Abortion proponent likens miscarriage to unplanned pregnancy
I believe any woman who has experienced a missed miscarriage can understand the panic that fills you, knowing that there is something inside of you that you have no ability to remove or end yourself. That for as long as it takes to arrange appointments, see doctors, schedule surgery, it is sitting inside you, a part of you, but really not.
It didn’t take long into setting up my D&C for me to realize that panic, that feeling of being trapped and needing help and knowing that your life is going in a totally different direction than you thought just a few days earlier, wasn’t much different than how a woman with an unwanted pregnancy felt from the moment she saw her first positive test.
~ Robin Marty, Care2.com, June 30

Robin needs some serious counseling & prayer.
My goodness, these people really do see babies as hostage-takers with loaded weapons aimed at their heads. Such hyped-up, self-centered melodrama. Grow up, already.
I mean you can sort of understand. These little hostage takers just show up without warning or provocation. There’s nothing whatsoever that these poor victimized women can do to prevent this hostile takeover of their bodies by these non-person, human-ish potential people. I know I myself am in a constant state of panic about an unprovoked invasion.
On a more serious note, I’m going to have to get it tattooed on my flipping forehead. Removal of a miscarriage IS.NOT.AT.ISSUE.IN.THE.ABORTION.DEBATE.
I’ve had a missed miscarriage, and there was NO panic whatsoever. I had time to grieve and wait for my body to do all the work neccessary. If this lady paniced, she shouldn’t assume other people react the same way. And with unwanted pregnancy, sure there probably would be some anxiety or maybe even panic, but that doesn’t mean that what’s needed is abortion appointments on the spot, actually quite the opposite – women need time and space to calm down, clear their heads and think of all the options they have. A rash decision is VERY rarely the right one.
Amen to that, Vita!!
There is that “something” again. “It” is sitting inside of you. What in the world is the “something” that women get pregnant with, Robin?? Just what is “it?”
You can do this. You can face the truth. You can learn and grow and accept the facts. I know you can.
Women who regret their abortions only feel bad because right wing conservatives make them feel bad. Right? But as long as you’re pro-abortion, then ALL your feelings are valid and ALL your comparisons must ring true. Right? And so women who lose a wanted baby can sooo relate to pro-choice women who abort their ‘inconvenient invader.’ Right?
Wrong again, as usual.
Because removing a rotting corpse from your body that puts you at risk of serious infection is the same thing as having your child killed. Riiiiiight.
As a woman who had a missed miscarriage and a subsequent D&C, I find Robyn’s comparison grossly offensive. The shock and grief I experienced upon seeing my baby’s lifeless body on the ultrasound screen is not comparable to a woman making the decision to kill her living baby because her life may be going in a different direction than she originally planned.
Who are all of you to tell a woman how to feel about her miscarriage?
“Who are all of you to tell a woman how to feel about her miscarriage? ”
We are human beings with intellect and rational who are able to apply careful moral thinking to certain situations and conclude that some actions are objectively evil and some situations are objectively tragic. For example, it is disordered to feel joy when your spouse is murdered. If one feels joy when their spouse is murdered, there is something wrong with them and we are in our rights to say so. This can apply to many other situations as well.
Jane, I’m a woman who has had two miscarriages, the first of which was a missed miscarriage followed by a D&C. The pregnancy itself was rather a catastrophe for us as we were in a precarious financial situation (I had just started a new job after nearly two months of unemployment, and I had no health insurance) but the BABY was very much wanted, and we were devastated when we lost him/her.
When my missed miscarriage was diagnosed, the D&C was three days later. I admit I looked forward to the closure I was hoping the D&C would bring, but at the same time I mourned not having my baby in my body anymore, even though I knew intellectually that s/he was no longer alive. It was the only connection I had left to him/her and I hated losing that. After the D&C, we had him/her buried in a Catholic cemetery so at least I had his/her grave to visit, which is more than many other women have after their miscarriages. (Sadly, we’ve since moved 1800 miles away so I’m unable to visit his/her grave more than once every few years.)
I find it offensive that Robyn compares mourning the natural death of a much-wanted baby to the feelings of a woman who, upon finding herself pregnant, decides, deliberately, to throw away the gift of a healthy baby because she doesn’t want her life to change as the result of her poor choices.
Jane, I don’t see anyone here telling a woman how to feel after their miscarriage, but rather women sharing their unique experiences and feelings after their miscarriage. If anything, it’s Robin Marty who’s generalizing and projecting her feelings and experience onto other women (who may in fact may have different experiences and feelings.
Not all women feel heartbroken at the occurance of miscarriage, including women who are against abortion. It is not my place to tell you what emotions you should feel if you experience a miscarriage, as it is not your place to tell me how to feel during mine.
My grandfather died of Alzheimer’s disease and my entire family was sad-but relieved, because his suffering had been so great. Would you tell us that we were wrong to feel relief at the death of someone we loved VERY much?
My mother’s miscarriage was simply an occurrence…the baby was sick and had died, so she knew that it couldn’t have survived outside of her, and that someday she’d have another baby.
There is not “objective” tragedy, and the woman that is quoted is not saying that she felt “joy” at her miscarriage.
Rachael- Joanna finds the woman’s comparison ( which includes how the woman feels about her miscarriage) “grossly offensive” and Bobby says there arE objective tragedies that we must react a certain way to.
Your grandfather’s case does not at all undermine the principle I put forth. In fact, you commit a fallacy of quantifiers. I claimed that there are CERTAIN situations (there exists, existential quantifier) in which there is objectivity speaking a proper reaction to have when a certain situation occurs. You attempted to disprove that by giving a specific situation. But I did not claim that it was for each and every situation; only for some. In fact, in order to disprove the principle, you would have to say that each and every situation that occurs has no proper emotional response. Thus, you would need to argue that there is no difference between a reaction of joy and a reaction of sorrow when someone experiences their spouse being murdered. Each reaction is equally valid, and who are we to judge?
Nulono,
What a disgusting thing to say. Several of us have had miscarriages. During my miscarriage I delivered my 10 week old child into my hand. Beautiful, precious and perfect. Not a rotting corpse.
Joanna,
The grief I feel over the loss of my two children in miscarriage is the same as the grief I feel over the loss of my child to abortion. Denial of the humanity of the child lost to abortion is the reason many sail into denial. Just as I did. Robin is trying to blur the experiences of abortion and miscarriage to justify abortion.
Jane,
You find my response to my abortion as equally as valid as yours? My sense of grief and loss and regret as opposed to “being fine with it?”
Who are proaborts to tell me how to feel about my abortion?
Jane, and as woman who’s had a miscarriage, JoAnna is entitled to her own feelings and if she finds such a comparison offensive, then that’s her right. Again, no woman is going to have the same reaction, every woman’s reactions, feelings, and experience is different, “Each reaction is equally valid, and who are we to judge?” right?
Jane, I do find it grossly offensive when someone says that losing my babies via miscarriage was no different than if I’d aborted them. I find that grossly offensive no matter if the person making the statement has an an abortion, a miscarriage, both, or neither.
They can feel however they want about it, but there is a drastic difference between miscarriage and abortion. Even the secular About.com recognizes that fact: “The elective ending of a pregnancy is a completely different situation than the loss of a wanted pregnancy, both medically and emotionally.”
Why is this concept so hard to grasp for abortion advocates? If they want to murder their children, I can’t yet legally stop them, but they should stop telling me that my babies’ natural deaths were no different than if I’d voluntarily chosen to end their lives. It is grossly offensive and I stand by that.
Wait, so I’m only allowed to discuss reactions to: spousal murder and miscarriage?
I was trying to give you an example of a death that had a complicated reaction. People have complicated emotions, and complicated lives. Not every woman needs to react to a miscarriage with horror and grief, and it’s not my job, nor yours, to tell anyone what an acceptable reaction is.
Or further, consider the earthquakes in Japan several months ago. There were several people on facebook who updated their statuses with things like “Remember Pearl Harbor, Japan? Karma sucks, don’t it?” and other reactions that showed a sense of joy at the earthquakes in Japan. If we are to believe, Jane, that there is NOT such a thing as an objective tragedy and that there are NOT proper ways to objectively react to certain situations, then you would have to hold that there was nothing wrong with people reacting with joy and vindication at the earthquakes in Japan. Being overjoyed that much of Japan was destroyed in an earthquake is just a legit an opinion and reaction as feeling empathy and sorrow if we are to believe that there is no such thing as a legitimate reaction to certain situations.
