The biggest problem with legal abortions is that the wrong women are having them.

Clendan, how many adopted children do you have? Or do you just let the orphans fend for themselves after you encourage women not to get abortions?

I think anyone who is against abortions should shut thier mouth unless they are raising adopted children. Even if they are they should still shut their mouth. Nobody has the right to tell another what to do to their body.

A baby in the womb is still part of the womans body, who should have complete say over what happens to said body.

Clandan, I did read your post completely, maybe I missed your point.

Forced abortion is absolutely horrible, I think anyone with any emotion would agree. It doesn't seem productive though to try and compare the issue of a womans right to choose in the US to what happens in other countries.

I think it awesome that you helped those mothers wanting to keep their babies. Is it safe for me to assume you would extend that same hospiltality to a woman who was kicked out of their home for having an abortion?

Forgiveness,

Absolutely. However, a pregnant woman on her own is usually (but not always) more vulnerable and in need of care and support for a longer time than a woman who is post-abortion.

As I said in my original post, I was just throwing out random thoughts - in response to various comments. I suppose my point was the inconsistency of those who are so vocal about the right of women to have control over their own bodies and yet there is an overwhelming silence regarding other areas of choice besides the right to choose abortion (INFORMED choice, female circs, coerced abortion by parents of teens, and threats to Muslim non-virgins - all happening here in the US). Abortion (pro or con) gets to be a single thing...it isn't the only area of choice for a women.

And btw, I would have loved to have adopted children too but that wasn't my spouses deal. My cousin adopted 7 but not everyone can do that. Sooo, I help out at a local food pantry, teach birth classes to single mothers and foster pregnant girls. Folks should do what they can, not just rant and rail.

Rockerbabe,

I thought your August 14 post was right on, and I applaud you for even attempting to honour mjm with any kind of ongoing discussion: only one of you has an open mind.

The one bit of privilege women do have on this planet is to produce new life and there are those who begrudge, coerce, assault and disrespect them for it.

A few random thoughts...from and OB/GYN nurse.

Condoms fail 15% of the time to prevent pregnancy. The AIDS virus is far smaller than sperm and each intercourse offers the opportunity of exposure, unlike the opportunity for pregnancy. Condoms do not always provide protection against HPV (warts) nor herpes. Just to let the 17 y/o writer in on a little important info.

Babies born alive after abortion no longer threaten a woman's life or health. Why kill them then?

In China, a woman still has no choice. She is forced to abort or sterilize after one born alive child. Women in Muslim countries (and even in the US) have their genitalia mutilated in childhood and threatened with death if not virgins when married.Where is the uproar over these things? Seems inconsistent.

Thoughts?

Nellemason.

You are right that women do have the privilege to produce new life. I would never begrudge, coerce, assault or disrespect that. Its when that new life is created, then destroyed, that it becomes morally unacceptable. As for having an "open mind", it is those who can not bring themselves to acknowledge the scientific and medical truth of the humanity of the unborn child, who choose to close their minds.

I am calling for a list of those who have posted to this topic that wish they had been aborted? Who would like to be the first?

the imposition of one's will upon another is the basest of the base inhumanities in our insane world...one advises and asks, then insists and agitates, then, if that's not working, threatens to imprison, hurt or kill the other, or their beloveds...if that doesn't work, one actually imprisons, hurts or kills, all for the imposition of their will...eventually, the other will either have to live by the will of the one, or fight back...

Caroline is absolutely correct when she states that power is the issue here. I would go one step further and say that adherence to "God" (that is not simply one of personal devotion) is itself a claim to power - and ultimately attempts to control others.
This came home to me with great force a couple years ago when I began seeing strange billboards around the Milwaukee area which had 'moral' directives on them ("Avoid sin and to to heaven") and were signed simply " - God". They were odious to me and I recognized immediately that the God signature was intended to shut down all discussion, all argument. If you impose a command, or give an opinion, as a regular old human being, it just doesn't carry all that much weight. But tack "God" it and - voila - instant authority.
People who view themselves as oppressed, as downtrodden, as incapable of having their voice heard in the larger world, may grasp at this kind of crutch. It may infuriate them that "other people" may be getting ahead, have greater choice and control they do. I am not surprised to witness the God phenomena among the poor and the uneducated. I am also not surprised to see it among those who are NOT poor or uneducated, but who view themselves as missing something or being discriminated against in some way nonetheless.
And it is a 'God phenomena'. God is most certainly an invention of the human mind. Not the other way around.

