So Girls, Did You Notice You Were Raped Last Week?
Here’s the part that’s got smoke coming out of my ears. The part that makes me so mad I could spit nails. The part that’s got me purple with apoplexy.
The five boy justices on the Supreme Court who voted to take away our reproductive freedom last week were treating us like silly girls who can’t be trusted to make our own decisions.
Worse than silly girls, really. Cows with no more brains than to find the right stall in the dairy barn.
In his written decision allowing the federal government to criminalize a certain kind of abortion procedure, Justice Anthony Kennedy explained in simple words that even we girls could understand that the court’s decision was actually good for us.
Why? Well, gosh and by golly, because he wanted to protect us from having a procedure that we might not fully understand and would probably come to regret. Well, duh! I surely am grateful to those boy justices for assuming I can’t read or follow the words when my doctor ’splains things to me.
For the record, the other boy justices who signed onto that 5-4 decision were Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. As far as I know, not one of them is a doctor. And not one of them has the faintest idea, really, what he’s talking about. I can hear the mutterers now, claiming I have no respect for these Supreme Court justices. You’re right, mutterers! I don’t. You know why? They have no respect for me — or any other woman in this nation. We’re not morons, you know. We’re grown-ups. We even get to vote! For now, anyway.
For the record, a federal ban on the dilation and evacuation abortion method is what the court upheld last week. It is commonly referred to as partial birth abortion — cleverly so-named by the anti-abortion crowd to make people go Gasp! What a horrible kind of abortion that must be! It was an easy procedure to target because it’s used in later stage abortions for “¦ oh, you know, those flighty women who just can’t plan ahead.
The kind who might say, “Oh golly gee, I’ve got a high school reunion coming up and I just can’t go looking all pregnant and stuff!” I gather that’s how the justices assume abortion decisions get made.
In fact, it’s often women who don’t even want an abortion who end up needing this procedure when things go horribly wrong. Maybe a sonogram in the fifth month reveals that the fetus’ brain is outside its body. Or maybe the woman has developed a dangerous heart condition. These women are often bereft that the pregnancy has to be ended. In a later stage abortion, D&E is often the only safe procedure because the uterus could easily be punctured during a standard abortion. And that would be the end of all future pregnancies as well.
But — and here’s the worst part — the justices ruled that there are NO cases except imminent death of the mother in which a D&E abortion can be legally performed now. Not to preserve her health. Not to save her uterus. The justices have replaced your doctor’s judgment with their own. This is the boy president’s Supreme Court, of course. It’s his gift to the Religious Right for helping put him into the White House. He appointed the ultra conservative Alito and Roberts to the court to tip the balance against women’s reproductive rights.
Bush is happy as a clam that the court voted to uphold the law — passed during his first term — banning this procedure. His law. His court. And he vows to keep stripping us girlies of our rights.
“We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law,” he said last week after the court issued its decision. As usual, his syntax was as faulty as his reasoning.
So this is what we can expect from the Roberts court. The matter is settled. Five against women. Four in favor. Majority rules.
The chief justice is young. His job is for life. And now we know. His court will eventually overturn Roe.
Every woman should be angry. Even if you’re against abortion, you should be angry.
You know why? Because even if the justices are making decisions you agree with, they’re not your decisions. Those boys are in charge of your body now.
Those boys have hog-tied your freedom now.
Those boys are your rapists now.
* * *
There are 638 days left ’til Jan. 20, 2009.
Talk to Beth at (845) 346-3147 or at bquinn@th-record.com.
© 2007 The Times Herald-Record
Quinn is right. At the same time, one has to give credit where credit is due: Bush has such a wonderful job of galvanizing the women’s movement to wake up and even link up with other movements for social change and resistance. Women coming of age now hopefully won’t be as complacent politically as many of those coming of age in “Is Feminism Dead?” or “post-feminist” 1980s and 1990s.
BTW, how does the Right usually have its way in framing the debate by labeling the issue “partial birth abortion.”
Majority rule is good sometimes. This is not one of them.
Where the —–does the majority get off trying to run the private and personal lives of others?
How about we take a vote on whether we all will believe in creationism or evolution? Maybe the color of the walls in my house should be put to a vote. Everybody knows I have poor taste in such matters. For all I know my value system may be morally incorrect. Let’s have a vote on what drugs I should use, how often I should attend church, what books I should read.
The tyranny of the majority is more odious than a tyrant. The tyrant announces to the whole world “Behold, I am a tyrant”. The tyranny of the majority is easily confused with democracy.
Rape is a terrible crime that leaves an everlasting effect, equating that with passing unpopular legislation is an insult. Rape is NOT something you don’t notice so the question “So Girls, Did You Notice You Were Raped Last Week?” is an insult to all the victims of this horrendous crime, Rape is not a joke.
Last week, it was announced that the Pope had decided there is no Limbo for babies. For centuries, it was religious dogma that unbaptized babies, aborted or after birth, spent eternity in a “natural, happy” state, but couldn’t be with God. Under those circumstances, I suppose it makes sense to want all babies to be born and baptized to at least give them a chance to be “saved.”
But now it appears that all the previous popes were wrong, along with the entire Catholic religious establishment. Gee. Doesn’t that make at least a few people wonder how many other religious notions might be in error? (Not picking on Catholicism - this pertains to a wide variety of other religious beliefs.)
Anyhow, now that we know that there’s no Limbo and that, in fact, unbaptized babies go straight to Heaven and get to hang out with God, why would the religious right, anti-abortion, right-to-lifers want to deprive them of that privilege? Is it better to be born into a world of hunger, strife, war, and danger than it is to go directly to everlasting joy?