“It didn’t take long into setting up my D&C for me to realize that panic, that feeling of being trapped and needing help and knowing that your life is going in a totally different direction than you thought just a few days earlier, wasn’t much different than how a woman with an unwanted pregnancy felt from the moment she saw her first positive test.”
I don’t know if my ‘bolds’ above will repost but you can see from Robin’s quote that she doesn’t restrain herself to “I” and “ME” but says YOUR and A WOMAN FELT. So, though the women in our comments above are owning their miscarriage experience, you can clearly see that Robin is in fact NOT owning it and IS in fact, PROJECTING. Therefore, “Jane’s” question “who are you to tell” can easily be applied to ROBIN’s comments.
Joanna, if you read the quote closely, you’ll see that she isn’t saying that at all. She’s saying that she understood, based on her personal panic about having a dead baby inside of her body, how some women would feel if they saw a positive pregnancy test for an unwanted pregnancy.
She is in no way saying that your emotions are the same as women who are seeking an abortion.
“Wait, so I’m only allowed to discuss reactions to: spousal murder and miscarriage?”
No, you have to negate the claim “there exists” which means show “for all.” You cannot show a “there exists” statement is incorrect by showing a “there exists” counterexample.
Here is what I mean. Your response was equivalent to the following. I claim that there exists prime numbers. You respond by saying “Nope! What about 4? 4 isn’t a prime number!” This is a very basic logical fallacy. You need to show that ALL numbers are not prime.
Thus, you need to show that ALL situations do not have an objective reaction to them. I agree your grandfather’s situation has legit mixed reactions to it. I can give dozens of other specific examples that have mixed reactions to them. Nut I’m not claiming all situations have this property. Only some.
“Not every woman needs to react to a miscarriage with horror and grief, and it’s not my job, nor yours, to tell anyone what an acceptable reaction is. ”
Again, if you wish to defend this claim, you need to show that for all situations, there does not exist an acceptable reaction. Otherwise, it is not your job to tell people that they are wrong for reacting happily when Japan is bombed, etc. Unless… the REAL underlying question is whether or not teh unborn have any objective value…
Ninek-so robin isn’t a great writer, hence the use of “your.” she’s explaining her own situation through immature language, which isn’t the same as projecting
All she is really saying then is she THINKS the panic might be the same. Her child that died inside of her and needed to be removed=HER PANIC. A woman who finds out she is pregnant with a living child even though the pregnancy is unplanned=PANIC.
Bit of a stretch for me to see that I guess.
Fine, I will respond to your examples:
– someone can have a complicated reaction to a spousal murder. Not all marriages are happy, and some are abusive. there are circumstances that complicate people’s reactions and emotions to any situation. it is not up to you to tell women how to feel about their miscarriages or their pregnancies, I will repeat it until I’m blue in the face
JoAnna,
No need to take offense at someone who only wants to justify abortion by equating it with miscarriage.
You know the truth. The pain, grief and loss of miscarriage for so many mothers refutes her little quote.
No, no, you need to argue ALL situations have no objective reactions to them. You talked about a spousal murder with very specific circumstances i.e. abusive relationship. You need to argue that all spousal murders (as well as ALL other situations in general) have no objective reaction to them, even the happy ones. If YOUR mother or brother or any relative of YOURS was murdered today, you need to argue that ANY reaction you experience is legit. If my mother or brother was murdered today, you need to argue that ANY reaction I experience is legit.
And I would also like to know if it would have been legit for every single person in the world to react with glee and joy at teh earthquakes in Japan and say “You got what you deserved.” Is that just as legit a reaction as one of sorrow?
Carla- you’re right! It’s purely speculation on the part of a woman who had a miscarriage. She is speculating, but it is presented on this website as something very different, in the hopes that it will rile up the commenters who choose to not read it closely, or read it in context
Jane, when I found out my baby had died inside of me, I felt no “panic.” I felt horrible, gut-wrenching grief. My husband and I held each other and we cried. My midwife cried with us.
It’s chilling that Robyn’s first thought after her missed miscarriage was diagnosed was “OMG how am I going to get it out of me?!” instead of “My baby died. I’m so sad.”
It’s offensive and sickening that she’s using her experience to justify abortion.
So…..do you agree or disagree with the quote, Jane? :)
@Jane: Robin made a deliberate decision to share her story with the public. Any time that happens, the speaker invites public response. in fact, her goal in sharing this story was to ellicit a particular response. However, human beings are thimking creatures and not everyone is going to hear those stories the same way. And the one thing you absolutely cannot do is demand that the only reactions expressed be the ones that suit you. You don’ get to tell other people what they are allowed to think.
Having said that, after reading the comments in this thread and your responses to them, I can’t help but to conclude that you are reading things into them that absolutely aren’t there. Being offended by a comparison of abortion and miscarriage does not equate to teling anyone how they should feel about a misscarriage. I’m actually surprised that no one has been offended, that they’ve said, at your claim that it does. Especially given the number of women here who are pro-life and have had miscarriages. How dare you tell them that they aren’ allowed to be offended? Who are you to say that reaction is disallowed?
I need to practise typing on my Kindle, I see.
Bobby- if you’re talking about the bomb being dropped on japan, which you mentioned at 12:24, then YES there were incredibly mixed reactions- sadness for the loss of life and relief and happiness at the end of war.
“Having said that, after reading the comments in this thread and your responses to them, I can’t help but to conclude that you are reading things into them that absolutely aren’t there. ”
Absolutely, Alice. Let me also note that I am not trying to defend “telling women how they should react when a miscarriage occurs.” Rather, I am attacking the claim that one is not allowed to tell someone what their reaction in any given situation should be based on the “Who are all of you to tell” argument. I am critiquing the “Who are all of you to tell” argument and nothing else.
No, I was not. I was talking about the earthquake recently. And even if I was, your response STILL doesn’t answer the question because all you said is that there were mixed reactions. I don’t care if there were mixed reactions; I care about what SHOULD have been the case, not was.
But again, no, I was talking about earthquake and people writing things on facebook like “Take that Japan. Love me some karma.” Would you say this is a legit reaction and that there is no objective proper reaction to the earthquakes in Japan? Or that those who say such things have cognitive faculties which are not functioning properly?
Let me help you Jane. Maybe Robyn felt trapped and panicked when she had a miscarriage. Maybe some women who see the positive test feel trapped and panicked when the realize they are pregnant. I don’t disagree with anything Robyn claims when she is speaking about her own experience because I’m not Robyn, and she can feel however she wants. I can point out that her claim to know other women’s feelings is speculation on her part, and she can’t presume to know what every woman feels – either about miscarriage or unintended pregnancy. Now, here’s the important part, so listen carefully – however Robyn feels about miscarriage, women who have had a different experiecnce may find that the way she relates her experience is offensive. And (since I’m guessing that this comment was made in some context related to abortion) no matter how a woman feels about an unintended pregnancy it is morally WRONG for one human being to take the life of another human being. Do you care to refute this statement?
Sorry, see my 12:19 comment.
It’s fine for people to be offended. What I think is absurd is their belief that other women’s emotions for their own pregnancies or miscarriages have anything to do with their own
We all know the pro-abort drill:
If I advocate for abortion, all my opinions are valid.
If I am pro-life, I can’t tell anyone anything.
We can keep looking at examples if you like. What about teh brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, the young man who was murdered because he was gay? I am very much against homosexual actions, but I unequivocally condemn his murder as objectionable evil and I also condemn ANYONE who rejoices in the way he was killed. It is not legit to react to his murder with happiness. Those who are happy that Matthew Shepard was dragged to death behind a truck are disordered and their opinion that it is a good thing is not a legit opinion. Now would you disagree with that? Would you say that there is no legit reaction to Matthew Shepard’s death and that it isn’t wrong to feel happiness or glee at hearing of his dragging death?
Jane, her reaction is pretty disturbing. Who loses a pregnancy that they wanted and thinks “Hey, this is a great story to use to promote abortion!”??
That would be like me losing one of my kids to a car wreck and saying “This must be exactly Casey Anthony felt when she killed her daughter!”
Since many of you have never been a woman who is seeking an abortion, how do you know that her speculation (based on her own emotions) is incorrect?
And justlookingon, I do not believe that a human fetus deserves rights equal to or above the woman who is carrying it
Uh, Jane. A lot of the women here have had abortions before becoming prolife. And a lot of the men including myself have been very close to women who had them. You may want to amend your argument, mmmkay?
Jack, that’s fine, that was their own personal reaction to their abortion. It doesn’t apply to every woman. Some women regret their abortion, others don’t. I don’t need to amend anything.
Yes, we ALL know who’s pro-abortion on this comment thread.
As George Orwell wrote: “Some animals are more equal than others.”
