How I became pro-life
Who is human?
Back in college I remember reading about how in certain societies throughout history (I believe in this case it was the Greeks) it was common for parents to abandon unwanted newborns, leaving them somewhere to die. It was so deeply troubling to me, and I could never figure out what was going on there: how on earth could this have happened?! I mean, I knew lots of people, and nobody I knew would do that! In fact, in our society you only hear about it in rare cases of people who are obviously mentally disturbed. How could something so obviously evil, so unthinkably horrific be common among entire societies?
Because of my deep distress at hearing of things like this, I found it really irritating when pro-lifers would refer to abortion as “killing babies.” Obviously, nobody around here is in favor of killing babies – and to imply that those of us who were pro-choice would advocate for that was an insult to the babies throughout history who actually were killed by their insane societies. We weren’t in favor of killing anything. We simply felt like women had the right to stop the growth process of a fetus if she faced an unwanted pregnancy. It was unfortunate, yes, because fetuses had potential to be babies one day. But that was a sacrifice that had to be made in the name of not making women slaves to the trauma of unwanted pregnancies.
I continued to be vehemently pro-choice after college, and though my views became more moderate once I had a child of my own, I was still pro-choice. But as my husband and I were in the process of exploring Christianity, we couldn’t help but be exposed to pro-life thought more often than we used to be, and we were put on the defensive about our views. I remember one day when my husband was in the middle of reconsidering his own pro-choice ideas, he made a passing remark that stuck with me ever since:
“It just occurred to me that being pro-life is being pro-other people’s-life,” he quipped. “Everyone is pro-their own-life.”
It made me realize that my pro-choice viewpoints were putting me in the position of deciding who was and was not human, and whose lives were worth living. I (along with doctors, the government, or other abortion advocates) decided where to draw this very important line. When I would come across Catholic blogs or books where they said something like “life begins at conception,” I would scoff at the silliness of that notion as was my habit…yet I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with my defense:
“A few cells is obviously not a baby or even a human life!” I would say to myself. “Fetuses eventually become full-fledged humans, but not until, umm, like six months gestation or something. Or maybe five months? When is it that they can kick their legs and stuff?…Eight weeks? No, they’re not human then, those must be involuntary spasms…”
I was putting the burden of proof on the fetuses to demonstrate to me that they were human. And I was a tough judge. I found myself looking the other way when I heard that 3D ultrasounds showed “fetuses” touching their faces, smiling and opening their eyes at ages at which I still considered abortion OK. I didn’t have any interest in reading the headlines at Lifesite. Babies — I mean, fetuses — seen yawning at 12 weeks gestation? Involuntary spasm. As modern technology helped fetuses offer me more and more evidence that they were humans too, I would simply move the bar of what I considered human.
I realized that my definition of how and when a fetus became a “baby” or a “person,” when he or she began to have rights, also depended on his or her level of health: the length of time in which I considered it OK to terminate a pregnancy lengthened as the severity of disability increased. Under the premise of wanting to spare the potential child from suffering, I was basically saying that disabled fetuses were less human, had fewer rights, than able-bodied ones. It didn’t sit well.
The whole thing started to get under my skin. At some point I started to feel like I was more determined to be pro-choice than I was to honestly analyze who was and was not human. I started to see it in others in the pro-choice community as well. On more than one occasion I was stunned to the point of feeling physically ill upon reading of what otherwise nice, reasonable people in the pro-abortion camp would advocate for.
In reading through the Supreme Court case of Stenberg v. Carhart, I read that Dr. Leroy Carhart, an abortion advocate who actually performs the procedures, described some second-trimester abortions by saying, “[W]hen you pull out a piece of the fetus, let’s say, an arm or a leg and remove that, at the time just prior to removal of the portion of the fetus…the fetus [is] alive.” He said that he has observed fetal heartbeat via ultrasound with “extensive parts of the fetus removed.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which presumably consists of well-educated, reasonable, intelligent men and women, opposed this procedure. Not for the reasons I thought — because it was plainly obvious that this was infanticide in its most grisly form — but because dismembered babies inconvenienced their mothers, and it was better to kill them outside the womb in a procedure they refer to as “D&X”. In the College’s words in its amici brief:
D&X presents a variety of potential safety advantages over other abortion procedures used during the same gestational period. Compared to D&E’s involving dismemberment, D&X involves less risk of uterine perforation or cervical laceration because it requires the physician to make fewer passes into the uterus with sharp instruments and reduces the presence of sharp fetal bone fragments that can injure the uterus and cervix.There is also considerable evidence that D&X reduces the risk of retained fetal tissue, a serious abortion complication that can cause maternal death, and that D&X reduces the incidence of a ‘free floating’ fetal head that can be difficult for a physician to grasp and remove and can thus cause maternal injury.
I read the Court documents from Stenberg v. Carhart in a state of shock. A few years ago a friend of mine had her baby very prematurely, and I had visited him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He was so beautiful, just like the full-term newborns I’d seen, only a little smaller. Seeing him and the other babies lying there so peacefully in their incubators (some of them with cute little notes written on their incubator tags like “Aiden — mommy’s big boy!”), I was overwhelmed with feelings of wanting to protect these precious, innocent little babies. I was thrilled to hear the my friend’s son and all the other preemies who were in the NICU at that time did survive and go home with their parents. So I found myself in a state of cold shock and disbelief that I was reading of people — not just fringe crazies, but the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and some Supreme Court Justices — casually speak about the inconvenience of the skulls and bone fragments of dismembered babies (“fetuses”) the same age as those babies in the NICU. The horrors continued when I read Gonzales v. Carhart [some excerpts here...warning: no photos, but the descriptions are extremely disturbing].
It took my breath away to witness the level of evil that normal people can fall into supporting. They were talking about infanticide, but completely refused to label it as such. It was when I considered that these were educated, reasonable professionals who were probably not bad people that I realized that evil always works through lies. I also took a mental step back from the entire pro-choice movement. If this is what it meant to be “pro-choice,” I was not pro-choice.
Yet I still couldn’t quite bring myself to label myself pro-life.
I started to recognize that I was no better than Dr. Carhart or the concurring Justices or the author of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ brief, that I too had probably told myself lies in order to maintain my support for abortion. Yet there was something deep down inside, some tremendous pressure that kept me from truly, objectively looking at what was going on here. There was something within me that screamed that to not allow women to have abortions at least in the first trimester would be unfair in the most dire sense of the word. Even as I became more religious, I mentally pushed aside thoughts that all humans might have God-given eternal souls worthy of dignity and respect, because it got too tricky to figure out when we receive those souls, the most obvious answer being “at conception” as opposed to at some arbitrary point during gestation.
It wasn’t until I re-evaluated the societal views of sex that had permeated the consciousness of my peer group, took a new look at the modern assumptions about the act that creates those fetuses in the first place, that I was able to let go of that internal pressure I felt, and to take an unflinching look at my views on abortion.
The contraceptive mentality
Here are four key memories that give a glimpse into how my understanding of sex was formed:
- When I was a kid, I didn’t have any friends who had baby brothers or sisters in their households. One friend’s mom was pregnant when we were twelve, but I moved before the baby was born. To the extent that I ever heard any of our parents talk about pregnancy and babies, it was to say that they were happy that they were “done,” the impression being that they could finally start living now that that pregnancy/baby unpleasantness was over.
- In sex ed class we learned not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies. After we were done putting condoms on bananas, our teacher counseled us that we should carefully decide when we might be ready to have sex based on important concerns like whether or not we were in committed relationships, whether or not we had access to contraception, how our girlfriends or boyfriends treated us, whether we wanted to wait until marriage, etc. I do not recall hearing readiness to have a baby being part of a single discussion about deciding when to have sex, whether it was from teachers or parents or society in general. Not once.
- On multiple occasions when I was a young teen I recall hearing girls make the comment that they would readily risk dangerous back-alley abortions or even consider suicide if they were to face unplanned pregnancies and abortion wasn’t legal. Though I was not sexually active, it sounded perfectly reasonable to me — that is how much we desired not to have babies before we were ready. Yet the concept of just not having sex if we weren’t ready to have babies was never discussed. It’s not that we had considered the idea and rejected it; it simply never occurred to us.
- Even recently, before our marriage was validated in the Catholic Church my husband and I had to take a course about building good marriages. It was a video series by a nondenominational Christian group, and in the segment called “Good Sex” they did not mention children or babies once. In all the talk about bonding and back rubs and intimacy and staying in shape, the closest they came to connecting sex to the creation of life was to briefly say that couples should discuss the topic of contraception.
Sex could not have been more disconnected from the concept of creating life.
The message I’d heard loud and clear was that the purpose of sex was for pleasure and bonding, that its potential for creating life was purely tangential, almost to the point of being forgotten about altogether. This mindset laid the foundation of my views on abortion. Because I saw sex as being closed to the possibility to life by default, I thought of pregnancies that weren’t planned as akin to being struck by lightning while walking down the street — something totally unpredictable, undeserved, that happened to people living normal lives.
Being pro-choice for me (and I’d imagine with many others) was actually motivated out of love and caring: I just didn’t want women to have to suffer, to have to devalue themselves by dealing with unwanted pregnancies. Because it was an inherent part of my worldview that everyone except people with “hang-ups” eventually has sex and sex is, under normal circumstances, only about the relationship between the two people involved, I got lured into one of the oldest, biggest, most tempting lies in human history: to dehumanize the enemy. Babies had become the enemy because of their tendencies to pop up and ruin everything; and just as societies are tempted to dehumanize the fellow human beings who are on the other side of the lines in wartime, so had I, and we as a society, dehumanized the enemy of sex.
It was when I was reading up on the Catholic Church’s view of sex, marriage and contraception that everything changed.
I’d always thought that those archaic teachings about not using contraception were because the Church wanted to oppress people by telling them to have as many kids as possible, or something like that. What I found, however, was that their views expressed a fundamentally different understanding of what sex is, and once I heard it I never saw the world the same way again. The way I’d always seen it, the standard position was that babies were a horrible burden, except for a couple times in life when everything is perfect enough that a couple might temporarily see new life as a good thing; the Catholic view is that the standard position is that babies are a blessing and a good thing, and while it’s fine to attempt to avoid pregnancy for serious reasons, if we go so far as to adopt a “contraceptive mentality,” feeling entitled to the pleasure of sex while loathing (and perhaps trying to forget all about) its life-giving properties, we not only disrespect this most sacred of acts, but we begin to see new life as the enemy.
To use a rough analogy, the Catholic Church was saying that loaded guns are not toys, that while they can perhaps be used for certain recreational activities, they are always to be handled with grave respect; my viewpoint, coming from contraceptive culture, was that it’s fine to use loaded guns as toys as long as you put blanks in the chamber. Thinking of that analogy, expecting to be able to use something with incredible power nonchalantly, as a toy, I could see how that worldview had set us up for disaster.
I came to see that our culture’s widespread use and acceptance of contraception had led to the “contraceptive mentality” toward sex being the default position. As a society, we’d come to take it for granted that we’re entitled to the pleasurable and bonding aspects of sex even when we’re in a state of being vehemently opposed to the new life it might produce. The option of abstaining from the act that creates babies if we’re in a state of seeing babies as a huge burden had been removed from our cultural lexicon: even if it would be a huge crisis to get pregnant, we have a right to go ahead and have sex anyway. If this were true, if it was indeed a fact that it was morally OK for people to have sex even when they believed that a new baby could ruin their lives, in my mind, then, abortion had to be OK.
I realize that ideally I would have taken an objective look at when human life begins and based my views on that alone…but the lie was just too tempting. I didn’t want to hear too much about heartbeats or souls or brain activity…terminating pregnancies just had to be OK, because carrying a baby to term and becoming a parent is a huge deal…and society had made it very clear that sex is not a huge deal. As long as I accepted that for people to engage in sex in a contraceptive mentality was morally OK, I could not bring myself to even consider that abortion might not be OK. It just seemed too inhumane to make women deal with life-altering consequences for an act that was not supposed to have life-altering consequences.
So this idea that we are always to treat the sexual act with awe and respect, so much so that we should simply abstain if we’re vehemently opposed to its life-giving potential, was a totally new and different message. For me, being able to honestly consider when life begins, opening my heart and my mind to the wonder and dignity of even the tiniest of my fellow human beings, was not fully possible until I understood the nature of the act that creates these little lives in the first place.
The great temptation
All of these thoughts had been percolating in my brain for a while, and I found myself increasingly in agreement with pro-life positions. Then one night I was reading something, and a thought occurred to me, and from that moment on I was officially, unapologetically PRO-LIFE. I was reading yet another account of the Greek societies in which newborn babies were abandoned to die, wondering to myself how normal people could possibly do something like that. I felt a chill rush through my body as I thought:
I know how they did it.
I realized in that moment that perfectly good, well-meaning people — people like me — can support very evil things through the power of lies. From my own experience, I knew how the Greeks, the Romans, and people in every other society could put themselves into a mental state that they could leave a newborn child to die: the very real pressures of life — “we can’t afford another baby,” “we can’t have any more girls,” “he wouldn’t have had a good life” — left them susceptible to that oldest of temptations: to dehumanize other human beings. Though the circumstances were different, it was the same process that had happened with me, that happened with the concurring Supreme Court Justices in Stenberg v. Carhart, with the abortion doctors, the entire pro-choice movement, and anyone else who’s ever been tempted to dehumanize inconvenient people.
I bet that as those Greek parents handed over their infants for someone to take away, they remarked on how very unlike their other children these little creatures were: they can’t talk, the can’t sit up, and surely those little yawns and smiles are just involuntary reactions. I bet you anything they referred to these babies with different words than they used to refer to the children they kept. Maybe they called them “fetuses.”
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Thank you for this. You have really touched on some amazing and thoughtful points that I hope opens minds to both sides. I’m very pro-life, although I understand the view of pro-choice, however ever much I disagree with it. I came from a mother who was battered and then left the marriage pregnant and completely penniless. She chose to keep me because abortion wasn’t an option in her mind. I’m so grateful she did. I have had an amazing life because of her self sacrifice and she has never regretted her decision.
Jen, thanks again for a wonderful post!
I have never read such a well-written and convincing argument for life. If I were not already pro-life, I would certainly be soul searching right now. I hope this reaches the eyes and hearts of many!
Well said, Jennifer.
Over the years, I’ve “defaulted” to the position that science discovers a little more every day. So it follows that because we don’t know when a human life becomes a person, we will at some time in the future.
Better safe than sorry. When it comes to killing things, I’d much rather err on the side of caution.
