Weekend question
This week I reported that Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi no longer considers himself “pro-choice.” He wrote that he started to rethink his position when comparing it to his opposition to the death penalty.
And the Pelican Project blogger wrote, “I for one used to be pro-choice, until the day came when I held my newborn niece. And now especially after having my own kids. After that, I could never imagine why anybody would consider killing such a beautiful and innocent being.”
If you are a convert to the pro-life position, what prompted your change of heart?
And if you were once pro-life and are now “pro-choice,” same question.
May.30, 2009 9:13 am |
Weekend question |
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.
I had a 2 lb preemie in 1995 and some of my pro-choice (also post-abortive) friends would come to visit at the hospital but they never came a second time.When they came and saw my beautiful but tiny son in the incubator, they just got choked up and cried. I knew why they cried. They saw this was a baby, not a blob of tissue. Anyone who can go into a NICU and still be unquestionably pro-choice must have a hardened heart. These are tiny human beings. You cannot deny their humanity.
For myself, after having 5 miscarriages between 12 and 16 weeks and seeing my little tiny babies in my hand, there could be no doubts for myself. I know they were my sons even at 12 weeks.
I will always regret my abortion I had at 21 years old. I believe my premature birth and the miscarriages were a result of my abortion. It damages you. It is not a safe and simple procedure. There is not one day that I do not think of my daughter that I lost. She would be 27 now and I mourn my potential grandchildren.
Abortion is killing a weaker smaller person and it goes against the very nature of a woman. No other animal in the animal kingdom kills its young. We were meant to give birth and nurture. Abortion traumatizes our very innate self.
When my 16 year old daughter got pregnant, I thought abortion was the only answer. I tried with everything a mother could do to persuade/coerce her into an abortion but she refused. I never had much thought about the pro life pro choice issue until that moment when it was my problem. On the day my grandson was born I was in the operating room with my daughter. They handed the child to me to carry him out to the waiting room. As I walk down the hall I realized that I was the one given this privledge when I was the one who spent the better part of the last nine mos. trying to prevent this day from happening. Austin changed my heart but then I examined the evidence with an open mind and there was no going back .
Here is another story. When my teen daughter was pregnant she choose life. A friend of hers who was a cheerleader got pregnant but even after going to counseling at a prc decided that cheerleading was more important to her and she would have to give up cheerleading if she continued the pregnancy. She chose to abort. Fast forward about five years. My daughter is taking her son to the mall to buy new shoes for kindergarten. Her old friend is working there and waits on her. As she measures the feet of the five year old she looks up with tears in her eys and says….for a season of cheerleading I killed my own child! How sad.
This brought to mind an old post…about considering abortion and the death penalty.
Slip of the tongue…baby, no I mean fetus
What an interesting post from Feministing.com. When you ask a question that parallels a life question….they get all hung up and slip up and say baby. Whoops, did not mean to say baby…. look at the comment from the reader….
Death Penalty and Abortion
In a bioethics class I’m taking, we were talking about the death penalty, and the discussion progressed to include abortion. Someone raised the question: “If a woman on death row happened to get pregnant, should we still execute her?”I’m pro-choice, and support embryonic stem cell research. But, my gut instinct to the question was “No, of course you can’t kill her baby!” Then I realized the inherent inconsistency there- in the other cases, I don’t think of the embryo as a baby. I’m not sure how to rectify this.So, what do you think? What if the woman was 8 weeks pregnant? 8 months?Note: I’m against the death penalty in all cases, but that’s another discussion entirely.
Posted by orgostrich – March 18, 2009, at 09:06AM in Deep Thoughts
miki_mouse said:
I definitely agree that if a pregnant woman is killed, it is only one count of murder under the law, because a fetus does not have the same rights as a human being. That said, we do place some value on a fetus, and if that woman (on death row) wanted that baby to live, I don’t think we have the right to kill her while she is still pregnant. Same as if we forced a woman to have an abortion, it is still wrong even though it is right if she wants the abortion. People wait for years on death row, I think it would be simple enough that if she wanted the baby to live, to just stay her execution for a couple months after she gives birth.
miki_mouse replied to miki_mouse :
I didn’t really mean to call it a baby in the last sentence. I meant if she wanted the fetus to be born so it could turn into a baby, of course.
Of course!
I’m pro-choice because:
1. I don’t want women and girls to die in septic abortion wards, and
2. the lowest abortion rates in the world are in pro-choice Western European countries.
Looking at the facts, it’s easy to see that legal abortion protects and promotes life better than illegal abortion.
As she measures the feet of the five year old she looks up with tears in her eys and says….for a season of cheerleading I killed my own child! How sad.
At least she is still alive and capable of having children when she is ready. Illegal abortion would not have stopped her from having an abortion, but it would have made it more dangerous.
Being alive and regretting an abortion may be sad, but being infertile or dead is even sadder.
I’m prolife after being prochoice (and I’m also postabortive) because of the pain I’ve endured from that forced “choice”. My mother forced me into an abortion because she didn’t want to be a grandmother nor did she want to be embarrassed for having an unwed, pregnant daughter. I’ve always known the baby is a baby, you can’t reduce it to a “choice.” I suffered for 10 years because of that situation and my relationship with my mother is strained because she still focuses on her ideal that it was the right choice (for her) instead of the destruction it caused me.
As for the Western Europe… it’s not about the abortion record…it’s their birth rate. It’s so low that there’s no replacement value on their society. Heck, even in our own country, because abortion targets blacks, there will be no blacks by 2100 if it continues. People absolutely FAIL (or desire) to educate themselves about how racist Planned Parenthood is because they just think PP is the greatest thing for women.
Illegal abortion would not have stopped her from having an abortion…
Posted by: reality at May 30, 2009 10:52 AM
****************************************
Actually, the illegality of something often stops a lot of people from doing it. You have no idea of this young woman’s mindset, so I’m really surprised you think no woman would stop to reconsider abortion if it were illegal.
BTW, I thought this question was for “converts” to one position or the other. Reality, were you once pro-life and converted to being pro-choice? If so, could you share something about that?
The baby is dead! and she lives with the guilt that she chose cheerleading for a season over the life of her child. She paid someone to end that life.
She could have carried her child to term and released for adoption but a season of cheerleading meant more to her. As an older person she regrets that she made such a choice.
How do you know she is not infertile now. In my state there is no requirement that abortion mills not be licensed, inspected or regulated. You may be surprised to find the same thing in your state.
The place she went to was one such place. The Health Dept. has tried to shut them down but the ACLU has them up and running by the end of the business day and the courts continue to protect this.
Before 1973 doctors performed abortions. You may say that the inferior or questionable doctors did it then. Well isn’t that the case now? Most abortion doctors are older and ready to retire and where are their replacements. Pro aborts recognize the shortage and have tried new strategies to replace them.
All surgeries were riskier due to the risk of infection at that time.
If abortion does not take the life of a defenseless innocent human being, no justification is necessary but if it does take the life of a defenseless innocent human being what justification is adequate.
To the lady whose mother forced her to have an abortion. I am so sorry for you but please try to find it in your heart to forgive your mother. She honestly felt she was doing something to protect you and she was in a panic herself. You were her baby and she was in a protective mode. I bet she is suffering from quilt herself and post abortive counseling would do both of you some good. She bought a lie and is suffering now as well even though she may not readily admit it.
Because of my story, I hear many stories from post abortive grandmothers who are suffering.
Muriel and Maria. amazing stories.
To Reality,
I have not met ONE post-abortive woman that says she would have had her abortion if it were illegal. Back when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe vs Wade we were in the dark ages scientifically because there was no ultrasound. We were lied to and told it was NOT a baby but now we know it absolutely was. The Supreme Court had been wrong before in our history… it’s time to change the law to protect all citizens.
I am so blessed in that I escaped having more abortions and went on to having 5 living children and 6 in heaven. But I have met so many women who had just one or multiple abortions who could never go on to have a child. They aborted their only children. How devastating for them, they were not told of the scarring after-effects of abortion. So how do you know the former cheerleader will be able to have a child? She may be one of the many statistics that cannot.
And as far as Europe goes, I believe your numbers are totally wrong. Legal abortion does not protect or promote life. It cheapens,coarsens and dehumanizes societies view on all life. Abortion is the foundation to a violent society.
Pro choice people have no problem with those who oppose abortion and would not have one under any circumstances. That is a choice every woman should have, and is constitutionally guaranteed.
A better question would be why so many pro lifers believe they have the right to force their personal views on others, and why they feel entitled to disparage, condemn and vilify anyone who doesn’t share their views.
Mr. Harsanyi, an athiest and libertarian, may have converted to being pro life, but he abhors forcing this position on others: “a government ban on abortion would only criminalize the procedure and do little to mitigate the amount of abortions” Denver Post 5/27/09.
The real issue is not what you believe, or what you would personally do in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, but rather why most of the people on this post would have the government force their views on everyone else.
murial, thank you sooooo much for sharing the truth!! Abortion is NOT safe! If it were, I would not be hearing stories like yours again and again!! I knew a woman who had 7 abortions, and a hysterectomy had to be performed after her persistant vaginal bleeding would not cease. Most of my girlfriends who’ve aborted could not give birth vaginally after their abortions. Also, their emotional trauma was the worst part of it all!!
