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