I was bringing my child to her soccer game this morning when I saw a bumper sticker that read: “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart.”
Being pro-choice, my first response was “oh, geez, another radical anti-choicer.” But then I started to think a little more about that message and soon came to the conclusion that yes, at some point, abortion does stop a beating heart.
It’s no secret how the fetus develops in the womb. We’ve all seen the pictures. If you’ve had a child, you know exactly what I am talking about, especially when you recall your first ultrasound when the technician was showing you the head, the arms, etc.
At some point, I’m not exactly sure when, the heart starts beating. And when a woman elects to have an abortion, depending on the stage of the pregnancy, that heart will stop beating.
So, after thinking this one through my head started spinning. At first I thought it was because the soccer game went on for nine hours, but more likely it was the realization that a pro-life bumper sticker might be factually correct.
Soon, however, I started to sort it out.
My thoughts went back to the women, the women that I trust. They know what they are doing. They know that they are preventing a life from emerging. And, yes, they know that at some point that means that a heart has stopped beating.
It’s all very sad. In the ideal world every pregnancy would be a wanted pregnancy. In the ideal world, there would be no need for abortions or the almost equally complicated and sad option – adoption. Indeed, even giving birth, especially to an unwanted child, is not a perfect option.
The bumper sticker may be accurate.
But, like most bumper stickers, it insults our intelligence and does not tell the whole story.
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March 13, 2010 at 11:13 am
Thank you for your post… Although it’s harder to be a thinking, sensitive pro-choice advocate, it also makes our arguments stronger when we stop to consider the opposition. Just found your blog… I’ll be coming back to visit.
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March 13, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Thanks, hope to hear from you soon!
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March 13, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Again Ms. Richards, I hear what you’re saying and agree with most of it. My argument lies in this: We ALL have had things happen in our lives that we consider “unwanted”. Wouldn’t you agree?? And I would go as far as to say that a lot that happens in my life is still unwanted: a car wreck, a high electric bill, a crappy job with a crappy boss, a husband that doesn’t DO enough…you get the picture. One of those moments in MY life (as horrible as this sounds) was when I was 18 years old and found out that I was pregnant… My son’s father was a drug addict and came from a long line of drug addicts. (Again, things that happen in our lives that could be considered “unwanted”) At the time, my family LOATHED this man, and the lifestyle that we had begun to lead TOGETHER. I was devastated. I can’t honestly say that abortion never crossed my mind…or jumping from a really high building…But the thought was fleeting, and I proceeded to call my parents, whom I presumed would disown me.
As disappointed as they were, their words were, “You made your own bed, now you have to lie in it”. Hmmm…they had a point. Obviously, the decisions I had made up to this point were my own. I decided that this was my “punishment” –this “unwanted” child of ours. 6 months later, I had Eliah, the light of my life. No doubt had I aborted him, I would not have learned a very important lesson in life that: There are consequences for our actions. Good or bad. Right or Wrong.
40 weeks later, my child was here. And NOW, 6 years later, we still have bumpy patches and obstacles, but HE has made me a better person. His smile lights up a room. His gentle and sweetly pure heart is beautiful and wonderous. His laugh is contagious, and his eyes are so blue that I can only compare them to the clearest sky. There really is no telling where I would be if he hadn’t unexpectedly and UNWANTEDLY came along. Because of this life that I felt I HAD to care for, I got my GED, I went to college; I wanted to TRY and give this baby the CHANCE he deserved. He didn’t ask to be made. He didn’t ask for a drug addicted, bi-polar father. He didn’t ask for a mother that was going to have to spend the rest of her days working to support him.
The point is this: Every move we make today leads us on a different path. I believe that sometimes we choose the road where we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and often times the road that appears less difficult to get through…the path that appears more beneficial to us as a person- let’s just face it- we are selfish beings.
All we HAVE to do is LIVE AND DIE! What IS important to a person in between is highly individual. I wised up fast, and I DO realize that not everybody is like me.
Life is a matter of trial and error, and hopefully we all learn something along the way.
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March 13, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Wow, that is quite a story. I really am so glad that things have worked out for you and that you have a beautiful child. And you are right – life is all trial and error. Almost every day we face an “unwanted” situation (I definitely did not want to go food shopping in the rain today), some more serious than others. We can only hope that we have enough information as possible to make the right decision. I know many, many women who have told me that having an abortion was the right decision for them at the time. Of course, there are others who years later say it was the wrong decision. It’s all so difficult and, yes, it cannot be reduced to a simple bumper sticker. Life/death is way too complicated. Thanks for sharing “James”!
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March 13, 2010 at 8:31 pm
The issue would more likely be sentience.
During cardiac surgery, and other types, or artificial hearts that do not beat, but use another mechanism to pump blood, there is not a “beating heart ” sustaining the brain. Other sentient being exist, but they are not lent near the rights of humans, despite incredible behaviors, and beating hearts.
The brain is the source of sentience. Unless you live in the 15th century of dualism.
Everything dies of brain death, not heart, lung, liver, kidney, etc.
The brain is who we are. If you wan to discourse the item on that point.
But it still does not matter. Determinism of our freedoms requires control of our bodies, and women deserve that independent of the above discussion.
