(Prolifer)ations 11-9-10
by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN
- ProLifeBlogs posts good news from Catholic Fire regarding the closing of the “unlicensed, uninspected” Lawrence, KS Planned Parenthood, located near the U of KS campus, which provided medical services with no doctor on site.
- Lisa Graas discusses NJ Rep. Chris Smith’s legislation that would “put in place a total and permanent ban on taxpayer-funded abortion.”
- Bound for Life posts a CNN report on the increase in “tweeting” about abortion since the election. This is an effort by pro-abortion feminists who see social networking as a way to destigmatize abortion:
- The Lost Generations digests the recent loss of CO’s personhood amendment, what was learned, and how to stay encouraged and continue the fight.
- Ethika Politika writes an excellent post disputing the feminist notion that being more manly is the goal instead of celebrating and appreciating one’s femininity.
- Generations for Life reminds us many people may be pro-life in theory but not in practice. It is up to us to invite them to an event, prayer vigil, etc. Nothing beats a personal invitation to become a part of the movement.
Nov.09, 2010 3:30 pm |
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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 believe that Chris Smith’s legislation will get nowhere.
“…many people may be pro-life in theory but not in practice…” – exactly what I’ve said. Once they are faced with a certain situation, people will do what they feel is best for them.
““…many people may be pro-life in theory but not in practice…” – exactly what I’ve said. Once they are faced with a certain situation, people will do what they feel is best for them.”
Not only that, but many people who personally find abortion immoral or objectionable don’t want it to be banned or unreasonably restricted, which is obviously the goal of this organized “pro-life” movement.
Wow, way to not read the article! Maybe you two should try reading what it was about; it’s NOT an article about pro-life activists who abort their children. The article is about being passively pro-life. People who don’t want abortion restricted are called P-R-O-C-H-O-I-C-E, not pro-life.
Wow, way to not read the article!
Not only that, but way to not read the entire bullet point! LOL!
I took the abstract idea communicated by that particular line and offered my own thoughts on it. I don’t especially care what the rest of the article says, or even if what I responded to is not what the author was trying to argue. It’s an opportunity to make a point and I made my point.
The bullet point was read and understood. The point of it was that there are folks who are anti-choice but don’t campaign or publicly espouse their position. There is a call for them to become ‘active’.
The point I was making in response is that while they claim to be anti-choice, when push comes to shove they will choose abortion if it is their best option. There is also the fact that many are not ‘active’ because they either don’t like the way the campaign is conducted, can’t be bothered making the effort, or only really claim to be anti-choice because they feel pressured.
So the bottom line is that of those who are anti-choice, some will become ‘active’, some won’t and some will have abortions.
Joan, it is abundantly clear that you don’t care what anyone here says or what Jill’s site posts in terms of links to other articles. Neither of you has the slightest notion of what being pro-life is. You both seem to think that being pro-choice is the same as pro-life. Neither of you are interested in actually finding out what pro-lifers really think. This is a typical indication of the pro-abortion mentality: “It’s all about me and what I want.” If both of you think that you are going to win converts, you’d be quite mistaken. You only serve to bolster the selfish and destructive attitudes that have lead to the murder of millions of pre-born children. Because, as everyone knows, abortion is murder.
“You both seem to think that being pro-choice is the same as pro-life” – and what exactly do you base this claim on?
“Neither of you are interested in actually finding out what pro-lifers really think” – well that’s not true. We hear it from people such as yourself on a regular basis. Neither you nor I can know what ‘inactive’ anti-choicers may think, that was my point. I’d be quite interested actually.
“If both of you think that you are going to win converts, you’d be quite mistaken” – all we really need to do is stop you from winning converts. Hence my provision of accuracy where it is found wanting.
“Because, as everyone knows, abortion is murder” – this is not an axiom, nor is it true.
“Neither of you has the slightest notion of what being pro-life is. You both seem to think that being pro-choice is the same as pro-life.”
Oh, no, I think I do. The only thing that the term “pro-life” alone implies is a personal aversion to the procedure. People who want it banned are taking an extreme position that is above and beyond a simple personal rejection of it for moral reasons. Thus, it’s perfectly possible to be both pro-choice (which only implies support for the continued legality of abortion) and pro-life (which only implies personal disapproval of the procedure). I don’t know why this is so hard to grasp for you, or why abortion is apparently the one political issue where you can’t disapprove of something without wanting it made illegal.
“all we really need to do is stop you from winning converts.”
No worries there. The vast majority of people, even those who are personally uncomfortable with abortion, don’t want it banned. See, most people are not self-righteous busy-bodies who demand that the law perfectly conform to their moral beliefs.
No one wants to pay for child murder. At least no one with morals and common sense (and that doesn’t mean they have to be a Christian to have morals). Especially since 98% of abortions are done for convenience (less than 1% are for rape and incest).
“No one wants to pay for child murder”
1. Abortion is not ‘child murder’.
2. Pro-choicers don’t have a great problem with paying for abortion.
3. there are many things in society that we do not agree with or even detest yet we are forced to pay one way or another.
What happened to my daughter in my abortion, cran? What happened to my child?
“3. there are many things in society that we do not agree with or even detest yet we are forced to pay one way or another.”
True enough. People who morally oppose war still pay taxes that are used to fund the military. People who oppose the death penalty (in states that have it) pay for that with their state taxes. The argument that something that people morally oppose should not receive government funding really has no legs. I think the only question of whether or not abortion should be federally subsidized is whether or not doing so is sound policy, which is a totally different argument.
there’s a difference between money for the military, which is there to defend our country, and the killing of an innocent pre born child. Military funding is necessary. Defense funding is necessary. Abortion is not.
You tell me Carla, you’re the one complaining. You’ve put it in your language. In my language I would say: “Your female fetus was terminated which meant that you did not have a baby daughter at the end of 9 months gestation.” It’s subjective.
There are unnecessary things which I oppose which I am still forced to pay for Liz.
In my complaining language??
Oh, ok.
My daughter was killed in my abortion.
Abortion is child murder.
If there really were “no worries” Cranium and Joan wouldn’t be here, almost daily, trying to keep up with us. They are indeed worried. But fear not, you are both in my prayers and the prayers of many people. Someday you will heal from this dreadful mental illness that compels you to support the murder of tiny innocent children.
cranium
November 9th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
“No one wants to pay for child murder”
1. Abortion is not ‘child murder’.
2. Pro-choicers don’t have a great problem with paying for abortion.
3. there are many things in society that we do not agree with or even detest yet we are forced to pay one way or another.
Hm…on the face of it, this would seem to be a good point. But let’s think about it.
People often bring up here the fact that a pacifist might be forced to pay the wages of soliders, through their taxes. Certainly this does occur. So why shouldn’t a pro-lifer be forced to fund abortions? What is the difference?
Soldiers protect everyone, even pacifists. Their actions have a public benefit. Because a soldier’s wages get paid, the pacifist’s right to complain about having to pay them is protected. And without making every citizen who objects to paying soldiers wear an armband designating which folks didn’t pay them and they are therefore not obligated to protect (a situation which would set people’s backs up–quite rightly–about three different, major ways…off the top of my head), then the benefit must be assumed by everyone, therefore, so must the expense. Public benefit = public cost.
Abortion has no public benefit. None. “My body, my choice.” That’s what you folks are always saying, right? So, by your own argument abortion has no public benefits at all, and you therefore have no grounds, whatsoever, to ask that the public assume the cost. Your responsibility, your money. And since pro-lifers see it as nothing short of institutionalized child murder, then there really isn’t any reason you should argue with us on this point. So…yeah! Common ground! No public money goes to fund abortions!
I did not say complaining language Carla.
Carla, you have a problem with the fact that you had a termination. I do not have a problem with the fact that you had a termination. Therefore your language is apt to be more emotive and subjective than mine. I could say “I forgive you for having an abortion” but I don’t see that you need to be forgiven for having done so.
Would you want to know what I consider to be a mental illness?
Do you have many dreams at night ninek?
You said I complain. This is a prolife blog, Cran. My voice is just one of thousands that regret their abortions. Every time you yap about abortion not being murder I will be here to say something. I will refute what you say with my experience. I promise.
Are you ok? You are getting to be a tad snarky with me. Hmmm. It would probably be easier for you if I just shut up. But that won’t be happening.
It is just so much easier for you to think that I have a problem or a mental illness than to entertain the thought that MAYBE just MAYBE abortion hurts women and men.
Great. Now I have to muck the stalls.
Are the mothers of MADD mentally ill?
Is Lacy Peterson’s mom mentally ill?
Are mothers who have lost a child and now fight for legislation in their honor mentally ill?
Are mothers who have lost children to miscarriage, stillbirth or early infant death and now share their experience to help others mentally ill?
I see no difference in what they are doing and what I am doing.
My daughter has a name. It is Aubrey.
Abortion is genocide.
One day, all who advocate child killing will shudder in shame and horror when they fully realize how heinous and evil the crimes were which they supported.
“Soldiers protect everyone, even pacifists. Their actions have a public benefit.”
That’s certainly arguable. The United States, after all, has not officially declared war since World War II. It isn’t difficult to argue that few if any of the United States’ recent military ventures have had any value in protecting the country or its citizens. Furthermore, there is a distinction between paying the wages of soldiers and funding elective wars and the capitalistic military-industrial mechanisms that drive them. Regardless, paying taxes for defense spending is just one example of many where public money is used to fund things that some people find objectionable.
“Abortion has no public benefit. None. “My body, my choice.” That’s what you folks are always saying, right? So, by your own argument abortion has no public benefits at all, and you therefore have no grounds, whatsoever, to ask that the public assume the cost. Your responsibility, your money”
“My body, my choice” is a (rather simplified) ethical justification for abortion. That doesn’t imply that it offers no public benefit, and in fact it would be easy to make a persuasive argument that funding abortion does offer a public benefit, namely by considering the socio-economic demographics of women availing themselves of their right to choose and concluding that a one-time abortion fee is considerably less expensive than the costs to society associated with the crime and poverty that characterizes economically disadvantaged persons.
On the other hand, those of us who have already confronted the iniquity of our hearts; who have knelt at the foot of the Cross and have received mercy and grace from our Beloved Savior; who rely on His mercy and grace daily to continually cleanse us from our sin will rejoice that all of our sins which we have committed will be washed away by the Blood of the Lamb.
My sisters of Operation Outcry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1QirWiMzic&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6xpBIgsWyE&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yjvNaBAKgg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K609ZLT8xsM&feature=related
Amen, Ed!!
I have no need, desire or expectation that you ‘shut up’ Carla :-)
I did not allude to you having a mental illness at all. My question relating to mental illness was not related to abortion at all.
You obviously do have a problem with the fact that you had an abortion though. But a problem does not necessarily constitute a mental illness.
Yes abortion does hurt some people. So does not being able to have one when required.
“Abortion has no public benefit. None. “My body, my choice.” That’s what you folks are always saying, right? So, by your own argument abortion has no public benefits at all” – what a leap of logic! Talk about tying two distinct factors into one! Your proposition is invalid.
I call it regret. I would give anything to go back 20 years and tell those at the clinic that lied to me to go to H***. But I can’t. So I carry on.
I have been forgiven and set free by the Only One who it really matters to. He knows my heart and why I continue to tell my story.
Goodnight, cran.
I did not allude to you having a mental illness at all. My question relating to mental illness was not related to abortion at all.
You obviously do have a problem with the fact that you had an abortion though. But a problem does not necessarily constitute a mental illness.
Cranium,
Your comment about mental illness had no lead in other than your response to Carla regarding abortion and wanting/needing forgiveness for it. You can hardly blame Carla for taking it that you meant that she was mentally ill or something to that effect. Next time I recommend you use a lead in or give an explanation that leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind what you really were alluding to.
… a one-time abortion fee is considerably less expensive than the costs to society associated with the crime and poverty that characterizes economically disadvantaged persons.
Wow. Just… wow.
I have been forgiven and set free by the Only One who it really matters to. He knows my heart and why I continue to tell my story.
Amen, Carla. Carry on.
ninek said “Someday you will heal from this dreadful mental illness…”
My questions to ninek were “Would you want to know what I consider to be a mental illness?” and “Do you have many dreams at night ninek?”
It was a response to ninek not Carla. Maybe I should have used greater spacing between my responses to two people in the one comment.
Besides which, it was a question, not a comment. So to infer that I was a having a dig at Carla is a might defensive.
So abortion is only about economics? A human dead and now we don’t have his/her expenses? Gee – with that kind of mindset – ANYONE who is deemed a burden – in a family, in a business, in a hospital, and in a society can be at risk of being on the wrong side of the economic equation.
And that is what happens when we devalue a segment of humanity, for ‘our convenience.’
Solving social problems should not include the ‘convenient disappearance’ of a certain segment of the human family.
abortion = human rights’ violation
Forced gestation = human rights violation
I can’t force anyone to gestate any more than I can force them to breathe or defy the law of gravity.
Supporting abortion is a mental illness. It is an example of the human species turning on itself. Humans are naturally a cooperative species of mammals. Abortion is a violent reaction to the natural call to be cooperative. It is unhealthy. Promoting it is unhealthy. It’s very simple. (What dreams have to do with it is anyone’s guess. There was a dream debate on another thread about fetal development.)
Besides which, it was a question, not a comment. So to infer that I was a having a dig at Carla is a might defensive.
Cranium,
Comment, question…the point is moot as is whether or not I was being defensive.
All I was suggesting was you clarifying what you said/typed/posted/or whatever else you want to call it.
I can’t force anyone to gestate any more than I can force them to breathe or defy the law of gravity.
Ninek–
I absolutely loved this comment.
Forced gestation = human rights violation
Cranium–
Come on…who said anything about forcing a pre-born baby to gestate? We’re talking about standing up for the rights of the pre-born baby to gestate in the first place. Nobody’s FORCING them to do it. When a human pre-born baby is conceived and goes on developing within the mother’s womb it stands to reason he/she is alive otherwise he/she wouldn’t gestate. But we can’t force anyone to do this. It’s something that either happens or it doesn’t.
HOWEVER…
Abortion forces an end to the baby’s life because in order to stop the developmental process said pre-born baby must be dead and if it doesn’t happen through a miscarriage it has to be caused…abortion is what forces this to happen; thus forcing an end to the baby’s life and developmental process.
Talk about human rights! A basic human right is the right to life.
Preventing someone from terminating an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy is forced gestation.
“Supporting abortion is a mental illness.” – you would have some sound, unbiased scientific evidence for this?
“Abortion is a violent reaction to the natural call to be cooperative.” – based on what logic?
“It is unhealthy. Promoting it is unhealthy.” – again, evidence please.
