Ms: Who cares how 14-yr-old got pregnant? Only abortion access matters
Ms. Magazine tweeted this on January 28…
The Roe v. Wade anniversary: What Abortion Access Looks Like for Young Women of Color http://t.co/eBHdNMth
— Ms. Magazine (@MsMagazine) January 28, 2013
… linking to this post on its blog:
She was 14 years old and going into the 9th grade. From the moment she learned she was pregnant, she contemplated what to do. Not comprehending how to even deliver a baby (let alone how to take care of a child for the rest of her life) prompted grave fears about her future.
Being the eldest of an immigrant family of seven, she learned early to take on the role of her family’s translator and primary caretaker. She could not fathom how she would tell them about her pregnancy. She pondered the level of disappointment her family might feel and the distress she would put on them with the possibility of a baby.
Not knowing the options available to her, she withheld her pregnancy from her family and friends. She had never felt so alone, confused and afraid. The days passed and her belly grew. Knowing what she had to do, she finally found the courage and sought help from her grandmother and aunt. At 21 weeks, my cousin found the proper care and support to have an abortion.
Author Daisy Khamphakdy went on to lament increasing barriers to abortion, especially for those who are “young, low-income women of color.”
Never once did Khamphakdy show concern for how her cousin got pregnant. Yet, according to Planned Parenthood, her cousin was likely raped by an adult man. From a December 2010 PP Fact Sheet:
- Teenage girls with older partners are more likely to become pregnant than those with partners closer in age
From an October 2012 PP Fact Sheet:
- Teenagers who have been raped or abused also experience higher rates of pregnancy – 4.5 out of 10 pregnant adolescents likely have a history of abuse. Teen girls with a history of abuse are more than twice as likely to become pregnant as peers who do not experience abuse.
- For women younger than 18, the pregnancy rate among those with a partner who is six or more years older is 3.7 times as high as the rate among those whose partner is no more than two years older. Adolescent women with older partners also use contraception less frequently…
And from this PP Fact Sheet from the early 2000s, now deleted online but which I saved a screenshot of:
- Teenagers who have been raped or abused also experience higher rates of pregnancy – in a sample of 500 teen mothers, two-thirds had histories of sexual and physical abuse, primarily by adult men averaging age 27.
What if the writer’s cousin had indeed been raped? Was it a family member? Did the grandmother and aunt have an ulterior motive to help the girl get a late-term abortion so as to kill the evidence? Did they send the girl back to her abuser?
Liberal feminists don’t care. To care would be to admit abortion is sometimes used to exploit girls and hide crimes. To care would be to support legislation, rather than twist it and oppose it, to protect girls and women from coerced abortions by their rapists.
Because nothing can interfere with abortions, even if it coerced by child rapists.
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.
Liberals have an incredibly patronizing mentality toward “people of color” generally and “women of color” in particular. Somehow “people of color” are viewed as little more than helpless children, victims always in need of some nice white person, liberal of course, giving them a helping hand.
Great point, why were grandma and auntie so anxious to get her on the abortion table? Who gave permission for this girl to have an abortion? Who monitored her at home to make sure she suffered no complications? If she suddenly developed a fever, bleeding, or chest or calf pain, would someone know this child needs immediate medical attention?
Mary, so exactly how is it you know that the grandma and auntie were “so anxious to get her on the abortion table”? Were you there? Are you the grandma? Or maybe you are the auntie? To what what information are you privy? And how do you know that the girl wasn’t monitored afterwards? In many states, when a female becomes pregnant, she is emancipated from her parents in regards to her medical decisions. I do not know if that was the issue here, but it could have been. If you don’t know, you shouldn’t make assumptions just to support your beliefs, no matter what your beliefs are.
Jill,
Looks like “liberals” really want to remove “people/women of color” from the population of the earth to me…
The “helping hand” Mary spoke of is a “helping hand” out of existence…
Jill, just because it was not mentioned in the article, does not mean that the author and her family were not concerned with how the girl got pregnant. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. I’ll ask you the same question I asked Mary: To what information are you privy? If your answer is “None.” then your point is based on an assumption and is therefore unfounded and moot.
I wonder what her position would have been, if her cousin had a perforated uterus, unable to have other children, or even had died..
Liz, it’s clear that Jill is merely asking questions the author of the story didn’t care to cover. Based on the numbers above, those questions aren’t being asked enough.
We can’t claim to care about women and be silent or naive about this issue. Think about how many rape coverups occur through abortion. Ask yourself how many girls are sent back to the rapist for some more abuse.
Doesn’t that bother you?
She was 14 and couldn’t comprehend how to give birth. So she had a late term abortion during which she most likely had to give birth anyhow…only to a dead baby.