It’s fine for people to be offended. What I think is absurd is their belief that other women’s emotions for their own pregnancies or miscarriages have anything to do with their own
It’s fine to be offended as long as you don’t take it personally that someone else offended you?
…I honestly don’t know how to respond to a statement that wrong. I started typing a response several times before I had to conclude that there’s just no way I can begin to untangle “logic” this messy.
Thank you Bobby, for introducing the term “disordered” into this conversation.
Robin felt what she felt about her own personal experience, and speculated that it might be what other women felt. For someone to hear one woman’s experience and be offended because they felt something different for their own experience is narcissistic.
Ninek- you’re right, I am pro safe, legal abortion. I trust women to make decisions that are right for their own bodies. And Animal Farm was about communism, you can’t pick and choose quotes out of context and choose for them to apply to abortion because you think it sounds nice.
Jane, you missed the point I was making. You said that since many people here have never been a woman considering abortion, we can’t know that Robins analogy is incorrect. I countered with the fact that many people here have personal experiences with abortion and unplanned pregnancy and none of us felt like that. You moved the goal posts by saying you weren’t talking about ALL abortion seeking women. So, do you concede that Robin’s analogy is offensive and inaccurate for a ton of people?
No, I don’t concede that. I think that a lot of women may feel that way, and many others may not. This is a pro-life blog, so many, if not all, of the women here will say that this does not apply to them. I believe you would find different reactions with a differently focused group.
Sorry for the double post, the site ate my initial comment
Jane, I can’t speak for every person here but I think most would find the comparison hideous. Are we not entitled to our disgust? What exactly are you trying to gain here?
Robin felt what she felt about her own personal experience, and speculated that it might be what other women felt.
And she did so in a way that was offensive.
For someone to hear one woman’s experience and be offended because they felt something different for their own experience is narcissistic.
No. If you think that, then you don’t understand what it means to give offense. When someone says something offensive, whether intentionally or out of ignorance, it is not the responsibility of the people they offend to “get over themselves” or “stop being selfish.” It is the responsibility of the person being offensive to apologize and shut up. I’m not fool enough to think Robin Marty will ever do that, but you, at least, might know better than to tell women who’ve had miscarriages–in exactly so many words, even–that they are not allowed to express hurt, disgust, and outrage when someone equates that experience to abortion.
Jane,
A woman having a miscarriage may not be experiencing panic because there is a dead child within her womb that needs to be removed, but may well be experiencing a host of distress and grief-induced emotions stemming from the death of a child who was wanted and loved.
Robin’s analogy is tortured, at best. The woman experiencing a positive test result for an unexpected or unwanted baby may panic for a host of different reasons.
In the example of the woman miscarrying, she is not the author of the child’s death. The woman who aborts, on the other hand, is. The panic and distress faced by the two women couldn’t be any further apart in etiology. The first has been victimized by forces beyond her control, resulting in the death of her baby. The other may well feel that she has no options, given the pressures being brought to bear on her from unsupportive family and friends. Her anxiety stems from the fact that it is she who will contract for the baby’s death.
The social order in a decent and civilized society does indeed dictate what emotions are appropriate in given circumstances. Thats not to say that an individual MUST feel such emotions, but then the absence of appropriate affect following human tragedy can be a sign of underlying pathology…
Such as devoting hundreds, even thousands of hours of one’s life championing the tearing to pieces of babies in their mother’s wombs.
I’m not trying to gain anything. I think that it’s unfair to tell a woman that she shouldn’t feel the way she feels about something that is happening with her body.
I also dont believe that abortion is wrong, so it’s hard for me to find the comparison “disgusting.”
Gerard- you are wasting your time, I have told you before that I will not engage in discussions with you after so many disgusting displays of misogyny on your part.
I also dont believe that abortion is wrong, so it’s hard for me to find the comparison “disgusting.”
Ooooh. I understand now. Because you don’t understand the reaction, it must be wrong. Who’s dictating what to whom, again? But half-a-point for finally admitting it, I suppose.
Right, and you have no idea how to identify with women that are pro-choice, so you have no idea how this isn’t offensive to a great number of people. What’s your point, Alice?
And as a side-note, I have never hidden my pro-choice beliefs, so saying that I “finally admitted” something is creative thinking on your part
Jane, I wouldn’t in a million years try to tell someone how to feel about a miscarriage. I will never be pregnant and will never experience that pain. The analogy she drew is the problem. Using the tragic death of a child to support the killing of others is just horrible to me.
And why in the world are you claiming that you have the right to tell us how to react to something, while defending Robin’s right to react and write whatever she wants? I am honestly curious.
Alice,
It is also up to folks to “take offense” at something that is spoken or written. We have a choice to be offended or not.
Those that are proabortion will twist that which is evil, to seem good. Abortion doulas, happy abortions, abortion parties, fetus cookies, coupons for free abortions etc. They go to extreme lengths to justify abortion to themselves and others. It is to be expected and not surprising given their zeal for supporting the killing of innocent human beings.
THAT is disordered.
@Jane: My point, is, quite simply, that you’re a hypocrite. You’re running around the thread trying to tell everyone not to judge Robin’s reaction to her miscarriage by judging their reactions to theirs. Who are they to judge, you ask. Who are you to tell them they can’t? Because their reaction to this story is an expression of their reaction to their experience and by trying to say they are not allowed to express it, you are attempting to take away their voice. The very thing you accuse them of doing, is what you yourself have been doing this whole time.
That’s my point. My understanding, or lack of same, of the pro-choice viewpoint does not enter into it.
I’m not a hypocrite. I’m saying that women have the right to feel how they feel about their own personal miscarriage, and no matter how they feel-it is right.
I had issue with people being angry with a woman for saying how she feels about her miscarriage, and speculating that that feeling is what some women must feel about abortion.
Once again, not hypocritical.
When someone tells me that a developing child can be killed at whim, that is pretty much saying that the child is less equal than anyone with the means to kill him.
We pro-lifers know that both a developing child AND her mother are equal, equal in terms of human value and human dignity and worthiness of continued natural life. When people say that those children may be murdered for any reason or for no reason and that no apology is needed, those people are saying that the children are not equal to their parents.
Jane, I get your point about someone telling a woman how to feel about a miscarriage. She did put it on the internet, though, so I am not sure what you or she would expect.
What I don’t understand is why you claim that we should not be offended by the analogy to abortion. We believe abortion is killing. Would you be offended if someone took a personal tragedy of theirs to advocate for something you find abhorrent?
I believe any woman who has experienced a missed miscarriage can understand the panic that fills you, knowing that there is something inside of you that you have no ability to remove or end yourself.
She’s projecting. She’s generalizing. She says “I believe”. She says “any woman…can understand”.
As I’ve stated before, I’ve had FIVE miscarriages. Not ONCE was my first thought PANIC that there was “something” dead inside me.
My first reaction was shock that it was happening, then grief.
I don’t think I’m the only one that has felt that way. I don’t generalize that “any” woman would feel/react that way, or “should” react that way but yes, to compare the ACCIDENTAL death of your child to the DELIBERATE death of your child is offensive and (my personal opinion)…disgusting.
She is comparing her miscarriage and wanting the removal of the IT inside of her to a woman receiving a positive pregnancy test in an unplanned pregnancy.
I read the whole article. It is about Bachmann.
Interesting.
I was talking about earthquake and people writing things on facebook like “Take that Japan. Love me some karma.” Would you say this is a legit reaction and that there is no objective proper reaction to the earthquakes in Japan? Or that those who say such things have cognitive faculties which are not functioning properly?
Bobby, the argument on feelings usually comes from others who feel differently. “Legit” is of course in the eye of the beholder, and in the case of Japan, for American observers, if the same earthquake had occurred in mid-December, 1941, then things would be a lot different.
“Climb Mount Niitaka.”
Schadenfreude is part of human nature. Imagine how the Israelis and the Palestinians feel about each other, after decades of each side lobbing bombs and rockets at each other, so to speak. Islamic fundamentalists often feel good when bad things happen to many countries in the world, and how did we feel when Bin Laden was finally dead?
There is no question that many women deeply regret unwanted miscarriages and unwanted pregnancies. That said, how a given woman will feel can’t be guaranteed.
One cannot deeply regret a miscarriage, Doug.
A woman is not responsible for the death of her child in a miscarriage.
We need to keep calling out people who defend abortion by comparing it to miscarriage. Forced aortion means intentional death; spontaneous abortion/ miscarriage does not.
We can take heart in this- abortion advocates must be getting desperate to try this over and over again. What to do when ultrasound technology clearly identifies fetuses as lovable humans, and more are more people are uncomfortable with destroying these humans? The current strategy is to equate killing with natural death in order to make forced abortion more acceptable.
