New York Times touches off race war inside abortion movement
If you didn’t know what was going on inside pro-abortion world, the Huffington Post piece Planned Parenthood Executive VP Dawn Laguens posted on July 30 in response to the July 28 New York Times article, “Advocates shun ‘pro-choice’ to expand message,” would seem out of left field.
As I explained in a blog last week, the NYT article simply elaborated on a decision Planned Parenthood made 18 months ago to abandon the term “pro-choice” as antiquated.
This is where Laguens seemed to go off on a tangent:
I was sorry to see that the Times had not included those voices and missed the rich history of women of color fighting not just for “choice,” but for full reproductive justice….
We at Planned Parenthood recognize that organizations and leaders of color made this shift decades before we began to doubt the capacity of the “pro-choice” label to fully represent the dreams of our movement. They led the way, and we respect and honor their vision and leadership. There’s a rich context that needs to be told and shared, by Planned Parenthood and others. We should have done more to ensure that the New York Times was hearing from organizations and leaders of color who have provided a reproductive justice framework for decades and led the way in the discussion about the limitations of a “pro-choice” movement. It wasn’t our intention to contribute to the exclusion of the history and the work of reproductive justice activists and organizations.
The first item of interest (underlined) is Planned Parenthood helped shape the article - and likely pimped the story, I would bet. Planned Parenthood has NYT’s ear, no surprise.
But what does race have anything to do with dropping “pro-choice” from the pro-abortion lexicon?
Racial tensions simmering for years
I first became aware there were racial divisions within the pro-abortion community during the Take Root 14 conference this past February, when there was pushback after NARAL co-opted the potent civil rights phrase “I Am a Man!” to oppose personhood amendments and promote abortion…
Women of Color were incensed…
You can declare your personhood without appropriation of the Civil Rights movement. This is why we have so many divides the mvmt #IAmAPerson
— Renee Bracey Sherman (@RBraceySherman) February 24, 2014
Appropriating CRM language silences & marginalizes the WOC who have been advocating against repro abuse before & during that era #IAmAPerson
— Baddie Moss Clark (@JazdaKOS) February 24, 2014
which resulted in mea culpas and apologies…
We also took part in the #IAmAPerson photo at #takeroot14. While we are against fetal personhood, we never want to hurt WOC in the process.
— Indy Feminists (@IndyFeminists) February 24, 2014
As it turns out racial tensions have been brewing for years. Women of Color have resented being used to push abortion while their array other concerns were all but ignored until the abortion industry needed them.
Planned Parenthood co-opted broader language
WOC believe that decades ago they conceived the concept of “reproductive justice,” which encompasses much more than abortion. Planned Parenthood, et al, are only suddenly championing the idea because abortion can no longer be sold on its own. From furiousandbrave.com, March 2013:
Reproductive justice (RJ) is a framework that arose in the late 1980s to expand the reproductive rights movements’ primary focus on “choice.” Before that time, mainstream reproductive rights and health movements comprised of mostly white-middle class women who often skirted issues that directly affected women of color despite women of color’s participation in these movements. RJ was formed in order to add an intersectional analysis to reproductive rights where advocates recognized how race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality impact the control, regulation, and stigmatization of female fertility….
[M]any white feminists fail to recognize how perceived racial inferiority and structural inequality contributes to reproductive health disparities of women of color.
With Planned Parenthood deciding to distance itself and move beyond the “pro-choice” label, many white feminists and reproductive rights and health advocates are beginning to recognize how polarizing and inaccessible “choice” is for many communities of women. They are beginning to embrace the reproductive justice framework. However, while the adopting reproductive justice framework, many still struggle with inclusion.
Reproductive justice based on crimes against WOC
The concept of “reproductive justice” for black women is rooted in unimaginable wrongs committed against them, from rape and impregnation by white slave owners, to forced separation of families, to forced sterilization.
I read the following in a Salon article a few months back, and it really impacted. me. Even if I disagree with the course of action, I understand it more:
[T]hroughout slavery and into the 20th century, self-abortion through herbal remedies, hangers, hatpins and pencils were a way out of slavery and poverty. Our ancestors fought hard to refuse to carry the children of their master rapists and rear another generation of slaves, even when it meant that “barren” women were deemed worthless chattel and sold between plantations.
From generation to generation, stories and recipes were passed down to ensure that women weren’t forced to carry pregnancies they never desired or weren’t able to carry healthily. For as many powerful women that raised children in the worst conditions imaginable, so there were those who refused.
Margaret Garner
I recall a horrific story about an escaped slave mother in the autobiography of Levi Coffin, (beginning on page 557) a relative of mine (after whom my grandson Levi is named), who was the president of the Underground Railroad:
Perhaps no case that came under my notice, while engaged in aiding fugitive slaves, attracted more attention and aroused deeper interest and sympathy than the case of Margaret Garner, the slave mother, who killed her child rather than see it taken back to slavery. This happened in the latter part of January, 1856….
