Abortion proponents object to pro-life message on coathangers
There is a branch of anti-choice activists that will use pretty much anything as a medium for their message: newspaper ads, graphic signs displayed in front of schools, bus stop benches. You would think they would know well enough to leave one place untouched, though. Wire coat hangers.
You would be wrong.
~ Robin Marty reporting on the Choose Life coat hangers of Springdale Drycleaners of Cincinnati, RH Reality Check, December 10
[Photo via Ben at Lifehacksimmediately]
Dec.14, 2012 6:00 am |
Free Speech |
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.
It says “Choose.”
Waa, waa, waa…..SO tired of these abortion lovers defending their sacred cow by trying to make pro-lifers look bad. No matter what we put on a wire coat hanger, the TRUTH remains, Robin…YOUR side butchers babies!!! So quit getting your panties in a wad over something so harmless. As far as I understand, there’s serious speculation as to whether the coat hanger method was even a real culprit in illegal abortions…
Yeah… I think we should avoid the coat hangers. I mean, really.
Using the coat hangers is brilliant. It’s like the Surgeon General’s warning on a pack of cigarettes.
awww, John! I was going to say something similar.
“Make Abortion Illegal!” followed by:
“WARNING: Sticking this device up your vagina in order to kill your child could result in severe hemorrhaging or infection, thereby causing infertility, or death. But we shouldn’t have to tell you that. Use your friggin’ brain, dummy.”
Slow news day around there?
Oh gee, coat hangers are sacred now. Good to know. Pfft.
“WARNING: Sticking this device up your vagina in order to kill your child could result in severe hemorrhaging or infection, thereby causing infertility, or death. But we shouldn’t have to tell you that. Use your friggin’ brain, dummy.”
Exactly. Even if it were the case that criminalizing abortion resulted in a large increase in unsafe, illegal abortions (a dubious claim), how exactly would that be our fault? Do human beings not have free will? Are people not responsible for their own actions? At the end of the day, the fault lies with the people who, you know, actually do these things.
I am pretty sure we are just making ourselves look like callous idiots with this one. Those postcards from yesterday, those were good. What’s the point of this junk? It’s like a sick joke.
I love this. Coat hangers are a symbol of nothing but an organized closet, and I’m tired of abortion apologists trying to make out like they’re this magical emblem of abortions for everybody. It’s time to take this symbol away from them and strip it of any power they’ve given it. A wire hanger is not sacred, and I am not remotely concerned about the pearl-clutching of people who don’t care about the unborn they kill on purpose or the women who die in unsafe abortions–the regulation of which the pro-aborts oppose–now. Robin Marty can get over herself.
I am pretty sure we are just making ourselves look like callous idiots with this one.
We aren’t doing anything of the kind. A pro-life dry cleaner has decided to spread the pro-life message in a way unique to his/her business. I fully support him/her in this endeavor. Free speech and all that.
Wire hangers are a symbol of professional dry-cleaning. The only people who associate wire hangers with abortion are the RH zealots, talking amongst themselves. Any young person who stumbles upon a pro-abortion rally has to scratch her head and ask, “What’s with all the friggin’ coat hangers?”
Pretty much everyone knows by now that the claim of “unsafe illegal abortions” was a myth… everyone who cares, anyway. The young people are mostly concerned about the safety of legal modern legal clinics. Women die in there.
Now there’s only one abortion icon left for pro-lifers to exploit —
We need a bunch of surly, angry, late-middle-aged feminist women jeering spittle-flecked taunts for life!
Oh, and the term is pro-life, not anti-choice. I know she’s probably not reading this, but I love correcting people when they use incorrect terminology.
Wonder if they’d be willing to add A//A ?
DEL!! AMEN!!
I have wire hangers in my closet! I must secretly be anti choice!
Sarah Whittington, the lawyer who argued Roe V Wade was on a flight and the attendant asked her about her button. A wire hanger with a red line through it. She asked, “Why don’t you like wire hangers??!!”
Classic.
Brings to mind the scene from Mommie Dearest with Joan Crawford screaming to Christina about NO MORE WIRE HANGERS !!!
So if hangers aren’t “fair” can’t we make posters of the weapons of death use to dismember babies in utero?
A cannula with a big, blood red slash on it?
I think it is hilarious that proaborts think the wire hanger is THEIRS!! LOL
People put ads on hangers all the time.
