Life Links 5-24-12
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- Planned Parenthood is opposed to forced abortion so much that they issued a press release regarding Chen Guangcheng after he had already made it safely to the United States. Gee, thanks.
- Robin Marty attempts to prove that if abortion is difficult to get, women will go to desperate lengths to end their pregnancy. She highlights a British woman who died after drinking concentrated vinegar in a home abortion attempt. One large problem with this argument is abortion is readily available in Great Britain and paid for by tax dollars. So the example undercuts Marty’s argument because it shows that some women, regardless of how much access there is to abortion, will do stupid, dangerous things.
- The Daily Mail is reporting that an abortionist in Spain has been ordered to pay child support on a child he failed to kill:
A Spanish judge ordered the unnamed gynecologist to pay £780 a month maintenance to the boy’s mum after he bungled a termination at a clinic in Majorca.She checked in for an abortion in April last year when she was eight weeks pregnant – and returned three months later for another thinking she was carrying a second child.
Tests revealed the gynecologist had misread an ultrasound and the unborn baby thought to have been aborted was still alive.
- Abortion advocates are attempting to find the bright side of the record low (41%) percentage of people who self-identified as pro-choice in a recent Gallup poll. Abortion Gang member KushielsMoon and NY Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal play a similar note.
But only 20 percent of Americans say they think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. A majority, 52 percent, think it should be legal under certain circumstances, and 25 percent say it should be legal in any circumstance. In other words, there are more pro-choice absolutists than pro-life absolutists, and far more people who take a middle position than absolutists on either side.
Now, this might sound like a serious problem to some pro-choice advocates. However, one needs to look further into the polling to see the real situation.
52% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal under some circumstances. An additional 25% believe it should be legal under any circumstances. Together, that means a whole 77% of Americans support abortion being legal. In contrast, only 20% believe abortion should always be illegal (and that’s down 2% from last year!).
Obviously, this is a case of people not understanding what “pro-choice” and “pro-life” really mean.
Or maybe it’s a case of you not actually reading the complete poll results as Ramesh Ponnuru explains:
Here are the latest numbers: As of May 3–6, 20 percent of Americans think abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances,” 39 percent say it should be “legal only in a few circumstances,” 13 percent say it should be “legal under most circumstances,” and 25 percent say it should be “legal under all circumstances.”
The vast majority of opponents of legalized abortion have been willing to bestow the “pro-life” label on politicians who do not take the position that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. George W. Bush, for example, favored exceptions to a ban for cases where pregnancies threatened the mother’s life or resulted from rape or incest. One might say, then, that his position amounted to thinking that abortion should be legal “only in a few circumstances.” The two relatively life-protective positions get a combined 59 percent, the two less-protective positions get 38 percent.
[Image via hallelujahsbyholly]
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.
From the PP announcement:
“…. the scourge of coercive reproductive policies.”
By which we can see that PP will lump “coercive abortions” right in with “forced birth” (the common phrase we see coming from anti-life extremists).
Spin away, PP, spin away!! You’re still a multinational corporation that murders for money.
Planned Parenthood stands squarely behind population control efforts in all parts of the globe, and they partner with UNFPA to do it.
Hey, even Joe Biden “understands” China’s One-Child Policy. How much moreso does the number one abortion provider?
http://liveaction.org/blog/ex-planned-parenthood-director-new-obama-mandate-works-with-chinas-one-child-policy-to-cut-population/
By which we can see that PP will lump “coercive abortions” right in with “forced birth” (the common phrase we see coming from anti-life extremists).
Yes. And? Forced abortions and forced birth are part of the same agenda.
Oh, I’ve just got to hear your rationale. Do tell.
Only if you have no idea what it is Pro-Lifers are about, AnnaAnastasia.
1.) Nobody “forces” birth except for rapists, through forced insemination. Birth is the culmination of a natural process of pregnancy/gestation/reproduction. Abortion is the forced death of a gestating child. THAT is “force”.
2.) The reason we are opposed to abortion isn’t because we just love gestation/birth so gosh darned much. It’s because abortion kills a child. ANY abortion-forced or otherwise-kills a child. We oppose child killing.