If she didn’t give birth then her baby was dismembered in the womb. Her BABY felt his/her arms and legs being ripped off one by one. God have mercy. Think about that.
Did abortion solve her problems? Are their lives all better because they prevented a member of their family from seeing the light of day?
To paraphrase the wife of Mr. Bill Clinton, “With all due respect, the fact is we had an unwanted pregnancy. If it was because of a rape or if it was because she got too friendly with a boy. What difference at this point does it make?”
(I do believe the difference is important. I hope my sarcasm is obvious.)
Liz,
Well the girl was 21 weeks so they obviously couldn’t waste too much more time, right? Did they explore any other options? What were they? According to the article, if it is indeed accurate, as soon as grandma and auntie found out, which was around 21 weeks as the article states the pregnancy was advancing, an abortion was performed. Also, any indication of who the father was? A boyfriend? An abusive relative? An adult neighbor? Surely Liz you would want a sexual predator held accountable.
I didn’t say she wasn’t monitored afterward I asked if she was. Patients discharged from a hospital, adult or child, are done so in the care of another adult. This can be a spouse, parent, guardian, etc. Patients are not allowed to drive themselves home or leave alone and are always advised to have someone with them at home and what symptoms to watch for. So even if she is “emancipated” would the abortion clinic send her home alone? Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past them.
Children and teens especially must be observed by parents or guardians. If this girl lives with her family and they don’t know she has had surgery, is it possible she may not get immediate medical attention if she needs it since no one knows she had surgery? Would she be inclined to tell anyone she needs help if she doesn’t want them to know she had an abortion, or would she make every effort to downplay her symptons and not seek help until she is critically ill? I have seen this happen to post abortive adult women Liz so I’m not surprised it would happen to a frightened teenager. If she shows up at the local hospital ER, she will need parental consent. If she is too ill or unconscious, decisions will have to be made by her parents. Being she was no longer pregnant but living with her parents, is she emancipated and was she to begin with? Lots of issues here Liz.
“Jill, just because it was not mentioned in the article, does not mean that the author and her family were not concerned with how the girl got pregnant. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t.”
I guess that just illustrates the stunningly screwed-up priorities of abortion supporters there, Liz. OUR concern is with making certain this girl (and her child) are delivered from (further) harm (the impossible task now for her child, sadly), and the author of this story seems primarily concerned with how to kill the baby.
Abusers don’t give a squat if you get pregnant-they just expect you to “get rid of it” if you do. They care just as much for their child as they do for you: not at all.
But yeah, Liz. Who cares if this girl had her child killed and scraped out only to be sent back to whoever was harming her. She got her happyfuntime abortionparty and it’s all rainbows and unicorn farts from here on out, right?
If she is a “primary caretaker,” why wouldn’t she be able — even at 14 — to care for her own baby?
Liz says: “In many states, when a female becomes pregnant, she is emancipated from her parents in regards to her medical decisions. ”
Wow, so something magical happens and as long as she is pregnant she is “emancipated” from her parents – and then when she is no longer pregnant, then what? Is she still emancipated from her parents? Or does their 14 year old little girl return home to her parents who, clueless as to what happened, need to help her deal with the consequences of this second trimester abortion? An abortion that resulted in either the girl delivering a dead intact baby or one with torn off arms and legs – a baby who was about 10 1/2 inches long and weighed 3/4 lbs.
Sometimes, pro-choice people are so exasperating.
“Did abortion solve her problems? Are their lives all better because they prevented a member of their family from seeing the light of day?”
An under-privileged family of seven doesn’t have a teenage mother and an extra mouth to feed now, so that’s at least one big problem solved.
So the best that any of the good people around this poor girl could offer is killing. I’m sure once her “procedureZ” was over, they drove her home, and her life got back to normal, right?
There’s my girl Joan!
Yeah, Joanie, abortion solved all those problems. And because you only had a wounded, sexually active 14 year old AND a dead baby, they lived happily ever after! Yay, killing!!
Wounded, huh? I must have missed the part of the article where it said the girl was injured during the abortion. Probably because it’s not there.
Joan, you are very tiresome.
Do you know how much bleeding occurs during a 3rd trimester abortion, Joanie? It’s not like they wave a magic wand over the mom’s belly and zaps it back into non-existence. Body parts are forced open. Organs and tissue are cut. Both mom and baby bleed profusely.
But yeah, she walked out of there a few hours later and all was good.
PS, this part: From the moment she learned she was pregnant, she contemplated what to do. Not comprehending how to even deliver a baby (let alone how to take care of a child for the rest of her life) prompted grave fears about her future.
This describes me perfectly when I was pregnant with my first child. And I was almost 31.
