(Not so) pro-life vid of day: Dee Dee Bridgewater’s illegal abortion
by Laura Loo
In an effort to persuade younger generations to become legal abortion advocates, the Center for Reproductive Rights released its latest public service announcement featuring Tony and Grammy Award-winning actress and singer Dee Dee Bridgewater.
While strongly in favor of abortion, Dee Dee still “want[s] to cry” when she recalls her illegal abortion experience from nearly half a century ago. At that time, she would have been approximately 18 years old.
As reported in The Huffington Post:
It was 1968. And I found myself in a situation where I had to have an abortion,” Bridgewater recalled. “I had a girlfriend who had a friend who was a nurse. And she said that she would give me the abortion. I had to meet her in a hotel room.
I remember being very humiliated, to the point that today, I haven’t thought about this for years. Thinking about it makes me want to cry.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns1OAJ2E9wM[/youtube]
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
[HT: Kelli; photo via thinkprogress.org]
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.
Whether it was legal or illegal is not what makes you want to cry. . .
Cry? Why would reproductive justice make you cry? Would inflicting legal repro-justice make you cry less? Why?
Legal or not, the abortion remains the same. Your emotions are the same. A suction hose, cannula, or forceps is inserted deep into your womb. You still experience pain, cramping, and hemorrhaging. Women still are rushed to emergency rooms. You still expel your dead child. It baffles me why women would stand up for this because it still seems like settling for having your body violated.
Unless your life is at stake, no one has to have an abortion. If your life was at stake in 1968, the abortion was not illegal.
Legal or not, the abortion remains the same.
I agree. If she had had it after 1973 would it been “better?” And I just wonder why she had to have an abortion.
I don’t know how effective this ad will be since most Generation X-ers have never heard of her.
I was born in the late 60s and I have never heard of her.
How about you “pro lifers” minding your uterus, and let others mind theirs? “Pro life” is a crime against women.
I’ve heard of her.
This is a really sad story.
Never heard of her. I guess I’m way too young on this one.
Christine, it is a scientific fact that having an abortion ends the life of a developing human being, separate from the woman. For those who believe abortion is intentionally killing that developing human being and harming women (such as those who speak out in Silent No More) telling them to mind their own business about abortion is akin to telling someone to mind their own business when a crime is taking place. Just because something is legal, doesn’t make it ethically right, history gives us good examples of this.
Also, how about privledged feminists get off their high horse & stop fabricating a “war against women” to protect their sacrosanct abortion rights & focus on the real war on women, consisting of: human trafficking, female circumcision & leg binding, injustices against & inequality for women in conservative Muslim countries, abandonment of female infants in other countries, and lack of routine or prenatal care in third world countries.
We could fight all these horrible things if you “pro lifers” gave us the time, but since we have to defend ourselves against a movement valuing a cluster of cells more than an adult woman, we can not. Because we are more than livestock and incubators, contrary to what the average “pro lifer” believes. You are history
Again, when the majority of abortions are preformed at 6-8 weeks it’s more than a “cluster of cells” do your research. Also we value the mother and her unborn child, which is why we oppose abortion (I can go more into that if you’re willing to have a dialogue beyond talking points & stereotypes). Your unwillingness to address & prioritize time for other more serious women’s rights issues & the terminology you use indicates it’s not about women’s rights at all, but about protecting abortion rights as the end means. Also, pro-choice “feminists” are the only ones I’ve heard use the terms “livestock” and “incubators” as well as “broodmares” and “breeders” to derogatorily label women who carry to term, doesn’t feel very pro-woman or pro-choice to me. Also I’d like to note that we are often individually involved in volunteering in local community betterment programs & we support women through pregnancy & parenting/placing for adoption, & started the post-abortion dialogue (both religious & secular) for women who felt differently from the norm about their abortion experience.
Bless your heart, christine.
Pro-lifers do not view women as incubators and livestock. We do not value babies more than women.