^ This.
Forced birth (which really doesn’t even make sense in the context of the current abortion debate, but I digress) still sounds much better than forced death.
What would happen to abortion if ALL pregnancies were planned?
Well, Denise, I read just this past year a blogger who said that she planned her pregnancy, changed her mind, got a late term abortion, and boo-hooed to her family and coworkers for sympathy by saying that she had a miscarriage. Then she blogged about it. So, “planned” doesn’t necessarily amount to diddly. Also, many IVF users are killing off their extra kids when they don’t want twins or triplets. “Twin reduction” they call it, or “pregnancy management.”
AA, if by same you mean opposite, you have a point.
1.) Nobody “forces” birth except for rapists, through forced insemination. Birth is the culmination of a natural process of pregnancy/gestation/reproduction.
Yep. Pregnant people are just passive vessels, once the sperm is put in. They do absolutely nothing for nine months, and the babies just magically slide out of their vaginas. Nothing ever goes wrong medically wrong with pregnancy, either – AND it’s all paid for, so no one ever loses a job due to pregnancy or has medical bills from it! I can’t see why people don’t just lay there and be pregnant! It’s like it’s a complete nonevent!
But since pregnant people are persnickety on occasion (even though pregnancy is completely passive and easy-peasy), sometimes we have to make them stay pregnant for some weird reason. But that’s not “force”. Not even when we scream at them outside doctors offices, set fire to their health clinics (see recent Georgia incidents – not covered on this site), or film them and threaten to tell their loved ones and employers about an abortion.
If that’s what it takes to keep them pregnant, by golly we’ll do it! It isn’t forced birth, and it certainly isn’t done by violence, that’s for sure! No sir! We’re TOTALLY different than those meanies who force women to get abortions! They’re telling women what to do with their bodies, while we…
AA: Wait, you’re forgetting that the one doing the REAL “forcing” is that damned little bastard in the womb.
Right? F’in’ little parasite.
A choice for life is a choice to accept the force this little SOB foists on you, right? I mean, seriously, what choice do you have? Either let the little sh*t have its way, or abort it.
I mean, let’s assign this sense of “force” where it properly belongs. Pro-lifers are not trying to force their way onto women. They’re just saying “defer to the unborn, who has value.”
wow. I’m underwhelmed.
So in other words, AA, this was just an excuse to dump a bunch of the usual talking points on us.
When I was a college student and went from a “default-pro-life” position to a temporary “pro-choice” position, I did so based soley on the will of the woman. I gave no thought to conception, to my own beginnings, to the child. In my mind, the child did not have a place at all. There was no internet, so my experience with pro-life people was extremely limited, if it existed at all.
I became pregnant and when I went to my ob/gyn (cuz that’s what pregnant women do, right?), I was NOT looking for an abortion. But that was all she offered me (now that I’m older, I know that she committed patient abandonment, that she should have said I don’t want to be your ob/gyn, so I’m referring you out for your prenatal care). Stupidly, I accepted the abortion referral. Long story short, I immediately and permanently regretted it.
The children of my siblings have no cousin. And that’s on me. I believe in the forgiveness of God, but I also believe in science. My child’s life began at conception. My child’s life was not mine to throw away, the child’s body, not mine to destroy. The abortion didn’t destroy a thing, a ”pregnancy”, it destroyed someone, a member of my family, linked to me and to the child’s father by DNA . The child was a unique and growing member of the human species.
Parenthood isn’t easy. Nobody on this website or any other pro-life website I’ve ever encountered has tried to paint a mythical ”magic and rainbows” picture of parenthood. But you know what? Lots of things in life aren’t easy, and civilized human beings ought not to murder their way out of their problems.
*climbs off soapbox.
Now that, abortion advocates, is a thoughtful rationale. Try it sometime.
JDC: “[This] was just an excuse to dump a bunch of the usual talking points on us.”
I would agree that, in pretty much every sense of the word, “dump” was definitely one of the better ways to describe it. No rationale, no backing arguments, just venting her frustration.
Ninek: “The children of my siblings have no cousin.”