Many of the babies who are being “saved” from abortion will be born into extreme poverty and violence. They might have birth defects, face abuse, or suffer neglect. I guess I could understand the reasoning as long as there was some belief that unborn fetuses (some of them just collections of cells) would spend ETERNITY separated from God, no matter how essentially natural and “happy” they were. But now that we know that isn’t the case, aren’t the anti-abortionists the ones depriving these little souls of their ultimate ecstasy?
After all, chances are very good that the child born into unfavorable conditions will sin and go somewhere other than Heaven. Yeah, the wingnuts surely do make a lot of sense when it comes to right to life. I think their mantra is “Do I contradict myself? Whatever.”
I agree that the supreme court justices have violated women in their decision, that male supremacy is still the norm in this country, and that women are treated like children or morons. And I don’t really know what most fundamentalists believe about the souls of children. However, at least one or two of the justices (a misnomer if there ever was one) are Catholic. Apparently, they either 1) don’t believe their own pope or 2)they think life on earth to be superior to life with God or else 3)they just don’t think. I kind of lean toward number 3.
It’s not about abortion. Repugs have proved that they don’t care how many people they kill. It’s about bringing back the religious subjugation of women.
I agree we are in a bad way now with the Supreme Court, and that this decision creates the slippery slope necessary to overturn Roe.
but I have to take exception to the characterization of cows as stupid animals… if you have worked and lived around cows you would know differently. In fact, there are cows I would rather have standing (not sitting) on the bench of the Supreme Court than the five who voted in favor of this partial ban.
1. as pointed out, rape is not a joke.
2. Constantly referring to “boys” while whining about being treated like little “girls” is ironic to say the least.
3. What’s with the “I like democracy but sometimes I don’t” stuff? Individual rights or democracy, pick one? But don’t straddle fences.
Ms. Quinn, while I appreciate what you are trying to do with this article, I must object to the title. As a survivor and a psycholgoist, I can vouch that the title alone was very distressing. It has the potential to cause not only recoil in all people, but to even provoke an anxiety attack or flashback in survivors (male and female alike). Plase, pick your titles more carefully.
Smurfy,
Since when are individual rights and democracy mutually exclusive?
This is one proceedure only and a gruesome one at that. Most Ob/Gyns refuse to perform this type of abortion as it’s rather violent in that the fetus which in many cases could be viable is literally torn to shreds and removed from the womb. I am most certainly pro-choice as I refuse to impose my beliefs on anyone else but the shrill response from the right to choose contingent is disturbing. Instead of requiring that women take responsibility and be held accountable for their sex lives and reproduction/birth control choices, we allow women to choose to get abortions willy nilly which takes a huge toll on the women of this country both physically and mentally which is sad. Something like 72% percent of all women who get abortions is as a form of birth control - how irresponsible.
Thank you Ms. Quinn for the article. I like the title. I was a rape victim and living in a country like this with decisions that subject power over a woman’s body equates rape.
I appreciate your candor and look forward to being able to look back and read this article in the future, provided that don’t take my rights to read away as well…
For those who are offended by the title - did you know that “rape” also means “to abduct”? Rape can be abduction, abuse, violation, or molestation. Sexual rape during which the victim is penetrated is only one kind of rape.
The reason there’s a painting titled “The Rape of the Sabine Women” is not because the women portrayed are being physically, sexually attacked, but because they are being abducted.
People should actually know what they are talking about before they get all huffy. Sexual rape is terrible. My sister was raped at the age of 18, and she was damaged by it all her life. However, “rape” is just a word with multiple meanings, and it’s an apt word in the context of this article. Women have been violated and abused by this decision, both figuratively and with real consequences. To have a group of five men decide for all the women in America what may or may not be done to their bodies is a violation of our rights. Ergo, a “rape.”
To soma90405: Where did you get that statistic about 72% of abortions being a form of birth control? I’m not sure what you mean by “birth control” either…is a 16 year old who was impregnated by a boyfriend (even after she said ‘no’, but he thought she meant ‘yes’), and who feels she cannot support the fetus - physically or emotionally - considered using abortion as birth control? I guess I think of birth control as a regular, consistent method of avoiding implantation of a fertilized egg. I can see how others might define it differently, though. Definitions in this sort of debate are important.
Also, I agree that the title of this article was inconsiderate, to say the least. As a woman who is extremely offended and saddened by the recent court decision, I can only hope to open dialogue among my peers and students…I fear that a title linking physical rape to psychological rape might close some doors.
As with any particularly nasty decision from our boys in the black robes, let us not forget to voice our disapproval of this decision. Write and call your representatives. Draw up a form letter and send it every week! We will not stand for usurping of women’s rights…we will not let ‘them’ make abortion out to be an easy decision…we will fight for the reproductive health of all people.
Peace to you.
Does anyone actually believe W and crowd cares about aborted babies in the ghetto or anywhere else? They learned long ago these issues galvanize the retarded, simple minded lemmings who have been voting for them since the Gipper or before. These people don’t care about babies, women, American workers or anything except keeping power so they can drain the treasury.
Its over, they drained it, now we are living off the Chinese while we help them build up their military so they can call in the loan. Once that happens not only will the women be raped but so will the men. We are all screwed. The rapture will save the retards…
Majority rules, not because it’s right, but because it is stronger. (Someone’s quote.)