Maria, thank you for your story as well! Yes. So sad that an abortion cannot be undone. Plenty of women see no other way out except for abortion, only to find out years later that having the baby wouldn’t have been so bad after all!
I was also a NICU conversion. My son was born at 31 weeks,after 7 weeks of PPROM, and every poor prenatal diagnosis under the sun.
I saw other babies in the NICU younger than him and there was no question about their humanity.
I realized that it was completely inconsistent for me to think “I can never have an abortion, but it should be an option for other women.” I asked my self *why* it was that I could not have an abortion. The answer was obvious. I couldn’t have an abortion because doing so would be killing my child.
After that realization I worked through all of the more advanced pro-choice arguements such as bodily domain, and came out compeltely pro-life.
I wonder how many of these people who spout off about abortion being so “safe” have ever bothered to see the aftermath that often follows. Sometimes that grief doesn’t even surface until years down the road. Your emotional health is just as big a part of abortion as is your physical. I’d say that I know PLENTY of women who are emotionally scarred from their abortions. Some may not even really know what’s eating them.
Just because you make it out of the abortion building alive, doesn’t mean that you are okay.
Bystander, please get off your dying high horse.
The government forces its will on others all the time. I might think it is perfectly acceptable to kill my great aunt Edna, but the government says it is illegal and morally wrong for me to do so.
Same with any number of legalities. Unless you believe that there should be no laws, you have no leg to stand on when you make your claims.
To Bystander,
It is not a question of us forcing our views on someone else or forcing the government to outlaw abortion. Our governments job is to protect it’s citizens not to have laws that allow one to harm another weaker, more vulnerable person. It is about standing up and fighting against an intrinsic evil. Where would we be today if people didn’t stand up and fight against slavery or child labor or the Holocaust?
Abortion allows women to be exploited and objectified. Their dignity is compromised through abortion.
Why is that in the case of rape, the rapist doesn’t get the death penalty but the innocent baby does? Many women say that the abortion they chose in the case of being raped was another violation of themselves.
We do not try to force our views; we are trying to enlighten people to the true harm and evil of abortion. To be pro-choice is to not be pro-woman, because women deserve better.
Very powerful post and follow up comments, despite the trolls
here who continue to peddle death.
As a Grammy of 8 – one dearly departed, I can say there is
nothing more rewarding than grand children and nothing
more devastating than losing one!!!
I grieve for the women who through their own folly
will never get to hold, hug and kiss their precious
grand sons or grand daughters.
And to any woman who really believes that any abortionist respects you as a woman, think again. You’re just a piece of meat and a paycheck to them. They will discard you after the procedure just as they will your child.
Reality, wouldn’t Spain and its skyrocketing abortion rate count as a Western European nation?
I became pro-life when I actually took a look at the issue and *gasp* educated myself on both sides. I was pro-choice by sheer ignorance, now I’m pro-life by research and education.
Bystander, Harsanyi will get over qualms about telling other people what to do when he realizes that WE DO IT EVERY DAY. Two days ago I “informed” a man that the naughty little phrase he had just uttered to a homeless woman was pathetic, unjustified and that he was a ********. There are some very rich people here who want to do very bad (but legal) things to neighborhoods inhabited by lower-income and people of color in order to make more money, but that wouldn’t be ethical, so I have no problem protesting on that front. Plus there’s rape, homicide, stealing bikes, cars that don’t stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk, corrupt politicians, warmongering presidents, brutal animal killers, pedophiles….the list goes on.
The whole “I can’t tell someone else what to do” argument is a sham and akin to the US saying “Look China, we know Japan is massacring your civilians and all, but we’re not one to go and tell other countries what to do.” Its a bourgeois statement that comes from a position of safety. We never here victims using that argument.
“No other animal in the animal kingdom kills its young.”
Posted by: muriel at May 30, 2009 9:48 AM
Gerbils do. And look what simple google search reveals:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912086,00.html
In his classic work On Aggression, Nobel Laureate Konrad Lorenz argued that man is the only species that regularly kills its own kind. This concept, which contrasted the order and restraint in the animal world with the chaotic aggressiveness of man. reflected the mood of the time: the shadow-of-the-Bomb pessimism of the ’50s and early ’60s. But Lorenz was wrong; since 1963, when his book was published, naturalists have identified dozens of species that kill their own, including lions, hippos, bears, wolves, hyenas, herring gulls and more than 15 types of primates other than man.
I was raised pro choice. My mother said it was a woman’s right.
I always knew intellectually that abortion is wrong because whoever is at fault, it definitely can’t be the child because the action occurred before his life began.
When I read Jill’s story, and the testimony before the Supreme Court in the case about partial birth abortion, I became actively pro life.
PLA. Based on several years of reading Harsanyi’s column, I think he is sincere in his libertarian beliefs and will not “get over them”. He believes in minimal intrusion of government in the lives of its citizens.
You, on the other hand, apparently love to “tell others what to do” and believe the government should force others to conform to your beliefs, because you are right, and better than everyone who does not share those beliefs.
Eating one’s young is not considered an adaptive trait.
Just as there are abnormal behaviors among our species, there are abnormal behaviors among animals.
Anyway, the abnormal behavior of these beasts is not something to which we should aspire. It certainly forms a poor basis for an intellectual ideal.
Bystander, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you make an actual argument. You just thow out a bunch of logical fallacies and call it a day.
Well I wouldn’t say that I was “better” than other people (equality means equality), but yeah, if someone is doing something that is unethical AND negatively affects others, I will make my voice heard. I abhor drugs and alcohol and do think less of people who use them as a crutch, but I don’t say that they are bad people until it starts affecting others.
Being a libertarian doesn’t mean “go and do whatever, I don’t care.” Libertarians support personal liberty, but only to the point where it doesn’t begin infringing on the liberties of others. Telling someone “don’t kill other people” (the core tenet of pro-life beliefs) is not incompatible with libertarianism.
I feel I have a right to keep my property.
Some disagree. They would like to take my stuff.
I believe the government should force others to conform to my beliefs.
Fortunately the government agrees. If they didn’t I would work to change that.
Certainly anyone’s life is more important than all of my stuff, so I work to change the gov’t policy on who has the right to live.
You just thow out a bunch of logical fallacies and call it a day.
Posted by: Lauren at May 30, 2009 1:19 PM
I’ll second that.
I was raised pro-choice, I think my mother raised me this way to calm her guilt over her abortions and her guilt over her one adoption. I think that is she could convince me that abortion was okay then her feelings would be validated and if I ever did get pregnant when ‘I wasn’t ready’ that abortion would just take care of that.
Out of pure curoisty I googled abortion, I think the first couple of links were mild until I got to one with the ‘100 pictures of abortion’. I didn’t want to click on it but my human nature told me to just click on it, so I did. What I saw horrified me! I had night mares that night, my mom asked me what the h3ll was going on last night and I told her about the abortion picture I saw. She pretty much was super mad at me, she said those ‘things’ don’t have any feelings b/c they weren’t old enough to develop those things and she said that those later terms were so rare that those were most likely the only ones done in that year.
I think my mom was trying to justify abortion with me, but I’m stubborn and wouldn’t budge with her ideas. Little did I know that I was going to be a mommy! I googled that right before my 15th birthday b/c someone at school had an abortion and I said that if I EVER got prego that I was going to be the first one in line to get rid of it. So I wanted to know what I was talking about. I got to know what I was talking about real fast after those pictures!
I became pregnant sometime between my 15th birthday (3-15) and spring break (4-1). I denied my pregnancy to hide it, my mom would have dragged my butt to the abortion clinic if she knew but I knew in the back of my mind that if I ignored the baby and waited a long time to show that I would be too far along for an abortion and my mom couldn’t do a thing about it.
My plan worked to save my baby, he’s now 6 1/2 years old. And I wouldn’t have done anything any different. I loved him from the moment he attached to my uterus wall!
I was pro-choice in the beginning due to the influence of others nieve minds but pro-life once I saw the truth of abortion.
And a special thanks to Jill! I have to give her credit on turning my pro-life too b/c when I was doing my abortion research back in high school I came across her articles about the born alive babies, I also did a report about in high school thanks to her outing this horrible practice.
Reality 10:45am
I must admit that when you make up your mind, you never let facts get in the way.
How many times do I have to tell you septic abortion wards had long since gone the way of TB sanatariums and iron lungs by the time of Roe v Wade?
The lowest abortion rates are in PC western European countries? Why not here in the United States after 36 years of legal abortion? What about East European countries?
Mary, as you should know, the reason Western Europe has a far lower abortion rate than the US is that they promote sex education and contraceptive use, rather than insisting that sexual ignorance is bliss.
If pro lifers wanted to decrease the abortion rate, they have a clear model to follow. I think they are much more interested in trying to force their religious views on others than in decreasing abortion rates.
Thank you to those that have shared their abortion stories here. I appreciate that very much and know exactly what you are saying. The pain, the regret, the healing.
I never would have had an abortion if it had been illegal.
I became prolife after holding my miscarried baby in my hand and realizing that I had aborted a child 5 years before that was 10 weeks along too. I was told at the abortion clinic that IT was just a bunch of cells. A lie.