Haven’t these people heard of adoption? It may not be perfect, but it’s a lot better than killing. Do you really think you’ll grieve less if you kill the baby than if you give him/her for adoption?
Bleeding during an invasive medical procedure is, ipso facto, evidence of injury. Brilliant, Courtnay.
Ipso biteme, bleeding happens when someone is cut open and dies.
So again, I ask: what is your evidence that the girl was “wounded”? Oh, that’s right, you have no evidence. You have an inference (injury!), drawn from another inference (blood!) [I’ll give you this one, though; blood usually is involved when people are opened up]. I don’t think they’ve yet invented a logical fallacy to describe such moronic reasoning.
As a “caretaker” in a large family, wouldn’t this girl have known how to care for a baby?
What was to be feared in her having a baby?
She probably already knew about feedings, diaper changes, and cuddling.
Early Sexuality; probable abuse; late-term abortion to haunt her days: this girl is Toast, and that grandmother and aunt should be ashamed of themselves. Why couldn’t one of them take the child themselves while the mother finished her education? That would have been a real offer of help to the girl. I feel that the girl is nearly blameless here. But woe unto those other two!
Agreed, Denise. Plus 14-year-old girls have been giving birth and taking care of babies throughout human history.
Society today is set up in such a way that it is not ideal for a 14-year-old to care for a baby, but it is infinity better than a child being dismembered.
A 14 year old is a little girl.
Do the words “statutory rape” or “age of consent” mean anything to proaborts? I mean as long as money changed hands and this little girl was ”empowered” by her abortion right?? And the perp goes free of course.
All I can say is…WOW at the assumptions that are being made! Assumptions about the article and assumptions about me. I NEVER once said that I am pro-abortion. I was just pointing out that Jill and Mary were making assumptions about the people in the article and the events that happened in order to support their positions. When that is done, it makes their points moot. A logical and rational argument cannot be made when assumptions are being used as the foundation of the argument. Jill criticized the author for not caring about why the girl got pregnant. But how does Jill know that is the case? She doesn’t. Stick to the facts…that is all that I am saying.
Yes, if there was a sexual predator involved in getting this girl, or any other girl, pregnant (or not getting her pregnant) then I ABSOLUTELY support bringing that person to justice. But the article being referenced wasn’t about sexual predators.
I know people that run the gamut in their beliefs…Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, agnostics, humanists, atheists just to name a few…pro-choice and pro-life…but not a single one of them…NOT A SINGLE ONE…supports child molestation. Anybody who uses the argument that because somebody is “proabort” they don’t care about child molestation makes themselves look less than intelligent and actually does a disservice to the anti-abortion movement.
Liz – The writer rambles inconsistently about why it was “what she had to do.” I am not sure if anyone is actually saying the writer does not care at any level about how, BUT not writing a line of concern about it is far from an attempt to view the issue of a pregnant 14 year holistically or fairly. That’s the point to me. “Oh finally, she found someone who would help her.” Help her do WHAT? See what we mean?
Liz wrote, “I know people that run the gamut in their beliefs…Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, agnostics, humanists, atheists just to name a few…pro-choice and pro-life…but not a single one of them…NOT A SINGLE ONE…supports child molestation.”
Then I guess Liz doesn’t know very many Planned Parenthood workers.
http://liveactionnews.org/planned-parenthood-standing-with-women/
And I guess Liz doesn’t know very many Muslims.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/339622/sheikhen-baby-syndrome-mark-steyn
And I guess most of Liz’s friends live heterosexually, not homosexually.
http://www.wnd.com/2002/04/13722/
And Liz doesn’t know me. No, thank God, I’ve never had the sinful experience of pedophilia, at least not in speech or deed, but “except for the grace of God there go I.” A fellow Christian in a church I formerly worshipped with did have the problem. He repented.
I know that in Canadian prisons the pedophiles are separated from the general prison population so that the pedophiles don’t get murdered. People are indeed put in jail because of child abuse; it does exist. We are sinners, and everyone of us is a potential Mr. Hitler (or Mr. Tiller, if we’re going to list serial killers).
Liz,
I stated my reasons for my “assumptions” and I raised questions. The article leaves out a lot, which makes me suspicious. There is always the story behind the story and I have learned to be highly skeptical of PA fairy tale accounts as to how a female in distress was saved by the knight in shining armor at the abortion clinic.
I have a close friend who believes abortion should be illegal. She also believes strictly enforcing statutory rape laws is “unfair to young men.” Since teen girls often dress provocatively or act seductively, she thinks enforcing these laws “punishes men for being men.”
Is she a Muslim, Denise? Have you commented yet on what Pamela Geller said? See the quote of the day.