Ninek, in no way do I mean to belittle or ridicule your regret, but for what it’s worth, they do in fact have a cousin. A saint, no less, quite possibly praying for all for them right now.
And for you.
I sincerely hope and pray that you (and all who suffer as you do) are able to take comfort in the assurance of your child’s unimaginable joy (and unfailing care) at this very moment and for all eternity.
Thank you, Maestro! My faith does comfort me, and I often visualize my child in Heaven. I can’t change the past, but I can do everything in my power to make sure no other children meet her end.
Wait, you’re forgetting that the one doing the REAL “forcing” is that damned little bastard in the womb.
If you’re assigning moral agency to the fetus, we should probably ask the fetus’s opinion about whether it’s OK to use a woman’s body against her will. Oh wait – you’re speaking for the fetus. It’s good to be careful speaking for others, though. Plenty of people, when they realize that their mother was forced to be pregnant and give birth, regret that their mother had been treated that way. They would rather have not been born than have their mother be subjected to that sort of coercion and violence. (Those who aren’t narcissists, that is. There are plenty of people who grow up to believe they had a right to use someone else’s body to be born whether it was consensual or not, because their existence is so darn special.)
Speaking of using others’ bodies, why don’t we generally give people the ability to claim other people’s body parts? There are plenty of people in need of a kidney who’d gladly force someone else to donate. And the recipient can at least affirm that they’re not morally opposed to forcibly using someone else’s body in that case. (Of course, the donor might object, but hey – we’re promoting life!)
Pro-lifers are not trying to force their way onto women. They’re just saying “defer to the unborn, who has value.”
I’m sure glad pregnant people don’t have that sort of value! That would make things awfully messy, morally. I mean, it makes sense to tell a pregnant person that they have no choice but to use their bodies to grow fetuses, because the fetus needs it, and a fetus has more rights than a mere host. Hosts are made to grow stuff, and they have no concerns otherwise. But if pregnant people had at least the same rights as a fetus, it would be difficult to blithely tell someone that their body HAS to be used to grow a fetus. The pregnant person would actually be a person – with a body, and a brain, and the ability to make decisions about that body and brain and how they’re used.
“this was just an excuse to dump a bunch of the usual talking points on us.”
Hmmm…domestic terrorism and harassment of women are “talking points.” Two recent attempts at clinic arson in Georgia – talking points (which aren’t being covered on this site, BTW). Priests “peacefully” shouting at women through bullhorns – talking points. Taking pictures of license plates to facilitate harassment at work and home – talking points. Sending death threats – talking points. Killing doctors – talking points.
Yep. Just a buncha blah blah blah that no one needs to get upset about.
AnnaAnastasia, do you think wandering bands of feti go lurking about the night intent on invading the wombs of unsuspecting women? With the exception of rape, every pregnancy happens only *after* the woman involved has given her explicit permission for the ‘fetus’ to take up residency. If you tell someone they have permission to come into your home and eat out of your frig, then you shoot them when they take advantage of that offer because you didn’t *really* expect them to take you up on the offer that’s called murder. If you sign all the donation paperwork for a kidney and let yourself be put under and then wake up all shocked that they actually took your kidney and gave it to someone else you don’t have a right to kill them nor to take your organ back. Vaginal intercourse causes pregnancy. Ironically that fact has been well known since humanity came into existance. (There have been times where other things were also considered to cause pregnancy but even those societies still understood that the vast majority of pregnancies were caused by sexual intercourse). No one, with the sole exception of the rapists themselves, agree with forced pregnancy/birth. Pro-lifers do, however, recognize that once you have given permission and subsequently created a wholly dependant human being, you aren’t allowed to change your mind at the expense of their life. I have a 2 year old and a 3 year old. They came into existance because of the explicit permission of my husband and myself, just like the vast majority of people on the planet. Ironically, at 2 and 3 their full, complete, and total dependency on me is not only still a necessity of their and my life, but it actually takes quite a bit more of *my* “life” to sustain them then it does their sister, who is still gestating peacefully in my womb. I have no more ethical or moral right to rip the head off my 3 year old or posion my 2 year old because I decide, quite after