Yeah, Bystander, just look at Sweden…oh wait…
Bystander,
As you should know, we have sex education and contraceptive use in the United States as well. Contraception was around long before Roe v Wade and even Bristol Palin admits she was educated concerning birth control.
In fact, it wasn’t until after Roe v Wade that women suddenly became completely ignorant of birth control and clueless as to where babies come from.
This is OT, but I just had some Jehovah’s Witnesses stop by and their June issue of Awake! has a cover story about abortion. I’m interested in seeing their take on the it.
Hi Muriel,
It’s me Carla from Operation Outcry! We met at The March for Life in Washington, D.C. and stayed with all of the OO ladies at the Leadership Institute.
How are you?
Mary, as you should know, Jill Stanek and many of the people on this site wish to ban all forms of contraception, and all forms of sex education. Perhaps you do not agree, and should so state.
Some women became “completely ignorant of birth control” when the right wing pushed the failed “abstinence only” policies.
Anyone interested in worldwide abortion rates and trends should review the Guttmacher study of October, 2007. Quite revealing, in that abortion rates decrease in countries where abortion and contraceptives are legal and readily available, and increase in countries where abortion is illegal and access to contraceptives are limited.
Jill Stanek supports policies that unquestionably and demonstrably increase the abortion rate, and I don’t see that as “pro life”.
I must admit that when you make up your mind, you never let facts get in the way.
Mary, you can turn a phrase :)
As a former pro-choicer, I am enjoying everyone’s conversion stories. Thanks to all who’ve shared.
Bystander, some countries with lower abortion rates than the US have more restrictive laws. You cannot prove that contraceptives and education account for the difference.
I knew enough about fetal development from my pro-life parents, but became ‘personally pro-life, but pro-choice for others’ in high school because I was afraid of what my promiscuous friends would think. I’m so embarrassed to admit that now.
My spine strengthened over time, and I remember thinking later in high school that if I saw someone trying to drown someone else, I would not just ‘mind my own business’ but be obligated out of love and justice to help the person in danger.
And I thought, ‘don’t these tiny babies deserve that same love and respect’?
I didn’t want to choose between loving the woman and the baby, and so I started volunteering weekly at a local cpc to try and offer help to both. After three years there I heard time and again from post-abortive women how they had been lied to in abortion clinics, not given information, and pushed into their abortions, mostly by mothers or older men. From that experience, I saw that one really wins in an abortion, and that it exploits women far more than helping them.
You know I was thinking that I have met many pro life people who were once pro abortion. I have not met anyone who converted from pro life to pro choice. No one on here has that story. Interesting???
When you honestly examine the evidence it is pretty clear. Why should the government get involved? They have laws protecting citizens from being killed even by their mothers and fathers, that is why.
Bystander 2:20PM
As you should know whatever some people might want, contraception and sex education have never been banned! They’ve been around for several decades now.
I remember Roe v Wade and the years following, and no abstinence policies were being pushed. If anything, in the 1980’s sex ed and contraception were being pushed.
Abortion rates decrease in countires where abortion and contraceptives are legal. So… why have we had, the last I heard, 48 million abortions since 1973? (Someone correct me on this number if it is wrong).
I should also mention that the total push to be unabashedly pro-life in high school came from my youngest brother, who had Duchenne MD. He was the light of our family, and made me realize the potential and gift of EVERY human person. Genetic testing was just starting to be made available. The insanity of it all came home hard when I realized people who never even knew him would have wanted to kill him.
Jill’s story really matters to me and my family. That baby who died in the hospital could have been my brother, if my parents chose to destroy him because he had a disease.
Hal:
I think in all of the animal cases you cited it is not the mother who kills her young but a male or agressive female other than the mother. So, please get your facts straight before you try to use them to justify the murder of unborn humans.
I mean even something as primitive and viscious as a crocdile mother will protect their eggs with their lives.
And to think we should attempt to justify our actions by what animals do is ludicrous in any case. I mean, as a male, would you kill your young?
Mary Ann:
You are an example to the many pro-aborts on this site who need to get a spine and admit that abortion is heinously wrong. So……..thank you for your courage.
Oh, and I became even more rabidly pro-life when I held my first 37 week old gestation grandson in my arms for the first time on April 23, 2009. Five fingers, five toes, two eyes, a nose, a head, two ears, fine hair, smiles, groans, cries, all 100% human…….wowwwwweeeee!
bystander – travel throughout Europe and you will see a decline in the number of children. especially amongst white anglo saxon’s – (well, and many who call themselves Catholic) the population will NOT be replaced. like the old redwoods – these children are irreplacable (yet more people are concerned about a tree than a baby murdered.) BTW, I would never say *murdered* to a woman who has made this decision, as I know the media and planned parrothood work to dupe, mislead and get money from people like you – you have scales upon your eyes. the day of reckoning will come for those who have pushed for the right to kill innocents. there IS however, always mercy and forgiveness…LOVE!
“Mary, as you should know, Jill Stanek and many of the people on this site wish to ban all forms of contraception, and all forms of sex education. Perhaps you do not agree, and should so state.”
“Some women became “completely ignorant of birth control” when the right wing pushed the failed “abstinence only” policies.”
Bystander,
Why don’t you just come out and say what you really mean – that abortion is a good thing – instead of making excuses. If you must blame someone, blame the mothers and fathers who are not properly educating their children about sex. Don’t blame pro-lifers.
Hisman,
For the record, mothers DO kill their young–at least with hamsters. It is quite likely that gerbil mothers would do so in similar circumstances as well.
Thanks to those women who have had abortions and had the courage to post here.
Reality, many women who have abortions do not get the chance to have another baby. We don’t know how many women have had their fertility adversely affected by abortion because sometimes complications are not recognized until years later (for example an incompetent cervix).
I’m betting most women regret their abortions and struggle to live with this terrible regret. Whatever the reason at the time for the abortion, whether it be a demanding lover (who later leaves), poor “timing” or something silly like another year of cheerleading, in the end these things are all of little importance when compared with the death of the baby.
And to those who say their lives wouldn’t be as good as they are today if it weren’t for the abortion I would say to you:
1. you can’t be absolutely sure of that
2. your lifestyle today was bought at the cost of another unique, irreplaceable human person’s life. And that just sucks.
Janet,3:29 I have never said abortion is a good thing. My posts are about implementing policies proven to decrease the abortion rate, which I view as a laudable goal. Many of the “pro lifers” on this site insist on policies proven to increase the abortion rate- like Jill Stanek.
I do blame “pro lifers” for the higher abortion rate in the US, double western Europe, because it is the far religious right “pro lifers” who want to ban contraceptives and sex education,and promote “abstinence only”- policies that are proven to increase the abortion rate.
Sure you can blame parents, like the Palins, who offered no sex education, but the reason that you have sex education as a matter of public policy is that a lot of parents fail in that area, and the schools have to pick up the slack.
It is common sense, not religious extremism, and perhaps that is what makes you angry at me.
promote “abstinence only”- policies that are proven to increase the abortion rate.
wrong. We’ve been over this lie again and again. Go back to your cave, Bystander and draw neanderthal paintings on the walls. They will comfort you.
Politicians! How could I forget. They are pro life when at the local and state level and become pro choice when they become a national politician. That is where the money is.
think Al Gore and even Bill Clinton. Why my husband remembers the Rev. Jesse Jackson giving a speech in college in the 60’s when he was very pro life. Now totally pro abort and does not want to discuss it.
For the record, mothers DO kill their young–at least with hamsters. It is quite likely that gerbil mothers would do so in similar circumstances as well.
Posted by: A. at May 30, 2009 3:53 PM
so what. We are not gerbils nor hamsters. Sheesh. :(
Bystander 4:21PM
How do you know for a fact the Palins offered no sex education to their daughter?
According to Bristol, she was in fact educated in the usage of contraceptives.
Another thing Bystander, your argument blaming PL people for the rising abortion rate is abusrd. Contraception and sex education have NOT been banned and never were. The fact some people may want them banned doesn’t mean squat and has no effect on pregnancy rates!
Maybe sex ed and contraception are simply not the magic solution you PC folks assumed they would be.
Bystander,
“Janet,3:29 I have never said abortion is a good thing. My posts are about implementing policies proven to decrease the abortion rate, which I view as a laudable goal.”
Bystander,
You are implying abortion is good because you have yet to say it’s bad. The fact that there are difficult contributing factors that cause women to choose abortion shouldn’t affect your opinion on whether it’s a good thing or bad.
* * *
“It is common sense, not religious extremism, and perhaps that is what makes you angry at me.”
Common sense would say that humans don’t kill their own.
Religion isn’t a cause of abortion.
I’m not angry, are you?
Mary,
“Maybe sex ed and contraception are simply not the magic solution you PC folks assumed they would be.”
But it would be the solution if kids would only use contraception perfectly, they way it should be!!. We must educate and educate and educate…until contraception is done PERFECTLY!!!! Then WALA! No more unwanted pregnancies. It’s soooooo simple. Really. It is. (sarcasm alert)
There are so many terrible and heartbreaking stories of post-abortive women.
