Jeniece Learned stood amid a crowd of earnest-looking men and women, many with small gold crosses in their lapels or around their necks, in a hotel lobby in Valley Forge, Pa. She had an easy smile and a thick mane of black, shoulder-length hair. She was carrying a booklet called “Ringing In a Culture of Life,” which was the schedule of the two-day event she was attending, organized by the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. The event was “dedicated to the 46 million children who have died from legal abortions since 1973 and the mothers and fathers who mourn their loss.”
Learned, who had driven five hours from a town outside Youngstown, Ohio, was raised Jewish. She wore a gold Star of David around her neck with a Christian cross inset in the middle of the design. She stood up in one of the morning sessions, attended by about 300 people, most of them women. The speaker, Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had asked if there were any “post-abortive” women present. The most fervent activists in the pro-life movement have usually had abortions, with large numbers admitting to multiple abortions.
Learned runs a small pregnancy counseling clinic called Pregnancy Services of Western Pennsylvania, in Sharon, where she tries to talk young girls and women, most of them poor, out of having abortions. She speaks in local public schools, promoting sexual abstinence as the only acceptable form of contraception. And she has found in the fight against abortion, and in her conversion, a structure, purpose and meaning that previously eluded her.
The relentless drive against abortion by the Christian right—the first salvo having been fired with the 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision last month to uphold the federal ban on the procedure known as “partial birth abortion”—has nothing to do with the protection of life. It is, rather, a cover for a wider and more pernicious assault against the ability of women to control their own bodies, the use of contraception and sexual pleasure. The movement openly conflates contraceptives with devices or substances that cause abortion. It holds up as heroes of “conscience” those pharmacists who refuse to sell contraceptives. It works to block over-the-counter sales of Plan B emergency contraceptive pills. It peddles, with hundreds of millions in tax dollars handed to the movement by the Bush administration, abstinence-only sex-ed curricula and opposes a vaccine against the HPV virus, the major cause of cervical cancer, claiming it would promote promiscuity.
The denial of contraception, as is well documented, increases the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. And abortion is never going to go away. If it again becomes illegal, the rich, as in the past, will find ways to provide abortions for their wives, mistresses and girlfriends, and the poor will die in unhygienic back rooms. But since this is a war with a wider agenda, abortion statistics and facts do not count. The Christian right fears pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, which it sees as degrading, corrupting and tainted. For many, their own experiences with sex—coupled with their descent into addictions and often sexual and domestic abuse before they found Christ—have led them to build a movement that creates an external rigidity to cope with the chaos of human existence, a chaos that overwhelmed them. They do not trust their own urges, their capacity for self-restraint or judgment. The Christian right permits its followers to project evil outward, a convenient escape for people unable to face the darkness and the psychological torments within them.
The leaders of this movement understand that the only emotion that cannot be subsumed into communal life, which they seek to dominate and control, is love. They fear the power of love, especially when magnified and expressed through tender, sexual relationships, which remove couples from their control. Sex, when not a utilitarian form of procreation, is dangerous.
They seek to fashion a world where good and evil are clearly defined and upheld by the nation’s judicial system. The battle against abortion is a battle to build a society where pleasure and freedom, where the capacity of the individual and especially women to make choices, and indeed even love itself, are banished. And this is why pro-life groups oppose contraception—even for those who are married. The fight against abortion is the facade for a wider fight against the right of an individual in a democracy.
Army of God, a pro-life organization that holds up as Christian “heroes” those who murder abortion providers, defines birth control as another form of abortion, as do many other pro-life groups. In the “Birth Control Is Evil” section of their website it reads: “Birth control is evil and a sin. Birth control is anti-baby and anti-child. …Why would you stop your own child from being conceived or born? What kind of human being are you?”
Learned’s life, before she was saved, was typically chaotic and painful. Her childhood was stolen from her. She was sexually abused by a close family member. Her mother periodically woke Learned and her younger sister and two younger brothers in the middle of the night to flee landlords who wanted back rent. The children were bundled into the car and driven in darkness to a strange apartment in another town. Her mother worked nights and weekends as a bartender. Learned, the oldest, often had to run the home. She got pregnant in high school and had an abortion.
“There was a lot of fighting,” she said. “I remember my dad hitting my mom one time and him going to jail. I don’t have a lot of memories, mind you, before eighth grade because of the sexual abuse. When he divorced my mom, he divorced us, too.”
“My grandfather committed suicide, my mom and my dad both tried suicide, my brothers tried suicide,” she said. “In my family, there was no hope. The only way to solve problems when they got bad was to end your life.”
She eventually married, had a born-again experience and began taking classes at Pacific Christian College in Orange County in California. During a chapel service an anti-abortion group, Living Alternative, showed a film called “The Silent Scream.”
“You see in this movie this baby backing up trying to get away from this suction tube,” she said. “And, its mouth is open and it is like this baby is screaming. I flipped out. It was at that moment that God just took this veil that I had over my eyes for the last eight years. I couldn’t breathe. I was hyperventilating. I ran outside. One of the girls followed me from Living Alternative. And she said, ‘Did you commit your life to Christ?’ And I said, ‘I did.’ And she said, ‘Did you ask for your forgiveness of sins?’ And I said, ‘I did.’ And she goes, ‘Does that mean all your sins, or does that mean some of them?’ And I said, ‘I guess it means all of them.’ So she said, ‘Basically, you are thinking God hasn’t forgiven you for your abortion because that is a worse sin than any of your other sins that you have done.’ ”
The film ushered her into the fight to make abortion illegal. Her activism, like that of many women in the movement, became atonement for her own abortion.
She struggled with severe depression after she gave birth to her daughter Rachel. When she came home from the hospital she was unable to care for her infant. She thought she saw an 8-year-old boy standing next to her bed. It was, she is sure, the image of the son she had “murdered.”
“I started crying and asking God over and over again to forgive me,” she remembered. “I had murdered his child. I asked him to forgive me over and over again. It was just incredible. I was possessed. On the fourth day I remember hearing God’s voice. ‘I have your baby, now get up!’ It was the most incredibly freeing and peaceful moment. I got up and I showered and I ate. I just knew it was God’s voice.”
The fight against abortion is a battle against a culture she and those in the movement despise. It is a culture they believe betrayed them. The rigidity of the new belief system, the sanctification of hatred toward those who would “murder” the unborn or contaminate America with the godless creed of “secular humanism,” fosters feelings of righteousness and virtue. But it also means destroying all competing communities. The sense of entitlement and inclusiveness, brought on by the certitude of belief, is matched by the power of destructive fury.
