You are forever talking about what you know is right for women, what women want, and what they really need. You’ve even told clinic staff, doctors and nurses that you know they could do better in another line or work. With your particularized notion of moral righteousness, you’ve lodged complaints with police about what you know are your rights to free speech at abortion clinics. You’ve written letters to private citizens, neighbors of doctors and clinic directors, asking them to tell these professionals to find a new job, because you know better, you know what’s right. But your self-obsession as well as your presumptuous omniscience conveniently ignores the rights of others and summarily dismisses the knowledge women have of their own lives. Behaving, as you are wont to do, foolishly believing you are right when you are really wrong on so many levels, you reveal more truths about your nature than you might imagine or want. Let me spell it out for you.
- To begin, it’s not right when you call escorts, staff, and doctors murderers because they don’t murder anyone. The carnivalesque act of calling someone a murderer is convenient because it frees you from thinking about the sacredness of women and men who offer and choose abortion services.
- It’s not right when you use grotesque images that defy the reality of abortion. Aborted fetuses look remarkably different from all the manipulated grotesque images you use in your visual propaganda. Using such images only serves to shame, hurt and demonize women and, consequently, alienate them to your message.
- It’s not right to say that All Women Regret Their Abortion. Documented scholarly evidence illustrates that overwhelmingly women have no regrets about their abortion. Not one bit. People make choices and live with them. It’s called life. Some women have sadness about their choice to end their pregnancy, but choose abortion anyway because they know it’s right for their situation. Your bombastic overgeneralization only makes you look ignorant and desperate.
-
Forced Birther Screaming in Women’s ears with Megaphone
It’s not right to scream at women we’re here to help you. Take a good look at yourself. You’re a stranger who is screaming. What reasonable person would want to trust you or anything you say? It makes you look doubly foolish and deceitful when you follow with the disingenuous high-pitched scream God loves and so do we and, immediately afterward, shout, you’ll regret this day the rest of your life. Again, take a good look at yourself for you are nothing but a vacuous and mean-spirited provocateur.
- It’s not right to publicize your own sexual fears and perversions. Telling women that the doctor will perforate their rectum and uterus illustrates your own salacious fascination with debauchery. Telling well-endowed women with cleavage, “You look like you’re all set up for breastfeeding” reduces you to a common pervert. Telling women to abstain from sex reveals your prudish anxiety about human sexuality. In your ill-conceived attempts to lie about body parts and sexual matters, you embarrass yourself in a most undignified way, earning a big fat 10 on the Ick Factor Scale.
- It’s not right to lie. Remember thou shalt not lie? Until you have an M.D. after your name, you should rely on reputable medical and scientific sources and not junk science in LifeSiteNews. The evidence is there for you to read. Let’s face it. You rely on the scientific and medical credibility of pediatricians, cardiologists, dermatologists and internists. Yet you throw out medical and scientific evidence when a gravid uterus is involved. Here’s the evidence: There is no post abortion stress disorder. There is no abortion-breast cancer link. There is evidence that the morbidity and mortality in pregnancy and childbirth can be more dangerous than abortion. It’s also a fact that the United States is 50th in the world for maternal health. Such transgressions illustrate the disturbed fascination with fear mongering that is your lingua franca.
- It’s not right to inflict your religion on others. Humiliating and dehumanizing women is morally unacceptable. Manipulating your faith to justify your heinous actions displaces your responsibility onto your God. Like the Nazi war criminals that claimed they were only following orders, you antiabortion protesters claim you are doing God’s will. Barking like a madman “in the name of Jesus” as preface to a hurl of toxicity hardly seems godly. Face it; your morally bankrupt behavior only serves to show how unchristian and blindly intolerant you are towards others.
The Anti Abortion Brain
When I think about the pornography of your madness, your frothing, detailed rendering of humiliation of women and men who choose and provide abortion services, I have to say that the unintended consequences of your own behaviors illustrate how karma works. In plain English, you get what you give. And what you give is intolerance, disdain for truth, misogyny, desperation, alienation, and misanthropy.
Related articles
- GOP’s secret anti-choice plot: The crackdown on abortion doctors (salon.com)
- GOP’s Secret Anti-Choice Plot: The Shady Crackdown on Training Abortion Doctors (alternet.org)
Abortion - Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information 
September 30, 2013 at 3:46 pm
Great piece, as usual, Kate. You say they have no right to call clinic workers “murderers” and I agree. Murder is generally a legal term. But are they allowed to call them “killers?” I personally believe that abortion is some form of killing, if not outright killing. And I”m not the first pro-choice person to say that. But our movement runs from that issue and they refer to “the termination” or words to that affect. I feel that this issue is the big dead elephant in the middle of the room, or whatever that phrase is.
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October 1, 2013 at 6:54 am
sometimes it’s not what you say, but the way you say it
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September 30, 2013 at 6:48 pm
Antichoicers consider abortion as a type of murder. Even though murder has legal connotations, they remain steadfast in their proclamation that abortion is murder. They frequently use words and expressions such as kill, slaughter, massacre, butcher, behead, crush, strangle, assassinate, rip apart, tear to pieces or turn into baby road kill. These antis are right in saying that abortion kills. But what does it kill?
