to what? Should we apply that logic across the board to all violent crime?
A man who is capable of turning his back on his protective instincts as a father in order to KILL his own child is certainly capable of using threats/coercion/intimidation against that child’s mother. Abortion does enable abuse, because violence begets violence. Abortion in and of itself is violence perpetrated against the vulnerable unborn to the extreme (physical death), and to another degree (emotional, physical & spiritual wounding) against their mothers.
Abortion = violence and to support the former, you support the latter. Chocolates and flowers, indeed.
Like Joy, I’ve seen women dragged into abortuaries against their will–one case of a teenager who told sidewalk counselors she did not want the abortion but was being forced by her parents. Law enforcement would do nothing to intervene.
Joy: i even had a father threaten his daughter in front of me: If you don’t get in there for your abortion, I’ll leave you here!, and when she continued to talk with me, he insisted: “If you don’t get in there right now, I will throw you and your child right out onto the street!’
That really is too bad (horrible situation), but Joan already beat me to it – yes, coercion happens sometimes, but that has nothing to do abortion, per se.
Well they aren’t dragging them into the mill to get a haircut, Doug! Good grief.
Many teenage girls are being coerced into abortion by their parents
· Pregnancy resource centers are generally unequipped to help legally defend these clients, and subsequently coerced abortions occur
· Even under Roe v. Wade, the decision to keep the child is supposedly the woman’s alone, so these young women’s rights are being violated when they are coerced into abortion
I consider it medical rape.
64% of abortions are forced/coerced!!
If you are a sidewalk counselor or volunteer in a Pregnancy Resource Center, please download and print all of the information from this site. You CAN help stop a forced/coerced abortion!
http://www.txjf.org/pages.asp?pageid=99931
Well they aren’t dragging them into the mill to get a haircut, Doug! Good grief.
Sure, Carla, and the point remains – we’re agreed that such coercion is bad. Has nothing necessarily to do with what action the coercer wants to occur.
Let’s not forget Carolina Panther Rae Carruth who threatened to kill a former girlfriend if she did not abort. She aborted. Apparently she had reason to fear for her life as another girlfriend. Cherica Adams, who defied him and planned to carry the baby to term was gunned down by his hired goons. She lived long enough to identify Carruth. The baby survived but with serious physical handicaps.
No, abortion is never used as a means to control women who get men off the hook.
I see the abortionist feminist hatred of men and babies is alive and well. Robin’s article (and the responses to it) demonstrates that. Didn’t she recently have a baby too! Sad.
Equating getting an abortion to getting a tattoo (even forgetting the fact that the unborn child is a human being), is a pitiful analogy. There are two possible options.
(1) The woman either DOES treat abortion like getting a tattoo, nonchalant and carefree, in which case she is simply using abortion as another form of birth control. Only the most radically pro-choice advocate would be on this woman’s side. Granted, this woman is not exploited insomuch as she is a completely willing participant, but she has reduced herself from sexual partner and mother, to simply just a sexual partner. That’s a win for sexually aggressive men everywhere.
(2) The woman is desperate to avoid the obligations or responsibilities that come with the child. To equate these women with the girl going out to get a tattoo is disrespectful to a very poor degree. For them, abortion IS the only option. These are the women being exploited, Biggz.
My friend was coerced into her abortion by her family. It does happen. I’ve heard some of my husband’s friends say if they got a girl pregnant they would just “drop her at the clinic.”
Yes, it does happen. I had an acquaintance (I won’t call her a friend, because I didn’t really like her too much) whose son had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. They both wanted the baby, but this woman told me that she and the girl’s mother (who, by the way. was a church-going Catholic) “worked on them” until they decided to abort. I believe one of the grandmothers even paid for it. Anyway, this woman told me that her son was crying about it. I was surprised because her son was a pretty tough kid, he had been an amateur boxer. What a sad story.
[I remember my dad buying regular gas for 14.9 cents a gallon in the 1960’s.]
Ken, remember those “gas war” signs that service stations would put up, at times, while they battled the other store across the street for customers? : D
Back when a tenth of a cent per gallon might make the difference.
The argument may be made that abortion in and of itself is not the culprit here. The argument can also be made that abortion is not always a matter of choice for all women all the time.