I too am enraged by the sheer arrogance of a group (comprised of both men and women!) who pretend to have a divine right mandate to save us from ourselves. A lifelong proponent separation of church and state person, I seethe at every effort to disenfranchise women. I have to wonder how men would respond to being how they could or could not exercise their reproductive freedoms. (I am trying to be delicate here.) We’ve still not been able to get them to give up their big guns.
And speaking of China — the human rights abuses against pregnant women in a Chinese province is unbelievable: forcible abortions at 7-9 months term.
By the way, why not a campaign to promote vasectomies as a simple, safe and reversible birth control procedure?
Chrisian fundamentalism is a polite nomenclature for severe personality disorder. Like neo-conservatism in it’s hostility to facts, it is synthetic insanity, not natural, but equally detached from reality and quite dangerous to anyone affected by it’s practical expression. Having infiltrated the highest reaches of government in America, that means every human being on earth. We are witnessing an age of madness which none will escape.
The ruling set us back farther than most seem to understand. What happened to the christian leaders who taught love and prayer for those in times of trouble? Now, it’s intolerance and judgement all the while they’re hanging out with a group of liars and thieves-Bush and Co. of course. But what puzzles me is who’s going to take care of these children? Are we going to put them someplace and start our own homegrown ‘troops’? I mean seriously, in America-you can’t adopt children here unless you’re one of the wealthy-our kids are kept in foster care homes until they’re 18 and Americans travel abroad for adoptions. That’s because of the federal dollars a state gets to keep them in foster care, thank you Clinton for the Safe Families Act of ‘97 but does anyone know where we can find the game plan for these infants-what does their future hold?
Idavin, as a person who has been raped, I agree it is no joke…but neither is this horrible decision from the Bush/religious right/Catholic Supreme Court. I just hope that Roe v Wade is not overturned. The author of this article is rightly angered by the actions of these arrogant males who haven’t got a clue. Abortion has been around forever and will go on forever so long as sexuality is treated as a subject not to be discussed until one is already married! By the way, Impeachment works for Supreme Court Justices, too!
Americans have allowed this zealot (and unelected) president to manipulate our rights by tolerating the senate’s acceptance of such unfit and dangerous justices, among countless other abuses ranging from manipulationof science to impede environmental reforms and other sellouts.
Americans have only themselves to blame for this.
The ground-breaker in this decision is that the precedence of consideration for the health of the pregnant citizen was tossed out the window.
Didn’t both Roberts and Alito stress and confirm their respect for legal precedence during their senate confirmation hearings? Were they just joking, just lying or what?
I agree, lover of peace, impeachment works.
soma90405, I think you misread the Court’s opinion. It offers as a legal alternative a procedure that tears the fetus to shreds inside the womb and removes it piecemeal. Its prohibition is against removing the fetus intact and then removing its brain. This illogical Kennedy+4 opinion justifies the ruling by saying the state has an interest in protecting the life of the unborn. If you haven’t read the Ginsburg dissent, you should. It is a sterling example of relevant logic.
I grew up in the times before legal abortion. I have been in health care as a provider for over 30 years and have never seen a woman make the choice of abortion casually. Never. We have taken a HUGE step away from reproductive choice. We endorse unbelievable hurdles to effective contraception, in terms of access and cost. Pregnancy by mandate does not make for healthy lives within individual families, or within society. Soma- I am not sure where you get your information, but it is not evidence based at all. Not only is abortion increasingly difficult to obtain, its expense is out of reach and not something that is obtained at any stage in a “Willy Nilly” fashion. In a country with accessible and sound contraception, abortion becomes secondary if not usually unnecessary. In cases of late term abortion, it is simply a rare situation. (Never dealt this in over 30 years in women’s health)No matter where you personally stand on the abortion issue, stay out of legislating women’s bodies as objects of the state.
LeeAnnG rightly wonders:
Anyhow, now that we know that there’s no Limbo and that, in fact, unbaptized babies go straight to Heaven and get to hang out with God, why would the religious right, anti-abortion, right-to-lifers want to deprive them of that privilege? Is it better to be born into a world of hunger, strife, war, and danger than it is to go directly to everlasting joy?
*************
Because as comedian Timmy Rogers (the “Oh Yeahhhh!” guy)used to sing: “Everybody want to get to heaven, but nobody want to die”–oh yeahh!
Neither abortion nor its regulation are laughing matters. Like drug abuse, the criminalizing of this situation not only won’t solve the problem, it will increase its occurance by unqualified non-professional people. This is an issue of public health and not one of criminalization for the victims.
What I wonder is where all these politically active churches are after their “saved fetus” gets born. Seems like they just forget all about both mother and child at that point.
Calling it rape is inflammatory, but hey, the author is angry and she has a right to be. I just wish more women and men for that matter were upset about it. I think these jerks on the Supreme Court are pandering to the religious right and at the same time are just chipping away at what they really want, for women to all end up barefoot and pregnant. If they had their way, birth control would be illegal also, and women would be taught to wear chastity belts.
“Why? Well, gosh and by golly, because he wanted to protect us from having a procedure that we might not fully understand and would probably come to regret.”
No, it was to protect the life of an unborn american who might deserve to live. Whether you agree with this or not, the feminist lobby must address the argument that issues around pregnancy involve another life, not just your own.
