I'm Done for a Little While
I think I'm done arguing about abortion for a little while. And it's really because I can't argue about it with people who think it should be illegal and still respect them.
There's two reasons for this. One is that I don't understand how anyone can go through childbirth or witness childbirth and not be pro-choice. When you see a woman who wants a baby crying and screaming and bleeding and there's shit and piss and she's calling out for her grandma or her god and crying some more and tearing apart and she's begging for anyone who can to stop the pain and this goes on for hours, sometimes days... when you see that how can you feel okay about compelling women who don't want babies to go through it?
Do you just block this part out? Do you justify it to yourself in your head by saying that that's just how it is? Or that it's not so bad? Or that women are built to handle it? How do you watch a woman giving birth and not see it for the tremendous gift that it is? Who do you think you are to compel someone to give a gift that costs that much?
The other reason is that I'm tired of being polite. I was telling Exador yesterday that I wish there was a way for abortion providers to play hardball like the militant gay-rights folks. We all know that anti-abortionists themselves have abortions and hide behind doctor-patient confidentiality and we let them. They do this right now. They did it when abortions were illegal.
Sure, it's fine and dandy to force me to carry a pregnancy to term, because I'm just a whore who deserves to be punished. But when it's your daughter, Deacon, who's looking at either going to college in August or having a baby in August; or your mistress, Senator, who says "We have to find a way to take care of this or I'm going to tell your wife."; or your sister who's been a stay-at-home mom to her three kids who shows up at your door because her husband's leaving her and the kids out of the blue and she's never worked outside the home in her whole life and she needs a job now because she's got mouths to feed, but, oops, she's pregnant; or your girlfriend who was raped; or your wife and the doctor says "There's something wrong with the baby and it won't live outside the womb, but if she carries the pregnancy any farther, delivering it will probably kill her."; or you...
When it affects you, "make abortions illegal" crowd, then a lot of you have no qualms about availing yourself of them. And if you have enough money, when most women who need them can't get them, it won't matter to you if they're illegal. Do you honestly think there's a single rich person in South Dakota or anyone in the legislature who's at all worried that they're going to make abortions illegal? No, because the laws won't apply to them. When it comes to abortion, it rarely does. They'll travel or have "emergency appendectomies" or whatever.
And I'm tired of knowing that and still fighting with you. I know it's not all of the "abortion should be outlawed" crowd, but it's enough of you that I'm starting to feel like it's pointless to continue the debate. No reason I ever give will be good enough to justify why I might have an abortion. And any reason you give for why you or your loved one needed one is supposed to be excused as a tragic necessity.
posted by Aunt B at 2/23/2006 07:05:00 AM
10 Comments:
I heard on NPR last night that the law also specifies that "life begins at conception", thereby making some types of birth control also illegal. RU486, and other Plan B types of birth control.
You just tell me stuff like that to make me laugh.
Can you scrape together some money?
I'll put some in, too, and we'll open a company that sells small caskets so that women who who believe that life begins at conception and are having unprotected sex can collect all their pads and tampons and toilet paper during their periods and place it all in these small caskets and have all their loved ones in every month for a... hmm... we could call it a "preventative funeral."
Just in case this was one of the 8 out of 10 times that a fertilized egg is just expelled from the body without implanting in the uterus without you even being aware that such fertilization had happened, you can have a funeral to mourn the loss of life.
We can even buy some land and open a little cemetery for all the fertilized eggs that never implant in the uterus.
Think of the money we can make!
My Republican brother thinks that I am just imagining that most of the current policies, like anti-abortion laws and NCLB, are not meant to further separate the "haves" and "have nots." Of course, he has not had to deal with friends and family a 12 year old who dies in childbirth because she couldn't have an abortion. He hasn't had to try to explain to teenage girls why they are "sluts" because they got pregnant, but boys are cool because they impregnated several girls in one year. It makes me sick, and sad beyond belief. I wonder if I should go ahead and get "sterilized" like one of my girlfriends did?