The husband of Margaret fired several shots, and wounded one of the officers, but was soon overpowered and dragged out of the house. At this moment, Margaret Garner, seeing that their hopes of freedom were vain seized a butcher knife that lay on the table, and with one stroke cut the throat of her little daughter, whom she probably loved the best. She then attempted to take the life of the other [three] children and to kill herself, but she was overpowered and hampered before she could complete her desperate work….
The murdered child was almost white, a little girl of rare beauty….
But in spite of touching appeals, of eloquent pleadings, the Commissioner remanded the fugitives back to slavery….
It was reported that on her way down the river she sprang from the boat into the water with her babe in her arms; that when she rose she was seized by some of the boat hands and rescued, but that her child was drowned.
For WOC, killing one’s born and preborn children were historically acts of desperation. The pro-life movement yearns for WOC to be lifted from desperate states. The abortion industry exploits and profits from their desperate states.
Against the volatile backdrop of racial conflicts within the pro-abortion movement, of which I have only scratched the surface in this post, we return to the NYT article, wherein two grave errors were made that only twisted the knife in the backs of WOC.
The author, Jackie Calmes, claimed the expansion of the pro-abortion scope was a recent development, dating only as far back as 2010, which simply isn’t true. She also gave no credit to WOC:
The broadened message from women’s groups coincided with - and, they say, was hastened by - Republicans’ actions after taking control of the House and some state legislatures in the 2010 elections.
Worse, all seven women quoted in the article, whose names Planned Parenthood admitted supplying, were white.
“Coming irrelevance” of white-dominated abortion groups
A July 31 colorlines.com post is not only written to Calmes but also sends a scathing shot across the bow to white-powered abortion groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and EMILY’s List:
Your article had a really major, glaring, gaping hole. It completely ignored, erased and denied the role women of color in this big shift.
It’s true that you never outright said that the movement was only white women, and neither did any of your interviewees. But the thing is, when you don’t mention race in a topic like this, when you don’t quote even one woman of color (in an article that quotes seven white women), that’s what you’re doing….
You may not be the only one to blame for the absence. It’s possible that of the seven white women from big, majority-white organizations that you interviewed, none of them mentioned the role of women of color and race-based tensions in the pushback against the term. Unfortunately if that is the case, as a woman of color involved in this movement going on 10 years, it’s sadly not surprising….
You might sense that I’m a little bit angry, Ms. Calmes. And in reality, this isn’t about you. Your article is just one more piece of reporting that highlights what has been going on for decades and what may really be the downfall of the reproductive rights movement - the constant erasure and co-optation of the work of women of color.
The fact that white-led organizations are now taking the credit for moving us away from pro-choice, when that charge has been led by women of color for decades, is just salt on an already long-standing open wound. The fact that your article didn’t even mention the movement for reproductive justice is evidence of the coming irrelevance of these players….
The thing is, there’s a lot at stake here. This isn’t just about your article, or even the media. Part of the reason you quoted the people you did is about the way access to resources is shaped by racism in the non-profit arena. The groups with the most funding are not the groups that represent women of color. The organizations with the best media teams, the most access to reporters like you, they are also not the groups with real connections to the women on the ground who are facing the biggest hurdles to creating the families they want to create.
The tide is turning, and there is a groundswell of people already organizing behind a broader framework. Call it reproductive justice, or just call it common sense, but no matter how much these groups try to claim they were responsible for this shift - those of us involved know it just isn’t true. While the majority of resources may remain with these groups, their serious lack of diversity in leadership, both in terms of race and age, is setting them up for a future where the majority young and of color population isn’t going to have any interest in their movement.
(Pictured L to R: Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood; Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY’s List; Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL)
Now you know why Dawn Laguens wrote her HuffPo piece. Planned Parenthood is rightfully panicking. The group inexplicably blew it.
“This is a fight about abortion rights groups both taking over the reproductive justice framework and making it only about abortion and birth control,” abortion advocate and author Robin Marty explained to me.
“The big battle is over whether those who held the pro-choice mantle are coming in and overtaking RJ to make it fit their needs, or whether they can understand that they are more than welcome to enter the framework, but it is not theirs, they do not own it, and to be a part of it means accepting the entirety of the work as their mission, far beyond just the abortion/birth control side of it,” Marty concluded.
I cannot possibly identify with the history of African-American women. I can only say the “pro-choice” movement is founded on racism and eugenics. There is a reason, according to Planned Parenthood’s research arm, Guttmacher Institute, “the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women” – and it’s not due to lack of availability of contraceptives, which are handed out like candy.
WOC are rightfully suspicious of the abortion lobby. Abortion is not their friend. Abortion is their enemy.
UPDATE 8/5, 5p: The pro-abortion race war has opened up into an “Open Letter to Planned Parenthood” by SisterSong’s Monica Simpson, followed by a response from Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards.
[Top photo via xojane.uk; second photo via Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement; graphic via furiousandbrave.com; painting by Thomas Satterwhite Noble, 1867, The Modern Medea, based on Margaret Garner’s story; bottom graphic via toomanyaborted.com]
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.
Lulz at this thread….
“Race war”… Is this website jumping the shark? Between this and the “created equal” stuff, one wonders.
