posted
Pook - I use the term "mother" as a collective short-hand reference for "pregnant woman." Although you are right in noting the title puts an unfair assumption on the part of the woman. I can't presume to know if the woman in question wants to have the pregnancy come to term or not.
Abstinence:
Woo-hoo. Go for it. Preach in from the halls, sing it from the rafters. Never mind pregnancies, it's the only way to be 100% percent sure you won't contract AIDS or an STD of some sort.
But nobody is preaching it. Nobody is saying it and the audience isn't listening. Why? Because sex is fun. And we are driven to it.
Best case scenario - you don't have sex until you're ready for kids, married or not.
Reality - yeah, right. People make mistakes - we do it all the damned time. If we can't handle financial responsibility, why do you think people are intelligent enough to handle sexual activity responsibly?
Birth control pills, condoms - whatever you use, it's not going to be 100%. But getting people to use that is a lot easier than telling them not to do "it" at all.
Abortion is not fun, easy or cheap. And yet women opt for it. Why? The answers to that question are many and varied. And frankly there are scenarios when abstinence isn't an issue and the woman doesn't want to carry the pregnancy to term.
The woman in question should not be subjected to your particular viewpoints on morality.
Sorry, I'm ranting and I'm in mid-irl crisis. I'll try and be more coherent next time.
posted
Trevor- I realize I can't impose my morals on someone else. But I also believe someone's morals are going to be imposed on women with unwanted pregnancy. That is why I don't apologize for having my own opinions. As you say, people wind up with unwanted pregnancies because they aren't thinking and don't want to think, and let someone else do the thinking for them.
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posted
Nah, CT, you just express things more beautifully than I do.
That's the point I was trying to make - before you allow yourself to get offended and speak in outrage, how do you approach a Human Being making such a statement?
And as always, you show yourself to be a kind, caring, decent and wise person (who conveniently fades into the woodwork after working your healing magic).
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posted
I thought it might be good to discuss the abstracts CT pulled for us:
quote: Students who rejected adoption as an option for themselves were mainly concerned about abandoning the infant. However, a different standard was applied to the evaluation of a friend placing an infant; here, students focused on positive indicators such as a lack of maturity to parent, the importance of providing a child with two parents, and financial hardships. 56% and 62% felt that friends and parents, respectively, would be supportive of a friend placing a child, but 41% and 31% could not predict the response of friends and parents, respectively.
This is from the second one. I think it's interesting that people consistently view their own situation as different from people that they know.
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posted
I don't know that I'm really trying to make a strong point. I'm just trying to figure out what I really think by examining different perspectives and asking questions.
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posted
I'm sorry I wasn't clear before Pook - my Abstinence rant was directed at the earlier poster who brought up the subject of Abstinence as the best course of action.
As for letting other people do their thinking for them - sounds good. I've always thought socialism got a bad rap. Of course, we have to figure out when and where we draw the line at living other people's lives for them. Do you think we could mandate all pregnant women turn themselves in for a mandatory 9 month lockdown in a hospital? That way we can ensure they do things properly and the fetus isn't harmed in any fashion by either the mother's recklessness or unforseen outside forces.
I'm sure the AMA would scream at the massive socializing of mainstream medicine, but it would certainly pay for the costs involved.
Oooh...and then we need to ensure the children are raised properly by enrolling them in State-sponsored schools and we can ensure they only get the best of information driven into their little heads.
Wow, we have a plan here. Pretty soon we can just lump everyone into giant power coccoons so they never, ever have to make a decision for themselves and we can just avoid all the possible bad things that accompany free will which, let's face it, is so overrated.
-Trevor
Edit: Bah, I've resorted to extremist arguments. Feel free to ignore my tirade.
posted
CT, I think I find it a better analogy (and it is only better than any others that have been posted, not necessarily good on it's own) because it is a procedure that if backed by a medical opinion, can actually be a good thing.
I think the shirt that will come out in response to this is "My mom didn't have an abortion". Some nitwit will put it on Onesies.
posted
You should open a shock-t-shirt store, Jenny. You're very good at those slogans.
quote:CT mentioned that most abortions are the first for that woman. I take that as an indication that few women want it done again.