Well thought out, Jennifer, and extremely well said.
This is such a beautiful post – brava to you on expressing your journey so eloquently! I too was pro-choice and even volunteered with Planned Parenthood in my young adulthood. Only by the grace of God am I now converted to a 100% pro-life position, from conception to natural death. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences so others can learn what motivates people to change their minds on such a huge and important issue!
Interesting post but although you discuss abortion at length, what about end of life issues?
Also, is the aim of the pro-life movement to achieve a ban on abortion or simply campaign against it to highlight alternative views?
Despite being pro choice, I would welcome the second as I think it is important as a society to consider and discuss all different beliefs, but the first would sadden me.
You are against abortion because you hold certain beliefs.Many people however do not share these so would it really be fair to impose your views on others?
If abortion is legal, those who want it have it and those who don’t don’t. Everyone gets their way.
Making abortion illegal however seems to me unfair as it imposes a certain way of life on others.
Nobody in their right mind disputes that murder is ok. Whether you are atheist or Christian or anything else, people agree it is wrong and that’s why we have laws against it and people more or less unite to try and prevent it.
But the fact is we cannot agree on whether abortion amounts to murder so should we not be tolerant to both views?
Is it wrong?
Most of you argue yes on a religious basis. Many would argue no, I don’t believe in God, it’s not wrong etc.
Until you can prove beyond doubt and convince everyone that there is a God, that abortion is against His will and so that we should all stop having them, your arguements are interesting, but they are beliefs and it seems to me unfair to impose them on others because just as you may be right, you may also be wrong and this is too important an issue to start speculating.
BLOG COMMENT FROM THE THIRD REICH, CIRCA 1935: “You are against the liquidation of Jews and other untermenschen because you hold certain beliefs. Many people however do not share these so would it really be fair to impose your views on others? If the liquidation of Jews and other untermenschen is legal, those who want it have it and those who don’t don’t. Everyone gets their way. Making the liquidation of Jews and other untermenschen illegal however seems to me unfair as it imposes a certain way of life on others. Nobody in their right mind disputes that murder is ok. Whether you are atheist or Christian or anything else, people agree it is wrong and that’s why we have laws against it and people more or less unite to try and prevent it. But the fact is we cannot agree on whether the liquidation of Jews and other untermenschen amounts to murder so should we not be tolerant to both views? Is it wrong? Most of you argue yes on a religious basis. Many would argue no, I don’t believe in God, it’s not wrong etc. Until you can prove beyond doubt and convince everyone that there is a God, that the liquidation of Jews and other untermenschen is against His will and so that we should all stop the liquidation of Jews and other untermenschen, your arguements are interestingg, but they are beliefs and it seems to me unfair to impose them on others because just as you may be right, you may also be wrong and this is too important an issue to start speculating.
I’m not Catholic, but I have the utmost respect and admiration for the way the Catholic church has held the line on the sanctity of life. When so many of the Protestant churches have caved in on an issue that is clear, the Catholic church has stood firm demonstrating the what is right is not always popular.
Hi Jennifer-
I came across your blog and was deeply moved by your story of conversion to the faith by way of the pro-life conversion. Hopefully you will take the advice of so many who have encouraged you to publish what you have written. You might find interesting a compelling video called “The Cost of Abortion”. I think you could see it on thecostofabortion.com. You might also find a lot of support in you new life within the Catholic Church in a new web site for the first Catholic TV over the internet which will launch 9/1/08 at http://www.realcatholictv.blogspot.com.
God bless you for your courage and generosity in sharing your story.
Spectacular. Thank you. So few seem to have been, a) made the journey all the way across the Christian/secular worldview chasm, b) fully honest about the sharp distinctions between them and, c) able to write about the journey in such clear, honest and compelling terms.
Brava!!
I hope the eight months since you put this up have been enough to gestate the baby of a book of which this was just a seed. I pray that you go forth and seek out a contract or at least make a few calls to agents. Go for it!!!
You do know it’s possible to be a pro-life atheist, right?
Thanks for your post! One thing I never hear in "Pro-Life" & "Pro-Choice" conversations is how the opposite of Pro-Life is Pro-Death. Choosing to use the word "Choice" has it's obvious benefits… Thanks for being vocal about this! And for your humility (as one commenter noted).
Jon (@feb 26),
I know I’ve taken my time to get back to you on this, but few people will undertake any sin, particularly those so grave as abortion and sexual immorality, without first lying to themselves.
Sexual immorality is the root cause of abortion. Contraception helps us fool ourselves into believing that sex and children are disconnected — they give us the lie that sex is NOT for children, but for whatever we want it to be. And yet, sex winds up giving us children in SPITE of our contraception, and we have the gall to be stunned, shocked, dismayed, and angry!
Anonymous (@July17),
“Interesting post but although you discuss abortion at length, what about end of life issues? “
There’s no excuse for the strong killing the weak. I can see forgoing heroic measures to temporarily prevent the death of somebody you can’t save, but withdrawing food and water is killing.
“If abortion is legal, those who want it have it and those who don’t don’t. Everyone gets their way. “
Sorry, but no. Significant numbers of aborted mothers are coerced into it by irresponsible lovers, incestuous (step)fathers, or by mothers who can’t tolerate the idea that their little girl isn’t a virgin.
“Making abortion illegal however seems to me unfair as it imposes a certain way of life on others.”
Keeping it legal excuses the strong killing the unborn. How is that fair? And there’s no end of people who DO dispute the evil of murder, for whichever group of weak people (e.g., terminally ill, the depressed, quadriplegics, paraplegics, with congenital birth defects, cystic fibrosis, the mentally ill, homosexuals, Blacks, Jews…). And when one group gets put in the list of “legal to kill,” these people will immediately start agitating for their own preferred victims to be added to the list.
Geoff, Jon is right. There’s a desperation that prolifers often don’t get, and that the abortion lobby uses as leverage: “She’s so desperate and scared! How can you stress her out even more, you cads!”
Eduardo Verastegui, the star of “Bella”, said that the thing that shocked him most when he went to talk to women walking into abortion clinics is how many of them loved the babies they were about to abort. They weren’t aborting babies they didn’t care about. They were aborting because they were lost in despair, unable to believe there was any other way out. They were aborting the way a Jewish mother, hiding from the Nazis, would suffocate her baby to keep the SS from finding her family.
The abortion lobby’s response is to abandon them in that horror and despair and to demand that they be grateful that this Sophie’s Choice is made available to them.
The prolife movement’s response needs to be to recognize the desperation and ask the truly prochoice citizens how this is helping.
If just one woman who doesn’t want an abortion climbs on the abortion table, that needs to be uniformly recognized as an appalling societal failure. We need to say it, often and loudly. And make the abortion lobby defend the fact that most of the women walking into abortion facilities are weeping, despairing, and doing the last thing on earth they ever thought they’d be desperate enough to do.
Fantastic post, Jen. It was so moving! I am going to show it to my pro-choice friends!
Note to BloggyFriendfromRocks&BiblicalWomanhood:
I can not believe that anyone could be so cruel hearted and insensitive as to have an abortion or even think that pregnant women should be able to "choose". How can you, a Christian woman, believe that abortion is ok? It doesn't matter if the baby would have lived an hour or a year. ABORTION IS WRONG. PERIOD.
The emotional stress would have been awful; to have to watch your child die, well, I can't imagine how that would feel. But that doesn't make abortion ok!
Anyway… no offense, I hope. My blood just boils when I read about how people think an abortion is all right.
I have to say THANK YOU for the words you have shared with so many. I have recently expressed my pro-life views with those around me, and have come under scrutiny for doing so…but I’m standing firm in my beliefs. I understand reasons why someone might want to have an abortion: my sister was young and was unsure if she could handle having her son. But, after speaking with myself and our mother, she did…and I couldn’t have imagined life any other way! My nephew is now 8 years old, and is truly the joy of our lives! My mother had an unplanned pregnancy with my younger brother–but she still went through with it, even through the struggles she faced…he made the home a happier and more joyous place to be!
Thanks again for sharing your story!
wonderfulpost jen.. i’m from singapore and accidentally bumped into yr blog..
I feel sad for my country as more women are going to abortions these days.. for reasons listed by many of the readers here.. It’s becoming a society that does not care much much about anti abortion.. people here are more interested in making ends meet and money or becoming more materialistic. Not that is wrong in making ends meet. but priority are wrong. Many reasons, financial is one of them..
Pls pray for these people.
God Bless
Singaporean
it was common for parents to abandon unwanted newborns, leaving them somewhere to die. It was so deeply troubling to me, and I could never figure out what was going on there: how on earth could this have happened?!
Well, quite simply: unwanted newborn babies are abandoned to die in all cultures, all societies, where women do not have access to reliable contraception and safe legal abortion.
Where women get to decide how many children to have, and when to have them, newborn babies are not abandoned to die.
Being pro-choice means opposing the return of a society in which babies, and pregnant women, are abandoned to die.
Being pro-life means supporting the creation of a new society in which women are forced against their will to bear children no one wants in order to let those children be abandoned to a slow, miserable death.
I am moved by your post and very impressed by the depth of thought and explanation you have shared with us. I do disagree with your position though because I believe that the government should not legislate any reproductive issues. Women’s bodies are their own, whether they are deciding to have an abortion or to choose how many children to have. The choice they make are between them, their doctors, and their faith.
I just discovered your blog and I’m so glad that I did. This is a great post. My best friend and I have argued about abortion a lot. I have to convince her to read your blog. I think it could really make a difference! Thank you!
Wow. I just found your blog and since I am passionately prolife I had to read this post right away. I gasped in horror reading about the D&X procedure because it is horrific and barbaric. I wish every person in America would gasp in horror, and that we would wake up and see abortion for what is really is.
I appreciate that you would write about this topic in such an honest and thoughtful way. I agree with you 100% that evil is perpetuated through lies. People are so deceived. I pray that their eyes may be opened. And that one day abortion in America will be abolished.
Since Roe v Wade 36 years ago, more than 50 MILLION babies have been killed. And every day there are approx. 3,700 abortions. Which means we are killing more than 1 MILLION babies, our smallest citizens, each year in this country. How can God bless us when we continue to kill our tiniest, defenseless people?
I am sick to death of the argument that a woman shouldn't be forced to have a baby. Statistically 50% of unborn babies are female – and what of their rights? They aren't being allowed the right to life much less the right to choose!!!
And one of your commenters stated that since we cannot agree on when life begins we should be tolerant of both views! This is insanity!!! In one view, mamas and babies live. In the other, only mamas live. I think I'll choose life for both!!! It's almost laughable to me that they would suggest that because they aren't sure when life begins it's okay to go ahead and allow abortion. Hello! WHAT IF LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION? And I absolutely believe it does. A tiny fetus in its mother's womb has its own DNA and is a unique human being from the word go. Period.
Love them both. Choose life.
Dawn – People see abortion for what it really is when they visit or live in countries that deny women access to safe legal abortion.
The original poster wrote of her horror at reading about cultures in which women did not have access to safe abortion methods, and where children were born to be abandoned to die.
It would be better if all unwanted conceptions could be prevented: but realistically, the choice is between a culture in which women and babies die because safe legal abortion is denied; and a culture of life in which women can decide for themselves whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy. And, obviously, where all women have free access to free contraception, and no pharmacist or doctor dare deny a woman the contraceptive of her choice. (One reason for the high abortion rate in the US is that pro-lifers have succeeded in ensuring that contraception is hard to get and that people are misinformed about its use.)
I choose life, not death: I choose a woman’s right to choose, and living women and living babies.
Yonmei- I can respect your opinion, but you are unfortunately incorrect. Abortion is not safe for the unborn babies. Abortion ends in their death every time.
And you have missed my point entirely. By “seeing abortion for what it really is” I am asking you to SEE what happens to the unborn baby. Don’t you see it?
You say you choose life. Yonmei, by choosing abortion, death is the ultimate result. Every time. When a woman walks into an abortion provider, it ends in death every time.
And you talk about the horrors of women not having the option of safe abortions! What about the horror of what happens to unborn human beings? That is what they are. Tiny humans. And it’s horrific.
Please stop calling abortion safe. Again I say that it is NEVER safe for the unborn. They are aggressively and barbarically removed from their mother’s womb. Every time. And even for the mama, it isn’t 100% safe. The unfortunate reality is that babies weren’t designed to be removed from their mother’s bodies in this way (suction, tearing, sharp instruments, etc) and damage has occurred to women’s bodies through abortion. While that is sad, I almost feel it’s irrelevant because the fact remains, a tiny human being is killed. Is that not the greater issue? Does that not trump the fact that a woman does not want to be told what to do with her body? How does a tiny human being in the womb become disposable simply because it isn’t wanted by its mama?
God is the Creator of life. God knits babies together in the womb. Do you get that? That is huge! HE FORMS THEM IN THEIR MOTHER’S WOMB. Each baby is His unique design. He is aware of each one. He loves each one. He fashions every part of these complex little human beings. There isn’t one baby in the history of the universe that God hasn’t known about. He has handmade EACH ONE. I think there are few issues, if any, more important to God than Life! He cannot bless our country when we are killing our own babies. His babies.
Even in the case where there is a KNOWN problem with the unborn baby, God cares no less for that baby. He is still the Author of that life and is overseeing its development in the womb. Where do we get off thinking that it’s up to us to decide whether a baby lives or dies?
Yonmei- I am asking you to see abortion for what it does to the unborn. They are the victims here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6vtqpp-6Dw
Dawn: The unfortunate reality is that babies weren’t designed to be removed from their mother’s bodies in this way (suction, tearing, sharp instruments, etc) and damage has occurred to women’s bodies through abortion.
Abortion is far safer than childbirth or indeed pregnancy. About sixty thousand women die each year not directly because they needed an abortion, but indirectly, because their country had made safe abortion impossible for them to get – so instead, they went to an unsafe practicioner, and their bodies were damaged so badly they died.
The original poster was writing about her horror at the customs in countries before abortion became relatively safe – even illegal abortion is safer than delivering a child (one hundred and fifty thousand women at least die each year of complications in childbirth) in which babies were simply abandoned to their deaths. Is this a state to which you wish to return? I don’t think so.
I would hope that the one thing we can all agree on, if we have concern for all lives, is to ensure that everyone has free access to freely available contraception, and the means/education to use contraception whenever they have sex and do not wish to conceive.
We know from national statistics in countries such as the Netherlands that abortion rates can be reduced by six/sevenths fro the US rate while still keeping abortion legal and easily available to any woman.