Learned lives in the nation’s Rust Belt. The flight of manufacturing jobs has turned most of the old steel mill towns around her into wastelands of poverty and urban decay. The days when steel workers could make middle-class salaries are a distant and cherished memory. She lives amid America’s vast and growing class of dispossessed, those tens of millions of working poor, 30 million of whom make less than $8.70 an hour, the official poverty level for a family of four. Most economists contend that it takes at least twice this amount to provide basic necessities to a family of four. These low-wage jobs, which come without benefits or job security, have meant billions in profits for corporations that no longer feel the pressure or the need to take care of their workers. But this new American landscape has also bred a profound despair and hopelessness, as well as physical destruction of community that fuels the Christian right.
The war to “protect life,” to crush “the culture of death,” is a war against the open society. It is a war to push back the gains in women’s rights, in personal choice, in the power of the individual to form his or her own life. It is a war that seeks to refashion America into a place where external forms of repression, imposed by the government, are used in a bid to contain the brokenness, desperation and emotional turmoil of those Americans whom we, as a society, betrayed. It is, in short, a war of revenge. And until we re-enfranchise these Americans into society, until we give them hope and alleviate the economic and social blights that have plunged them into the arms of demagogues and charlatans who promise a mythical, unachievable Christian paradise and utopia, we will have to face a growing assault on our personal liberties and freedoms.
Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”
©2007 TruthDig.com
Nobody thinks of abortion as the first option. The sad reality is that it is a decision about our most precious reality, life itself. Many good, moral and devout Christians, find themselves caught between leaders who go far beyond their personal convictions in this area. People facing hard choices, financial concerns, health issues, or the trama of rape, incest, or very young poor choices all demonstrate compelling reasons for a response of compassion. Those not in the position, as well as many who struggle to conceive can not imagine ever making a choice for abortion, and even many of those most strongly defending the right of a woman to choose hold personally what they would consider an absolute personal moral choice which would deny themself the freedom for abortion while defending others right to practice it.
When this issue is fought as a legel battle, in language of moral absolutes good people get caught supporting positions they do not hold personally. Leaders in the movements deman loyality and agressively push their agenda futher dividing families, neighbors, and communities. Leaders in the “Pro-life” movement have made this an one issue deal breaker, which defines your personal morality and spiritual commitment. The package which you then support denies life in many ways, and effectively increases the actual numbers of abortions. If pastors faithfully taught Biblically and not the easy party line, we could unite pro-choice and pro-life communities in efforts to help actually reduce the demand for abortion while providing compassion for the special cases. The tragic war between these groups is going to escualte and leave no winners unless we learn to use language which communicates and unites rather than divides.
Chris Hedges, with his Harvard Divinity degree and all, illustrates perfectly the dilemma of this whole controversy. While rightly decrying the implicit prudery and urge to domineer over the lives of those in their fold on the part of the Christo-fascists, he has no answer for the very real anguish of many women who have had abortions.
Sooner or later they have to either pretend that what they had expelled from their body was not a life or that in so doing that they committed murder.
The priviliges of sexual intercourse carry the respnsibilities of dealing with the consequences–whether those consequences be std’s, unintended pregancies, or shattered emotional lives.
Regrettably neither side addresses these consequences. The christo-fascists tell you to pretend you are not sexual till marriage and in some cases even after that you better be trying to make kids or else you are depraved.
Meanwhile, the pro-choice club wants you to be allowed to do whatever you want to do sexually as well as whatever any doctor tells you to do to deal with the consequences with little or no serious contemplation of the effect such a laize-faire ethic might have for the woman.
After either the birth or abortion, neither side cares about what the woman has gone or will go through. Christo-fascists say, “it’s your sacred and God-ordained respnsibility to care for what you made and the pro-choice club says “fetus gone problem gone!”
The christo-fascists and the pro-choice club are done with these women at the time when they need support and help the most. They are both miserable company and so unworthy of those whom they suppossedly seek to “help”.
The greatest threat to choice is ignorance, and religious fundimentalism thrives on fear and ignorance. Conversely the best approach to family planning and curbing unwanted pregnancy is education and easy access to birth control.
“they opposes a vaccine against the HPV virus, the major cause of cervical cancer, claiming it would promote promiscuity.”
How about banning viagra?…that sure as HELL promotes adultery
Hoe about banning aids research?
As a conservative, I differ with many of my ilk on this subject. I do agree with a woman’s right to choose with regard to access to abortion. I find this a most distasteful form of birth control, and I agree that education and instilling a firm understanding of the consequences of ill considered sexual adventures is the key to avoiding this procedure.
However, I do draw a line in the moral sand where abortions are carried out in the third trimester solely for the purposes of convienence to the mother. To purposely kill a perfectly healthy and viable child in a perfectly healthy mother in this horrid, dispicable manner is murder, in my opinion and should be legally and criminally treated as such.
There are too many people waiting to adopt healthy babies.
http://www.adoptuskids.org/resourceCenter/howToAdopt.aspx
What if the mother’s life is endangered in the third trimester if she does not have the abortion? Is that something that should be prosecuted? It is too easy to make laws that don’t take into account such considerations. It is incorrect to assume that every woman who has an abortion at that point is doing so out of convenience. Also, not every abortion performed is done so because of “ill-considered sexual adventures”. That is unless you consider rape by a family member or close friend to be a “sexual adventure”. I think it is woefully ignorant of people to assume that every woman has an abortion because she couldn’t be bothered to be safe. In addition to that, what about the male responsibility in the whole process or are men just exempt because its the woman’s responsibility to think of such things? Gimme a break.
The threat to choice may be the way the argument is played out. Abortion isn’t merely a woman’s own body - the denial of the life of the fetus makes the prochoice side seem anti-life; then the rhetoric starts flying. The demonization of human promiscuity and available birth control and safe sex practices by the prolife side makes them seem anti-choice and controlling.
If we could stem the vitriol of the extremes and have a real discussion about this we may actually make some progress. Not every move against abortion anytime for any reason is against personal choice. Laws curb our personal choices for good reason - when they affect the lives of others. But regulating morality never works and in itself can be immoral - leading people to perform ethical calisthenics in a hunt to find loopholes.
And therein lies the rub.
The extremes of both sides have sculpted the debate thus far. Like I said previously, I am pro-choice until we get to the third trimester. I cannot morally condone the hacking to bits of a viable, healthy child for purposes of convenience.
That dismisses any argument about rape, incest, etc. If you don’t know in the first two trimesters about the realities of the situation and deal with it then, it is too late in my book. Sorry.
Like it or not, my North Border friend, abortion is a very poor form of birth control. It does begin with the decision to become sexual, and continues with the decision to safely and responsibly engage therein.
That’s my input for the discussion.
Some thoughts on this subject:
1. Anti-abortionists are typically “pro-birth.” Many of them in today’s political climate do not support Universal health and sick care which indicates that they are not for supporting “life” in all its stages.
2. Many women who have had abortions do not experience guilt over their actions. Many of them have children or go on to have children and raise them well.