Robert S: As per “Americans have allowed…” It’s convenient, another one of those inconvenient truths to THINK we still have elections since they are after all such elaborate staged events, but when BOTH parties more or less dance to the same tune, and when the vote only counts in some states (if those); and when a never-elected president APPOINTS chief justices who have an aversion to true democracy and this nation’s constitution, and when LIES trump truth, and when the MEDIA plays along… where is it that Americans have caused this? A coup has occured, and it’s in collusion with wealthy elite interests who gain from pharmaceutical drugs (and the idiotic “prescription drug benefit plan,” the military-industrial complex, that feeds off war to “grow” its inventory of weapons, and big media interests, plus “the usual suspects.” IF the vote counted and IF Americans were getting REAL news, and IF they then put these imbeciles into power, then your argument would hold. MANY are clueless to the degree to which this nation has been taken over by the equivalent of a lethal cancer… and it’s spreading. I can only assume that with the exception of a handful of democrats who stand up to the beast, the rest have dirty secrets that Rove already has on tape. Don’t forget, ladies and gentlement, there was a dossier on Clinton when he was just another bright college kid overseas! How about you and me????
Rape?! Really…no really.
While I am apalled by this most recent decision, to equate such a decision with that of all women being raped only proves how disingenuous and hypocritical individuals on the left can be when certain decisions don’t go their way. Regardless of the whole political mine field involved with abortion, this piece was completely out of line and only served to benefit those on the right who argue how out of touch from reality the left can be when visceral issues come into play - and in this case, they would be correct. Let’s hope in the future Ms. Quinn will consider rationality toward irrational court decisions in an effort to better enlighten us to the injustices incurred of a particular decision. Otherwise, it forces individuals such as myself to sadly hope Ms. Quinn has been raped in order to know exactly what she is talking about. But my guess is, Ms. Quinn hasn’t a clue what it means to be raped, and instead unfortunately takes pride in being an insensitive individual and ultimately no different from those Supreme Court Justices who supported this decision.
Good thought Paul M. but in answer to the protection of a future American you might indeed have a problem. most Americans still have the right to bear arms and as a grandmother with many granddaughters, what do you think will happen when Roe is overturned and women are left with only one recourse. As a rape victim myself, I would suggest that all young women be taught how to use a gun, and that also should be addressed, as women may have that as their only recourse and oops! another rapist (deserving American) bites the dust!! and he would be better used in our endless and useless war. Most males in todays society find it very easy to let the females deal with unwanted pregnancy and I have yet to see a law passed that forces them to do anything but pay out a little money, and they even complain that that is too much of a hardship on them but they still want to push the woman/girl and child to suffer the anguish. For your information, most women do not have abortions “to get rid of a problem” but “because of a problem with a fetus that cannot be corrected”. Why do you think women are the ones to have the children? If the men have all the right answers, why didn’t God give that job to them?
only women can bear children. if men wanted to know about it they would ask permission to father a child. they do not ask that.
so five boys said if women become pregnant it is only their own fault. i know how clarence thomas has acted there. how about the others? would they spend a lifetime raising someone they knew to be the result of their hormonal feelings?
men talk a good line. how about adopting all the children born without willing parents? with state money. the pope doesn’t.
Ms. Quinn is correct that as a woman I should be angry. But I’m not angry about the Supreme Court decision to uphold the ban on partial birth abortion.
I’m angry about women who spew incoherent, inflammatory rhetoric like hers which prevents women (and everyone else) from thoughtfully examining the facts about late-term abortions or abortions at any other time.
Women don’t have abortions because they have “freedom of choice.” Women have abortions because they feel they have no other choice.
The Supreme Court didn’t hog-tie us or rape us. This rant and others like it helps keep women ignorant and incites them to fight for the “right” to violently assault their own bodies after which they are forced to “hog-tie” their emotions so they can live with their “choice.”
Maybe she should stick to writing funny anecdotes about dogs?
All women and all men have the right to do with their bodies as they wish. That is part of the democracy thing that peoples of democratic societies really do not understand. We are governed by ourselves collectively. Men in robes do not nor should not, have the power to command what women, nor men for that matter do to their bodies. What if they decided that all men must be circumcized? Are all you brave macho guys going to go out and get your foreskins cut? After all, it is medically beneficial as a preventative measure against HIV/AIDS. Or are you going to tell the government that your body is your own and that you do not wish the supremes to decide the fate of your penis’(peni?)?
Governments have no right to govern anything beyond the laws of the land. Our private lives and bodies belong to us as adults to act upon within our own values and ethics as long as those do no intentional harm to the inhabitants of our communities.
A truly humane government would have single-payer health services such as we Canadians have and as do many other countries, including “non-democratic” ones like Cuba (some of the best doctors in the world have trained there, free).
I am glad that I was not born, nor live, in the United States. I am awaiting the day that American women must be veiled, commanded to stay at home and will have limited access to education. It seems to be the next logical step after the controlling your bodies medically.
Paul M, this ruling doesn’t protect the life of the unborn. It goes to great lengths to point out that instead of a partial-birth abortion the doctor should dismember the fetus in the womb or even poison it before extraction. There is no benefit to the fetus in this ruling. Its only significant effect is to increase the danger to the mother, which is marked for women with compromised immune systems , and certain heart problems among others.
MtnGoat, I always read your posts in Mr. T voice. “What goes around comes around, sucka!” By “you” I assume you mean us “lefties”. Of course that’s the role of government, democratic or not, capital D-Democratic or not, they’re going to try to impose beliefs. You can’t get around it–fool!
A good, understandably passionate article.
Those who whinge about the title “for the sake of frail other people” are almost as bad as the LowCourt Injustices who made these decisions “for the sake of frail other people” (for the best of reasons, of course..)