Isn’t that worth doing, Dawn?
Yonmei – I appreciate your willingness to dialog with me about this. Through all your nice sounding words you neglect to acknowledge the gruesome death that occurs as a result of every abortion procedure, no matter how “safe” you keep saying it is.
If you truly value ALL life as you say, why is some of that life disposable and inconsequential? Talking about how women die from complications during childbirth is tragic. And yet, you miss the more urgent matter – the slaying of 50 MILLION babies in this country in the last 36 years.
You keep using nice words to talk about the importance of abortion as an option for women. While continuing to avoid what HAPPENS to the unborn during that abortion!
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that you would imply that I would rather babies be abandoned. Of course not. But you would rather they be killed when there are other options. How is that better???
Can’t we do better than this? We kill more than 1 million of our own tiny citizens each year. And I’m asking, can’t we do better than this? We know better!
You can keep talking about how safe abortion is. And I will keep reminding you that it is not safe for the unborn. Ever. When a pregnant woman and her unborn child walk into an abortion clinic only one leaves with a heartbeat. The unthinkable has happened to the other. I wish this horrified you.
It’s not worth it. Can’t we do better than this?
Dawn, I wish you were willing to engage in dialogue with me about this.
What I mean by “engaging in dialog”: a willingness to discuss how best to reduce the abortion rate in the US or around the world. As the example of the Netherlands shows, it is perfectly possible to reduce the abortion rate to 1/7th of the current rate in the US: comprehensive sex education and freely available contraception. Yet abortion is still safe and legal in the Netherlands.
Are you willing to engage in dialog, on the understanding that we both agree it would be good if there were fewer abortions performed?
Do you think it would be good to reduce the abortion rate in the US by six-sevenths? If so, are you willing to begin to campaign to get pro-life organisations in the US on the same side as Planned Parenthood and other organisations which work to prevent abortion by provision of contraception?
It is an odd and curious thing, you see, that there is no pro-life organisation in the whole of the US that is willing to work to prevent abortions – only to condemn women for having abortions. Indeed, many pro-life organisations actually stand with the pro-abortion pharmacists who refuse to provide contraception to women! Do you see the absurdity of that, Dawn?
Abortion can be perfectly safe for a woman who needs to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. We will probably forever disagree on whether it’s right to provide abortion safely and legally to women who need to terminate.
But what I am asking you is: Can we at least agree it would be best of all to prevent these abortions at source, by making sure any one who wants to be heterosexually active can – and will! – use contraception unless she, or he, intends to conceive a child?
Can we agree to make it illegal for hospitals and doctors and pharmacists to refuse to provide contraception to anyone who needs it?
That contraception should be available low cost or free to anyone who cannot afford it?
That public schools should have compulsory comprehensive sex education classes that take a positive attitude to kids, when they decide to have sex, first of all making sure they have contraception and know how to use it?
These are the essentials for preventing abortion. Can you agree to engage in dialogue about them?
Yonmei- I have at no point ever disagreed that contraception should be available. I am 100% on board with reducing the number of abortions in this country. Why do you seem irritated with me over these two things when I have NEVER argued either of these points?
YOU are the one unwilling to dialogue. It’s disturbing to me how you keep avoiding my questions to you. And how you continue to avoid what actually occurs during an abortion, what the procedures themselves DO to the unborn.
“It is an odd and curious thing, you see, that there is no pro-life organisation in the whole of the US that is willing to work to prevent abortions – only to condemn women for having abortions.”
How can you make such claims??? Have you BEEN to EVERY pro-life organization in the whole of the U.S.??? Unlikely. I have been to several in the Midwest and know firsthand that these particular pro-life organzations DO work to prevent abortions. You should be careful to do your research before proclaiming such a statement as truth. Do not perpetuate lies.
In addition, these pro-life centers DO NOT condemn women for having an abortion! On the contrary, they are reaching out and attempting to provide these women with love, support, networking, jobs, housing, etc. It’s astonishing to me that you’re unaware of this! And that you would use such a tired, old argument. And one that is also false.
If you wish to be persuasive you should first be truthful. Your arguments carry very little weight if you aren’t accurate.
My main point the entire time has been to make sure that Americans understand and are aware of what actually occurs during an abortion. This might also lead to greater use of contraception if they understood that an abortion does unimaginable things to living, unborn, tiny human beings in the womb, and wanted to avoid such a procedure. You have yet to acknowledge that abortion results in a brutal death 100% of the time.
I have at no point ever disagreed that contraception should be available. I am 100% on board with reducing the number of abortions in this country.
Good. So let’s talk about that, since we can agree on that.
How can pro-life organizations be convinced to promote contraception and comprehensive sex education, instead of opposing it?
Why do you seem irritated with me over these two things when I have NEVER argued either of these points?
If I seemed irritated, it was because you said you wanted to engage in dialog, yet instead of engaging, you lectured me with your views on abortion.
Have you BEEN to EVERY pro-life organization in the whole of the U.S.???
Nope, but I’ve looked at all the websites of every single multi-state or national pro-life organization, and not one of them promotes contraception or comprehensive sex education – so plainly, not one of them is interested in preventing abortions.
In addition, these pro-life centers DO NOT condemn women for having an abortion! On the contrary, they are reaching out and attempting to provide these women with love, support, networking, jobs, housing, etc.
But it would be far more effective to use their considerable political clout to – for example – support President Obama in his efforts to let low-income women get contraception on Medicaid, or, if they want to support pregnant women/women with small children, to campaign for mandatory paid maternity leave, universal health care, and a raise in the minimum wage. Sporadic private charity is never particularly effective – as we see in the US.
My main point the entire time has been to make sure that Americans understand and are aware of what actually occurs during an abortion.
Why is that your “main point”? Instead of trying to thrust this at people, why not focus on doing things with pro-choice people that we can all agree on? Things that the pro-life organizations in the US are not doing? Where are the pro-life organization that spoke up in support for President Obama’s efforts to get contraception on Medicaid?
Yonmei-
“Why is that your “main point”? Instead of trying to thrust this at people, why not focus on doing things with pro-choice people that we can all agree on?”
Because I think that the death of 50 MILLION babies in this country is a very big deal. You do not? I am not “thrusting” this at you. If that’s how you take it I can only assume it makes you uncomfortable. I think the slaying of 50 million American citizens is important to talk about. We talk about the murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. How much more grave is the slaying of 50 million of our own tiny, defenseless citizens? These 50 million Americans have been torn limb from limb and disposed of in hazardous waste bins. You don’t want to hear about it, but I’m not going to be quiet just because it’s uncomfortable. It should indeed make people uncomfortable. It is unthinkable.
“Nope, but I’ve looked at all the websites of every single multi-state or national pro-life organization, and not one of them promotes contraception or comprehensive sex education – so plainly, not one of them is interested in preventing abortions.”
I don’t know if you’re familiar with what being pro-life means, but the core of it is preventing abortion. Whoops.
“Sporadic private charity is never particularly effective – as we see in the US.”
You make some broad, sweeping generalizations that aren’t very effective. To say that private charity is never particularly effective might seem a little ridiculous to those on the receiving end of it. It makes all the difference in the world to THEM.
There’s a wonderful book called Why Prolife? written by Randy Alcorn. It’s available at Amazon and it explains a lot better than I can the position of a pro-lifer. The author writes about it so articulately. It’s really a fabulous book and a quick read if you’re interested.
I agree with you about many things and yet my heart aches for you to understand the atrocity that abortion is. You would fight for this practice to be legal when you know that the cost of every abortion is an unborn life. I think you’re right about a lot of things, but not about abortion. The cost is too great. It’s not okay for tiny babies to be aborted because they come at an inconvenient time, or might make life uncomfortable for awhile. If we treated animals the same way we treat the unborn in this country there would be an uprising. And if a pregnant woman was murdered on her way into an abortion clinic, her murderer would be charged with a DOUBLE homicide and yet she could have walked in to get an abortion and killing that baby would be legal. Same day, same dead baby. In one scenario the baby would be mourned and buried and remembered. In the other, the baby is disposed of as hazardous waste and forgotten.
Because I think that the death of 50 MILLION babies in this country is a very big deal.
Dawn, again, if it is such a big deal to you that there have been 50 million legal abortions in the US since 1973, why are you apparently more interested in pushing that figure at me than discussing how to reduce the number of abortions by effective methods that pro-choicers would support, too?
I don’t know if you’re familiar with what being pro-life means, but the core of it is preventing abortion. Whoops.
No, not in the US or anywhere else that I am familiar with: the core of the pro-life movement is not “preventing abortion” but making abortion illegal. As global statistics show, making abortion illegal does not prevent women having abortions, merely ensure that more women die or are physically damaged as a result of having abortions.
If the core of the pro-life movement were preventing abortions, we would see promotion of contraception and support for all moves to make contraception free/freely available, on the front page of every pro-life website. Instead, as noted, not one pro-life organisation in the US promotes prevention of abortion.
I agree with you about many things and yet my heart aches for you to understand the atrocity that abortion is.
And yet, you do not appear to care at all about preventing abortions. If you think abortion is such an atrocity, why the lack of interest on your part in engaging in dialog about how best to get pro-life organizations to promote abortion prevention?
To say that private charity is never particularly effective might seem a little ridiculous to those on the receiving end of it.
But not in the least ridiculous to those who aren’t on the receiving end of it.
Women who can’t get contraception on Medicaid, for example, because so-called pro-life Republicans fought to have that taken out of President Obama’s bill – without a word of protest from pro-life organizations.
You would fight for this practice to be legal when you know that the cost of every abortion is an unborn life.
Of course I would. The cost of making abortion illegal is women’s lives. Better to keep abortion as legal, readily available, and rare as it is in the Netherlands.
You see, I think the difference between you and me is that you prefer merely to loudly express your sense of outrage about abortion being legal; whereas my preference is for far, far fewer abortions to need to be performed by preventing them at source. I want to prevent abortion; you want to be outraged about abortion: that’s our difference.
What reduces the abortion rate is for the state to ensure that anyone who intends to be heterosexually active can easily get affordable, effective contraception: and that schools and parents strongly encourage their children, when they decide to have sex, to plan on using contraception. That works.
Why, then, do pro-life organisations in the US show such active disinterest in preventing abortion, prefering instead to express outrage about legal abortion?
Yonmei- I am asking you in all seriousness to stop putting words in my mouth. You know me only through our brief “back and forth” over the past couple days and are characterizing me in ways that you wouldn’t if you truly knew me. It’s unfair. Please stop it.
I haven’t used wording to suggest that I am angry or outraged. Rather I have actually SAID that my heart aches for 50 million dead babies. You have used words to describe me like “loud”, “pushing”, and “thrusting”. I have used the figure of 50 million because it is an accurate figure. And to emphasize the SCOPE of the loss of human life. They are people. And it breaks my heart that they are dead.
“The cost of making abortion illegal is women’s lives.”
The cost of legal abortion is also women’s lives as about half of all aborted babies are female. So about 25 million women are dead. What of their rights?
Again, I actually do agree with you about many things. It’s a little difficult in this format for me to articulate that I guess. Our disagreement is obviously legal abortion. You are right that I don’t think it should be legal. A procedure that does what abortion does to unborn human beings should not be legal. We wouldn’t do the same thing to animals. I’m sorry if that sounds to you like “forced birth”. But a baby does not become disposable because it is inconvenient.
I’m ready for you to come back at me with more accusations of unwillingness to dialog. You’re trying to convince me of the importance of contraception when I already believe it is important. I don’t need to be convinced! While I am trying to convince you of the horror of abortion and the value of the 50 million little people that we will never meet, some of whom would be 35 years old and could be helping with the social issues we care so much about, and making a difference.
President Barack Obama himself was essentially abandoned by his father, raised by a struggling single mother, and look what he has accomplished! Imagine the potential of the unborn, even in the bleakest of circumstances. Every life should have that opportunity.
Rather I have actually SAID that my heart aches for 50 million dead babies. You have used words to describe me like “loud”, “pushing”, and “thrusting”. I have used the figure of 50 million because it is an accurate figure. And to emphasize the SCOPE of the loss of human life. They are people. And it breaks my heart that they are dead.
And you still keep thrusting, still keep expressing outrage, rather than trying to engage in dialogue. Why?
Again, I actually do agree with you about many things. It’s a little difficult in this format for me to articulate that I guess. Our disagreement is obviously legal abortion. You are right that I don’t think it should be legal.
Sixty thousand women die each year because they can’t get access to safe, legal abortion. Of course the fetus they were carrying dies too. Even more women are permanently damaged, again, because they couldn’t get access to safe, legal abortion. I think it’s more important to keep adult women alive and well than it is to attempt to force women who want to terminate to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
One, because statistics show that the only result of such an attempt is the deaths of women. The deaths of women may not make your heart ache, you may be utterly indifferent to their dying: but I consider it appalling that women die because Pharisees self-righteously demand that safe abortion shall be placed beyond the reach of ordinary women, to satisfy a literally Pharisaical sense of personal morality without compassion.
Two, because I consider it deeply wrong to force a woman through pregnancy and childbirth against her will. And that, of course, is what makes me a pro-choicer, not a pro-lifer.
. You’re trying to convince me of the importance of contraception when I already believe it is important.
Then why are you not interested in talking about how to persuade pro-life organisations to support free provision of contraception, and assurance that contraception is freely available to all? Why are you only interested in trying to thrust your view of abortion on me?
“And you still keep thrusting, still keep expressing outrage, rather than trying to engage in dialogue. Why?”
Fasten your seatbelt. This is why.
It’s never in anyone’s best interests to kill a child. When a child is hurt by his mother it brings harm not only to the child but to her. It’s impossible to separate a woman’s welfare from her child’s. Precisely because the unborn is a child, the consequences of killing him are severe. It’s the identity of the first victim, the child, that brings harm to the second victim, the mother. That’s why I begin and end my debate on abortion with the significance of the unborn and the gravity of the slaying of 50 million of them.
In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for “delivering a controlled substance to a minor.” This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights, deserving protection even from his mother. However, that same woman who’s prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is free to abort that same child. It’s illegal to harm your preborn child, but it’s perfectly legal to kill him.
At one time whites decided that blacks were less human. Men decided women had fewer rights. Nazis decided Jews’ lives weren’t meaningful. Now big people have decided that little people aren’t meaningful enough to have rights. Personhood isn’t something to be bestowed on human beings by those intent on ridding society of “undesirables.” Personhood has an inherent value that comes from being a member of the human race.