3. Just by the act of living, a human body undergoes the birth and death of millions of cells. As bizarre as it may seem, much of the abortion debate is *not about “life,”* it is about defining when a mass of developing cells (differentiated or otherwise) becomes an “individual.” Only Jim Gilmore among the current republican candidates for running for president in 2008 appears to understand this.
4. The position that an individual begins at conception has its origins in a religious view (dogmatic or misguided?). It is easy to argue that if every embryo must be born, then every egg must be fertilized.
5. Technology will advance in the next few decades, which will allow us to create sperm and egg cells from adult stem cells. Technology will also advance to the point where one egg can “fertilize” another egg (all one needs to do is change the protein coating on one of the eggs in the appropriate fashion). For the record, both the above techniques work with mice (Google for references if you like).
6. Just as a seed is not a tree, an embryo is not a human “individual.” The debate is primarily about deciding when a mass of cell(s)(or fetus) is (or becomes) an individual.
7. Primarily, I see much of the abortion debate as a way for the Christian right to impose their sexual morals on the rest of the population.
So, the xtian-fascist ANTI-CHOICERS prefer to attack women rather than join the fight in destroying the sociopathic corporate structure that has robbed them of “hope” — how typically and hatefully misogynist. and it’s no surprise to me (or any active feminist) that they Really want to outlaw birth control. as mentioned, the issue is their puritan fear of love and pleasure, as well as the implications of a world where women have a choice as to when/whether they have children.
further, i’m tired of hearing some of the “pro choice” side saying “i believe in abortion, but…” as if that should be the law for EVERYONE to follow….you either believe that women should have the choice or not. i’m quite tired of the limitations placed on access to HEALTH CARE! of course abortion is not used as birth control…who in their right mind would spend upwards of $300US for the (very unpleasant) procedure, just cuz their too lazy to take pills/use another birth control device? yet another way the fascists have controlled how folks think about this issue.
and please, spare me the anecdotal stories of “i knew a friend of a friend used abortion as BC…SO F*&!ing What!!! i bet that for every one of those stupid stories, i can come up with one about how viagra is misused. i can also do without the “women feel bad after abortions”….i’m sure that a few do, but as with many things that we women deal with in life, we get over it and move on. and frankly, it would be nice if these anti-choicers would put as much energy into helping women recover from other horrors that we face, like, say, rape or child molestation.
i close with George Carlin, who said: Every ejaculation does NOT need a name!
Great article. It shows that if the fundies were really against abortion, they would promote birth control.
“The fight against abortion is the facade for a wider fight against the right of an individual in a democracy.”
And Jaded Prole is right:
“The greatest threat to choice is ignorance, and religious fundamentalism thrives on fear and ignorance. Conversely the best approach to family planning and curbing unwanted pregnancy is education and easy access to birth control.”
All this debate about the unborn children and nobody seems to give a second thought to the fact that the most common surgery in america is the genital mutilation of infant boys. An embryo is a human being with all the protections of the constitution but a child that is here already is subjected to irreversible body mutilation. Imagine this, you are at a family gathering someone takes one of the children aside ties them down to a board and while the child screams their lungs out, the child is subjected to genital manipulation and then part of their body is cut off and everybody stands around like nothing is happening. What would you call this? child molestation? pedophilia? Can you see yourself in this scenario? I didn’t think so.
Back to abortion. The facts of life in these united states belie the right to life stances’ true purpose. If the life of the unborn child was really such a concern to these people why don’t they support free prenatal care for all expectant mothers, how about free day care as well for working parents. How about free medical care for all children not old enough to support themselves. Children are never responsible for their circumstances yet are the ones who suffer the consequences of the actions of others.
This isn’t even about the oppression of women specifically. This goes all the way back to the roman empire co-opting cristianity and creating the holy roman empire. This is about slavery and maintaining a fresh supply of new slaves. Everywhere the catholic church colonized has gone from a stable population of indigenous people to one of overpopulation and poverty, while the colonizers extract whatever resources available with the local labor force that they work to death, with a promise of a reward in heaven.
Today the resource is simply labor itself, the law of supply and demand dictates that the more laborers available the cheaper the wage.
Also the question about when life begins is moot. Life began hundreds of millions if not billions of years ago. An egg is alive, a sperm is alive when they combine there is a possibility of a new individual developing. Many never even implant in the uterus and are miscarried. Also it’s not a miracle when someone has a baby, we know pretty much exactly how it happens.
I personally feel that the pro-choice movement had stood by woman who have had botched abortions and had died or been injured to the point where they cant have any children. As to why the pro-life movement doesnt discuss this is astonishing. First and foremost most of them see abortion as just doing it for convenience, if you notice PDFee did not even bring this up . It as if woman do not have problem pregnancy where the only choice is to abort, Is it not better for one death instead of two? at least the pro-choice way at least she can try again. I believe they want a woman to die during childbrith rather than save her life it seems that their notion of fetus come in front of the woman is what they are secretly thinking. For one had a man can get pregnant abortion would not be an issue. i dont hear any man saying they want to be treated like this. No one wants anyone controlling their body and for whatever reason a woman gets pregnant it is up to her to decide those consequences not the church or the pro-life movement or politicains. For one she is not a ten year old. they can do it themselves. I do not understand why the pro-life movement treat woman like they cant find their asses with both hands., Do they not think we are bold enough and have the wherewithal in times of desperation to risk their lives. It reminds me of the story I read about Puerto Rican woman during the 60’s and 70’s who became sterile for the very same reason woman are facing today. the misuse and control over their uterus. I wish one day woman will decide that maybe I am better off than going through this. It sounds unrealistic but if Puerto Rican woman can do it why not other woman.
People, it is important to frame the debate in terms that are emotionally neutral. The Pro-birth faction uses “Pro-life” to evoke an emotional “Not-for-death” response. Most of them are not “pro-life”, they are “pro-birth.” Make them acknowledge so in their arguments. By doing so, at least you have the chance that they might start looking at Health care and sick care as a right and not a privilege as many of them do (last week’s Republican presidential candidates for 2008 demonstrates the need for such framing).
The comment about Viagra was really important. This is nuts! On the one hand the culture is hyper-marketing this sexual drug to heterosexual men and on the other had denying birth control and abortion access to women. Excuse me! What about mandatory vasectomies while we’re legislating the body?
And before we move into the rosy glow of happily-ever-after adoption, because someone raised that issue, as a parent –let alone a mother — can you imagine handing your newborn child over to a perfect stranger never to be seen again? And yes it does make a difference to a child to be raised in a family where no one shares his or her genetic history. Think about the Smothers Brothers (if you were around in the sixties) and the “He’s the adopted one” jokes. There is NO easy out for a woman with an unplanned pregnancy that she does not have the resources to support.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the mother’s health is no longer relevant. An op ed piece in yesterday’s LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-neil6may06,0,2723837.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail) spoke eloquently to that fact and its ramifications.