Unfortunately, the USA, which was once the scientific and technological dynamo of the world, has been taken over by those with mush for brains and consequently very little real intelligence, merely ratlike cunning.
These waffly New Age idiots push an ignorant philosophy that would make a child blush, with their primitive insistence that “belief” and “black magic” can replace hard won and established scientific principles.
It is hard to reconcile this passionate concern to protect the unborn, wit the equally passionate position held by these people, that foreigner sitting on vast supplies of hydrocarbons are only good as cannon and machine-gun fodder.
The US is entering a new dark age of lowering intellect, impoverishing culture and superficial learning, that it may not be able to survive.
Let’s hope that lights stay on elsewhere..
Error..
“.. with the equally passionate position held by these people, that foreigners sitting..”
For some groups the abortion issue is going to continue forever. There are religious groups that still think adultery is a “sin”. I would like to see a scientific consensus of when sentient life begins in a fetus. Perhaps when brain wave function begins or whatever other criteria are judged best by an EXPERT panel. It will be a line finally drawn in the sand, perhaps one moveable with new scientific revelation. We all “kind of” agreed that those in persistent vegetative state are not “alive” in a real sense (read the new Scientific American article, fascinating). But since we’re still hog-tied by zealots the Shiavo’s of the world must be unplugged and dehydrated before they’re allowed to pass on. I would be the first to stop it if I thought there was a light on and anyone home. It would truly be a horror to think that there was a Terry Shiavo in there somewhere suffering, trying to get out. It would be truly horrifying to think there was a being that could suffer during abortion. As a society we’re never going to be assured by the expertise of our best scientific minds if we don’t allow them to report to us.
One thing we MUST do is surpass this notion of “a life to be” “a potential life”. “We’re preventing a potential life.” BS. Does this mean every time you could have sex you should? You’re preventing a potential life. What happens when science discovers a way to de-differentiate skin cells into viable embryos (and it will).
As I said, there will be the fringe groups that pursue radical beliefs. Eg. God gives a soul to each conception: a sperm + egg = life. These people are killing us with obfuscation. They must be marginalized.
MtnGoat @ 1:58 am..
What is the issue here??
There is a great deal of difference between, on the one hand, trying to influence somebody else by debate, article, discussion and on the other, changing established laws to make them fit in with your particular religious biases and delusions.
Ipenek.. 4:22 am
Good idea in principle.. Problem is, some quite experienced scientists and medical people, who make most of their decisions based upon good solid science and research, can become quite “ethereal” and “existential” when it come to matters such as “Is there a soul?” When does life really begin, 2 days?, 2 weeks?, 2 months, 22 years??”..
How would you chose your panel of experts?
I think the best way to answer you question though is to look ate our own experiences.. Apart from the usual winsome wistful sensitive (usually females) who chatter on about “rebirth experiences’ and similar New Age garbage, most people have absolutely no recollection of life in utero or being born, or their first 12 or more months. This is something to do with the (horrors) scientific fact that brain development has to be at a certain stage for “memory” and thus the concept of “then, now and thus a continuum of existence… a self” to develop. This does not develop, in homo sapiens, in utero. Simple as that.
All else, movement, grimacing, sucking are simple reflexes seen and interpreted through precious persons’ prisms
soma sputters:
Instead of requiring that women take responsibility and be held accountable for their sex lives and reproduction/birth control choices, we allow women to choose to get abortions willy nilly which takes a huge toll on the women of this country both physically and mentally which is sad. Something like 72% percent of all women who get abortions is as a form of birth control - how irresponsible.
Ardee responds…how gracious of you to “allow” women the right to do some things but not be responsible for other decisions, especially those that affect their own bodies. There were approximately one and one half million abortions in the nation last year, of which slightly over 300 were designated “late term”.
You might be arguing from a paternal or religious position but you are so very dismissive of the rights of half the population as to make your statements easily considered silly.
I, for one, trust the judgment made by a woman and her physician and do not think the Supreme Court should be a party to such decisions, especially after the mess they made of the election decision in 2000 when they gave Bush an election he had not won. Then three justicies had family members working for the Bush campaign and should have recused themselves. Here they should simply be ashamed of themselves, and you should as well.
Okay I must have just read something by either a ’silly girl’ or an outright liar. That was a bunch of hogwash. For the 8293470 billionth time this is nobody trying to tell you what to do with your body. This is not about any selfish woman’s rights. This is about the protection of an innocent life and his/her body. If you want to stab something in the back of your head and suck your brains out through a tube go ahead, it’s your body. That IS what we’re talking about. PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION: THE BABY IS MOSTLY BORN THEN BRUTALLY MURDERED BY A STAB IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD. Those are the facts. I am absolutely sick of hearing that all these babies should die every year for no good reason in the name of the few extreme cases. Can anyone reading this imagine actually holding onto the squirming little legs of a tiny baby and stabbing something into the back of it’s head and killing it? The blood is on all of our hands and it breaks my heart.
I’ve known 3 young women who had abortions. Two of them were already mothers, both of those were living with the father of their child(ren) and there was absolutely nothing medically wrong. In the words of the most recent, “I like to go shopping and if I have another baby I won’t be able to afford it”. My neice or nephew, bless their heart, was killed so mommy could buy some nice clothes. God have mercy on our souls.
faithhopelovep91 says “PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION: THE BABY IS MOSTLY BORN THEN BRUTALLY MURDERED BY A STAB IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD”
This is how the debate is so wrongly framed and how the actual name of the procedure is never used in place of something far more drastic sounding.