I dunno rl's friend, I think your Republican brother may be right, or at least half right. I don't think the policies are meant to seperate 'haves' and 'have-nots'. Now, don't get me wrong, they do have that effect. But I don't think that it's an intentional effect.
It's just a function of people not really thinking it through. Of being convinced of their moral certitude without considering all the consequences and things that can happen.
In the grand scheme of things motive doesn't matter so much, but I think you're going overboard saying it's due to nefarious thinking when it's really just stupidity.
The latest research from the Harvard Civil Rights Project outlines the differences in rich and poor school districts and how the rich ones can bypass the penalties poor ones can't. Having taught high school, I saw the inequities in action. I honestly do think some of it is intential, but couched in policy. Who would actually come out and say, "By the way, we want to discriminate?"
I could go on and on, but the original topic was abortion.
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/esea/esea_gen.php
I'll say it again: Teenager Who Had Wet Dream Charged As Adult With Manslaughter.
The anti-abortion folks believe the only safe sex is no sex and the only legitimate sex is for procreation. So let 'em swim, boys! Aim for the bullseye! That's why you'll never win an argument with these people. Senator Dickweed will go get an illegal abortion from an expensive clinic in a foreign country, just like the old days. The Deacon's daughter will be the disgrace to the family she should reasonably expect to be. And so on.
Children are God's way of punishing you for sex. :-)
It is all so ridiculous. Women these days need to either bend over or fight to the death. I'm thinking fight to the death, myself.
You bring up a good point B, although you mean to be funny. What happens when we get so assbackwards that it becomes a crime for a woman to lose a viable egg via menstration? The way men seem to view us now, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. Especially when you think about the recent Supreme Court judgment in Italy. Christ.
The way men seem to view us now, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens.
Are you fucking nuts?? Exactly how do men view 'us'?
Men seem to view women these days as walking wombs and sex toys, if you listen to any of the legislation rambling about worldwide. /shrug
Wow, I missed some interesting conversation. Anyone who has read my past comments knows that I'm kinda on the other side of most of the issue from most of you. Well, I guess it pains me to say it, but I'm on your side with this one, but probably for a totally different reason.
You see, I have no hard feelings for anyone who gets preg. because they were too stupid to put on a condom, and I don't like the easy out of abortion to that situation. Kinda the old, "you made your bed, now you have to lay in it" thing in my mind. BUT, I do not like any law that tells us what we can and can not do with our own bodies really. I mean, what is the next step, someone decides they don't like red hair and makes a law that all redheads have to color their hair? It is a woman’s body, and she has the right to handle it as she will.
That being said, I think partial birth abortion is a crime, or at least should be. I think there should be limits like abortions are only legal in the first trimester, and I do not believe that a 13 year old girl who gets preg. should be able to have an abortion without her parents being notified...heck, she can't sign a legal document but she can make this decision on her own...I think not.
"...Walking wombs and sex toys..." are you kidding me? You might consider talking about those feelings you are having with someone because you really shouldn't attempt to explain how I think about women, or any other man for that matter.
And as for it being cool for a boy to impregnate several girls in one year...the only people who think that is cool, are the others who are doing the same thing. I personally believe they should be castrated so as to ensure that it doesn't happen again. But then again, is it only their fault, or do the women hold any blame in the fact that they spread their legs, and didn't force the condom issue, or take any person precautions.
Oh, last bit…please don’t equate an egg that did not implant or a miscarriage with a consciously made decision to kill the baby growing inside a woman’s body. They are not the same thing…and if you have ever had to deal with the sadness and guilt associated with a miscarriage, as my wife and I have, twice, you would certainly feel the same way I do on that subject I’m sure.
It is such a giant issue, just to say, "Make it illegal" is a foolish notion, and only a fool would fight that as hard as some of my Christian brothers do. They also fail to keep in mind Gods gift to us of free will. But that is another story.
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