We are truly for equal rights, unlike people who claim that unborn children are not children. We want all people to be able to live. How hard is that for you to understand?
No one here is advocating strapping women down and “forcing them to birth” or whatever weird ideas “forced birthers” have. We don’t even advocate that women keep the babies. Seriously. It’s just that, if you get pregnant, there’s now a life outside of you (well, technically it’s *in* you but … details).
And honey, I’m so not interested in yours or anyone’s uterus (uteri?). It’s the baby/person/human inside that I’m worried about.
Quite a few comments here to reply to, but I guess that is what happens if I post here on a site of the anti women camp (from now on I will use that term instead of the deceitful “pro life”, ok?). Instead of taking them one by one, I will state why you are anti women, thus proving that the term “pro life” should be replaced by the more accurate anti women:
You are anti women because you want women to be slaves under our reproductive capacity.
You are anti women because you do not see women as adults capable of making their own decisions.
You are anti women because you want to make women dependent on men.
You are anti women because where your agenda is law, women die, become infertile or mutilated en masse because of the illegal abortions that would follow making abortions illegal, just as B follows A.
You are anti women because you do not state your true agenda but hide behind a false worry for children (why do conservatives care so much for the unborn, but give absolute nothing for them once they are born?)
You are anti women because just as much as you oppose state interference in most other areas, you would allow what is in my uterus to become state property once I am pregnant.
“Pro life” is the most organized hypocrisy on this planet.
I am a woman. I do not hate myself or other women.
The body inside your body is not your body. I have been pregnant with little boys. Not my penis, Not my body.
A preborn female has her reproductive organs and ALL of the eggs she will ever produce in her lifetime by 11 weeks in utero. SHE is a female. SHE has a right to live.
Is SHE human?
Is SHE fully alive?
Is SHE growing?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Google fetal development. Study your life cycle. YOU were once an embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, teenager……..
Oh and we don’t care about babies after they are born? Who are all of those diapers, wipes, infant clothing, cribs, strollers, exersaucers and swings for????
I could care less what you do with your sexual organs. Until you conceive. THAT child has a right to life.
Lest we forget women DIE during their legal abortions Christine. Women are sent to emergency rooms after their abortions hemorraging and are only saved by total hysterectomies. In fact THIS was just posted on Jill’s blog today. https://www.jillstanek.com/2014/02/pro-life-vid-0f-day-911-call-reveals-another-carhart-botched-abortion/
Do some research. Do your homework. Come on back.
If you are post abortive there is healing and hope and recovery for you.
http://rachelsvineyard.org
“You are anti women because you want women to be slaves under our reproductive capacity.”
False. No one is trying to take away contraceptives or other family planning methods (abstinence, NFP, etc) to manage your reproductive capacity. Once the baby exists, it’s no longer reproduction, another person is involved.
“You are anti women because you do not see women as adults capable of making their own decisions.”
False. I don’t think men should be able to kill their children to get out of child support payments, so does that make me anti-man? Of course not. Not all decisions are equal. Killing isn’t a decision that should be legally made unless it’s self-defense.
“You are anti women because you want to make women dependent on men”
False. Oh wow, I can’t believe how sexist you are. Are you saying that women are so weak and helpless that having a baby in the USA in 2014 makes them “dependent on men”? Way to degrade the many women who have raised children on their own successfully or given their baby for adoption. Disgraceful, and you call US anti-women. Smh.
“You are anti women because where your agenda is law, women die, become infertile or mutilated en masse because of the illegal abortions that would follow making abortions illegal, just as B follows A.”
False. There is no evidence this happened en masse before Roe v Wade, and with stronger social programs, less stigma on unwed mothers, and other good improvements in our society I think it’s evident that we’ll have even less illegal abortions than before. And anyway, you guys consider abortion doctors heroes, why wouldn’t your heroic amazing doctors provide safe abortions if it were illegal? Do you know that many of the people who provided illegal abortions before Roe v Wade were the same ones who provided legal abortions after?