caladan, I totally appreciate your perspective but keep in mind that 30 years ago China, the 4th largest country by area in the world, contained a full quarter of the entire world population. They were not only living on top of each other, they were sharing the space with their livestock--predominantly fowl. This was a breeding ground for disease and still is.

I agree forced abortion is an ugly thing, but if birth control (and education) is readily available abortion becomes less necessary. Women are getting the crappy end of the stick in this regard and frankly, for this I blame organized, patriarchal religion above all other social considerations.

Caroline Arnold states: "What kind of a god worries about the destruction of some unviable human tissue..."

But is this "unviable human tissue" a stage Caroline skipped in her lifetime?

Forgiveness,

I think perhaps you didn't process my post or maybe didn't read it all.

I never said I was for or against abortion. I have 5 natural children and have provided homes to MANY pregnant women who CHOSE (were not coerced) to carry their babies but were kicked out of their homes because their families wanted them to abort. All but one now lead productive lives (and that one was a manipulator who got pregnant repeatedly to have the welfare system support her).

I am not against birth control or education either. This is actually available in China. I just think it is inconsistent that people are against women not being able to choose abortion but due to expediency (avoiding overpopulation)are not equally appalled at forced abortion. The uproar continues about pro-choice/anti-choice but few raise the same objection to other HUGE areas in which women are still denied choice.

Thanks for article-Articulate people needs to continue to let others know there are people who share their views ---

No one will ever convince me it's in my best interest for someone else to be able to determine whether or not I have a child. You're right, we have much more difficult decisions facing us. This should be off-limits.

Most communities reserve a place of honor for a retarded child. As she grows up, everyone cooperates in making some sort of accommodation for her to contribute, if only minimally to the general welfare.

Everyone makes allowances for her, and tolerates her mistakes/social gaffs that they would never allow anyone else to get away with.

The most outrageous thing I have ever seen is the village idiot being elected mayor, put on display, allowed to give foreign dignitaries back rubs, talk with his mouth full, letting food fall out, given the microphone to advertise his stupidity.

Way back when the rich family in Texas held him up to public ridicule by making him governor of Texas, Carl Rove is reputed to have said "I can make (even) that guy president." And he did.

What I find unbelievable is that the rich Bush family would allow their retarded son to be a figurehead to be laughed at the world over while the neocons used him as they pleased.

It also says a little something about the American public that he served two terms.

I am old now and thought I had seen everything. Was I ever wrong.

I'm a staunch supporter of Roe v. Wade, but I do think that Catholic hospitals have no obligation to hire pro-choice or pro-contraception workers; that seems to me to be an important component of religious freedom. So is the Catholic tenet (still in effect, I believe) that if during a difficult delivery a choice to save the life of the mother or the baby must be made, the baby is saved. This is why I went to a NON-CATHOLIC hospital to have my baby, some years ago -- one can respect people of many faiths without subjecting oneself to beliefs profoundly disagreed with!

That said, the proposed HHS regulations, which would cut off funds to medical providers who "fired or refused to hire people who object to abortion or contraception" on religious or moral grounds is a much more murky area. Refusing to hire a qualified nurse because she's anti-abortion seems rather draconian. Presumably that nurse could be hired for a unit other than obstetrics, where it's not an issue. On the other hand, if there's no opening other than in the obstetrics unit, one could argue that her full participation in the O.R. could not be counted upon because she would refuse to assist with an abortion. This is a moral dilemma, and to my mind it won't do to approach it simplistically and/or ideologically.