An abortion is not just another surgery, no different from an appendectomy or root canal. Why do you suppose that people don’t remember the anniversary of their appendectomy 20 years later? Why don’t they find themselves weeping uncontrollably over the loss of their appendix? And where are all the support groups for those who’ve had root canals?
In surveys of women who have experienced post-abortion complications:
* 90% said they weren’t given enough information to make an informed choice
* Over 80% said it was very unlikely they would have aborted if they had not been so strongly encouraged to abort by others, including their abortion counselors.
* 83% said they would have carried to term if they had received support from their families, boyfriends, or other important people in their lives.
(afterabortion.org)
Women Exploited by Abortion (WEBA)has had over 30,000 members in more than 200 chapters across America with chapters in Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.
Other postabortion support and recovery groups include Victims of Choice, Postabortion Counseling and Education (PACE), Helping and Educating in Abortion Related Trauma (HEART), Healing Visions Network, Counseling for Abortion-Related Experiences (CARE), Women of Ramah, Project Rachel, Open Arms, Abortion Trauma Services, American Victims of Abortion, and Former Women of Choice. The existence of these groups is evidence of the emotional and mental trauma of countless women who’ve had abortions.
A study published in the Southern Medical Journal indicated that “women who have abortions are at significant higher risk of death than women who give birth.” This included a 154% higher risk of death from suicide.
Every woman deserves better than abortion. I agree that they should have access to contraception. While the alternatives to abortion are challenging, abortion is the only one that kills an innocent person 100% of the time. Precisely because it does so, it has by far the most negative consequences in a woman’s life.
Yonmei, you said, “Sixty thousand women die each year because they can’t get access to safe, legal abortion. Of course the fetus they were carrying dies too. Even more women are permanently damaged, again, because they couldn’t get access to safe, legal abortion. I think it’s more important to keep adult women alive and well than it is to attempt to force women who want to terminate to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.”
In light of this comment I take it that you are unaware that women also die BECAUSE of their access to that “safe” abortion. Consider the woman who hemorrhaged, was transfused, got hepatits, and died months later. Official cause of death? Hepatits. Actual cause? Abortion. A perforated uterus leads to pelvic abscess, sepsis and death. The official report of the cause of death may list pelvic abscess and septicemia. Abortion will not be listed. Abortion causes tubal pathology. She has an ectopic pregnancy years later and dies. The cause listed will be ectopic pregnancy. The actual cause? Abortion.
You also said, “…because statistics show that the only result of such an attempt is the deaths of women. The deaths of women may not make your heart ache, you may be utterly indifferent to their dying: but I consider it appalling that women die because Pharisees self-righteously demand that safe abortion shall be placed beyond the reach of ordinary women, to satisfy a literally Pharisaical sense of personal morality without compassion.”
You have championed abortion as safe for women. Would you dishonor the women harmed by abortion by ignoring or denying their experiences? Abortion has been anything but safe for women.
Why Prolife? by Randy Alcorn contains this info and much more with credible and scientific sources.
It’s never in anyone’s best interests to kill a child.
But we aren’t discussing killing children, Dawn: we’re discussing terminating pregnancies, or abortion.
The actual cause? Abortion.
Yes: unsafe, illegal abortion.
Where abortion is legal, it is safe.
You don’t want to think of women dying because of unsafe abortions?
Then support all women’s right to freely access legal abortion. Almost since Roe vs. Wade pro-lifers have endeavored to make legal abortion in the US costly and inaccessible: Medicaid will not pay for the abortion if a woman needs to terminate a pregnancy, but will pay for the costs of healthcare if she ends up having an illegal abortion and needs treatment. Most health insurance plans in the US don’t cover the costs of abortion: many won’t even cover the costs of contraception. This is plain stupid; a woman who chooses to terminate should be able to do so, and shouldn’t have to delay her abortion or have to go the illegal route because it’s all she can afford.
Would you dishonor the women harmed by abortion by ignoring or denying their experiences?
Precisely because illegal abortion is so unsafe for women, I champion and honor those women by demanding that abortion shall remain safe and legal.
Your desire to have even more women die because they cannot access safe legal abortion, while hypocritically pretending care for the past women who fell victim to the pro-life movement’s campaign against safe legal abortion, is thoroughly hypocritical and dishonorable.
If you object to safe, legal abortion because you think the state should try to force women through pregnancy and childbirth against their will, at least have the honor and honesty to admit that the price is paid in women’s lives – in the perforated uteruses and hepatis and other direct effects of denying women access to safe, safe, safe legal abortion.
My last comment was a little testy: claims by people who oppose access to legal abortion that use data about the physical damage caused by illegal abortion to “prove” their poiint tends to have that effect. Nevertheless, I apologize for my testiness.
With regard to the mental effects of abortion:
“Although women may experience some distress immediately after having an abortion, the experience has no independent effect on their psychological well-being over time, according to a study of longitudinal data from a large, national sample. The data show that the most important predictor of a woman’s sense of well-being after having an abortion is her level of self-esteem before the pregnancy. This remains true regardless of race or affiliation with a religious group, even if the denomination opposes abortion.”
- from “Family Planning Perspectives”, Jul/Aug 1997 by S. Edwards. link
The so-called “Post Abortion Syndrome”, claimed by many pro-lifers as a mental after-effect of abortion, has not been shown to exist in any scientific studies of women after abortion. So you can put your concerns for the mental affect of abortion on women out of your mind, Dawn.
As I’ve noted already: better if people who oppose abortion focussed on provision of contraception, which pro-life organisations do not. Better also if people who are concerned for human life, focussed on keeping abortion legal and freely accessible, to prevent deaths from illegal abortions – which pro-lifers by definition do not.
What we have not discussed, either, is women who choose abortion because they literally cannot afford to have a child. This is appalling, and if pro-life organizations could also be persuaded to focus on provision of mandatory paid maternity leave and free universal healthcare for all, plus a raise in the minimum wage, and other benefits routine for all mothers in other developed countries (free prescriptions: home health visitors: dietary supplements: etc) that would also help to prevent abortions.
If only tbe pro-life movement in the US showed any interest in preventing abortions! But, judged by those I have attempted to discuss this with online (including you, Dawn, I’m afraid) they are entirely uninterested in abortion prevention, prefering to promote illegal abortion with consequent damage to women’s health, and get uselessly enraged about women who choose abortion without ever wanting to do anything effective about that choice.
Yonmei- I am dismayed. You did not even read my comments. You accuse me of being unwilling to dialog. If the shoe fits, wear it! I can’t dialog with you if you don’t read my comments.
The injuries to women that I am referring to are caused by the LEGAL abortion procedure that they have undergone. Legal abortion is not safe, Yonmei. Women indeed are injured by legal abortion.
There are literally hundreds of support groups in this country for women suffering MENTAL and emotional distress long after their abortion. These groups would not be ATTENDED if there wasn’t a need. These groups plainly are meeting a very real, felt need by women. I am talking about current, present day support groups. As you sit here and read this, there are women in this country who underwent a legal abortion and are suffering because of it and have sought support. Whether you want to believe it or not doesn’t change it’s truth.
“Where abortion is legal, it is safe.”
The women I talked about in my previous post were injured by their LEGAL abortion. LEGAL abortion is causing injuries to women. So I’m concerned about that. And you are not.
In 2004 Dr. Elizabeth Shadigan testified before a Senate subcommittee in a hearing to invetigate the physical and psychological effect of aborion on women. She said, “abortion increases rates of breat cancer, placenta previa, preterm births, and maternal suicide. Statistically, all typs of deaths are higher with women who have had induced abortions.”
At least 49 studies have demonstrated a statistically significant increase in premature births or low birth weight risk in women with prior induced abortions. “Low birth weight and premature birth are the most important risk factors for infant mortality or later disabilities as well as for lower cognitive abilities and greater behavioral problems.” -Brent Rooney and Byron C. Calhoun, MD, “Induced Abortions and Risk of Later Premature Births,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, vol.8, no. 2, Summer 2003.
Women who’ve had one abortion double their risk of cervical cancer…while women with two or more abortions multiply their risk by nearly five times. Similar elevated rsks of ovarian and liver cancer have also been linked to single and multiple abortions. (British Journal of Cancer, F. Parazzini, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, H.L. Stewart, Journal of Reproductive Medicine, I. Fuhimoto, and International Journal of Cancer, C. LaVecchia)
After extensive research, Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at City University of New York, concluded, “The single most avoidable risk factor for breast cancer is induced abortion.” http://members.aol.com/DFJoseph/brind.html
Postabortion specialist David Reardon writes, “In a study of postabortion patients only eight weeks after their abortion, researchers round that 44 percent complained of nervous disorders, 36 percent had experienced sleep disturbances, 31 percent had regrets abour their decision, and 11 percent had been prescribed psychotropic medicine by their family doctor. This is particularly significant since some women show no apparent effect from their abortions until years later. -Major Psychological Sequelae of Abortion, 1997, Elliot Institute.
So, my mind has not been put to rest about the mental or physical effects of abortion on women. Legal abortion is damaging women today.
“What we have not discussed, either, is women who choose abortion because they literally cannot afford to have a child. This is appalling”
What is appalling is that she feels the only choice she has is to abort. It’s truly heart wrenching when a woman cannot afford to carry to term the baby in her womb. I agree 100%. And what I think is even more appalling is that the baby in her womb has to lay down his or her life because of it. There ARE other options.
You’ve brought up the cost of abortion. Those who offer legal abortions charge women for them, while those who offer abortion alternatives give their assistance freely, lovingly and almost entirely behind the scenes. Contrary to what you may believe, prolifers are not just pro-birth – they are pro-LIFE. They care about a child and her mother, and are there to help them both not only before birth, but after.
This will probably be my last post, Yonmei. We’re leaving for vacation tomorrow and will be back the 15th. I’ll have very little internet access while we’re gone. And on top of that, I’ve been offended by your personal insults. It’s one thing to vigorously debate this important issue. It’s quite another to accuse me of pretending to care for women and call me a hypocrite. This was unwarranted. You cannot possibly know me through a “discussion” of this nature. But you pretend that you do and attack my character. And these insults do not lend themselves to making you particularly persuasive or credible.
You did not even read my comments.
Read them: responded to them. You may not like my answers, but I’ve given them.
But you’ve yet to respond to any of my queries. Instead, you keep thrusting your views about abortion at me, refusing to dialog, demanding – aggressively – that I react in some way to your long tirades against abortion.
Well, no: I have nothing to say to them more than I’ve said already, which is that I prefer to prevent abortions, and I strongly object to forcing women to unsafe illegal abortions.
Perforated uteruses and hepatitis may be a price you’re willing to have other women pay, a means of talking up how dangerous abortions are while elliding over the fact that it’s illegal abortions that make women run these risks: and it’s illegal abortions that the pro-life movement promotes. But I’m not in favor of women dying so other people can feel morally good about themselves: I want a woman who wants an abortion to be able to get a safe, legal abortion.
While you prefer her to run the risk of a perforated uterusfrom an illegal, untrained practicioner rather than she should be able to go to her nearest hospital and just get an abortion from a properly trained doctor. And that preference seems to me to be morally abominable.
Now if you wanted to talk about how to prevent abortions – but you don’t. I have been inviting such dialog since we began, and so far, you’ve refused every invitation.
Instead, you’ve cited false medical evidence (no, women who have abortions are not at more risk from cancer, any more than they are from depression) and tried to claim I personally insulted you.
Contrary to what you may believe, prolifers are not just pro-birth – they are pro-LIFE. They care about a child and her mother, and are there to help them both not only before birth, but after.
Contrary to the evidence, you mean. Pro-lifers as a movement do not campaign for mandatory paid maternity leave nor free universal health care for pregnant women, a raise in the minimum wage, free childcare for low-income women, mandatory free preschool education for all kids, or any of the other benefits that pro-choicers won for women in other countries: so the claim falls to the ground. They are simply not there for pregnant women nor for children: neither before a child is born, nor after. Pro-life politicians in general are not the politicians who can be relied on to vote for pro-child or pro-mother policies. It’s just not true, what you claim.
Let me clarify this a little.
There are (according to a study done in 2005) about 744 000 homeless people in the US. About 41% are families: the rest are single adults.
It seems a reasonable conclusion that probably at least 300 000 of those homeless people are women – correct me if you have better figures for that. In 2007, 37.3 million people were living in poverty (from the US Census Bureau figures). 18% of the people living below the poverty level wo ere children under the age of 5.
The specific area of poverty relief in which a person interested in preventing abortions might concern themselves would be provision of free contraception to all – certainly, anyone too poor to afford to pay for health insurance ought to be able to get contraception via Medicaid – I assume you’d agree to that?
Medicaid will not cover contraception costs without specific permission from the federal government. President Obama tried to get this permission into his recent financial bill. It was opposed by Republicans and was removed.
Where is the pro-life movement there? Can you show me any examples of pro-life organizations, or even individual self-identified pro-lifers, standing up and praising President Obama for his attempt to get effective abortion prevention into this bill? Or campaigning against the Republicans who wanted effective abortion prevention out of the bill?
When I look for examples of organizations or individuals doing just that, I find them on pro-choice sites, not on pro-life sites.
I haven’t even seen one pro-lifer acknowledge that the people who called Obama the “pro-abortion President” were flat wrong: it was the Republicans who required the contraception-on-Medicaid out of the bill who were effectively pro-abortion, weren’t they?
I hope you enjoy your holiday, Dawn, and think a little about what I’ve said.
Yonmei-
I have heard the same argument from other pro-abortionist- “where are all the prolifers in regards to the homeless? First of all, the amount of work done by religious organizations is immeasurable. They do this work WITHOUT all the government funding that pro-abortion groups receive. What work have you,personally,done to help feed and clothe the homeless?
I hope that you will educate yourself. Read about Margaret Sanger and her “reasons” for abortion. Read about the psychological damage done to women who have had abortions. We know your position, look a little deeper into the pro-life reasons. But be careful….you may begin to believe as Jennifer!
As far as Barack Obama goes-Mexico City Law. Have you heard of it? Our tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood in other countries! Disgusting! So much for our economy, right? He even said, “That’s above my pay scale.” in response to being asked, “When does life begin?” That opens the door for repeal of all current laws protecting women by wait periods, parental notification, infanticide, etc. Don’t take our word for it. Look for secular articles about it. Finally, look up writings of the abortionist that helped get Roe vs. Wade passed. He admits to performing over 1000 abortions himself. I pray your heart will soften towards the unborn as much as for the women and men that are homeless.