Its like the argument that prostitution is a victimless crime. Yes, some women may be in it purely as a choice, others may be drugged, beaten, and threatened into it as well.
So…does anyone argue the culprit is not prostitution, but rather the fact that sometimes women can be forced into it?
So if we ban abortion, men will start respecting women and all will be well – just like the days when abortion was illegal?
Abortion doesn’t free women. Abortion exploits women.
Abortion kills women. 50% of those aborted are women.
This could be a productive discussion. Coerced abortions are more common than we’d like to think. And by the same token, so is coerced childbearing. The guys who would give women an ultimatum about abortion are the same ones who flush their girlfriend’s birth control down the toilet or accuse them of cheating if they ask to use a condom. I’ve met scores of girls whose partners said that if they (the girls) loved them, they’d have “his” baby…and then they get saddled with a child they can’t handle.
The issue isn’t abortion (nor is it childbearing). It’s about men trying to control women through any means they can. How would outlawing abortion stop this abuse?
Hi Doug,
The action that the coercer/forcer WANTS to occur is an abortion!! The killing of a child against the will of the mother of that child.
A young girl that DOESN’T want an abortion has every right to NOT have one! She has the RIGHT to not have an abortion.
Maybe when men can no longer use abortion to hide their infidelities and their rapes and the fact that they don’t want to take responsibility for their child they might think twice about it. Back in the day, men were expected to marry the girl they conceived a child with.
While it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Hi Megan,
We have danced this dance before. I will sit this one out and bid you a good day!! :)
“Back in the day, men were expected to marry the girl they conceived a child with.”
Yeah, and it wasn’t necessarily a deterrent for nasty, coercive behavior. I recently met a woman who was raped before Roe by a kid at her high school. Town mores meant that they needed to get married, so they did. Awful.
I agree that is awful!! Good grief, Megan did this woman get a choice to NOT marry her rapist? Not a solid argument for what I am talking about as rape is always used as the exception but I am sickened that even happened!
Maybe we should ask all of those folks whose parents got married when they conceived if they are happy to be alive today?
It is about taking responsibility and letting a child live that would otherwise have died a gruesome, illegal death. It is rising above our own selfish wants and needs.
Hi Carla, 10:40am
I think another issue here is the neanderthal mentality toward rape. Were any laws in effect here to prosecute this dreg? Did the townsfolk just laugh at the notion of rape? Women after all ask for it. How many other women did he victimize or would he victimize? Did this young woman’s tragedy provide an opportunity to get a rapist off the street?
Was abortion the solution to the problem or would it only enable him to victimize again and again with no concern for prosecution?
Megan, why are these women sleeping with these men who try to sabotage the birth control or “coerce” them into childbearing? Very simple remedy to that is not to have sex. Why is it still so shocking to some people that sex is how babies are made?
If a man is willing to use threats of physical violence or other methods of coercion in order to end a pregnancy via abortion, then what would he do if abortion wasn’t an option? Throw his hands up and just accept his fate as the father of an unwanted child
It shouldn’t matter that abortion is an option. If he is using threats and coercion, they both need real help, not an option of using more violence on someone else. I really don’t understand advocating killing an innocent human because someone is threatening and coercing someone.
My ex hurt threatened to kill me if I didn’t abort our son. He told me I would never see a single dime from him for support. I got help.
I’m still here, our son is all grown and the check came every week.
I’m staying out of this discussion…I can’t offer anything on this discussion without thinking of the men and women I know who were hurt by abortion. Or about the adopted relatives and friends who get disrespected when people say adoption doesn’t help anything.
I think many of the other pro-lifers on this particular discussion are doing a good job answering.
Okay praxedes, and you managed to do that with abortion still legal. Argument=null.
And Sydney, don’t be thick. People have sex for all sorts of reasons. Maybe a woman would rather not have sex but is financially or emotionally dependent on her partner. It’s pretty simple for you to place all the blame on the woman without knowing the complexity behind her choices. Why is it that a woman in an abortion clinic is obviously being exploited, but when it comes to sex, the decision is all hers?