“It’s very simple.” – I’ll leave that one alone ;-)
I just wondered if there was a limit to how many dreams we can have because you seem to spend so much waking time doing it I wondered if there was enough left for when you sleep – :-) (cheeky me)
Mother In Texas – look, a greater spacing plus your name at the start! I take your point. I shall endeavour to enhance the clarity of who I am addressing.
“who said anything about forcing a pre-born baby to gestate? We’re talking about standing up for the rights of the pre-born baby to gestate in the first place. Nobody’s FORCING them to do it. When a human pre-born baby is conceived and goes on developing within the mother’s womb it stands to reason he/she is alive otherwise he/she wouldn’t gestate. But we can’t force anyone to do this. It’s something that either happens or it doesn’t” – and there we have it. Fetus first, woman nowhere. You enforce gestation on the mother.
If we want both unborn children and women to have the right to life, how does it follow that we’re putting the unborn children first?
Your attitude that continuing an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy leads women “nowhere” just shows how little regard you have for them. It’s an insult to every woman who’s had an unplanned baby and gone on to accomplish her goals in life.
cranium
November 10th, 2010 at 12:15 am
Forced gestation = human rights violation
Preventing someone from terminating an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy is forced gestation.
WOW! Just WOW! There are a few thingt that are wrong with this…..
You see human rights are the fundamental rights starting with a right to life (!!!! and every single human development textbook tells us that human life begins at conception, you CAN’T argue with that, that’s when a development of a human being begins, not at birth, not at “when the mother wants it”, but at conception). And you also can’t argue that the right to life is the most essential and important one, before any other rights come into the question. Because if someone can take your life for whatever reason, all your other rights are gone too. Abortion = human right violation.
Also, what’s with “forced gestation”? There is no such thing! The only forced gestation is the one happening after rape. All other gestations happen with the consent of the mother to have sex and become pregnant, because we all know that a lot of times sex = pregnancy = baby. And by your logic whole generations after generations of people, for thousands of years had to endure “forced gestations”, because there was no abortion??? Well, you might not even be here if abortion was legal throughout the history, many of us wouldn’t be here, as somewhere along the line one of our ancestors would have made a decision to abort… I don’t know about you, but I’m VERY happy that abortion wasn’t legal then and I get to be alive, to live in this world and this time and make sure other people have that chance too.
Carla’s daughter is the exact same being as the female fetus that Carla was pregnant with at the time of her abortion. Her daughter was in the fetal stage of her development. That’s what a fetus is, the offspring of the pregnant women in the fetal stage of his or her development. Female offspring=daughter.
Forced gestation = human rights violation
So Cranium, suppose a young mother and her husband wanted a child. They both had good jobs, were able to buy a nice home and had been able to save a good chunk of their income. They tried to conceive for 4 years, went to specialists, fertility experts and finally, she woke up one morning not feeling very well, took the test and to her delight found out her child was on the way.
Was it a girl? a boy? Their friends were all so excited for them. They had a baby shower and were given many wonderful gifts including a beautiful crib, a colorful musical mobile, and three huge packages of Pampers.
Mom and Dad met regularly with their doctor and finally got their first glimpse of their new family member at 18 weeks. The heart was clearly visable and beating away. It looks like they’re having a girl! The tiny air sacs in the lungs called alveoli are beginning to form. She’ll be putting these lungs to good use in just a few months! There’s her little face! How precious! That’s the shot they’ll save for the refrigerator and scrapbook.
Mon’s body adjusts to the pregnancy fairly well. There’s some discomfort but it’s not too bad. The months fly by and it’s one week before baby’s due.
Her name is Jessica.
During the past few weeks, she’s filled out her skin with fat deposits, making her rosy and pink. She weighs about 6 ½ to 7 pounds and is about 20 inches long and her hair is about an inch long.
All of Jessica’s organs are fully developed. If she was born today, she would be ready to breathe on her own, ready for the world.
Then Dad gets some bad news. His company had been struggling. The layoffs that had been rumored were true. Fortunately, they had some money set aside. He had put out some feelers a couple weeks prior and he should be able to find work pretty quickly.
With a moniker like Cranium, you must be smart. Tell us Cranium, if this couple decided with the uncertain employment situation that this might not be the best time to bring a child into the world, would it be acceptable to kill baby Jessica or would you force the mother to complete her child’s gestation?
If you don’t think this would be ethical, when would it be an acceptable time to kill baby Jessica? 24 wks? 20 wks? Please be specific. Certainly this question is not above your pay grade.
joan
November 9th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
“My body, my choice” is a (rather simplified) ethical justification for abortion. That doesn’t imply that it offers no public benefit…
Yes, it does. If you place all the responsibility for a decision onto a person, then you remove it from the sphere of public interest. If the only person who can make this decision is a woman, then the only person who you can logically hold responsible for it is that woman. (In fact, this very line of thinking is the basis for all your horrible comments to Carla and others who express regret over their own abortions. They had a choice, right?) If abortion is a decision with which the public ought to be concerned, then the pro-life commentary on its morality is not “people concerning themselves with what doesn’t affect them” and the “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!” line is, in fact, exactly as ridiculous as we claim it is. And if if is not, then you may not ask the public to fund it.
Pick one. You can not have both.
many people may be pro-life in theory but not in practice.
That is very true. My mum for example is 100% pro life no exeptions. However, she’s not involved in the organized pro-life movement, as she lives in a village in Lithuania, doesn’t use computer and there just aren’t any abortion clinics around. However, she prays for the souls of those aborted babies and their parents. She might be called pro-life “in theory”, but at the same time, if a situation arose where she had a chance to help someone with unplanned pregnancy, she would help with all she can. So, there’s a fine line between theory and practice – we all do what we can, depending on our possibilities.
On the other hand, people who CALL themselves pro-life, but have an abortion when the unplanned pregnancy happens aren’t really pro-life, that’s a serious hypocrisy.
There is also the fact that many are not ‘active’ because they either don’t like the way the campaign is conducted, can’t be bothered making the effort, or only really claim to be anti-choice because they feel pressured.
Not exactly. Those who don’t like the way campaign is conducted – start their own campaigns, the way they think it should be done (good example the students who prepared graphic photo display about fetal development, instead of photos of aborted babies). There are many ways to fight for pro-life cause. So I think to say people aren’t active because they don’t like how it’s done – is wrong. Besides, some people aren’t obviously active, but still donate to CPC’s and pray, which all counts.
The “can’t be bothered” comment is correct to some extent. Before becoming active pro-lifer I was also “not bothered”. If someone asked me, I’d say I was “pro-life”, but I didn’t do anything. It all changed with information. Accidently (on purpose?) “Pro-life Times” got into my hands, after reading it front to back I immediately became a member of Society for Protection of Unborn Children and started doing all I can for pro-life movement. The point is – people need information. You can be against abortion “in theory”, but once you receive more information, you realize you need to do something. For example a friend I talked to during a weekend, had NO idea about existance of late-tem abortions! He had no clue whatsoever and was completely shocked to hear about them. He wasn’t pro-life, he thought that very early abortions are ok, but at the end of the conversation about how even early abortion destroys an absolutely unique human being, who will never ever exist anymore, he confessed that he didn’t think of it this way before. It’s ALL about information!
And what’s with the pressure to be “pro-life”? I didn’t get that… You can be pressured to be “pro-life” by your parents if you are a child (though a child usually is smarter than any pro-choicer and can tell you that it’s a baby growing in pregnant woman’s tummy, not a blob/fetus/parasite). But if we are talking about adults – this statement makes no sense. Young people are sure heavily pressured by media and education system to have all the sex, avoid consequences and responsibility and to abort if the child is not convenient. Haven’t heard about pressure to be “pro-life”.
one-time abortion fee is considerably less expensive than the costs to society associated with the crime and poverty that characterizes economically disadvantaged persons.
Do I understand this correctly? IF you are poor – you shouldn’t have children, because it costs too much for the society? And if you are poor, your child will grow up to be poor and a criminal?????? I mean, come on!!! This is just soo nazi! Lets kill all the poor, criminally inclined, disabled and inconvenient before they are born! Life will be SOOO much better than that! Oh yeah, and we should also force poor/disadvantaged mothers to abort, China has set such a great example! It works! Truly!
“See, most people are not self-righteous busy-bodies who demand that the law perfectly conform to their moral beliefs.”
You’re right. How dare we try to stop the killing of 4000 innocent children a day. We should mind our own business and pretend it isn’t happening.
When someone relates an experience in their lives good or bad it is up to the listener to have empathy, compassion, a listening ear. Addiction, abortion, alcoholism, divorce, death…all of us have stories to share.
The reaction I get from Cran when I speak my mind about what happened to my daughter in my abortion speaks more about him than me. :)
I can hardly imagine the friends I have telling me to get over it or stop emoting or that somehow I am wrong to share it.
I do believe the emotion I find missing on the proabort side over and over again is empathy.
Thank you, Oryx.
The universal human condition:
At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Titus 3.3-7 NIV
”Tell us Cranium, if this couple decided with the uncertain employment situation that this might not be the best time to bring a child into the world, would it be acceptable to kill baby Jessica or would you force the mother to complete her child’s gestation.”
If the couple wishes to terminate the pregnancy, that’s their decision and, thus, acceptable. The point at which the termination occurs depends on the law of the state in which they live.
“…generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Titus 3.3-7 NIV”
Ed, while you are certainly entitled to your Christian worldview, the frequent invocation of Christian scripture and beliefs, within the pro-life movment, gives it a distinctly Christian narrative. As such, I would think that it could be a turn off for those who are either secular or non-Christian some of whom who are pro-life.
“IF you are poor – you shouldn’t have children, because it costs too much for the society?”
Not at all. If you are poor, unfettered reproduction will cost YOU too much. Women/families shouldn’t have more children than they can afford especially now that welfare programs are being scaled back. For poor families, too many children is just another stressor in an already stressful life. Having to support a large family means that a poor family will, most likely, remain poor. The social indicators for crime and dysfunction are higher in areas with poverty. And that’s not to say that all poor families are dysfunctional and all rich families are stable. It’s just so much harder for those living in poverty. And if a woman/family is on public assistance, the public cost of an abortion is far less than the outlay for a child born in poverty with a limited support system.
Cranium, you make me laugh! I thought of Bill Clinton “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…” when you said you did NOT say Carla was complaining. Cranium, its in black and white on my computer screen. You DID.
Carla is not complaining. She is honoring Aubrey. She is warning other women. She is speaking TRUTH. Would you tell John Walsh from America’s Most Wanted to “stop complaining” too when he catches bad guys to honor the memory of his murdered son Adam?
And Cranium, please answer Ed’s question. I would like to know if also if you would support a woman’s abortion 1 week before her due date or if you would FORCE her to GESTATE for one more week.
Here’s what you’re all trying to pretend isn’t real- the desperate lengths that women WILL go to in order to end a pregnancy when abortion is made illegal.
http://www.lifeandlibertyforwomen.org/gerri_twerdy_santoro.html
I find THIS a lot more frightening than any of the (TOTALLY FAKE!!!) pictures of “aborted fetuses” promoted by the anti-choice movement.
Those of us who favor reproductive justice/abortion rights/pro-choice lack empathy, hmmm?
Where is YOUR empathy to the (living, breathing, mothering, wife-ing, daughter-ing, sister-ing, working, singing,…) women that illegal abortion would kill?
SOOOOO many of the arguments that I see here have a “well, those dirty wh***s shouldn’t have been having sex in the first place” tinge to them. So maybe that’s it? That those dirty, sex-having women don’t DESERVE empathy???
The simple fact is this: Women cannot exercise their full rights as citizens (including THEIR right to life) when they do not have full control over their own reproduction, including abortion.
@Carla:
I’m sorry that you regret your abortion. That really sucks. Most women, however, do not feel like you do- this is all Cranium pointed out.
For some of THEIR testimony, see http://www.imnotsorry.net/category/im-not-sorry/
In fact, the most commonly reported emotion after abortion is RELIEF. In addition, the strongest predictors for experiencing guilt and other emotional/psychological distress are 1) pre-abortion emotional/psychological distress and 2) a woman’s social support network (whether its filled with judgmental types or supportive types).
Also, from a third person perspective, I think your reaction to Cranium’s response speaks volumes. I just re-read every post between you, and NOWHERE in any of them did Cranium say that you should “get over it” or that you were wrong to share. What Cranium DID point out is that YOUR experience is not every woman’s (and the reality, as I mentioned earlier, that your experience is atypical, according to studies using systematic empirical observation, not some YouTube videos), and that many women are ALSO hurt by NOT being able to have a needed abortion.
@Sydney:
“Cranium, you make me laugh! I thought of Bill Clinton “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…” when you said you did NOT say Carla was complaining. Cranium, its in black and white on my computer screen. You DID.”
I read the quote “I did not say complaining language Carla.” which Cranium did NOT say.
“Carla is not complaining.”
Actually, she is.
You all seem to be reading the additional meaning “inappropriately” into the word “complaining”. To complain is to express dissatisfaction… is that not what Carla was doing???
See, words have MEANINGS.
“She is honoring Aubrey. She is warning other women. She is speaking TRUTH. Would you tell John Walsh from America’s Most Wanted to “stop complaining” too when he catches bad guys to honor the memory of his murdered son Adam?”
Again, Cranium never told her to “stop complaining”.
Cranium’s response was clearly intended to deflect Carla’s accusatory question demanding that Cranium give name to HER experience of her abortion. Carla regrets her abortion.
That really sucks.
But that is not a very convincing argument for or against abortion.
maiathebegrrl– you know what I find frightening? The fact that illegal or legal abortion still kills women. Just ask Eileen Smith if she is grateful for legal abortion. Her daughter Laura Hope Smith died in a LEGAL abortion in 2008. And there are many other women who have died recently due to “safe and legal” abortion. But keep on deluding yourself. Abortion is evil. Legal or illegal it kills women and children. It tears relationships apart. It breaks hearts. Abortion is dangerous no matter what legislation says “oh its okay!” The solution is to get rid of abortion and find other ways to deal with problem pregnancies, not try and find a way to make abortion “safer”. Its not. It never will be. Abortion will always be like an acid eating away at all who touch it.
I have friends who had abortions. At one point they would have said “The abortion didn’t hurt me”. So your link to “I’m not sorry” doesn’t prove anything. I want to have updates on all those women a year from now, ten years from now, 50 years from now. Most women who abort will at one time or another defend their choice. Does that mean that ten years from now their defenses won’t crumble and they won’t be anguished over their choice? I have seen too many post-abortive mom’s testimonies. They share a common thread… at one time they all insisted their abortion didn’t bother them.
I’m sorry everyone, I left the kibble bag open. I’m going to get my shovel now.