Anonymous, I am not “pro-abortion”: I am pro-choice. Until you begin to understand that, you cannot begin to communicate with me, because you begin from a wrong premise.
I do think, in response to the original post, that it is better to have an abortion than to abandon the baby to die after birth: but better yet, never need an abortion at all: use contraception.
Vaguely mentioning the quasi-science and ahistorical stories you sort of remember something about that you think showed you why it’s good to force women through pregnancy and childbirth against their will, is not a good way to argue. Trust me on this. Pro-lifers never seem to realise that the stories which justify their beliefs to the already-converted do not work very well on better-educated people.
I just wanted to let you know that I LOVE this post. It describes me to a tee! I had never heard anyone so perfectly describe me and my journey from pro-abortion to pro-life. Thank you so much. I have posted this on my facebook page several times and will continue to do it so I can get as many people to read it as possible. Thanks!
Thank you for this blog – I am a cradle catholic that grew up believing in all the “rules” of the catholic church, but never fully understanding all of them – especially the ones related to sex – my thought was always – I want to have sex for the fun of it whenever I want!! I used many different kinds of contraception – considered aborting 2 of my children(thank you, Lord for not allowing that to happen) and for a long time felt very burdened by children at times. What a fool I was. I finally read some of Christopher West’s books and all these “rules” began to make sense – it is very difficult to see in this “raised to be selfish – take care of me first” society that we live in, but it does make total sense. You have explained things so well that you have helped me get through one final hurdle in my catholic beliefs – being open to life at all times! Thank you – God has a way of getting answers to us!! Praise Him for His Wisdom!!
Thank you for this wonderful story. May God Richly Bless You and Yours!
I stumbled on this post and decided to comment, even though the OP was a while ago.
I am pro-life AND pro-choice. God HIMSELF is pro-choice. He allows US to decide, and has since we were in the garden. Yes, He allows us to make poor choices (abortion being one) and He gives us the consequences for our choices.
Although I believe women should have a choice (otherwise some would resort to back alley abortions or worse), I chose life for my son. Not all people who want a choice would choose an abortion.
I do respect your opinion, and think the links provided give some disturbing insights into the procedure.
As someone who has been "pro-choice" for a long time, I am disgusted by Yonmei's aggressive responses. Dawn seemed to have some good points and to cite reasonable sources… the Yonmei/Dawn interaction leaves me wondering if I have been so blind about the possibly valid research supporting "pro-life" ideas. I am really questioning my stance now.
Hi, Dawn! Why are you posting as "Lucia" now?
Hi Yonmei, this is not Dawn. Don't you think it's a little paranoid to assume so? I would give you my last name but I don't really want this popping up on any google searches of me since this topic is so sensitive. For the record, I am Reform Jewish and my congregation doesn't take a stand about abortion either way so I've been trying to figure this out.
Hi Yonmei, this is not Dawn. Don't you think it's a little paranoid to assume so?
Paranoid? I'm sorry, don't you think you're taking a blog conversation a little seriously?
If you are not Dawn, I apologize for assuming that you were: but your comment certainly took the classic sock-puppet format, so you might want to look out for that in future.
For the record, I am Reform Jewish and my congregation doesn't take a stand about abortion either way so I've been trying to figure this out.
If you need to have an abortion, I wouldn't think hanging out on blogs would be a useful way of making up your mind, but to each their own.
(If you don't need to have an abortion, then you really only need to decide whether you take the position that each pregnant woman is in the best position to decide for herself whether to terminate or continue her pregnancy – the pro-choice position: or whether to argue that the state ought to make the decision for the pregnant woman – the "pro-life" position.)
Hi Yonmei, thanks for your response. I am taking these posts seriously because it is a serious topic. Thankfully I am not in a position to have to make the choice of whether to have an abortion. The reason I am here is simply because I want to understand the ethical issues surrounding the topic and because I have always been weary of being completely pro-choice. I don't like how the pro-choice movement might allow people to lead irresponsible lives and feel that they don't have any consequences. Anyhow, I continue to believe that in some instances, abortion might be the best option. I'm just trying to sort out my own beliefs. I agree with you that the pro-life movement needs to focus more on prevention of abortions. Once they make a lot of headway in this direction, their arguments for making abortions illegal would make more sense and be taken more seriously. Signs like "abortion is murder" will not convince people who do not believe that fetuses have individual rights. They simply tend to offend others.
Yonmei -
If you don't need to have an abortion, then you really only need to decide whether you take the position that each pregnant woman is in the best position to decide for herself whether to terminate or continue her pregnancy – the pro-choice position: or whether to argue that the state ought to make the decision for the pregnant woman – the "pro-life" position.
Thanks for your thoughts. I would suggest that the only thing that anyone really needs to decide in this debate is whether or not fetuses are humans too. If they are, then it's perfectly acceptable to protect them they way you'd protect any other human being. If they're not, then it should be OK to destroy the fetus for any reason (e.g. because she's a girl, don't feel like being pregnant, etc.)
I think that most people would agree that fetuses do become humans at some point — after all, few people would advocate for "abortion" the day before a baby's due date. So the only question is *when* they become human, and I think that serious research into that question is very worthwhile. I encourage everyone to check out videos of abortions, some of which I liked to here, to make sure they know exactly what is involved. More information is always better is these matters.
. I don't like how the pro-choice movement might allow people to lead irresponsible lives and feel that they don't have any consequences.
I have no idea what you're talking about, you know? I thought we were discussing whether or not a pregnant woman gets to decide to terminate or continue her pregnancy – the pro-choice position – or whether the state should take over and make pregnancy-related decisions for the woman: the "pro-life" position. If you are weary (or wary?) of arguing that a pregnant woman should get to decide, then you are surely arguing for irresponsibility of the individual – submission to the state.
I agree with you that the pro-life movement needs to focus more on prevention of abortions.
But the "pro-life" movement is against women getting to make decisions: so I honestly don't think it's possible for them to turn from persecuting women who have abortions to promoting free access to contraception and comprehensive sex education. It's the pro-choice movement that does all the work of preventing abortions: the "pro-life" movement is just headed in the wrong direction completely for success in that way.
Signs like "abortion is murder" will not convince people who do not believe that fetuses have individual rights. They simply tend to offend others.
Well, yes. But the point of that sign-waving is not, after all, to prevent abortions, but to demonize women who choose abortion and dehumanize doctors who perform them – with tragic results, as we see with the "pro-life" murder of Doctor George Tiller, after decades of "pro-life" assaults on himself, his staff, and his clinic.
I have grown less tolerant since Tiller's murder made brutally clear again that "pro-life" is such an ironic name for a movement devoted to death and destruction.
I would suggest that the only thing that anyone really needs to decide in this debate is whether or not fetuses are humans too. If they are, then it's perfectly acceptable to protect them they way you'd protect any other human being.
I agree completely. But of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with whether a pregnant woman is entitled to decide for herself whether, and when, to terminate or continue a pregnancy. You can only, in all humanity, give a fetus the same rights as you would any other human being – which means they are no more entitled to make use of another human's body against her will than any other human would be. Abortion thus remains absolutely the decision of the pregnant woman, not the state.
So the only question is *when* they become human, and I think that serious research into that question is very worthwhile.
If you like, but that can't affect a woman's right to choose abortion, since that right is solidly based on her being human, and thus entitled to decide for herself whether or not to donate the use of her body – whether or not such donation keeps another human alive.
By the way, seventy thousand women die each year as a direct consequence of being unable to get access to safe, legal abortion. Twice that number die in childbirth. The "pro-life" murders of doctors are the most blatant example of the "pro-life" movement's violence and inhumanity, but the steady death toll of women – and the fetus they were carrying – is an even greater indictment against the "pro-life" movement's claim to care for fetuses.
Sorry for being such a "Johnny-come-lately"; I've no idea if the conversation is still going on, but just in case…
Yonmei wrote:
You can only, in all humanity, give a fetus the same rights as you would any other human being – which means they are no more entitled to make use of another human's body against her will than any other human would be.
First: I think you're making a mistake in saying that we "give" a fetus (Latin for "little boy") such inalienable rights as life; that right is intrinsic to all with a human nature–no matter how old or young, healthy or ailing.
Second: do you not realize that your argument defends, a la Peter Singer, all forms of infanticide? Did you really mean to do that?
Abortion thus remains absolutely the decision of the pregnant woman, not the state.
That's not to the point. I assert to you that abortion, no matter whose decision it is, is a MORALLY EVIL choice.
You seem to be relying on a Judith Jarvis Thompson type of argument, with your appeals to "giving permission to use [x]'s body for life-support"–as if pregnancy were some sort of artificial/technological contrivance worthy of Bela Lugosi, rather than a natural aspect of human nature(!). You don't seem to understand that such an argument is blatantly illogical, and it's a raw appeal to the gallery (i.e. whipping up a desired emotional response that trumps all sane reason). To illustrate, try this on for side (sorry about the length, Jen!):
=====
Suppose you are a pioneer, living with your family in the early to middle 1800's in the northern parts of Montana; suppose visitors are few, law enforcement consists of your skills at diplomacy and/or accuracy with your gun, and "social programs" are nonexistent. It is now early September, and the temperature is well below freezing–and it can be expected to stay below freezing until middle to late April (roughly 9 months).
Now, suppose that a gang of outlaws, riding swift horses, invades your property, breaks into your house, and proceeds to steal, destroy, terrorize, and physically injure every member of your family (including sexual assault on every female member of the family); in addition, the head outlaw remarks on your spouse's "ugliness", takes a pot of boiling water, and pours it over your spouse's face, yelling, "this'll improve things, won't it?" Your spouse's face, aside from the agony, will never be anything other than horribly disfigured from this time on.
As the head outlaw prepares to leave, he laughs and yells, "Oh, yeah… I got a present fer ya!", and proceeds to take a live baby out of one of the saddlebags of the horse. "This is a kid I sired by my woman back home; no way I'm gonna be tied down with a kid, so here you go; have fun!" And, laughing uproariously, he and his henchmen ride away far too quickly for any pursuit.
It goes without saying that the outlaw "visit" was a trauma that has yielded, and will continue to yield, horrible (and probably permanent) damage to your family, emotionally as well as physically. It may be taken as given that even the mere sight of the baby will surely trigger horrible anguish and emotional pain in your entire family–but most especially in your spouse, whose dignity, sexual integrity, and face are ravaged. It may also be taken as given that you will have at least a 7- to 8-month wait until any visitors could possibly take the child to some Church, orphanage, etc.; it is certain that maintenance of the baby will cost you a great deal in time, effort, food, and other resources–in addition to the outrage that comes with the fact that the obligation was not of your choosing, and which was forced on you unjustly, with great pain.
(continued in next comment)
(cont'd, for Yonmei:)
Question #1: would it be morally justifiable for you to expel the baby from the house, knowing that the baby will surely die from exposure in short order, on the pretext that the baby is an unwelcome intruder who is intimately connected to the main criminal who caused your pain, and whose very presence is a source of traumatically painful memories?
Question #2: would it be morally justifiable for you to take the baby outside and kill it directly (e.g. beat it to death with a shovel, shoot it, drown it, etc.), on the pretext that you wish rid of a baby whose presence was forced on you (and whose very presence is agonizing to your family), but you wish to spare the baby the pain of dying by exposure?
Question #3: would it be morally permissible to keep the baby in the house (so as to prevent death by exposure) but to withhold all food (causing the baby to starve to death, eventually), on the pretext that you are under no obligation to supply the material needs of a baby that was forced on you without your consent, and whose very presence is psychological agony?
If any of the answers to the above questions are "no", then one must re-examine one's basis for thinking that abortion is acceptable in cases of rape, etc.
=====
As I say: this does not pretend to be a rigorous argument; it is admittedly an appeal to the gallery, whose only real purpose is to highlight (by comparison) the specious "gallery-appeal" nature of Professor Thompson's argument (and similar arguments which seek to evoke "sympathy by appeal to emotion"). In short: if you want to hold to the "I won't use my body as life support for any baby I choose not to have!" position, at least admit that it's an emotion-based and irrational position!
One note on Prof. Thompson's argument: it rests entirely on a non-Theistic, ego-centric (in the Cartesian sense) understanding of the human person. The argument assumes, as an unspoken premise, that one is assumed to have absolute sovereignty over one's body, and that anything affecting one's body must necessarily meet with one's free approval in order to be allowed to continue. (As a personal opinion: this argument style seems to give an unspoken approval of the "retributive" idea that, given a sufficient outrage of justice, any action may be taken as a remedy–"an eye for an eye", if you will.) I'd invite you to consider the idea that this is simply not true.
that right is intrinsic to all with a human nature–no matter how old or young, healthy or ailing.
Fine: so presuming that you consider women to be human, you agree that a woman has an intrinsic right to life – no matter whether she is pregnant or not.
Which means that a pregnant woman has an intrinsic right to decide to terminate her pregnancy: since pregnancy and childbirth can be lethal. To force a woman through pregnancy and childbirth against her will – to deny her access as of right to safe legal abortion – is to deny her intrinsic right to life.
Second: do you not realize that your argument defends, a la Peter Singer, all forms of infanticide? Did you really mean to do that?
You appear in the rest of your post to be arguing as if a fetus was a baby. As a fetus is not a baby – a fetus and a baby are quite biologically distinct forms of humanity – the rest of your arguments fall to the ground.
Yonmei wrote, in reply to my comment:
[Paladin]
that right [to life] is intrinsic to all with a human nature–no matter how old or young, healthy or ailing.
[Yonmei]
Fine: so presuming that you consider women to be human, you agree that a woman has an intrinsic right to life – no matter whether she is pregnant or not.
Certainly… and also whether she is born, or not. It's not very supportive of women's rights to kill young women in the womb, after all. (Some abortion-tolerant people *do* speak, sometimes, as if all the unborn children in the world were male, and that it was a women's rights issue to eradicate them; I don't understand it at all.)
Which means that a pregnant woman has an intrinsic right to decide to terminate her pregnancy: since pregnancy and childbirth can be lethal.
Oh, come now: that's patently illogical, and it doesn't follow at all. There's a nonzero percentage chance that some of my students who've been disciplined by me might ambush me in the street and kill me–and 've had a few students who were so mentally disturbed that they (if they ever encountered me again while they were in a fit) might kill me without knowing what they were doing–but I don't have the right to execute them preemptively, on that basis, do I?