Mary,
Good points! Why don’t we put some energy into catching and prosecuting perpetrators of rape rather than killing the innocent child??!!
We could all come up with real or imagined worst case scenarios and it still doesn’t change the fact that a human child’s basic right is the right to life REGARDLESS of the circumstances surrounding his conception.
Megan
Which coersion in your opinion is worse women being pressured by people who supposedy care or women that are pressured by agencies such as planned parenthood to abort. I think true empowerment for women will have been realized when they say my body my choice but mean try to kill my baby and there will be consequences. I know a woman who at the age of 15 conceived and her father who was in the military made the decision for her that she had to abort and against her wishes the abortion was committed.
Okay praxedes, and you managed to do that with abortion still legal. Argument=null.
But the two women that were pregnant with his child before me, didn’t manage this. They believed his threats and aborted their children. One of these women, clearly traumatized, came to my home when I was 8 months pregnant, pointed at my stomach yelling and crying over and over, “that should be my baby.” The only difference in me and that woman was I was a bit stronger at the time only because my mom supported me. Hers didn’t.
Last I heard, the woman that visited me lost custody of her children and was sent to jail for drug-related crimes. I’m sure she was crazy before the abortion. Right.
Please quit enabling men to abuse and use women, megan.
Some of you may be old enough to remember when Gloria Steinem got in a bunny outfit to serve drinks. Remember how angry and outraged she was? That was before over 50 million little bodies started to pile up. She railed against men and how they treated women.
It’s now 2011. Gloria, what do you think of our international porn industry today? Back when you were spittin’ mad about the bunny ears, we didn’t even have the phrase “porn industry.” We didn’t have the phrase “abortion industry.” Boy, we sure do now, don’t we? Yes, abortion is a murderous tool used to further exploit women. Yes abortion has made it worse for women. And everybody knows it.
A young girl that DOESN’T want an abortion has every right to NOT have one! She has the RIGHT to not have an abortion.
Carla, I certainly agree there, just as a young girl should not be coerced into continuing a pregnancy that she does not want.
____
Maybe when men can no longer use abortion to hide their infidelities and their rapes and the fact that they don’t want to take responsibility for their child they might think twice about it. Back in the day, men were expected to marry the girl they conceived a child with.
We often see it said that the most common cause of death for pregnant women is homicide. I wonder what things were like on that score before Roe…
Some of you may be old enough to remember when Gloria Steinem got in a bunny outfit to serve drinks. Remember how angry and outraged she was?
Ninek, I do remember that she did it, but don’t recall why she was all bummed-out. Must have been the stuff the guys did and said….? But heck, I think I could do that, and then go on to be the Ambassador to Malta the very next day.
Well Megan, I try very hard not to be “thick” and I see your point but you have to understand you can’t have it both ways. “My body my choice” cannot be the rant when you want to kill your fetal child but “oh I am so dependent and coerced! I MUST have sex with this loser to live! Its not my body or my choice in this situation!” when it comes to the sexual act.
I do realize that there are women who are living with men upon whom they are financially dependent and feel they have no choice but to have sex with these men in order to have food int their bellies and a roof over their head. I don’t think the solution to that is to kill any children that come from that relationship. The solution is to have charitable organizations that can help these women… get them an education, a home, food, clothes etc… LOVE and support so that these women can break the chains of abuse and be healthy and live happy, productive lives. Killing children does not stop abuse!
Hi Doug, 12:38PM
You could do what before being ambassador to Malta?? I am very fond of you Doug but please don’t say it was put on a bunny suit. That would tax the limits of my imagination’s endurance, nothing personal of course. :)
Doug,
Please provide me with links to the stories of girls coerced into continuing their pregnancies and the outcomes of that.
Oh wait. Never mind. We weren’t talking about “coerced pregnancy.” We were talking about coerced/forced abortion where women are threatened and medically raped against their wills via abortion to kill the child they want.
Carla, I imagine there are plenty of girls who, if pregnant and wanting an abortion, would be threatened with various things, given the beliefs of their parents. Is that really in doubt?
Again, it’s not really what the desired or undesired action – we’re all pretty much agreed that coercion, per se, is a bad thing.
____
You could do what before being ambassador to Malta?? I am very fond of you Doug but please don’t say it was put on a bunny suit.