I am a middle-aged, middle-class white dad. I know as much about the latest rhetoric in race/class/gender conflicts as Reality knows about anything.
But the legacy of Margaret Sanger will eventually come back to bite her acolytes. Planned Parenthood was founded to reduce and control the “colored,” using African-American preachers to spread the gospel of contraception. And the abortion industry continues to prey upon African-Americans, Hispanics, and their neighborhoods.
Meanwhile…. The pro-life movement offers real help and choice via our many CPC’s. There are many minority-race pro-life leaders and organizations. They are real leaders and powerful allies. Dr. Alveda King, Ryan Bomberger, The RADIANCE FOUNDATION, Eduardo Verastegui, HISPANOS PRO VIDA…
These do not complain that they are condescended to or ignored by the “white majority” of pro-lifers.
Oh please.
Discard all the fluff, and you have the fact that when an African-American woman wants to have an abortion, we thank God that we are able to.
Your claim about the founding of PP demonstrates that when it comes to race/class/gender conflicts, rhetoric seems to be all you have Del.
http://www.theconspiracytheory.info/
People caught in the past selfishly fighting over a propaganda term to excuse the killing of innocent children, all glossed over on a pro-life website by a person with the title “reality,” whose major goal every day is to deny it. Farces aren’t always funny.
People caught in the past….
Chris, attitudes were much different back then, and certainly not just on Sanger’s part or anybody connected with Planned Parenthood. Not saying that today is perfect, but back then there were a lot more prejudices and misconceptions.
Jamaica,
Is that your name or where you are from? Is it possible that would mean you are Jamaican-American and not African-American?
Just trying to get names straight as there are German-American, Polish-American, etc. organizations and no European-American ones that I have heard of. In spite of whomever was running the government of that area of land to the extent that the name of Poland was no longer on maps for quite some time starting in the 1700s, the people of that area still called themselves Polish when they came through Ellis Island with German or Prussia or whatever in parenthesis. Maps and borders were so ‘fluid’ because of wars, annexation, etc. much as the map of Africa has changed.
All of that being said, I am greatful that God placed/used me to be part of saving or trying to save babies including MOST of which were babies of various colors. Can think of at least one father that was from Haiti and one that was Muslim. Dealing mainly with the mothers, I have no idea what the various father’s background was. Just glad that the babies were given a chance at life. Planned Parenthood and the other abortionists are the ones who want and celebrate fewer (pushing birth control) and NO babies, not Pro-lifers.
Perhaps you could explain how PP’s people pushing bondage and the rest of BDSM fits into your idea of reproductive justice? Not trying to be nasty. Really do not understand thought processes that put bondage, which sounds like being a slave, with justice of any kind. Understanding the meaning of terms might lead to a truly productive conversation.
If you take away the abortion aspect of the RJ movement, it’s a movement for plain old JUSTICE, one that pro-lifers of all stripes should be able to get behind. They’re shooting themselves in the foot by tying their more noble causes to abortion– and are now realizing that it’s gained them nothing from the well-funded abortion industry.
More black children in New York City are aborted than born. Sanger’s mission accomplished. You can have all the credit you want for that, but our dead children are no longer alive to give it to you.
Patty: Just trying to get names straight as there are German-American, Polish-American, etc. organizations and no European-American ones that I have heard of.
Many European immigrants to the US maintain close ties to their country of origin, or to the countries of their ancestors.
To generalize, I think the European history of immigrants to the US tends to be more immediate, i.e. less far back in time, and the circumstances (ahem) of the historical ties are often quite different for them than for African-Americans.
9ek: More black children in New York City are aborted than born.
I’ve said this before, but why should that matter to the individual black woman with an unwanted pregnancy? Her desires will not necessarily be the same as yours.
Not that it has any necessary bearing on the subject, but there is the additional fact that the black birthrate in the US is higher than than the white.
This bothers some people who wish that the black birthrate was lower. So now let us consider a black woman with a wanted pregnancy. Here too, why should that matter to her?
Doug, “back then” is “back then.” Abortion supporters live in the fantasy “back then” when people were ignorant of the life of the unborn child in the womb and women were allegedly dropping like flies from the mean old back-alley abortionists who mystically became well-respected medical professionals on January 23, 1973. They project their desires for today back then, saying Margaret Sanger was an angel of justice and ignoring all the salient things about her, remembering fondly her establishment of Planned Parenthood (as the ABCL) but never taking the time to actually read, for example, her book Pivot of Civilization, where she denounces pretty much all of the politics they so fondly express today. They don’t understand the past, study the past, or respect the past, largely it seems to me they are caught in fights in the past, with a 19th century philosophy, unable to cope with reality or acknowledge what they see today. Ironically they assure us they are only oriented to the future.
Let’s face it: None of us are surprised that Planned Parenthood does not respect the women whom they exploit. The poor women, the Black women, the Hispanic women are just revenue units for PP. Their interns and leadership outreach are to the privileged white university girls. Faye Wattleton was a brilliant leader and an attractive African-American face for a very white movement.
