Pro-life news brief 7-11-12
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- At Jezebel, one anonymous woman who describes herself as “a visible pro-choice advocate and public figure,” explains why she won’t “come out” about her abortion and openly wonders if efforts by pro-choice groups to have women share their abortion experiences does more harm than good for the pro-choice movement.
- The New York Times reports Feng Jianmei, the woman who was forced into an abortion at 7 months in China, will receive a payment from her local government. According to the People’s Daily online the payment will be approximately $11,000:
Zhang Kai, Deng [Jiyuan’s] attorney, submitted an appeal to the Ankang police and procurators on July 2, asking authorities to file a case and start investigations into the local officials involved. However, Deng [Feng Jianmei’s husband] returned home during the past weekend and decided to hold negotiations with the local government agencies.“I’ve given up legal appeals and agreed to take the compensation offered by the township government,” Deng told the Global Times Tuesday.
“We just want our normal life back,” he said.
- The Des Moines Register is covering Sue Thayer’s (pictured left) whistleblower lawsuit against Planned Parenthood:
The suit alleges the nonprofit organization illegally billed Medicaid for services related to elective abortions. Elective abortions, defined as abortions in which the mother’s life is not threatened, are not covered by Medicaid under federal and state law. The document also claims Planned Parenthood “unbundled” services related to elective abortions — such as blood pressure tests, blood tests and other procedures — and billed those to Medicaid, but not the actual abortions.The lawsuit also alleges Planned Parenthood staff in Storm Lake and other clinics prescribed birth control pills for as long as 14 months without a qualified health care professional ever directly seeing patients or conducting a follow-up visit. A qualified health care professional should have seen the women at least once every three months, the suit says.
Jul.11, 2012 2:00 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.
The “Jezebel” writer makes an interesting point. The reasoning behind Roe v. Wade is rooted in a “right to privacy” (although “privacy” is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution).
It seems possible that a sense of privacy may motivate at least some abortions. I asked a close friend if she ever regretted that she had aborted rather than carrying her 1 pregnancy to term and placing for adoption and she answered immediately, “No. I wouldn’t have wanted people to see me pregnant.”
Some people say, “A woman having an abortion doesn’t become un-pregnant. She becomes the mother of a dead baby.” However, she is “un-pregnant” in the sense that her belly will not get noticeably big and people won’t shout “Congratulations!” when they see her enlarged stomach. The stomach growing broadcasts the pregnancy condition to the world. When the stomach remains flat, the pregnancy remains private.
Of course, there are some women who carry to term and never develop a distended belly. There are also women with distended stomachs who are not pregnant. But it is generally true that carrying a pregnancy to term is not something that can be kept private.
Major pro-abort disconnect from the Jezebel article:
“There’s an unbelievable amount of misleading information out there. The real anti-abortion hardliners believe that a woman opting out of pregnancy is literally the same thing as taking the life of another human being, and the pro-choice side believes that restricting abortion is the same thing as forcing women to be pregnant.”
Opting out of pregnancy? Do people really believe these euphemisms change the reality of abortion?
Just wanted to let you guys know that I’ve connected with the local Gabriel Project of the Great Lakes Region in Indianapolis and have started to sidewalk counsel in front Planned Parenthood twice a week. Their focus is non-political, but rather to help connect the women with the support and resources through their pregnancy and beyond.
They may say (and even believe) that they want women to speak the truth about their abortions, but they actually don’t. After all, just look how much opposition there is to groups like Silent No More and Operation Outcry. They really only want you to “come out” if you’ve had an abortion and don’t feel any pangs of conscience. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, we will continue to welcome post-abortive women with open arms.
I opt out of pregnancy all the time. It’s not that difficult.
But that’s NOT abortion. Abortion is paying someone to kill your child.
A book called “The Choices We Made” is an anthology of stories about women, usually famous women, who’ve had abortions. Conservative columnist Caitlan Flanagan noted that the true puzzle is why women, who risk the worst sort of disgrace and brutality, ever engage in sexual intercourse in the first place. As Polly Bergin, who had an abortion that left her sterile noted, she received many harsh lecture about sex when growing up but “”Nobody ever took into consideration FEELINGS. They never took into consideration wanting to be held or wanting to be loved or wanting to be cared for or wanting to not feel alone or frightened. . . . The girls put out . . . putting out seems like such a small price to pay for not being lonely.” Another woman in the anthology said, “It wasn’t that I liked sex or didn’t like sex. I had to have it to be with him.”
Flanagan noted that because of these feelings “women have been easily exploited by men.”