An early fetus may cells that contract rhythmically, but they are not a beating heart. Even later, still not really a heart.
In fact, very late in pregnancy, most hearts have openings that would kill the baby if not closed when born, so those are not even life sustaining hearts.
Until birth the Placenta takes nutrients and oxygen from the mother, so the beating heart is a confounder in the discussion. Prior to birth the baby breathes amniotic fluid (it’s own urine, and then excretes it again).
Again, hearts, not a good argument. Although sentimental and good for hallmark cards.
Women control their bodies,
NO other choice.
Angie
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March 14, 2010 at 3:30 am
Thank you for your blog I have enjoyed it for years,
It has been educational, and helped me develop my sense of a reproductive women.
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March 14, 2010 at 5:13 am
“Abortion stops a beating heart” is another example of the primary work of the so-called ‘pro-life’ movement– rhetorical persuasion. This came to my attention when I encountered my town’s first public “pro-life” demonstration, a Chain of Life. I distributed to them the few fliers I had for RESPONSIBLE Right to Life, asking them to commit financially to the future welfare of one of their “unborn angels.” Nobody did.
I visited the pastors of all the churches that had been involved in it, saying that I was seeking 160 volunteers to donate 600 hours apiece annually to work with children and families. They all turned me down.
The demonstrators were in a line that began 300 feet from an apartment where two toddlers were living in diapers that usually had feces oozing from them because the parents were doing the sex for drugs thing in a really focused way. (The father had previously been in jail for ripping out the tongue of an infant by another woman.) The other end of the demonstration terminated 100 feet from the home of an adopted four-year-old who had been so neglected in his other life that his language and coping skills were zip and when he got overstressed (e.g., being told to behave), he would curl into a fetal position and stick his finger up his butt. His older brother had been taken to the emergency room some years earlier to have a nail removed from his forehead, hammered there by his father.
Since the so-called “pro-life” movement is really centered on PR, none of the demonstrators were equipped or inclined to protect these born humans.
Just thought I’d point this out for those of you who will get a ration of imagery from them.
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March 14, 2010 at 9:56 am
I guess the point I am trying to make is that this bumper sticker, which may or may not be technically accurate at certain points, does convey a generally accurate picture. The baby, the fetus, the embryo, the whatever you want to call it is a living organism and, after the abortion, it is not living. Those are facts. And that is the crux of the abortion debate. That’s what the public focuses on and that’s why I do get concerned that we can defend “choice” forever (which I do), but the thinking public knows that “choice” can result in abortion and, yes, abortion does stop a “beating heart.” That’s why abortion is such a difficult decision.
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March 14, 2010 at 10:20 am
True, Pat, but the so-called “pro-lifers” don’t really care about the degree of difficulty of the decision: they are focused on winning for their side. The more you talk about difficulty, agony, struggle, the more they will amplify the terms you use to carry their point.
I posted a slightly more detailed version of my “pro-lifer” account above, and I have been blocked from the blog of the good Rev. Bryan. I’m not allowed to even praise Jesus there! So much for dialogue.
FYI follow-up on the adopted kid: his brother didn’t get adopted; he went back to the father’s family. I have run into the adoptee a couple of times. Now an adult, he’s not the sort you would want your daughter to marry. IQ around 85, but a guaranteed income for life– SSI for his permanent developmental disabilities, needs a payee to handle his finances and his life, but it’s a good thing his adoptive parents are well-off. He’ll be provided for when they die. His brother didn’t do too well– he got arrested at 17 for participating in the murder of an acquaintance in a dispute over a drug deal. The case is still pending, but his lawyer is pleading “he’s had a hard life” for him. Try to talk to a so-called “pro-lifer” about that one…
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March 16, 2010 at 7:57 pm
notice everybody that has left a comment can state their opinion because they have had a chance at life. abortion is murder.you had a choice to lay down with a man and you took it. and then came along the consequences and do what? oh yeah kill an innocent child that never got to say how they feel. they never had a chance to be a doctor or a lawyer. they could have cured cancer for all you know. but you never gave them the chance in life that everybody deserves.think about that for once.
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March 16, 2010 at 8:58 pm
THE ABOVE is typical response from a so-called “pro-lifer.” A few themes expressed that are common to the movement: 1) Rigidity– it is necessary to adhere to what has been handed down by authority. 2) Punishment– those who transgress are scum and deserve a reward appropriate to the gravity of the crime which has been named. 3) Magical thinking: they killed a could-have-been doctor, a could-have-been lawyer, a could-have-been discoverer of the cancer cure
The rigidity comes from a childhood in an authoritarian family, where the parental mode is to teach children through deception, manipulation, and other forms of physical and mental abuse. Such children learn that to express how they feel is to risk severe consequences. ( I won’t go into why their parents fear children’s ebullience or attempts to communicate very deep feelings) As adults, they expect from everyone else the obedience to The Way Things Are as set down by their parents, thus those who would even countenance abortion are The Worst Sort of People. As psychologist Alice Miller pointed out in For Your Own Good, as adults, they need permission to vent their anger and displace their own self-perceived flaws on a victim, which explains why they are (and need to be, for therapy) hostile toward “pro-choicers.”