(I do admit to being surprised: many abortion-tolerant people abhorred President Bush's so-called "pre-emptive war" against Iraq, et al.; but you seem to be arguing in favour of pre-emptive executions of those [unborn children] who are undeniably innocent of all wrongdoing!)
To force a woman through pregnancy and childbirth against her will – to deny her access as of right to safe legal abortion – is to deny her intrinsic right to life.
First: no one, save perhaps for a rapist (who beats the astronomical odds and impregnates his victim), forces anyone to carry a child against her will; I (and those of like mind) only insist that she not resort to murder in order to *stop* carrying that child. Second: there is no such thing as a "safe" abortion–the child dies (in barbaric manners which you might find rather hard to watch–manners which many abortion-tolerant people would decry with horrified outrage if they were done even to a cat or dog), and the woman is devastated (if she survives at all). Third: you're using a grandiose "slippery slope" to justify wildly disproportionate means to achieve your end; and that cannot be.
Consider this reasonably, for a moment: do I (or anyone else) have the right to assassinate all HIV-positive people, on the pretext that they present a very real (though remote) danger of contagion to me and my loved ones? Should all violent criminals be executed at once, using re-usable lethal weapons (and without benefit of a trial), on the pretext that no one should be forced to carry the financial burden of their support while they're in prison (perhaps for far longer than 9 months)? Would I be justified in killing any violent offender who was released into my area?
Look: this seems to be a very emotionally charged issue for you, despite your veneer of logic (which–forgive me–is mostly sophistry), and I appreciate that. But I'm trying to get even a crack in your opaque glasses, so that even a sliver of light can get in. Your position, friend, is one of utter selfishness, taken to the point of death; you may have begun your position with every good intention… but don't you see how far, and how darkly, it has misled you?
You appear in the rest of your post to be arguing as if a fetus was a baby. As a fetus is not a baby – a fetus and a baby are quite biologically distinct forms of humanity – the rest of your arguments fall to the ground.
Would you be willing to explain your reasoning for that statement–especially the phrase "biologically distinct"? You and I are biologically distinct (in a greater way than are mother and child–so far as I know, we aren't even related!), but I don't think that grants either of us the right to kill the other, does it?
Certainly… and also whether she is born, or not. It's not very supportive of women's rights to kill young women in the womb, after all.
What, you think it makes an ethical difference whether the fetus is male or female? I disagree.
The ethics of abortion are the same, regardless of what biological sex the fetus is: a human being has an intrinsic right to life, and therefore, the right not to be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against her will.
Oh, come now: that's patently illogical, and it doesn't follow at all.
How is it illogical to argue that a human being's intrinsic right to life means that no other human being has the right to force the use of her body – a use that may kill her and may permanently damage her health – against her will? The argument that women's bodies may be used against a woman's will has no part of any argument that women have an intrinsic right to life. That is deeply illogical.
First: no one, save perhaps for a rapist (who beats the astronomical odds and impregnates his victim), forces anyone to carry a child against her will
Oh come now. If a woman is pregnant and wants an abortion, then if the state – or the pro-life terrorists such as those who murder doctors and attack clinics – succeed in preventing her from terminating her pregnancy, then plainly, they have succeeded in forcing through pregnancy and childbirth against her will. The goal of the pro-life movement is to force the use of women's bodies as choiceless incubators: forced pregnancy.
Second: there is no such thing as a "safe" abortion–the child dies (in barbaric manners which you might find rather hard to watch–manners which many abortion-tolerant people would decry with horrified outrage if they were done even to a cat or dog), and the woman is devastated (if she survives at all).
I think you're getting a bit confused here, between late abortions – which are carried out as a medical emergency, often of a wanted pregnancy and sometimes because a child has been raped and did not know she was pregnant – and the vast majority of early abortions, which carry virtually no risk at all. I am happy to defend either early or late: I do not consider it acceptable to force a woman through pregnancy and childbirth against her will, and neither do I consider it acceptable to force a woman to die in pregnancy or childbirth rather than terminate, though the pro-lifers who attacked and finally murdered Doctor George Tiller were prepared to kill in defense of the principle that women ought to have no choice but to die in pregnancy.
Look: this seems to be a very emotionally charged issue for you, and you're obviously deeply ignorant and afraid, and I appreciate that. I don't, to be frank, expect to get past your emotional ignorance, especially not after the nasty remarks in the antepenultimate paragraph of your comment, which – forgive me – betray your arrogance and mean-mindedness in a way that undoes all your previous attempts to sound as if you were making a logical case.
But I think it worthwhile to point out the truth, even to someone so lost in darkness they cannot comprehend it, in the hope that someday, you may be redeemed by facts.
Would you be willing to explain your reasoning for that statement–especially the phrase "biologically distinct"?
Certainly. As I note above, I'm always ready to clarify facts. A fetus is biologically distinct from a baby in a number of important ways, even if we ignore the stages of development and look only at a fetus in late pregnancy. A fetus cannot breathe – nor eat: in effect, a fetus is an amphibian, with depressed oxygen levels in the brain such that a fetus is – as far as we now understand brain development – never conscious until the first breath. If someone could force a baby back in the uterus, the baby would die: nothing can make a newborn baby into an amphibian capable of living in liquid again.
The change from fetus to baby is an enormous one – a biological miracle ignored by pro-lifers in favor of trying to claim that a fetus is a baby, or a child, or – as you do rather randomly at the start of your comment – a woman.
The best way to protect and safeguard fetuses is not to start wars or attack clinics or murder doctors or harass and bully and jail women: it's to provide the best healthcare and support possible to pregnant women. This pro-lifers have always proved notably unwilling to do or to support.
Countries in which women have access to safe legal abortion are invariably countries with lower maternal mortality/morbidity rates than countries without such access: not only because it is much safer for women if doctors can honestly tell them that a pregnancy puts them at risk and let them decide; but also because such countries regard women as humans who are entitled to good healthcare, rather than as choiceless incubators who may be forced without consideration of their health or their lives.
Yes, I am emotional about this: I care about human life. That you regard this as folly to be mocked and claim that my regard for human life is "selfishness" or "opaque glasses" is a shame to you.
Yonmei wrote, in reply to my comment:
[Paladin]
Certainly… and also whether she is born, or not. It's not very supportive of women's rights to kill young women in the womb, after all.
[Yonmei]
What, you think it makes an ethical difference whether the fetus is male or female?
(??) No. Where on earth do you get that? Nowhere did I imply that it was any more acceptable to kill a small boy ("fetus") than it would be to kill a small girl ("feta").
I disagree.
I should hope so! No… my point was to show the incongruity and inconsistency between casting who cast abortion as a "women's rights" issue (and that view is hardly uncommon among abortion-tolerant people) and the practice of killing young women in the womb, in staggering numbers, by methods too horrifying to be allowed on prime-time television. If you're not taking a "women's rights" approach, then fair enough, and I stand corrected… but the tenor of your comments strongly implied it.
The ethics of abortion are the same, regardless of what biological sex the fetus is:
Absolutely.
a human being has an intrinsic right to life, and therefore, the right not to be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against her will.
If you formulated those statements just a bit differently (deleting the "therefore", which simply makes no sense where it is), and qualify the statements a bit, I could agree wholeheartedly:
1) A human being has an intrinsic right to life.
2) A woman has the right not to be forced through a pregnancy and childbirth against her will.
Both of those statements are correct, so far as they go–a person has a right not to be killed, and a woman has a right not to be impregnated against her will. Any violation of these rights is rightly called a crime, and it should be punished accordingly. But you wrongly assume that these rights are absolute and unlimited, and that any means are acceptable in order to attempt to "undo" the original harm–and that simply isn't true. I have an intrinsic right to life, but that does not justify killing half of the people in town, in the middle of a drought or famine, on the pretext that I'm preventing a personal food and water shortage (which could threaten my life). I have the right not to be forced to hear rap music, but that does not justify me stealing/breaking the stereo of the man below me who plays it loudly (to say nothing of killing him).
The "rights" you mention are real, but they have real limits… and you don't seem to understand or accept that fact.
How is it illogical to argue that a human being's intrinsic right to life means that no other human being has the right to force the use of her body – a use that may kill her and may permanently damage her health – against her will?
That is not illogical in the least (and I agree with your main point wholeheartedly–though your exaggerations of the threats involved in child-bearing approach the level of hysteria). What is illogical, however, is the further assertion/implication that one may put an innocent child to death because of a remote fear of harm due to pregnancy complications. Even good ends never justify evil means–or do you disagree with that?
The argument that women's bodies may be used against a woman's will has no part of any argument that women have an intrinsic right to life. That is deeply illogical.
(??) I agree… so that makes me doubly puzzled why you would use a "potentially preserve life by killing an unborn child" argument in the first place; there is no proportion between the two ideas at all!
More in a bit… crashed computer needs help!
Yech. Computers are not my friends today. I'll leave the ill computer for the moment…
Yonmei wrote, in reply to my comment:
[Paladin]
First: no one, save perhaps for a rapist (who beats the astronomical odds and impregnates his victim), forces anyone to carry a child against her will
[Yonmei]
Oh come now. If a woman is pregnant and wants an abortion, then if the state – or the pro-life terrorists such as those who murder doctors and attack clinics – succeed in preventing her from terminating her pregnancy, then plainly, they have succeeded in forcing through pregnancy and childbirth against her will.
You missed my point… and this may be a mere trifle of semantics, anyway, but: it was the rapist who first violated the woman, and who committed the added violation of imposing a pregnancy on the woman against her will. No sane person will deny the gravity of such a crime, and no one will deny that carrying that child to term will involve burdens and some risks (which should, mind you, be presented without dramatic embellishment–especially if you're as fond of "fact" as you say you are). But it's macabre to suggest that the murder of the undeniably innocent child is an acceptable way of trying to "remedy" the situation (and such a "remedy" would be illusory, anyway–as those who suffer the horrors of such acts of [abortion] violence can attest; a simple Google search for "Silent No More", "Project Rachel", etc., will give you evidence of that).
Do you truly not see how wildly disproportionate your ideas are? You seem to have recognized (somewhat) that an abortion out of mere convenience (e.g. not wanting a pregnancy to spoil how one looks in a swimsuit or dress, gender-selection abortion, etc., not wanting to put off the purchase of that new boat, etc.) wouldn't have much sympathy in the debate arena… so you seem to be trying to frighten your opponents with the idea that "pregnancy = significant chance of severe injury or death". I'm afraid you're being rather disingenuous and misleading, at best; your advocacy of lethal force against innocent human beings would only be appropriate against a proportionally grave threat–not a remote and unlikely one… even if the ends justified such evil means (and they do not).
The goal of the pro-life movement is to force the use of women's bodies as choiceless incubators: forced pregnancy.
(*wry look*) Mm-hmm. And the goal of the "pro-choice" movement is to slaughter innocent boys and girls by the millions–by dismemberment, burning with saline, brain-vacuuming, and other hideous forms of torture–and to promote promiscuous sex at all possible ages.
Are you really going to stoop to shooting at straw men, or can we stick to the "facts"?
To be continued…
[Paladin]
Second: there is no such thing as a "safe" abortion–the child dies (in barbaric manners which you might find rather hard to watch–manners which many abortion-tolerant people would decry with horrified outrage if they were done even to a cat or dog), and the woman is devastated (if she survives at all).
[Yonmei]
I think you're getting a bit confused here, between late abortions – which are carried out as a medical emergency [ALL of them are emergencies?], often of a wanted pregnancy and sometimes because a child has been raped and did not know she was pregnant [so you would disapprove of this if it were *not* a child-rape? Else, why mention this?] – and the vast majority of early abortions, which carry virtually no risk at all.
"Confused?" The "dismemberment" abortions are done mostly in the 1st trimester, at 5-12 weeks (though they're certainly done later than that), with a vacuum hose, other dismemberments are done with a razor-sharp curettage (6-14 weeks), and most of the other dismemberments are done by tearing one limb at a time, with forceps (13-24 weeks: 2nd trimester); would you call all of these "late-term"?
I am happy to defend either early or late:
Even if it were not a so-called "hard case" (e.g. rape, physical danger)? And I'm afraid you're mistaken about the "virtually no risk" idea; the prevalence of uterine perforations was what led to the barbaric practice of "partial-birth abortion"–on the pretext that it was far safer to kill the child by manipulations *outside* the womb, rather than inside it. I do not mention this for dramatic effect, here; I mention it only to refute the false claim that early-term abortions are somehow "virtually risk-free".
I do not consider it acceptable to force a woman through pregnancy and childbirth against her will,
Nor do I; those who forcibly impregnate women should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. I merely ask that one heinous crime not be followed by another.
and neither do I consider it acceptable to force a woman to die in pregnancy or childbirth rather than terminate,
Terminate *what*, may I ask?
though the pro-lifers who attacked and finally murdered Doctor George Tiller were prepared to kill in defense of the principle that women ought to have no choice but to die in pregnancy.
Mm-hmm. [sarcasm] And abortion-tolerant people who leave rape and death threats for a 12-year-old girl who gave a pro-life speech, for a nurse who blew the whistle on "4th trimester abortions", and for a priest who dedicates his life to helping the very women you claim are abandoned by him, and the like? Are you, like they, prepared to kill in defense of the principle that the murder of a child by its mother is sacrosanct?[/sarcasm]
Again: do you really want to have duelling straw men? Or can we stick to reality?
Look: this seems to be a very emotionally charged issue for you, and you're obviously deeply ignorant and afraid, and I appreciate that. I don't, to be frank, expect to get past your emotional ignorance, especially not after the nasty remarks in the antepenultimate paragraph of your comment, which – forgive me – betray your arrogance and mean-mindedness in a way that undoes all your previous attempts to sound as if you were making a logical case.[...]
More later.
Whoops! I didn't address your last post, Yonmei; apologies… though I think I need to address your last point first:
Yes, I am emotional about this: I care about human life. That you regard this as folly to be mocked and claim that my regard for human life is "selfishness" or "opaque glasses" is a shame to you.
I really think you've mistaken me, here. In no way was I trying to mock you (and certainly not because of your emotion–how could I, since I have strong emotions on this topic, myself?) or doubt your sincerity. But I seriously and sincerely believe that you are grievously in error, and I don't find that state of affairs to be good–not only because it leads you to empower and enable the culture of death in our nation/world (and enable the toleration of mass murder on a mind-boggling scale), but because it threatens your own immortal soul… and I really don't want to see you lost. Call me a liar or a fool if you will, but there's my truthful position. Yes, I *can*, under select circumstances (not usually involving abortion debates), enjoy good-natured (or at least civil) debate, but I'm not out to "score points" off of you; I'm here to dismantle the errors that lead otherwise good people who care deeply about what they believe to be right (such as you) to embrace horrific evils such as abortion. Call me sentimental, but I have a hard time watching babies be ripped to pieces, burned, etc., by the millions… and I have a similarly hard time watching hearts harden to the point where people ignore, tolerate, enable, or even "celebrate" that crime!