The ONLY reason this is a big deal is because abortion lovers decided to hijack the whole “wire hanger” meme in an attempt to act as though women everywhere were using them to self-abort.
We know this isn’t the case. At all. Not even close. Women were getting illegal abortions from their doctors and from creeps who now operate their chop shops legally under names like “Happy Sunny Day Butterfly Clinic for Women.” Wire hangers were never the instrument of “choice.”
Don’t believe everything you see in Hollyweird movies.
Yes Kel!!!
The lie we bought was that thousands and thousands of women were harming themselves with wire hangers. Bernard Nathanson admitted to making up the number. How many really did?? But they were going to Dr. offices and the back alley became the front alley when abortion was legalized.
PS
Don’t forget the Rainbows and Unicorns Day Spa For Reproductive Rights.
You get a free manicure and a Tai Chi Latte with every abortion!! JOY JOY JOY!
A parody brought to you by Ladybug:
“There are branches of pro-choice activists which will use pretty much anything as a medium for their propaganda: medical journals, newspapers, vandalism, bloodied coat hangers & physician costumes, walking vaginas, fetus and IUD cookies. You would think they would know well enough to leave one place untouched, though. Respecting the deceased.
You would be wrong.
At their public capital rallies and foreign marinas, they toute about graphic images of a nude, bloody deceased woman (nor they did obtain the permission of her surviving family for this use). Where is the respect for the deceased in this.”
Excellent, Ladybug.
And, these people really need to get with the times, man! They themselves were just talking about the new app for Mexican women to self-abort WITH DRUGS, and the last self-abortion I heard about in the states was a 13 year old self-aborting with a pencil to cover for her pedophile boyfriend. OMIGOSH, PENCILS ARE LIKE, TOTALLY SACRED NOW U GUISE!
http://www.jillstanek.com/the-pediophile-and-the-pencil.html
I am pretty sure we are just making ourselves look like callous idiots with this one.
I disagree. The Pro-Legal Abortionists’ hysterical outbursts deserve to have attention drawn to them in order for us to ridicule them. If we keep mum about this out of fear of their labels, we give them power to guide the narrative. It’s not 1972. It’s 2012. And, it’s time for us to call b.s. on their inaccurate tropes, because we know definitively just how inaccurate they are. With the power of new media, they no longer steer the vessel. We all do. Don’t be scared, Jack. Just put your hand on the wheel, and point towards truth.
I would totally like to repost my parody on the RH site to make the point, but I don’t feel like receiving one thousand lashes and besides I’m getting ready to meet a friend at Barnes and Noble for conversation and coffee.
Callous idiots are those that care nothing for women in need.
Callous idiots CHEER and CELEBRATE when women abort!
Callous idiots ignore the silent screams and the dead and the blood and the pain of abortion.
“And, it’s time for us to call b.s. on their inaccurate tropes, because we know definitively just how inaccurate they are.”
But that’s not what this is doing. It’s not showing the inaccuracy of the coat hanger meme, it just has a lot of unfortunate implications. A lot of people still buy into that gazillion illegal and dangerous abortions before Roe crap, and this doesn’t do anything to dispel the myths, and it makes it look like this person is making some kind of joke or statement that I don’t think they intended to make.
It’s not showing the inaccuracy of the coat hanger meme, it just has a lot of unfortunate implications.
What “implications?” A dry cleaner is putting an ad on something that is used EVERY DAY for uses OTHER than self-abortion.
I’m sorry, but the apoplectic reactions from pro-choicers about this is way over the top.
Look, if pro-choicers can sell coat hanger jewelry, why can’t a dry cleaner put an ad on something they give to customers every day with their clean clothes?
It’s a wire hanger – again, used for CLOTHING. Let’s not all overreact like Mommie Dearest, hmm?
Why is it, in all the years pro-aborts have been screaming about “wire hanger abortions”, making it sound like there have been HUNDREDS-
have they only managed to come up with ONE picture (Gerri Santoro) to show around?
Where are the other “hundreds” of pictures/names of women/girls who have “supposedly” performed coat hanger abortions on themselves?
Hmmmm…?
Pamela says:
December 14, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Why is it, in all the years pro-aborts have been screaming about “wire hanger abortions”, making it sound like there have been HUNDREDS-
have they only managed to come up with ONE picture (Gerri Santoro) to show around?