From the article:
Um, first of all, abortion *is* literally the same thing as taking the life abortion human being. Facepalm.
And then this:
So… this simple “outpatient procedure” (hey, y’all, that’s a new one! Way to go on expanding your euphemisms a little more) is saving women’s futures, careers, and livelihoods, huh? Because no woman who ever was pregnant had a future, career, or livelihood. As a woman, I’m deeply offended. So when I get pregnant I’ll not have a future? Dang, good to know.
One more thought:
Wearing a tee-shirt that reads “I had an abortion” might remind the average Joe Abstinence Only Education that all kinds of women have abortions and they’re not all irresponsible sluts trying to erase their mistakes by taking the easy way out, and that they don’t all look like Courtney Love during the nineties.
The underlying assumption here seems to be that we don’t really think abortion is bad– we just think that bad people have them. So if the pro-aborts if can just highlight enough sympathetic women who’ve had abortions, we’ll easily forget about the victims, and recognize abortion as every woman’s right! Debate solved!
There was a case in my hometown a couple years back, which is still winding its way through the court system, about a middle school teacher who had some drinks after work with colleagues, then allegedly drove drunk and killed a 19-year-old girl. The teacher is a 20-something woman with a husband and very young daughter. The incident has devastated her family. She can’t get any work, because what employer would hire someone who may well end up in prison at any time? It’s unquestionably tragic for everyone involved. It wouldn’t shock me if the jury went easy on her.
But you could show me five thousand DUI cases where the perp is as sympathetic as that teacher, and it would never move me to tolerate DUI. It would never make me forget the 19-year-old who died needlessly. Because it was never about the teacher being a “bad person.”
The sooner abortion advocates realize this, the less time will be wasted by both sides.
Doesn’t sparing women the trauma of an unplanned pregnancy do far more to help them than abortion?
No more unplanned pregnancies! Period! It must end.
“Because no woman who ever was pregnant had a future, career, or livelihood.”
So do, some don’t, and some won’t if the GOP sweeps the boards and eliminates aid to women who do give birth. But if those who have less access to a “future, career, and livelihood” are denied access to abortion and contraception (see attempts to defund Planned Parenthood), their opportunity for upward mobility will be even more limited thanks to the pro-life movement that so cares for women - not. Oh, right, I forgot, the birth of a baby means that everybody lives happily ever after regardless of economic circumstances.
Um, first of all, abortion *is* literally the same thing as taking the life abortion human being. Facepalm
Actually, a fetus and not a fully actualized, sentient, “human being.” D’uh. And simple outpatient procedure, yeah - although if you get your way, it will be lots harder. For rich women – a simple D& C. For poor women – chemical douches and other less savory procedures. How pro-life – women die in illegal abortions – but if they try to “murder” their “baby,” that’s what they deserve. Am I right?
”started to sidewalk counsel in front Planned Parenthood twice a week”
Enough of the euphemisms. Harassing women is not “counseling.” There are actually professional standards for counseling. The street theater outside Planned Parenthood is hardly that.
CC,
I don’t know what your experience with sidewalk counselors is, but there is no “theater” or “harassing” with the group I volunteer with. We have a brochure with some statistics and info on abortion procedures and fetal development, as well as the number of the Gabriel Project who connects her with community resources (such as housing, education, or employment) and a supporting church, which she does not have to attend, to assist her meet her financial and material needs with her pregnancy and beyond. We offer our brochure and an opportunity to talk as they drive in & they may or may not choose to stop and talk with us. We do not beg or plead, yell out condemning words, say anything about adoption, make empty promises, try to change their minds on the morality of abortion, evangelize, or coerce/manipulate her into choosing life. We are simply there to let her know there alternative and resources/support if she so chooses.
Actually, a fetus and not a fully actualized, sentient, “human being.”
And here you go again. Nobody said anything about sentient or actualized (Because, honestly, what does “actualized” actually mean? In actual English that would be actually useful for an actual discussion of actual bioethics?). You are the one suddenly talking about development, which gets you a mark on the SLED box for the abortion apologist BINGO card.
Troll harder.
Is one of the reasons women have abortions that they want to keep the matter private?
As noted above, I asked my friend, “Do you ever wish you’d carried to term and placed for adoption?”
She answered, “No because I wouldn’t have wanted people to see me pregnant.”
CC, we’ve been over this. Humans reproduce other human beings. Got it?
I’m not technically sentient at night when I sleep. Doesn’t make me a different species than when I’m awake. Doesn’t make me a being with less dignity and worth either.