I am more interested in the pro-life movement.
Is our coalition authentically inclusive?
Do we have any African-American pro-lifers on this board who wish to comment? Hispanic pro-lifers? Other minority/ethnic commenters?
I would like to hear it.
I understand that the modern university teaches history and defines every social concern in terms of race struggle, class struggle, or gender struggle. I do not share this view of social history — I don’t even understand it. Those classes were not available when I attended college. But it seems to be a popular paradigm now.
Translation we hate our bodies….we hate our bodies!!
Chris: ….her book Pivot of Civilization, where she denounces pretty much all of the politics they so fondly express today. They don’t understand the past, study the past, or respect the past, largely it seems to me they are caught in fights in the past, with a 19th century philosophy, unable to cope with reality or acknowledge what they see today. Ironically they assure us they are only oriented to the future.
Chris, I agree that “back then” is “back then.” If there are pro-choicers who mischaracterize the present, pretending it is more like the past than what is true, then the same is true for pro-lifers, and there’s also a good bit of viewing the past with rose-colored glasses, etc.
No doubt that some of Sanger’s attitudes were quite “hard,” compared to today. That was true of many people, among those who were in effect “pro-choice” or “pro-life” at the time. I don’t think it really matters now.
I don’t see any “fight with the past,” now, really just a difference of desires here in the present time, between pro-lifers and pro-choicers.
Even if I agree that in some ways Sanger was “bad,” so what? What good would it do me to point at some past pro-lifers who owned slaves or did other things and held attitudes that are generally now accounted as quite bad? None, that I see.
Doug says:
August 5, 2014 at 10:55 am
9ek: More black children in New York City are aborted than born.
I’ve said this before, but why should that matter to the individual black woman with an unwanted pregnancy? Her desires will not necessarily be the same as yours.
We do not accept the pro-bort paradigm that the mother always makes a calm, rational, well-formed decision to eliminate her child.
We believe that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the unprepared mother discovers that she is pregnant and her first experience is fear. She needs help. She often finds herself pressured to get an abortion by friends, boyfriend, family, and “society.” The abortion clinic positions itself to exploit these women before they get a chance to think about the consequences. They have a smoothly honed sales pitch about how abortion solves the woman’s crisis of fear. And they ring the cash register.
We can assume that the African-American women of New York are little different from their sisters in the rest of the country. The only difference Planned Parenthood’s concentrated marketing there.
The result is sexualized objectification of the women and slaughter of their children. This is what Planned Parenthood wants to bring to the rest of the country. And apparently, the pro-choice “women of color” do not appreciate Planned Parenthood’s vision for them.
“I know as much about the latest rhetoric in race/class/gender conflicts as Reality knows about anything.”
You’re being pretty hard on yourself here. I’m sure you know more than that.
(LOL! – Del)
John – or is it Rilka? Or is it David? Please stick to one moniker per the commenting rules. Thanks.
“John – or is it Rilka? Or is it David?”
Silly troll. How are we supposed to take somebody seriously when they can’t even figure out their own name?
“I’ve said this before, but why should that matter to the individual black woman with an unwanted pregnancy? Her desires will not necessarily be the same as yours.”
Del: We do not accept the pro-bort paradigm that the mother always makes a calm, rational, well-formed decision to eliminate her child.
You woman-slavers always generalize incorrectly. ;)
Regardless of how calm, etc., we think the woman is at the time, my point is that a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, or a wanted one, for that matter, will never or almost never be deciding on a statistical basis, taking into account what other people are doing. She’s really not concerned with that.
“woman-slavers”?
Our views are formed by the testimonies of women who have had abortions, and our investigations into the practices of those who profit from abortion.
Our principle is that the child deserves our protection and the mother deserves our help.
We find that the abortion industry deprives both women and children of their natural rights, as did the real woman-slavers of old. Abortionists exploit women and kill children, for profit. They send women and girls back to their abusers, because there is no money in reporting crimes and rapes.
Their racist targeting of ethnic women is just more of their corporate evil.
Doug, the past does matter, but learning from history, becoming a prisoner to it and rewriting it are very different things. Here we see people who support abortion forgetting how legalized abortion came to be, and then projecting past prejudices on others today who aren’t guilty of them. They are stuck in their thinking and shape everything around their ideology, anyone who doesn’t fit in their fantasy must be thrown out. Their fantasy kills one million human beings every year, especially those they claim to defend. As I said, it’s a farce, but a terribly unfunny one.
Chris, totally agree on learning from history. Heh, at least in theory – I don’t think the human race is any good at it, and many individuals are pretty much lost causes there too.
I think you paint with an enormously broad brush. Margaret Sanger? If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy today, what do even Sanger’s more extreme opinions matter to her? I would say that in this case they never would, or it would only be in a vanishingly small number of cases.
Yes, a life ends in an abortion, a human organism dies. But it’s not because of Margaret Sanger, for example, that women have abortions today. They have them because they have unwanted pregnancies.
Del, you seem really “fired up” today. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, at all, but you seem different, from, say, when you posted on the first ‘Jackson, MS’ thread.