(Denise) Gerri Santoro didn’t use a coat hanger on herself. Her boyfriend, Clyde Dixon, borrowed medical instruments and a textbook. He had no medical training whatsoever but apparently thought he could perform an abortion with the guidance of a textbook in a hotel room. Of course, he could not. She began bleeding profusely so he panicked and left her to bleed to death there.
The photograph is awful but there was no coat hanger. Dixon used medical instruments.
The photos of Gerri were USED to further the abortion “cause.”
Just as Norma McCorvey was USED. (The Roe of Roe V Wade)
Just as Sandra Cano was USED. (The Doe of Doe V Bolton)
Just as proaborts will continue to USE others.
But keep quiet about all of the women that have died in “safe and legal” abortions. Don’t use their photos. Bad for business.
You can read an interview with the dry cleaner’s owner here:
http://www.jillstanek.com/2012/12/dry-cleaners-use-wire-coat-hangers-to-spread-pro-life-message/#comments
And some clueless PC discussion here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIO1e-9Cf6k
Which I first heard about here:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/abortion-advocates-fume-over-dry-cleaners-pro-life-wire-coat-hangers-worst-marketing-decision-ever/
I am praying his dry cleaning business does very well. Cleans up actually.
ba dump bump
Jack, if you act scared or uncomfortable about a pro-life ad on a wire hanger you are insinuating that there is truth to the pro-aborts claims that thousands of women used wire hangers to self-abort. And as we pro-lifers all know from pro-aborts who claimed it and then turned pro-life, it isn’t true.
Gerri Santoro was also 6 months pregnant. SIX MONTHS! Even a lot of hardened pro-choicers I know are very uncomfortable with a woman aborting at 6 months. Yet they bring out that degrading photo of that woman every chance they get. As if she was a few weeks pregnant, panicked and used a hanger on herself. They know the public doesn’t support late term abortion.
Gerri was separated from her husband who beat her. She already had children. When her husband wrote her to say he was coming to see her after not seeing her for over a year she panicked and she and her boyfriend tried to kill their nearly full-term baby. The problem wasn’t the baby. The problem was domestic violence. The problem was lack of fidelity in marriage.
A wire hanger is just a wire hanger. It doesn’t represent anything unless we let it.
Ingenious.
You need to Hang It Up proaborts.
Imagine the proaborts if the dry cleaners had decided to put on the wire hangers
PROCHOICE!! WOMEN HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE!
They would be thrilled and we all know it.
Sydney M says:
December 14, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Gerri Santoro was also 6 months pregnant. SIX MONTHS! Even a lot of hardened pro-choicers I know are very uncomfortable with a woman aborting at 6 months. Yet they bring out that degrading photo of that woman every chance they get.
(Denise) It was worse than that, Sydney M. She was 6 1/2 months pregnant. 2 week past the 6 month mark. She would have had a normal birth LESS than 3 months from the time of the horror had it progressed normally — unless, of course, as she feared, her husband had killed her because he saw she was pregnant by another man.
Gerri was perfectly willing to carry to term when she learned she was pregnant. She only got upset about it when her husband said he was coming to visit his daughters. He was an extremely violent man. She was scared he would kill her if he saw she was pregnant by another man. EVEN NOW, under Roe v. Wade, most abortionists WILL NOT perform an abortion if the pregnancy is as advanced as Gerri Santoro’s was. It is EXTREMELY dangerous for the woman — and very likely to result in the early delivery of a live (but damaged) baby.
Geraldine Santoro just panicked. People do stupid things when they panic. What she needed to do was hide out from her husband for at least 2 months + 2 weeks to give birth and maybe longer for recovery.
This story is a terrible tragedy. But it’s really not about the legality or illegality of abortion. It’s about someone who was scared and couldn’t think straight so she didn’t do what she really needed to do which was find a place of refuge.
Hi Denise,
I think it is also a tragic tale of a woman who had no where to turn to for help or safety. There were no battered women’s shelters, domestic violence was the woman’s fault, police wouldn’t have given the matter the time of day until he “did something”, at least that’s what they always told my mother. Oh, and who can blame the “poor guy” when “his woman” is sleeping around? Heck, I’d beat her senseless too!