Proaborts need to attach their violent views to something heart-wrenching, something personal in order to blur the violence of abortion. It is no surprise that they use women who have had miscarriages to try and make their position more palatable.
One cannot deeply regret a miscarriage, Doug.
Carla, I just plain disagree, there.
I usually read the linked article on the Quote of the Day. I hadn’t until just now. The title alone says it all, doesn’t it? She’s not just some random lady on the interwebs writing about her own miscarriage experience. Thanks Carla for your last comment! I’m beginning to think an abortion fan could make planting petunias an argument for abortion! It would be about as logical as any of their other harebrained similes. (sorry rabbits, didn’t mean to disparage your character). Here’s Robin’s headline in case you missed it:
Bachmann’s Miscarriage Made Her More Anti-Choice, Mine Made Me More Pro-Choice.
Jane’s not a hypocrite. She’s just conveniently inconsistent ;-)
MaryAnn: We need to keep calling out people who defend abortion by comparing it to miscarriage. Forced abortion means intentional death; spontaneous abortion/ miscarriage does not.
I don’t see the quote as defending abortion. It’s noting how the writer felt when she had a miscarriage and that women with unwanted pregnancies can and do feel the same way.
You’re right that intentional death or not can be a difference (assuming that nothing was done to provoke the miscarriage), but the comparison is obviously there – the same thing happens in the end.
All this is even before we get to the right/wrong/good/bad of things.
I’m beginning to think an abortion fan could make planting petunias an argument for abortion!
Really. The mental disconnect it must take to ignore the fact that a dead baby is the result of abortion is mind-boggling.
One in five pregnancies end in miscarriage. One in three women have had an abortion. It’s pretty obvious that although some women no doubt are changed from their experience of a loss of a wanted baby, miscarriage does not in general change women’s views on a right to choose.
Bachmann’s mention of her miscarriage is courageous in the fact that women simply do not speak out loud about their losses. But as an event that allegedly “committed” her to protecting life, Bachmann still speaks for few women other than herself.
Doug,
Above are the last two paragraphs of Robin’s article. She is promoting abortion as a valid choice. Funny how she accuses Bachmann of- speaking for all women and then she does the same. Where are Robin’s surveys, studies to support her claims?
After reading through these comments, I can only conclude that abortion advocates (or pro-choice advocates, if you will) are (1) extremely intolerant of views which do not agree with theirs (2) insensitive to the feelings of women who have suffered the loss of a child.
They are constantly telling pro-lifers to quit making waves about this precious legal right and now they blame our protests for the fact that people don’t like abortion centers in their neighborhoods. Tough.
There may be lots of women who are perfectly fine with their abortion decisions but I was not with mine and I intend to do whatever I can do warn other women about the consequences of abortion and what it does to relationships. If abortion were so normal, women would be willing to speak about their own.
There is no comparison between abortion and a miscarriage. And Jane is insensitive to badger these women here about their miscarriages. A more compassionate response would have been “I’m sorry for your loss”.
Robin,
I am sorry for your loss.
* * * *
Barb,
Hmmm..I just read your post. Well said. What are the odds of us both posting this at the same time? I am sorry for your loss as well.
Doug,
You do not “provoke” a miscarriage. If you do, it’s an abortion, NOT a miscarriage.
As for “the same thing happens in the end”.. Yes the “end result” is a dead baby except –
In a miscarriage, the baby comes out whole. In an abortion (except for a saline abortion), the baby comes out in PIECES.
Not the same thing.
Gerard, the abortion fans are using this “one in five” and “25%” of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, which I am sure is not factual. Can you or Jill tell us, what approximate percentage of pregnancies end in miscarriage?
Pamela – yeah, I was saying that “intentional” or not is a difference. This is assuming that no wish for the pregnancy to be ended is acted upon (because then intent would be there) in what are classified as miscarriages. No big deal and it would only matter if some miscarriages are actually caused by willful actions – which I do assume to be the case, and yeah, thus they’re actually abortions.
Janet: Above are the last two paragraphs of Robin’s article. She is promoting abortion as a valid choice. Funny how she accuses Bachmann of- speaking for all women and then she does the same. Where are Robin’s surveys, studies to support her claims?
Janet, those parts weren’t quoted, above, as I referred to. However – I did read the whole thing via the link, and I too wondered about the pot calling the kettle black stuff….
“miscarriage does not in general change women’s views on a right to choose.” How would we prove this, either way? That said, it sure makes sense to me that pro-choice women who have miscarriages are not in general going to become pro-life because of that, and the same for pro-lifers, so I think it’s correct.
“But as an event that allegedly “committed” her to protecting life, Bachmann still speaks for few women other than herself.” — Same deal here too. Bachmann may have been laying on political BS, but, taken at face value, what she says is much more the exception than the rule.
Hey Jane – I didn’t ask you about a human fetus’ rights. I asked you to refute the statement that it is morally wrong for one human being to kill another human being. So you either have to say a human fetus is not a human being, or say that it is ok to kill a human being. It’s that simple. So which is it?
Barb: After reading through these comments, I can only conclude that abortion advocates (or pro-choice advocates, if you will) are (1) extremely intolerant of views which do not agree with theirs (2) insensitive to the feelings of women who have suffered the loss of a child.
Barb, honestly, where in these comments do you see any pro-choicers (which I think are just Jane and myself…?) being extremely intolerant of other’s views, and (especially) – insensitive to the feelings of women who have had a miscarriage?
And as an aside to all, what in the heck is a “missed miscarriage”?
Ninek: the abortion fans are using this “one in five” and “25%” of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, which I am sure is not factual.
It’s a good question. I’ve heard varying percentages over the years, and it would depend if we eliminate fertilized eggs which fail to implant – which I understand to be a fairly prevalent occurrence. Not sure, but I think that implantation has to take place for it truly to be said to be a pregnancy, no?
Googling away, it looks like “anywhere from 10-25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage,” is a common range.
It doesn’t matter if one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage. How does that speak to the permissibly of abortion? In fact, what does it have to do with abortion at all? Such an argument seeks to assert that because something happens naturally, that it is permissible to artificially cause that action to happen. But such an argument is inherently ridiculous. One-hundred percent of people currently alive will eventually die. Does that mean that murdering someone would be okay? If if were true that, for example, one in five people die before they reach their first birthday, would it be permissible to kill people under the age of one? If not, then what is the point of bringing up the percentage of people who die before a specified time period?
There’s no point in entertaining the whole “<x> percentage of pregnancies end in miscarriage” line, because it simply isn’t relevant to the abortion issue.
Yes. And I’m sure any loving parent’s first feeling at discovering their child dead in their home from natural causes is “OMG, THAT IS DISGUSTING! GET THIS GROSS DEAD BODY THING OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
No. No it’s not. This is not reasonable, and no loving parent could ever think of their child, dead or alive, as a “something”. As an “it”. The frame of mind this woman is in sounds demented and totally sociopathic.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you think there is a stage of development that your child went through in which it should be legal and seen as morally acceptable to have that child killed, you can’t ever really possibly love that child. Not completely. And that is the viewpoint taken and espoused by every single person that supports legal abortion. They can’t run from this fact, but boy, when it gets pointed out to them, they SURE get angry.
SomeGuy: I couldn’t have said it better myself!!!
That being said, lol, I still want to know the real statistic. After all, Bernard Nathanson admitted in his books that the “thousands” of women who died from illegal abortions was simply a fictional number pulled out of thin air that had NO bearing on reality. Even so, abortion fans keep on harping, over 40 years later, that we are “killing” women if we don’t “let” them abort.
I had both a miscarriage and an abortion. Guess which one haunts me? Hint: Not the miscarriage.
I’d like to add:
A miscarriage is not one’s fault, even though some moms do feel a terrible sense of guilt. It’s more like ‘survivor guilt’ and not like ‘I made that happen on purpose’ guilt.
Doug, I believe a missed miscarriage is the situation in which the unborn baby dies but remains in the mother’s womb.
This happened to me last summer. I waited four weeks to miscarry naturally after I found out that my baby had died, but then ended up having a D & C. I was NOT in a panic during those four weeks; I was in mourning. Thinking of my lost baby still brings tears to my eyes and I imagine it always will. During that time I was waiting, I prayed especially for all women who have had abortions. As devastated as I was at the death of my baby, I knew that it was not because of any action of mine that my baby had died. I couldn’t and can’t imagine the sorrow of a woman who realizes too late what she has done in having an abortion.
Ninek,
Look at this for now.