Sorry about this – I was obviously mistaken all these years…. Always thought you were a woman. Don’t know how I first developed that opinion, faulty first impression I guess.
“woman-slavers”?
Yeah, if you deem pro-choicers as being “pro-abortion,” then let’s make much less of a logical stretch and realize that you want the pregnant woman subjugated to your will, just as slave owners want the the slaves subjugated to their will.
I’ll quote myself here:
“the problem comes because it may be a gross oversimplification, and in fact mostly counter to the situation as a whole.
It’s already going contrary to logic if we deem somebody “pro-something,” when they are not for it, per se, i.e. all other things being equal. It may go well beyond that, too – it may be that the person finds a thing really repugnant, yet still doesn’t favor everybody else being denied the legal choice of it. Then, to purposely bypass the issue of the legality, and to blanket the person with a descriptive term, is if they are simply “for it,” is just plain silly.
Additionally, if somebody were truly “pro-abortion,” and wanted women to be forced to have them, against their will, (nobody would be arguing if the term applied at this point) then they would obviously differ from pro-choicers, demonstrating that there indeed is a difference.
Back a while, in the vein of tattoos, body piercings, etc., there was a rise in popularity of tongue splitting, i.e. getting a forked tongue by cutting it right down the middle, and going so far back in….
Totally grosses me out. Yet and still, I am not saying it should be made illegal (I guess… ;) ) But to say that makes me “pro-tongue splitting” is so far-fetched as to be ludicrous.”
—–
Our views are formed by the testimonies of women who have had abortions
I would say your views are echoed by a relatively small percentage of testimonies of women who have had abortions. You disregard the majority of them, who remain satisfied, on balance, with their decision to have abortions, and who would very likely do the same thing again in similar circumstances. (And some of whom end up doing just that.)
—–
We find that the abortion industry deprives both women and children of their natural rights, as did the real woman-slavers of old.
Nobody “finds” anything with respect to “natural rights.” It’s human theorizing, nothing that can be proven to be anything beyond myth.
I believe that you hate abortion, the idea of abortion, and that you most desire that the unborn lives continue. If nobody had unwanted pregnancies, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, as then pro-choicers and pro-lifers alike would be satisfied.
(Don’t waste your time with the mod’s link to nowhere dropped into my 11:08pm comment. There is nothing truthful there about Sanger or Planned Parenthood. I’ve searched already and the five pages of nonsense consist of a couple of paragraphs of ‘Sanger appeared in the same room as someone who said or did something’ and the rest is fantasy wanderings. — Reality)
“You’re being pretty hard on yourself here. I’m sure you know more than that.” – he’s allowed to dream. We all know how good his imagination is.
Hey Reality —
I am deleting my comments from within your posts. It was fun, but not really fair. Your posts are your own intellectual property, and you are solely responsible for their quality and and content.
I am sorry that I meddled with your posting.
I did not mean any malice, and you seemed to enjoy the sport. Perhaps some day we can meet at a pub and share a few ales — and maybe a pipe or cigar, if the region is civilized enough to permit such things.
Peace.
No problem Del. I was as amused as anyone else. It probably wouldn’t deliver any value on an ongoing basis though.
I don’t drink beer. Conversation topics might be a bit limited too. :-)
Peace, love and understanding.
Doug says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:16 pm
Del, you seem really “fired up” today. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, at all, but you seem different, from, say, when you posted on the first ‘Jackson, MS’ thread.
Sorry about this – I was obviously mistaken all these years…. Always thought you were a woman. Don’t know how I first developed that opinion, faulty first impression I guess.
No problem on the gender thing. No one can tell from a combox.
I have a moderate stance toward dealing with the public, and especially the police, on the sidewalk. I have seen how well this can work.
I do not have a moderate stance toward abortion. From the beginning of humanity, if a woman has sex and gets pregnant, then she has a responsibility to deal with. The only way to avoid the responsibility is to avoid sex. She really does have a choice. But too many women use contraception — which often fails — and then feel entitled to flush the consequences of their choices.
Murdering the child ought not to be a legal choice. It ought to be a crime. We did not force her to have sex, and we are not forcing her to carry the child. Nature is making her carry the child. We are preventing her from murdering the child.
The only exception to this logic is when a woman is raped and become pregnant. There are two victims who require our greatest care, and neither one deserves death.
Del: From the beginning of humanity, if a woman has sex and gets pregnant, then she has a responsibility to deal with.
Well, Del, you know we disagree on that.
I don’t think the woman is responsible to what you want, but to what she wants.
Whether she has an abortion or a miscarriage, whether other people know she was pregnant or not, even whether she knows if she was pregnant or not, the same thing happens, and the world is the same. If she wants to have an abortion, let’s let her.
Reality says:
I don’t drink beer.
bloody puritans….
Well….despite the fact that I drink red wine, smoke cigarettes and live in a non-marital relationship, I do actually consider myself a bit of a puritan. However, while I may wrinkle my nose at what some others choose to do I don’t actively seek to have them conform to my preferences.
Doug says:
If she wants to have an abortion, let’s let her.