Yes it is despicable that this woman’s tragedy is still exploited, I have even seen her death photos on TV, which is beneath low. Can’t she at least have her dignity? Its like the Becky Bell situation. Never let a tragedy go to waste, and don’t let facts get in the way.
Mary says:
December 15, 2012 at 9:20 am
Hi Denise,
I think it is also a tragic tale of a woman who had no where to turn to for help or safety. There were no battered women’s shelters, domestic violence was the woman’s fault, police wouldn’t have given the matter the time of day until he “did something”, at least that’s what they always told my mother. Oh, and who can blame the “poor guy” when “his woman” is sleeping around? Heck, I’d beat her senseless too!
Yes it is despicable that this woman’s tragedy is still exploited
(Denise) If she had been thinking calmly and clearly, she MIGHT have been able to find a refuge somewhere. Her sister hoped that she would ask Catholic Charities if they could put her up someplace to keep distance between her and her husband until the baby was born. As I said before, she had LESS THAN THREE MONTHS to go with it. She had known she was pregnant before her husband said he was on his way — and been willing at that time to carry to term.
I actually find that death photo very powerful. But the message cannot be about the legality or illegality of abortion. It is about what can happen to a woman in a situation of threat and panic.
However, it does remain true that the photo could be seen by some as a kind of invasion of privacy.
Finally, at SIX AND A HALF MONTHS of pregnancy, virtually everyone should be able to admit that there was A SECOND VICTIM. The baby inside that died some half hour after Gerri did.
Hi Denise,
Good points. I’m looking at it from the perspective of having lived in that era, and believe me a woman had NO legal protection in a situation like this. There is also the possiblity the boyfriend wanted off the hook. This poor woman must have seen no way out, and that is my point. Maybe in this day and age she would have had the help, support and protection she desperately needed.
Gerri obviously was not that desperate to abort, or she would’t have waited 6 month. Maybe her pregancy was more advanced than she realized.There is also the possibility she had been in denial of her pregnancy for months. Given her circumstances that wouldn’t have been surprising.
Yes, there was definitely a second victim, no dispute about that. However our opponents love to exploit this tragedy like they do that of Becky Bell. Facts don’t matter, the circumstances of their lives don’t matter. They make great poster children for the abortion cause. That does matter.
Mary says:
December 15, 2012 at 9:46 am
Hi Denise,
Good points. I’m looking at it from the perspective of having lived in that era, and believe me a woman had NO legal protection in a situation like this. There is also the possiblity the boyfriend wanted off the hook. This poor woman must have seen no way out, and that is my point. Maybe in this day and age she would have had the help, support and protection she desperately needed.
(Denise) As I’ve stated before, if the right help had been given to girls and women in general, it is unlikely abortion ever would have been legalized. Neglect of the legitimate concerns of girls and women led to its legalization.
This message on a wire coat hanger is a bit weird. It says much about the experience of pregnancy that girls and women worldwide will go through SO MUCH to end pregnancy. Heck, the fact that over 1 million LEGAL abortions are performed in America each year is a testament to that. These operations are expensive and painful even when legal. Yet females have them in large numbers.
When they are unlawful, the fact that women are willing to risk their life and health to end pregnancies says much about the nature of pregnancy. It is a very intense experience, at once utterly intimate and utterly public.
I really think it has something to do with pregnancy itself. Although I’m not a fan of adoption, a practice that wounds children by severing their biologically based relationship with their mothers, the fact is that adoption IS available and always has been.
Yet females have always sought abortions and continue to do so.
Luckily for me, I’m not one of them. I’m 55, have never had an abortion and can confidently say I never will.
The dead have no right to privacy, at least legally. However, it seems like on an ethical level, publishing the death photo could be seen to violate Gerri Santoro’s privacy — a strange thing to do for a cause supposedly rooted in privacy. In addition, it initially hurt the feelings of one of her adult daughters who said, “How dare they flaunt this? How dare they take this picture of my mom, my beautiful mom, and put it before the public eye?” Later she became active in the abortion legalization movement.
I must state again that what happened to Geraldine Santoro was deeply disturbing. But I also must reiterate that it was to a great extent the product of bad thinking caused by panic.
As I understand it, Gerri knew she was pregnant early in the pregnancy. She fantasized about someday in the near future marrying Clyde Dixon. She talked about how nice it would be to have her kids playing in the yard he had.