Ah Mary, this ain’t your lucky day, I’m afraid.
In one scenario a child dies a brutal death and in another a child lives.
Apples and oranges.
Hi Doug 4:03PM
Arghhhh, ker-plunk.
Doug
Sure, Carla and the point remains-we’re agreed that such coersion is bad. Has nothing necessarily to do with what action the coercer wants to occur.
It’s exactly the same except in one case the individual can express their discontent and in the other the unborn are not giving the opportunity to voice theirs. You think maybe adults should be able to discern the voices of both victims without it having to be spelled out. I think the time is coming when those who insist that it is a right to kill the voiceless will find their own voices more than a little limited.
Ahoy Myrtle. Hey, who knows – you may be right and abortion may be much more illegal in the US at some future time, versus the case now.
As for the unborn, you are presuming that all along there is “somebody” there with emotions, perceptions, conceptions, etc., and I don’t think that is true. To a point in gestation, it really is “a blob of cells,” etc. Had my mom had an abortion early enough in pregnancy, there never would have been a “me” to know or feel or care about anything.
I do see adults “discerning” the voices of the unborn, but to a large extent that is personification at work, rather than the reflection of any necessary reality.
just because the unborn may have no awareness does not mean that they do not exist. If they exist, and are alive – they why create any arbitrary constuct to decide worthiness?
If i am asleep – is my husband allowed to kill me, because I won’t feel it or have awareness? if not – is it because he is my husband, or because he knows me? Could a stranger also do that? You see – it’s not the value of the perpetrator that has the limits of doing such a thing, it’s because of the value of the object (in this case human) that determines whether something is right to do or not.
Consciousness or awareness is no reason to decide to end a life, by any means. Neither is size, function, dependency or location.
If a child comes into the room and says “Daddy can I kill this?” do you automatically say yes? or do you find out what he means? Is it a bug, a cat, an animal or his baby brother. Again – the determining factor is what are we talking about? what is the object we are assessing we can kill?
If it’s human, the answer is no. so self-consciousness or awareness is no reason to make any human less valuable and able to have their life ended by another. In fact, some would argue that because of their lack of awareness or consciousness, that group of humans should be protected even more, since they are weaker than others and deserve more protection.
If it’s human, we should not kill it. If you are a member of the human family, welcome. It’s too bad some don’t even recognize members of their own family. And that is reality.
Doug
This is in response to your 6:20 post.
Of course there are cells present I believe they are necessary for human life but I would only refer to them as a blob if I didn’t know better. The unborn baby is just as real as the born one. Leaving the womb does not add or take away anything from them except maybe a decreased dependancy on the goodwill of their mothers or there community or nation. Only a slight decrease though because to a large degree they are still dependant on the sanity and good will of others. So when you pull out your big words and all your rationale your only lacking truth that’s why your argument doesn’t stand. I’m not sure if your aware of this but back in the 1400’s DaVinci drew or painted The Embryo. He got his subject matter from a cadaver. So for the medical community to insist the unborn were blobs of tissue was a little more than deceitful.
Joy: Just because the unborn may have no awareness does not mean that they do not exist. If they exist, and are alive – they why create any arbitrary constuct to decide worthiness?
Hey Joy. You’re one of the best posters here. I’m certainly not saying that the unborn don’t exist. Worthiness is always going to be in the eye of the beholder, in the opinion of “somebody,” some entity. If it seems arbitrary, okay, but that’s the way it is.
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If i am asleep – is my husband allowed to kill me, because I won’t feel it or have awareness? if not – is it because he is my husband, or because he knows me? Could a stranger also do that? You see – it’s not the value of the perpetrator that has the limits of doing such a thing, it’s because of the value of the object (in this case human) that determines whether something is right to do or not.
No, we don’t say your husband is allowed to kill you just because you’re asleep. Not because he’s your husband and not because he knows you, and the same for a stranger, whether they know you or not. It’s because we don’t see a good enough reason on their part. Now, if you were inside your husband’s body, that would make a hellacious difference. Their concerns are considered – the “value of the perpetrator,” if you will (or, “their interest”), but it’s also the value of the other party, as you say.