A fetus is biologically distinct from a baby in a number of important ways, even if we ignore the stages of development and look only at a fetus in late pregnancy. A fetus cannot breathe – nor eat: in effect, a fetus is an amphibian, with depressed oxygen levels in the brain such that a fetus is – as far as we now understand brain development – never conscious until the first breath.
There are several serious problems with this:
1) The baby certainly "breathes" liquid, in the sense that it exercises its lungs while aspirating amniotic fluid, though there's no significant exchange of oxygen thereby (unlike amphibians)… so to call him/her "amphibian" seems to serve no purpose other than rhetoric (and the possible dehumanization of the fetus, in the eyes of onlookers).
2) The baby can certainly "eat", though not by chewing and swallowing. I've been in the hospital with severe illnesses which required me to "eat" through an IV for days on end; would you say that I was (during those days) "biologically distinct" enough to kill with impunity? The baby in the womb is in the same position.
3) As for your comments about "depressed oxygen levels" (compared to whom, and under what circumstances? Could someone overcome by smoke inhalation be rightfully killed, in your opinion?) and "no consciousness", I can only say that you're spouting your personal opinion, bereft of scientific support. How can someone who's "not conscious until birth" dream, remember, experience pain, and the like? But even if the child were unconscious until birth, I do wonder at your opinion that this makes them worthy of being killed with impunity; you and I are in a similar situation when we sleep, are we not?
If someone could force a baby back in the uterus, the baby would die: nothing can make a newborn baby into an amphibian capable of living in liquid again.
Nothing can make a newborn baby human into an amphibian at all, since it was never one in the first place. But you're making a great deal out of very little; I, for example, would no longer be capable of surviving on human breast milk, since I've developed a severe dairy allergy in the meantime. To borrow your turn of phrase: "Nothing can make me into a milk-drinker capable of surviving on breast milk again"; that which could make a typical [born] baby thrive for up to 2 years would kill me. So… am I worthy of being killed with impunity, because of that?
To be concluded…
Yonmei wrote:
The change from fetus to baby is an enormous one – a biological miracle ignored by pro-lifers in favor of trying to claim that a fetus is a baby, or a child,
Forgive me, but this makes no sense at all! The difference between "fetus" and "baby" is a philosophical and semantic one, not a biological one (I think you mean "infant", anyway, if you're trying to refer to biological textbooks and terms). To Barack Obama (for example), a baby born during a failed abortion attempt is still a "fetus", unworthy of life and protection; to me, the one-celled zygote is a baby (as well as a fetus–a fetus is simply a human person in a particular stage of development… like blastocyst, embryo, adolescence, mid-life crisis, etc.)–admittedly in the earliest of stages of development–worthy of all human protections. Biology doesn't enter relevantly into the issue, save as an excuse on which to hang one's opinions.
The best way to protect and safeguard fetuses is not to start wars
I agree wholeheartedly, there… if you're speaking of a non-spiritual (i.e. with spiritual weapons, such as prayer, fasting and almsgiving) war.
or attack clinics
Depending on your definition of "attack", I can agree with that.
or murder doctors
I agree completely. One can never choose to do evil [such as murder], even for a good end, and those who murder abortionists have betrayed the very principles which separate them from those abortionists.
or harass and bully and jail women:
Harassment (in the non-idiomatic sense of the word) and bullying are both sins against justice and charity, and they are certainly to be condemned and avoided. Jailing should be reserved only for criminals, at very least–and there are more than enough women in the world who have allowed their children to be shredded to death in the womb out of fear, ignorance, or a conscience malformed by the culture and people around them, that jail might not be an appropriate response for them (in particular). The abortionists, however (women or men), are a very different matter.
it's to provide the best healthcare and support possible to pregnant women.
Yes… and their unborn children (which would utterly preclude any attempts to kill them). To suggest that "protecting and safeguarding fetuses" can be served by "healthcare" which involves killing those selfsame feti/a (Latin: little boys and girls) would be bizarre.
This pro-lifers have always proved notably unwilling to do or to support.
With all due respect: on this particular point, you don't know what you're talking about. I know of at least 5 crisis pregnancy centers (which provide food, clothing, extended shelter, job training, and mentor families to love and advise the woman and child(ren)) within easy driving distance of our house. We donate to one regularly, in fact. I find it ironic that those in the abortion-tolerant movement would like nothing better than to eradicate these same places of support, while (out of the other side of their mouths) decrying the "lack of support" from the "pro-life community".
Countries in which women have access to safe legal abortion
Legal, perhaps. Safe, no.
are invariably countries with lower maternal mortality/morbidity rates than countries without such access:
You might look up the fallacy, "post hoc, ergo propter hoc", when you get the chance. Is it not also the case that such countries (on the average) have far more advanced and readily-available medical systems in general? (How many Mayo clinics do you know, in sub-Saharan Africa?)
I'm just about to go out, Paladin, so I don't have time to respond to you point by point, and excuse me if I've omitted to respond to anything you consider to be important:
But I seriously and sincerely believe that you are grievously in error, and I don't find that state of affairs to be good–not only because it leads you to empower and enable the culture of death in our nation/world (and enable the toleration of mass murder on a mind-boggling scale), but because it threatens your own immortal soul… and I really don't want to see you lost.
I am an atheist, and normally I take "concern for my immortal soul" as a kindness – an expression of warmth, despite the fact that I don't believe in either an immortal God or immortal souls.
But in this instance, you see, you are advocating support for a mass movement to treat women as slaves, animals, or incubators – to regard human beings as creatures to be bred by force, or machines that can be used to produce babies without regard for any harm done. This "pro-life" movement that advocates dehumanising women, that murders doctors, attacks clinics and health care – I would no more support it, ever, than I would support a pro-slavery movement, or a pro-death penalty movement, or a pro-war movement.
Treating other human beings as lesser creatures, to be used and destroyed, is to me a sin. Cruelty and dehumanization such as you advocate are, to me, the ugliest of sins – and I would fear for the best part of me, for whatever integrity and kindess I possess, if I were ever brought low enough not to opppose such ugliness whenever I see it.
To me, your advocacy of forcing women through pregnancy and childbirth, no matter what high-sounding excuses you make to yourself, is as ugly as slavery and rape. There is no excuse for it.
I support a woman's right to safe, legal access to abortion, because I believe: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." And, so we include sisters in "brotherhood", I would never turn away from that to the horrors of the "pro-life" movement.
(*grumble*)
Sorry, Yonmei… I'm not ignoring you. Computer freezes every [x] minutes, where 0 < x < 1000! I'm about ready to put a bullet in its head and start over…
I'll try to get back to your message soon; I'm limping along with a substitute computer, at present…
Okay… dead computer or not, here we go…
Yonmei wrote:
I am an atheist, and normally I take "concern for my immortal soul" as a kindness – an expression of warmth, despite the fact that I don't believe in either an immortal God or immortal souls.
Well… okay, fair enough. I think you're provably mistaken about both God and immortal souls, mind you… but I certainly *did* mean it as a kindness, in addition to it being true.
But in this instance, you see, you are advocating support for a mass movement to treat women as slaves, animals, or incubators – to regard human beings as creatures to be bred by force, or machines that can be used to produce babies without regard for any harm done.
See, here's where you lose me: where on earth do you get any of this? Let me be quite clear:
1) Slavery is the state of being in which one person treats another person as a "thing to be owned/used" rather than a person to be loved; I have never, nor will I ever, advocate slavery for women–or for men. I really do think you're using dramatic hyperbole, here.
2) Never would I dream of treating a woman, man or any human person as an "animal" (in the sense of "dumb animal, sub-human, worthy of being the property of another person", and I challenge you to find any comment of mine to the contrary. This is a bit ironic, since many abortion-tolerant people view man as "simply another animal in the evolutionary process", partially in order to excuse sexual license and perversions as "just another natural manifestation of the animal sexual urge". Now *that's* dehumanizing, I think.
3) You seem to use the word "incubator" (which is true, in a grossly simplistic sense) to imply "and nothing more than that"–which, again, is nonsense. One might as well dismiss me as "merely a walking sperm bank", and nothing more–which would be equally wrong.
4) Did you not read my comments about condemning all "impregnation by force"? Unless you're accusing me of dishonesty, I don't see why you'd repeat a charge that I already refuted…
5) If ever there is harm done during the procreation of children, I will be one of the first to grieve the fact. But I ask only that you consider the directly willed harm done to an innocent child in the womb; you seem positively insensible to that, apparently because you inexplicably deny personhood to any child before birth.
This "pro-life" movement that advocates dehumanising women, that murders doctors, attacks clinics and health care – I would no more support it, ever, than I would support a pro-slavery movement, or a pro-death penalty movement, or a pro-war movement.
I assure you: if there is a movement which claims to be "pro-life", but which truly (in reality, and not simply in hyperbole) does advocate the dehumanization of women, the murder of doctors, and attacks on other human persons, I would condemn it side-by-side with you. I will say, however, that my pro-life beliefs (and those of the Catholic Church, and those of the overwhelmingly vast majority of pro-life people in the United States) are a million miles from any of those horrors. Can you truly not imagine even the remotest possibility that we regard the unborn child as a child, and that (despite the anguish in any of the attendant circumstances) our main motive is to prevent that child from being murdered (and in barbarous ways)? Is that truly so hard to imagine?
Treating other human beings as lesser creatures, to be used and destroyed, is to me a sin.
It is to me, as well… and to the Catholic Church, to Whom I belong. But do you not see the deep irony, here? The abortion-tolerant mentality is treating unborn children–human beings–as lesser creatures (some sort of "sub-human", and using what you hope to be the impersonal word "fetus"), to be used (for stem-cell research, etc.) and destroyed. Is this truly so hard for you to see?
More in part II…
Yonmei wrote:
Cruelty and dehumanization such as you advocate are, to me, the ugliest of sins – and I would fear for the best part of me, for whatever integrity and kindess I possess, if I were ever brought low enough not to opppose such ugliness whenever I see it.
I hope you can see, now, that I advocate neither cruelty nor dehumanization… and that it is precisely cruelty and dehumanization which horrifies me (and those of like mind) within abortion!
To me, your advocacy of forcing women through pregnancy and childbirth, no matter what high-sounding excuses you make to yourself, is as ugly as slavery and rape. There is no excuse for it.
I appreciate your sincere feelings, in that matter. I only offer the idea that you are grievously misled, and that you've accepted "high-sounding excuses" as justifications for the wholesale murder of over 40 *million* children in our country alone! Perhaps Stalin was right: "One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic."
I support a woman's right to safe, legal access to abortion, because I believe: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
As an aside: could you tell me the source of that quote?
And, so we include sisters in "brotherhood", I would never turn away from that to the horrors of the "pro-life" movement.
You are quite right to include sisters (and all humanity) in "brotherhood". But the "horrors of the pro-life movement" are fictions which you've (perhaps innocently) swallowed; I can't speak for every last person who claims to be pro-life (and yes, there are murderers and lunatics who [wrongly] take the "pro-life" label upon themselves–there's no "central office" which scrutinizes potential candidates for that label and gives licenses for the label to prevent abuses, after all!), but I can speak for myself, and (in this limited instance) for the Catholic Church: a horror of abortion, and a desire to see it eradicated, has nothing whatever to do with any desire to oppress, dehumanize, or torment anyone; it's quite possible to grieve abortion while still loving those who've been duped into embracing it. Read any page of the Catechism, and you'll see that I'm right on this point.
Slavery is the state of being in which one person treats another person as a "thing to be owned/used" rather than a person to be loved; I have never, nor will I ever, advocate slavery for women
You have repeatedly advocated, in this thread, that a woman ought to be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against her will: even a woman who has been raped. Forced pregnancy, and breeding by rape, is precisely how owners treat property: you advocate treating pregnant women like slaves. Ugly.
Never would I dream of treating a woman, man or any human person as an "animal" (in the sense of "dumb animal, sub-human, worthy of being the property of another person",
You have repeatedly advocated, in this thread, that a woman may not be permitted to decide for herself whether or not to bear a child: she must be forced to breed, even if she has been raped. This is precisely how owners treat property: you advocate treating pregnant women like animals. Ugly.
You seem to use the word "incubator" (which is true, in a grossly simplistic sense) to imply "and nothing more than that"–which, again, is nonsense.
Not at all. You have repeatedly advocated, in this thread, that women's uteruses are to be made use of without their consent and regardless of what damage pregnancy may do to their health, their future capacity to bear children, or their life. A responsible owner would not treat even a slave or an animal like this: this is reducing women to the status of incubators, used till they're broken. Ugly.
Did you not read my comments about condemning all "impregnation by force"?
I read your comments gloating over how once a rapist's sperm meets egg, the woman ought to be forced to continue the pregnancy and give birth. That's hardly "condemnation", and indeed, makes clear (as above) that you regard women to be treated as slaves or animals – to be bred by force.
If ever there is harm done during the procreation of children, I will be one of the first to grieve the fact.
You mean one of the last. Given that in order to grieve harm and death, you would first have to acknowledge that these slaves, animals, incubators, are suffering harm. If you are still at the stage of regarding women as creatures below human consideration, where harm need not even be regarded or grieved for, you fcan hardly be arrogant enough to claim you'll ever be among the first.(Well, obviously, you can. But it's a bit like someone showing up at the after-funeral meal, and moving among the shattered mourners claiming to be "one of the first".) Ugly.
I assure you: if there is a movement which claims to be "pro-life", but which truly (in reality, and not simply in hyperbole) does advocate the dehumanization of women, the murder of doctors, and attacks on other human persons, I would condemn it side-by-side with you.
And yet, you don't even condemn your own dehumanisation of women.
You don't even acknowledge the pro-life murders – not mere advocacy, but actual murders – over the past 20 years.
You're not "side by side" with me. You're away down in a moral chasm of denial and cruelty, so mired in inhumanity you cannot even smell your own sins – and yet you dare presume to claim that you fear for my soul!