Caroline Arnold is a fine writer, but here she has so over-emphasized the feminist perspective that all subtlety is lost.

nietzshe - Don't ever think you know everything despite your age and life experiences. I know plenty of older people that fit your description of the president.

Yes but they are not the president. I don't understand your point marc.

Screw Religion
A Woman should have the same power over her own body that a many has. Nobody has yet created a law that requires a man to do something to his body that he does not want to do.

How far does the requirement to hire medical personel who have objections of conscience to their duties? Would a hospital be required to employ a Christian Scientist? As I understand, that religion forbids almost all of what is thought of as modern medical intervention. There is a difference between reigious discrimination and a person who disqualifies him/herself by being unwilling to perform the duties stated in a job description.

I don't understand marc's point either. Nietzshe's point, well said, was that we've been made a laughing stock by a fool and the people who put him there. Ultimately, the joke really is on us I guess, since 50% of us voted for him. I wish I could say "tricked into voting for him" but unfortunately I don't think that's true.

If you believe the Bible is God's book and He knows all, then He says life begins with the first breath. There is no life without breath.

As I recall the Catholic Church said nothing about Family Planning - until they were out bred by Italian Protestants and started losing elections.

My thoughts.

One might suggest, from reading religious literature around the world that:

1. Life, in all its forms, is a sacred treasure.

2. Self-determination (including bodily) is the essence of individual freedom and dignity.

Both of these are entered into fully in the public debate regarding abortion and family planning. However there are differences between personal (and private) decisions and polity.

MWF - I hjear what you are saying about "common ground" and it would be logical to assume that the same people who are anti-choice would be able to find common ground with pro-choicers on the issue of contraception. Unfortunately, the anti-choice movemnet as a whole doesn't subscribe to logic and the hard-liners are just as adamantly against birth control as they are against abortion.

I volunteer a couple of Saturdays a week at my local Planned Parenthood. Saturday mornings is when the majority of abortion appointments are scheduled and there are protesters there every single Saturday. Most Saturdays there are 5-15, depending on the day, the weather and the time of year (evidently, bad weather and vacations trump concern for dead babies). However, the second Saturday of each month, we can get upwards of 80 people, "Second Saturday" being a national anti-choice protest day. Until you have witnessed the insane phenomena that is anti-choice protesters, it is possible to fantasize about "common ground". Let me give you a small sampling of "information" that these people give to women entering the clinic in various forms of literature, signs and straight-up screaming and yelling:

1 - Having an abortion ups a women's chances of cancer by 50%

2 - Birth control causes cancer.

3 - Birth control kills babies.

4 - Planned Parenthood doesn't provide women with options, but insists that women have abortions if they come to Planned Parenthood pregnant.

5 - Planned Parenthood is racist and wants to kill unborn black children.

6 - Even women who have been raped or are victims of incest should be forced to carry those babies to term.

And trust me when I say this is just a sampling and that all of their "facts" about health matters are complete bullshit.

The issue for anti-choicers has nothing whatsoever to do with unborn babies. They DO NOT CARE AT ALL about babies or mothers, which is proven by one guy who constantly hands out literature attempting to explain how his is against both abortion and welfare, subsidized childcare, healthcare, etc. These people care about ensuring that women don't have sex and, even if they do, certainly don't enjoy it or think that they can have sex without disastrous consequences.

Look, the whole issue here is CHOICE. If you don't like abortion, don't have one. Some posters have mentioned China and this is a very important issue to raise. Once we give up our rights to decide when we don't have children, we also give up the right to decide when we do have children. Put another way, if the government can force a woman to bear a child, they can also, like China has done, force a woman NOT to to bear a child. Just because the current incarnation of our government doesn't want to force us not to have children doesn't mean in another time and place they won't do exactly that. I'll keep all rgiths to my reproductive system, thank you very much!

Does any other human being, especially a man, have the right to judge a woman for having an abortion? Sometimes an abortion is the only merciful option.

Catholics love life before one's born, but after birth Catholics have little respect for human life, as their bloody history of mass-murdering scores of heretics, muslins and jews proves it.

A woman's body belongs to her alone.