“You are anti women because you do not state your true agenda but hide behind a false worry for children (why do conservatives care so much for the unborn, but give absolute nothing for them once they are born?)”
False. There are plenty of non-conservative pro-lifers, like me. A lot of us volunteer and donate to non-abortion charity stuff all the time, as well as doing pro-life work. But you’re being unfair to conservatives anyway (confusing conservatives with GOP politicians, it seems). For example, Catholic Charities provides all kinds of services for all different kinds of people, many of their services has nothing to do with anti-abortion efforts, and the Catholic church is historically conservative and heavily involved in the pro-life movement. Might want to research your claims before you spout them.
“You are anti women because just as much as you oppose state interference in most other areas, you would allow what is in my uterus to become state property once I am pregnant.”
False. That’s the silliest claim ever. Even the most stringent no government libertarian ever wants laws making killing humans illegal, so there’s no hypocrisy in wanting the unjustified killing of human fetuses made illegal. And like I said, not every pro-lifer is a conservative.
Carla
It is a fact that abortion is safer than childbirth. I quote from the abstract of an article: “The comparative safety of pregnancy outcomes has clinical and public health importance. Using national statistics for 1991 to 1999, I estimated the risk of maternal death associated with various outcomes. Abortion (legal and spontaneous) was associated with the lowest risk, live birth intermediate risk, and ectopic pregnancy and fetal death the highest risk.” Source is http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(05)00973-7/abstract
Ajog is American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, hardly a pro choice site. But as always, real science backs pro choice.
I am not post abortive. I had one years ago, but it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I guess you are implying that I suffer from your beloved “post abortion syndrome”, which is another pro life myth, since it has not gained acceptance in the medical community, it is not included in DSM; it is not included in ICD.
Hi deluded pro-lifer
It is not false that you try to take away family planning methods. Catholics deny all but abstinence and NFP which both are degrading to women (why may we not have sex as men have sex, we might even enjoy it, awful isn’t it? And NFP is so unefficient it does not count.
It is not false you do not see women capable of making our own decisions. Why do you introduce mandatory ultrasounds and 24 hours (or longer) waiting periods? The ultrasounds is very clear why you use: you see women as so primitive that we have not understood that there is something growing inside us, and once we get to see it, hormones start rushing and we keep the child, oh how cute. Sorry, it has not worked where you tried to use that tactics.
It is not false you want to make women dependent on men. By going through a pregnancy and birth, with a child I did not want (or one I wanted) I enter a period of lower incomes, maybe none at all, and although the support of single mothers has become better, it is still not good. But once the GOPers get their way, probably all support for single mothers will be gone.
It is not false that women die en masse where abortions are illegal. According to WHO (a well known pro choice organization?) between 40 000 and 70 000 women/year die in illegal abortions. The number of women injured for life is estimated to around 5 000 000. And if women from fear of death or mutilation are forced to carry an unwanted child, that is plain tragic to me. But not to a real pro lifer. A child is born – and a woman is taught to know her place. Great isn’t it?
It is not false that you hide your true agenda. There might be some pro lifers posing as non-conservatives, but by supporting the pro life agenda they also support the conservatives who has other purposes. You are simply being used by others, who laugh at you behind your back. And the catholic church, expelling an abortionist and the mother of a nine year old girl from their church, when that girl, pregnant after incest from her stepfather, was helped by her mother to have an abortion; well an organization like that has lost all credibility as not being anti women. So you see, I have done plenty of research.
It is not false that you want me to be state property when I am pregnant. If I am not to decide over my own reproductive rights, then I am nothing but state property.