It’s insulting to women and our intelligent to presume that we take abortion lightly, or that all mid and late term abortions are matters of convenience. I find it offensive in the extreme that the Justices now have decided that they know women’s minds better than we do, to say nothing of the fact that they have apparently decided that their position allows them to practice medicine without a license. Can you imagine what would happen to us mere mortals should we dare to do the same?
I also find it abhorent that those who rail the loudest about being “pro-life” seem to forget about life once it passes through the birth canal. Their true agendas are being exposed for what they are.
I first read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale while Reagan was President, and I re-read it recently. The first time it was disturbing but obviously science fiction. This time, I’m not as certain.
I am a woman who has had an abortion. I was in a relationship but not a marriage and I was using birth control, and it failed. We were not interested in marrying each other and did not have the means to properly support a child. Mine was a first trimester abortion, and while I do sometimes wonder what the child would have been like, I do not consider myself a murderer. After my marriage I had two miscarriages, and two healthy sons. Both of the miscarriages were relatively early, at ten and twelve weeks. I was sad to lose the babies, but I did not feel as if they were truly children yet-and I actually saw one of them. But I do love both of my boys. If someone wants to think of me as unwomanly and unnatural and a murderer, then I can’t stop them. But I think you should only bring children into the world if you have the means to care for them. And the pro-lifers get very quiet about what happens after the baby they insist you have gets here.
When I was in the clinic to have my abortion, I talked to another woman while we were waiting. She was very angry at the protesters outside the clinic. She said the following-”I am here because I have two children already. I was using birth control and it failed. My husband and I both work full time, and we can’t feed another child. Are they going to feed this child for me if I have it? I don’t think so.” We spoke long enough for me to know that her decision had not been arrived at lightly, that she truly had no financial choice.
My second successful pregancy took place at an age that was older than was optimal. I had an amniocentesis, and was quite prepared to abort the baby in the second trimester if it turned out to have a birth defect. I know my limitations, and I could not have cared for such a child in perpetuity. And what would have happened to it after I was gone? My OB-GYN said to me after the tests turned out normal that he could not say anything to influence me beforehand, but that he thought I had been very sensible. He described delivering an ancephalic baby the week before. This was a child who would never have more than autonomic brain function-it would exist in a permanently vegetative state. The mother had known this was the case and had insisted on bringing the child to term anyway, because of her religious beliefs. Why? What sort of quality of life is that? He also said that the marriage was the first casualty in these situations, time after time.
The point of all this is that I consider myself very fortunate that I had access to a safe abortion, and that is a right I would like to preserve for future generations of women. As has been said above, abortion is always going to be there-it will simply be underground and hazardous if it is outlawed. And I do very much agree that if the pro-life folks were truly as pro-life as they claim, they would give the poor babies and children already here om the ground as much care and concern as they do the fetuses. They would be protesting the war in Iraq with the same fervor they use to protest the fate of some embryonic stem cells. Aren’t there children dying by the thousands over there? They would be donating to relief programs for starving African children. They would be insisting that every baby born in this country be guaranteed food, shelter medical care and education. Because until they can guarantee that, as far as I’m concerned, they have no moral grounds for insisting a woman bring a child into the world.
The logic of squalling about forbidding scientific use of embryonic stem cells because it creates a “culture of death”, while not censuring people who go to fertility clinics where they regularly dispose of fertilized eggs both in and out of the womb, eludes me. And to try to suppress knowledge of, and access to, birth control on this over-populated planet of ours, is simply criminal.
My husband has the right idea, I think. He won’t discuss the abortion issue with any pro-lifer who hasn’t adopted an unwanted child.
I would dearly love to speak at a pro-life rally, and point out that the story of Abraham and Isaac teaches us that a man owns the life of his children as a posession - how else would Abraham be able to offer Isaacs life as a sacrifice to his God?
Consequently, biblically speaking, abortion or infanticide is perfectly ok if the man of the house agrees to it. Note, BTW, that there is not a word in the OT specifically forbidding either.
Note, also, that it goes way beyond infanticide. Isaac was old enough to carry wood for the fire up the mountain. In the OT a man owns - simply owns - his produce, his livestock, his slaves, his wives, and his children.
Oh - and a final thing. Ever noticed how Abraham and Isaac go up the mountain together, but at the end, only Abraham comes down? The whole “ram in the bushes” thing is a later insertion. You can see the seam in the story where it says “and then God spoke to Abraham a second time”. In the original, Abraham sacrifices Isaac’s life, and in return God grants him title to so-called “greater Israel”. It’s that simple.
I fought this battle during my years of fertility. It is now up to the young women to continue the fight. However, I do have a solution to the possibility of making abortion illegal. Okay make it illegal, however, the law should include that the father of the fetus will be held equally responsible for the murder of the fetus. You can bet that once men find they might be jailed for sowing their wild oats, it will never become law. During my years, the question of paternity was sometimes in question; but, with DNA, today paternity can be determined. The woman and the doctor should not be the only people held responsible. 95 percent of the women I have known who had abortions did so because the father told her it was her problem not his. And, that is the way many men feel about such situations.
PaulM, you know those flat-earth pastoralist tribal killer nomads too well. Yahweh my ass. Tribal totems are always used to cover the shit, and later they change the story. You got the story straight. These boys were a rum bunch, they’d do anybody and human slavery was just fine by them. Genocide was no stranger either.
Very much an accurate parallel to my Aryan ancestors, who were also flat-earth pastoralist tribal killer nomads. Yup, that’s how we started. Round mobile homes, ponies, wives, trade goods, weapons, flocks and herds, and of course a major source of wealth, our slaves. If we met people who were militarily weak we killed them all and took took everything they had. If they were militarily strong we’d get out the trade goods and probe for weakness. Sound familiar? We thought patriarchy was a pretty good idea too.
I just think we’re missing the message here. The troops the fundies recruit in their war against an open society are the victims of our world. They are the people our Masters have thrown under the bus. Mr. Hedges has said this repeatedly. We niggle around the edges and with side issues.
“Baby Killers” is propaganda, not an argument. You don’t argue with propaganda, you expose the roots of the lie. The lie here is the destruction of our blue-collar middle class. If that core issue is not dealt with along with the class war that we have been losing for 40 years, we’re just fighting symptoms and everybody loses, just like we have.
40 years ago we had the greatest distribtion of wealth in the history of the world. We had the largest blue-collar middle class in the Industrial World. The end of poverty was in sight and lifetime, stable employment was on the horizon.
The foundation of this abundance was the Roosevelt Legacy of taxation, corporate regulation, unionization, and social programs. As a direct result our Ruling Class was nearly moribund. Not any more. Democracy or Oligarchy. We choose.