The dilation and evacuation abortion method is what the procedure is called professionally. It is also ONLY EVER USED when allowing a birth procedure to occur will kill the mother because the child is already irreperably deformed and will not live through the birth process or at best will survive only for a few days after birth.
While faithhopelove91 you have condemned your own relations who probablky only told you these things in confidence because they falsely thought you cared for them, your own savior would have you do otherwise. There were 2 basic sins jesus preached against, judgement and hypocrisy. I see both going on here in the attempt to legislate one set of religious beliefs onto the entire population. Isn’t this exactly what we are being told we are at war to protect? Our freedoms and rights? Hmmm… looks like we have been lied to again by this government.
As for faithhopelove91… try giving the things your own religion teaches such as love to your own family members, unconditional love, not love only if they do things your way. I wish all of you peace, but ask that you look within to find it rather than without.
thiswoman,
Are we seriously to fall for your idea that making someone NOT KILL their unborn baby is the same as FORCING someone to cut skin from their penis??
You have got to be kidding me. Wow!
neoconned,
Thank you for your apparent concern for my family relations. I don’t think I said anything about the relationship between myself and the woman who had the abortion. After she confided in both myself and my husband about being pregnant and considering abortion, I asked my brother in law (her fiance and father of her 2 y/o, who knew she was pregnant) if she had gotta an abortion. He ignored my inquiry and later on in the day she kept calling/texting me to curse me out to the point that my husband had to intervene. When other family members saw her ‘googling’ abortion clincs, she claimed it was for her sister. She told a few family members that she wasn’t ever pregnant.
No one to my knowledge ever said anything harsh to her, except my husband, when she kept calling me. My mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law don’t even believe that she was pregnant, even though I saw her first pregnancy test and took her to buy the second one. Both were positive.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I know 3 young women who have recently had abortions. None were for medical reasons. All were just because they didn’t want to be pregnant or didn’t feel like having a baby. They were selfish reasons for killing their child.
Neoconned - please tell me if you require any further explaination of this senseless waste of human life or if you find any other way to turn the finger at me again.
Thank you
I must address the accusation of using ‘religion’ to dictate what ‘non-religious’ people do. “Do not murder” is from the Holy Bible, the word of God. It is also a law of the land. And most of us agree that it should be a law not only because God said it, but because we agree it to be barbaric and the right of no one to take another’s life.
This is a country that does not even respect life. How many people die in this country from lack of health insurance. This is something they could fix if they wanted.
What about job opportunities being shipped overseas and all of the dead in Iraq.
Religious people are just hypocrites. They use their religion to suit their own purposes.
Women can fight in Bush’s war but are unable to make a health discission.
The government has already decided what we can say and do what is next-thought control.
Maybe the White House can organize a drop off site for the unwanted babies. Lara, Bush, and the judges can adopt them.
Prevention in the first place. Prevent rape. Prevent unwanted pregnancy.
So you won’t be arguing about killing unborn children for whatever reason you want…
The Rich can always get an abortion, the poor cannot when the Supreme court rules our bodies and Our Doctor’s decisions.
Why does Bush want us the poor to have babies..well, where do you think the next soldiers for the next war to line the rich’s pockets will come from? The fetus has rights, if you are born and become a woman..you don’t and if you are born poor then you can go to war and die and they will sneak your body back into the country at night..no reporters, photographers allowed. And as for that 72% stat. Sorry, but there goes another myth. Dont write what you dont’ know.
So if you are poor and you don’t want children you can’t support, don’t get pregnant in the first place.
ironqueen that has to be the most ignorant statement I have heard recently. It only goes to show how out of touch you Republican’s are with reality. It should be obvious to even you poor women get pregnant because they can’t afford birth control. Because uninformed people like you have the system so totally screwed up! Heaven forbid you should have to pay for birth contol! You won’t allow what goes against your stilted religious beliefs! Let’s populate ourselves into oblivion before we wake up to the dangers of over-population! I for one do not believe God gave us this beautiful planet to destroy is such a fashion! People like yourself had better hope you are interpreting the bible correctly…if you aren’t look out!
I’m not Republican or either North American (thank God!) and I live in a country where I see REAL need, REAL hunger and REAL poverty everyday. You can’t afford birth control? DON’T HAVE SEX. As a matter of fact, you people of the U.S.A. should consider stop reproducing yourselves at all. You pollute, you corrupt, you kill inocent chidren and animals in undescriptable ways… You are a plague and the worst menace to this planet.
I grew up knowing I was the 6th and only surviving pregnancy, for my mother. The story was that she had “…three miscarriages, two premature births, and one ‘mole’…” as she put it.
I was one of those two premature births, 2 lbs, 10 oz, 2 and 1/2 months premature, September 4, 1957. I spent the first 6 months of my life in a hospital, struggling, to get up to 5 lbs.
The baby before me was born at 5 months, a “…fully formed little girl, who lived a few hours, and died…” mother said.
I grew up thinking my mother was a strict anti-abortionist, as she thought she was, too.
Wrong.
Fast forward, the late 1970’s.
Christmas, in my mother’s hometown, Battle Creek, Michigan.
We arrive home, Charlotte, North Carolina. Mother is livid beyond words. I have never seen her in such a rage of fury. Her only comment, “I thought blood was thicker than water, but I was wrong,” and that we were never going back to Michigan ever again. Not for anything, at all. That we would no longer see our relatives.
Fast forward, 2002.
Only after mother died, did one of my cousins reveal to me mother’s secret, and why this decision had been made back then.