By the time she went to that hotel room, it is my opinion that she didn’t even think of a “fetus” but of a “baby.” She had probably come to the grim conclusion that the only way to save her own life was to kill the baby that she otherwise would have happily welcomed into the world. She thought of the baby as doomed anyway. But her expanded belly and the feeling of the kicking and moving around inside meant she thought of it as a baby.
If things had worked out as planned, it is quite possible they would have delivered the baby live and just left the newborn to suffocate to death. This was a horrible thing to do but people do horrible things when scared.
To honor Geraldine Santoro, make sure no woman ever fears for her life for having a baby — regardless of whether it was conceived in adultery or whatever.
Well…you realize domestic abuse was illegal, even back then, right? They really just could’ve called the cops, if what’s-his-face wasn’t a total weenie.
And he would have spent maybe a week in jail at the most, and then be out to stalk and beat her again. They didn’t have the shelters and it wasn’t a crime that was taken seriously for years.
Hmm, can’t split a “like” in half, so one each will have to do.
xalisae says:
December 15, 2012 at 11:42 pm
Well…you realize domestic abuse was illegal, even back then, right? They really just could’ve called the cops, if what’s-his-face wasn’t a total weenie.
(Denise) Poor Geraldine Santoro just panicked. It was a tragedy. She died a horrible lonely death. The baby inside her — in the 3rd trimester — died 20-30 minutes after she did. Gerri left behind 2 daughters who dearly loved her and suffered terribly through the loss of their mother.
Tragedies result when people panic and can’t think straight.
Yes domestic abuse was supposedly illegal back then, but the police, at least in the major city I grew up in, could do virtually nothing more than quiet the situation and leave. I remember when the man across the street chased his wife with a butcher knife and SHE was advised to leave the house until he sobered up and calmed down. My mother was told more than once “lady, its HIS house”, i.e. he can do what he wants. When my mother reminded the police it was her house too and didn’t she have a right to be safe in it, the police just responded with a shrug and “sorry”. Besides not only were “virtuous” women never raped, but “good” wives were never abused. Sadly this caveman mentality has changed little.
Jack is right about the stalking, it wasn’t taken seriously. I remember when this was just viewed as some poor lovesick guy, or woman, and not the potentially dangerous situation it was. Even today I don’t believe enough is done to protect victims and that it is only beginning to be taken seriously.
I can definitely understand what terror Gerri was living with and that she had no where to turn to for help or safety. Tragedies also result when people live in constant terror and fear for their lives.
Did she have no family to go stay with? Did Mr. Weenie McCoward babydaddy not have a place he lived that she and the kids could’ve stayed? As someone who has had to GTFO in the past, it’s really not that hard. Seems to me the new guy was just using her ex as an excuse to kill the baby, and she probably just should’ve left him, too, and sworn off dudes altogether because she obviously had terrible taste in men. She could have gotten help from a relative to raise her three children. Seriously…sticking pointy things up my vagina is really not high on my list of “Probable Solutions To My Problems”, and I don’t see how it would be on any sane person’s.
Heck, just buying a gun and waiting if he’s THAT friggin’ abusive seems more reasonable to me. If it’s go-time and you’ve decided you have to kill someone so you can be safe, who the H-E-double hockey sticks chooses THEIR BABY?! When my ex said he was coming back for his stuff, my dad and brother were out on the porch with their firearms waiting in case they needed to obliterate HIM. They didn’t go back in the house and shoot ME.
“Hmm, can’t split a “like” in half, so one each will have to do.”
I “like” this idea!
Hi X,
Maybe she had no place to go and since stalkers have followed their victims across state lines so as to kill them, its not likely a private residence would have offered any protection.
Look, I don’t condone what the woman did, but at the same time I have not lived with such terror either. Maybe he threatened the children. Maybe she feared he’d catch her when she stepped outside her house. Whether or not she had a gun may not be much protection when you don’t know when and where he’ll strike next or you’ll even see him when he does.
Her boyfriend was likely as scared as she was and I certainly don’t hold him in any great esteem. I suspect he was far more concerned about getting himself off the hook.
Not everyone has people to help them. I agree with Mary, hundred percent.
Thank you Jack,
Another example would be Cherica Adams who was gunned down at 6 months of pregnancy by her football player boyfriend Ray Carruth and his goons. She had refused to abort their son and was shot while driving. She survived long enough to identify her killers, then tragically died a few days later. The son was left with severe cerebral palsy and is being cared for by Cherica’s parents. To think all Carruth would have had to do was direct his accountant to write a child support check every month, he’d have never missed it. What a senseless waste of lives.