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/miscarriage.html
I have calls in to some reliable sources, and I’ll post as soon as I hear from them.
care2.com is an extremely pro abortion site. I used to have a care2 email address but when I saw some of their “petitions” were abortion and contraception oriented, I am glad I stopped using it.
Most women MOURN a miscarriage because that was a WANTED PREGNANCY. This quote is an insult to those who have lost a very much wanted, loved and planned for (or wanted regardless of “planned” or not) baby in miscarriage.
Thinking of my lost baby still brings tears to my eyes and I imagine it always will.
Elizabeth, that is truly sad, and you described it beautifully, and I’m sorry for your loss.
I believe a missed miscarriage is the situation in which the unborn baby dies but remains in the mother’s womb.
14 years discussing/arguing abortion, and I’d never heard that. Thank you for the explanation, and a great post in general.
Ah, well, it does quote the ACOG, which I do not find 100% credible **cough Elena Kazan cough**. It lists “clinically recognized pregnancies” and “chemical pregnancies.” The latter is impossible to discern given the way the website reads. Where do they get the percentage if women don’t even know they’re pregnant? I am not convinced by their ‘recognized’ statistics, but now I see what the pro-aborts are happy to take at what they consider face value. Thank you Gerard.
I agree with Some Guy that the statistics of miscarriage doesn’t really matter (besides being tragic for the families involved, of course). Even if 50% of pregnancies ended in miscarriage it still wouldn’t make the deliberate ending of a pregnancy ok.
If miscarriage were that statistically high, and in the US maternal death rates are less than .008%, then it does fly in the face of PP’s sales pitch that birth is dangerous for the mother. So, their big lie that pregnancy is such a risk for women is in fact a monstrously huge lie.
ummm…fascinating comment conversation going on here.
As a mother who has lost 3 babies to miscarriage, I can verify that Robin absolutely, positively, DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME in terms of emotion. I had no “get it out” panic.
Plenty of grief. Yes. But “Oh, gross, sick, disgusting, dead thing in me scrape it out right now?”. Er, nope.
One of those miscarriages was caused by a molar pregnancy. By the time it was discovered, if a baby had started to develop at all, it had been completely overwhelmed and was no longer living, not discernable by ultrasound. I was still in no rush to get to the OR though. I waited 2 weeks from that first absence when a heartbeat should have been heard, verified and verified again and again by any means available that the baby was not even possibly alive.
Abortion and miscarriage: Not The Same Thing.
Abortion repeatedly has to be equated to miscarriage (or even mestruation) is an attempt to make abortion seem/sound “natural”…even holistic. While fertility & pregnancy are healthy, natural functions of the female, our current culture seeks to “sterilize” women chemically or surgically & when that fails, the solution is abortion. Abortion is “menstural extraction”, the cramps & bleeding are likened to a woman’s period, abortion by RU-486 is said to be like having a miscarriage, etc… Countless times abortion supporters throw the stats of incidences of miscarriage up, as if loss of prenatal life is common & therefore, not a heartbreaking tragedy for many women. I have often heard that God is an “abortionist” because He kills so many fetuses in the womb via miscarriage…an obvious attempt to silence Christian pro-lifers. Bottom line, the impact of prenatal death must be downplayed…ALL prenatal death. Miscarriage. Violent attacks on pregnant women meant to cause the death of her unborn child. After all, how can people mourn, grieve, prosecute the death of a wanted fetus when it is just tissue with the “potential” to become a person??? Mourning prenatal life is an affront to the pro-abortion cause & message that the unborn are somehow LESS than the woman they are living in…less worhty to live, have less or no rights, etc… When women mourn, it challenges the pro-abortion position. We are not mourning potential life or potential motherhood. We are not mourning someTHING. We are mourning someONE. This is why so many women are trapped in a cycle of pain following abortion…they had the support of those around them to solve their problem by aborting. When they have regret or sadness or anger or any myriad of emotions, who can they turn to? Those who told them IT was just some tissue? IT would ruin her life? You don’t mourn tissue. The babies who die naturally from miscarriage are no different than those killed intentionally by abortion…ages are the same. Level of development are the same. Intrinsict worth & value are the same. The only difference is…one is wanted & the other is not. Pro-lifers want to extend the protection held by a wanted unborn human to the unwanted unborn human. Pro-aborts want to dehumanize the wanted unborn human the way they have dehumanized the unwanted unborn human. Women are told following an abortion, they will feel relief, NOT grief. (And NOT guilt….unless those evil pro-lifers or religious zealots MAKE her feel guilty.) No one says this about the woman who miscarries. No one MAKES her mourn. For many, it is an auto-response. It is this auto-response that abortion supporters fear & fight. It undermines their cause. Collectively, we must be desensitzed to ALL prenatal death…accidental & purposeful…to further ingrain the “right” to abortion. After all, a fetus, is a fetus, is a fetus…and it shouldn’t matter if it was wanted or not…it is just a fetus. Not a baby. Fetuses die. They die from miscarriage. Genetic problems. In accidents. From abortion. Fetus death is just a fact of life. We have ALL experienced the death of a fetus at some point from some cause…all fetus death experiences are essentually “equal” because all fetuses are equally not intrinsically of any worth or value.
Basically, the pro-abort view of scheduling an abortion as a response to an unplanned pregnancy is nothing more than a “planned miscarriage”. Miscarriage is “natural”. They see nothing UNnatural about a woman paying to have her unwanted fetus dismembered & scrapped or suctioned out of her womb. The natural (& dare I say, RESPONSIBLE) reaction to an unplanned pregnancy is to have a scheduled miscarriage…compliments of your local abortion provider.
Doug,
I just plain disagree with you.
Speaking as someone who has had two miscarriages and one abortion. The miscarriages carried no guilt or regret. Why would they? I didn’t cause them.
Abortion? Yes. I paid for the death of my daughter.
Not that I am really interested in discussing this with someone who doesn’t really give a hoot anyway.
Ninek: If miscarriage were that statistically high, and in the US maternal death rates are less than .008%, then it does fly in the face of PP’s sales pitch that birth is dangerous for the mother. So, their big lie that pregnancy is such a risk for women is in fact a monstrously huge lie.
What is all of that? If you want to compare risk, then to a point in gestation, having an abortion is less risky than carrying to term and giving birth. Past a point in gestation, having an abortion presents more risk.
Speaking as someone who has had two miscarriages and one abortion. The miscarriages carried no guilt or regret. Why would they? I didn’t cause them.
Abortion? Yes. I paid for the death of my daughter.
Not that I am really interested in discussing this with someone who doesn’t really give a hoot anyway.
Carla, we weren’t talking about how one specific, given woman, you included, would necessarily feel.
You said, “One cannot deeply regret a miscarriage, Doug,” and I certainly think that’s false.
Had you said, “I don’t deeply regret my miscarriages,” I wouldn’t doubt that at all.
I think, though I can’t speak for Carla, that she says you can’t ‘regret’ a miscarriage because many people think of a regret as a feeling of wishing to take back a mistake you made as opposed to merely just feeling sorrow or grief. Since a miscarriage is not within your control, many would not immediately think of this as a ‘regret’ per se. Carla can correct me if I’m wrong.
I saw a bumper sticker in college that sums my position up nicely: “Some children die by chance. No child should die by choice.”
Thank you, CT!
Tell that to Doug. :)
For the record, having an induced abortion ( popular euphemism for a savage act of violence that premeditatedly and deliberately takes the life of an innocent, vulnerable human being) increases the mother’s risk of miscarrying other children later on. It also increases her risk of subsequent pregnancies being ectopic, which is always fatal for the baby and endangers the life of the mother as well, if it isn’t caught in time…and it’s a pretty small window…Truly the kill that keeps on killing. Then of course there are women who have had to have emergency hysterectomies to save their lives from abortion complications such as hemorrhage, raging infections, or general maiming, and cannot conceive, let alone bear, children later, no matter how much they want them then. (How’s that, again, about “reproductive freedom” – ???!) This state of affairs is grievous enough if the mother has already borne children prior to killing one; it’s far worse if she aborts her first pregnancy, then can have no children.
As an index of just how grievous that is, China is the only country in the world where the suicide rate is higher for women than for men…and this is directly related to China’s draconian One child per couple policy; after you’ve had one, it’s forced abortion and sterilization for any woman who becomes pregnant with a second child.
There are also women who have to remain bedridden in order to save their babies from miscarriage; this is due to cervical incompetence, a common “abortion” complication especially among younger women; the younger the women, the “greener” the cervix, and the more easily, and seriously, compromised by an induced “abortion”.