Just as you said to me I should do some research, how about you doing some research? Just one example of the pro life hypocrisy: According to the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition, during the most recent five years (2000-2004) for which there is data, 27 black women in Illinois died of pregnancy-related causes, a period in which only one white woman died of the same causes. But of course this is not so interesting to a pro lifer: these were living women, not fetuses. Learn more at http://www.ilmaternal.org/csomb/overview.html
I’m really the wrong person to rail about birth control about (I see no problem with people making a free choice to use any type of non-baby killing contraceptive), but anyway, I’m amused at your assertion that NFP and abstinence are “degrading to women”. Lol. So if a woman makes a free choice to remain abstinent (before marriage, for life, or whatever she wants) or she chooses to use NFP because she’s a hippy or whatever, she’s degrading herself? You’re kind of a bully, aren’t you? To any women who don’t fit your paradigm? Have sex like men if you want, us dudes don’t have the legal choice to kill babies before birth you know.
“ It is not false you do not see women capable of making our own decisions. Why do you introduce mandatory ultrasounds and 24 hours (or longer) waiting periods? ”
Lol, no I don’t think women have no idea what they are doing. The reason I support those laws is to make it more difficult to get an abortion.
“It is not false you want to make women dependent on men. By going through a pregnancy and birth, with a child I did not want (or one I wanted) I enter a period of lower incomes, maybe none at all, and although the support of single mothers has become better, it is still not good. But once the GOPers get their way, probably all support for single mothers will be gone.”
I don’t support the GOP. Actually, I hate the party and think the only good thing they do is support pro-life (sometimes). But no, you don’t “depend on men” when you get pregnant, that’s sexist towards women and pathetic. I know many women who didn’t have a father around who managed having a child just fine, I wish you’d stop degrading their accomplishments just because you hate women who don’t do exactly as you think they should.
Anyway, I’m tired and I don’t have much use for misogynists like you, so have a nice day!
I do not support those who do not want it my way? Does it make me a bully to say everyone can make their own decisions? Trust me, you can have 21 kids or none, 21 abortions or none. I support your choice. (ugly word again, shame on me!). You are the one who do not support those who have different views since you support forced childbirth.
But glad you hate GOPers. That party is sick.
I don’t hate “GOPers”, the average Republican is a decent person who has some views I strongly disagree with. But I think the political party and it’s movers and shakers are absolutely disgusting (but I feel much the same way about Dems, so there is that).
I support someone’s free ability to make choices about their life that doesn’t cause harm to non-consenting parties (like unborn babies). Other than that, have at it. Use birth control for your entire fertile years, get your tubes tied at age eighteen, or use NFP, sleep with one person your entire life or fifty people a year, it’s not my business and never will be. The only thing I care about is protecting non-consenting parties from being harmed, no human at any age should be killed because of your free choices. That’s really all there is too it.
Women are stronger than you give them credit for and are perfectly capable of managing their fertility and making a career/family/whatever without killing any babies. I’m not the one looking down on women.
Accidents happen, pills fail, condoms break and you want to force women to go through unwanted pregnancies that follow. You think women suddenly realize they have a child inside when seeing an ultrasound though their period is four or five weeks late and they already decided on an abortion? And you say I look down on women? Oh dear, oh dear.
I need my sleep now, so do not bother to reply. I will not be around for hours – I am happy enough to live in Europe where pro lifers are a laughed-at minority, a sect; not as in medieval USA, a real threat to womens lives. Now go read your bible, and be careful not to mix cotton and wool, god might be angry (Leviticus 19:19).
Good night, and think of that ratio 27:1 in pregnancy related deaths black/whites. These women had families and friends…that is a real problem, women ruling their lives is not a problem (unless you are a closet GOPer)
“You think women suddenly realize they have a child inside when seeing an ultrasound though their period is four or five weeks late and they already decided on an abortion? And you say I look down on women? Oh dear, oh dear. ”
Hmm, when I specifically said that this is something I don’t believe? K man. Disappointing that you can’t actually look at the arguments presented or actually pay attention to what the person you’re responding too says. My five-year-old has better debate skills. That goes for the rest of your comment.
Sleep well!