I have always been pro-life, but, as ashamed as I am to say this…I didn’t really care about it. I didn’t care about this, even though it’s such a destructive force. I became a pro-life activist in December, when I finally decided to care after reading an article in which the Feminist Majority Foundation was praising a woman who killed her son for having Down Syndrome. They praised many women, but the writer of the article seemed to not care about that child.
These are us. There are our fellow human beings.
So I plunged into research on the matter and read about how many women would bleed to death, how many women died in septic wards. I read about the child abuse, I read about the women in Africa who continue to die from it and the women in South America who continue to die from it. And suddenly I wanted to help change it and to help women and children.
Maria, though you wrote way at the beginning of the post, thanks for sharing your story. :).
Wait- quick question because this seems to be a busy thread:
Does anyone have a list of countries where abortion is illegal?
I know the Dominican Republic (yay!), Poland (yay!), and Northern Ireland- where else?
Thanks!
But I don’t think a women who is raped should be forced to become pregnant…
Posted by: Emma at May 30, 2009 5:18 PM
****************************************
Um…”forced to become pregnant?” Wow, since there’s only a 25% chance of pregnancy during a woman’s fertile time, I find this to be an amazing statement…
Emma, do you believe that the unborn are human beings who should have the right to life?
Your comments smack of snide sarcasm, mocking post-abortive women who have come here to state their actual conversion stories from pro-choice to pro-life. They’ve spoken about children with deformities, children in NICU…and all you can do is come here and mock?
“I love children. I love being a mother. I want all women who are pregnant by plan or by chance to be able to have their babies. I want them to have the support they need financially and otherwise to raise them well. If they are too young I want them to understand that adoption might be best and I want that to be made easy for them. I want those women to not get pregnant again or in the first place until they are ready.” –On these things we can agree. On the rest, we cannot. If you were truly pro-life, I doubt you’d have spent as much time on this site as you have, mocking other pro-lifers here who do not share your view of rape babies and disabled children being equivalent to garbage, or goading and mocking those here who have Christian beliefs, for which you appear to have great disdain.
How about in those “not so difficult” cases, Emma? What’s your stance on a woman’s “right to choose” to abort her child when she hasn’t been the victim of rape or when the child is not “fatally flawed?”
But it’s the prochoice who think that one person has a right to force their opinion on others — to the point of death!
I’ve never understood how you can say that letting people kill other people somehow is keeping people from imposing their will on others — how much more can you impose your will on somebody than to kill him?
And if it’s really all about letting people make choices, why does the woman’s one choice trump all the choices the child would have made over a lifetime?
Emma 5:03PM
Well, Bristol says she got sex and contraception education.
Also, that’s what her father said. What about her mother?
Hey kel, why the hard time? More than half of pro lifers feel just as I do. I know not all do and I’m not mocking their pain or beliefs.
Unfortunately, abortion is higher in Brazil because Brazil lives in more poverty than the United States. It’s so depressing to imagine women living in poverty to the point of abortion coming into play, but that is why I detest abortion. It has always killed women, has always killed children.
But making it illegal is the law’s way of acknowledging that all people are equal. However, even when abortion is illegal, we would still need – as pro-lifers- to keep campaigning for health reforms and other matters related to this topic. Legality and illegality is only another step.
Actually, according to AGI, something like over half of women who had abortions were using contraception. It isn’t that women aren’t taught contraceptive use, and this a frustration for many abortion providers, they can’t get women to use their birth control consistantly and correctly.
Rachel C 6:08PM
Or perhaps women don’t worry about using it consistently or correctly since they can always have an abortion.
Hey kel, why the hard time? More than half of pro lifers feel just as I do. I know not all do and I’m not mocking their pain or beliefs.
Posted by: Emma at May 30, 2009 5:49 PM
***********************************
LOL. I’ll remind you about that “hard time” the next time you mock someone for their Christian beliefs.
BTW, nice job avoiding the question.
Rachel C. This may be what women claim, but the post abortive women I know were using abortion as their birth control!
..and THAT is just not acceptable.
I think that a lot of us on this blog used to be pro-choice. I used to say things like “Well, I’d rather see a child aborted than to be born to an abusive mother/father who doesn’t want to be bothered.” OR “I’d never have an abortion, but it’s your choice if you want one.” Then I figured out the ugly truth!
And I used to be pretty PC UNTIL I began talking to women who were on their 9th and 10th abortion. Think I’m full of BS? ….Madonna [pop icon] has had 11 abortions. Now there is a woman who could have afforded condoms made out of solid gold!!! What’s her excuse? Whoopi Goldberg confesses to at least 8 abortions. Again. A very wealthy woman who could very well have afforded those kids. Why????
Those poor frustrated abortion providers who can’t get these women to use their birth control consistently and correctly…….yes, they will help them by killing their children and taking the money to do it.
Who gives a rip how frustrated an abortionist is?
Their pathetic excuses just happen to be “MY career”..”Me, me, me. It’s ALL about me!”
Emma,
You are prolife? Wow. I had no idea.
Emma, you are?
What prompted me to become pro life? Learning that being pro life doesn’t have to mean you don’t want abortion illegal in all cases……
Posted by: Emma at May 30, 2009 5:18 PM
——————————————-
Emma:
By the strictest definiiton of the term you are not “pro-life”.
Definitions of pro life on the Web:
advocating full legal protection of embryos and fetuses (especially opposing the legalization of induced abortions)
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Pro-life is a term representing a variety of perspectives and activist movements in bioethics. It is most commonly (especially in the media and …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-life
Of, pertaining to, or supportive of the right to life; believing that life should be protected from conception to natural death in almost all …
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pro-life
You are however, pro-choice. Can you at least be honest about that? Please don’t twist things or try to redefine the term or I’ll start calling you an abortion hack.
Bystander,
From Guttmacher:
“Of the 23 million pregnancies that occur in developed countries, more than 40% are unintended, and 28% end in induced abortion”
“Of the 182 million pregnancies that occur in developing countries, more than one-third are unintended, and 19% end in induced abortion (8% are safe procedures and 11% are unsafe)”
When people make the erroneous claim that abortion rates are lower where abortion is illegal, they are basing their rates on abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age. A more accurate judgement of the abortion rate is abortion per 1,000 pregnancies, as a woman of childbearing age who is not pregnant can obviously not abort.
See it goes like this, 600 women in Uganda out of 1000 get pregnant, 180 of those are unintended, and 34 of those pregnancies end in abortion.
Additionally, 200 women in the US out of 1000 get pregnant, 80 of those are unintended, and 22 of those pregnancies end in abortion.
Based on the abortion rate used by most pro-choicers, Uganda has a higher abortion rate, as its rate is 34 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age and the US rate is 22 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age. But the fact is, Uganda has a higher rate by this calculation because more women get pregnant, and it is more often intentional than in the US. Pro-choicers use this fact of higher birth rates to skew the stats and make it look as if the abortion rate is higher in developing nations (without legal abortion and contraception) than in developed countries. Its a simple and deceptive method of presenting statistics to benefit one’s own point of view.
The truth is, in developed countries, more of our pregnancies are unintended even though birth control is widely available and promoted in the schools. And our abortion rate for those unintended pregnancies is higher despite all the erroneous claims that the legality of abortion does not increase the number of women getting them.
reality, these septic abortion wards you speak of still exist with legal abortion on demand. Nowadays it’s called the hospital. After the abortionist screws up your insides, he cannot help you anymore. Most women who develop infections or retain fetal parts are sent to local hospitals for follow up.
The abortion clinics attitude if you have problems after abortion? Oh well. That’s YOUR problem!
Many old time Hollywood women had abortions. Rita Hayworth, Judy Garland, Marylin Monroe, Lana Turner, Cloris Leachman, Joan Crawford, etc. This was before abortion was legal! Do you really believe that they went to the back alley? Nah. They had their abortions in hospitals.
“Of the 23 million pregnancies that occur in developed countries, more than 40% are unintended, and 28% end in induced abortion”
“Of the 182 million pregnancies that occur in developing countries, more than one-third are unintended, and 19% end in induced abortion (8% are safe procedures and 11% are unsafe)”……………………..
Posted by: Rachel at May 30, 2009 7:22 PM
——————————-
Are these annual figures?
Does this mean that 28% of 23,000,000 pregnanices in developed countries end up in abortion or 6,440,000?
and
34,580,000 abortions in developing countries?
Are you trying to tell me that there are over 40,000,000 abortions each year in the world?
Every 6 years the equivalent of the population of the United States is destroyed?
That is mind boggling.
How can we not call abortion a “Mega-Holocaust”?
How can we not see where this has always been the plan of world leadership to keep population numbers down since 1973? And Barack Obama is in full compliance with this demonic plan.
“can some of you fine woman please explain to Hisman what it means to be PL in the “new majority”
Posted by: Emma at May 30, 2009 7:30 PM”
—————————–
Excuse me Emma:
I don’t need your Nazi like propagnda machine to set in stone the anti-abortion mindset by trying to redefine what being pro-life means.
My God, doesn’t the BS ever stop from your side?
At least she is still alive and capable of having children when she is ready. Illegal abortion would not have stopped her from having an abortion, but it would have made it more dangerous.
Being alive and regretting an abortion may be sad, but being infertile or dead is even sadder.