Nobody cares if you remove an already dead baby from your body, if the baby died of natural causes. It’s the killing of a live baby that gets the pro-life people upset. So there really is no comparison beween a missed miscarriage and an unwanted pregnancy. One is removing dead, and possibly rotting tissue, from the body so that it won’t cause you to get a bad infection. An abortion is interfering with a healthy baby, and a healthy pregnancy, for the purpose of killing the baby. The removal of the missed miscarriage is legitimate health care. Abortion is a form of child killing and is NOT legitimate health care, except in those rare cases where a woman’s life is in danger.
Is the basic problem that a female learns she is pregnant and feels panic?
Can we bring about a situation in which learning of a pregnancy is always a source of joy?
Denise,
The basic problem is GETTING pregnant in a situation where pregnancy would cause panic. Pregnancies isn’t meant to cause panic- it’s the circumstances of the pregnancy (typically the same before and after the conception) that cause panic. Like, “I’m single. I’m poor. Etc.”- situations that aren’t caused by the pregnancy but existed when the woman chose to risk pregnancy by having sex. I don’t do things when the natural consequences cause me to panic. Sex=babies, and if babies=panic, then sex should be avoided. I know I would likely panic as a single woman if I got pregnant, so I don’t have sex as a single woman. The problem is that this panic stems from a misconception in the age of conception that sex won’t =babies if done with chemicals and devices. We know this is not true. So the panic is merely a consequence of failure to recognize cause and effect. It’s hard to see babies as a source of joy when sex is had in a manner specifically planned to avoid babies. Women won’t be joyful about their pregnancies until they only get pregnant in situations that don’t incite panic- which is, by the way, more possible than people think. I do understand also that married, tired women who are struggling financially or already have several children that are overwhelming her might also feel panic, but this is assuaged by the fact that marriage and babies are expected to go together and singlehood and babies, not so much. Most ”crisis” pregnancies occur to single women without the support of the father. 88% of abortions are to single women. So women who have sex knowing babies could result and are in a situation with the support to handle it might not be altogether joyful, but it’s typically not “panic.”
Cecilia,
One would think that after so many of us shared our miscarriage experiences that you might refrain from using phrases like “removing dead, possibly rotting tissue.” A little respect for our babies would be nice.
Also there might be quite a few young and impressionable women reading this and that only serves to plant the seeds of fear.
Abortion is never necessary. If the mother’s life is in danger the child can be removed via c-section or early induction of labor and both mother and baby would receive proper life saving medical treatment. The unfortunate result might be the death of the child but the intent was to save. The intent of abortion is to kill the child.
jtm,
I have a question. Does the medical community recognize that a D & C is the same medical procedure as an abortion and there are risks to that as well?(D & C removes a child that has died. An abortion kills a living child. Just so we are clear on that. :) )
I have a friend who has had four D & C’s as her babies all had passed away. She was diagnosed with “incompetent cervix.” She has now been on bedrest since day one of her current pregnancy and asked me, “Why don’t doctors tell women the risks of D & C’s??”
Could I ask a semi-off topic question about abortion and mis-carriage.
Do you think all miscarriages should be investigated to determine if the mother is at fault, or do you think as long as its not a medical abortion it should be ok?
for instance if a woman drank daily while pregnant and miscarried should she be charged with a crime?
If she refuses to give up sushi becauss she just doesn’t want to and the daily raw fish consumption harms or even kills her fetus is she guilty of a crime.
Basically is a woman ever guilty of ‘killing her baby’ if she doesn’t have a miscarriage and should she be charged with murder?
Right back atcha Shannon.
Say a woman drinks for 6 months of her pregnancy. Her baby dies.
A woman gets an abortion at 6 months. Her baby dies.
Another woman is 6 months along. Her baby dies.
Who shall be charged with murder?
The law could easily make these distinctions if it so chose. An abortion is an intentional, premeditated act: That’s 1st degree murder, akin to planning and executing a suffocation of a baby in a crib. The alcoholic is showing blatant disregard and could be proven to have caused the baby’s death: that could easily be reckless endangerment or involuntary manslaughter, like people that drink, get behind the wheel and cause car crashes that kill children. As for the woman who sadly lost her child, there is no crime anymore than a child dying of SIDS.
Charging women for their actions wouldn’t be as hard as some make it out to be. If an unborn child is a human being (and that’s the basis for opposing abortion), said baby should be treated with the same dignity as born crime victims.
Jacqueline says:
July 7, 2011 at 3:14 am
Denise,
The basic problem is GETTING pregnant in a situation where pregnancy would cause panic. Pregnancies isn’t meant to cause panic- it’s the circumstances of the pregnancy (typically the same before and after the conception) that cause panic. Like, “I’m single. I’m poor. Etc.”- situations that aren’t caused by the pregnancy but existed when the woman chose to risk pregnancy by having sex. I don’t do things when the natural consequences cause me to panic. Sex=babies, and if babies=panic, then sex should be avoided. I know I would likely panic as a single woman if I got pregnant, so I don’t have sex as a single woman.
(Denise) I’m all for abstinence, Jacqueline. However, it seems to me that abstinence is often an easier sell among those to whom it doesn’t matter as much. For a teen girl or young woman, abstinence typically means not having a boyfriend or man in her life. That tends to be easier for we post-menopausal types than for those with strong needs for intimacy. As Polly Bergin said, people lectured her on the evils of sex but “no one ever talked about FEELINGS, about wanting to be held close and not be afraid. ‘Putting out’ seemed to be the price for that.”
Can we persuade males to pursue emotionally but not sexually intimate relationships?
Can we persuade young females that they don’t need males in their lives?
Can we make it popular to be unpopular?
“Can we persuade males to pursue emotionally but not sexually intimate relationships?
Can we persuade young females that they don’t need males in their lives?
Can we make it popular to be unpopular”
Any efforts in this direction would create strong, empowered, confident women who are actually in control of their sexuality (as opposed to the false promise of control offerred by the birth control/abortion industry). Men and women would be acting in accordance with the dignity of human beings rather than the instincts of animals. That would be a great feminist victory.
Yeah, as a 30-year-old virgin who has always been able to find a man to just hold me when I want it, I find this hard to understand. It’s about standards. I have never been dumped by a man for not putting out- I choose my boyfriends better than that. So I disagree that it’s sex OR a man- we need to hold men to our standards. I have never been “unpopular” because I didn’t have sex. True, I haven’t dated in a year because no one has come along that meets my standards, but beyond that you lost me.
Exactly Jacqueline. Being involved with someone who thinks so little of you that he will leave if you don’t “put out” – since when is that something to aspire to? Yet that’s what we have with modern feminists. Women can’t hope to hold men to our standards so we have to descend to theirs. But don’t worry – it’s empowering! And you won’t be ‘unpopular’ (perish the thought). I was with my husband for years before we got married. No sex. And I didn’t have to chain him up to keep him from running out the door. It’s called a good man and women need to have enough respect for themselves to demand one.
CT and Jacqueline,
um some women have no desire to be 30 year old virgins or be years with a man without having sex with him.
Forgive me but your attitude seems very boastful. ” I have high self esteem I’m not weak like you women who have sex.
Women come in all shapes ands sizes. Some women have sex because they like sex and don’t want to wait. Others feel pressured or have sex for a lot of bad reasons…
Shannon,
You are taking the conversation out of context. The context was women forced to have sex to have or keep a man. We were stating that doesn’t have to be the case, as evidenced by our romantic histories.
But I will say, I don’t care what shape or size a woman is, un-marital sex is stupid. The single dumbest thing a woman can do. The “benefits” are not worth the costs to self- the potential diseases, the drama, the heartache, the pregnancy, the single motherhood. Let alone the cost to children! That’s the worst! Most aborted children are illegitimate and aborted for that reason. Those who are lucky live without a father in the home and often in poverty. Even those born to men to pay child support and live a decent life are denied the kind of life a child deserves with a mother and father in the home. Instead it’s step-parents and Disneyland Dad on weekends (if that). Fatherless children are predisposed to promiscuity, violence and raising their own children at a disadvantage. It’s very selfish to force a child to endure that life (or worse, die) because women “like sex and don’t want to wait”- Not a good enough reason to screw a child over. If sex didn’t cause babies and women wanted to risk the consequences to themselves, they are free to do so. But add children to the mix and the excuse of “liking sex and not wanting to wait” exposes itself as trite and wrong. Just because I like something and don’t want to wait doesn’t make my decisions wise or acceptable.
Shannon,
We were responding specifically to Denise who basically said that abstinence can’t work because women will have to choose between being alone or just putting out to “pay the price” of companionship. If a woman is doing that it is certainly extremely unhealthy and something that we should try to help women be confident enough to avoid not wrap up in a lie of empowerment. Also, our experiences directly contradict Denise’s premise, so they are relevant to the discussion.