Apparenty a previous girlfriend had aborted because Carruth threatened her life if she didn’t.
It seems her fear for her life was well founded.
So even in this day and age, there may be little to protect anyone when someone is determined to kill them. This may have been the terror Geri lived with almost 50 years ago.
Mary says:
December 16, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Hi X,
Maybe she had no place to go and since stalkers have followed their victims across state lines so as to kill them, its not likely a private residence would have offered any protection.
Look, I don’t condone what the woman did, but at the same time I have not lived with such terror either. Maybe he threatened the children.
(Denise) She kept trying to make a go of it even after he beat her. She left him because he started beating the children.
@ Mary: I read she was 8 months pregnant when shot.
Mary says:
December 16, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Thank you Jack,
Another example would be Cherica Adams who was gunned down at 6 months of pregnancy by her football player boyfriend Ray Carruth and his goons. She had refused to abort their son and was shot while driving. She survived long enough to identify her killers, then tragically died a few days later. The son was left with severe cerebral palsy and is being cared for by Cherica’s parents. To think all Carruth would have had to do was direct his accountant to write a child support check every month, he’d have never missed it. What a senseless waste of lives.Apparenty a previous girlfriend had aborted because Carruth threatened her life if she didn’t.
(Denise) Some commentators have pointed out that the only person who can legally “choose” during the pregnancy is the female who is carrying. A man might not want to pay child support or for some other reason might not want to become a “dad.” Yet Roe v. Wade gives him no say. Therefore, some men may feel justified in trying to “abort” themselves. For example, Maggie Gallagher wrote about a man who clobbered his girlfriend and attempted to inject her with drugs that could bring on an abortion. Gallagher noted that men feel frustrated because, for at least 6 months, they have no legal “choice.”
At any rate, I sent a close friend of mine a list of places near his vicinity that perform vasectomies. This is the fellow who said a woman he impregnated would “abort because I’d make her life so miserable she’d have to abort just to get some peace.” The last thing anyone wants when pregnant is to have the man who impregnated her threatening and harassing her. However, it is even more important, IMO, that a vasectomy could prevent an abortion period even if the woman he impregnated sought it on her own without any pressure from him.
So even in this day and age, there may be little to protect anyone when someone is determined to kill them. This may have been the terror Geri lived with almost 50 years ago.
And I don’t get what would’ve been so hard about getting a pistol and popping the guy who actually deserved it instead of sticking pointy things up yourself in an attempt to kill a baby. If you have to choose to kill someone, why not the dude that’s harming or harassing you? It just seems like a no-brainer to me. “Hmmm…guy who is assaulting me…or my innocent child and possibly myself in the process….decisions, decisions….”
xalisae says:
December 17, 2012 at 6:27 am
So even in this day and age, there may be little to protect anyone when someone is determined to kill them. This may have been the terror Geri lived with almost 50 years ago.
And I don’t get what would’ve been so hard about getting a pistol and popping the guy who actually deserved it instead of sticking pointy things up yourself in an attempt to kill a baby. If you have to choose to kill someone, why not the dude that’s harming or harassing you? It just seems like a no-brainer to me. “Hmmm…guy who is assaulting me…or my innocent child and possibly myself in the process….decisions, decisions….”
(Denise) x, I’ve got to admit you are making sense on this one. Geraldine Santoro should have found a way to protect herself against Sam Santoro’s anger at discovering she was pregnant by another man. That really would have been A LOT better than what she and Clyde Dixon actually did.
But again, she was WILLING to carry to term up until Sam said he was on his way. And she was less than 3 months away from a normal delivery.
I’ll just add that the Geraldine Santoro case is a poor illustration for why abortion should be legal since the problem was not the pregnancy itself but rather someone’s possible violent reaction to that pregnancy.
Hi X and Denise,
I’m speaking as someone from that era. First of all she is a pregnant adulteress. Who can blame her husband if he smacked her around a little or even threatened to kill her? Of course all kinds of people would testify what a real prince he is as well. If she killed him she could very well have wound up with a life sentence. As I said I do not condone what she did, but I understand her fear and desperation, like I understand the fear and desperation of the former girlfriend of Ray Carruth. Also, these women may have been reminded that if they ever tried anything, there would be plenty of people seeking revenge. Obviously Ray Carruth had his goons, Geri’s husband may have had his.