Posted by: reality at May 30, 2009 10:52 AM———————————————————————————————————-reality, you are indeed missing the point. The woman may very well go on to have more children, but it doesn’t replace the child that died in the abortion. It would be like someone who lost a child in a car accident and exclaiming “Well, at least I still have another kid.” It’s not the same kid! One life does not replace another!!
Eating one’s young is not considered an adaptive trait.
Just as there are abnormal behaviors among our species, there are abnormal behaviors among animals.
Anyway, the abnormal behavior of these beasts is not something to which we should aspire. It certainly forms a poor basis for an intellectual ideal.
Posted by: hippie at May 30, 2009 1:17 PM
Actually, it is quite the adaptive trait – and not at all abnormal. Though cannibalism is not requisite.
Females of any species will commit what yu call infanticide, what others more reasonably term rejection of physically flawed young. It prevents the waste of energy and resources on offspring that have a marginal chance of survival.
For those creatures that live in social groups, it is often an overly disruptive young that is destroyed. And this by the dominant male.
And who is to say that she is still fertile? Another post abortive woman I know could not get pregnant again to save her life! She wanted to more than anything!
Iamiam:
There is only one “I AM” and ………. you ain’t Him.
“I’m just going with the flow.
Posted by: Emma at May 30, 2009 7:57 PM”
————————————
Yep, most pro-aborts do “just go with the flow”.
Yep, most pro-aborts do “just go with the flow”.
Posted by: HisMan at May 30, 2009 8:00 PM
——————————————————– That’s why close to 1 million people showed up at the annual “MARCH FOR WOMEN’S LIVES” yet most had NO CLUE as to what it was about!!!
Heather:
I think this comment by pro-life atheist kind of sums it up:
“I became pro-life when I actually took a look at the issue and *gasp* educated myself on both sides. I was pro-choice by sheer ignorance, now I’m pro-life by research and education…….”
Posted by: pro-life atheist at May 30, 2009 12:53 PM
His Man, yes. I agreed with that! i can also relate to it quite well!
The March for Women’s Lives is annual? Wow…I support women’s rights and women’s lives- do you think that they would allow an anti-abortion activist to assist them?
Ah, someday women’s lives will actually be taken seriously and people will realize that it is, in fact, abortion that kills women, and not its illegality, but abortion. Sigh- it degrades, dehumanizes, forgets: what more of a reason is there to oppose this?
Emma, you’re not alone, I’m one of those who considers herself pro-life but hisman and other hard-core pro-lifers here would consider pro-choice because although I’m involved in pro-life activities and always have, I’m not jumping on their bandwagon for illegalization.
Also, maybe there are stories of conversion from pro-life to pro-choice but folks may be hesitant of sharing for fear of being pelted with questions or verbally attacked by some of the pro-lifers here.
I thought I was pro-life until I was told, by a poster on this very site, that I could not call myself pro-life and think that hormonal birth control is acceptable.
So I guess I’m a pro-choicer who thinks abortion should be illegal? I don’t know anymore.
Bee,
I’d consider you Pro-Life.
I think this comment by pro-life atheist kind of sums it up:
“I became pro-life when I actually took a look at the issue and *gasp* educated myself on both sides. I was pro-choice by sheer ignorance, now I’m pro-life by research and education…….”
HisMan, educating oneself on both sides does not inevitably lead to that conclusion. What it actually comes down to is how one investigates and then integrates that knowledge into their own personal belief system.
For people who don’t share yours, their very well-educated conclusions may still be different. Some of these people whose belief systems are different from yours might even have great work ethics, not cheat on their taxes and be grateful to war veterans.
Imagine the common ground!
I personally think being prolife truly means not doing ANYTHING that results in abortion whether that be getting a surgical abortion or taking pills that may at times have abortifacient qualities, taking herbs or undertaking any action that might have the intent to end the pregnancy. It would also mean living a life that is open to children. If married having a large family, if single, living chastely and helping others who are in the family way.
For the sake of this blog I think being prolife means no abortion under any circumstances. There is always an option other than abortion.
My God, doesn’t the BS ever stop from your side?
Posted by: HisMan at May 30, 2009 7:43 PM
***************************************
No, Emma’s only here to spread BS. She’s a troll with nothing to say, and then she claims she’s not mocking anyone, when clearly, she is attempting to mock the polls and reporting showing people trending toward pro-life (and greater restrictions on abortion, even if not outlawing it altogether). She has decided that people who’ve said they’re pro-life have no clue what that really means, and since people on this site have differing views as to what that means, she can mock the pro-life position and claim that anyone, even she (who refuses to answer my questions about abortion restrictions because she knows she is pro-choice) is “pro-life” if she says so.
On most of these polls, btw, I checked… they gave the people the option for “unsure what terms mean.” There were a small percentage who chose that option. Also, well over 70% of those polled, at least in the Gallup poll, said they would favor either making abortion illegal or making it legal only under certain circumstances. Typically, those circumstances are the “tough cases” which we spoke of earlier, which only account for about 5% or fewer abortions each year.
So, Emma, if you believe abortion should only be legal in the “tough cases,” then I’d personally have to say you “lean toward” the pro-life position. If you believe it should remain legal in all cases, including for matters of convenience, then I’d say you are pro-choice.
And you said you weren’t coming to this thread to mock, but from reading your later posts, I can see you were not being truthful.
Terezia:
So this is what the Notre Dame scandal is all about? This is the new semantics game, the next Goebbel’s move, the propaganda theme, the let’s make them think we’re doing something about abortion when in reality we are doing nothing but making it more available, more normal, and more frequent?
Getting us all, pro-life and pro-aborts to agree on when it is or isn’t OK to kill babies AS IF THAT GIVES US PRO-LIFERS ANYTHING?
My God, all you pro-aborts are infested with satan because there is no common ground on abortion.
And if your infanticide negotiator doesn’t succeed then he’ll drop the FOCA nuclear bomb because he’ll be able to say we tried to do it your way?
You know what, the only way this abortion thing is going to be settled is the way the Civil War was settled. It will come to that.
WE ARE TO CHOOSE LIFE OR DEATH, PERIOD.
I was pro-choice until about 9 years ago. My conversion came from listening to Dr. Laura on the radio. I hadn’t listened to her for very long and she sounded strong and advised others to be strong. When a woman called about an unwanted pregnancy, I thought for sure she would suggest abortion. She did the total opposite when the caller mentioned it, and really got my attention with the language she used about sucking out an unborn life with a vacuum cleaner doesn’t solve anything and kills a life. Wow. All that time I had thought it was a choice.
I was in my late teens in the 70s and remember the Our Bodies Ourselves book saying it’s just a blob of tissue; it’s no big deal. I fell for all that stuff. I remember the day in January of 1973 when Roe vs. Wade was decided. I thought this would make things so much better for women.
Reading Dennis Prager’s book Think a Second Time a few years later, had me do just that. Thinking about the beliefs I had on major issues, that mostly came from feelings, caused me to change my mind about most of the foolish conclusions that I had reached in young adulthood and shift my positions totally.
For the sake of this blog I think being prolife means no abortion under any circumstances. There is always an option other than abortion.
Posted by: angel at May 30, 2009 10:57 PM
Angel, this is simply not true. For some people there are NOT “other options.” As I’ve said before (And I’m sure others have), some women do have conditions in which a pregnancy does put their life in danger. I am one of those women (And no I am not just saying it), but I want to have kids and will never be able to because a pregnancy would undoubtedly kill me. I remain abstinent because of this, but if I were to be raped and became pregnant- carrying that baby to term would kill me. Also the whole BCP as an “abortifacient only”- yeah I use “the pill” that some hardcore Catholics want made illegal, I use it as a MEDICATION because I have to cycle it continuously because of a bleeding issue where getting a period lands me in the hospital in need of a transfusion (Even on huge doses of Epogen). I’m like a triple whammie- would die from pregnancy, and the BCP is helping to keep me alive!
Posted by: Ash at May 31, 2009 2:26 AM
There are women who develop a life threatening condition while pregnant. One of my friends did. The pregnancy was going to kill her and the baby if carried to term. The doctors tried EVERYTHING and finally delivered the baby early, tried to save him too but he died in my friends arms. I wouldn’t call that an abortion as the intent was NOT to kill the baby but to save the life of the mother. He was not injected in the heart and killed ahead of time, he was not delivered alive only to be left on a shelf to die. He was not delivered up to his neck, punctured in the back of the skull and had his brains sucked out. My friend did not go to Tillers and wait around in a hotel for three days to deliver a dead baby.
He died naturally after life saving measures were taken.
Muriel, Maria, Luana, Carla, AK, Lauren, all: Thanks for sharing your conversion stories. They were so touching.
Hippe, AK, Mary Ann: It was also touching and unexpected to read that the little abortion survivor at Christ Hospital had anything to do with your conversion or resolve.
Bystander, Bee, all: There are 2 tracks of thought on contraceptives being discussed here.
1. Hormonal contraceptives and the IUD may cause a 5-9 day old developing baby to abort. And so I do think it is consistent for pro-lifers to include those in their list of medical abortions they oppose. Just something to think about. I realize many pro-lifers aren’t to this place yet. I didn’t start out with this position. Keep thinking and studying.