If anybody hasn’t worked it out yet, Oligarchy is slavery for all of us. Can you compete with slave labor or do you become a slave in the attempt? Of course contraception & abortion cannot be allowed in a slave society. ‘Property’ does not have economic or biological self-determination.
Roe wouldn’t even be a question in a majority middle class country with minimal poverty, stable middle class lives with free public education (including science and biology)for life, along with decent healthcare for everyone. Wouldn’t even be a question. In a slave society, Roe is an impossibility. We ignore the roots of our destruction to our peril.
Peace.
There are very few late-term abortions. The vast majority of those who have gone through many weeks of pregnancy are people who want the pregnancy to continue to birth, or are at least accepting of that fact.
When they occur, late-term abortions occur for these reasons:
(1) the woman suffers a serious medical complication that makes the continuation of the pregnancy dangerous to her (e.g., pre-enclampsia; kidney failure);
(2) the fetus is found to be seriously abnormal. Either the child could not survive long after birth, or the child’s life prospects are dreadful;
(3) the woman is very young, and has been in denial about her pregnancy. This can happen because she fears the domestic consequences of admitting that she is pregnant, because she is so immature that she is mired in denial and wishful thinking. A third possibility is that she lives in one of the many counties in the US in which there are NO abortion services available, and has been unable to figure out how to raise the money or organize the logistics to travel.
Virtually NO late-term abortion is properly characterized as ‘abortion for convenience.’ In fact, the characterization is offensive: I have two pairs of (fairly inexpensive) earphones, for convenience: it’s easier to leave one in my locker and to have one at home, than to have to remember to bring the home pair with me all the time.
Not continuing a pregnancy when you have serious medical problems, or when the child would be born with catastrophic medical problems, or when you are 14 and cannot even get it together to address the fact that you are pregnant….no, that’s not ‘convenience.’
Moonshadow, I agree with your husband’s point about not discussing abortion with pro-birth supporters who have never adopted.
I have a colleague who espouses anti-abortion views. One day he mentioned that he and his wife may try for their fourth kid. I mentioned that he ought to consider adoption as there were many children who could use a good home. He has never mentioned abortion or having kids around me since that time.
Most pro-birthers I encounter have little to no interest in working for a society that supports children. Their behavior seems to follow the maxim “I don’t want to do the wrong thing” and is emblematic of the fear based set of morals they follow. Rather than working to do the right thing they focus on avoiding doing the wrong thing.
Good thought provoking discussion. I think that the next election hot button issue to resurrect by the right wing will be this one. There are some people who think they are being moral by voting only on a candidate’s view and record on this issue excluding the rest of the pertinent issues of being alive. They fail to see that they are being manipulated often into voting against their interests and the pro humanity interests that are so poorly expressed in the “pro life” movement’s political zealotry. They feel rightous and are praised by the right wingers. But life is not as black and white as being right about a direct cause-effect relationship on the issue of “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice”. The framing of this issue is wrong as has been stated in this thread. We are all some of both sides.
For example, the “pro-life” majority legislature in one state recently blocked legislation broadening healthcare to all pregant women in their state and children under age 5. Good prenatal care does cut down on pregnancy complications including miscarriages. Ever read, Ghosts From the Nursery? (Underscore the book title virtually please.) These legislators worship differently than I if they fail to see the morality of providing care for the poor pregnant women before and after birth. That issue is black and white.
Another perspective on the woman in the essay who had a safe legal abortion and was alive to cope with the emotional aftermath is that it is better than a woman who puts her life at risk with some home remedy abortion to try to regain control over her destiny as perceived by the moment.
Dare to think differently, no matter your poorly framed past conclusions.
The problem here, as I see it: pro-lifers think that killing a fetus is at least as bad as murdering an adult human being, so framing this as a women’s rights issue will do no good, because no one argues that women have a right to murder another adult. The exception to this, of course, is self defense. Frame it as a self defense issue or all will be surely be lost.
The issue will then become: when is it self defense, and when is it mere “convenience”? It is legal to kill a person who invades your house and threatens your life. It is not legal to kill someone because they are financially demanding of you.
Also, consider this: you cannot kill another adult just because doing so would save your life. Imagine, for instance, that you needed an organ transplant to survive, but only one person had a compatible organ.
The alternative to all this is to convince pro-lifers that a fetus is not a human being at all. There is some chance of doing this in the case of early embryos and such, but there will be a sticking point for a long time with viable third-trimester kids.
Tragedy, tragedy.
My late mother had more than one “back street illegal” abortion as a teenager. An older man had “taken advantage” of her, more than once. (This is all I know about this. I learned this late in my life, after my mother died.)
Mother had multiple miscarriages and premature births. Six pregnancies, total, with father. #5 was at five months. A little girl, fully formed. She lived a few hours. It was 1956. #6 was me, at 6.5 months, 2 lbs 10 oz. I spent the first 6 months in the hospital, but lived. (Sister was adopted 6 years later.)
The sister of a friend of mine informed him that their mutual father, the husband of their mutual mother, was the father of her firstborn son. In other words, his nephew was also his half-brother. She endured the pregnancy at age 16.
I could go on with examples.
I have no answers.
But I know that there are tragedies, as well as medical complications, and that there are no easy answers.
Chris-
I usually support your stances–especially your anti-war position! And I like that you have seen so much of life from the other side–as a proponent of war, and therefore condoning the destruction of innocent life.
However, we part company in your pro-life, anti-abortion stance! I think, as one previous blogger stated, that to have credibility in this position, those who are anti-abortion (and wish to have credibility) must have adopted a child who was unwanted and therefore given up for adoption, no matter what country or culture! To think that a woman must give birth to a child she does not want, and has mistakenly conceived, is (in my opinion) to deny that child abuse, depression (and, let’s face it–over-population) are all VERY related issues!
I wish you would stick to your anti-war sentiments. You make so much sense there! And you have credentials that speak clearly. In bearing children, you have none!!!
All arguments aside, it’s all about CONTROL.
Sure, a woman does not have any right to kill another human being just because she is a woman, but a fetus is not a “human being” in any meaningful sense … unless you belive in an immaterial “spirit” which somehow comes into existence or attaches itself to the blast at conception.
Biblically, of course, the life enters the body with its first breath. At death the breath, the ruach (hebrew), the pnumea (greek), the spirit (latin), leaves the body as in: “his breath departed from him”. IOW: “spirit” is simply a word meaning the vital essence. An unbreathing fetus hooked up to its mother’s blood supply is not a living soul - biblically speaking.
Not that it matters. None of these people actually read their holy book, except for the isolated proof texts that their masters tell them to read.
luckylefty - yeah, I know these people. Used to be one of ‘em. Now I run www.exchristian.org . Not the prettiest deconversion site, but one of the first
.