That’s turning the clock back to the dark ages of pagan infanticide.
I mean: Sure, we can be barbarians if we want to.
But “allowing” the mother to choose to kill the child that she does not want has swiftly advanced to pressuring the woman to kill the child that the husband/employer/government does not want. The next step will be using the coercive force of government to force abortions of the children that women want to keep, as China does.
If we do not protect the lives of children, how do you propose that we will protect the choices of women?
As soon as people become objects that are not respected as persons, we lose the whole notion of human rights. People can be killed for having the wrong religion or no religion, as happened in post-Revolution France and is happening now under Islamic regimes.
I have to defend the lives of children in the womb, because I hope your human rights from those who will find you inconvenient.
Not that you have to agree with me, but do you understand where I am coming from? By defending the right to life, I am defending all human rights.
Here is a typical story of a young woman who struggled to choose life in a culture of abortion:
http://www.lifenews.com/2014/08/05/teen-gives-birth-hides-baby-under-sink-fearing-mom-would-make-her-have-an-abortion/
We see new stories like this every week… and these are just the ones that reach our attention. We don’t hear much after the children die about the many women who were pressured and coerced into abortion.
Del, I do understand where you’re coming from.
People have been having abortions for thousands of years. The world has gone along okay on that score. I realize you and others hate the fact of the abortions, and I’d say that all that time there were other people who did too.
Yeah, people kill each other because of religious differences, but that’s true whether or not abortion happens to be legal.
China may have had ineffectual or outright bad solutions to problems, but they were feeling population pressure, and the demographics of the world are going to have that increasing for some time. Without saying any good/bad/right/wrong, that alone is going to be tough on the ‘pro-life’ view.
It’s not that “people become objects that are not respected as persons,” it’s that we’ve never attributed personhood to the unborn, in the first place. No society, anywhere, at any time, has. This is what you are dissatisfied with. It’s one of the huge premises of the whole debate.
This has also been true forever, regardless of the legality or not of abortion at the time and place.
Not saying we “need the unborn to die.” But they do die – 4 to 12 million ‘human organisms’ die each year in the US alone, just from failed implantations. This is more than the number of births, probably well more, and it dwarfs the number of abortions and miscarriages. We don’t need all the unborn to die, but we also don’t need all of them to live, either, not to the point of denying an abortion to a woman who wants one.
And uh, you and Reality don’t like liquor?
Reality says:
Well….despite the fact that I drink red wine, smoke cigarettes and live in a non-marital relationship, I do actually consider myself a bit of a puritan. However, while I may wrinkle my nose at what some others choose to do I don’t actively seek to have them conform to my preferences.
@ Reality,
This is a side of you that I would appreciate getting to know!
GK Chesterton called GB Shaw a “puritan” for his enthusiasm to prohibit and enforce his ideals. And Shaw (a fierce atheist) admitted that he was a puritan in that sense.
But here is a fierce battle line that must be drawn: Do we defend the lives of children?
Or do we deny that the children are human, and let someone (mothers/fathers/governments) have authority to “terminate the pregnancies”?
The problem with denying humanity should be obvious: the treatment of Negro slaves, and Jews under the Nazis, and non-Moslems under Islamic regimes all come to mind. The sub-humans are a nuisance; we should exploit or exterminate them. And so…. 55 million American children have been murdered, for our convenience. May Molech bless us with his prosperity.
Doug: Seriously…. Are you justifying murder because some people die naturally?
Some percentage of zygotes naturally fail to implant in the mother’s womb. It may be 5% or it may be 95%.
Does that give us any license to murder the children who successfully implant? Does that even give us license to frustrate the natural effort to implant by using drugs and IUDs?
My remark is that some persons die from drowning, but that does not give me license to suffocate you.
Likewise…. infanticide has been an ancient enthusiasm of human cultures, just like theft and rape and murder and slavery and wife-beating and war. Our question is simple: Are these good? Should we perpetuate these ancient practices? Or can we do as all the ancient cultures did, and strive against the evil?
Abortion is evil. We should not do this, if we hope to survive and thrive and be a virtuous people.
“Do we defend the lives of children?” – yep, we make a pretty good effort to do so.
“Or do we deny that the children are human” – no, human children are human.
“and let someone (mothers/fathers/governments) have authority to “terminate the pregnancies”? – ah, you’re talking about fetuses. You need to be specific. Mothers have always had the ability even if not the ‘right’ to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Governments have done so now and then and the same people – including women – who possess the right to choose, decry governments doing so whether it be forced abortions or the banning of abortions.
The elephant in the room is that, as with many things, choices are made as to whose ‘human rights’ come first. Me, I go for living, existing people while you go for fetuses of unknown potential.
Do you seriously not see the difference between centrally formulated, planned and delivered actions – slavery, the holocaust etc. – and each single, individual woman making a choice for her situation only. No one is directing or dictating anything which impacts on each and every pregnancy or fetus.
Are you justifying murder because some people die naturally?
O’ course not, Del.
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Some percentage of zygotes naturally fail to implant in the mother’s womb. It may be 5% or it may be 95%.