2a. I believe, philosophically, that the pro-contraceptive mentality is the root of – actually the same as – the pro-abortion mentality. Contraceptive means “anti-conception.” The user of contraceptives does not believe all children are blessings, which I’ve come to believe is unscriptural. The user of contraceptives thinks the time or situation isn’t right to conceive children, which is the abortion mentality.
2b. And backing up further, the anti-abstinence-until-marriage (comprehensive sex ed) mentality is the genesis, the seed, of both the pro-contraceptive and pro-abortion mentalities. It, too, is unscriptural, and it is also hypocritical. Those of us who are married oppose sex outside of marriage. We encourage restraint of sexual urges. Yet we teach the opposite to our children. No one can name one good thing coming from premarital sex, only bad – STDs, pregnancy (and with it abortion or handicapped child-raising and poverty and ended dreams), broken hearts, exploitation of women, coarsening of men.
The advocation of illicit sex is destroying black America. 70% of black mothers are unmarried. 35% of all abortions are of blacks, who account for only 12% of the population. (My daughter and I were on a mall elevator yesterday with 3 black mothers who had 4 children total. None of the moms wore wedding rings. I was so sad.)
Posted by: Hal at May 30, 2009 1:07 PM
No other animal in the animal kingdom kills its young.”
Posted by: muriel at May 30, 2009 9:48 AM
“Gerbils do. And look what simple google search reveals”
——————————————————-
HAL,
Thanks for correcting Muriels overstatement.
Canines will eat their own vomit and other bodily dicharges, they lay around licking themselves and sniff each others butts to get acquainted. They urinate on the things they claim as their own. They roll in dead things.
I know there are some stupid ‘humans’ that do many of the same things, but do we really want to justify deviant behavior because ‘animals’ do it out of instinct and ‘humans’ do it because they want to.
I know I ‘misssed your point’:
‘Being right’ is more important than ‘doing right’.
yor bro ken
Carla, the same thing happened to my girlfriend. She had a illness called HELLP. Austin died 4 hours after an aemergency C-section. It was no abortion.
Jill your comment was excellent and right on! It is my belief that the root of all our life problems in society today extend directly back to the acceptance of contraception and the mentality that it creates. We have lost our reverence for women, for the life-bearing capabilities we have been given, and definitely for children.
Ash your condition is rare. I am not talking about RARE medical conditions. I was commenting on the general population. The majority of abortions are done for reasons of expediency and convenience. I think most women, if they did away with the intense rationalization over their abortions, would admit that they COULD HAVE brought their baby to term and simply gone on with their lives.
What has happened is that the women’s movement has demonized adoption and therefore made adoption essentially a NON-OPTION for women. This dove-tails nicely with their mantra that no woman should be forced to carry a baby she doesn’t want to term. Pregnant with no options = abortion.
I have a prolife family doctor and I know a prolife gyn/ob. BC does not have to be an option as a treatment. It is possible to take hormonal treatments that are not BC. You don’t mention your medical condition but I had a girlfriend in high school who bled nonstop for at least a year. She was not put on BC (she was Catholic and back then they didn’t treat women with the BC pill for everything) but placed on one hormone that stopped her continuous period. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I have a close friend whose daughter had one period and never another until she was 20. She went to a Catholic ob/gyn specialist after seeing several doctors who wanted to place her on BC. This doctor put her on progesterone (I think) only pills for a very short period of time to jump start things and she’s fine now.
It may take effort and time to seek out an alternative solution but I simply am not sold on the idea that BC is THE solution for gynecological problems. The science doesn’t support it.
Yes Jill, it’s so true. 2 of the abortion clinics that I go to are right in the ghetto. 98% of the women aborting there are black. And we bring up race to them often. Martin Luther King, Alveda King {my Pastor has met her} and Margaret Sanger. A typical response? “Shut up, you’re being racist!” It looks like a fast food drive through. These women are coming in in droves. It’s such a serious problem for AA’s, and they can’t even see it.
Ash 2:26am,
You’re absolutely correct. Some conditions would also include uterine infection as well as severe fetal and /or placental anomolies that could make a full term pregnancy a serious risk.
Thankfully in this day and age life and health threatening conditions can be better diagnosed and controlled.
An example was rheumatic heart disease. At one time a woman with this condition had a 60% chance of dying during labor and delivery. With advances in medical care it was reduced to a less than one half of one percent mortality rate. Now in this day and age, who was the last person you knew with rheumatic fever?
I was watching one of those court TV shows. I think it was Judge Karen. Anyway, the black mom had 5 kids from 5 different men! She was in court for a DNA test result on the 5th man. Nope. Not his kid. Judge Karen even gave the young lady a lecture about respecting herself and sleeping around. I’m seeing this more and more often.
Mary, good morning!!!!!!!!!!!!
heather that is just so sad.
When you think about it, here is Obama, a black man whose race has been treated so badly. And yet, here he is himself holding a very discriminatory belief that some humans, in this case, unborn babies are treated as less.
I really thought that Professor George made this point quite well in his talk. He stated that either we hold that all humans are equal or we have one group that we deem less human, that will be property (sound familiar?) and be at the use of the other group.
Apparently, we as a society have not moved much beyond the racism of the past 200 years.
“No one can name one good thing coming from premarital sex,…” Posted by: Jill Stanek at May 31, 2009 7:18 AM
Millions and millions of Americans would disagree with that statement. Male and female. Young and old.
An example was rheumatic heart disease. At one time a woman with this condition had a 60% chance of dying during labor and delivery. With advances in medical care it was reduced to a less than one half of one percent mortality rate. Now in this day and age, who was the last person you knew with rheumatic fever?
Posted by: Mary at May 31, 2009 8:08 AM
Funny you should mention this! Because my mother and her sister and her brother had this illness. My mother had children and she never needed an abortion.
In the 1960’s there was no treatment for rheumatic heart disease. My mother had all her children in the 1940’s to 1960’s. For her last child, as abortion was becoming more popular, her family doctor told her she MUST have an abortion. She would undoubtedly DIE if she had this baby.
There was no way in hell my mom was gonna have the abortion. When she told her gyn/ob he comforted her by telling her she would be just fine to have the baby. He would give her the best care he could to try to bring her and the baby though safely. She had C-sections for all her children – and the old style ones too! That baby who should have been aborted – my brother is now a physicist. He stayed day and night at the hospital with my dad during my mother’s last illnesses and was with my mom when slipped into unconsciousness at death, holding her hand.
I tell you again, God has a plan for each one of us. There are few reasons, if any to kill an unborn child. Not 50 million reasons, in the last 35 years.
Hal, what are some of the good things those millions and millions mention that come from pre-marital sex?
Hi Angel,
Your mother had c-sections, sparing her labor and delivery, which likely spared her life. This may be why she had c-sections. It was the labor and delivery that most endangered the woman with rheumatic heart disease. For women in an era when c-sections were rare, who had no access to a hospital or delivered at home, or who was undiagnosed or poorly managed, the outcome was much more dire.
This disease would have been more common in your mother’s generation. My mother had diptheria and scarlett fever.
Not all women died obviously, they were just at far greater risk than the non afflicted woman.
Hal, yes. Name anything good that has come out of our sleeping around. I slept around in my wild days, and I payed a terrible price for my actions. Heartache, misery, feeling used.
Millions and millions of Americans would disagree with that statement. Male and female. Young and old.
Posted by: Hal at May 31, 2009 8:15 AM
perhaps, but for all those millions who have contracted STI’s, had abortions, birthed babies into single parent homes, had broken hearts etc I’m sure they wouldn’t agree.
And then there’s the fact that millions of men and women do not RECOGNIZE the fact that it is the sex outside of marriage that is the root many evils. ye shall know them by their fruits.
Mary I don’t understand your point.
What has rheumatic heart disease have to do with abortion and contraception today?
If a woman had rhd years ago, she had her baby and died – maybe or maybe not. I doubt many doctors in the 1800’s or early 1900’s aborted women for this condition since they likely didn’t even know what the disease was in the first place or it was undiagnosed. The woman died in childbirth and that was it.
In the 1950’s and 60’s a woman could be brought through pregnancy with rhd with good care. In the 1970’s there was a treatment available for this disease.
heather that is just so sad.
When you think about it, here is Obama, a black man whose race has been treated so badly. And yet, here he is himself holding a very discriminatory belief that some humans, in this case, unborn babies are treated as less.
I really thought that Professor George made this point quite well in his talk. He stated that either we hold that all humans are equal or we have one group that we deem less human, that will be property (sound familiar?) and be at the use of the other group.
Apparently, we as a society have not moved much beyond the racism of the past 200 years.
Posted by: angel at May 31, 2009 8:12 AM——————————————————————————————————————— Angel, indeed it is. We have a BLACK HISTORY MONTH every February. Perhaps more AA’s should be teaching young black women about promiscuity and teaching black men how to “man up” and take care of their kids. Today you hear a lot of thes young black men boasting, “I’ve got 5 babies from 5 different baby mama!” sorry. That’s how they say it here!
And I cringe every time I hear it, b/c you know they arent paying child support. The women are on welfare. It all goes back to feminism and “free love.”
Emma:
After reading Jill’s post do you think you are pro-life?