The magical thinking– e.g,, that a fetus could have grown up to be a doctor (capable of possibly saving the so-called “pro-lifer,” but that’s another whole story)– is necessary to maintain the role of the “pro-lifer” as a defender of something of immense value. Never mind that the fetus is quite capable of killng the mother– look at Todd Tebow’s mother’s situation, or my co-worker’s friend who was felled and killed by eclampsia in fifteen minutes, in her own home– to grant the horror of such a reality is to diminish the value of the fetus and thereby put the “pro-lifer’s” whole self-therapy at risk. Polly Nelson got fired after she finished her pro bono work for Ted Bundy; people would laugh at a so-called “pro-lifer” if they knew he was defending something with the sentience of an earthworm and would likely grow up to burgle their house.
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March 16, 2010 at 9:05 pm
i was not manipulated i think for myself. if anything you the one manipulated. i want babies to have a chance in the world. unlike you i suppose. do you realize how horrible you sound. can u honestly look at a baby and then kill it? and ted bundy was a freak. i read about him earlier. yes their are people in this world like that. but again like you said that is due to parenting. but what would u know about that? you with the ones that want 2 end life. innocent life. people have sex all the time. unprotected careless sex. a baby should not be punished for that.
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March 17, 2010 at 4:31 am
Heather, if you considered what happens to babies once they were born, you would be a lot less debonair about wanting to punish people who protect a woman’s right to decide how many children she wants to have. One of your so-called “murders”– the abortion of the fetal Ted Bundy– would have prevented another 35 to 61 “postpartum abortions.”– the murders of his victims. How would you feel about saving the life not of a future doctor, but the life of the man who was going to take another 65?
Ypu’re going to say it’s God’s plan and you’re not responsible.
You want babies to have a chance in the world, but how much of a role do you play in helping them have that chance? Probably minimal.
To all readers, this response is a necessary part of the so-called “pro-life” syndrome (a syndrome is a collection of behaviors which indicate an underlying pathology). Heather has to avoid responsibility for fetal and human outcomes for two reasons: First, since her work is directed at validating her ability to transcend the finality of Death, she needs to achieve heroic status (and thus live forever in history) by defending the most perfect victim imaginable (in a sense, a feat similar to Jesus dying for every person in the world). While she wants people to think of her as having saved the child who goes to college, Second, to have to accept any responsibility for a child’s horrific outcomes would be too threatening to her dysfunctional therapy. In other words, she’s blessed if the resulting child turns out well and she’s blessed if the resulting chlld is the next Green River Killer. As a participant in a dysfuncitional self-help program, she wins both ways, even if everybody else loses. I don’t have time to polish this, but you get the idea.
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March 17, 2010 at 11:13 am
Heather, I appreciate your thoughts but I wish you would show a little more compassion for the women who made the very difficult decision to have an abortion. They did not want to be in that situation to begin with, but they are. I would also disagree with your characterization of abortion as “murder.” If it were “murder,” it would be illegal. Now, yes, abortion is a form of killing and that’s what makes it so difficult.
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March 17, 2010 at 11:17 am
Just had another thought, Heather. One of your arguments against abortion is that we may be aborting the next Mozart or person who cures cancer. And, in an earlier post, you mentioned Ted Bundy. Would not this world have been better if Ted Bundy had been aborted?
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March 17, 2010 at 4:41 pm
She’s not going to answer, Pat. It would undermine the foundations of the construct she has built in order to deal with very deep-seated needs. To admit shades of gray is to risk the collapse of all that so far has kept her functioning. If she yields on this, she risks suffering psychosomatic symptoms– e.g., grinding her teeth in her sleep, developing an untreatable pruritis, or manifesting a tendency toward an explosive temper. Those are the sort of things that arise when someone is not successfully repressing a troubling concept, in the case of so-called “pro-lifers,” the fact of the permanence of death.
cg
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March 17, 2010 at 10:49 pm
i havent been home to check it “cg”. and stop calling me a prolifer im being respectful why dont u try it. and pat this is my thoughts im not trying to be in history im trying to save lives. your not understanding this and you never will. life is precious and taking it is wrong. you will never know how that baby felt.im glad ur being respectful but i have no compassion to someone that can kill a baby.have you even saw the pictures of this torture?
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March 17, 2010 at 10:53 pm
you think i would be grateful if the kid was a green river killer. what is your problem you need to watch what you say im being nice.how could you even dare to say that to me. i would never be blessed to see that happen.so stop assuming
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March 18, 2010 at 5:04 am
Heather, I’d like to see a connection between your concern for the “unborn” and your care for those who have been born– thanks to the efforts of people just like you– but face difficulties, like being sexually abused by relatives (the most common form of child sexual abuse), those who are going to lousy underfunded schools, and those who live in our nation’s urban ghettos. How many children are you sacrificing your money and your free time for, or are you just really, really distressed by abortion?
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March 18, 2010 at 7:41 am
Let me ask this, Heather. You say that killing is wrong. Does that mean that you would oppose executing a mass murderer? Does that mean that you oppose any kind of war?
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