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Consciousness or awareness is no reason to decide to end a life, by any means. Neither is size, function, dependency or location.
Well, maybe, maybe not – it depends on what the situation is. Obviously, even without taking the opposite position from you, the location, as far as being inside the womb or outside of it, makes a huge amount of difference to many people.
The situation – I’d rather see 1000 abortions in accordance with the will of the pregnant woman, versus one woman losing a wanted pregnancy. Differences…. Back in 1916 or 1944, if a person of German extraction is walking down the street in Newark, New Jersey, then hard for me to see that it’s okay to kill him.
(Although, of course, Newark is one nasty place, and NJ drivers are #1 on my list of “The Worst Drivers in the US.”) Okay, just kidding. (or is he is spy? : P )
Anyway, if that same German was coming across the front in World War I or II battlefields, then the “okay” for killing him is likely entirely different, just as it is with “in or out” as far as the womb and the unborn. And I’m not saying that is necessarily the end-all of the argument, but it certainly plays a big part.
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If a child comes into the room and says “Daddy can I kill this?” do you automatically say yes? or do you find out what he means? Is it a bug, a cat, an animal or his baby brother. Again – the determining factor is what are we talking about? what is the object we are assessing we can kill?
I wouldn’t automatically say yes. Indeed – it depends on the situation. Is it a bug that will fertilize and/or pollinate our crops? Or will it destroy them? Is it a cat that will kill the birds coming to our bird feeders?
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If it’s human, the answer is no. so self-consciousness or awareness is no reason to make any human less valuable and able to have their life ended by another. In fact, some would argue that because of their lack of awareness or consciousness, that group of humans should be protected even more, since they are weaker than others and deserve more protection.
No, the answer after “If it’s human” is not necessarily “no.” Human beings are killed all the time, because of unwanted pregnancies, because of what society considers crimes, because of self-defense, because of war, etc.
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If it’s human, we should not kill it. If you are a member of the human family, welcome. It’s too bad some don’t even recognize members of their own family. And that is reality.
Well, that’s your opinion, and thus proceeds the entire abortion debate. All the “shoulds” and “should nots” come from desire/opinion.
So for the medical community to insist the unborn were blobs of tissue was a little more than deceitful.
Myrtle, no argument there. I am not saying the embryo or fetus is nothing more than a blob of cells – by that stage in gestation I certainly don’t see that as being true. (Although, it might be vanishingly hard, at that stage, to even determine if it’s human, versus some other species.)
(Edit: as far as appearance. Were it possible to extract DNA, that would leave no doubt.)
However, to a point in gestation it is “a blob of cells,” and to a point in gestation the assertions of people that “it’s a person,” etc., seem fairly far-fetched to me. I mean really – is the zygote ‘a person”? Come on….
LIFE begins at conception.
Come on, Doug. :)
Doug
Of course the zygote is a person. That’s why they abort it. If it was nothing they would leave it alone. Hopefully they will find some type of contraceptive that is just preventative and does not interfere with human life. And at the same time realize that creating a culture of death might not be a good thing after all.
Male sexuality doesn’t have to be exploitive. It can be respectful and affectionate, considerate and giving. However, there is a special potential for exploitation in male sexuality because males are the impregnators and females the impregnated.
Abortion MAY figure into male sexual exploitation of females but it is by no means necessary for such exploitation.
Indeed, some males have a “perverted” view of females in which they see them primarily as breeders. Those males would be averse even to contraception because it prevents them from getting their genetic material back into the system.
Dear Doug,
What do you make of the mothers that have early miscarriages and/or abortions that we regret? We love our children, we name them, we might have services for them and keep our ultrasounds and memorialize them. ALL of them are part of our families.
Blessing is very special to Bethany just as Aubrey is special to me.
I mean really – is the zygote ‘a person”? Come on….
It is incredibly insensitive of you to deny the humanity of our children.
Doug – thank you for the compliment, and thank you for engaging in the discussion!
The aim of the discussion is: while it is true that many people die of various causes, if people die from purposeful action – violence, death penalty, war, defense, robbery etc – is that purposeful action moral?