the fact, that the burden they place upon my life is no longer what I want to do with “my” body than I do to my inutero child. “Choice” happens BEFORE the relevent action takes place, not after. Your “choice” to have an offspring which is reliant upon you happens *before* you have an offspring which is reliant upon you, not *after*. Now, if for any reason any parent decides, after the fact, that they don’t want to live up to the responsibilities *they* already agreed to, we have an agreed upon ‘out’ for that person. It’s called adoption. (Or more specifically surrend of parental rights). But be that child 4 weeks post conception, 4 years post conception, or 14 years post conception that parent still has the ethical and moral obligation to care for that child properly until someone else can take control of it. If I woke up tomorrow and snapped, couldn’t take it anymore, and decided to turn my kids over to the state, I would still be responsible (legally, ethically, and morally) to care for them until a safe drop off/social worker could be found to accept that responsibility. That might be minutes, hours, days, or (if my kids were older) even months before parental rights could be severed and I was no longer responsible for them. We ask no different of mothers of very young children. A dependant offspring is a dependant offspring. Given that they *are* all equal, dependant human beings who exist because their parents created them of their own free will and accepted the explicit ethical and moral responsibilities that come with being a parent and caregiver to a dependant human being, we only ask that they *all* be treated equally under the law. No one is trying to devalue the parents, acknowleging human rights for all humans devalues no one. No one is trying to force women to be pregnant, as there is no (non-criminal) element which believes women should be forced to have sex. And certainly no one is trying to do the impossible and ‘keep’ a woman pregnant, since pregnancy is a self-limiting occurance with a natural end point which no one can force to continue past it’s natural end. Pro-abortionists, however, are very much forcing a gruesome death upon human beings who are innocent of any crime and who are only in existance because the people who are biologically and naturally responsible for them put them in such a position to begin with. Don’t want a child? Don’t create one, but you shouldn’t be able to legally kill a child after it’s creation because you changed your mind.
Really? You’re going to miss an opportunity to give us the ole siamese violinist comparison? You were almost there.
I just LOVE how Abortion Advocates can’t use the word “EQUAL.” The mother and child are EQUAL. Try saying it with me, “The..mother…and..child..are..equal…” stay with me now “..and they both equally deserve to live..” See? It wasn’t that hard.
(In the case of ectopic pregnancy, unfortunately the child can’t be saved, but who knows what advances we’ll see in medicine in the future?).
Abortion Advocate says:
“But if pregnant people had at least the same rights as a fetus,”
Which makes me wonder, do we have the legal ability to kill pregnant people just like we have the legal ability to kill a growing fetus? Because I missed that, and one would think it would have made the news. LOL!
I hope she is an example of the spin we can expect coming out of the abortion industry. Because if so, I’m actually beginning to think the optimists are right: We WILL see the end of abortion in our lifetime!
“Plenty of people, when they realize that their mother was forced to be pregnant and give birth, regret that their mother had been treated that way. They would rather have not been born than have their mother be subjected to that sort of coercion and violence.”
Oddly enough, I’ve never actually met any of these people. Not denying that they exist, I just don’t think that’s a typical reaction.
“(Those who aren’t narcissists, that is”
Trust me, far more narcissism can be seen at the other end of the abortion debate. If you can’t figure out what I mean buy that I’ll come back and explain.
“There are plenty of people who grow up to believe they had a right to use someone else’s body to be born whether it was consensual or not, because their existence is so darn special.)”
Special or not, they did have the right to use said body, just as they had the right to be provided with food, clothing and shelter when they were minors.
“Yep. Just a buncha blah blah blah that no one needs to get upset about.”
In this context I would describe everything you had said as talking points, given how little they did to advance the argument at hand. Remember, we were discussing the validity of the term forced birth and you basically went off on an ad hominem about the prolife movement. The fact that some people have used less than ethical tactics in opposing abortion does not magically make forced birth a real thing. Nor does it make abortion right, btw.
1.) Nobody “forces” birth except for rapists, through forced insemination. Birth is the culmination of a natural process of pregnancy/gestation/reproduction.