By now, you’ve probably guessed it. Mother had several (at least two, maybe more, the quantity is unclear) backstreet illegal abortions in the 1930’s, as a teenager.
I verified this with three different cousins, total.
I should stress, mother had me at age 36, much later than her sisters had their children. I have cousins close to or more than 20 years older than I am. These cousins would have been around back then, at least two of those three. One of them told me that her mother, one of my aunts, told her. I questioned if she really knew. Her reply was “She was the person who took her to one of them.”
So much for verification.
It seemed that everyone, even my late sister, knew. The only one who didn’t know was…me. Somehow, I doubt that he knew.
This, in turn, was why we were forbidden to return to Michigan. One of our aunts had told my sister. She was only 12 at the time when she learned of this, and confronted mother.
Rolling backward in time about a decade or so, back when both my parents, my sister, and most of my aunts and uncles were still alive (now, as one cousin recently said, “We have more over there waiting for us now, than we do here.”)…..
Mother and I were having a debate about abortion.
I considered myself a moderate. Both pro and con abortion, conditionally.
Before you go off on me, please read the rest.
I confronted my mother, who still believed herself to be an absolute anti-abortionist. Mother also had the nasty habit of assuming that I was always 100% of a “liberal” frame of mind about any and everything, just because I am gay, so it was from this standpoint, that we engaged the debate, my being a Registered Nurse. (The “gay” topic was forbidden by her, back in those days.)
I must digress…remember, please, if you will, that at this point in time I had absolutely know knowledge at all of my mother’s secret.
I asked her to “pretend” with me that it was back in time, when we were young, again, and that sister was 12. I also asked her to pretend that sister had been molested by father, and was pregnant. I stressed that I knew he would never do such a thing, but I added, “But mama, such things do happen,” and she sadly concurred that they do, and agreed to pretend.
I asked her what she would do.
Mother, always the emotionally heart felt reactive soul that she was, stammered with very genuine but hypothetical rage, and couldn’t get even a single word out, but I knew where she was going. “Ok, AFTER you killed father,” I said, “YES!” she sputtered, that she would have surely killed him.
I pressed on, knowing in my heart, the answer.
“There’s your precious baby girl, 12, pregnant. Knowing what you know, would you make her face a full term pregnancy, or would you sanction it?”
Mother got dead silent, for a long time.
Gradually, and with great hesitation, she said, “As hard for me as it would be, and it would be tremendously hard for me to do so, in a case like that, yes, I would sanction it.”
Again, not knowing MOTHER’s history, I said, “But here’s the thing, mama. Back then, it would have had to have been a back street illegal abortion. They weren’t legal then. That’s the way it is here, either they are, or they are not legal. You can’t have it both ways.”
I added, “So, you see, YOU are NOT the STRICT anti-abortionist that you think you are, but a moderate, like me. What you disapprove of is adult women using it for a birth control method.” Mother said, “Yes!” emphatically.
And before you go off on me, SOME women DO act irresponsible and use it for one. MOST don’t. Just like MEN act irresponsible, too.
Being irresponsible is not a one way street. It is something both genders can do.
Mind you, being a RN, I am all for abortion based on most reasons, but the late term and partial birth ones I do have a problem with, mostly because that could have been my older sister, born in 1956, at 5 months, fully formed, breathing, who lived a few hours.
I am just against anyone doing anything irresponsibly.
About 20 years ago, I was confronted with a saline/pitocin abortion, as the RN. My LPN was the patient’s mother, the baby’s grandmother. I was totally inexperienced, and raging at the nursing supervisor to get me relieved based on both personal conviction, ability to cope with it, and competency level. She refused, yakking back at me that “All nursing is just common sense,” which is BS. I was totally afraid that if something went wrong, I would not recognize the signs.
I also felt that it was highly unethical that the only other nurse was the patient’s mother.
It was a late term abortion. We talked a good bit, that LPN and I did. Her primary comment was “I only regret that she took so long to make her decision.”
Here was a fully informed, educated college student, with a supportive mother who was a nurse, and she took well past her first trimester to make up her mind.
I’m sorry, I consider that irresponsible. And before you bash me, we all have a right to our opinions. I’ll never bash you, at least not first, and duly request the same, in turn.
Thank you for your time.
CORRECTION:
“It seemed that everyone, even my late sister, knew. The only one who didn’t know was…me. Somehow, I doubt that he knew.”
That should read, “It seemed that everyone, even my late sister, knew. The only one who didn’t know was…me. AND FATHER. Somehow, I doubt that he knew.”
Thanks.
faithhopelove - these are your own words, not mine. “My neice or nephew, bless their heart, was killed so mommy could buy some nice clothes.” and later… “As I mentioned in a previous post, I know 3 young women who have recently had abortions. None were for medical reasons. All were just because they didn’t want to be pregnant or didn’t feel like having a baby. They were selfish reasons for killing their child.”
I do not require any explanation from you nor any other woman as to how you handle an unwanted pregnancy. My comments were simply saying that if you followed your own religion as you want to preach it to others you could skip the judgement of your own family members. I stand by that statement.
People such as yourself are quick to put forth your own version of things as if it were true for the rest of us. Jesus preached peace, love and tolerance. The Bible is only the Word of God for some people. So, there is judgement and hypocrisy in all of your statements and arguments around this issue. you cannot pass judgement and then act as if you are defending some higher principle. Personally myself, I am against the idea of abortion, but then I won’t be having one either. For those others who oppose abortion, I would suggest not having one either. To those who choose to, wherever you still can, my prayers go out to you who have to make a difficult and personal decision.