One can defend oneself – at least you can fight back, and if the unfortunate outcome is the injury or death of the aggressor – then the act is moral, although regrettable.
In war – there are just war theories, and loss of life and mayhem must be made the smallest it can be, as well as be avoided.
Since pregnancy is temporary, waiting for the pregnancy to have its normal, natural end (in birth or miscarriage) allows nature to play out, and the child live as he/she was meant to. Incidentally – in pregnancy and the victim small, much weaker than the perpetrator and has no real way to defend itself – even by the Golden Rule, the action (abortion) is immoral.
So can we kill it? is an important question. And especially since we are talking about human lives here – has even more importance than anything else. If we answer that well – we help make our world a better, more compassionate place.
See Stand to Reason – a good site about logical consequences to actions – a well-thought-out site with many things one would consider food for thought. Thanks for discussing.
The issue isn’t abortion (nor is it childbearing). It’s about men trying to control women through any means they can. How would outlawing abortion stop this abuse?
How does abortion stop the abuse? If the argument is that the woman should abort so she isn’t “saddled with a baby” by her abuser, let me ask – how is abortion going to finally make her LEAVE that situation?? Does killing your child somehow empower women to the point of “the last straw” thereby giving them strength they didn’t previously have in order to finally leave an abusive situation?
What’s more likely is this, Megan – and I’ve seen it before – a woman gets pregnant by her abusive husband/bf and HAS that baby. She then sees that her child is gradually damaged by witnessing his repeated abusive behavior or by becoming a victim him/herself. The mother of that child sees this and finally – not for her OWN sake, but for that of her child’s – finally gets the courage to leave and seek help.
I just want to compliment Doug for always being respectful and for asking good thought-provoking questions while seriously considering what pro-lifers have to say even if he doesn’t agree. Very refreshing! Enjoying reading the discussion. Carry on. ;-)
“She then sees that her child is gradually damaged by witnessing his repeated abusive behavior or by becoming a victim him/herself. The mother of that child sees this and finally–not for her OWN sake, but for that of her child’s–finally gets the courage to leave and seek help.”
So in this scenario, how wouldn’t the maternity ward staff be complicit in this woman’s continued abuse, just like abortion providers who you say “aid and abet” abusers?
And the flip side to your “empowerment narrative” (if we can even say that bringing a child into a world of physical and emotional pain is a good thing) is that women can become even more tied to their abusive partners after having a child, especially if they’re poor. Childbearing can forge a woman’s economic dependence on a male breadwinner. If she can’t afford daycare, she’ll need to stay home with the child, which will result in a loss of income. She’ll be at his mercy. Without economic self-sufficiency, simply getting up and leaving won’t be that easy.
And yes, I agree that we should have resources for women in this tough situation, and better in-take screening for pregnant women seeking healthcare (from abortion to prenatal care). But at some point you have to trust the decisions women make and hope that they are acting in their own self-interest.
and valid choices are more than self-interest – it is that it does no harm to anyone else. Should a woman protect herself from an abusive husband? Absolutely. Should she protect her children from an abuser? Of course. Should she abort her child because she sees no way out? No – and every woman who needs help should get it, and the whole of society should be helping here.
Just today I found out that a new acquaintance is having such severe monetary problems that her family is in danger of eviction. She is not in danger of having an abortion – but she is in need. We are getting herhelp now.
It takes everyone to help. And helping women with abortion is no help at all.
“She then sees that her child is gradually damaged by witnessing his repeated abusive behavior or by becoming a victim him/herself. The mother of that child sees this and finally–not for her OWN sake, but for that of her child’s–finally gets the courage to leave and seek help.”
So in this scenario, how wouldn’t the maternity ward staff be complicit in this woman’s continued abuse, just like abortion providers who you say “aid and abet” abusers?
It sounds to me like you’re conflating domestic abuse with statutory rape. ??
And the flip side to your “empowerment narrative” (if we can even say that bringing a child into a world of physical and emotional pain is a good thing) is that women can become even more tied to their abusive partners after having a child, especially if they’re poor.
They’re already tied to their abusers. Will a dead child fix that?