Lets move past “stupid pro-abortion arguments 101” mkay? You’ve been around here long enough. It really is beneath you at this point.
I have talked ladies out of having an abortion by showing them pictures of what an abortion looks like, i have also prayed with them as they try to decide what to do. I love those who stand out infront of Planned Parenthood.
Todd
ProLifeBook.com
CC
Please get some new material. Yawn.
Kelsey,
HUGS TO YOU!! Thank you for your heart for post abortive women!!
Rachel C.
I will be in training next week for sidewalk counseling too!! :) Sorry. I meant “street theater.” You know. Dancing genitalia and all that jazz……..JAZZZZZZZZZZZ HANDS!!!
Wish someone woulda “harrassed” me about some of my unwise decisions back in the day.
I will also be joining you loving souls on the sidewalks in the fall. God bless your efforts!
$11,000 in exchange for your baby. Not sure the value of the dollar in China, but that sounds a liitle on the low side. $11 million would be a disgrace as well.
“CC, we’ve been over this. Humans reproduce other human beings. Got it?… Lets move past “stupid pro-abortion arguments 101? mkay?”
Who’s being redundant with stupid pro-life arguments? While “science” says that fetuses are of the homo sapiens “species,” there is no scientific, legal, and religious consensus regarding the “humanness” of the fetus. That’s why “personhood” amendments fail. That’s why mainstream scientists are not lobbying for the criminalization of abortion. That’s why mainstream Judaism and liberal Protestants don’t condemn abortion as a “sin.” The fetus, by virtue of its being a fetus, has a different status as a fully formed and birthed “person.” It’s part of it’s host organism, if you will, and that’s why only the opinion of the pregnant woman counts – not yours or your medieval churches. The argument that the fetus (or even the pre-implanted fertilized “eggs” – many of which flush out during menses) is a “human being” is a cornerstone of your movement that is an attempt to sway opinions with emotion and not real science which doesn’t claim to know when “life,” in the “human” sense (the basis for laws regarding the “post-born”) begins.
And as far as “new material” – “killing your baby” is just so old-school?
I really think we need to discuss privacy. Is one of the reasons women abort because this can be kept private and a large belly advertises the condition to the world?
Do we need to find ways to disguise advanced pregnancy?
“Who’s being redundant with stupid pro-life arguments? While “science” says that fetuses are of the homo sapiens “species,” there is no scientific, legal, and religious consensus regarding the “humanness” of the fetus.”
Please link to a scientific source that says a fetus is something other than human.
“Please link to a scientific source that says a fetus is something other than human”
As I said, if “human” is defined as a physical set of characteristics, yes, the fetus is a member of homo-sapiens. But as far as the philosophical and legal implications, a fetus is not determined to be the same as a “post-born” person. And while it’s human, it’s destiny is and should be controlled by its host organism – i.e. the woman who carries it – not the church, not the state, not the pro-lifers and their celibate (?) priests.
CC,
First of all, we’ve been over this a million times already.
I’d like to point out that I do not like the GOP. Why are you stuck on that? For someone who has a very transient view of human life and when humans get “fully actualized” and “aware” or whatever, you sure do see politics as black and white only. Either you’re GOP or you’re…. whatever you are.
In fact, I am just as quick to critisize the GOP as I am the Democrats or anyone else. So there goes that argument of yours. And anyway, as usual, you seem to think that the government teet is the only and best way to give support to poor women.
Newsflash: There are private agencies and people willing to help those in need, if only the …. oh my gosh…. government would sometimes get out of the way.
Also, where the junk are you getting this idea that we think everything will be perfect? If I thought having a baby would make life perfect, I’d already have had one by now. I know it’s hard. No one ever said having babies is a cakewalk; but it is the right thing to do. And here’s a concept for you to think about: Sometimes doing the difficult but right thing builds character.
Get well soon, mk?
CC - “While “science” says that fetuses are of the homo sapiens “species,” there is no scientific, legal, and religious consensus regarding the “humanness” of the fetus.”
And you are wrong. There is absolutely scientific consensus about the “humanness” of the fetus. Science doesn’t tell us what value to place on that human life, or how the law should treat that human life, or if pre-born human life is more or less important than post-born human life. That is not the place of science. But science absolutely tells us that the fetus is a human being.
And no one on this blog is saying that there is religious or legal consensus regarding the fetus. You constantly argue against a position that no one actually holds. It’s a big yawn fest.
CC–did you just use the phrase “host organism”???
Seriously???????????? Back here on planet Earth, we call that a MOTHER.