And I cringe every time I hear it, b/c you know they arent paying child support. The women are on welfare. It all goes back to feminism and “free love.”
Posted by: heather at May 31, 2009 9:02 AM
——————————————–
heather:
Actually it goes back to the Garden of Eden as described in the book of Genesis.
Because Eve manipulated her husband, she will struggle in domestic life. Difficulty will plague her role as a mother (multiplied pain in childbirth) and as a wife (marital conflict with her husband).
The phrase “Your desire shall be for your husband” refers not to sweet marital communion but to ongoing struggle (the identical Hebrew phrase appears in Cain’s struggle with sin in Genesis 4:7). The battle of the sexes had begun.
By eating the forbidden food, Adam abandoned his headship over his wife and his dominion over the creation. Besides domestic struggle, Adam will now struggle to eat, and his labor will include toil. The domain of man is cursed and will no longer yield its fruit easily.
In contrast to the serpent’s promise that “you will be like God,” Adam is told he was made from dirt and to dirt he will return in death. He was initially to have dominion over the ground, but now the ground will resist and finally devour him. God’s promise that “you shall surely die” was tragically true. He died instantly in terms of his spiritual relationship with God, and he began to die physically.
While the choice to “take and eat” ultimately plunged mankind into the darkness of death, by offering Himself as a sacrifice on the cross the Son of God freely provided new life for us, if we will but “take and eat” (John 6:47–51; Matthew 26:26–29).
As one writer stated, “Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that some day he can end evil and suffering without ending us.”
From eternity past, God ordained a plan, knowing full well that He would become the chief victim of that plan to purchase our redemption and our eternal good. To God be the glory!
Hal,8:15 Jill’s statement about nothing good coming from premarital sex is rather ironic. Isn’t her own child a “good thing”?
we are not saying the baby is a bad thing BS, but we are saying that it’s not good to bring a baby into a single parent situation. Social science has proven beyond a doubt now that children in single parent, co-habitating, divorced and remarriage homes do not do as well as their peers in a stable two parent home.
I am certain Jill believes her child a blessing.
“And backing up further, the anti-abstinence-until-marriage (comprehensive sex ed) mentality is the genesis, the seed, of both the pro-contraceptive and pro-abortion mentalities.”
Jill,
Thanks for your excellent comments. To those who will say abstinence is an extreme view based in religion and doesn’t work in the real world. I’d say, “don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it”. The benefits are real.
Hi Bystander,
Please be charitable.
Hisman, Jills comment doesn’t change anything she has said about what it means to be part of this new majority that is pro life. So, I can still call myself pro life. I can call myself pro choice too. I’m part of that majority of people who think abortion should be allowed in some cases but not all. It kind of makes the label meaningless, which might be a good thing for working together.
My husband, who’s been a Christian his whole life, and always pro-life, said it was amazing when some of his partners worked the case of a young woman who was shot in the stomach by her estranged husband/boyfriend. He was literally trying to kill her, but instead, her unborn baby saved her by taking the bullet. She was like 6-7 months pregnant. He said these guys were shocked, to see the BABY she delivered. They were all under the false assumption that it was ‘just a blog of tissue’. How can anyone go through school and not know the facts of prenatal developement? I just don’t get it. From what my husband said, that incident alone changed the mind of more than one person that day. The case also went to court, and the man was convicted of manslaughter for the death of the child! *the woman lived*
Just noticed I wrote ‘blog’ instead of ‘blob’…don’t know how to edit, sorry.
Janet:
Asking BS to be charitable is like asking a pro-abort to be a pro-lifer.
Oh, that’s Emma, a pro-life, pro-choicer. Too bad dead babies can’t protest Emma’s oxymoronic stance.
Emma:
Your assertion that you are a pro-life pro-choicer actaully is an insult to the post’s questions:
If you are a convert to the pro-life position, what prompted your change of heart?
And if you were once pro-life and are now “pro-choice,” same question.
The questions assume there’s a big, big difference between being pro-life and pro-choice.
Please take your abortion hacking propaganda somewhere else.
Angel 8:41am
My point is that conditions that at one time threatened a pregnant woman’s life either no longer exist or can be better managed. RHD, which at one time was a virtual death sentence for a pregnant woman came to mind. Through the years better diagnosis and medical management drastically reduced the mortality rate. Diabetes is another example.
Because of this it rarely comes down to the life of the mother vs that of the baby. Tragically, one can still encounter situations where the mother’s life is at risk and abortion may indeed be the only alternative.
OK Emma:
Based on your “I can be a pro-life, pro-choicer tripe”, let’s do it your way> Let’s legislate extreme restrictions on abortion that reflect current poll numbers that only include those abortions that should be “popularly” approved under certain circumstances like rape, incest, etc. I mean doesn’t the majority determine morality in your world? After all, according to your goddess complex, are we not gods unto ourselves?
However, for the purpose of “common” ground that would eliminate about 95 to 98% of abortions so I’m willing to go along for now. How about it?
Now, I’m waiting to see how you will contort this to include life of the mother, etc., etc., etc. so you can make abortion a “choice” under any circumstance but still claim to be pro-life. Ah, back to 98& again and another 50,000,000 murdered innocent children.
Your full of it.
All abortions are murder.
As far as abortion being used as birth control, I disagree. Contraception is what led me to abortion. At 20 I moved in with my fiance and thought the responsible thing was to go on the pill. Six months later I went back to the clinic, I found out I was 3 months pregnant. That same clinic that was selling the b.c. pills told me my baby would have abnormalities because of the pills and the responsible thing to do was to abort. No other counseling was given, just scare tactics. My fiance was nervous and wanted the abortion. When I was left at the mill that morning, women were telling me “not to worry, it was their 4th abortion, it was not a big deal.” I changed my mind and asked to use the phone. The worker got aggravated and told me it was normal to have doubts, that they were ready for me and I had to go to another room. I cried and begged to have more time and to just use the phone. Instead the doctor came in and I got an I.V. and the next thing I knew it was over and my baby was gone. So much for “choice” and safe abortion facilities where women and their “choice” are respected. I was treated like a piece of cattle.
As far as the Catholic church wanting to ban contraception, whoever stated that it was false. The church has the best kept answer to the root of the problem. For married couples we the beautiful art of natural family planning that fosters love, respect, communication and an appreciation for the gift of fertility. Couples learn to accept each other and not put the women through the harmful effects of toxic hormonal substances. And with it there is no polluting of the environment. It encourages ecological breastfeeding to temporarily cease the menses. It is mother natures healthy way of promoting the family.
So I reverted back to the Catholic church when I realised it was the one church that truly looked out for the dignity, respect and health of women. The one and only time I was on birth control in my ignorant youth ended in abortion. Makes you wonder… the oxymoronic parallels of condoms/HIV and contraceptives/unplanned pregnancy. As many condoms as there are in Africa, the HIV rate keeps going up. As many contraceptives as there are available on the shelves, the abortion rates do not go significantly down. To me, tha Catholic church teachings have been right all along.
If we were not compromising our fertility through hormonal contraceptives and abortion, maybe there wouldn’t be this surge of IVF and fertility mills where women are giving birth to many babies. I now understand why the church also teaches against the artificial manufacturing of babies. We need to start addressing the childs dignity and rights. Babies are gifts, not commodities to be manmade and purchased and then selectively reduced when there are too many in the womb….thats another story.
Suzi @ 10:47 AM: Amazing isn’t it, how many are ignorant about the development of a child that far into pregnancy?
muriel: good points @ 11:27 AM, especially about IVF being used so much. Don’t forget the manufacturing of “designer babies” which are screened for “defects” and then destroyed if they dare have any.
Emma:
You are simply insulting.
Bystander said: “I do blame “pro lifers” for the higher abortion rate in the US, double western Europe, because it is the far religious right “pro lifers” who want to ban contraceptives and sex education.”
The reason prolifers are against HORMONAL contraceptives is because breakthrough ovulation can and does still occur, which results in miscarriage due to the hostile environment created by the drugs. This makes hormonal contraceptives abortifacient. A chemical form of abortion, just like the morning-after-pill and RU-486.
Tragically, one can still encounter situations where the mother’s life is at risk and abortion may indeed be the only alternative.
Posted by: Mary at May 31, 2009 11:16 AM
Except that abortion is NOT a treatment. It is never morally permissable to abort a baby even if the mother’s life is in danger.
It is permissible to treat the mother to save her life as long as that is the primary intention of the treatment. Abortion would likely not be that treatment. Removing her uterus might be, in which case the child would most definitely die. Chemotherapy might be a treatment to save a mother’s life.
If the secondary result is that the baby dies during efforts to save the mother, unfortunately that is the sad result.
I just read that George Tiller has been shot and killed at church?
anyone? help?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124379172024269869.html
Posted by: angel at May 31, 2009 1:10 PM
Yes. Dr. Tiller – a law-abiding American – was shot to death this morning in a terrorist act.
I hope Janet Napalitano and the Department of Homeland Security is ALL OVER THIS.
Bin Laden-like violence will not be tolerated in this country.
Yes. Dr. Tiller – a law-abiding American – was shot to death this morning in a terrorist act.