Yep. Pregnant people are just passive vessels, once the sperm is put in. They do absolutely nothing for nine months, and the babies just magically slide out of their vaginas.
Stop. Right there. Stop immediately.
You can not, from “birth is not a forced action in any case but rape” go straight to the conclusion “pregnant women don’t do anything at all except lay around the whole time they are pregnant” without lots of intermediary argument, even in a satirical/parody sense. I realize you are attempting to build a straw man argument here against pro-lifers, but you haven’t even done that. You have this idea lurking in your brain that we must think that, and so you’ve simply tossed it out there without even logically connecting it to anything else.
The fact that there is no such thing as forced birth does not deny agency to pregnant people. In fact, it undercuts that very claim. There is no such thing as “forced birth” because pregnancy does not, on its own, deny agency to pregnant people. …And this goes back to that whole “it’s anti-feminist to be pro-abortion” tune that I’m beginning to think I’m going to be singing for a long time. However the short version is this: by making the assumption that pregnancy reduces women, you assert that women are naturally reduced and need to be fixed. You are validating all the misogyny of history in order to promote your view of feminism.
Consider this my official rejecting-your-claims-outright declaration. Your kind of feminism, women can do without.
“you assert that women are naturally reduced and need to be fixed. You are validating all the misogyny of history in order to promote your view of feminism.”
Thank you, Alice. I was hoping somebody would point that out before I did.
<engage zealot mode>
The ability to conceive, carry, nurture, and give birth to a child – an entirely new, unprecedented, unrepeatable person – is a beautiful and marvelous gift, one that should be cherished, respected, and honored as such!
To revile this gift as a burden or as an unfair disability is the very height of anti-feminism! To look upon this core aspect of femininity with such disgust allows for no true respect for women!
And to portray, as true freedom and favor, the inability of a man to ever experience this gift himself allows for no equality for women!
Conversely, our gift as men is to be co-creators, to care for our children and their mothers, to give of ourselves at all times, not out of obvious biological necessity, but out of our own willingness and drive to be true and proper men of integrity and honour!
To suggest that the validity of abortion – the murder of our children and the exploitation of their mothers – is equal to that of this gift is therefore to set oneself against true masculinity! To suggest that men are justified in aiding (or at the very least, allowing) this atrocity is to equate vice to virtue and demean all within us that is good!
Anti-feminist, anti-masculinist, anti-child!
Anti-life!
I do not seek to force women to have children!
I work to effect the change in the hearts and minds of all people, in this country and all the world, to recognize both the joys AND the trials of pregnancy and the marvel of fertility, that these may be respected once again!
I work to help all people see that, regardless of the cause or the convenience, women’s childbearing abilities and men’s particular callings to integrity are gifts, not yokes!
I work to eliminate the crisis pregnancy, not by killing the child, but by eliminating the crisis!
THAT is why I am PRO-LIFE!
FOR THE GLORY OF GOD!!!
<disengage zealot mode>
Honestly, AnnaAnastasia, you take one aspect of our views that you find particularly damaging to your worldview, contort it to match your own pre-determined misjudgements, and then attempt to claim the moral high ground by lording this over-inflated fabrication over us.
Are you even trying?
I’m not sure why. But whenever anyone mentions the whole “forced birth” thing, I involuntarily think of a bunch of gangsters pointing a gun to a scared young woman’s head telling her that she has five minutes to pop a baby out.
Though this seems to bear more resemblance to a certain Daffy Duck cartoon than any real world issue…
Navi, a-yup, I agree. Although, unfortunately, I also think of less-than-ethical doctors forcing (sometimes via court order) an induction or c-section. That could be termed ‘forced birth’ but is more caused by a legal abortion (by separating the mother/child dyad and making society and doctors think that what is best for mom can be very bad for baby thus allowing for society or doctors to overrule mom in what *she* thinks is best for baby.) mentality than a pro-life one (which almost always recognizes a mother/parent is the best and proper guardian to make choices for their dependant child and not only has the best interest of the child at heart but that the best interest of mom and babe coincide since the mother/child dyad is the natural course of things and is good, not some burden or something to be denigrated.)