The Catholic Church has much more pressing issues to deal with than abortion. They should expend just as much engery trying weed out pedophile priests.

It is outrageous that men have been telling women what to do for so long.

"If men had periods Percodan would be an over-the-counter drug"

The problem with this new regulation is---- when you go to a pharmacy to get any form of birth control and the pharmacy has hired people that don't believe in birth control ---they won't fill your prescription or sell the birth control to you.

Just go to another pharmacy you say---What if it is the only one around? Just come back on another shift you say? What if you have just been raped and just barely have made it out to do this pick up? A woman should not be denied birth control when she needs help ------and that is what those opposed to birth control want to see happen because to them any kind of birth control is abortion.

The American icon Benjamin Franklin would instantly recognize the planned redefinition of abortion by the Bush Administration as a relapse to "Proprietorship Rule", one form of British colonial government of the 18-th Century by which "Proprietors" such as the Penn family of Pennsylvania were given their "property" as a sort of medieval fiefdom by the British Crown, the only power to which they were accountable. Yes, the "Proprietorship Pennsylvania" had an Assembly but it could not make laws and the "Proprietor" might but did not have to consult it.
The huge difference between the Penn family and the Bush family is that the former were accountable to a higher power, namely the British Crown which occasionally though rarely ruled against them. To whom does our President believe that he is accountable when he promulgates what is in essence a new law? Not his own father according to his testimony.
Benjamin Franklin fought the Penn's tooth and nail but really succeeded only when the colonies broke away from England. Today we need our own Benjamin Franklin's to fight such destructive power grabs by U.S. Presidents and our own Washington's, Adams's, and Jefferson's to break away from the "Proprietor Presidency." Mr. President you do not own our country!

I believe in a God. I believe in the continuation of the spirit and that, at some point, all of us will have to account for ourselves. The church that I attended as a child emphasized the individual's responsibility to seek a moral way of life. The only politics I ever heard were prayers that our leaders would be guided. We were never told how to vote. We were not taught that everyone who disagreed with us was wrong. Rather, we were to look for the beam in our one eye before complaining about the mote in our brother's eye.

Religion has changed dramatically. It has now become incorporated and infused with politics. It has deserted God in favor of attaining political power and domination over all of us. It viciously attacks anyone who does not agree with all of its ideas.

Morality, according to some religious people, consists of being against abortion and homosexuality. It is as if these were the only topics. There are many other issues; poverty, child abuse, the destruction of our planet, hypocrisy, and so on.

When I quite going to church, I still had respect for religion. I simply believed that it had changed to much to be the religion that I was taught. As time passes, I have become afraid of it. "Religious" people seem to be increasingly nasty. The only way I can preserve my own faith is to avoid them.

I am also old enough (72) to remember when abortion was supposed to be illegal. It never was. The rich did as they pleased (as always). The middle class had the medical care and information to help them plan their families. If not, they could afford to have a safe, albeit illegal, abortion. The poor had little information, medical care, or access to safe abortions.

Regardless of arguments about the morality of abortion, the fact that anti-abortion laws were and could again be enforced on the basis of economic class really angers me. That is the real issue.

Great article and how correct Caroline is. Here is an example why.

One man stands in the nexus between the mainstream factions that espouse the politically correct "love the sinner/hate the sin" mantra and the more virulent behavior inspired by strained Biblical justifications for killing said sinner.

This is from an article today by Wendy Norris on Amendment 48 in Colorado that if passed will give constitutional rights to fertilized eggs. In the article we find out the man behind it is none other than James Patrick Johnston, D.O from Ohio. This man is dangerous to say the least.

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/2008/08/real-forces-behind-amendment-48-that.html

All things have life and a fetus no less. Today, when we are approaching the real possibility of human extinction in a few short years, focusing on abortion seems myopic. To me, we have a choice between life and death. There is no middle or muddle ground. Choose death at your own risk.

The government needs to stay out of a woman's body. Period!
So let me get this straight: Viagra - Yes; Birth Control - No. Geez!

Very nicely stated RuthK.