WRONG. Tiller was NOT a law abiding citizen. In fact, he was EXACTLY the opposite. He violated the law on numerous occasions and was aided and abetted in his law breaking by people in government and the judiciary. This resulted in an intolerable situation where there was severe justice for peacable prolife protesters and incredible leniency for abortionist. Abortion is simply unjust. The abortion laws are unjust and there is no law that will change this unless there is a law that recognizes abortion as the murder of an innocent human being.
so what are you proposing Laura. That we go out and arrest Jill Stanek, Terry Randall, Robert George and 70 percent of American citizens?
Wow. Well after hearing this maybe I am pro-choice. Obviously I’m not hardcore enough to be pro-life, according to angel, because of my belief that hormonal birth control is not abortion. Now this. Really, I think it’s best if I distance myself from the “movement.”
I still believe abortion is wrong and should be illegal, I am just going to be avoiding prolife websites and the sidewalk counselors in my town for a while.
Angel 1:06PM
You’re splitting hairs here. We can be thankful that very rarely does it come down to the life of the mother versus that of the child.
In certain tragic situations, one I know of personally, inducing an abortion has been necessary to save the mother’s life. This was a situation where there were such severe fetal and placental anomolies that delivering a full term pregnancy either naturally or by c-section could be fatal.
Another was a woman who had developed toxemia of pregnancy in her first trimester, an aberration in itself, resulting in blood pressure that was so out of control it threatened her life. EVERY effort way made to treat the mother before an abortion was finally performed to control the BP and spare her injury or death.
Uterine infection is another situation. If antibiotic therapy is unsuccesful, abortion may be necessary as a treatment to control the infection and save the mother’s life.
I’m sorry to say Angel these situations can and do occur and abortion will be the necessary treatment.
all we are saying Bee is that hormonal BC CAN cause abortions.
If a woman does not wish to participate in abortion and believes herself to be truly prolife than intellectual honesty demand she recognize this fact and act accordingly.
I realize that for some this might mean lifestyle changes but this then makes for a sort of freedom. And a healthier view of a woman’s body.
Laura 1:30PM
Law abiding citizens are gunned down by the thousands in this country every year. I consider these terrorists acts as some are doing nothing more than sitting in their homes or running errands, or yes, attending a house of worship.
I hope Janet Napolitano and the Dept. of Homeland Security are ALL OVER THIS.
Bin Laden-like violence will not be tolerated in this country. Since when? Tell that to victims of drive-by shootings.
and Mary I am telling you that it is not morally permissible to abort the child. NEVER.
I may be wrong here but my understanding is that one cannot directly kill a baby to save the mothers life.
And it is you who are splitting hairs since these situations are so unusual and rare (again laws should not be made for “hard cases”) that they would not result in 50 million abortions.
I simply don’t agree with you Mary. Sorry.
Mary,
It would break my friend’s heart if anyone told her she had an abortion after her pregnancy threatened her life. She loved her son and he died when they delivered him to save her life. So sad.
Angel,
Fine, believe what you want. I’m not arguing these “hard cases” justify 50 million abortions. If you have read my past posts you will be well aware that hospitals have always been, even prior to Roe v Wade, legally able to treat any pregnant woman who’s life or health is threatened by a pregnancy. Legalizing abortion was not necessary for this reason, it was just a great emotional ploy.
If you think the women should have been allowed to die in these circumstances, or if faced with the similar situation you would have chosen to die, so be it.
BTW, the baby with the severe fetal and placental anomolies had absolutely no chance of survival outside the womb and the mother’s ability to have more children, along with her life, was preserved.
Carla 1:47PM
These are truly wrenching and heartbreaking situations. Sadly they occur and very painful decisions must be made. I understand the case I mentioned with the fetal anomolies was very wrenching for both the mother and the hospital staff.
And Carla that would be heartbreaking because it would be also untrue.
BTW, the baby with the severe fetal and placental anomolies had absolutely no chance of survival outside the womb and the mother’s ability to have more children, along with her life, was preserved.
Posted by: Mary at May 31, 2009 1:54 PM
this is NOT a reason for abortion – you cannot abort the child simply because he has NO chance of survival. It is not our prerogative to take this life.
Angel 2:05
Please, the baby was aborted to save the mother’s life! A normal full term delivery would have been impossible and a c-section would have been very dangerous, very possibly fatal.
Even is the mother survived she may have lost her capacity to have more children.
Let me explain the situation. The fetus and placenta were fused together. The baby lacked certain internal organs and the gender could not even be determined. Obviously, there was absolutely no chance for survival. Obviously the mother was at serious risk as the fetus and placenta continued to grow. She was induced at 5 months gestation.
A reproductive aberration, very tragic and heartbreaking. How would endangering the mother’s life and future reproductive capacity have been of any benefit here?
Mary was the baby alive? If the fetus and the placenta were fused was the baby alive. Please send me something to actually verify this situation.
It is immoral to kill a baby to save the life of the mother. the intent must be to save thelife of the mother. This is what I am telling you.
I would like to read about this so-called situation. What is the medical term for it?
Angel,
This occured several years ago at a local hospital in my home town and there is no way I could legally obtain any documentation. I know of no way I can verify this situation but if you check out OB/GYN books, you find some pretty horrendous examples of what can go awry with human reproduction.
The intent was to save the mother. Tha’t what I am telling you. Continuing the pregnancy would have eventually proven life threatening.
The fetus was alive so long as it was in mother. At least at that time. Whether seperation occured at 5 months or 9 months, the fetus was doomed the moment it left the womb.
I have no clue what this is called or if its even called anything. Check OB/GYN books or the internet.
Mary you can bet I will confer with my prolife Catholic gyn/ob about this. I’m betting the “treatment” was not abortion.
Peace.
Posted by: angel at May 31, 2009 2:44 PM
——
angel – it’s not immoral to remove the child to save the mother’s life. It’s called the principle of double-effect. You are not aborting the child -you are saving the life of the mother. The side effect is, the child dies, but it is better to save one than to lose both. Ectopic pregnancies are clear cases where such surgery is needed.
Such double effect situations are very rare (1 in 18,000 births), but they do happen.
Let’s be clear – this is not elective abortion. This is not a matter of choice at all. It’s a medical necessity where life-risk of both is imminent. Very pro-life doctors hate these situations, and the good ones will monitor very, very closely and only present that option at the very latest. Also, this surgery is not for fetal abnormalities, but genuine life-threat, in some very rare cases, you might find that what you have.
Some women carry their child during cancer and give the child life at the expense of their own – that is out of self sacrificial love choice. I personally know a young lady who’s mom gave her life at her own expense. The mom is with Jesus, and the girl looks forward to being reunited with her one day.
When most talk about being pro-choice, they are not referring to the medically necessary situations, because it’s almost certain that if the mother dies, the child will too, if it’s not late term. There’s nothing elective in these, so maybe you want to consider that.
God’s grace and forgiveness is there for those who put their faith in Christ. Sometimes we are given trials like the Binding of Isaac where we must pour ourselves onto Him.
I wouldn’t consider induction to save the life of the mother to be abortion. I’ve known several people who, due to different life threatening prenatal conditions, had emergency inductions to save their lives. The babies were given medical treatment. Some of them did not survive the induction, some lived for a few months in the NICU before passing away, and some survived and are now home with their parents. These situations are not even in the same realm as elective abortion, as there was no harmful intent towards the babies. I don’t know what condition Mary is describing, but it doesn’t sound like any harmful intent was directed towards the baby.
Angel, I hate to say it, but you are sounding unreasonable by not giving Mary the benefit of the doubt and asking her to prove this situation to you with documentation. It is obvious to me that Mary’s position is one that honors the right to life for both mother and child and she has carefully explained certain situations where medical intervention is necessary but unfortunately results in the loss of the child. I don’t see the problem here…
Hi Chris,
Thank you so much. Your post is so true. Yes indeed a PL physician can find him/herself in a very difficult situation and yes there are medical situations that may call for very difficult and heartbreaking decisions.
There is no way we will ever live in a world where abortion will never be necessary to save a mother’s life. We can only try to make it as rare as possible.
In this situation the mother was devastated. This was definitely not her choice. Even the hospital staff had a very difficult time with it.
It was determined that aborting the baby at this point was considerably safer than waiting. Its not like waiting would improve the baby’s chances. There was no possibility of survival outside the womb. There was the possibility of protecting the mother and that was done.
Thank you again for your support.
Hi Janette,
Thank you for your excellent post and support.
His Man, thank you for your post! Point taken.
Posted by: Mary at May 31, 2009 5:42 PM
——-
Mary – while both you and I understand what we are discussing in terms of life-threats, we have to be careful with words. The word abortion has become so semantically loaded in terms of intent (where destruction of the child is the principle intent) that it has lost the prior medical meaning. That’s why I stuck to phrases, such as “removal of the child”.
Hi Chris 6:06PM
Point taken, thank you.
Just to give a different voice to this: I’ve been pro-choice for as long as I can remember. My parents raised me that way, and when they converted to Catholicism, my viewpoint continued unchanged. I left the church due to that and other reasons.
Much like Hal, I cannot conceive of a future where I would be religious again. I cannot conceive of a future where I would be pro-life.
Human Abstract: >>Much like Hal, I cannot conceive of a future where I would be religious again.