Does that give us any license to murder the children who successfully implant?
There’s no agreement on “children” applying then. That’s not an argument. My point is that the world goes on just fine with those failures to implant. We don’t need every fertilization to result in an implantation, and we don’t need every pregnancy to result in a live birth.
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Does that even give us license to frustrate the natural effort to implant by using drugs and IUDs?
I think so, just as we alter any number of biological events. In this case it’s because I see no need on the part of society to not allow that to happen. I certainly would not force a woman to have an abortion against her will, and I would not deny one to a woman who wants one.
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My remark is that some persons die from drowning, but that does not give me license to suffocate you.
You’re talking about born, sentient people that have had rights attributed, and nothing being present like the case of the unborn being inside the body of a person. Why is the abortion debate so huge, while there is not much argument at all over things like your suffocation example? It’s because of the massive differences between the two.
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Likewise…. infanticide has been an ancient enthusiasm of human cultures, just like theft and rape and murder and slavery and wife-beating and war. Our question is simple: Are these good? Should we perpetuate these ancient practices? Or can we do as all the ancient cultures did, and strive against the evil?
Likewise, there is really no argument about those either – they are different.
I realize the theory and feeling of "all life is sacred, etc.
Consider, though, the response to the recent question of "which would you save?" (the baby or the embryo?) Over 90% of people said the baby, and this is a mainly pro-life board, and in practice it would even be higher than that.
Good quote from that thread: "everybody is going to pick the baby, and they’d carry that baby out if they had to walk over a thousand embryos in Petri dishes"
–Because there really is a big difference.
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Yes… we are talking about children during the fetal stage of development (the murder of which is called “abortion”), as well as infants and toddlers (the murder of which is called “infanticide”).
The different names do not change the nature of the child. The newborn and the toddler are just as dependent and unformed and “unknown potential” as the fetus is.
And no… I do not see a difference between slavery, abortion, and the Holocaust. I see similarities between the individual slave owner, the individual abortion-seeking mother, and the individual concentration camp prison guard.
With one huge difference: The slave owner and the prison guard are truly choosing their actions. The mother is often frightened, pressured, coerced, and exploited. Women need our protection from the abortion culture in ways that the slave owner and camp guard do not.
Del: we are talking about children during the fetal stage of development
That’s no more correct than saying there won’t be a child until after birth. Nobody ever gets anywhere basing an argument on such subjective stuff.
“The newborn and the toddler are just as dependent and unformed and “unknown potential” as the fetus is.” – no, that’s not correct. And what about your previous statement that “A fetus in the womb is as fully formed and organized as a newborn child, an adolescent, an adult, or an elderly person”
So who is the central authority making it law that all fetuses must be terminated Del? Where are the government operatives ensuring such is carried out?
“The mother is rarely frightened, pressured, coerced, and exploited.” – there, fixed it for you.
Reality – Suggest you go to http://clinicquotes.com/statistics-on-coerced-abortions/ and find out just how wrong you are in using the term ‘rarely’. 64% is NOT rare. Lots of other “Statistics on Coerced Abortions”. Might, also, talk with some people from Silent No More.
That is genuinely clever of you, Reality. This is real discussion.
The fetus and infant and you are “unformed” in that you all have a lot of potential and maturing ahead of you. The young ones are both wholly dependent upon adults for their survival.
The fetus and the infant and you are all “fully formed” in that you are exactly as mature as nature designed you to be. You are thriving in your proper environments, and you will continue to live out your natural span if you are not assaulted by disease or neglect or violence.
===========================
The “central authority” with power of life and death already acts in China. Don’t think that it can’t happen here. There are many guys (like Doug here) who believe that there is a population crisis that must be managed, even to the point of draconian measures like forced sterilization and abortion.
In America, we have a “decentralized” social pressure toward abortion. Most of these inflict fear upon the mother, and sometimes active pressure. Boyfriends, parents, employers, and welfare programs all feel like they have the authority to threaten mothers to terminate their pregnancies.
You fear us, the pro-life movement, because you think we are forcing women to carry pregnancies that they do not want.
But the pro-life movement is growing because women realize that we are the ones protecting them from abusive men, employers, government agencies, and a wicked abortion industry who are pressuring them to kill their children.
I don’t know why black proponents bring up slavery. No white slave masters are raping black women and forcing us to have their babies. That was more than a hundred years ago.
I think that the reason the black abortion rate is so high is that many black women (and men) have multiple partners and do not use birth control, or use it incorrectly. I don’t know what the solution is.
The pro life movement us often accused of being racist but of the CPCs I sometimes support financially at least half of their clients are black or Latino. If that’s being “racist”, they sure have a funny way of showing it
I suggest you find a valid study Patty.
You really need to decide on one definition of all this and stick to it Del. You keep changing the goalposts and the interpretations.
The power of life and death already exists in the US, always has. Death penalty for instance. Yet at no time has there ever been so much as a hint of anyone with the power to do so wanting to do what China has done.
“In America, we have a “decentralized” social pressure toward abortion.” – ‘decentralized social pressure’ is an oxymoron.