Well stated RuthK--

It's about power -- the power to impose one's will on another. All I can say is that for me, the willingness to excersize that power is at the very moment of the most fundamental kind of morality.
Nobody likes abortion. A forced abortion is of the most heinous of acts. It is also one of those things which, since it cannot be prevented, can only be opposed by persuasion and long-suffering. The price of coercion is very high and commonly disregarded without including any sense of giving others to their freedom, judgment and responsibility.

There used to be a restaraunt years back at the side of the road in the interior of BC...It advertised "Chicken and Chips" on a big sign 29 cents.

What a bargain..you stopped for Chicken and Chips.

You got a boiled egg, and a little bag of what the brits call potato crisps.

In any case the fact is that Abortion was not made illegal in the United States until the mid to late 1800's . Prior to that it was ignored.

The fact is it was commonly practiced throughout history. Polynesians used it as a means to control the population size as example, because the Island they lived on could only support a finite few.

The fact is that when abortion was made illegal in the United States, Chemists and traveling salesmen sold Cures in bottles for "womans ailments" which were means by which women could abort a child.

The fact is that abortion was not something the "nasty Liberals introduced" to destroy our values. It has been around for thousands of years.

The fact is that the Roman Catholic church changed its stance on abortion many times in its history and once claimed it not a sin unless the fetus grew to the stage where it quickened.

There is no easy answer. People will always have doubts as to whether it right or worng and a lot of those doubts are simply because of the enviroment in which we were raised.

The best answer, IMHO is to let the woman have the final say.

PK

RUTH K: Excellent post.

This issue is given disproportionate emphasis because it lends an aura of "righteousness" to those that would otherwise have no moral ground of any form to stand on as they are also FIRST to clammor FOR war, capital punishment, "a strong domestic police force to fight crime," etc. And it's about 2nd class status for women, however it's dressed up. Another egregious insidious example of Mars rules.

Making abortion illegal along with banning birth control and keeping young people in the dark about sex, perpetuates poverty, period, for men and women alike. It's also a wedge issue and is a vote culler for The Right.

They want to keep most people poor and have women generate more cannon fodder.

Believe me, the elites will be able to get abortions if they want or need one.

I will be perfectly honest, I don't like the idea of abortion. I feel the same way about euthanasia. It's highly unfortunate when any woman has to terminate a pregnancy just as it is when someone's life needs to be ended. But it's a part of life. All we can do is try to make it so that a few people as possible will need to ever have to make such a difficult decision.

Until we stop turning a blind eye to other mothers' beloved children starving to death in far away places and cheering other mothers' beloved children marching off to kill and be killed (preferably also in far away places), don't even attempt to talk to me about abortion.

Thank you all for having very clear opinions, facts, and most of all, information to back up those opinions and facts. I've watched all of the people here hash over 'politics' 'precedents' and 'religion', and I can honestly say you all have good points. However, I seem to be missing something.

I've gone through the local Family Planning classes, gone to several seminars in school about how 'sex is bad' and 'abstinence is the only way' for things to not come crashing down about our ears, And I don't like the fact that, as a healthy, hormonal seventeen yer old girl, I am not immediately informed to all my options before things go pear-shaped. I've been paying atention to this 'issue' throughout the bush administration, since I was old enough to care. and I have to ask...Who made it an issue?

If it is every womans right to choose for themselves what goes on in her body, then shouldn't we be informed as to PREVENTATIVE methods? Why should we know about contraceptives only after we're pregnant, or might be pregnant? why shouldn't the men around us have the respect for us to ask if we want to get pregnant and act acordingly? It apalls me that not only female education lacks, but so does male education. a condom can only work if you know how to use it, and have acess to it. and the same thing works for abortion. If it's going to happen anyway, legal or illegal, why not make it so that a woman can have a safe abortion and not one done in an unsanitary place?