"Most" is only 52%. 48% (about 650,000 in the U.S.) are performed on women who've had one or more previously.
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posted
What about "I turned off my grandmother's life support."? That's less slangy, but it also leaves clear exactly what happened.
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posted
I was also addressing the board in general, CT. You're just the first to step up to the plate!
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posted
Forgive me Stormy. I was a bit tipsy when I made the comment.
Surely every idea crosses a few minds. I meant to imply that it has, in the past, been much less rampant an idea.
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quote: I think a combination of education on birth control, abstinence, and responsibility is needed. And neither political party is getting it right. I just think Planned Parenthood has it more wrong than anyone else, promoting irresponsibility and ignoring abstinence.
I take exception to the idea of Planned Parenthood is promoting irresponsibility. It is offering solutions and allowing people to pick what solution is best for them.
I don't believe any PP literature has ever mentioned any birth control or contraceptive as being 100% effective and obviously better than not having sexual activity at all.
I argue that abortion through herbal means has been found historically and will continue through into the future if medical abortion procedures are lost.
Knowledge becomes harder and harder to contain in countries with modern technology.
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posted
How come no one ever says good ol' Storm Saxon is right? I mentioned the broad interpretations of the abortion t-shirt way before Stephen did. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:I'm sorry I wasn't clear before Pook - my Abstinence rant was directed at the earlier poster who brought up the subject of Abstinence as the best course of action
I think you missed my point. Taking responsibility is what I think is the best course of action. If you can't parent a child and can't bring yourself to give it up for adoption and can't get tubal ligation, then yes, I promote abstinence.
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quote:You can blame a lot of folks, from media bigwigs to bishops, if we lose our reproductive rights, but it's the women who shrink from acknowledging their own abortions who really irk me. Increasingly, for example, the possibility of abortion is built right into the process of prenatal care. Testing for fetal defects can now detect over 450 conditions, many potentially fatal or debilitating. Doctors may advise the screening tests, insurance companies often pay for them, and many couples (no hard numbers exist) are deciding to abort their imperfect fetuses.
The trouble is, not all of the women who are exercising their right to choose in these cases are willing to admit that that's what they are doing. Kate Hoffman, for example, who aborted a fetus with Down syndrome, was quoted in The Times on June 20 as saying: "I don't look at it as though I had an abortion, even though that is technically what it is. There's a difference. I wanted this baby."
Or go to the Web site for A Heartbreaking Choice, a group that provides support for women whose fetuses are deemed defective, and you find "Mom" complaining of having to have her abortion in an ordinary abortion clinic: "I resented the fact that I had to be there with all these girls that did not want their babies."
Kate and Mom: You've been through a hellish experience, but unless I'm missing something, you didn't want your babies either. A baby, yes, but not the particular baby you happened to be carrying.
The author, in case you can't tell, is pro-choice.
posted
I'm always interested in hearing how other people respond to strong statements. You have to be careful. I grew up hearing (in this case) religious people making broad statements that were very harsh toward people who had abortions, among others. It was all about the sin. But it was never considerate of that person. Sometimes, I look at people and realize that their situation could have been mine. I could have been the teenager faced with an unwanted pregnancy. What would I have done? And how would I feel if abortion was the path I chose and heard all this condemnation? How would I be able to relate to those people?
And how do I relate to someone who has chosen a path I would not? When my sister-in-law went through a divorce, I found myself being just as judgmental as people who had hurt me in the past. So, I wonder what it takes to learn compassion. And I encourage its development.
I just wonder what it is like to be the person making different choices from myself, and if I can love her.
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Whole different can of worms. :p You think I'm hard on abortions, wait 'til you see me lay into irresponsible guys. It usually involves lots of swearing and breaks down into threats of abuse in a matter of minutes. :D
I'd bring the discussion to Hatrack, but it's bad for my heart and I'd inevitably violate the User Agreement. Pooka's eyes would probably start bleeding. ;)
[edit: overcompensated for my ire with too many damn smilies]
[ July 28, 2004, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Mean Old Frisco ]
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quote:At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as "convenience" - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women.