I haven’t thanked my mom for a few threads: Thanks Mom, you are my hero!
maiathebegrrl…. this is what Cranium said
November 9th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
You tell me Carla, you’re the one complaining. You’ve put it in your language. In my language I would say: “Your female fetus was terminated which meant that you did not have a baby daughter at the end of 9 months gestation.” It’s subjective. There are unnecessary things which I oppose which I am still forced to pay for Liz.
He said she she was complaining. Read the whole post before you argue with me over that. He said it. Its there in black and white if you care to check.
“Where is YOUR empathy to the (living, breathing, mothering, wife-ing, daughter-ing, sister-ing, working, singing,…) women that illegal abortion would kill?”
Um, I care about all women. And your argument utilized–as ALL pro-abort arguments do–functionalism. YOU are the ones devaluing humans that already have inherent value. YOU are the ones denying human beings the right to exist, in the name of, what…”CHOICE”??? What is that? YOU are the ones who put conditions on human function, that a human isn’t a human unless it ‘performs’ the way you think he or she should.
Bernard Nathanson admitted that the numbers of women who died from illegal abortions was completely made-up. Add to that the fact that women are STILL scarred from abortion, and still DIE….from LEGAL ABORTION….why don’t you care about those women? And yes, the first thing women will feel after an abortion is that the “problem” “went away.” And then thousands upon thousands upon thousands of women regret their decision, feel lied to, have nightmares, are more likely to suffer from depression, alcoholism, drug abuse. Do you pro-aborts NOT CARE about these women? Why is it so important that you kill? The oppressed have become the oppressors. We need to love and cherish our babies, at all stages. They are not our property. They deserve the right to live, period. Nobody has any right, EVER, to kill another person. And if a mother can kill her own child and claim it is her RIGHT, then there is no hope for peace in this world at all.
“Supporting abortion is a mental illness.” – you would have some sound, unbiased scientific evidence for this?
“Abortion is a violent reaction to the natural call to be cooperative.” – based on what logic?
“It is unhealthy. Promoting it is unhealthy.” – again, evidence please.
“It’s very simple.” – I’ll leave that one alone
Let’s try this, everyone: let’s NOT address anything cranium actually says. Let’s do what he does and pick apart and question the “logic” and “unbiased scientific evidence” on which he voices his opinions. We will obviously get nowhere. Cranium clearly has nothing to add to the conversations here. Paladin, I miss you, come back!! :D I am no longer going to feed this troll!! It’s like talking to someone who simply plugs their ears and pretends they can’t hear you. Or maybe it’s more like talking to a wall. One that you beat your head against. lol
I think we should care about everyone – born and unborn.
All deserve life. All deserve the chance to be born. And if there is a need, we should try to help.
But we can not condone killing of the innocent – in any shape or form.
This is real life we are talking about – sure women are overwhelmed with the possibility of a changed future – but doing the right thing is always the right thing. And most women do fine with some help and encouragement. I know – I live this everyday with the women I help – from babysitting to rides to food to furniture to services etc.
Mostly women need to know that they are capable and will do fine. Women don’t need to be encouraged to have their children killed via abortion or any other such thing…
I wonder what Cranium, DD, Joan and others think about abortion in places like China. Talk about force.
We have some of that here (not on the same scale) but some social service agencies intimate that if a woman has one more child, they wont get a certain apartment, etc. It does happen.
@Sydney
The overall death rate for women obtaining legally induced abortion in the US is around 0.7 per 100,000 (although the rate is lower at earlier gestational and higher later on). This means that, assuming around 1.2 million abortions are performed in the US annually, about 9 women will die. That’s a .007% death rate from legal abortions.
Illegal abortions have mortality rates around 40-60% (depending on where the data are from, as other health care contexts matter a great deal). Even if we assume the lower figure, that would mean almost a half million dead women versus 9.
Does legal abortion carry NO risks? Of course not, any surgical procedure has risks. But you should keep in mind that abortion is 1) one of the safest surgical procedures in the world, and has a lower mortality and morbidity rate than, for instance, appendectomies and 2) safer than pregnancy and childbirth, which both have higher mortality and morbidity rates than abortion.
So, when you try to equivocate a few, isolated deaths (a smaller number than, for instance, the number killed by vending machines every year) with a massive surge in deaths (post-criminalization, pre-Roe, several urban hospitals had to open “botched abortion” wards to treat all the women who nearly killed themselves trying to induce an abortion), who’s deluding themselves???
And clearly, you must know women’s minds better than they know themselves. My bad.
@ninek
“He said she she was complaining. Read the whole post before you argue with me over that. He said it. Its there in black and white if you care to check.”
Go back and read MY post- I didn’t say he didn’t say she was complaining. I said:
1) She IS complaining. To complain is to express dissatisfaction, which is what Carla did. YOU ALL added the meaning that “complain” = unjustified or inappropriate; many complaints are legitimate.
2) That Cranium never claimed to say that Cranium didn’t say she was complaining. Cranium said that Cranium didn’t say “complaining language”, which Cranium didn’t.
@MaryLee
“Um, I care about all women. And your argument utilized–as ALL pro-abort arguments do–functionalism. ”
Yeah, no. You can only argue this if you don’t understand what functionalism is. But that’s a theoretical point which is neither here nor there…
“YOU are the ones devaluing humans that already have inherent value. YOU are the ones denying human beings the right to exist, in the name of, what…”CHOICE”??? What is that? YOU are the ones who put conditions on human function, that a human isn’t a human unless it ‘performs’ the way you think he or she should.”
Yeah, no again. I am arguing in the name of JUSTICE and RIGHTS for women. privacy and choice are the language of the Supreme Court, not mine. I will defend choice, because I believe in that too, but it’s not the fundamental crux of the issue.
I am not putting any conditions on human function- you are simply reading a bunch of things you believe (that aren’t there) into my words.
I am simply arguing that a fetus has no right to my body (just as any born human would have no right to the use of my body without my CONTINUED consent, which I could withdraw at any time, even if to do so would kill the other person).
“Bernard Nathanson admitted that the numbers of women who died from illegal abortions was completely made-up.”
Who the hell is that and why do I care what he says?
I am pulling numbers from the CDC, the World Health Organization, and the Guttmacher Institutes, all of which are methodologically sound (and yes, I do have a PhD in the social sciences and am qualified to evaluate the accuracy of statistical estimation).
Numbers of women dying from illegal abortions are estimates, but estimate does not = made up. It means that we took the hard numbers that we had data on (which is still thousands) and used statistical techniques to “fill in the blanks”.
“Add to that the fact that women are STILL scarred from abortion, and still DIE….from LEGAL ABORTION….why don’t you care about those women?”
See my answer to Sydney above on why this point is a gross distortion of reality.
“And yes, the first thing women will feel after an abortion is that the “problem” “went away.” And then thousands upon thousands upon thousands of women regret their decision, feel lied to, have nightmares, are more likely to suffer from depression, alcoholism, drug abuse.Do you pro-aborts NOT CARE about these women?”
Yeah, do you have ANY evidence of these “thousands and thousands of women”???
“Why is it so important that you kill? The oppressed have become the oppressors. We need to love and cherish our babies, at all stages. They are not our property. They deserve the right to live, period. Nobody has any right, EVER, to kill another person. And if a mother can kill her own child and claim it is her RIGHT, then there is no hope for peace in this world at all.”
I have no response to this, as their is no argument here. This is just emotional rhetoric.
“Let’s do what he does and pick apart and question the “logic” and “unbiased scientific evidence” with which he voices his opinions.”
Wow, yeah, how CRAZY of Cranium to ask you for, gasp, evidence!!! Who needs more than distorted-Bible-thumping and self-righteous emotional appeals???
“But we can not condone killing of the innocent – in any shape or form.”
So, you believe that we should be putting soldiers in our armed forces on trial as murders too?
This is a pacifist argument, and I highly doubt you’re a pacifist….
“This is real life we are talking about – sure women are overwhelmed with the possibility of a changed future – but doing the right thing is always the right thing. And most women do fine with some help and encouragement. I know – I live this everyday with the women I help – from babysitting to rides to food to furniture to services etc. Mostly women need to know that they are capable and will do fine. Women don’t need to be encouraged to have their children killed via abortion or any other such thing…”
Sounds an awful lot to me like “Sure, your life is hard, but it’s not REALLY that bad. I know what the best choice is for you, and I’d like to deny you the opportunity to make it for yourself…”
“I wonder what Cranium, DD, Joan and others think about abortion in places like China. Talk about force. We have some of that here (not on the same scale) but some social service agencies intimate that if a woman has one more child, they wont get a certain apartment, etc. It does happen.”
1) I strongly object to the way you’ve premised this question about “places like” X. It is incredibly oversimplifying, ethnocentric, and just a bit Orientalist/racist.
2) That being said…
I don’t know a single person who advocates for abortion rights that doesn’t strongly object to forced abortion (as well as forced birth control and other forms of State control of reproduction).
Why on earth would a reproductive justice movement (overwhelmingly feminists) be responsible for what agents of the patriarchy do?
Wow, Maia, you know NOTHING about me. I am anti-war, and pro-gay marriage. I am philosophically against the death penalty. (Though I do think the killing of a convicted murderer is different than the killing of the unborn babies.) I am also a rape survivor.
Women who abort are playing into the hands of the patriarchy. I am not against abortion because GOD SAYS SO. (My pro-life views are secular.) Frankly, abortion is the LEAST FEMINIST thing a woman can stand for. Yes, these are our bodies, but they are our children’s bodies, too. Women are smart, resourceful, and strong. We don’t need to kill our children, EVER. That is not liberty, that’s injustice and so many kinds of wrong I can’t even get my brain around it. Pro-aborts like you don’t want to help women NOT abort….in fact you get ANGRY when women don’t abort. You condone and even celebrate the killing of your own children because you think it’s a feminist stance? It’s anything but. I am a woman. I can get pregnant, men will have to deal with it. I refuse to defeminize myself to compete in a man’s world. I refuse to sacrifice my children in the name of “choice.” That is not a choice. That’s slavery. Women killing their kids to keep their jobs, stay in college, keep their boyfriends? How ANTI-FEMINIST can abortion get? What about our children’s bodies? What about their bodily autonomy and right to live? Pregnancy is not a disease. Unborn children are not tumors. They are not garbage. They are not your property.
And stop posting eighty-five posts in a row. Your manic defense of abortion is almost as frightening as abortion itself.
I don’t know a single person who advocates for abortion rights that doesn’t strongly object to forced abortion (as well as forced birth control and other forms of State control of reproduction).
We had a thread a few weeks ago about a woman who suffered a forced abortion in China. “joan” posted here: https://www.jillstanek.com/2010/10/aljazeera-infiltrates-chinese-hospital-to-report-on-macabre-abortion-of-8-mo-old-baby/#comment-284676
Joan stated: “Without robust mechanisms for population control, the size of the population would spiral out of control and the situation would become untenable. Forced abortion and sterilization is one of these mechanisms. You can argue about the ethical quandaries that these things imply, but they’re serving an essential interest of Chinese society. As for the woman herself, she lives there and she knows the law, and if she had abided by the law, this unfortunate incident wouldn’t have happened.”
The story is gut-wrenching and painful to read/watch.
If you are poor, unfettered reproduction will cost YOU too much.
My great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-grandfather worked for years to bring their families from Poland to America. It was a lot of time, effort, and hardship, and as it happens, that was their extent of taking care of the family. After they’d brought everyone to America, they abandoned them for parts unknown and were never seen again.
Maybe it cost them “too much” to bring over their wives and children, but I’m pretty dang glad it did. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t exist. My great-grandfather was the father of eight children, six of whom lived past infancy. He came to America as a thirteen-year-old kid who didn’t speak English. Seeing as his father and grandfather ditched the rest of the family, things were tough. My great-grandfather ended up forming his own real estate company and owning a hotel, which meant that his children, while not rich by any stretch, had a fairly comfortable existence. In fact, our family seems to be getting financially better-off with each generation.
Wow, isn’t it too bad that my great-great-grandfather engaged in “unfettered reproduction”? Because, you know, the fact that my great-grandfather and his siblings were fatherless kids who didn’t speak English guaranteed that they and their descendants were doomed to eternal poverty.
By the way, you realize fetters are chains, right? I guess human reproduction is something that needs to be chained down.
Hi Maia,
If you lost a child I would hardly say to you, That sucks!
My life’s work is abortion recovery. I help women and men who struggle after their abortions.
I am a Rachel’s Vineyard facilitator. Why would we need to have them if nobody regrets their abortions?
http://www.rachelsvineyard.org
I am a State Leader for Operation Outcry. We gather abortion stories from men and women who have been hurt by abortion. We have 5,000 that are filed as friend of the court briefs in prolife legislation. They will be very useful soon in all of our RED states!! :)
http://www.operationoutcry.org
I am the resource person for our local PRC when someone needs abortion recovery.
I tell my story whenever I get the chance. You haven’t heard The Rest of The Story btw. Where I ask God for forgiveness for killing my first child and He has set me free. Free to speak and tell of what He has done for me. The woman who paid for the killing of her own child.
I am working on a book of letters from mothers to their children they have aborted.
I am part of the Bella Hero Project which gives the movie Bella to PRC’s. So far 200 babies of been saved from abortion because their mothers watched the movie.
I have been a moderator here for 2 1/2 years. I have heard it all. I have read the words that folks say to me and about me.
When someone says that abortion doesn’t hurt anyone or is not child killing. I stand up. I say my piece as I have a God given right to do. I stand in the face of the lie that abortion is good for women or that it helps women. My story refutes that.
I stand with my I Regret My Abortion sign with Silent No More. Someone always comes up and screams at me, “I DON’T REGRET MINE!” What does that honestly have to do with me? What part of “I” do they not understand? How does someone stomping their foot and shouting I’M NOT SORRY refute the thousands of stories of women that have been hurt by abortion?? It doesn’t. The fact that someone REACTS in that way to my sign points to THEIR circumstance not mine. I am not the one screaming in anyone’s face.
I felt relief too. For about 2 days.
Here is my story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2jJzXiRYd0
Your defense of abortion points to something.
What is your experience with abortion?
1) I strongly object to the way you’ve premised this question about “places like” X. It is incredibly oversimplifying, ethnocentric, and just a bit Orientalist/racist.
Oh, please. “Places like” or “countries like” China is more than likely (and I’m sure you know this, but you’re choosing to make an issue where there IS none) used to refer to someplace on the planet which encourages forced abortions and sterilizations. Typical of a pro-choicer to attempt to strain out a gnat of racism where there was likely none. It’s not as if the Chinese were referred to as “products of conception” or “clumps of cells.”
Hi Maia,
If you lost a child I would hardly say to you, That sucks!
If you read carefully, Carla, she didn’t even say that much to you. She said that it sucks that you regret your abortion.