“Most of these inflict fear upon the mother, and sometimes active pressure.” – in a few instances perhaps but not usually.
“Boyfriends, parents, employers, and welfare programs all feel like they have the authority to threaten mothers to terminate their pregnancies.” – again, in a few instances perhaps.
“You fear us, the pro-life movement, because you think we are forcing women to carry pregnancies that they do not want.” – ‘fear’ isn’t the right word. I don’t think you are forcing women to carry, but you sure as heck would like to. That is what must be prevented.
“But the pro-life movement is growing” – no it’s not.
“because women realize that we are the ones protecting them from abusive men, employers, government agencies, and a wicked abortion industry who are pressuring them to kill their children.” – your internal propaganda for the choir doesn’t convince the majority.
Reality – There is so much info at that site to refute your saying “The mother is rarely frightened, pressured, coerced, and exploited.” 64% is NOT rare.
Perhaps this site from the Washington Post would seem more valid to you. It deals JUST with job discrimination numbers that are big enough to have the EEOC involved.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/05/new-statistics-pregnancy-discrimination-claims-hit-low-wage-workers-hardest/
Oh gosh, Patty, don’t you know that women are NEVER “coerced” into having their super-empowering abortions? They’re only “coerced” into giving birth.
/sarcasm
I read you Kel. Sadly reminded me of the Washington Post 3 day spread starting on 12-19-04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10074-2004Dec18.html
More facts and figures are in this report: http://www.ncdsv.org/images/CDCExploresPregnancy-HomicideLink.pdf At least 4 times in these 3 pages it says that the results are “understated because homicides are so poorly tracked.” It did say that “In Maryland, researchers found that new and expectant mothers were nearly twice as likely as other women to be victims of homicide, even after adjusting for race and age.”
Another quote might explain the higher incident of abortions for black women: “The analysis showed black women had a maternal homicide risk about seven times that of white women. The disparity was even more striking at ages 25 to 29, with black women in that age group about 11 times as likely as white women to be killed.”
The original WP article had a line about a homeless female victim found in a nearby park. The reporter wonder how many similar homeless female were killed because they were pregnant.
All of that from 2004/2005. Wonder what the numbers are now.
[…] wrote on August 4 that a July 28 New York Times article about Planned Parenthood’s decision to abandon the […]
Reality says: “The power of life and death already exists in the US, always has. Death penalty for instance. Yet at no time has there ever been so much as a hint of anyone with the power to do so wanting to do what China has done.”
This is the hard part of being pro-choice: the position is so ridiculous, you quickly get moved into ridiculous or totally false claims and positions.
We can all Google “three generations of imbeciles is enough,” or “involuntary sterilization United States” and find this exact government-led desire carried out.
The Science Czar of the United States is one of those who has promoted the idea that the govt ought to be able to decide who gets to be a parent, and when, and has advocated for birth control in the water supply to control all of those children “we” don’t want, or who are crashing the planet’s ecosystem.
Bam. On the map. All over the federal government.
Good night, everyone.
“There is so much info at that site to refute your saying” – no Petty, the site has been cited before and it is an invalid study. It was very selective and limited in its scope.
The Washington Post article is interesting. Just shows how badly women are treated by business, you know, the types who vote republican. Where’s the bit in it about women being pressured to abort? You have roamed a bit with the other stuff you cite, deplorable as the inequality faced by women is.
“don’t you know that women are NEVER “coerced” into having their super-empowering abortions?” – I didn’t say never. “They’re only “coerced” into giving birth.” – well that is your aim.
Tut-tut TLD, reflecting much. At no time has there ever been so much as a hint of anyone with the power to do so wanting to do what China has done.
“Bam. On the map. All over the federal government.” – conspiracy 101.
Phillymiss: I think that the reason the black abortion rate is so high is that many black women (and men) have multiple partners and do not use birth control, or use it incorrectly. I don’t know what the solution is.
The abortion rate follows the number of unwanted pregnancies. That’s the deal.
Was on another site where the talk was about Mom’s in the 60s, 70’s, +++ vs today. Talking peer pressure, Dr. Spock’s Baby Book vs the so many more books plus the net with conflicting information, … Oh my! Many are just overwhelmed!
Made me think of this article and women being “coerced” not only into abortion, but also into sex itself and so many other things. Hm-m-m Try bullying, pushed, peer pressured, and just the culture of death. Lots of times one does what one really does not want to do just because one does not know how to get out of the situation. “I won’t be your friend!” or “I will beat/kill you!”
That combined with the woman thinking that the IUD’s supposed 1% failure rate would never happen to her. Whichever product and it’s failure rate would indeed make one feel overwhelmed. It all leaves me with the thought that regarding “64% is NOT rare” for “coerced” abortions, it maybe even more.
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TheLastDemocrat: Bam. On the map. All over the federal government.
Reality: conspiracy 101.
I was thinking Emeril….
[…] Any distrust Women of Color felt toward Planned Parenthood was kept out of the public eye until July 28, when the abortion giant blew any remaining shreds of good will. […]