I often hear from Christians that Jesus is their personal saviour. Please keep your personal salvation to yourselves and let your lives be the examples Jesus wanted them to be. Too many folks like to ponitificate their values on everyone else. As I said earlier, look for peace within yourself and worry less about what others are doing. Or as Jesus himself said, before you point at the sliver in my eye, observe the plank in your own, or something to that effect.
“As I mentioned in a previous post, I know 3 young women who have recently had abortions. None were for medical reasons. All were just because they didn’t want to be pregnant or didn’t feel like having a baby. They were selfish reasons for killing their child.”
Congratulations. I know people that have purchased kichen knives for the sole purpose of using them as weapons. Using ones personal experience based on the recklessness of the few in order to deny the rights of the many is just ludicrous.
The fact of the matter is legalized abortion prevents countless unwanted births for women who are financially, emotionally, socially or physically incapable or underprepared for a child. This procedure in particular helps ease suffering on the part of the parents (who will not only have to deal with the loss associated with an abnormal birth, but whatever financial burden it may incur), the healthcare system, and the poor child that is to be born abnormally themself. How is restricting this ability compassionate in any way shape or form?
it really is amazing to witness all these comments from everyday people who think things like–
1) babies born without brains or spines (and worse) and then dying is a good thing.
2) babies born with intestines on the outside of their bodies (and worse) and then dying is a good thing.
3) women should chose death or living to carry a healthy child some day. And she doesn’t chose death voluntarily then chosing death for her is a good thing.
Shame shame on all you who think women are evil creatures who are only out to kill their babies the first second or third chance they get.
To the ones whom pass judgment on those they do not even know, you are a scrounge on society. You cannot know what rape is until you are raped, I was raped by my sisters husband the year after my parents died, I was eleven, no one believed me, but men do the “nasty” to women and we are not allowed to do anything about it, according to some, are they not the high and mighty now? Do they pay for it in any way? Then they have no say, period. Before abortion was legal women still had them and if they become illegal again, they will still have them. No women has a late term one without coming close to killing herself first, and that is what the religious ones want, death to them! First they want you not to have sex and then if you do, you are to be pregnant, period. Just ask them. They refuse to teach sex ed, they lie to the kids on purpose, and then they still have sex but get pregnant and no one tells them about contraception, they even lie about condoms! If you do not believe in them do not have one. But do not stand in they way of people you will never know.
No matter how you feel about r vs. w it’s not going to be overturned permanently, even, as Quinn suspects:
“The chief justice is young. His job is for life. And now we know. His court will eventually overturn Roe.”
If it happens it will be temporary. How many prom queens dead from infection caused by hanger-abortions, how many dead senators’ daughters, how many unwanted, malformed neonates will it take before legal abortion is reinstated. My guess: not many.
The repeal of abortion may happen as a regressive pause, a look back, like saying “are we sure we wanted this?” But for some things the pages can’t be turned back, and this I think, is one of them. People should concentrate on making abortion, as Clinton put it, “legal, safe, and rare.”
well, see, Bush likes to grows thems up so’s he can then puts thems to death.
George W. Bush during his six years as governor of Texas presided over 152 executions. He and his legal counsel Alberto Gonzales reviewed every case them selves, often on the day of execution…
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17670
I dunno, pro life?
errr, thats an average of 25 per year, or 1 every other week.
It must have been too hard on GW to kill 1 person a week so he took a week off between killin.
I work full time with kids who are the products of unwanted pregnancies.
They are hostile, violent, and angry at their mothers who despise them and treat them as parasites.
Do we really need more of these kids in the world?
Ah, yes, to those who offer the ‘put them up for adoption’ argument….
My cousin works as an adoption specialist.There are thousands of unwanted children in this area who will not be adopted.
People want to adopt blonde haired blue eyed babies, not the ones that are actually waiting for homes.
If you are so concerned about ‘protecting life’ perhaps instead of having kids, you should adopt them.
Telling a healthy young person not to have sex may not be the most laughable advice I’ve ever heard, but it’s close.
I suggest that all of you, even the supposed nurse in women’s health care need to educate yourself as to the reality of this issue. This procedure is used only in some very, very extreme cases due to medical necessity. No one who is not involved with someone who has dealt with this has any business ruling on this. Mind you, this is just another nail in the control of medical care to the detriment of patients. We are speaking of preeclampsia where any other method may leave the woman sterile or dead. We are speaking of malformed fetuses who will simply die within minutes to hours even if delivered. This is not a black and white issue when it comes to abortion, it is black and white in whether you believe those with NO MEDICAL training or knowledge of the patient’s situation should make such decisions. That is a very scary place.
As to the fact that 5 (all) of the majority are Roman Catholic is extremely disturbing since Ratzinger stated that any politician that did not actively work to abolish all abortions would be excommunicated makes me believe that these men should be impeached for pandering to a foreign power. The Vatican has an ambassador, thus, they leave being a religious institution and enter into being a state. These men have repeatedly shown that they value their own rhetoric / religion over the rule of law in our secular society. They do not belong on the court and should be impeached. Period. End of Story.
But I’m of the opinion that all who ruled on Bush should have been impeached since the Constitution, which they are sworn to protect, clearly states it should have gone to the joint Congress to be settled. But, hey, the U.S. Constitution is “just a piece of paper” according to Bush.
We lost when Reagan won. It is going to take a lot to get our rights back. Personally, I’m glad I live very close to Canada. If it gets to bad, I might swim the Great Lakes to get there.
Pax,
MLO