To me, this argument's not about religion, power, or politics, those are just the avenues that we use to argue over the matter. What it boils down to in my mind is a few people getting squeamish and trying to make that thing dissapear. And as long as people remain affraid, then things are going to continue this increasingly muddy downward spiral. So, for my generation if you please, come to a consensus soon so that me and mine can get on with life without this shadow hanging over us? I'm not even legaly alowed to vote on it, but it WILL affect me. and my classmates, and my children, if I ever have any. if not for us, then for them? People shouldn't be affraid that the world's going to depopulate because of abortion. There's six billion of us on the planet now, and we could do with fewer numbers.

In conclusion to my ramble, i'd like to see less argument and more solutions. Why not make abortion obsolete with the use of condoms and contraceptives? and if someone dosen't like it, fine, let them not like it. Noone has the right to deny anyone a choice, and it's moraly wrong to me to even atempt to do so. Action, not reaction, is the only way things are going to change, and for better or worse, I can't say. It just would be nice if there was less talking and more do-ing. And that dosen't only go for abortion.

Thank you for seeing all sides, but for the sake of my peers, can we stop arguing?

I live in the South so I'm subjected to billboards intended to shame women who would consider abortion. One asks, "Aren't you glad your mother didn't abort you?" This presumptious rhetorical question implies that everyone is just delighted with being alive and driving down the interstate. My answer is "No, I'm not glad" that my mother, who tried to get our small-town family doctor to abort me back in the 1940s, failed to persuade him. She knew she was in over her head, being 19, having just had a baby 18 months earlier, and having an alcoholic irresponsible husband. So I was left to fend for myself and quickly became the amusement for my pedophile maternal grandfather. I think my mother knew what kind of life she was bringing me into, and she wanted to spare me it. I only wish she had succeeded. Girls younger than 10 who lose their virginity and suffer other tortures at the hands of family members are extremely common in every socioeconomic group. Our mothers were not prepared to protect us in any way other than by aborting us. This is just another reason why abortions must remain legal.

Why is it that the most fanatic advocates against abortion, who want to "preserve the sanctity of life", also tend to be the same people who willingly march those same grown up fetuses off to useless wars, and are willing to bomb, mutilate, and disembowel innocent women and children with wanton callousness.

I guess that here in Canada, we've been very fortunate to have had the courts settle the question of abortion back in the early 90's.
At that time, the Conservatives were in power, and their base was pushing them to pass legislation restricting abortion. The Conservatives obligingly passed a bill, but it was overturned by the Supreme Court because the law violated the Bill of Rights, which had been passed in 1982, when Canada repatiated its Constitution from Great Britain.
The ruling made it difficult for the Conservatives to find a way of re-wording the law so as to bring it in line with the sexual equality provisions of our Bill of Rights, and so it has been effectively been removed from the field of Canadian politics as a political football.
It was a sad day when the ERA Amendment to your constitution failed, because it's demise gave the religious right a foothold that they otherwise could not have ever attained.
I'm very glad that at least here in Canada, diversionary issues such as abortion and gay marriage are off the table. It means that there is more of a possiblity that our elections can actually be about real issues and therefore have real meaning.

Dear Caroline Arnold,

Well done dear Lady. Whatever you do, do NOT stop. Keep at it. I have spent 43 years of my life serving in and with the US Army. On seven occasions during my military career I took the Oath to Defend the Constitution of the United States Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic. The greatest threat to Our Freedom and Country is Not terrorism from abroad, but the Terrorism of the Religious Radical Right. They are the DOMESTIC ENEMY.

No man has the right to say anything about women's abortions.

No Imaginary Friend has really said anything to the people who are against women's rights to do as they please.

It isn't that God is dead --- it is that one is still not there.

Ms. Arnold: My heavens, you are hot today! Go girl! Couldn't have said it better my self. Thank you.

BreeMass,

Just to be clear I am not against choice, I just think abortion is an avoidable tragedy. I do not think the government has a role here.
We may never agree with the far right about birth control but we might still agree on helping young people understand how to evaluate the potential consequences of their decisions or how to resist peer pressure so they can make up their own minds about sex without coercion. Both sides in any debate have to tune out the extremist rhetoric to be able to listen for that common ground.

Thanks for listening.