Ah thanks Kel. I skimmed a bit. :)
I always find it hilarious that I am pointed in the direction of the I’m Not Sorry website!! :)
It took a good 7-8 years before I started to take a good look at what abortion had done to my life. Up until then I could have written the same thing I’M NOT SORRY.(But why do I keep getting drunk, partying, starving myself, having nightmares, depression, and suicidal thoughts??)
@ Sydney,
Hey girl, I’m pretty sure DD is another frequent poster her, possibly Cranium. Perhaps a Mod could check on this for us.
@ DD,
First, my occasional posts here are an effort in some small way to strengthen, encourage and perhaps bring into sharper focus the Pro-Life convictions of readers. I receive great encouragement from others as well. Like citizens of Nazi Germany in the early ’40’s, we find ourselves living in a country where a great human tragedy and genocide is being executed in our own neighborhoods, every day. Many of us pray and seek God for His direction as we seek to counter and battle this attack of satan against humanity.
I value and cherish the efforts of my non-Christian brothers and sisters engaged in the Pro-Life battle with me. I admire them for their tolerance of my relentless Christian narrative which must at times seem annoying. However, I’m waging a war on a second front, and that is for the salvation of men’s (and women’s) souls.
I don’t want any babies to die.
Similarly, I don’t want anyone to be lost for eternity. (even you DD! :-)
Your calloused response to my scenario causes great concern. Your heart is very hard, conditioned by lies and the spirit of this age. That you would support a couple’s decision to kill their post viable baby girl is wicked.
You could have been a valuable assitant for Josef Mengele.
There is hope for you. You can have a loving and empathetic heart for others. Christ will give it to you if you will admit your sin and meet Him at the foot of His Cross.
He died and shed His Blood for you to pay the price for your sins and save you from yourself. He wants to make you a new person, holy, made in His image.
He is Awesome!
Riiight, maia, cuz that’s, like, all pro-lifers have on their side, right? Bible-thumping distortions. Not biology or anything.
You haven’t been here long. I know you’re having fun defending cranium, because he’s pro-abortion and all, but he’s been here a while and he doesn’t have any research or logic to back up his assumptions. So maybe before you go posting crap like you just did, you could read some of his posting history, hmmm?
DD is Artemis.
I know, Carla. They all come here and post the “I’m Not Sorry” website, as if we haven’t heard of it before. But I wonder if they’ve ever seen the testimonials YOU have posted. I doubt they have the guts or the inclination, because in reality, they don’t care about women. They care about women having the right to kill their children and not regret it (and not even be allowed to THINK about regretting it) or have anyone hint to them that it might have been morally a “not-so-great” thing to do. Meh. Whatever. Cover your eyes and ears if it suits you. It won’t change the truth.
@ maia, perhaps you should read. I never addressed anything to you.
The anti-lifers are very active lately. The election must not be sitting well with them.
If an automobile were so unpleasant and deadly that thousands of owners made video or online testimonials describing the damage and carnage, there would be a recall.
If a food killed 9 people in one span of time, there would be a recall.
When women say that abortion hurt them and their families, caused them pain and suffering, the pro-choicers simply say, “so what?”
Logic, science, none of these things matter to them. We don’t have to prove anything to them. They are supporting and promoting the murder of innocent children. We work to stop the killing. We do not have to win over every anti-lifer in the world. We only need enough leaven to raise the loaf. A loaf is not made all of yeast, it is made mostly of grain. Let those that have eyes, see.
Thanks Carla, you go girl!
Everytime I get reminded of all that you do I picture you receiving an abundant entrance into Heaven, gold, silver, precious stones, crowns, post abortive women you’ve helped, babies you’ve saved.
You love Jesus well!
Keep runnin’ girl!
Finish your race!
Amen, Ed! :D
Yes Pam, I’m convinced Carla’s going to have one of the biggest, coolest cribs (mansions) in Heaven. I’m going to want to hang out there often. There will be a steady flow of visitors, Moms touched by the power of Christ will stop by to say, “Hi”, united with their aborted children who have traded in their little broken bodies for glorious spiritual bodies. Aubrey and the rest of her loving children will be there and they will all be so proud of their hardworking Mommy.
Jill’s place will probably be in the same area, with the rest of the big mansions so I’ll stop by there as well.
What a glorious day that will be!
Ed, My brutha,
To see what God has planned on that glorious day brings tears to my eyes!! We shall be in paradise and He will say Well Done! :)
To those that have posted here for years you have what trolls do not…CREDIBILITY.
Carry on.
and there we have it. Fetus first, woman nowhere. You enforce gestation on the mother.
That’s quite a jump you made, Cranium. You honestly think I don’t care about women? You honestly think THAT’S what I was saying in my comment?
Okay first of all:
We all have the basic right to life. That’s given to us by nature itself the moment conception happens.
I care about people in difficult situations, honest I do. In fact, it’s often broken my heart the situations people find themselves in (or in some cases, get themselves in) but it doesn’t mean abortion is the way to solve these problems. To the contrary, abortion doesn’t work with the cycle of life or even with a woman’s body. It works against the woman’s natural functions and the way the body cares for itself and cares for the pre-born baby. A woman’s sexual reproductive system isn’t there just for a woman to do whatever the heck she wants with it, it’s there for the reproduction of the species. Now, whether or not reproduction happens is generally in the hands of the woman, however, that does not mean it’s just fine for her to have an abortion.
Abortion ends a life. No matter what you say, no matter what arguments, comments, questions, whatever you come up with NOTHING not NOBODY not NOTHING can change that.
Many doctors and nurses have quit or don’t perform abortions for THAT reason. Some doctors have even given up performing abortions because it’s contrary to their beliefs or to what they understand their profession is–which is to preserve life, not end it. THEY recognize these things. To not recognize them is to stick your head in the sand ostrich like and say “LA LA LA, I’m NOT listening.”
Because that’s essentially what people do when they support abortion.
You claim you’re preserving women’s human rights, but in reality you’re just encouraging the mass destruction of human life and life is one of our very basic human rights.
There are so many resources for women in need. My family of orgin has worked with several of these resources. In fact, I have even tried to offer these resources to people.
You have no idea how much I care about people. But I can’t let my compassion blind me to the facts of what abortion is and what it does. That is why there are places like Catholic Charties and Rachel’s Vineyard and adoption agencies that offer counseling, and Foundation For Life and states that have Right To Life programs AND people like Carla and people like my parents and people like any number of others I know who have adopted or are willing to adopt.
It’s because we DO care about women that we offer these things. HOWEVER our offering these things does not mean abortion is right. The very reason abortion is wrong and that we care about people in difficult situations is why these services, programs, organizations and people do what they do.
You can continue to stick your head in the sand, but you can’t ignore the fact that many of us have expressed MORE THAN ONCE how much we DO care, which is another reason we’re on here speaking out against abortion.
So, I will ask you most politely to take your criticism of my so-called “not caring about women” somewhere else, because I DO care, I just don’t advocate, support or encourage abortion because I believe there are OTHER BETTER ways of dealing with difficult situations and unwanted pregnancies.
I find THIS a lot more frightening than any of the (TOTALLY FAKE!!!) pictures of “aborted fetuses” promoted by the anti-choice movement.
Those of us who favor reproductive justice/abortion rights/pro-choice lack empathy, hmmm?
Where is YOUR empathy to the (living, breathing, mothering, wife-ing, daughter-ing, sister-ing, working, singing,…) women that illegal abortion would kill?
Talk about scare tactics, Maiathebegrrl
The problem lies herein:
With abortion as it stands a lot of women think it’s their only choice in dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.
Case in point:
Some years back a woman called me up and said she was pregnant. She said she didn’t know what she was going to do.
I told her: “First off, you’re going to take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay.” (No compassion? No empathy? Yeah, whatever…I said it gently).
She said to me: “I don’t want to have an abortion, but I don’t have any other choice.” (emphasis added to illustrate my point).
This woman, and others like her honestly believe there’s no other course of action.
We pro-lifers are here to say “No, no! You do have other choices. You do NOT have to have an abortion in order to deal with the pregnancy. There are other ways!”
Growing up my family of orgin worked with an adoption agency that had case workers that would work one-on-one with the pregnant woman–taking her to doctor’s appointments, helping her find a family to adopt her baby, etc. Several of these women have seen their babies after they gave birth. Some of them chose not to. Either way, they were cared for in a very compassionate manner.
The abortion industry has played upon human–especially women’s–fears. Fears of not being able to go to college, fears of what parents will say, fears of giving birth or health risks in the birthing process. All of it is fueled by fear. Their so-called compassion is tampered with by the almighty dollar and the idea that pregnancy is a curse. (it’s not–it’s not the easiest thing a woman can ever do, but life isn’t always easy and life isn’t always about “me, me, me” sometimes it’s about someone else–like the pre-born baby).
Some pro-lifers work on a volunteer basis (even some pro-life doctors do). Some of them get minimal amount of money if any. Some of them donate their time, talent, expertise or resources to help women in difficult situations so that they do NOT have to think they have “no other choice” but to have the abortion.
I know men who are eager and hoping to be fathers one day. Several of them would go to great lengths to provide for the mother of their pre-born baby. I know a man who blamed himself ENTIRELY for the abortion the woman he was dating at the time had. It didn’t matter that she consented to have sex with him, it didn’t matter that he offered her support, it didn’t matter that she knew he didn’t want her to have the abortion, she had it anyway. But he didn’t blame her. Even when he called me up sobbing on the phone about it he said “It’s all my fault.”
One of the reasons I’m pro-life is to help prevent situations like that woman who felt she had no other choice but to have the abortion, for the woman who is desperate and doesn’t see any other path, for the man who wants to support the woman but doesn’t want his child aborted. Those are only some of the reasons I’m pro-life.
I don’t believe that illegalized abortion means an end to help for women, especially since I know about abortion alternatives.
Based on my experience and others that I’ve witnessed I believe it’s the other way around. Abortion the way it stands now is making people think they have no other choice. That abortion is the only solution–which is simply NOT true.
Have you ever been pregnant? Have you ever given birth? I have and I know how difficult it can be. But I also know that those things don’t last forever and I have a wonderful child to show for my efforts.
maiathebegrrl
November 10th, 2010 at 9:26 am
The simple fact is this: Women cannot exercise their full rights as citizens (including THEIR right to life) when they do not have full control over their own reproduction, including abortion
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! OMG, that is the most nonsensical thing said by a pro-choicer ever! Made my day!!!
Keep it up, Maia!!!!
(PS. EVERY SINGLE WOMAN HAS A 100% FULL CONTROL OVER REPRODUCTION, BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE WOMAN HAS A CHOICE TO HAVE SEX WITH A CHANCE OF HAVING A BABY, OR – NOT! Simples!)
The simple fact is this: Women cannot exercise their full rights as citizens (including THEIR right to life) when they do not have full control over their own reproduction, including abortion
Wait…so apparently saying to a woman you shouldn’t have an abortion is impediment on their right to life? Since when? We’re not telling them to kill themselves, we’re telling them not to kill their pre-born baby.
2) safer than pregnancy and childbirth, which both have higher mortality and morbidity rates than abortion.
Maia–Whoa, hold on there. Abortion is not necessarily safer than giving birth. That’s a lie the abortion industry uses.
Finnish Study: http://www.pregnantpause.org/safe/finmort.htm
March 2010 article citing a 2009 study and a 2010 study in Chile: http://www.lifenews.com/2010/03/31/int-1496/
February 2010 article talking about the Chile study: http://www.lifenews.com/2010/02/12/int-1464/
Just to name a few sources.
We’re living in an age where there’s way more resources for women giving birth to keep them alive than there was before.
“I am simply arguing that a fetus has no right to my body (just as any born human would have no right to the use of my body without my CONTINUED consent, which I could withdraw at any time, even if to do so would kill the other person).”
I hate this pro-abortion arguement. It is so chilling and evil. What kind of sick person would not use their body to save the life of their own child? Would anyone have any sympathy for a mother or father who refused to donate an organ to their dying child? And, if mass numbers of parents DID refuse to use their bodies to save their dying born children, of course we make it required by the law! Also, portraying your fetus as some kind of Nazi who is conquering your womb is weird, especially since the fetus is only there because of the choices YOU and the man you sleep with made!
“Bernard Nathanson admitted that the numbers of women who died from illegal abortions was completely made-up.” Who the hell is that and why do I care what he says?
Haha, you may not have heard of him, but maybe you have heard of the organization he helped to create–does NARAL ring any bells?
Adair
November 10th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Also, portraying your fetus as some kind of Nazi who is conquering your womb is weird, especially since the fetus is only there because of the choices YOU and the man you sleep with made!
Yes, this exactly. If the sex was consensual, then even if you used eight different kinds of birth control, and all of them correctly, there’s still a 0.000001% chance that you can get pregnant. Any child present as a result is there because of an action deliberately and willfully engaged in with an understanding of the potential consequences (you wouldn’t use birth control if you weren’t concerned about pregnancy, after all). Claiming that you “didn’t give consent” under those circumstances is both ludicrous and plain wrong.
Adair, I’m pro-life. I was pointing out that the pro-abortion argument about women died from illegal abortions isn’t even a valid one, because Dr. Nathanson admitted he just pulled the figure out of thin air.
I love how you narrow it down to the fetus being some sort of control-monger, or the enemy, when the truth is, the child has no say in the matter, not ever. I don’t understand pro-abort thinking….Accountability means nothing to them, nothing at all.
Maia– Dr. Nathanson is a former abortionist who founded NARAL and is one of the reasons abortion is legal. So you don’t know who he is and why you should care and yet you worship at the altar of abortion? He is one of the founders, honey! Talk about ungrateful. He even aborted his own baby after a woman he slept with got pregnant. She begged to keep the child but Dr. Nathanson told her he would NOT support her and then coerced her into an abortion that he performed himself. Nice guy huh? Goooooo women! Its so liberating ya know?
fortunately, even though he had the blood of over 60,000 unborn children on his hands, Dr. Nathanson found God after a long spiritual journey. He asked for and found forgiveness. In 1984 when he was still pro-choice he wrote “Aborting America”. you might want to read it sometime. He talked about how they needed to get impressionable Americans like yourself in a tizzy over “dying women” to make the case for legalized abortion. They made the figures up. They LIED and said hundreds of thousands of women were dying from illegal abortion and it WASN’T TRUE. Keep believing the lies Maia.
@MaryLee
“Wow, Maia, you know NOTHING about me. I am anti-war, and pro-gay marriage. I am philosophically against the death penalty. (Though I do think the killing of a convicted murderer is different than the killing of the unborn babies.) I am also a rape survivor.”
And where, in my post, did I say ANYTHING indicating about you, personally???
My post in response to you questioned1) arguments that you were putting into MY mouth and 2) your lack of evidence and logical argumentation.
How is any of that, in any way, a personal attack or assumption about you (which is what you seem-to me- to be implying in your post)???