Forty percent of ALL American women have had an abortion of convenience. I have a VERY hard time believing that number.
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posted
Maybe 30 million (over the last 30 years) equals 40% of the current female American 15-44 population.
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posted
Hay Frisco, I'm disagreeing with you (your comment on page 4 that abortions haven't always been around).
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posted
If only there were an easier way to disable men's power to procreate that was simple to administer and reversable. In a society that put more and more responsibility on men who father unwanted children, men might be more and more willing to use such a thing.
And what is up with this irrational reluctance of men to get a vasectomy? Seems to me that beyond hesitancies about cost and the invasiveness of the proceedure, they feel like it is removing their masculinity somehow.
I think that developing more systems of male birth control would do much to even things out between the sexes, get the men to take more responsibility.
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posted
And yet women are doing a very similar thing to themselves when they take pills and whatnot. They are willing to because they have to suffer the effects of pregnancy. Seems like a double-standard that needs to be done away with right-quick.
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posted
Ah, Frisco. Wasn't a clear retraction so I missed it.
Just wanted you to know. Cause I really don't think that a law making abortions illegal is going to stop all the abortions. Or even most of the abortions. Medical abortions now, herbal abortions later. The internet, at least, isn't going to let people forget that there have always been ways. But a lot of people will get hurt experimenting.
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quote: At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as "convenience" - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women. Yet in a 2003 survey conducted by a pro-choice group, only 30 percent of women were unambivalently pro-choice
I never took statistics, but I'm pretty sure this analysis is bobkus.
I wonder if it takes into account the other number we were just discussing, that 48 percent of abortions in some years are not the first for that woman.
by the way, looking into Frisco's link (which is very interesting), I am bothered by the assumption that all abortions are from unintended pregnancies. That would seem to disinclude all the birth defect related abortions. I don't know where rape victims fit into these assumptions.
P.S. from page six of the slideshow: "2.1% of women aged 15-44 had an abortion in 2000".
quote:But a lot of people will get hurt experimenting.
If I agreed that criminalizing abortion was the way to go, it'd be because I thought that sacrifices in the short-term would be for the good of the long. But I'm not to that decision just yet.
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quote:I am bothered by the assumption that all abortions are from unintended pregnancies. That would seem to disinclude all the birth defect related abortions.
While the site doesn't differentiate between unwanted pregnancies and pregnancies that became unwanted at the sign of birth defects, it does show that 3% of women listed that as one of the reasons they chose to abort. I think birth defect abortions are included in the numbers. It's a Pro-Choice site, and I doubt they'd try to make themselves look worse.
[ July 28, 2004, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: Mean Old Frisco ]
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posted
I guess that since we seem to have a full blown abortion thread going, I'll get people's opinions on this
It's a Finnish (legal abortion and socialized health care system) study that shows that due to suicide and medical complications, the maternal mortality rate after one year for women who've had abortions is higher than both women who've given birth and women who've had no pregnancy at all.
If given weight, this sort of negates the argument that abortion is a safer route than pregnancy.
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posted
page 7: Declining rates of teen pregnancy reflect improved contraceptive technology (implants and injections) and secondarily decreased sexual activity (abstinence). (a 1999 study is cited).
Abstinence teaching is having some effect. That many who sign abstinence promises eventually have sex doesn't mean they don't have it later or in a more committed relationship than they otherwise would have.
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posted
Frisco: Confounding variables. I didn't look up the actual study, but it looks like a retrospective study, looking at all deaths and going backwards from there.
Don't you think that the general population of women who had an abortion is not identical to the general population of women who didn't? You'd have to account for economic, cultural, regional, age, religious, etc variables in order to better strengthen the causality.
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posted
I didn't give it much weight, either, but it does bring up the legitimate point that there are complications to abortion, beyond the purely medical ones, that I think go a ways in defusing the "abortion is 10 times safer than pregnancy" position.
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