P.S. Pretty much all European countries have stricter abortion limits than most of the US and Canada. Oops. Who’s medieval now? ;)
Normally I do not visit anti women sites like this one but it is interesting to see all crap here. And more interesting to argue with those who are stuck in the “pro life” swamp
A classic debating technique is saying “you can not debate”. If it makes you happy, well go for it
Our law is marginally stricter than yours. But it is only questioned by very very few, unlike medieval USA where it is threatened for real by GOPers. Like mr Akin, Mourdoch, Ryan etc etc.
Well if you’re going to ignore what your opponent actually says in favor of what strawman you want to come up with, I’m going to consider you a poor debater. I actually have quite pleasant and informative debates with pro-choicers who actually rebut and address my points instead of accusing me of holding opinions that I expressly said I don’t hold (I’m nice enough to pro-choicers that people often accuse me of being “secretly pro-choice” because of it, which is annoying). But really, if you just want to rail at people in general go ahead, but don’t pretend you are some master debater (lol) that trumped me with logic.
“We could fight all these horrible things if you “pro lifers” gave us the time, but since we have to defend ourselves against a movement valuing a cluster of cells more than an adult woman, we can not. “
Interesting comment coming from someone that supposedly lives in a country where pro-lifers are a “laughed-at minority” and apparently no threat to “reproductive freedom”.
Lrning
Our local pro lifers are few, but becoming more and more aggressive. Their inspiration is what happens in the USA, thus it is in our interest too that abortions remain safe, legal and accessible in your country too.
Hmmm. So I guess when you’re not laughing at them, you’re fearing them?
How incredibly sad that with your finite time you prioritize defending the “right” of women to kill their unborn children instead of fighting for women against human trafficking, female circumcision & leg binding, injustices against & inequality for women in conservative Muslim countries, abandonment of female infants in other countries, and lack of routine or prenatal care in third world countries; all things you said you don’t have time to fight because you’re so busy defending abortion. Sad.
None of these horrible things will affect my daughter. But if our local “pro lifers” got it their way, it would affect her. And her right to choose is essential to me.
Of course it is.
You had your child killed via abortion when you exercised your “right to choose.”
You want your daughter to have the same “right to choose” to kill her child. Your grandchild.
Your daughter’s abortion would justify your own.
And the proabortion beat goes on………
Pay attention. Jill just posted another 911 call about a botched abortion by Carhart.
So very safe. ( women are as safe as kittens) So very legal. Accessible? Oh, you changed it from “rare” to accessible. Got it.
You think I am that primitive? Without that abortion I would have been stuck in Shithole City just like my friends who also were teenage pregnant. It is the best decision I have made. And once again: all research shows abortion is a very safe procedure. I posted links on that before. Oh I forgot all research are biased and part of the Big Abortion Conspiracy. Unclear why it exists, but to conspiratory pro lifers it does.
How about letting everyone make their choices? I could not care less about yours. So get your hands off MY vagina, MY uterus, MY body and MY life. Just as I do to you
“None of these horrible things will affect my daughter. But if our local “pro lifers” got it their way, it would affect her.”
Oh, sorry. I assumed you care about all women, not just those you are related to. That attitude seems kind of anti-woman, actually.
You expect your living daughter to need an abortion, so you want to make sure she has that “right” when it comes time? What if the child you aborted was also a daughter? How did legal abortion help her? Couldn’t Shithole City have been avoided with adoption?
Since my daughter is a woman, by caring for her I care for other women too, even a “pro lifer” would understand that I am not proposing one set of laws for the women I am related to. But that might be asking too much…
I have absolutely no idea if she will have an abortion or not. But if she needs one, it should be safe, legal and accessible. And I honestly can not see what difference it would have made if that aborted child was male or female.
He/she never knew he/she would have been born. That is why that aspect is completely irrelevant. And I did not want to go through a pregnancy with the risk of complications it means to give that child up.