While “science” says that fetuses are of the homo sapiens “species,” there is no scientific, legal, and religious consensus regarding the “humanness” of the fetus.
then a little later:
But as far as the philosophical and legal implications, a fetus is not determined to be the same as a “post-born” person.
That’s a cool bike you have there, CC. I didn’t know it could backpedal, too. I notice in your second rant the appeal to “science” is conspicuously absent. At least you know when you’ve lost ground.
And, my 4 year old has different legal status than I do-I am required by law to provide care and sustenance for him, since he is a minor. If I started crashing at Mom and Dad’s and starved to death on their couch, that would be MY fault, since I am an adult and they have no legal obligations to provide for me any longer. The change I went through to make it from dependent 4 year old to 31 year old adult did not change my species in any way. I am still the same organism I was when I was gestating away in my mother, and my location and level of dependence shouldn’t have changed my legal status in such a way as to make my mother killing me legal.
It’s part of it’s host organism, if you will, and that’s why only the opinion of the pregnant woman counts – not yours or your medieval churches.
You DO realize the statement “It’s part of it’s[sic] host organism…” is a contradiction, right? If an entity has a host organism, that means the two are separate organisms of different species, and therefore the former cannot possibly be a part of the latter. You’ve got your mind wound up in knots-you can’t even reason logically anymore. And all to try and justify this horrible, horrible thing. Why, CC?
And why all this railing against the churches? Do you know how long ago was the last time I even stepped foot in a church, CC? Would you care to guess?
CC – “…science which doesn’t claim to know when “life,” in the “human” sense begins.”
Please post a link to a scientific source that says that human life begins at some time other than conception.
“Please post a link to a scientific source that says that human life begins at some time other than conception.”
If you’re talking biological life, it begins at conception. One more time, if you’re talking about life (Humanness) in legal or religious terms – that upon which we base our laws, it doesn’t begin at conception. Please post any laws which indicate otherwise.
-“I am required by law to provide care and sustenance for him, since he is a minor”
Are you required, by law, to provide sustenance for a fetus?
And about science – riddle me why the majority of scientists and doctors are not clamoring for the re-criminalization of abortion. Why are esteemed medical schools still teaching abortion methodology?
CC: Her point is that she believes she, and other girls and women, SHOULD BE legally obligated to provide their bodies as sustenance to fetuses that have started growing inside them.
CC – “if you’re talking about life (Humanness) in legal or religious terms – that upon which we base our laws, it doesn’t begin at conception”
Wrong again.
At least 23 states have fetal homicide laws that apply to the earliest stages of pregnancy (“any state of gestation,” “conception,” “fertilization” or “post-fertilization”); these are indicated below with an asterisk (*)
http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/health/fetal-homicide-state-laws.aspx
CC – “And about science – riddle me why the majority of scientists and doctors are not clamoring for the re-criminalization of abortion. Why are esteemed medical schools still teaching abortion methodology?”
Because science is not typically concerned with morality.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/280/5367/1200.full
And BTW, if blastocysts in petri dishes are “babies,” why aren’t you folks attempting to shut down the IVF labs?
CC says:
July 12, 2012 at 6:40 pm
And BTW, if blastocysts in petri dishes are “babies,” why aren’t you folks attempting to shut down the IVF labs?
(Denise) PLEASE!!!! The people who want to criminalize abortion are not hypocrites about this! The majority of them OPPOSE IVF because so many embryos are destroyed.
CC you have so much anger and hate inside of you it makes my stomach turn every time I read one of your comments. What happened to you?
CC, you sound very much like the folks from the FFRF. Are you associated with them in any way?
CC,
I’d have no problem whatsoever with IVF if they only created and implanted as many new human beings as they wanted rather than bringing into the world MORE than that number. But you’ll see that Pro-Lifers are already doing things for those children:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/4/obama-defunds-snowflake-babies/
Too bad your baby-killing pal defunded it.
Pro-lifers do protest IVF clinics:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/March-2012/Naperville-Right-to-Life-Activists-Protest-IVF-Clinic/
Courtnay says:
July 12, 2012 at 1:11 pm
CC–did you just use the phrase “host organism”???Seriously???????????? Back here on planet Earth, we call that a MOTHER.
(Denise) A mother sacrifices her body so her young may live. If adoptive, she sacrifices much in time and energy by taking on responsibility so the baby may live
Courtnay says:
July 12, 2012 at 1:11 pm
CC–did you just use the phrase “host organism”???
Seriously???????????? Back here on planet Earth, we call that a MOTHER.
(Denise) Girls and women who refuse the motherly sacrifice are just “host organisms.” They don’t deserve the title “mother.”