Considering that a battered woman typically isn’t thinking as clearly as she should, it’s unlikely that she will believe by birthing her own child, she will be bringing that child into “physical and emotional pain.” (And if she were to leave, there would be no issue if it could be proven that the man was abusive to her or her children.) Most of these women will only consider abortion if they believe it will please their abusers.
If a battered woman begins to become enlightened about the abuse, she’ll get out of that relationship, with or without a pregnancy. Abortion is not going to solve her problems. Leaving will. Emotional ties to an abuser will remain regardless of whether she aborts or not, and she needs to seek counseling for this. Again, abortion is not going to fix anything. It could, however, compound her emotionally fragile state.
Childbearing can forge a woman’s economic dependence on a male breadwinner. If she can’t afford daycare, she’ll need to stay home with the child, which will result in a loss of income. She’ll be at his mercy. Without economic self-sufficiency, simply getting up and leaving won’t be that easy.
Again, we have a woman here who isn’t thinking of herself as being “at his mercy” and she isn’t trying to leave. With or without a living child, she has chosen to remain in that relationship because she is not thinking clearly.
See, you’re looking at this as an outsider who says, “Hey, battered woman, FREE yourself from this man! Abort his child!” But the fact remains that in her present mental state, she is not viewing her child as a connection “to her abuser” but to the person she loves. She would be more likely to abort only if he wanted her to do so. Women in this situation are not looking to get up and leave. They’re looking to fix the relationship.
And yes, I agree that we should have resources for women in this tough situation, and better in-take screening for pregnant women seeking healthcare (from abortion to prenatal care). But at some point you have to trust the decisions women make and hope that they are acting in their own self-interest.
Do you believe a battered woman still in an abusive relationship has the mental clarity to act “in her own self-interest” by aborting her child? If she had true mental clarity, would she still be in that relationship?
If, on the other hand, you’re talking about a woman who has already left her abuser and is undergoing counseling and then chooses to abort – well, frankly, your arguments fall apart. Killing the child won’t make her “freer” than she already is or further empower her. And if she chooses to return to her abuser just for financial security, then again – I’d question her mental clarity.
Alex:
“(1) The woman either DOES treat abortion like getting a tattoo, nonchalant and carefree, in which case she is simply using abortion as another form of birth control. Only the most radically pro-choice advocate would be on this woman’s side. Granted, this woman is not exploited insomuch as she is a completely willing participant, but she has reduced herself from sexual partner and mother, to simply just a sexual partner. That’s a win for sexually aggressive men everywhere.”
Actually, most of them tend to end up thinking that she obviously would have been a horrible mom, so it’s just as well she killed the baby. They aren’t “on her side”, but they still think it was best she killed the baby.
So if a woman realizes she’s being abused and leaves the situation, with a born child, can she kill the born child to help eliminate ties to/dependency on the abuser?
I don’t believe Megan would say so.
So again, the issue is truly the humanity of the unborn child.
If the unborn child is a human being with rights, her forced abortion is wrong. Whether her conception was an act of violence is a nonissue in determining her rights. Forced birth is a misnomer–but prohibiting the killing of this child is right.
Birth happens at some point in the pregnancy, usually around 9 months. There’s no forcing it and stopping it (at full term) is a very bad idea. Birth is the natural termination of the pregnancy. At some point, in some way, the child will come out or be removed from his/her mother’s body, or they will both likely die.
Doug wrote, in reply to Carla:
Carla, I certainly agree there, just as a young girl should not be coerced into continuing a pregnancy that she does not want.
You’ll have to explain that one to me, Doug. Does a mother have a right “not to be coerced into continuing her motherhood”, at any particular age at all (until, say, the children are 18)? She has the moral right to kill them (by leaving the baby in a snowdrift, or strangling her toddler, or dismembering her 8-year-old daughter) if they become inconvenient?
You seem to be missing the key point: that the sterile-sounding “not being coerced into continuing an unwanted pregnancy” really means “killing the unborn child”… and it’s not (and is never) morally allowable to choose to do that.
As for the idea that “born children can be adopted out, or put in foster care, etc.”:
First, not all of your abortion-tolerant colleagues agree that adoption/foster care is preferable to death (and they’ll happily regale you with horror stories to that effect).