“Women who abort are playing into the hands of the patriarchy. I am not against abortion because GOD SAYS SO. (My pro-life views are secular.) Frankly, abortion is the LEAST FEMINIST thing a woman can stand for. Yes, these are our bodies, but they are our children’s bodies, too. Women are smart, resourceful, and strong. We don’t need to kill our children, EVER. That is not liberty, that’s injustice and so many kinds of wrong I can’t even get my brain around it.”
Clearly, I disagree with this analysis (an analysis with MANY logical holes), which is why we are having this conversation.
“Pro-aborts like you don’t want to help women NOT abort….in fact you get ANGRY when women don’t abort.”
WTF???
Talk about making assumptions about people!!! Even if this was true (which it is most assuredly NOT), how on earth would you know this?
I have never been and would never be angry at a woman who chooses not to abort (and I speak to many considering their options on a regular basis). I am happiest when a woman comes to a clear decision about what is best FOR HERSELF.
BTW, I have a number of friends and colleagues who work as counselors for clinics providing abortion and all of them universally agree that women who are not sure about their decision are (and should be) sent home still pregnant, with information about their options (as much as they want).
“You condone and even celebrate the killing of your own children because you think it’s a feminist stance? It’s anything but. I am a woman. I can get pregnant, men will have to deal with it. I refuse to defeminize myself to compete in a man’s world. I refuse to sacrifice my children in the name of “choice.” That is not a choice. That’s slavery. Women killing their kids to keep their jobs, stay in college, keep their boyfriends? How ANTI-FEMINIST can abortion get? What about our children’s bodies? What about their bodily autonomy and right to live? Pregnancy is not a disease. Unborn children are not tumors. They are not garbage. They are not your property.”
Again, not going to respond to this because it’s just inflammatory emotional rhetoric and personal attacks. Does not = an argument.
“And stop posting eighty-five posts in a row. Your manic defense of abortion is almost as frightening as abortion itself.”
Get a grip, yo.
I posted one response to this blog entry, and have re-posted in order to address those who have directly addressed me.
How in the world is that manic?
Or eighty-five?
Vita – “human rights are the fundamental rights starting with a right to life (!!!! and every single human development textbook tells us that human life begins at conception” – so why should an existing, advanced life be subsumated by an emergent life which may not even achieve birth?
If an unwanted pregnancy is prevented from being terminated it is enforced gestation. There is no reason for a human being to have to be pregnant just because they have sex. We are much more advanced than that.
Ed – that would be their choice, their decision. I would not force the mother to continue gestation of the fetus.
Sydney M – what I said was: “You tell me Carla, you’re the one complaining.(full stop, see the full stop? That means I was saying that Carla was complaining about what she did and her situation – let’s continue) You’ve put it in your language. (in that Carla asked what happened to her ‘daughter’, to her ‘child’) In my language I would say: “Your female fetus was terminated which meant that you did not have a baby daughter at the end of 9 months gestation.” (meaning I wouldn’t think of the fetus as a ‘daughter’ or ‘child’) It’s subjective” – they are two separate points Sydney M. I didn’t say Carla wasn’t complaining, I was saying that I did not say she was using ‘complaining language’.
Kel, stating that supporting abortion is a mental illness is simply an emotive, subjective, unproven, unscientific, opinionated statement. As are the other two statements. They are fundamentally unjustifiable other than as personal stances. So I was addressing what was actually said, are you claiming that I didn’t?
joyfromillonois – forced abortion is just as bad as forced gestation. The whole point is personal choice.
Ed – yes, get a moderator to check. I do not sock puppet or whatever. They can check that.
Mother In Texas – lets just say I disagree with what you have said.
Vita – your response to maiathebegrrl is another example of you tying your morals to how you expect others to behave. Women have the right to have sex with no intent of reproducing. To say otherwise is medieval thinking.
@Kel
I’m not denying that forced abortions happen- we’re clear on that, right?
If your point is that “joan” seems to be endorsing this, I don’t entirely agree (nor do I entirely disagree). I would argue that she seems to be trying to (albeit ham-handedly) make a point about Orientalism & the problems of cross-cultural critique. Nonetheless, it does read as if she may be condoning forced abortion as “acceptable” for “population control” reasons. If so, I would (as would all the pro-choice people I now) strongly condemn that.
But even if “joan”‘s argument was clearly what you’re arguing it to be, how does that affect the accuracy of my statement that “I don’t know a single person who advocates for abortion rights that doesn’t strongly object to forced abortion”?
The point I was trying to make, which I’ll readily admit may not have been as clear as it should have been given my choice of wording, was that this person would be an outlier rather than typical of the pro-choice movement.
That said, sure, there are neo-Nazis, eugenicists, and other f***ed up people trying to pass themselves off as “pro-choice”.
I would argue that the difference between the outlier jerks in the pro-choice and the pro-life movements is that we’re TRYING to weed ours out, while yours get legal defense fundraising when they shoot doctors.
Although, I will readily admit that the point is debatable, and a good subject for empirical research.
Hmmm… That sounds like my new research proposal- thanks!
@Carla
“If you lost a child I would hardly say to you, That sucks!”
If you were coming to me as a person in grief, I wouldn’t. But that’s not what you’re doing. You’re using your personal experience as a springboard for a political argument. So don’t expect me to react the same way I would to a friend.
“I am a Rachel’s Vineyard facilitator. Why would we need to have them if nobody regrets their abortions? http://www.rachelsvineyard.org“
I am familiar with Rachel’s Vineyard and what you do.
In fact, I have helped facilitate groups for women trying to recover from what groups like YOURS do to them. I would argue that, for many women, groups like yours CREATE the problem they osetnsibly try to solve
BTW, I never said that NO ONE regrets their abortion, I said that regretting one’s abortion was not TYPICAL.
I’m not sure what your activist resume or personal testimony have to do with me, or this discussion, so I’m not responding to them.
I only got involved in the conversation to point out that you ARE in fact complaining (since the meaning of the word “complaining” does not suggest the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the complaint) and that your personal experience, while important to you, was not a persuasive policy argument
“When was your abortion?”
My life and my experiences are absolutely NONE of your business and, unlike you, I don’t believe in trying to universalize my own experiences.
@Kel
“Oh, please. “Places like” or “countries like” China is more than likely (and I’m sure you know this, but you’re choosing to make an issue where there IS none) used to refer to someplace on the planet which encourages forced abortions and sterilizations. Typical of a pro-choicer to attempt to strain out a gnat of racism where there was likely none. It’s not as if the Chinese were referred to as “products of conception” or “clumps of cells.”
So, you’re just choosing to ignore the fact that after I made that comment (which I ABSOLUTELY stand by) that I answered your question???
@Kel
“Riiight, maia, cuz that’s, like, all pro-lifers have on their side, right? Bible-thumping distortions. Not biology or anything.’
Nope, not biology or anything. I know that because I see crap like the “Truth Trucks” driving around all the time or the CPC’s or the “informed consent” laws…
All of which assure me that that, by and large, activist “pro-lifers” are very resistant to empirically verifiable knowledge and medical accuracy.
“You haven’t been here long. I know you’re having fun defending cranium, because he’s pro-abortion and all, but he’s been here a while and he doesn’t have any research or logic to back up his assumptions. So maybe before you go posting crap like you just did, you could read some of his posting history, hmmm?”
I don’t care what Cranium’s posting history is. For all I know, he/she is a dog-kicking, mom-hating, neo-Nazi, one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater.
I chose to “defend” him/her because he/she was being misquoted.
“…he’s been here a while and he doesn’t have any research or logic to back up his assumptions” – wrong on two fronts Kel.
1. I do and have provided research. Unbiased research. On numerous occasions.
2. just because you don’t agree with my position or my premises does not render them without logic.
2a. The research and logic put my position beyond ‘assumptions’, that’s reserved for those who use emotive and subjective langauge and then claim it as facts.
I like purple!
No, atheists do NOT eat babies, I don’t care who keeps saying it!
On a previous thread, Joan indeed defended China’s forced abortions. Her reasoning was that since the mothers are breaking known laws, they know the punishments that await them, therefore the punishments are just. As long as forced abortion is legal, Joan sees nothing morally wrong with that.
Maia,
I tell my abortion story. Please cite specific comments I have made about politics. It was the most horrifying experience of my life. I stand with the thousands of others I know that have had the same experience. Do ALL women experience it like I did? Do they ALL regret their abortions? No. Never said they did.
You, Joanie and cran think I am complaining? Fine with me. Although you need to realize that I am 20 years out from my abortion. I am at acceptance. I accept the fact that I had my child killed by abortion. No guilt and no shame in the telling of my experience. Why does that bother you so much?
Please give me the link to the group that is needed for Rachel’s Vineyard recovery. Thanks. I would like to hear more about your role in helping women in abortion recovery.
The reason I posted what I do in the prolife movement was to show you that I am more than a troll here. I have been here for 3 years. Credibility. What you are doing here remains to be seen.
I don’t believe that illegalized abortion means an end to help for women, especially since I know about abortion alternatives.
Based on my experience and others that I’ve witnessed I believe it’s the other way around. Abortion the way it stands now is making people think they have no other choice. That abortion is the only solution–which is simply NOT true.
Mother in Texas@ 12:53 PM,
That’s a great point!
Women: Abortion is a trap. Don’t fall into it!
Hi again Maia
And then thousands upon thousands upon thousands of women regret their decision, feel lied to, have nightmares, are more likely to suffer from depression, alcoholism, drug abuse.Do you pro-aborts NOT CARE about these women?”
Yeah, do you have ANY evidence of these “thousands and thousands of women”??? I believe it was you that said this.
I offered you my experience as a State Leader for Operation Outcry.
5,000 declarations and counting of women and men hurt by abortion. They are filed as friend of the court briefs in prolife legislation.
http://www.operationoutcry.org
Dismiss the youtube vidoes of the women of Operation Outcry telling their abortion stories as you see fit. What they do and what I do are no different.
Okay, so, since we’re working with like 10 against 1, can you all maybe try to condense your responses to me into a single post??? Thanks!
In the meantime…
@Kel
“I know, Carla. They all come here and post the “I’m Not Sorry” website, as if we haven’t heard of it before. But I wonder if they’ve ever seen the testimonials YOU have posted.I doubt they have the guts or the inclination, because in reality, they don’t care about women. They care about women having the right to kill their children and not regret it (and not even be allowed to THINK about regretting it) or have anyone hint to them that it might have been morally a “not-so-great” thing to do. Meh. Whatever. Cover your eyes and ears if it suits you. It won’t change the truth.”
I am very familiar with the tripe of Rachel’s Vineyard, thanks.
I have never argued that women shouldn’t regret their abortions, only that most don’t. In fact, when it comes to post-abortion social support for women (which is only really necessary because of the stigma created by activists like the folks here), I support Exhale a pro-VOICE group.
Why don’t you check out what ACTUAL support for women after abortions looks like??? http://www.4exhale.org/
@ninek
“maia, perhaps you should read. I never addressed anything to you.”
OOOOOOH, look who gets to be snarky! Congrats, you noticed that part of the response that was meant to be addressed to Sydney was addressed to you- my bad.
“The anti-lifers are very active lately. The election must not be sitting well with them.”
I wildly disagree that this election was primarily, or even significantly about abortion.
Honestly, if you want to know why I’m fired up currently, it’s because the anti-choicers have been descending on my campus lately and I don’t like it. My students don’t like it and it sucks up a lot of my time having to respond to that crappola. That makes me pretty fired up.
“If an automobile were so unpleasant that thousands of owners made video or online testimonials describing the damage, there would be a recall.”
Yeah, not actually likely.
“If a food killed 9 people in one span of time, there would be a recall.”
INCREDIBLY unlikely.
“When women say that abortion hurt them and their families, caused them pain and suffering, the pro-choicers simply say, “so what?””
I didn’t say “so what”… I pointed out that MANY MORE women would be hurt through the denial of abortion access.
We, as a society, can’t make public policy decisions to make Carla (or others like her) feel more comfortable. We have to make them on the basis of what will keep THE MOST women the safest.
“Logic, science, none of these things matter to them.”
OMG, it’s like I’m in backwards land!!!
@Ed
I’m curious that you mentioned “mansions” in your vision of heaven. Do you actually believe that God will create “classes” in heaven? Do you believe that God loves people differently?
@Mother in Texas
“Abortion ends a life. No matter what you say, no matter what arguments, comments, questions, whatever you come up with NOTHING not NOBODY not NOTHING can change that.”
So, are you a pacifist? Do you believe that it is unacceptable to take human life under any circumstances, including the defense of your own life?
Unless that’s the case, then the argument that abortion ends a life (even if I accept it) gets you nowhere. All it does is lead us back to the same place of debating whether in any particular circumstance taking a life is justified.
“You honestly think I don’t care about women? You honestly think THAT’S what I was saying in my comment?”
Based on some of the things you’ve posted, my guess would be that you do care about women’s lives, probably a lot more than the average person in your movement. So, cheers for that!
Here’s the thing though… Your caring seems to take the form of telling women what they OUGHT to do. To me, that’s not caring as much as lecturing. Caring is about supporting people, without condition or reservation. Caring is about understanding from someone else’s perspective, not forcing your own upon them.
I guess that my point is just that the caring you express seems like the caring of a parent for a child… And women aren’t children.
“Abortion the way it stands now is making people think they have no other choice. That abortion is the only solution–which is simply NOT true.”
I disagree that ‘abortion as it stands’ (meaning the policy of legal abortion, right?) is the cause of this. But it is fundamentally true that some women have abortions that they wish they didn’t have to have (I would argue that the fault here lies with a patriarchal nation-state, but that’s neither here nor there). I too, want to support women in that situation in pursuing their non-abortion options. I think that’s great work. What I WON’T do, is treat women who have considered the options and want/need abortions like idiots who just don’t know they have other options.
Here’s the deal: I would love, LOVE, to be able to find an “options” group that I could work with that would, without anti-choice propaganda or guilt, offer women options when they want/request it. But this group would have to agree to NOT promote medically inaccurate information. I can’t find one, not one, that will agree to that stipulation.
“Have you ever been pregnant? Have you ever given birth?”
As I said to MaryLee, I don’t believe that my personal life experiences have any bearing on this and I won’t share them because you demand it.
“I have and I know how difficult it can be. But I also know that those things don’t last forever and I have a wonderful child to show for my efforts.”
And that’s AWESOME… for you. But I must point out that it is both heartless and inaccurate to suggest that women who choose abortion do so because they can’t imagine or wish to avoid love for a child. 2/3 of women who have abortions ALREADY have children and they know EXACTLY what they are or are not signing up for.
“Wait…so apparently saying to a woman you shouldn’t have an abortion is impediment on their right to life? Since when? We’re not telling them to kill themselves, we’re telling them not to kill their pre-born baby.”
