Life Links 4-25-12
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- The California Nurses Association is opposing legislation to make it legal in CA for nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physicians assistants to perform abortions. There is currently a study at UC San Francisco Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health where 41 non-doctors are being trained to perform aspiration abortions.
- At the Charleston City Paper, Jack Hunter doesn’t get pro-choice vegans:
What is it that is so precious about milk that it should be respected, but a fetus is something we can dispose of? What is it that is so sacred about cheese, but is nonexistent when it comes to the value of a human life? I simply do not get it. When the primary guiding philosophy behind your diet is a respect for life, it seems perverse to put human beings at the bottom of the food chain. - Jane at the Abortion Monologues provides a great example of how some pro-choicers in Canada are almost completely unable to debate abortion. When a call for a government committee to study when human life begins leads to such a mindless, angry, unpersuasive and unreasonable monologue, it makes you wonder if someone like Jane really knows that the unborn are human beings but cares too much about abortion to let that inconvenient fact get in the way.
- One of Steven Brigham’s (pictured left) closed abortion clinics in Pennsylvania is hoping to re-open but the state doesn’t appear to be backing down:
“Rose Health Services’ failure to have a physician on-site to perform abortion services and notify the department accordingly in a timely fashion is a violation of the law,” said Christine Cronkright, Health Department director of communications. “The Pennsylvania Department of Health stands by its actions in the April 17 letter and order revoking the registration.” - At the Philadelphia Daily News Christine Flowers writes about the false idea that having an abortion is courageous or selfless:
We can disagree about the law.We can disagree about the science.
We can even disagree about the politics of reproductive autonomy.
What we can’t do, though, is delude ourselves into believing that it takes more courage to destroy a growing fetus than it does to allow that child to be born. We can’t pretend that it is more selfless to use abortion as birth control than it is to give birth and then gift that child to loving, adoptive parents.
[Brigham photo via NRTL News]
So about the grossly inconsistent and illogical pro-choice vegans/vegetarians… If a fetus isn’t life, or worthy of being valued like a cow or a chicken or even milk… Would you be opposed to eating one? What about a cow fetus? Or a newly-fertilized chicken egg? Is it the act of killing the cow fetus the part you oppose, or is it the ingestion of flesh that was once living and growing and developing? I just don’t get it… If its driven by the respect and valuation of life… Then why, WHY, would you support ending that life but not its far less disrespectful utilization in nutrition for other living beings?
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Jane’s post is so sad. There is just so much anger, hurt and sadness on the anti-life side.
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I’m anti-abortion and Canadian, and I would love to see abortion made illegal here. That said, I can understand some of what Jane is saying.
I’m made very, VERY uncomfortable by humans trying to control other humans’ reproductive choices. And it’s never “right” to tell a woman what she can do with her body. However, it’s the lesser of two evils when the other choice is killing a human. I suspect Jane knows abortion is murder but feels bodily autonomy is more important. That’s her line in the sand, and I do agree it’s sad.
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What’s sad is how these raging so-called feminists rail against the “patriarchy” time and time again (so tiring!!!). I don’t know the stats, but it may be possible that over half of pro-lifers are women. We want our reproductive lives to be respected. You do not respect me when you tell me that I have to murder my child to be equal to a man. You do not respect me when you assume if I want all children to have the same fair chance to live that I am some kind of victim of a vast male conspiracy. BS!
My grandmothers were sassy, willful, strong women. There is no way that they were oppressed by my grandfathers! Everyone knew who ruled my paternal grandmother’s house and it wasn’t “the patriarchy!!” And, despite the feminist headwashing I endured in college, I’ve come to believe that my grandmothers weren’t the first willful women in our family. My spidey sense tells me that I come from a long line of strong women who didn’t take dirt from anyone, least of all a “patriarchy.”
So feminists, stop insulting me. I’m nobody’s B.
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Hi ninek, I’m not sure if that was directed at me or just general. I’m genuinely sorry to hear that you’ve had demeaning experiences at the hands of women calling themselves feminists. I guess everyone has the right to call herself whatever she wants, but the point of feminism isn’t to be pro-abortion or put other women down for their choices. I’ve been lucky enough to only experience that minimally, and I’m so glad.
There’s no doubt patriarchal attitudes existed (and still do sometimes) in other ways, but that’s generally outside the scope of the pro-life movement, I believe. I have seen a few examples of the caveman-ish, “Uurgghh, why wouldn’t any woman want the fruit of my loins” BS, but I honestly believe most men in the pro-life movement are sincere and not troglodytes.
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P.S. Your grandmothers sound awesome.
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I’m almost vegan, which I’ve been for about nineteen years. Like the author’s friend, I escort insects outside rather than kill them. Unlike the author’s friend, though, my compassion extends to unborn human animals, as well. Take heart that there are plenty of others like me.
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Lyssie,
I’ve asked vegan pro-choicers that SAME question. They say that since it’s an animal product, they wouldn’t eat it, even though there would be nothing wrong with it being killed. It’s…stupid, really.
Also… FLOWERS, REPRESENT!
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Roxy, hi! My comments were directed toward “Jane.” But also toward the women who accuse pro-life women of being dupes or victims, as if we can’t be pro-life on our own. I’m so weary of the fake arguments that self-labelled feminists make. Ask us, we’ll tell you. There isn’t some cave man holding a club over my head to make me pro-life, LOL! Women need to feel that there’s no shame in being pregnant, and I feel that a lot of feminists on the internet and in the media think that pregnancy is ugly and subjugating. I thought that by now, 2012, we’d have more daycare at the workplace, lunch hours with family, adoption not being so stigmatized (even though it is hard on the birth mom), etc. I’m disappointed with how far we haven’t come, and people like “Jane” are slashing away at fake opponents, while they’re NOT helping to fix anything.
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Pro-choice vegans and vegetarians depress me. And it is even more depressing that the majority of non-meat eaters and animal rights activists don’t extend that compassion to the unborn humans. I haven’t eaten meat since I was a kid because I think that life shouldn’t be ended without a darn good reason. Of course, the unborn count as a life.
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Oh! Go back and click the first link concerning the California Nurses Association! It appears that their opposition has derailed the legislation.
It is not clear why the Nurses oppose letting less-qualified persons do surgical abortions. I hope that they realize this is not safe for women, and perhaps they do not want the good reputation of the Nursing profession to be ruined by “killer nurses.”
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I thought the reason abortion was legalized was to make certain only physicians, and not lesser trained people, would do abortions. Protect women, right?
I can understand and applaud the nurses’ opposition. I would think their opposition is based on patient safety and quality care. If a woman suffers complications, who does the follow up? Does she just go to the local ER? Even midwives must have OB/GYN backup, at least where I work.
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I’m pretty sure the Roe and Doe rulings, not exactly prolife decisions, made several references to Doctors. It was like they didn’t even consider the possibility that anyone else should be doing them.
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I have to agree with everything you said there, ninek.
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Thanks, Roxy! One of my grandmas used to love to say, “I was a Rosie the Riveter during the war, y’know!” I sure miss her.
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Heh! I never knew either of my grandfathers, but both my grandmas were pretty feisty too, each in her own way. One was a single mom of 2 (lost her husband in WWII), and the other one did factory work (but more sewing than riveting). Got to hear some of their stories before they died, but didn’t get to ask all the questions I’d love to ask now.
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