To your point, of course there are women who also WANT to have sex. Sex is great and women have sex drives too. But it is destructive to women (and men) outside of a marriage for a number of reasons, most notably the fact that sex does = babies. You can try to manipulate your body or his, you can put barriers between yourselves, but there is no way to eliminate the biological fact that sex is a reproductive act and there is always a risk of actually reproducing. Modern feminists have sold abortion as the solution to this risk – it would be unthinkable to require two adults engaging in what is merely an act of mutual pleasure to accept a consequence of that act.
We live in a society now where sex is expected on the third date. People will have sex before they will announce their relationship on facebook. It is very destructive. You can say it’s boasting, but I think we would be better served to put forth a feminist view that shows women that they are worth waiting for and that sex is worth waiting for.
Jacqueline – clearly you read my mind :-)
Well, I would have to agree with Shannon that sex before marriage is not necessarily damaging, IMHO. And I really object to the implication that women are looking for companionship while men are looking for sex. It is the opposite a lot of time, my first relationship was like that. The idea that “women are worth waiting for ” is definitely true, but a lot of women don’t want to wait. I really dislike the attitude that men are always they instigators in sexual relationships, especially in my generation.
Jack,
That’s absolutely true. Men are worth waiting for too :-)
CT and Jacqueline, ??I do not disagree at all with the pervasiveness of the hook up culture, and the fact that it is REALLY not good for society. I also think its great to introduce a little more reverence into sex. No disagreement there.
The only thing I question is the necessity of waiting until marriage. Marriage is sort of arbitrary, getting married doesn’t mean you’ll stay married, doesn’t mean you’ll be free of STD’s, rape happens, husbands cheat.
I accept that it is often better, but I think to promise people: avoid getting your heart broken; raise your children in a two-parent household. All you have to do it wait till your married, your promising something false…you are forgetting about divorce
As for the sex= babies claim, are you saying this because you believe that this is what SHOULD happen or what you think does happen.
There is absolutely unequivocally a way to separate sex from babies without abortion if you REALLY want to.
The issue is most people don’t try hard enough. People get lazy, and don’t want to go through the effort and they are comfortable risking it or don’t think of it at all.
For instance if you monitored your fertility and didn’t have sex when you were fertile, and didn’t let the man ejaculate, and used condoms and were on the pill…I’m pretty sure you could indeed have sex without babies. ??Women are only fertile for a small window and contrary to popular believe women can have sex without permitting the man to orgasm. These two things alone without the use of contraceptives could pretty much separate sex from babies, but people just aren’t that committed to it.
Jack- Seriously? How is a rampant STD epidemic not damaging? How are millions of dead or fatherless children not damaging? How is taking a disease into a marriage not damaging? Even if you get out of un-marital sex without physical consequences, there are always emotional consequences. And by suggesting that un-marital sex is okay, you deningrate the integrity of marital sex- bonding between two people, exclusively, for life. If sex is acceptable as just two people with no commitment to eachother using eachother for pleasure, then marital sex becomes merely a recreational part of your relationship, not something exclusive to the two of you. I won’t marry a man that’s been with another woman for countless reasons. I won’t be cheated.
Men are not always the instigators. I know many female sexual predators. But why it’s infinitely dumber for women to have un-marital sex is because we bear a disproportionate burden of the consequences. STD’s hurt us worse, damage our fertility, cause cancer- we end up pregnant, we end up single mothers, most single mothers live in poverty and on welfare for life. Sex isn’t worth that, especially when it could be had with none of those downsides if done after marriage. It just makes sense. I am not arguing that marital sex is the “better” way. I am arguing that it’s the only RIGHT way since the alternative is rife with problems.
“A lot of women don’t want to wait” is not an excuse for what happens to children because they want what they want and want it now. When is greed, impulsiveness and disregard for others “not necessarily damaging.” Women can be stupid and damage themselves- none of my business, most of my friends don’t even know their fathers. They suffer from this. Sex by their unmarried mothers damaged them greatly.
Shannon,
Marriage isn’t arbitrary, even if people break their vows and divorce. Divorce hurts kids, but divorced kids fair better than kids of never married parents who had no legal or emotional obligation ever. Divorce is an injustice to kids, but them never having parents married and working together to raise them in one household for any length of time is worse. Just because people do bad things and break their vows doesn’t change the sanctity of the marriage institution and its necessity.
No- it’s not possible to separate sex from babies. That’s always it’s purpose and physiological function. Sure, you can mutilate yourself so you can have sex without babies or go to the other lengths you mention (seems rather sick to do so), but the truth is that, no matter what the effort to do the baby-making thing and not make a baby- most people will still make a baby. That’s what’s supposed to happen (biologically). It’s when it doesn’t happen that something is wrong. By the way, I made it through 2 forms of birth control (you can’t really chart on the pill). I know women who have had their tubes tied and still gotten pregnant.
I wouldn’t take a .01% chance with my child’s life and future just because I wanted to have sex. The odds of conception, even with multiple forms of birth control, is higher than that. It would be selfish and wrong of me to do so.
Jacqueline, thats why I said not necessarily damaging, not that it wasn’t damaging at all. The couple sexual relationships I had before I was married didn’t end up with any diseases or babies. A few hurt feelings on my part, but not really a big deal. I was fifteen when I had my first (much older) girlfriend, which was definitely to young, but I don’t think it caused all that many problems.
It’s your choice not to be in a relationship with a man that was sexually active before dating you, but not everyonehas a problem with that. My wife was a virgin when we got together, and she didn’t judge me or feel cheated. It hasn’t damaged our marriage.
Really, the only reason I commented was to remind people if you want to reduce premarital sex, you have to remember that it isn’t just men that are instigating it.
Shannon a couple points:
1. Sex = babies is what DOES happen. Totally agree about the small window of fertility and being able to track your ferility with as much if not more accuracy than artificial birth control. But it’s not 100%. Nothing is – every birth control method and fertility tracking method has a fail rate. What happens then? And I’m not sure what you mean by not letting the man ejaculate, but there is a LOT of sperm in pre-ejaculatory fluid that can lead to pregnancy if it enters a woman. Also, what you just described sounds like lunacy. Track your fertility, take artificial contraceptives, use condoms, don’t let the man orgasm?? Remind me why these two people are having sex again when every action is shouting, keep that part of yourself (your reproductive capacity) away from me! If people want to do that and accept whatever consequences come their way (physical or emotional) they are certainly entitle to it, but I will maintain til my last breath that that is destructive and sells them very short.
2. Marriage seems arbitrary because of what marriage has become for us. Marriage is not a promise made to you, it’s a binding promise you make to each other. It’s been devalued in our society to be nothing more than a registration of your transitory mutual affection for each other but, properly understood, it is more than that. People’s failure to approach marriage and sex with the seriousness they deserve is what leads to the much of the divorce, and heartbreak you see. There certainly exist situations in which divorce is necessary (abuse of course) but many divorces stem from selfishness. Waiting until you’re married puts sex in its proper context of being committed to someone and prepared to undertake the bonding and potential reproductive aspects of sex.
I never realized how much pre-marital sex may have hurt me until I read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Science-Casual-Affecting-Children/dp/0802450601
The truth is, people can try to protect themselves from STD’s or pregnancy, but nothing can protect their brain from functioning the way we were designed to during intimacy and sex.
CT: many people think of a regret as a feeling of wishing to take back a mistake you made as opposed to merely just feeling sorrow or grief.
CT, okay, but the definition of the word certainly includes just feeling disappointment or loss, whether or not an action of the speaker is involved. For women who had wanted pregnancies and then miscarried, if asked if they regret the miscarriage or if they “regret that their baby died,” I think most would say they do. Certainly, some would, and thus it most definitely can be regretted.
For that matter, I’ve heard of a person or two regretting that Obama was elected President. ; )
Shannon: if a woman drank daily while pregnant and miscarried should she be charged with a crime?
Excellent question – one of the all-time-best in relation to the abortion debate.
I was fifteen when I had my first (much older) girlfriend, which was definitely to young, but I don’t think it caused all that many problems.
Jack, If she was older than 18 and had sex with you, she was a predator not a girlfriend. Doesn’t matter if you okay-ed it or not. Fifteen is too young to consent to sex with an adult and this hurts teen males as much as it hurts teen females.