Interesting discussion, I’m seeing different perspectives.
Nelle Mason: Let me rephrase what you’re saying…
It’s abhorrent and wrong to consider handing your newborn child over to an adoptive couple; but it’s OK to kill it in the womb?
Is that what you’re saying?? Please tell me no…
CocoaSwan: You’re just freakin’ weird. Seek help.
The rest of you: You are making my point that the two ends of the spectrum are controlling the debate. There is room in the middle.
Paul M:
Are you willing to entertain the notion that a viable healthy BABY, which if not killed in the womb will survive on it’s own, is at some point in the pregnancy not a “fetus” like you say, and subject to discretionary termination?
At some point, and that point is debatable from many perspectives, I believe you are in fact killing another living, feeling & thinking human being when you abort a pregnancy. That is not from a spiritually-centered moral outlook, but from a common sense, logical outlook. Am I wrong?
Or would you condone the “termination” of a life at any point, up to and including birth?
Granted, there are some teenagers who’s parents would certainly extend the time of this option.
I’ve always found a curious dichotomy between the beliefs of the “typical” progressive. I know not all feel this way, but it’s a stereotypical liberal mindset.
There is little or no compunction about the termination of an innocient child in the womb, but when it comes to keeping a convinced killer alive ~ the situation suddenly reverses. I don’t get that concept at all. Why disregard the “rights” of one to live, and covet the “rights” of another to live? Anybody help me understand that one?
I do not understand why this society kowtows to the religious right. I do not try to tell them how to live their lives, so why should they tell me? So it’s not ok to terminate a pregnancy, but it’s ok to kill thousands of our soldiers in the prime of their life? It’s not ok to abort a deformed fetus, but it’s ok to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children? It’s ok to promote abstinence, but it’s not ok to educate on how to prevent pregnancy with the proper use of contraceptives? It’s ok to promote sex via viagra but not provide for the result of that? Sounds like bigtime hypocrisy to me.
This is not a Christian nation, we do not all believe in God, and nothing should force these views on the entire nation.
Why is the “pro life” crowd also so fervently pro-capital punishment? And why is the “pro life” crowd also generally against such concepts as universal health care, which would help the bay after birth?
Because they only care about the baby IN THEORY, and not IN REALITY. Once the baby is born (”real”) its value to them as a theoretical tool has ended.
The point everyone seems to miss in this argument is this! We have a small group of people who are dictating to everyone else in this country what is morally right and wrong! There concept of right and wrong is based on religious fundamentalism! It is not based on reality or even truth! Where does everyone figure this group has a right to dictate anything to anyone???? I am certain they wouldn’t like it if I dictated morality to them. There theory’s are based solely on religious dogma! Which can not be proven or even disproven! This is their belief that they want to force down everyone in this countries throats! I personally am growing extremely tired of these people! They have ruined my relationship with God and the Catholic Church both! I only see God as a ‘right wing nut case’ now! I look at the mess these people are creating with their sick belief’s and I get physically ill! We are in a life and death struggle with over-population! If something serious isn’t done to stop the uncontroled growth on this planet the human race is going to be doomed to oblivion! Uncontrolled population is destroying the enviorment, putting a strain on our natural resources, which doesn’t begin to count what it is doing to people who have to live in the mess! But, these people want to add 3 or 4 million people to the population ever year? That doesn’t make a gram of sense! They aren’t using their brains that God gave them! They are letting their religious belief’s cloud their judgement! I personally do not believe that God gave us this beautiful planet to destroy in such a fashion! The Christian fundamentalist’s thrive on hate, bigotry and guilt! As I read the piece I was taken back to my childhood that was spent in total misery due to people like this! It turned my sister and I both against religion. It has become a money hungry institution that is raping people!
I have seldom read so much post-modernist dogma in my (long) life. (As it is maintained in lunatic asylums and some university schools of sociology!) You might at least be consistent and concede (as good post-modernists should) that one person’s opinion is as valid as another - or be prepared to say by what authority you don’t. Tell me please, are new parents expecting a baby or a foetus?
Paul M:
You remind me of a T-shirt the members of the Agnostic and Atheist Student Group at Texas A&M University produced: “Top 10 reasons why beer is better than Jesus.” The number 1 reason was “If you have devoted your life to beer, there are groups to help you stop.” It looks like you are one of the few who are addressing this point
Peacemaker: The small group of people you refer to are “authoritarians.” The reason we are debating here is because we do not like such people to dictate policy. You might want to check out former Nixon adminstation official John Dean’s recent book.
An Lef Kernewek: New parents are expecting an infant that will survive in our enviroment, not a mass of undifferentated cells nor a differentiated organism that bears little resemblance to one.
This “pro-life” argument is so strange in the current world of wholesale death in Iraq, in Darfur, and in countless areas of the world where adequate nutrition and access to clean water and basic health care are nonexistent. Where was the argument against the war in Iraq, for example, because it would result in the deaths of innocent lives, including infants? Sorry, collateral damage doesn’t work here, because “shock and awe” bombing campaigns automatically involve collateral damage.
I don’t usually engage in diverting the argument to other issues, and I realize that abortion is a specific issue that should be considered in its own right. Nonetheless, it must be noted that we prioritize life all the time. Here in the U.S, the lives of “illegal immigrants” are deemed less valuable than those of citizens, as evidenced by laws that would criminalize efforts to ensure their safety, sometimes even their survival in the desert. The lives of the poor are less valuable as evidenced by their inability to afford decent health care. The list goes on.
To prioritize or privilege the “rights of the unborn” just seems hypocritical to me when so many other innocent lives are deemed expendable. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that this issue is all about controlling women, and especially female sexuality, which is a hallmark of conservativism, because it reaffirms the kind of hierarchical power relationships that conservatism extols. It gives men control of life, of who gets to live and who gets to die.
Were men the ones who gave birth, this issue wouldn’t even be on the table, and until men are willing to let women control their own lives, there will be disagreement, with the demands for the government to control women’s lives. If one were to carry the thesis that contreception is bad to it’s illogical conclusion, then one could support the premise that ejaculation without conception must be illegal!!
One other philosophical discrepancy that has always confounded me is why are most anti abortion proponents also pro death penalty? Life is filled with these illogical situations.
The biggest reason all these women feel bad about an abortion, they are in a culture that thrives on making them feel bad! They are spoon fed a steady diet of guilt! If they don’t feel guilt ridden there is something wrong with them morally! My daughter had one at 15. My husband insisted upon it. She felt bad at first but soon realized she was to young to have a baby and be a mother! I think it’s time to stop the Christian fundamentalist guilt trips over being human! That is what it boils down to, as far as they are concerned everything of the world is a sin. They have grown to be a sickening group of people. I was raised by Christian parents to believe it was a sin to bring an unwanted child into this world! I still feel the same today! To bring an unwanted child into this world is a crime against humanity. Every child should be wanted. I know they claim there are plenty of people out there who want to adopt. If that’s the way it is, they why are there so many unadoptable children floating around in the system?