@ Jon: My friend isn’t a Muslim. I haven’t commented on Pamela Geller’s quote.
Okay, this is ridiculous. I will come right out and say that I am a moderate liberal feminist and I definitely don’t support child molestation! I don’t know a single person who does, gay or straight, religious or nonreligious, whatever. I am willing to tolerate the “abortion is evil!” thing, but don’t come out and make these ridiculous allegations. You’re making the pro-life side look terrible by doing so.
A7x, you are making the proabortion side look either incredibly naive or diabolically evil in refusing to acknowledge that abortion is a child abuser’s DREAM. If you support abortion (or birth control) for minors without parental notification, then you implicitly support child abuse. Own it.
Planned Parenthood sells a lie that there is such a thing as sex without consequences, and liberation can be had by killing your own child. True feminism embraces these bewildered, pregnant girls and tells them, “We can do better by you. Healing of this whole mess does NOT have to involve abortion. In fact, it cannot.”
Abortion does not heal child rape.
Little girls deserve better than this.
@A7X, I think it is fair to say that Jon did a fantastic job of making our point for us. Thank you Jon.
Well Good Golly Miss Molly!!
You mean the only ones that are pro rape are rapists???!!
“I am against sexual molestation but I am FOR those that cover it up via abortion!!”
There. Fixed that for ya.
I don’t know why but I LOVE when folks come here to tell us what a terrible job we are doing and how we turn off the proaborts and how we should do this or that. It makes laugh.
HI JOAN!!!
Where is CC?
Basic economics: if someone provides a “service”, then the service providers have a vested interest in increasing the demand for that service. If the majority of abortions involve unwanted pregnancies in young women, then abortion providers have a vested interest in increasing the number of unwanted pregnancies in young women. If rape increases those numbers, then from a business provider perspective, that’s ok with the provider.
Planned Parenthood reminds me of Lord Cutler Beckett from Pirates of the Caribbean, “It’s nothing personal… it’s just good business.”
I think it would be up to the woman as to what healing involves. If she doesn’t want to carry her rapist’s baby for nine months, then she shouldn’t have to. A traumatic event like sexual assault is hard enough to get in the first place without being constantly reminded of it. In most cases, no one is forcing these women to get abortions. There is obviously a reason why they want them.
A 14 year old little girl is not a woman.
Up to the woman? Abortion never heals. Abortion never helps. It never can and it never will. We do not kill others to “heal” ourselves.
A woman who conceives in rape is carrying HER child. But with all of your compassion and care you call despicable names like “rapists baby?”
Might I suggest you do your homework? Read the stories of Ryan Bomberger, Rebecca Kiessling, Juda Myers. All were conceived when their mothers were raped. Call them “rapists babies.” To their faces.
Mothers who carry THEIR child conceived in rape do not regret it. They have learned that blessings can come out of the most horrifying things. And those who do abort after conceiving in rape? They regret them.
65% of abortions are forced/coerced.
http://www.unfairchoice.info/intro.htm
And forcing open her vagina and cervix again, this time ripping out her child limb by limb, ain’t healing, either.
Women want abortions because they have been sold a lie: liberation through murder. Ask Carla about all the liberation she experienced through her abortion.
(And then, please, ask her about her liberation through Christ’s mercy and love.)
Carla, looks like I spoke for you, when, as usual, you are best at speaking for yourself. Rock on!
:)
You rock on Courtnay!!
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but feminists apparently just want their pound of flesh. They’re not interested in the prevention.
A7x wrote at 10:13 am, “I will come right out and say that I am a moderate liberal feminist, and I definitely don’t support child molestation!“
A7x wrote at 1:51 pm, “If [a mother] doesn’t want to carry her rapist’s baby for nine months, then she shouldn’t have to.”
So, which is it? Abortion is a form of child molestation. It’s killing the child.
i do not blame the girl.i blame the ones that “helped” her.
Who cares how a 14 year old got pregnant?
I care.
Liberals have an incredibly patronizing mentality toward “people of color” generally and “women of color” in particular. Somehow “people of color” are viewed as little more than helpless children, victims always in need of some nice white person, liberal of course, giving them a helping hand
. . . but just don’t move into their neighborhoods! I have a prof who is very liberal, always talking about the racist Republicans, yet he lives in Swarthmore, PA, which is pretty white. He can live where he wants, of course, but I think this pretty hypocritical.
Anyway, you are absolutely right. I find this attitude very insulting and irritating. I always hear them talking about access to abortion for poor women of color. We have the highest rate of abortion in the country, and they want us to have more???
I also find it very sad that the only option these female relatives could offer to this girl and her unborn baby, who was also THEIR flesh and blood — was abortion.