@Praxedes, she was twenty, but I never felt like it bothered me that much. I know it’s a crime, but she was nice to me when no one else was. I had a lot of other things to worry about when I was that age. I don’t condone it, but I think she had a lot of problems so I can’t ever really condemn her. Anyway, I only brought it up because it seems like a lot of people have the attitude that teenage girls are just looking for affection and teenage boys are just looking for sex. It isn’t always like that, and I think it is damaging to state that as an absolute. Boys get the idea that is what they are supposed to be after, like it is weird to want a real relationship. I would really like society to change on this.
Doug,
Shannon: if a woman drank daily while pregnant and miscarried should she be charged with a crime? Excellent question – one of the all-time-best in relation to the abortion debate.
I agree I think its an important question. I have posted it on a few boards and the answer is typically yes.
Taken to its logical conclusion, I dont understand how pro-lifers could believe that sexually active woman would be allowed to ride roller coasters or drink alcohol or eat sushi or go sky diving. I mean if sex=babies, and every woman should be prepared to give birth, and every baby deserves life at whatever cost to its mom, than shouldn’t we just air on the side of caution and prohibit sexually active women from acting in a way that could harm their fetus? Sure abortion is direct and so maybe riding a rollercoaster wouldn’t be murder, maybe it would just be reckless homicide or neglect…
Doug,
I understand that that is the definition. Based on that definition, I’m sure Carla agrees that women regret their abortions, just as I’m sure you would agree that women can not regret their abortions if the word is used in the sense that Carla uses it. I don’t think there’s any real disagreement on it – just semantics.
Jack,
Thank you for pointing that out. I tend to look at things from a feminine perspective (a) b/c I’m a woman and (b) because I’m so passionate about unmasking the lies and harm that modern feminism have brought to women. But men too are harmed by the stereotype that they are nothing but sexual predators (and worse that that’s a good thing!). So I 100% agree with you on that.
CT, it’s easy to only see gender issues from one side (usually the gender you belong to). I do the same thing a lot. For example, I would be enraged if an adult tried to get involved with my underage daughter, but for some reason I don’t find it as bad when it happened to me. Eh, hypocrisy at it’s most insidious. ;)
Anyway, this country really, really needs to start having conversations with teens of both genders about the emotional consequences of sex. A lot of the teenage boys I play basketball with talk tough about sex but are secretly really nervous about it and might want to wait. They just feel like it’s not manly to admit it. And I know that girls have issues that need to be talked about to. There doesn’t seem to be much honest information going out to teens to help them with this kind of stuff.
Carla, I am sorry. I didn’t realize that I was hurting anybody. But now that you mention it, I should be more careful how I discus miscarriage. I guess I was talking to the abortion proponant who compared a missed miscarriage to an unplanned pregnancy. I should have thought that she wouldn’t be the only one readint it. I will try to be more sensitive in the future. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Cecilia,
I appreciate your words very much.
Thank you!!
Shannon,
The answers to your questions are: it depends. It depends on many factors, as it would in any other situation. You can take ANY sort of moral evil or laws and try and scrutinize them in detail to attempt to undermine their validity. One can find risky consequences to any behavior. I take my kid for a walk around the block. How busy with traffic does the block need to be before I put my child at risk? Or suppose I leave my child in my room for a timeout and she stuffs her face in a pillow and dies. Should I be responsible for that? Does it follow that I should never be allowed to punish my child? I put my family at risk every time we drive a car. Out children are at risk every time they walk into teh kitchen when water is burning because it may fall on them. We can do this all day- present scenario after scenario after scenario of people doing normal, everyday activities that are perfectly natural and healthy and attempt to use the fact that these activities can sometimes cause damage or hurt someone to undermine whatever we want. People should do everything they can within reason to protect human beings. Sometimes accidents happen, but we cannot simply refuse to engage in any sort of activities that have a very small chance to pose harm to someone. Is it prudent to go skydiving when pregnant? I don’t think so. How great a factor is it to the unborn? That I don’t know. It seems like something that is unnecessary to do, really, but depending on the kind and probability of teh threat to the fetus, it may not be problematic.
“…every baby deserves life at whatever cost to its mom…”
I would definitely say that this is false. The principle is that you don’t kill innocent human beings, not that one has to do every single thing in their power to prevent someone from dying or keep someone alive.
But Shannon, is this REALLY your argument? The pro-life position that you cannot kill an unborn human being is absurd because it implies that pregnant women can’t eat sushi and the idea that pregnant women can’t eat sushi is such an absurd and outrageous conclusion that the only possible explanation for having drawn this conclusion is that we started with the false premise that you cannot kill an unborn human being? Thus, you can kill an unborn human being?
I understand that that is the definition. Based on that definition, I’m sure Carla agrees that women regret their abortions, just as I’m sure you would agree that women can not regret their abortions if the word is used in the sense that Carla uses it. I don’t think there’s any real disagreement on it – just semantics.
CT, not “just semantics.” First of all, Carla’s way (and our disagreement) isn’t in relation to abortion, since she was saying that miscarriages, not abortions, can’t really be regretted since it’s not a conscious action or choice. While I have no problem with saying, in effect, “the word can be used this way…”, it remains incorrect to say or imply that it can’t be used another, valid way.
Taken to its logical conclusion, I don’t understand how pro-lifers could believe that sexually active woman would be allowed to ride roller coasters or drink alcohol or eat sushi or go sky diving. I mean if sex=babies, and every woman should be prepared to give birth, and every baby deserves life at whatever cost to its mom, than shouldn’t we just air on the side of caution and prohibit sexually active women from acting in a way that could harm their fetus? Sure abortion is direct and so maybe riding a rollercoaster wouldn’t be murder, maybe it would just be reckless homicide or neglect…
Shannon, thus the huge difference between restrictions on abortion and advocating personhood for the unborn. The more a society would tend toward the latter, the more such issues would arise.
Personally, I think one of the positives to waiting is that it acutally strengthens the marriage. If couples are sexually active with others before they get together, they bring that baggage into the relationship. They bring in a level of distrust because each has made promises & have broken them. Each have had promises made to them that have been broken. Each have had physical & emotional bonding with another that has been broken…along with hearts that have been broken. As the saying goes, “There is no condom for the heart”. Perhaps there is a child from a past relationship & therefore ties to a past lover. If they have had sex with others, the bond is weaker…like a piece of tape. Take a piece of duct tape & put it on the back of your hand. That is like the bonding aspect of sex. Now, “break up” & rip it off. Now, enter a new relationship…put the tape back on. Break up…rip it off. It doesn’t take long for that tape to lose its sticking power. If they are having sex with each other prior to marriage, this further shows a lack of self control for both of them. I know this will rile some people up, but think about it. If they cannot control their passions in that they didn’t wait to have sex, even if waiting would help avoid a laundry list of potential problems for the person they claim to love more than any other, then what makes them think they will have self control AFTER they are married? Sex is one of the main ways they have each shown affection. Displayed intimacy. It was something they couldn’t control. Maybe the spouse will be faithful when confronted with temptation…but will the wife/husband fully trust this??? Or have doubts because, after all, they have never execised self control in this area. Add to this the fact that the vast majority of people are basically sterile. Women are on the Pill, the Depo shot, have IUDs, etc… So the fear of pregnancy, a MAJOR deterrent to infidelity, is basically eliminated. If a man has vasectomy, all women are sterile as they relate to him because he cannot impregnate them…and his wife knows this. Both the husband & wife can be “sterile” & succumb to temptation. Even if they do not, the distrust & fear of adultry can damage a marriage. Women who wait & who marry men who wait have a deeper trust in their marriage relationship & therefore stronger marriages. Not only did they resist temptation with those who they didn’t end up marrying, they resisted temptation & found other ways to show their love, affection, & passion for the one they fell madly in love with & decided to marry. These couples are wildly in love…they WANT to have sex. They WANT to show their love for each other in that way. But by waiting, they are showing their love for each other in an even deeper way. Anyone can have sex…people hook up with strangers, they pay for sex, they do it cuz they are lonely or bored or have something to prove. It takes a real respect for each other & for the act of sex & for marriage to NOT have sex…out of that love & respect. :-)
It isn’t always like that, and I think it is damaging to state that as an absolute. Boys get the idea that is what they are supposed to be after, like it is weird to want a real relationship. I would really like society to change on this.
Jack – I agree SO MUCH with this. Some of my biggest problems with “traditional patriarchal” concepts (like that girls trade sex for love, and boys trade love for sex) are their effect on men. As someone who loves quite a few men in this world I am SO INSULTED at the implications our society takes for granted, not just about me but about the men in my life.
I don’t agree wholeheartedly with everything you say here but I agree with a LOT of it, and I’m really glad you started commenting.
Thank you, Alexandra. :)