PDFee:
There are many who accept that a fetus in its later stages of development can survive (likely with some help from modern medical technology) outside the womb.
Logically speaking, a newborn infant has feelings and is typically alive, but to say that it is thinking is a stretch.
We do not have conclusive evidence that a newborn “thinks” or has a sense of self (thinking, as in using abstractions – For the record, I am unaware of a good scientific definition for thinking). If I remember correctly, a sense of self manifests itself around the age of 11 months give or take (i.e. if you mark an infant’s forehead and show the infant its reflection, it recognizes that it is looking at itself and the mark is on its forehead. A typical reaction by the little one is to try to rub the mark off).
Therefore, as far as we know, abortion by its current definition does not involve the termination of a “thinking being,” but a “pre-thinking” one.
If you prefer general principles on understanding many progressives, here is one formulation: “The rights of the future generation as a class supersede the rights of the current generation as a class. However, the rights of an individual in the current generation, supersedes the rights of an individual in a future, non-realized generation.”
Furthermore, it is not that progressives do not have compunctions about abortion. The drive of the genes is to reproduce; the termination of a pregnancy is therefore not an easy choice. Progressives simply trust that a pregnant woman is capable of deciding the best course of action given her circumstances.
One trait of borderline personalities is that they see issues such as abortion, war, etc. as black and white, an “either you’re with me or against me” view of life. These hardcore fundies CH writes about will never realize that life is grey–full of ambiguities and indecision. Like it or not, that’s where we live. No rational discussion about issues such as abortion can begin without such an acknowledgement, that each point of view is equally valid to begin with.
All we can hope to do is to keep such extreme antichoice attitudes out of the mainstream without denying their right to their beliefs. But how to do this? We better figure it out before we wake up one day to a nightmare of inquisitions. We could start by electing secular leaders who know what grey looks like.
ThoughtShaman:
You’ve actually held a newborn baby in your hands? Assuming at some point that you have, I cannot believe that you are willing to stand here, right now, and state that newborn babies are unthinking beings. Incredibly and mind-blowingly weird if you actually believe that. I don’t often find myself in agreement with progressives, but to find myself so diametretically opposed on something so basic is new to me.
When I see the light in a newborn babies eyes, I see the thought of the ages! A profound and wonderous sense of thought and essence of purity that is without equal. A thought that has yet to be corrupted, manipulated and shaped by any force other than love.
My distaste for abortive activities is not based entirely on spiritual dogma, as some on this thread would believe. But a simple and honest belief that we all have a right to survive, we have a right to thrive, and a right to have the chance to become what we will.
To take that right away from a new and pure individual is just wrong. In fact, it is the purest definition of wrong.
I can handle severe and profound health issues, I can handle health-of-the-mother issues, I can even handle rape and incest as mitigating circumstances. However, I can’t deal with a mother and/or a father making the decision to terminate/murder/kill a healthy, viable, and completely innocient newborn for reasons of convienence, economics or “family planning”. It’s never a convienent time, it’s never a cost-free event, and it’s never fun and easy!
You want to plan for a family? Do it BEFORE you start “getting jiggy with it”, eh?
as a Buddhist woman who has experienced abortion, i only have these few thoughts to add:
first off, as many contributors acknowledge, abortion is NOT the answer to birth control and shouldn’t be thought of as such, but since family planning (not to mention rational, truthful sex ed) is so inadequate around the world & in the US, it ends up, sadly, as the solution of last resort
secondly, fyi, Buddhism believes that life begins at conception, because that is when consciousness enters the new being
howsoever, even with the above, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama also said very clearly that we cannot mandate anyone else’s morality, only our own
(he also said that maybe a few less babies would be good for the world, so you can come to your own conclusions about where he stood)
any hard and fast answers to the issues are really irrelevant, the issue must be decided on a case-by-case basis, with compassion for all involved
If you are against birth control, you are pro-abortion.
PDFee:
“You want to plan for a family? Do it BEFORE you start “getting jiggy with it”, eh?”
With all due respect, you are conflating the issues of sexual morals and abortion. This discussion is about the latter.
As for as your position on “unthinking” please do some research before you react. Try defining “thought” and make some observations.
“When I see the light in a newborn babies eyes, I see the thought of the ages! A profound and wonderous sense of thought and essence of purity that is without equal…”
You seem to be conflating issues again. You conflate your reactions with that of the newborn’s thoughts. You assert that the newborn has thought (complex thought from the direction of your arguments) and provide no evidence. Ignorance and innocence are distinct concepts. Are you certain that you are not conflating the two? Yes, they have feelings, but thought as abstractions?!!
Economics, family planning, convenience, etc. apparently are valid reasons for not wanting to bring a child into the world at a particular time as evinced from the other posts on this thread.
This universe is statistical in nature. A woman has more eggs than she has children in her lifetime. Most of these eggs are never undergo fertilization and never get to the blastocyst stage. From the perspective of the future generation, all other factors being equal (let us reduce this for now to considering the same pair of prospective parents), one child is replaceable by another. The abortion dilemma occurs only when people assign individualities to entities that do not yet manifest the characteristics of an individual.
The above point indeed is the crux of the matter. If you refer to my earlier posts, much of this debate is about defining identities (when an individual “is”). Your distaste is simply a result of you assigning an individual identity to an entity that others consider not to be. Further, it appears that your assignment is a result of applying some spiritual dogma.
For the record, no one on this thread has advocated killing a newborn, unless by newborn you mean an (undeveloped) fetus. Additionally, as I mentioned before, the human body is involved in the birth and death of millions of cells. The abortion debate is not about life and death of entities (eggs, embryos, cells, etc.). It is about answering the question of when an individual “is.”
On a different note, the wild-eyed expression of a new infant is indeed captivating and pretty. Unfortunately, this is not an indicator of abstract thought. I see innocence and yes, I experience a sense of wonder, but the ignorance only comes later in life.
Shaman:
I disagree with you on all counts. You cannot and should not disengage the sexual issue with the abortive decision issue.
In the absence of thoughtless and immature sexual behaviors, you will have no pregnancies. I’m not naive enough to accept that there is no place for sexuality outside of procreation, but when a man and a woman agree to sexual behavior, they also agree to the distinct possibility that life will occur because of it.
Please don’t tell me that there is a lack of access to birth control; I do have eyes; I do see condoms, foams & others at eye level, promenently displayed in every Wal-Mart, drug store, and convienence outlet that I enter. I’ve lived and worked in 19 countries on this planet and I have yet to not see birth control devices readily available.