The sad fact is that even in this day and age, a woman may still be forced to make the choice between her life and that of her unborn child’s.
Believe me, I have always been the first to say how a woman should leave an abusive man. Then again, I came to realize that I have never lived with the terror of a gun than may fire from nowhere or knowing there is someone out there somewhere who is determined to kill me, and he/she does not care about the consequences.
I’ll just add that the Geraldine Santoro case is a poor illustration for why abortion should be legal since the problem was not the pregnancy itself but rather someone’s possible violent reaction to that pregnancy.
That would be the case for virtually all abortions.
Navi says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:10 am
I’ll just add that the Geraldine Santoro case is a poor illustration for why abortion should be legal since the problem was not the pregnancy itself but rather someone’s possible violent reaction to that pregnancy.
That would be the case for virtually all abortions.
(Denise) No. It was particular to this case. There are similar cases but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
Mary,
I’ve never really been that good at considering societal norms…at all…so I don’t factor them into my behavior or the considerations of the behaviors of others very well if at all.
Hi X,
Just chalk it off to old age my friend, I’ve seen, lived, and remember a lot! :)
X, but you grew up in an era where you had a lot more autonomy and options than Geri did, as a woman. I am not downing you for your strength at all, you know I find it incredibly admirable, but not everyone is as tough and smart as you are. We are all capable or incapable of certain things depending on a lot of factors. I don’t think that what Geri did was right at all, and I really have zero sympathy for Mr “I can knock this lady up, try to kill the baby, and run off when I see what I have done”, but I have nothing but pity for Geri. She paid in the worst way for her mistakes and society was partly responsible for them as well.
Mary, your post at 9:02am is awesome. That’s basically how I feel about the whole thing.
I will say I am so, so sick of Geri’s picture being touted by abortion activists (they still do it! The worst argument I ever got in on Facebook was about that). If anything it’s an indictment of leaving women in desperate circumstances like domestic abuse and stalking little options, it’s not an argument for legal abortion.
@ JackBorsch: Clyde Dixon had NO medical training or experience of any kind. She was less than 3 months away from a normal birth. Of course when he stuck instruments up her, blood started spurting.
Can you see how that would make him PANIC?
He did serve a year and a day in jail. Like Geraldine, he was confused and acted foolishly. The results were tragic. But he didn’t intend the result he got.
I can see why it would make him panic, sure. I just can’t find any sympathy for him. He wasn’t the one who was abused and stalked, he was the one who got a woman in an abusive marriage pregnant, basically putting her at more risk. And then he ran away like a child. I just don’t respect a man like that. And I am a terrible hypocrite for having sympathy for Geri but not him, but really he should have made better decisions. She and the baby are dead, and he spent a tiny amount of time in prison for it.
I’m afraid strength or intellect have nothing to do with my attitude. Society at large has generally treated me with disdain basically for just me being what I am, so I learned to not give a flip over the years (and to hate, but that’s a different story).
If you love someone enough to have sex with them and procreate, you should love them enough to do your best to protect them from someone who would hurt them. I’m with Jack on that one-Clyde deserved SO MUCH MORE than just a year in prison, and the abusive jerk deserved a bullet in his skull if he was capable of hurting the mother of his children and those children, to boot.
If people would’ve been using their brains and spines, it wouldn’t have happened the way that it did, abortion factors into the situation nowhere, and Pro-Legal Abortionists are despicable for even trying to use this as a “see? abortion should be legal!” thing. It’s like saying child abuse would be so much more rare if it were legal to take toddlers out into the street and shoot them to death.
“I’m afraid strength or intellect have nothing to do with my attitude. Society at large has generally treated me with disdain basically for just me being what I am, so I learned to not give a flip over the years (and to hate, but that’s a different story). ”
You always say this even though you are awesome. It takes strength and intellect to be like you are. I will tell you this forever. :D
The reactions of x and JB to Clyde Dixon demonstrate once again that society isn’t a patriarchy and this is not and never has been completely a “man’s world.” Societies are bi-sexist with both patriarchal and matriarchal elements. Look “up” and you see patriarchy: men occupy positions of formal power. Look “down” and you see matriarchy. Arianna Huffington once pointed out, “If there is a limit to how far society will allow woman to rise, there is also a limit to how far it will allow her to sink.” Men are the overwhelming majority of the homeless.