No, not what I said. Telling a women you CAN’T have an abortion is an impediment on her right to life (and her right to live that life as she sees fit).
“Abortion is not necessarily safer than giving birth. That’s a lie the abortion industry uses….Just to name a few sources.We’re living in an age where there’s way more resources for women giving birth to keep them alive than there was before.”
Yeah, read these links. BTW, neither of these studies was submitted for peer review, which does not suggest good things about their methodology. But perhaps they’re just pending publication!
Either way, the Chilean study (the only one citing any of the specific data) STILL shows a higher mortality rate for pregnancy/childbirth than for abortion.
My point is not (as the “life news” website erroneously promotes) that abortion is a way to reduce maternal mortality. My point is simply that mortality (and morbidity) rates for pregnancy and childbirth are higher than they are for abortion (which remains true).
@Vita
“EVERY SINGLE WOMAN HAS A 100% FULL CONTROL OVER REPRODUCTION, BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE WOMAN HAS A CHOICE TO HAVE SEX WITH A CHANCE OF HAVING A BABY, OR – NOT! Simples!”
Just because you think consent to sex = consent to pregnancy does not make it so. (see below)
@Adair & Kelly
So, if I open my window, have I consented to be robbed? I knew there was a risk when I opened it!
@Adair
I care not a whit about the founder of NARAL. Nor, in fact, do I care a whit about NARAL. They are not, by any means, the core of the pro-choice movement. They’re just the visible legislative face, and I often disagree with their positions.
“Bernard Nathanson admitted that the numbers of women who died from illegal abortions was completely made-up.”
I care not a bit what he says, since I AM NOT RELYING ON STATISTICS FROM NARAL!!!
@Carla
“You, Joanie and cran think I am complaining? Fine with me.”
Okay. Do you understand that my point was semantic, and not substantive???
“Please give me the link to the group that is needed for Rachel’s Vineyard recovery.Thanks.”
Absolutely not!!! We work very hard to keep our space safe and guilt/judgment free. We have found that it’s impossible to do so when anti-choicers know when and where we are.
(BTW, I don’t work with Exhale, which is why I was willing to mention them by name. But I do support what they do and suggest that you check them out if you actually want to HELP women!)
While you may have no ill-intentions, I’ve dealt with too many who do. Sorry.
“I would like to hear more about you role in helping women in recovery.”
I’d be happy to tell you in general terms. Personally, my role is largely a group facilitator- most of the women we deal with are resilient enough to manage their own recovery, they just need a safe space to do it in.
What is it that you want to know?
“The reason I posted what I do in the prolife movement was to show you that I am more than a troll here. What you are doing here remains to be seen.”
Okay….
Alright, I’m done reading posts from the trolls for today, there’s been just too many for one day. Nothing new they can say, same thing over and over and over again. This side of the ocean is late, so will go to sleep and pray for the truth to somehow reach their cold hardened hearts….
Good luck for all of you, holding the fort!
Maia,
So what you are saying is that you offer REAL HELP to women in abortion recovery? Do they sit and complain in a big group? Do they just complain about Rachel’s Vineyard? So are they really struggling with their abortion experience or just complaining about it? Basically they are in recovery because of what I have done to them at a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat. Correct? And just HOW do you help them? What do you offer them? A safe place to complain? Do you allow them 5 minutes each to complain or can they go on and on and on……….
Hmmmmm. My curiosity is getting the best of me here.
Ok. Checked out Exhale.
Basically a place where women are told it is OK to feel the way they feel about abortion and that they did the right thing having an abortion and all of their feelings are valid and I’m Ok-You’re Ok. How lovely. Abortion. Just another safe and legal medical procedure that so many women have had. Exhale-a place to justify your abortion with other women who want to justify their abortions.
Couldn’t find out what to do for the nightmares, suicidal thoughts or drinking like a fish though because you can’t face the fact that your own child was killed in the abortion you paid for. And what about if you were forced to abort? Golly gee whiz.
Aspen, one of the founders, writes for Huffpo and RH Reality Check so yeah. That pretty much says it all for me right there.
Ah, I see. The Truth Trucks with their “fake photos” are tripe. Rachel’s Vineyard and the women who regret their abortions: tripe. Not to mention pro-lifers have no scientific evidence, right? (That darn ol’ ultrasound technology must be “tripe” as well.) Right. And we don’t care about what the founder of NARAL has to say about the data they falsified about illegal abortions which came into play in Roe v. Wade and helped to legalize abortion in the U.S. Nope, not important. Why? Because we don’t care about facts. We just like to keep repeating mantras about “choice” and “doctored photos” and “rosaries” and “ovaries” and catchy stuff like that. Yeah, I get it.
Yep, I don’t know how we pro-lifers can sleep at night with all that “factual” information on the pro-choice side….
Exhale-a place to justify your abortion with other women who want to justify their abortions.
And places like “I’m Not Sorry.” Or even “Twitter!” Golly gee. The possibilities are truly endless. Maybe even a liberal political rally… :D
Aspen, one of the founders, writes for Huffpo and RH Reality Check so yeah. That pretty much says it all for me right there.
You know what’s hilarious to me about this? The fact that it’s like an admission that women encounter difficulty after an abortion. Bingo!! However, I’m sure they don’t face the real reason for that difficulty, nor do they blame themselves. It’s probably those nasty anti-choicers making them feel all guilty ‘n stuff.
Maia, you make all kinds of presumptions about all prolifers. If your saying “I doubt that you are a pacifist” was not addressed to me, oops my bad. Also: please switch to decaf, ‘kay thanx
I don’t quite agree that “Every single woman has 100% control over reproduction”. If that were true, I wouldn’t have had five miscarriages, doing everything I could NOT to have them. I would have more than just the one living child that I have now. The truth is(sadly), we are NOT always “in control” of our own reproduction.
Brother Ed, my name is PAMELA…I don’t like “Pam”, and too many people just automatically call me that. Love ya anyway ;). Love to you all.
Hey Maia,
It’s not God that establishes the classes per se but believers who determine their rewards by their faithfulness and obedience. in one sense we all get the same reward of eternal life. The man who converts and becomes a Christian gets to live in Heaven forever, just like the man who was saved at a young age and served Christ faithfully for decades.
However, there are additional rewards for faithfulness to one’s calling. For example, martyrs earn special recognition in Heaven.
It’s pretty easy to research if you’re truly interested. In fact, I’m currently gathering resources to do a study on the subject. Mary K Baxter’s “A Divine Revelation of Heaven” is an excellent book on the subject.
Cranium, just so I understand you correctly, you believe that it would be murder to kill a baby 15 minutes after he or she is born. But if the mother wants to kill her baby the week before her due date, you’re Ok with that.
So if the baby is outside of the womb, it’s wrong to kill him/her. Inside the womb, if you want to kill your baby? No problem.
What rationale do you use to support such a preposterous position?
It wouldn’t be my personal choice Ed. But that’s not to say that others can’t make that choice if it’s their best option. I support choice.
Until the umbilical cord is cut, the fetus (male or female in gender) is not an individual entity. Yes it has it’s own dna, yes it has reached viable status (in most circumstances). But it hasn’t entered ‘life’ until the cord is cut. Until then it is a fetus, or an impending baby.
And before people start charging in and saying “but what about people who have accidents or disease which means they need life support” – the difference is that those people have already been born and entered life as individual entities.
It sounds harsh to most of you but you need to realize that that is how most people ‘see’ the situation in the decision making and ‘conscience’ segments of their brains. That is why abortion exists and persists.
I have never argued that women shouldn’t regret their abortions, only that most don’t. In fact, when it comes to post-abortion social support for women (which is only really necessary because of the stigma created by activists like the folks here),
BWAAAHAHAHA! I posted my previous comment before I saw this. LOL!! Did I nail it, or did I nail it?? It’s all OUR fault that these women feel guilt! It couldn’t possibly be an innate sense of loss due to the fact that they KNOW pregnancy = child. Nope. Not possible. lol It’s not going to help anyone to stay in the denial or anger phases of grief. http://www.pregnancy-helpline.net/stagesofgrief.htm And that’s where many, many post-abortive women are. Most of us here have noticed the intense hatred so many post-abortive, angry women have toward people they’ve never even met on a message board. It’s frightening, and they have no clue how they’re really acting. One poster I’ve seen was nearly a split personality in her posts! Denial and anger are very powerful, but they don’t help anyone to heal. Playing the blame game (“it’s the societal stigma!!”) isn’t going to help, either.
“If a food killed 9 people in one span of time, there would be a recall.”
INCREDIBLY unlikely.
Really? Ever heard of salmonella? People die from that. Even people getting ill from it prompts a recall of the suspected products.
Honestly, if you want to know why I’m fired up currently, it’s because the anti-choicers have been descending on my campus lately and I don’t like it. My students don’t like it and it sucks up a lot of my time having to respond to that crappola. That makes me pretty fired up.
What do you teach? Women’s studies?
I didn’t say “so what”… I pointed out that MANY MORE women would be hurt through the denial of abortion access. We, as a society, can’t make public policy decisions to make Carla (or others like her) feel more comfortable. We have to make them on the basis of what will keep THE MOST women the safest.
Roe wasn’t passed to keep women safe. If you cared what the founder of NARAL had to say, maybe you’d get that. And if you could explain to me how the thousands of babies who are aborted every day in this country would be hurting their mothers, that would be great. Or how normal pregnancies are unsafe. This is called reproduction, you know, and it’s a basic biological function. It’s a normal function. And if the maternal mortality rate is high, then what should be done is proper prenatal care, better medical facilities, and better conditions overall should be provided for women. Not abortion. Killing one’s children is really not the answer to any societal ill. It doesn’t solve ANY of the societal problems (poverty, perceived female inequality, etc.). All it does is kill women’s children. Killing your own child in an attempt to free yourself from an uncomfortable (or even threatening) situation is not a healthy solution. The early feminist foremothers knew this.
Telling a [woman] you CAN’T have an abortion is an impediment on her right to life (and her right to live that life as she sees fit).
Two different things. Very different. If a woman’s life is in immediate danger as a result of a pregnancy, this is a different situation than the situation in this country which claims 3000+ human lives daily in abortion clinics. Elective abortion is what we’re discussing here. See here for more: http://gerardnadal.com/2010/05/23/the-principle-of-double-effect/
A woman’s “right to live that life as she sees fit” is not a life-threatening situation. Killing another human being (whether it is still developing or outside the womb) who is dependent upon you is abhorrent. Again, our feminist foremothers knew this. The mentality of a woman who aborts is disturbing. Understandable in many ways, but disturbing nonetheless. Just look at the rhetoric pro-choicers must use, and the hoops they must jump through, to deny the humanity of the unborn child so women may abort “guilt-free.” Killing another, weaker human so that you can continue to go on your merry way (or even so you can try to “escape” a situation you deem to be distressing psychologically or physically) is a grievous mistake (to say the least) which women have to justify to themselves for a lifetime (as evidenced from what I’ve seen from being in the pro-life movement for over 10 years, and even from what I’ve seen here on these message boards). Even having to say “I’m not sorry” is an admission that you feel the need to defend your actions. And most of the people defending themselves have a tendency to lash out at pro-life strangers. It all makes perfect psychological sense when you look at it. If we are innocent of wrongdoing, why the constant need to tell everyone how what you did was the best thing EVER, and that it’s all society’s (and prolifers’) fault that you feel ashamed?
Ugh. Tired of talking about this. Sorry for the long post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110507322.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/252786/abortion-and-mental-health-women-michael-j-new#
Maia said: Here’s the thing though… Your caring seems to take the form of telling women what they OUGHT to do. To me, that’s not caring as much as lecturing. Caring is about supporting people, without condition or reservation. Caring is about understanding from someone else’s perspective, not forcing your own upon them.
Maia, What I was taught about loving and caring about a person is wanting what’s BEST for them. Since I know what abortion is and how horrific it is and I’ve learned quite a bit about what women go through to have abortions (who wants something shoved up their cervix to vacuum out their pre-born child–which is one of the ways they do abortions. Another way is by creating such an inhospitable environment the pre-born child can’t survive).
Maia, Pre-born babies are completely innocent. Not that innocence or guilt is necessarily a measure on whether a person should live or die, but the idea that children can’t even be safe in their mother’s womb (a place that is supposed to be where pre-born babies can grow, develop–LIVE and become able to function outside the womb–where the woman’s body goes through a lot to support said pre-born baby) horrifies me and it takes part of a woman’s feminiity.
It teaches women to resent the fact that they are women and they do reproduce. Even if a woman has other children, it still suggests to a woman that while those other children are just fine for her to have, for some reason the one in her womb doesn’t rank on the list of “approved” for life.
There’s women who will abort for any reason no matter how flimsey. There’s women who brag about abortion as if it’s some sort of accomplishment. (Really what do women have to show for their abortion except an empty womb?)
Honestly, the amount of effort and fortitude it takes to give birth and/or be a mom deserves a sort of congratulations that abortion will NEVER merit.
Let’s face abortion for what it is. The ending of a pre-born baby life. Opening up the possibility of post-abortive depression (in some cases suicide), amoung other health risks (perforation for one) never mind the laundry list of other possible problems. If you call that caring I’d hate to see what you call not caring.
Maia, as to the other things you pointed out, abortion is not the same as a person defending their life against an attack. Besides, the pre-born baby is completely unable to defend him or herself against the abortion. So you see why I find your correlation uneven?
Maia said: BTW, I never said that NO ONE regrets their abortion, I said that regretting one’s abortion was not TYPICAL.
Maia, Really? Because out of the women I’ve met I’ve met MORE who REGRET their abortions than those who don’t. And yes, I’ve met both pro-life and pro-choice/abort women.
Cranium said: Mother In Texas – lets just say I disagree with what you have said.
Cranium, I have yet to see you agree with a pro-lifer on very much so the fact you disagree with me is absolutely no surprise.
Cranium, this past year a mother birthed a child in her bed (Texas? Virginia? I forget where) and then smothered the child. she will not be charged with murder because the umbilical cord was still attaching child to mother. This is true story. Google it. I guess Cranium would come to this baby-killer’s defense. After all, cutting the umbilical cord is like receiving your “entrance into the human community” diploma! So clearly, this fully-formed living human baby wasn’t a person or anything.
Cranium, I didn’t follow a single thing you posted to me. What does “full stop” have to do with anything? You accused Carla of complaining. Then later you tried to back track. I get it. But the point is you DID accuse Carla of “complaining”. Your semantics mean nothing. Are you a politician by any chance?
Maia– you are saying we pro-lifers don’t have biology on our side? Oh honey! I am laughing uproariously now. Please take a basic Freshman biology class. You do know that the earth is round don’t you? You know the sun does not revolve around the earth? Please tell me you don’t believe in the four humors. Just checking. Your understanding of science is clearly off.