Unlike my friends I could get an education, I could get a good job, I now have a family with two children I love very much. I met my old friends at a school reunion some years ago; they were old, bitter, unemployed, divorced or stuch in destructive relations, chainsmoking, obese… they made a decision that destroyed their lives. We had nothing to say to each other.
As long as you do not know everyones story and the reasons they have to make the choices they make, you should not bother with them, just as I do not bother with yours. But abortion is a cornerstone in the liberation of women, and everyone fighting to take that right away, is, even if they deny it, anti women.
MY this, MY that. I know we’re supposed to criticize ideas and not people but is the idea of throwing a tantrum the best way to convince people of something? (and she’s certainly not the first to do so on here)
P.S. The phrase “pre born” seems like such a problem to many abortion rights people. A lot of things in life never move past the pre stage, but they are still considered as having BEEN in the pre stage! I’m guessing it’s because it makes the fetus seem, um, human? (-:
(I was going to add this to my last post but my editing time ran out)
Yes, my life and my choice. Why does that disturb you so much?
Because your choice killed an innocent human being. A human being that although completely dependent on you, should not be your property to do with as you see fit. You killed a unique, never-to-be-repeated individual that deserved to have her life protected by law.
I removed what could have been a child by taking two pills, something that never was aware of its existence; I created a better life for myself and the two children that came later.
I am NOT ashamed.
“something that never was aware of its existence”
Not “something”, a human being, a someone, your child.
And if you ever begin to regret killing your child, please know that there is help: http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/
I will not regret it. I have made lots of bad decisions in life; as well as I have made lots of good decisions in life. This falls in the second category.
The decision you should make is to let everyone make those decisions. You know women can think (even if that comes as a surprise to the average “pro lifer”)
Of course women (and men, for that matter) can think and make decisions. The fact remains that everyone, at some point in time, has made bad decisions that hurt someone else. That is what abortion is. Even if it made your life better in some ways (and I wonder which European country you live in, because it sounds like there are a lot of economic issues where you are, I’m sorry about that, and I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you would have opportunities without your child dying).
I don’t expect you to be ashamed or feel bad and it’s not my place to make you feel these things (and even if I could, I wouldn’t try). I don’t believe you are evil, a “baby killer”, a bad person, or anything like that. I don’t believe shame has ever been a particularly good motivator anyway. But I do believe that unborn children are human beings deserving of legal protection from being killed, and unfortunately, until we have a way to remove a living fetus and let him or her develop in another person or an artificial womb, the woman’s choice will be curtailed. I don’t like it, and I wish that it was different so no one feels forced into carrying a baby they don’t want, but the woman’s wants cannot trump the child’s right to life. If the woman’s health is in danger and her life is at stake, of course she should have access to abortion, but unless the scenario (self-defense) occurs, abortion isn’t justifiable and should be criminalized.
I’m sorry that you hate us, not because it hurts our little feelers or anything. It’s just that I wish you could see that no one wants to hurt you or enslave you, and that our opposition to abortion might curtail your wants in some ways, but that’s not something that we like. Our concern is a baby being killed before they can live outside their mother.
Have a good week, Christine, I hope you are doing well.
I live in Sweden, and although there is support for single mothers, and those who are studying in higher levels, everything would have been much more difficult if I had had a child for which I had no feelings at all. The reason this infuriates me so much is that this issue has been dead here for years, but now there are voices coming who want to put women back to the dark ages. They frequently look to the USA for hope and inspiration, that is why it is important for european women to that “pro life” is stopped before it has had the chance to hurt even more women than it already has done.
That is where our opinions differ. A woman always trumps the child, and when you criminalize abortion, illegal abortions comes just as A is followed by B. The abortion rate is roughly the same no matter its legality. Suggested reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/opinion/leeches-lye-and-spanish-fly.html?emc=eta1&_r=1&
And what would the punishment for an illegal abortion, apart from the risk of death and mutilation? Forced pregnancy?