The patriarchal side shows in how suspicious people can be of women who are viewed as overly ambitious. A similarly ambitious man will be admired.
However, the matriarchal side shows in how relatively forgiving and understanding people can be of women who screw up. Andrea Yates got an outpouring of sympathy which a man who committed similar crimes under similar stresses would never have gotten.
Both x and JB are eager to brutally punish Clyde Dixon because they can’t forgive incompetency and panic in a man. Men are supposed to be courageous.
Clyde Dixon with a natural, normal panic when blood was gushing out of his girlfriend. Having no medical training or experience, he had no idea what to do so he just took off. He actually drove around AIMLESSLY for THREE DAYS before he finally turned himself in to the police. He was out of money, out of gas in his car, and hungry.
The matriarchal strain is shown by the willingness of xalisae and JackBorsch to, in effect, punish Clyde Dixon for being an ordinary man of flesh and blood rather than Sir Lancelot.
I need to add — once again — that the Geraldine Santoro case doesn’t argue for legal abortion. Most abortionists TODAY wouldn’t operate on a woman 6 1/2 months pregnant! With LESS THAN THREE MONTHS to go, the solution to the dilemma was to HIDE OUT. But neither Clyde Dixon nor Geraldine Santoro was thinking very clearly. If Clyde Dixon had been thinking clearly, he would never have even attempted the operation he so badly bungled, but would have found a place of refuge for Gerri for the relatively short amount of time that such refuge was needed.
Not every man is a Superman. Men, like women, can get scared.
” Both x and JB are eager to brutally punish Clyde Dixon because they can’t forgive incompetency and panic in a man. Men are supposed to be courageous.”
Nope, men can be incompetent, weak, and panicky and I won’t judge that depending on the situation. If I thought that was something men could never be I would have to judge myself extremely harshly for not protecting myself and all kinds of things. It just depends on the situation. Knocking someone up and trying to kill the baby, and when someone is bleeding to death you run off? I don’t judge that based on his gender, I would judge a woman for leaving her to die just as harshly.
I do agree with your point that it’s not purely a man’s world and men are judged by fairly rigid gender roles.
JackBorsch: trying to kill the baby
(Denise) This is another way the case differs from most abortions. I’ve talked to people who don’t believe a “baby” exists early in the pregnancy. They believe that a baby is in the process of being formed and that an embryo or fetus in the 1st trimester, and to some people the 2nd trimester, is a kind of work in progress that hasn’t made it to being an actual “baby” yet. The belief is that the embryo or early fetus is a kind of draft for a baby but not the completed project.
However, I really doubt that at the time Gerri and Clyde went to that hotel room, they had such an idea. She was 2 weeks into her 3rd trimester. Her belly was big and, for quite some time, she had been regularly feelings the kicks and turns. It is my belief that both parties thought of and referred to what was inside her not as a “fetus” but as a “baby.” They both believed that what they were doing was killing their baby. They believed the circumstances made it impossible for the baby to live and that killing their baby was a grim necessity. Gerri might have thought that both she AND the baby were doomed if Sam Santoro saw her or even heard of the situation.
But that still means these were two people who couldn’t think of a better way out of a dilemma other than killing what they both thought of as their baby.
Nope, men can be incompetent, weak, and panicky and I won’t judge that depending on the situation.
I don’t absolve her of anything, and she’s just as much at fault for not pulling a trigger on her ex as he would’ve been.
This is another way the case differs from most abortions. I’ve talked to people who don’t believe a “baby” exists early in the pregnancy. They believe that a baby is in the process of being formed and that an embryo or fetus in the 1st trimester, and to some people the 2nd trimester, is a kind of work in progress that hasn’t made it to being an actual “baby” yet. The belief is that the embryo or early fetus is a kind of draft for a baby but not the completed project.
This.
Hi Jack, 12:52PM
Thank you. Coming from you it means a lot.
I find the death photo of Gerri Santoro extremely powerful but to me it just doesn’t represent “why abortion should be legal.” I see it as representing dangers inherent to being female, dangers inherent to females from heterosexuality, and the dangers of poor planning and panicked thinking.