DD is Artemis, huh?
Some of the pro-choicers around here have more names than Aragorn.
maiathebegrrl
November 10th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
I am familiar with Rachel’s Vineyard and what you do. In fact, I have helped facilitate groups for women trying to recover from what groups like YOURS do to them. I would argue that, for many women, groups like yours CREATE the problem they osetnsibly try to solve.
I’ve only ever done this once before on this blog. This sounded like an interesting thought, and something typical of the paranoia of the abortion apologists, so I started googling. And I googled, and googled, and googled.
I don’t believe you actually do do this. Or, if you do, you’ve made your space so “safe” from us horrible anti-choicers that you’ve made it very difficult for any people who supposedly would look for that sort of thing to find you.
But my inclination is that you’ve made this up out of whole cloth just to try and gain debate points.
If women do NOT regret their abortions or feel no remorse in the killing of their own child through abortion they will not seek out a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat. Simple Simon, Maia.
They will go to Exhale and I’m Not Sorry. They will buy the I Had An Abortion tshirt and tweet ihadanabortion and blame us for how we have “stigmatized” them.
cran,
Until the umbilical cord is cut, the fetus (male or female in gender) is not an individual entity. Yes it has it’s own dna, yes it has reached viable status (in most circumstances). But it hasn’t entered ’life’ until the cord is cut. Until then it is a fetus, or an impending baby.
You support infanticide. Own it.
So mothers and fathers in delivery rooms could, in your twisted mind kill their children before the umbilical cord is cut and you have no problem with that.
You are one sick pup, cran.
Get help.
“Until the umbilical cord is cut, the fetus (male or female in gender) is not an individual entity. Yes it has it’s own dna, yes it has reached viable status (in most circumstances). But it hasn’t entered ’life’ until the cord is cut. Until then it is a fetus, or an impending baby.”
So may I engage in sexual intercourse with this non-individual entity, non-life that does not have its umbilical cord cut?
I’ve only ever done this once before on this blog. This sounded like an interesting thought, and something typical of the paranoia of the abortion apologists, so I started googling. And I googled, and googled, and googled.
Keli Hu,
They’re so afraid of pro-lifers they don’t make it very easy to find them, do they? I’m looking through pages and pages of searches. If people suffer so much at the hands of Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries, then why isn’t it easier to find? Because pro-lifers are such terrible people? I wasn’t gonna go there to lecture any of them, I just wanted to see if such a thing truly existed. But if it truly exists, why can’t a simple google search render anything? Or is it just not that popular?
I don’t doubt there’s people who don’t like what Rachel’s Vineyard has to say. They may even feel guilty, but I doubt very much that’s the ministry’s fault. Based on what I know about Carla I doubt very much that they tell women they’re terrible people and going to hell for their abortion. I certainly wouldn’t say that to someone who was suffering post-abortive remorse and such like that. I’d tell them there’s healing available and that their remorse would be heard by God.
I’ve talked with people who regretted abortion (even a man who’s g/f at the time aborted his child). I never once told them they were going to hell. My heart wept with them and I tried very hard to comfort them.
I know I’m NOT the only pro-lifer who feels this way. How does this so-called organization know that no pro-lifer would want to help? To love? To encourage?
Remorse and repentance has the power to lead to forgiveness and healing. Jesus said there would be “more rejoicing in Heaven over one repentant soul than over 99 pius ones” (okay, those aren’t the precise words, but the gist of what that verse is).
Abortion is a violent act upon a woman’s body as we pro-lifers all know.
Bobby Bambino
November 11th, 2010 at 10:04 am
“Until the umbilical cord is cut, the fetus (male or female in gender) is not an individual entity. Yes it has it’s own dna, yes it has reached viable status (in most circumstances). But it hasn’t entered ’life’ until the cord is cut. Until then it is a fetus, or an impending baby.”
So may I engage in sexual intercourse with this non-individual entity, non-life that does not have its umbilical cord cut?
Bobby,
I know you were illlustrating a point…but EWWWW!
Until the umbilical cord is cut, the fetus (male or female in gender) is not an individual entity. Yes it has it’s own dna, yes it has reached viable status (in most circumstances). But it hasn’t entered ‘life’ until the cord is cut. Until then it is a fetus, or an impending baby.
I heard it’s not really a baby until its first bowel movement. But I might be wrong.
Rachel’s Vineyard exists so women that DO feel regret, shame, humiliation and are struggling after their abortions can find hope and healing. They KNOW what abortion has done to their child, to their life and those around them and only want to move in a positive direction and feel peace. His peace. His forgiveness. His love and mercy.
Telling women they are going to hell wouldn’t help.(I am not going to hell for my abortion!!!)I am sure proaborts tell women that is what we say but I have no control over that. It is a flat out lie.
The RV Retreats are like nothing I have ever experienced before in my recovery. I have watched women come on a Friday night, broken and frightened and alone and searching. By Sunday afternoon they are RADIANT!!
ohh goodness – poop and therefore one lives?? LOL! one takes the first breath outside the womb before that, breastfeeds before that, cries before that, is swaddled before that. (but I get that it’s a joke!)
Anytime we put arbitrary constraints on what constitutes life (due to conflicting personal opinions), we have a moving point and nothing scientific.
Just like saying ‘inside the womb’ – no life, outside the womb – life. Umbilical cord attached – no life, umbilical cord attached – life. So being human depends on location? Circumstances?
If a black man lived south of the Mason-Dixon line – he was considered less than human – north of the line – human…
Location does not change the genesis of WHO he is, or WHAT he is – fully human. But it does denote what the law says can be in the response to him.
Location does not determine what a thing is. Either it is, or it isn’t: X. And in this case, a human (no matter the development, size or location) is still fully human.
Location does not change what a human is.
Why Janet, I heard its not a baby till the first tooth. Teeth grant personhood. Which means, every elderly person with dentures is fair game for euthanasia! No teeth no rights!!!! Thats my mantra.
Pretty sure it’s when they crawl. Or get their driver’s license.
Tweeting ihadanabortion and Silent No More campaign
http://www.lifenews.com/2010/11/11/opi-1010/
Hey how about the first day of school? First date? First time they speak? First time they feed themselves? ah, the list can go on and on…! ;)
See what happens when we make up our own arbitrary line of what defines human?
The professor from Princeton thinks that parents should have the right to not let their baby live, even after 30-60 days after they are born.
And he has tenure… ;(
Being human is not arbitrary. Human rights and dignity for all humans, no matter their size, functionality, age, location and development.
If you are in the family (human) you should be treated with dignity in all circumstances – and with the first right — to life.
YAY!
Welcome to the family everyone!
The professor from Princeton thinks that parents should have the right to not let their baby live, even after 30-60 days after they are born.
And he has tenure… ;(
Actually, I think Singer believes parents should have the right to kill their disabled children up to the full first year after birth.
joyfromillinois… can’t be first time they feed themselves. Otherwise, my husband isn’t a person either! lol.
The idea that a baby isn’t a “real baby” until the umbilical cord is cut is hilarious. What happens if the parents and doctor let it stay on for a couple of days?
It’s especially funny for me because my dad cut my umbilical cord. Oh my God, my dad was the one who made me a “real baby”! That’s got to be, like, misogynistic or fascist or something! What was he doing? What right did he have to turn me into a “real baby” when I was still part of my mother’s body?!
“Why isn’t it easier to find? Because pro-lifers are such terrible people? I wasn’t gonna go there to lecture any of them, I just wanted to see if such a thing truly existed. But if it truly exists, why can’t a simple google search render anything? Or is it just not that popular?”
FYI, it’s this whole thread of thinking that’s making me leave.
Sure, I am just making my work up. I am just totally making up the fact that anti-choice activists try to spam our events and harass our staff and volunteers. I care that much about what a bunch of blogosphere anti-choicers think that I’m lying.
I am totally over all of you (which actually feels pretty good- thanks to my students!)
:)
Please, however, note that this has nothing to do with an inability to argue with / refute what you all have said (not that most of you will believe or understand that). What I don’t have, is the the time or inclination to argue with unreasonable people who have no interest in real discussion.
*Side note: There are a few of you of whom this does not seem to be true. If I created an online discussion space designed for those from opposite ends of the abortion spectrum to come together and talk (a place where no one is a “troll” and everyone is honestly trying to understand each other, rather than prove their “enemy” … would you join me?
And regarding Rachel’s Vineyard – my friend who now can’t have children because of her abortion history – said that Rachel’s Vineyard was wonderful. Even after all this time, she did not realize that she needed more healing, and RV and their support and love helped her to heal more.
And if anyone says that RV says that people are going to hell because of their abortions do not know what they are talking about.
No such thing – it’s about discovering God’s loving Mercy and Forgiveness in all things – and when one repents and knows better, they do better. No damning, not negative, just supportive, loving, healing and wonderful. And some women attend again to reach deeper healing…
Sorry – but too many people are speaking inaccurately … such a shame.
“If I created an online discussion space designed for those from opposite ends of the abortion spectrum to come together and talk… would you join me?”
I might, though it’s hard for me to try and keep too many convos going at once (even here), which is why I generally don’t comment on pro-choice blogs since I’ll have to spend too much time answering… in that sense I do appreciate pro-choicers here… but I digress. Yeah, possibly. Keep us informed.
Hi there newbie PC’ers (and not so new ones too),
in the distant past, I have made repeated blogs about the science of abortion: it is so straight forward that it seems almost new, but it ain’t.
Decades ago, Dr. Patrick Dunn of New Zealand (an Ob/Gyn) decided to graph the moods of his pregnant patients. He documented three distinct periods of depression: A) in the 1st trimester from wks 9-i2; B) starting in the 3rd trimester, a depressive period slowly worsens until the euphoria of birth. [release of endorphins] C) This mood does not last long and a postpartum depression (at times suicidal) ensues. He made the observation that nearly 80% of all abortions was at the 10 wk mark; the lowest point of the first depression.
This begs the question: is abortion a response to depression? I have found no one even interested in confirming these studies. This is strange because ANY medical procedure done on a depressed patient calls for caution: except abortion, where the procedure cure/supplies-relief from a depression … scientific fraud!
interesting point John! I wonder if any pcers will respond.
maiathebeegrrl
November 11th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
You’re not going to shame me into thinking you’re being truthful simply by saying it’s annoying you to be called a liar. I just can not believe you would genuinely think that this is a service people need and then hide it so completely that those who supposedly need it so much can’t find it. Or anything even remotely similar. I didn’t just not find one particular group like you described, I didn’t find any. And yes, I do believe that you can’t refute this claim, and that you’re leaving with a flounce so that you won’t be asked to.
So, no. I don’t believe you at all.
This begs the question: is abortion a response to depression? I have found no one even interested in confirming these studies. This is strange because ANY medical procedure done on a depressed patient calls for caution: except abortion, where the procedure cure/supplies-relief from a depression … scientific fraud!
Hi John McD.,
I’m no expert, but I agree with you that abortion can be a response to depression much in the same way that other destructive behaviors are and you make some very good points. But if doctors start treating the mothers’ depression instead of aborting their babies will the elective abortion industry survive? The stakes are too high, I’m afraid:(
PART II -the more ‘heady’ science
Not even asked by Dr. Dunn, is something happening with the developing-baby/fetus that makes this ‘depression scenario’ plausible? When I was reading research into a totally different topic – the use of zinc in fetal development - ‘Zinc and Copper in Medicine’ eds Sarper & Karcioglu @1983 [Its well over 1000 pages long of researchers findings … very dry stuff!], it began to click together.
In human development there are 4 periods where the developing child needs/requires an unusually large amount of zinc. The 1st period is wks 5-8 when among other things, here is initial heart development and initial optic nerve development occurs.
The 2nd period has the new organs making final preparations for birth. The list of organ systems is extensive. For instance insulin (dependent on zinc) is first manufactured only a day or two prior to birth.
The 3rd period is for right-after-birth when the immune system begins. [An active immune system would have the fetus rejecting its own womb as ‘foreign’.] The whole stomach and lung lining need zinc for its strong anti-microbial facet. The list here is incredibly long. [Zinc is the highest mineral in human-colostrum and is only a little less evident than zinc in oysters.]
These three seem to follow Dr. Dunn’s patten except to explain why the zinc – depression. Our cerebellum (the part of the brain that coordinates emotions with muscle movement) is highly zinc-dependent, especially its mossy fiber layers. Dr. Jan de Vries treats his multiple sclerosis patients with depression, with zinc.
Then there is the 4th period of high zinc use by humans of both sexes. This is known as puberty. In males there is a period of ‘rebellion’/initial-criminal behavior; growing muscles and bones and hair … and sperm (highly zinc-dependent; coordination (often during emotional episodes) is shot …. on and on. The ‘bitchiness’/PMS symptoms are consistent with a cerebellum that is under functioning. This also means that a pregnant teen/one-with-PMS is a shoe-in for pregnancy related depressions (aka Dunn).
Any decision made by a depressed person IS NEVER an even nor ‘balanced’ choice.
Kel, I don’t think an opinion piece by one anti-choicer with qualifications in…? is much of a response to a summation of numerous unbiased studies conducted by people with qualifications applicable to the particular field.
SydneyM, I did not back-track on my accusation of ‘complaining’, I refuted the claim that I had made an allegation of ‘complaining language’. They were two different points. One in regard to complaining, the other in regard to how a certain statement was couched.
“You support infanticide. Own it.” – not at all Carla. Infanticide is the murder of a baby which has been born.
Gees Bobby, stretching the attempted link a bit aren’t you!
It’s interesting to see how many people consider it a ‘baby’ some time after birth. A poop, a tooth, what a variety of definitions!
I don’t see the relevance of your comment Marauder.
We were joking about the teeth, crawling, getting a license, cran. But you knew that.
I see you prolifers are still dealing with the troll who has really stepped in some deep doo-doo with his/her “it’s a living human being when the umbilical cord is cut” garbage. I know that I am always telling you prolifers not to feed the troll but this time I really lost it when I heard that line. I am still LOL as I recall how many babies I saw delivered came out screaming, flayling (sp?) their arms out in a moro reflex, legs kicking, eyes opened, coughing, sputtering, spitting up mucous, hiccuping, sucking their fingers or thumb, searching for their mother’s breast, looking directly into their mother’s eyes, or dad’s eyes if he was getting ready to cut the cord, etc. all this BEFORE the cord was ever cut. You have got to be kidding that this troll considers his/herself a “brain”. It would be hilarious if it were not so pathetic that a pro-abort is posting this crap to define when baby killing, (oh I forgot “fetus termination”) should be permitted. I cannot even imagine the OB or Nurse Midwife saying “hold on Mrs or Ms so and so before I cut the cord while you think about whether you want a “baby” or not. If I kill your “fetus” before I cut the cord it was not really a “baby”. “cran” or “Brain” or whatever you call yourself, you do realize that if a woman delivers outside a hospital with no sterile scissors available she could be transported to the hospital with her baby, the umbilical cord and placenta intact wrapped up and kept warm by skin-to-skin contact with the mother until she is admitted and they can cut the cord safely. Yikes! What an idiot! I have got to take my own advice and not feed the trolls. Ignore the trolls if you can.