Yonmei,
I have to admit: your last comment sent me on the gamut of emotions. At first, I was mad enough to spit (I deleted the first draft of my reply to this)… until I realized that your reply wasn't written to me at all. You certainly quoted my message while writing your reply… and you used the name "Paladin" a few times (at least in previous replies)… but you're obviously not replying to me! You can't be. You seem to have demonized all pro-lifers as "women-oppressing, rape-tolerating, cruel tyrants", cast me in that "role" on your mythical mental stage, and then proceeded to rail against that imaginary Paladin. I really am at something of a loss, here; how do I talk to you, if you're seeing "visions of evil Paladins, dancing in your head"?
If a plea for civility or kindness doesn't work, then at least listen to logic! Take two cases:
Person #1 has a deep-seated desire to see women suffer and to grind their dignity into dirt; he relishes with demonic glee the idea of seeing a woman pregnant against her will, and nothing tickles his fancy more than the idea that there is a very real chance of the pregnancy proving fatal to her (after great agony). This person opposes abortion in order to maximize (or at least to maintain) the suffering of as many women as possible, re: all of the above motives.
Person #2 sees abortion as the murder of an innocent unborn baby, and it horrifies him… while, at the same time, he suffers intense grief while watching the anguish of a woman (especially one who has been brutalized through rape) as she tries to cope with an unexpected and undesired pregnancy. The woman might even be a relative–perhaps even his own wife or daughter. But despite his heartfelt tears in sympathy for the women (whom he perhaps loves dearly), he cannot but oppose the murder of the innocent unborn child–especially since such a murder will only give illusory "relief", and will compound the woman's suffering, over time.
So… two men (#1 and #2) oppose abortion, for diametrically opposed reasons (the first hateful, the second loving). Clear enough?
Now, suppose you meet someone (perhaps he even has a screen name of "Paladin") who opposes abortion. Given only that you know he opposes abortion, and assuming (for the sake of argument) that he's either #1 or #2 (i.e. one of only two extreme choices)… how can you tell which one he is, without further data? You can't, so far as sane reason can tell. “Jumping to a conclusion” is still a fallacy, when last I checked.
You seem to have come to the (bizarre, illogical and prejudiced) view that all abortion opponents are evil by definition, and that any denials by them against your accusations–those of "desire to oppress women", "seeing women as nothing more than incubators", and other such stuff and nonsense–must be lying. This is sheer bias (and perhaps raw arrogance).
Do you not see? You've flatly asserted that you know my mind in this matter (i.e. that my abortion opposition is for nefarious reasons), and you reject all my denials as lies–that "if I'm pro life, I must hate women." Logic itself should allow you to see the holes in such rubbish-ridden statements! Wherever did you get the power to read my mind, pray tell? What power allows you to declare infallibly that my motives are evil, while yours are snow-white? Could you refute me if I said that you were "pro-choice" solely because you hate all men, and that you like nothing better than to see fathers and other sympathetic men weep as women kill their children? That's the sort of "mind-reading" you try to practice, Yonmei… and it's not only stupid, but insulting. Have some sense, will you? You claimed to be in favour of "facts". Well, prove it. Get rid of these puerile accusations, and face the facts… and not simply your biased and hateful interpretation of them! You might even find that there are some "human beings" (rather than inhuman monsters) in the "pro-life" camp…
My mother-in-law was advised to abort my wife because of some medicine she took before she found out she was pregnant. The doctor said the baby would be deformed. My mother-in-law went to the church to pray instead. When my wife was born, she had one ear that was folded over–that was her only deformity. We now have five children.
Alpha Wolff, aren't you glad your mother-in-law had the right to choose?
Paladin, I'm sort of sorry I didn't respond, but I went on holiday for a couple of weeks and your anti-women diatribes praising forced pregnancy just made me feel sad and tired. I feel that if 70,000 women dying each year don't persuade you that women need access to safe legal abortion as a basic human right, my words never will: if you don't think of women as human beings with a right to decide for themselves when and how many children to have, my words will do nothing to make you see that treating women as slaves or incubators to be used till broken is profoundly wrong.
Yonmei wrote, in reply to Alpha Wolff:
Alpha Wolff, aren't you glad your mother-in-law had the right to choose?
Wow. Just, wow.
If you expose the suppressed minor in your statement, and make your question less disingenuous, any sane person can see the absurdity:
"Alpha Wolff, aren't you glad your mother-in-law had the legal option of killing your wife, even if she didn't choose it?"
This, asked to someone who's obviously rejoicing in the fact that his wife wasn't ripped to pieces in her mother's womb? If you were deliberately trying to prove to me that you were deranged, Yonmei, you could scarcely do a better job than this. At least this puts the lie to your claims to honour logic…
Paladin, I'm sort of sorry I didn't respond, but I went on holiday for a couple of weeks
Perfectly understandable–no harm in that at all.
and your anti-women diatribes praising forced pregnancy just made me feel sad and tired. [remainder of diatribe deleted for space]
I suppose I can empathize, to some extent; I must conclude, like many who already said as much on this site, that you seem utterly incapable of having a rational discussion on this topic–and all my attempts to get you to do anything other than cut and paste one of a handful of pre-packaged variants of "you all hate women and want to exploit them, etc. ad nauseam" seems but a frustrating waste of time.
In the future, I'd appreciate it if you admit–at very least–that your particular abortion-tolerant position is an irrational and hysterical one, and that you give not even the slightest pretense of READING the replies given you–to say nothing of considering them at face value and responding with substance (rather than with puerile, canned, and logically vacuous non-sequiturs).
It's a pity, really: all abortion-tolerance is logically and morally incoherent, but others of that camp have at least engaged opponents with civility and intellectual honestly… both of which seem to be beyond you, when immersed in this topic. Your hatred seems to have blinded you, perhaps permanently, to all but your own myopic, rage-filled world–in which there is "no justice for women unless they have recourse to the killing of their children." And you have the nerve to call me (and others) hateful?
Just, wow.
Feel free to contact me if you ever wish to have a civil and reasonable discussion, Yonmei. Until then, God help you.
Alpha Wolff, aren't you glad your mother-in-law had the right to choose for herself to have the baby who would later grow up to become your wife? That she was allowed to come to her own decision in calmness and prayer?
I am.
Paladin seems to feel that the right thing to do would have been to force your mother-in-law, regardless of whatever fears or doubts she had, to make her choicelessly go through pregnancy and childbirth without being allowed to make a clear decision in her own time that, no matter what, she wanted the child who would later become the woman you love.
Your wife grew up in the certainty of a mother who loved and wanted her, even before she was born: Paladin prefers a system where pregnant women are forced and mistreated, even to their death, and who know that not one of their children was a choice they were able to make.
I'm glad your future wife was born in love: I'm sorry there are still people like Paladin who would rather that she had been born in hate after forced pregnancy.
Alpha Wolff, aren't you glad your mother-in-law had the right to choose for herself to have the baby who would later grow up to become your wife?
…or to kill that same baby? Yonmei, I really do wonder if you've lost your sanity, entirely.
That she was allowed to come to her own decision in calmness and prayer?
Not to pry, Yonmei, but: did you ever have an abortion? Because it's overwhelmingly likely that only someone who's never experienced an abortion could ever dream up such unmitigated nonsense as you write, here. "Calmness and prayer?" I know you make a habit of ignoring the links and references people send you, but have you seriously not heard of Project Rachel, Silent No More, and dozens of other ministries (many of which are run by women, if that makes you feel better?) which minister to women broken by their abortions? You have absolutely no idea what you're saying. You might also check out Feminists for Life, (founded, directed and run by women–care to read what they've done in defense of women? Or are you too good for them?) for a tonic against the death-ridden version of "feminism" you've been spouting. Your pseudo-feminist claims of "Yonmei's way, or else woman-oppression" would be laughable, were they not so macabre and blood-soaked… and Patricia Heaton, Rebecca Kiessling, et al., fight your nonsense, day in and day out, with nary a Y-chromosome between them.
How, exactly, DO you explain why legions of women, who have no interest in oppressing themselves or their sisters, would decry your ideas for the murderous nonsense that it is? The idea of "you're a man who wants to oppress women" doesn't seem to get any traction, against them…
Paladin seems to feel that the right thing to do would have been to force your mother-in-law, regardless of whatever fears or doubts she had, to make her choicelessly go through pregnancy and childbirth without being allowed to make a clear decision
…whether or not to kill that child, his future beloved wife. Right.
Do finish your sentences completely, Yonmei; it's dishonest to leave critical parts of your ideas unspoken.
Your wife grew up in the certainty of a mother who loved and wanted her, even before she was born:
Are not your words insanity itself? You're seriously suggesting that the only way to achieve certainty of a mother's love is to give that mother the option of KILLING her child?? From what mad-house did you get this idea?
In fact, it's exactly the reverse: children of parents who've repented of abortion tolerance may well have a chance of being assured of their mother's love; but the child whose mother unapologetically champions abortion as a "right" grows up under the ever-implicit-but-ever-present idea: "You have no intrinsic value of your own; your value comes from my approval. You are allowed to live only because you please me. Had I felt differently on any critical day, you would be dead now."
That's "love" to you, Yonmei? With "love" like that, who needs hatred? Why not offer to machine-gun all children in the foster-care systems and orphanages and hostile homes, while you're at it, and at least be logically consistent? Why are you so unloving and cruel as to restrict your "loving window of choice" to only 9 months? Are the oppressed and desperate mothers of screaming toddlers, disrespectful pre-teens and criminal teenagers not to be allowed to "choose for themselves" whether their children are to be "wanted"?
God have mercy on you, Yonmei; you're talking crazy-talk, here.
Paladin, your pro-forced pregnancy rants just make me feel sad and tired.
But: My mother is pro-choice, as is my sister. The notion that I, my brother, my sister, my nephew, or any child ever born would feel that we have no intrinsic value of our own because our mothers chose to give birth to us, is so ridiculous in its fanatic, hate-filled absurdity that if I quote it, I suspect I will be accused of inventing it to smear the forced-pregnancy movement.
I really hope you don't genuinely believe women cannot truly love a baby they chose to give birth to: after all, that would smear Alpha Wolff's mother-in-law too, who actively chose – as Wolff says, after prayer – to have the baby who became the woman Wolff married. But what you've claimed is that her act of choice meant she couldn't love the baby; your argument rests on the idea that she could only love her baby if she had been legally and choicelessly forced.
Absurd, isn't it? Do quit this line of argument.
Yonmei,
Forgive me, but I don't think there's any point in continuing this conversation; you limit your reading of opponents' comments to that which can be "cherry-picked" for easy knee-jerk responses (while ignoring the substance), and you follow it up with a relentless, prepackaged mantra of "forced oppression of women", "hatred of women", blah, blah, blah… despite the large number of women (did you ever check out the Feminists for Life website?) who denounce your ideas as nonsense, and even as diabolical. Apparently, only Yonmei (and those who agree with her) is fit to speak to "what benefits women", in your mind… which is mind-bogglingly arrogant.
Case in point, re: your "cherry-picking" and disregard for the comments of others (save as a pretext for another canned rant):
[Yonmei]
I really hope you don't genuinely believe women cannot truly love a baby they chose to give birth to: after all, that would smear Alpha Wolff's mother-in-law too, who actively chose – as Wolff says, after prayer – to have the baby who became the woman Wolff married.
Apparently this part (see highlighted portion especially) of my original comment wasn't caught by your cherry-picker:
[Paladin]
In fact, it's exactly the reverse: children of parents who've repented of abortion tolerance may well have a chance of being assured of their mother's love; but the child whose mother unapologetically champions abortion as a "right" grows up under the ever-implicit-but-ever-present idea: "You have no intrinsic value of your own; your value comes from my approval. You are allowed to live only because you please me. Had I felt differently on any critical day, you would be dead now."
Since your anger is clouding your reason and thoroughness, let me itemize the salient points so that they're quite clear:
1) Nowhere did I say that women cannot truly love a baby to whom they chose to give birth (my mother, who would never dream of resorting to abortion, chose to give birth to me by conceiving me with the cooperation of my father). I didn't even say that women who considered killing their child by abortion cannot love their child (and I stated explicitly to the contrary that repentant mothers *could*). And I didn't even say that it was impossible for an unrepentant "pro-choice" woman to love her child; I said only (and I stand completely by the statement) that children of such mothers (or fathers) grow up under the idea that they are a "chosen commodity" which could just as easily have been killed by those same parents… which doesn't do much for one's self-security.
2) I don't see where Alpha Wolff described his mother as one who "unapologetically champions abortion as a "right". All who read my sentence with even a modicum of care would be aware that this was a precondition of my statement.
3) You seem oblivious to the fact that one can "choose" to give birth to a child without "optional death" entering the picture at all; do not parents choose to give birth to a child whom they were trying to conceive? Tragedy (such as miscarriage, death of the mother and child, etc.) may strike and take the desired outcome away, but surely you see that non-abortive mothers can also "choose" to give life? This seems rather self-evident, to me.
Enough is enough, Yonmei; discussion can only be held by those who are open to discussion, who are reasonable enough to consider ideas which aren't their own, and who are civil enough to listen to the comments of others with at least some minor attention. You can't do that, apparently (I'll let the reader prove that to him/herself, by skimming your comments and replies in this thread alone)… so I'm afraid I have to call it quits, with you. My time is limited enough as it is, without attempting fruitless discussion with those who choose not to listen.
I caution against being vocal about your viewpoint in your daily life. Like me, if you stay on the soapbox, you will never know if some of your dearest friends have had abortions and were happy with their decision. And maybe, like me you will hear of, and then wind up meeting by chance, a couple (already 6 months into a pregnancy) faced with bearing a child who would live its short life in a hospital, sink its parents into decades of debt, halve the time and care that they can give to children they have already OR facing a late term abortion to avoid these things. All because Hippocratic law insists upon doing everything possible to maintain life at any cost, regardless of the effects to parent and child. Why can a baby who is born with severe impairments not be allowed to die in its parents arms? The choice, let your baby be born, only to lose everything you have now and most likely lose this baby anyway, or allow your baby to be killed and pulled from your living body…The choices are both awful. I will never be qualified to decide the direct fate of the mother, the father, their born children, the children they still may have and their descendents. Those are countless lives. Not to mention the many people whose lives are affected by the potential upheaval. Only that couple, or that mother, can answer the decision to be made there. I do feel that the answer to this horrid decisionmaking process would be to disengage the Hippocratic oath in cases of severe disability and allow a newborn to live and die naturally should it be the wish of the parents not to put him or her through invasive, but lifesaving procedures. Let the parents draw the line. They are pro their life, and their life really IS just as important as the life of the baby on the way, and so is their children’s lives that may already be born to them and those that someday could be.