So since you feel they have no thought, do you personally have any legal, moral or ethical difficulty with the concept of banning late-term, that is last trimester abortions and partial birth abortions, for a healthy, viable baby that do not endanger the mother?
Late term is usually because the child may be born with a deformity or challange. I think it should be up to the woman if she wants to be burdened in this way. She will need a lot of support from her family and more important her husband. The husband always has the choice he can leave if he wants. The woman also has the choice but not too many men will opt to take care of a challanged child.
They will have to worry about the cost of medical.
Remember wepucks who are “life” think everyone should be responsible for their own medical. The wepucks are also shrinking the money going to challanged people for care too.
The woman is responsible for the welfare, well being and cost of this child-so she is responsible if she wants to bear or not.
Some people think a woman will make this type of decission because she wants to wear a bikini and with as less thought as picking a color of nail polish.
If a woman wants to have a late term abortion for the above reasons she probablly would not make a good mother.
PDFee:
You make many assertions and present little or no evidence to indicate the reasons for your positions. Such evidence is important in discussions.
It appears that you are either unwilling or not paying attention to the central points of my posts.
1. You indicate that some of your positions assume that newborn babies think and feel. I pointed out that this assumption is flawed, as there is no evidence that newborns “think” in the sense of using abstractions.
2. You body is shaped by a collection of dynamic birth and death processes. Yet anti-abortionists only want to focus on the “life” of one specific type of cell (mass) to the exclusion of all others. Thus, it follows that the abortion debate is not about life.
3. The abortion issue is about assigning “personhood’ or individuality to a fetus. People draw the line differently, some assign it at the embryo stage (but fail to account for why they exclude the egg which is its immediate precursor), yet others draw the line at a larger mass of cells.
4. Some people, like yourself, assume or assert that an embryo has a “right” to be born. Yet others, as evinced by posts on this thread, indicate that being born is a “privilege.”
5. It is the privilege perspective that allows for arguments for abortion based on resources and convenience.
Sexual morals are irrelevant to the specific question of abortion itself. It is easy to argue abortion without resorting to “consequences or punishments for breaking sexual mores.” If you choose to believe that sex involves procreation then it your prerogative, others do not feel as you do.
“So since you feel they have no thought, do you personally have any legal, moral or ethical difficulty with the concept of banning late-term, that is last trimester abortions and partial birth abortions, for a healthy, viable baby that do not endanger the mother?”
Finally, a personal question
a variant of which I will answer a little later.
I do not “feel” that newborn babies have no “thought.” The evidence gathered from observations leads one to conclude that babies do not “think” in the sense of using abstractions. Further, if one uses the “birth is a privilege” perspective there is no temporal reason at this time that warrants a ban on any kind of abortion. On the other hand, there are many societal reasons why it could be “beneficial” to society to allow the practice.
That said, personally my position is closer to yours even though it loosely follows the “birth is a privilege” argument. If a fetus can survive outside the womb, *and* someone other than a parent wants to be its guardian and the request falls within the resource limitations of the environment, I see no reason why we cannot facilitate the arrangement. However, fundamentally it is still the woman’s choice. I do not support slavery and I would not want anyone “forced to be a baby machine.”
Poet, Sex is no more a privilege than is breathing.
Life is tough for everybody. It is immoral to try to make another person ashamed–it may be the only sin (George Bush types are the exceptions that prove this rule)
PDFee writes in part:
“There are too many people waiting to adopt healthy babies.”
Actually, there are too many INFERTILEs waiting in ambush and hijack some vulnerable fertile person’s pregnancy! AS IF fertiltiy itself were transferrable. AS IF motherhood were transferrable. AS IF newborn human babies were interchangeable. AS IF any newborn were at risk of abortion! AS IF these parasitic, heartless mommy-wanna-be’s actually have an iota of respect for sacred ‘Mother&Child’!
There are millions of genuine orphaned kids in Africa - but no, INFERTILES demand that few pounds of fresh human flesh sliced from some naive and oppressed young woman who will be tossed into the dustbin the moment her firstborn child is snatched from its very own newborn mother while she is still on her back.
AS IF any newborn needed saving from its very own MOTHER.
Bush&Co “Infant Adoption Awareness Progom’ looks a lot like:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/THE_HOLOCAUST_PAPERS_ARYAN_DREAMS?SITE=SCCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Crowfoot: I read the article about the Polish girl, it was extremely moving. I knew things like that happened, but had never come across an article like this one. I feel that it is morally wrong to bring children into this world for the sole purpose of adoption for any reason. There are too many children out there now looking for good homes and loving parents already. There are children all over the world who need to be adopted. If a couple isn’t able to here in the states adopt a minority or go overseas. But, the babies for profit business perpetrated by religion and Bush needs to stop here and now.
Thank you for seasoned reasoning, Jp, JaneM and peacemaker. Few have touched on the sexual pleasure aspect of this article and how the church purposely DEMONIZED sex (mostly outside of marriage, but you know there are LAWS still on the books as to what constitutes LEGAL sex) to create a chasm between people. Sex, as driving force, can bring people who are in “love” to very high states of at-onement, a truly mystical (Tantric) experience. When people are empowered, they feel touched by the ineffable force that goes by many names (usually God) and hardly require some 3rd party to interpret “its” will for them! SEX is what’s feared; and as many have said here, a society, i.e. our own, that invests so substantially in armaments and trains pepole (soldiers) to kill, looks for “the opportunity” of the next war (in a long often profitable, as in blood karma, progression) is in NO position to legislate ANY morality. “Right to life” is another slogan like “No child left behind,” or “healthy forest initiative,” or “Prescription drug benefit,” to SUGGEST a stance that has NOTHING to do with the actual actions taken. Have we had enough of governing by masquerade, by Orwellian implication, by smoke and mirrors as quite literally, our nation is COMING APART with Mother nature burning, churning, sending major signals of overload left and right from sea to shining sea. Until a quantum leap impacts the national psyche we are going to see more of these symptoms of our national dis-ease! The very fact that sex scandals take up so much political theatre, when REAL killing goes on with apparent impunity… c’mon people, is this a sane model? Can you imagine a Supreme Being sanctifying this twist of truth and genuine morality?
Thanks to all those, including Chris Hedges, who are willing to look at, and listen to, both sides of this explosive issue. Please, please, instead of all this bickering, let us work to eliminate the reasons why women feel the need to have abortions. Let us teach our children (or nieces and nephews, if you chose not to conceive) to respect themselves and each other; let us encourage their full development of talents, skills and life’s work; let us make sure they understand the full responsibility of sexual relationships, and please let us be honest and upfront about birth control. There are so many issues to be addressed to bring peace and justice to this world. We who populate the “middle” (so to speak) need to act on as many of these issues as we can and don’t get involved in all the time-consuming, energy-draining bickering.