Second: do you consider it “right” to “burden” the people working at social services, etc., with “children that they don’t want”? Why is it not right to impose thusly on pregnant women (and the biological father), but it’s somehow right to impose on social workers, etc.?
Third: don’t you consider it something of a weakness in your position that you need the existence of pro-lifers (i.e. those who value the lives of the children who’d otherwise be killed) in order to maintain your own position? (I.e. the difference between killing “unwanted, born children” and “unwanted, unborn children” is that born children can survive outside the womb, and can be placed elsewhere–rather a moot point, if we’re forbidden to “punish anyone with a baby” (*ahem*–President Obama…), yes?)
Sure Kel, a woman in an abusive situation seeking an abortion might not have much “mental clarity.” And the same can be said for the same woman who gets pregnant and carries the pregnancy to term. How is the victim of intimate partner violence somehow more lucid if she choose to continue the pregnancy rather than abort? How can you trust that this woman is making the right decision for her? Oh wait: the REAL thoughts and feelings of pregnant women don’t matter (vs bogus pro-life psychology which asserts that every woman secretly wants to be a mom, has some intrinsic repulsion toward abortion, etc. etc).
YCW:
I thought we were talking about embryos and fetuses, not born children. Location makes all the difference. Also, you can’t really imply that legal abortion somehow undermines the “right to life” outside the womb, because there are already conditions placed on that right. Case in point: this pro-life blog just posted a celebration of the capture and murder of one of the world’s most sought-after criminals. I know what he did was heinous, but this display of happy bloodlust somehow undermines the site’s supposed “prolife” principles.
Sure Kel, a woman in an abusive situation seeking an abortion might not have much “mental clarity.” And the same can be said for the same woman who gets pregnant and carries the pregnancy to term.
Are you equating an unplanned pregnancy with domestic abuse? Really, Megan?
I did not say the victim of domestic abuse was more lucid by continuing the pregnancy. I said an abortion will not solve her issue of domestic violence, and it could actually lead to more psychological problems down the line, especially if she is already in an unstable mental state. (Even pro-choice research shows this.)
No, not every woman wants to be a mom. But killing one’s unborn child doesn’t undo motherhood. It just kills an already-conceived child.
this pro-life blog just posted a celebration of the capture and murder of one of the world’s most sought-after criminals. I know what he did was heinous, but this display of happy bloodlust somehow undermines the site’s supposed “prolife” principles.
Would you kindly give evidence of Jill’s “celebration” and “happy bloodlust” in a blog post, Megan?
Megan,
Please explain the due process of law which leads to the sentence of murder for the unborn child. What is the child’s crime? Why is the death penalty–by dismemberment–not considered cruel and unusual punishment for that crime? Why is the mother not obligated in this instance to provide child support for her own offspring?
If you answer these questions to my satisfaction, I will concede that abortion is exactly like the death penalty.
I do not rejoice in the deaths of the guilty. And I deplore the deaths of the innocent.
You have not addressed why being inside a uterus means a person has no rights. And obviously killing the child in the womb means that he or she has no right to life outside the womb.
I think a primary way to prevent the sexual exploitation of girls and young women is to revive the custom of chaperoned dating. The presence of the chaperone would actually enable the young people to get to know each other better because that process would not be short-circuited through premature sexual activity.
The Base nature of primitive man and women are like animals in heat like dogs! That exits today and we are all born in sin and shaped in iniquity. So people sin when they have sex outta marriage and simply want to avoid the wages and cost of what they born or will born. Abortion can happen with married people to and does because of many reasons. Church going people are no different many church people mostly women want children because they want a obligation to avoid loneliness and the obligation by society forces men to PAY FOR IT the rest of their lives and women know it that this is a free ride meal ticket so women are perceived and perpetuated as the MOST EXPENSIVE WHORES. So men and women are selfish in their base nature and death is their reward for selfish deeds and Hell has more space for them and God has no pity for them and will laugh at them. The other end of life also is exploitation of men for survival a widower will always be suckered in by old whores and the gold diggers. The greatest evil under the sun is this when a man dies all that he has labored for is left for someone else. I don’t really want to control other people and I don’t want them to control me. I understand how evil people are and I choose not to be evil so I don’t want to sin!