I’ll tell you what Prolifer L, why don’t you go and ask the umpteen thousand women who choose to abort each year exactly what they think constitutes the start of a new ‘life’.
Going all ‘ranty’ doesn’t change the reality of the situation. From my perspective all your emotive verbiage does is erect a haystack around a needle.
Kel, I don’t think an opinion piece by one anti-choicer with qualifications in…? is much of a response to a summation of numerous unbiased studies conducted by people with qualifications applicable to the particular field.
You can look up Prof. Michael New’s qualifications yourself if you really want to know.
However, calling those studies “unbiased” when some were performed with Ms. Major at the helm and when some were performed by the research arm of Planned Parenthood is a stretch. But that’s ok, as long as those particular studies say what you want them to say. Makes me laugh, really, with all the crap you’ve said about Dr. Nadal and the NCI’s own research and admission about the breast cancer/abortion link and how you discount every one of those studies, but take the word of a high-ranking pro-abort at the APA. I’m sure her research was indeed well-funded.
I’ll tell you what Prolifer L, why don’t you go and ask the umpteen thousand women who choose to abort each year exactly what they think constitutes the start of a new ‘life’.
Prolifer L probably doesn’t have to. PL probably owns a basic, middle school biology textbook that can tell her quite clearly when life begins.
http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Mar/8/scientists-attest-life-beginning-conception/
Michael New is a political scientist. His article was an opinion piece.
Brenda Major is a professor of psychology whose information is based on a conglomerate of studies by people with the appropriate qualifications.
Ah, Dr. Nadal and the ABC allegations. The ‘crap’ I have said is that the latest, up to date, unbiased studies refute the earlier, older and biased claims of a link.
As I’ve said before, people don’t live their lives explicitly and completely by text books. So while on a biological level the conjoining of a sperm and an egg creates a new biological lifeform, it still isn’t what (how many?) tousands of women consider ‘life’.
You know, like when people aren’t doing so well or aren’t happy or whatever they sometimes say “this is no life”, “I haven’t got a life” or “he ruined my life”.
Life and living is much much more than some text book definition. It starts at birth.
There is no life and no living for a child who is killed by abortion.
Life and living is much much more than some text book definition.
Spoken like a person who has no science on his side.
Brenda Major is a professor of psychology whose information is based on a conglomerate of studies by people with the appropriate qualifications.
Questionable affiliations make for questionable results. Don’t you agree?
“Spoken like a person who has no science on his side.” – well, you’re almost getting the point. As I said life and living is much much more than some text book definition. What gives people motivation? Why do some people have a higher IQ than others? Why do we not all like exactly the same food and drink? Why do some believe in gods and not others?
“Questionable affiliations make for questionable results” – yes they can. But they don’t apply to a conglomerate of studies conducted by a wide variety of people and groups with the relevant qualifications. Now, on the other hand, the stuff you cite.
As I’ve said before, people don’t live their lives explicitly and completely by text books. So while on a biological level the conjoining of a sperm and an egg creates a new biological lifeform, it still isn’t what (how many?) tousands of women consider ‘life’.
No people don’t live their lives by textbooks. Nevertheless, we live in a real world governed by scientific facts. One of those facts is that a new human individual comes into existence at the very beginning of the fertilization process. Biological facts affect our lives everyday whether we choose to accept this or not.
It is therefore irrelevant whether thousands or millions of women consider this to be new life. How they respond depends upon whether they are willing to live their lives in a reality grounded on the truth or whether they are willing to simply do whatever they want at the expense of harming themselves and others. I believe the latter is called narcissism.
“Why isn’t it easier to find? Because pro-lifers are such terrible people? I wasn’t gonna go there to lecture any of them, I just wanted to see if such a thing truly existed. But if it truly exists, why can’t a simple google search render anything? Or is it just not that popular?”
FYI, it’s this whole thread of thinking that’s making me leave.
Sure, I am just making my work up. I am just totally making up the fact that anti-choice activists try to spam our events and harass our staff and volunteers. I care that much about what a bunch of blogosphere anti-choicers think that I’m lying.
I am totally over all of you (which actually feels pretty good- thanks to my students!)
Maia,
All I asked was why it wasn’t easy to find. I didn’t say it wasn’t legitimate, I asked if it was so popular and so legititmate WHY it wasn’t easier to find. If it’s supposed to be so helpful to women who suffered from going to Rachel’s Vineyard wouldn’t the people running it want these women to be able to find it with ease? To me it just is basic sense. I get it, you want it spammed, that’s a legit concern and I can respect that, HOWEVER, if the organization IS legitimate it has to be findable, and if it’s not easily found how are people supposed to believe such a thing is real?
You can find (and spam) any number of pro-life organizations…from Catholic Charities, to Right to Life offices. They make themselves easily found especially for those in need of their services.
On a personal note, I had absolutely no plans to spam the organization you mentioned. No plans to say anything on that site, it was a matter of seeing you back up your claims. On here, if you can’t back up a claim you’re dismissed as not having a leg to stand on NO MATTER what side of the argument you’re on. That’s the way it goes in a debate. You have to be able to back up your words.
If you can’t do that, don’t bring it up. I know that sounds harsh and believe me, it can be, but seriously it’s said on either side. You can’t back up a claim don’t make it.
You claim this organization exists. We asked for proof. You said no. We have 2 choices:
1. We can have faith your claims are real (okay, but still, not everyone has faith in things they can’t see. Just ask some atheists about that).
2. We conclude such a place doesn’t exist and you’re making it up to sound good.
It wouldn’t surprise me if what you’re saying is true, honest. But, without being able to back it up I can guarentee you won’t be taken seriously.
Like I said, sounds harsh, but when you debate you have to be able to show foundation for your claims.
Women who have abortions do “live their lives in a reality grounded on the truth” – it may not be your truth, but it’s theirs. That is why abortion exists and persists.
As I said life and living is much much more than some text book definition. What gives people motivation? Why do some people have a higher IQ than others? Why do we not all like exactly the same food and drink? Why do some believe in gods and not others?
Wait, wait… what’s that sound? It’s the sound of someone waxing philosophical SO QUICKLY after realizing biology doesn’t back up his claims, that it just WHOOSHED by my head. ;)
I don’t know about the rest of you, but cranium really really spooks me!!!! I’m almost ready to believe he’s some counterfeit pro-lifer just trying to fire up the discussion…
You can go and and try to prove that first few months after fertilisation it’s just a “blob”, tissue, not alive, not human, not person, not a baby, whatever, I’m ok with that, eventually science will show exactly how it is.
BUT! To claim that a fully developed newborn baby is not “life”(!!!!!!!!!!!!!) until the cord is cut – is beyond belief…. I can’t imagine what kind of person you have to be to claim such madness…. I can bet you all a $100 cranium doesn’t have children/was never present at birth/was never pregnant (not sure if it’s a he or she).
it may not be your truth, but it’s theirs. That is why abortion exists and persists.
Cranium,
So is it your assertion that there is no such thing as objective truth? That whatever a person’s personal opinion/beliefs are just fine regardless?
All right, so let’s look at your assertion another way:
What if someone points to a rock and says “that’s a rock” but someone else says “No, to me, that’s not a rock, it’s a kitty cat.” Does that change what it is just because someone else doesn’t believe it’s a rock? Does that mean the person who recognizes it as a rock’s truth is fine as well as the person who thinks the rock is a kitty cat is right, too?
How does THAT make ANY sense?
Now maybe you mean SUBJECTIVE truth which is what OPINIONS are.
My my, how convenient. So the fact that the past umpteen comments I’ve made on this thread have all been about what people consider ‘life’ outside of a textbook has passed you by?
I have stated that yes a fetus has its own dna and that it is a human life form which is ‘alive’in the textbook sense.
But most of my words have been in relation to what people consider constitutes a ‘life’ Rememeber the – they sometimes say “this is no life”, “I haven’t got a life” or “he ruined my life” – bit?
So the WOOSH you heard was probably you avoiding the point.
Vita, a fetus is not a ‘baby’ or a ‘person’. And yes, I am a parent and I have been present at births. So do I get the $100?
cranium, Have you been present or have you participated in partial birth abortions or the killing of small babies still connected to their mother by the umbilical cord?
If no, do you want to be?
cranium
November 12th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Vita, a fetus is not a ‘baby’ or a ‘person’. And yes, I am a parent and I have been present at births. So do I get the $100?
Yeah, sure, cranium, come and get it – I live in the UK.
However your admission that you’ve been present at births and (I’m assuming) had a chance to watch a pregnancy up to 9 months and see how the baby develops and then right our coldly claim that any of these babies can be “terminated” at any time, even after birth (since they’re still connected with their mother through the umbilical cord), is absolutely terrifying and makes NO sense whatsoever!
I prayed for you last night and will continue praying.
I pray for everyone too- especially for the conversion of hearts … We in the human family need everyone – not just those lucky ones chosen for life by their moms – everyone.
And as I heard on Fr. Pavone’s program tonight (paraphrasing) ‘pray for the dignity of all humans – the innocent as well as the guilty. All deserve to be treated with dignity (as a member of our human family).’
Peace.
Joy–
AMEN praying for everyone is a good idea.
Vita, Praxedes, Mother in Texas and joyfromillinois does it creep you out that a so-called “parent” can say they do not consider a child a “baby” until the umbilical cord is cut and can still be aborted up until that point. I would be afraid to allow this creep into the birthing room when I was working L&D because for some reason he/she may “choose” to get cold-feet or just lose it during the delivery, ”no don’t want this baby”, “let’s teminate this potential life” and tells the OB “don’t you dare cut that cord we/I changed our/my mind, it’s not a baby until I say it is”. We have had a lot of pro-aborts post here some crazy stuff but either cran is a troll pulling everyone’s chain for a laugh or he/she is a real loon. Twilight Zone music is playing when he/she posts here lately. I appreciate you saying we need to pray you guys I will join with you in prayer for divine intervertion and disruption of the enemy’s attack. I pray for wisdom and protection for everyone including Jill, the mods and all prolifers.
Lest Gerard feel too alone:
I also think it quite likely that DD and Joan will go to hell unless their hearts change. I can’t condemn them—only God can do that—but I think it likely that few in heaven will have been unrepentant supporters of, much less participants in, the slaughter of children which is so common in the world today.
For the record, I am not a Catholic.
Let me get this straight. According to dissenting “Catholics,” Catholic priests/magisterium should not be determining the teachings for sexuality within marriage. As celibate men, they do not know about the demands or needs of married couples, and thus it is not right for them to condemn contraception or expect a period of celibacy in marriage for those not wishing to conceive. AND YET they are also unqualified to say whether a life of celibacy is reasonable and endurable, even though they are living the life of a celibate man? No one in the US is forced into the priesthood; why would anyone enter what they knew to be a celibate life if they knew they weren’t cut out for it? They would only do this if they did not intend to be celibate or wanted to corrupt the institution.
Maia:
Let me welcome you to Jill’s and let you know this—there is forgiveness and healing in Jesus Christ. He can take away your hate, anger and sin. He can forgive every sin. And He wants to, because He loves you. I used to be a “sinner.” I did not care whether what I did and said was right or wrong in God’s eyes—only in my own eyes. I wanted things that were evil, because I thought they would give me pleasure. But now my eyes have been opened, and I know the truth. The things which I wanted that were evil—to the extent I got them, I wish I had not, and to the extent I did not, I am grateful. I have learned that God’s ways are better than mine, and that He knows better than I do. I trust Him to show me what is right. You can have peace and joy by surrendering your life to Him.
And secondly—
What about those who die in legal abortions? A law against abortion might prevent such deaths.
What about the child who dies in abortion? If some women tragically die in illegal abortion, but many more bring their babies to term and give birth, more life is preserved by outlawing abortion—not to mention those who murdered babies illegally were more careful than those who murder babies legally, so illegal abortion might well be safer.
What about the collateral damage—hospitals that refuse to treat preemies below a certain age; women who don’t get the medical help they need to carry to term until they’ve had a certain number of miscarriages, or see a specialist, because their children’s lives are just not valued; men whose wanted babies are destroyed over their objections; women who change their minds, but the abortionist aborts anyway; girls who are forced or pressured into an unwanted abortion; children conceived after an aborted sibling who die in pregnancy or experience problems due to prematurity caused by damage to their mother’s womb from the abortion; women who are maimed or made infertile by abortion?
For the record: your numbers are wrong. Been over this here and elsewhere, not addressing it now, just know we don’t believe you.
I have an 11-month-old son. He is mostly breastfed. Do I have a right to withhold my body from him? You might say I have a right to stop breastfeeding. Okay. Do I have to feed him though? Do I have to use my body to make him a sippy cup, or put him in a high chair with food, or spoon out baby food for him? Do I have a responsibility at all if I refuse to do these things—such as to (use my body to) call someone who can and will care for him, and care for him until such a person can take over? What about my husband? Five days a week he uses his body to drive to work and do his job. Then, using his money, I buy food for not just him, but myself and our two children. Does he have an obligation to do this? What if he just leaves? Does he have any obligation to continue to provide (with his body) for the care of his two children? Please compare or contrast these constraints with our supposedly unreasonable requirement that a child’s mother provide physically for their child for nine months or so until another person can take over safely.
I also will note that your argument only allows for the removal of the child, not the killing of the child. Please explain why, when removing from a woman’s uterus a 24-week-old female fetus with Down’s Syndrome, it is necessary to stab scissors into her skull in order to protect the woman’s right to bodily integrity.
What do you think an aborted fetus looks like? Please provide a picture.
Joan:
Bobby beat me to it, but I was also going to ask if it was okay to rape a fetus.
“Bobby beat me to it, but I was also going to ask if it was okay to rape a fetus.”
I think this is a very legitimate question. If the fetus either doesn’t have rights until he is out of the mother’s womb or we base the right to an abortion on the total bodily ownership of the woman, I’m not sure why this would not be acceptable. You could engage in sexual acts with a fetus still attached by the umbilical cord or you could deliver the fetus feet first like they do in a D & X but with the head still inside the mother. The head is in the mother, but the torso is outside the womb, making it very possible for sexual activity with the fetus to occur. Then deliver the fetus when the activity is all finished. Would that be wrong? Why would it be okay to stab scissors in the back of the fetus’s head and suck its brains out, but it wouldn’t be okay to engage in sexual intercourse with the fetus and then deliver it?