Alice, you never fail to amaze me when you comment on the intersection of abortion and feminism. Kep up the good work.
Ninek I’m sorry to hear your story. I was a PP client for 14 years. Just once I wish that one of those NP’s wouls have told me that birth control was not my answer. Sef respect and self love were. How much I regret the ruins birth ontrol left my life in. I was pro birth control when I came here but I AM NOT anymore!
wow sorry bout the typos…yeesh.
Good grief. Forgot about this thread. I come back and AA has gone off her rocker.
“Plenty of people, when they realize that their mother was forced to be pregnant and give birth, regret that their mother had been treated that way. They would rather have not been born than have their mother be subjected to that sort of coercion and violence. (Those who aren’t narcissists, that is. There are plenty of people who grow up to believe they had a right to use someone else’s body to be born whether it was consensual or not, because their existence is so darn special.)”
This is just a stunning Venn diagram. You’re actually claiming that there are only two alternatives in the circumstances you have in mind: “ rather have not been born” or “narcissist.” “Those who aren’t” one are the other.
I think you reach this conclusion because you’re drowning in “rights talk.” A fetus somehow escapes death from a “forced mother” and now AA speaks contemptuously of any who don’t flagellate themselves for being alive, on the grounds that they culpably hold an unjust view of their prenatal rights.
So of those who were born as a consequence of “forced motherhood” (such a ridiculous term; why not just admit that every mother was strong-armed by a sperm?) — regardless of whether such forced mothers reconciled themselves to what would become a joyful motherhood (do you seriously think that all situations you deem bad are obliged to remain bad in perpetuity — that nothing changes for people? That nothing can change? That’s called despair.) — of these, their existence as reflective persons necessarily casts them into either self-loathing (“I wish I’d never been born!”) or narcissism (“I’m so special because I had a right to use my mother’s body!”)? You’d assert — wait, that’s provisional language — you DO assert that these are the only two kinds of people who are the outcome of “forced motherhood”?
Why would you assert that the only possible outcomes of “forced motherhood” are people with pathological attitudes about . . .
Oh. I get it. You believe this absurdity because if any well-adjusted, happy mothers and children came out of “forced” situations, that’d be a bummer. Walking, talking results of difficult situations are obliged to vindicate only the dire set of consequences pro-choice arguments lay out for them. Evidence that “unwanted children” end up being loved and loving their amazed-by-how-life-can-change mothers — well, that wouldn’t fit the mad little narrative you’ve constructed about all this.
Truth, goodness, and beauty. When you opt out of all three, AA, you’re left impoverished. God help you.
if you dont want women to have abortions, invent a full proof contraceptive. otherwise be quiet
Leia Peison: “otherwise be quiet”
No.
Leia, that’s like saying ‘you don’t want people to commit murder? Make a foolproof way to keep people from getting angry at each other. Until then, be quiet’. Not being able to ‘fix’ every possible societal problem that could conceivably lead someone, anyone, to want to do something immoral is in no way, shape, or form either a carte blanche to commit an immoral act nor a contraindication to people objecting to said immoral act.
Besides, there has been a 100% sure way of not conceiving a baby that’s been well-publicized, made completely free, and is readily availible to everyone, it’s called ‘abstinence’. No one has to ‘invent’ a fool proof method to avoid pregnancy, it’s already in existance. That people don’t choose to take advantage of this 100% free and fool proof method to avoid pregnancy doesn’t put the onus on the pro-life side to come up with a 2nd way, it just goes to show you that abortion isn’t about lack of control over reproduction, nor is it about a right to choose. Every single woman already has that choice withouth any outside help, and they already have (and have had since the foundation of this countries legal system) the legal backing to make that choice since rape is illegal. Abortion is about a woman having special rights to kill her offspring because she doesn’t like the choices she’s already made. She already chose *not* to use a 100% fool proof way to not get pregnant. A man doesn’t have the right to kill their offspring because they changed their mind about procreating, and neither should a woman.
“otherwise be quiet?”
Really? Anyone who differs with you needs to shut up?
Wow.