I do not hate you. But I hate your opinions, I hate them with an intensity that is beyond your imagination.
Have a good week you too – quite a lot of work right now.
Well see, if you don’t hate me as a human, just my opinions on that subject, maybe you can see that I don’t hate you, just your opinions on abortion. And I think you’re kinda rude here but I understand this is a subject that is very important to you, so I get that. I get the same way when people oppose gay rights, I try to be polite but sometimes I blow up at people!
And see I have two kids, that I was 20 and 22 when they were born (which was too young for me at least because I was in a bad marriage and I didn’t even have a high school diploma, and still don’t). I don’t deny that in some ways, having children has made my life more difficult. I’ve been unable to finish my schooling and have less freedom to build a career and get my life on track after my very traumatic childhood. It’s rough sometimes. But their lives have never, even for a second, depended on how difficult their existence has made mine. And there are huge benefits to having them, I’ve never loved anyone like I love them, but again my opinions and wants do not have bearing on whether they had the right to not be killed. I don’t think parenthood is all roses and unicorns and happiness, it can be exceedingly tough especially when you’re doing it mostly alone like I am now. But killing the children is not justifiable to me, even before birth.
I was unaware that Sweden was so influenced by the US. I am sorry you dislike this influence. But we’ll have to differ here because I do believe that an unborn child is equivalent to an adult woman, meaning that neither of them should be killed unjustly. I don’t think she should be forced to raise the child, if the biological father won’t take the child a woman should be free to give the child to an adoptive family to care for. Or if she chooses to raise the baby herself, she should have all the government and charity help she needs to give her and the child a chance to improve their lives and do well in life. I really, really don’t want women to suffer, or feel enslaved. I just don’t think that legally killing humans is justifiable to make a life easier.
I hope work goes well for you!
And anyway, in regards to the difficulty of being a single mother (or father, men are sometimes the sole caregiver of their child though it is more rare, I have full custody of my children), I’m supportive of finding alternate arrangements, not limited to the parent raising the child alone or giving the child to an adoptive couple and losing all rights. I’ve often thought in regards to young teen mothers (or rarely, fathers), that it would be possible to work out a “custodial” type of arrangement with an older couple who would like to become a legal guardian to the girl and a legal grandparent/co-parent to the baby. As in, she would have this couple to help raise the child so she can finish her education and start her career, but she wouldn’t lose permanent custody of her baby and when she’s older and more stable she will have the opportunity to have full custody of the child (and if the older couple has maintained a healthy relationship with her and the child, they will have some legal visitation rights to the baby as well). I believe this would be a good alternate option to either leaving a young parent alone to try and struggle and raise a child, and breaking her heart if she doesn’t want to permanently lose custody of the baby but simply cannot afford it or is too young to be a mother at that time.
That’s just one of the ideas I have, I have more. I don’t like the current state of affairs in regards to young and single parents, and if I’m going to oppose abortion (and I always will) I do want valid options for women and girls facing a child they cannot or do not want to raise, other than just going it alone or adoption. I don’t think the baby’s death is necessary, women are intelligent and strong and given alternatives they can have an awesome life if we as a society support them in their unwanted pregnancy. I can’t ever agree that abortion is okay, and I think it should be illegal, but I do acknowledge there are many issues for single and young mothers (and fathers) and that if I want abortion illegal and people not to seek out illegal abortions, there needs to be real loving alternatives in place for all kinds of scenarios, to help the young girl or woman make the best decision she wants for her life, be it education or a career or even a housewife. Whatever is best for her I want, just not through the death of her kid.
Suggested reading prolifers:
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/03/03/whos-blame-woman-experiences-abortion-regret/
And I do not think you hate me, deluded. But no matter how nice you are, and you seem to be, this issue is so important to me that I can not consider “pro lifers” anything else but anti women.
And thank you, work went fine, it was a real rush to a deadline but I made it.