Consider an encounter with a rattlesnake in your garage. You pick up a shovel and smash the snake. The position is clear. It’s either your life or the snake’s life. Do animal rights rail on you, calling you a murderer, citing your actions as a clearly politically motivated assassination against a defenseless snake? To do so would be absurd.
Or think how you react when you find your Rottweiler Doberman mix has rolled in stinky poo for the umpteenth time. Your job is to kill the source of the odor. You don’t kill the dog just to get rid of the poo. You neutralize the active qualities of the odor. You could say you murdered the odor but that would be absurd.
Reflect on the woman who devoted years of her life raising a daughter who turned out to be rotten to the core. At age 83, could it be said that the woman killed the good years of her life? Did the 83 year old woman murder her life? To say she killed the good years of her life seems absurd to most rational thinking people.
To use the word kill or murder simplifies a complex situation. It frees antiabortion activists from considering the woman. Why don’t antiabortion activists use “kill” to talk about what an unwanted pregnancy does to the woman? An unwanted pregnancy kills her hopes of continuing her education, kills her chances of feeding the family she already has, kills her hopes of getting out of a violent situation with an abusive man, kills her already fragile state of health or kills her chance to remain childfree. Why don’t antiabortion activists use kill to talk about what an unwanted pregnancy does to the woman?
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September 30, 2013 at 9:20 pm
You just compared a baby to snake. And even unwanted pregnancies bring LIFE. Never met a mom who wish she hadn’t had her child, but many girls who wish they hadn’t aborted. If you kill something it means it’s alive, so don’t.
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October 1, 2013 at 5:40 am
L-O-V-E,
There is no controlling for how a reader interprets the written word. You see a comparison to a snake. I see a parody on the use of the word kill and murder.
While you don’t elaborate on your definition of LIFE, it’s probably an educacted guess that you value the LIFE of a fetus over the LIFE of a woman.
Furthermore, YOU may have never met a woman who wished she hadn’t had her child, but just because YOU don’t know any doesn’t mean those women don’t exist. They do. They’re the ones who find it difficult to express how much they regret having the child but won’t say so because there are so many who judge her, so many who judge women they don’t even know. Then there are the women who abuse their children because they didn’t want them when they were pregnant and sure as hell don’t want them now.
All the complexities of women’s lives cannot be reduced to simple ideas, to one word dogmas like LIFE, whatever that means to you.
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October 7, 2013 at 8:32 am
You can say all that, and you don’t know either. You see years ago abortion wad frowned on because people knew and believed it was the act of killing a baby, now people have been desensitized to what abortion really is (the killing of a baby), and a lot of women believe it’s ok, because more desensitized people are telling them so. Just like years ago the f-word was not acceptable, but it has been used so much it’s just another word to most people. Abortion is taking the life of an individual, this is wrong on so many levels.
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October 7, 2013 at 3:49 pm
Anonymous, do you care ABOUT life or do you care FOR it? If the former, then your statement, “…this is wrong on so many levels” is just about your feelings– you are terribly upset by the fact of abortion and would like the comfort of either knowing they’re not performed or being ignorant of them being performed.
But if you care FOR human life, then you would be upset because there is a lack of opportunity for a newborn to be raised (over 18 years and with the expenditure of over $240,000) into a fully functioning adult. This would indicate to me that you are just itching to raise another child!!
So, may I ask how many children you are at present raising and how many of them you are raising even though you don’t want to?
I started RESPONSIBLE Right to Life 20 years ago next week, challenging other “pro-lifers” like me to pledge to raise to adulthood every “unborn human” they wanted to rescue. Sadly, I am still the only member who has taken that pledge and the only one who has lived by it.
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October 1, 2013 at 6:53 am
i would venture to say that you have indeed met mothers who wish they hadn’t had their child.
they just don’t announce it from the rooftops.
it doesn’t mean that they don’t love their children or that they aren’t devoted mothers.
it only means that if they had it to do over again, they wouldn’t have done it.
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October 1, 2013 at 10:51 am
L-O-V
Would you try and make some sense?
Nothing you write is intelligible . . .
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October 2, 2013 at 12:13 am
Because she carries a human being inside of her, not a blob of tissue. That is the difference. Why are you trying so hard to justify yourself? Deep down you know that a little foetus of 18 weeks is a human being – not a blob! Imagine if your mother decided to get rid of you. I did watch the “silent scream” and it is crystal clear that life does begin at conception. There are other options. I have had countless opportunities to assist women in making the right choice without forcing my religion or opinions upon them, Needless to say, most of these women kept their babies in the end. They went through the ultimate process of giving life! Something only a woman can do.
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October 2, 2013 at 5:28 am
lady, i am an anti, but your post is full of holes.
of course the baby is human. if the mother is human and the father is human, the offspring isn’t likely to be a zebra.
i won’t bother to address the question as to “what if my mother had decided to get rid of me”. it doesn’t merit comment.
silent scream? REALLY????? did you watch reefer madness also, because silent scream is to the anti-choice movement, what reefer madness is to the war on drugs.
could you elaborate on how you “assisted”? it might be of help to me.
only a woman can give life?
nonsense!
men can and have given birth and one even became a worldwide newsmaker by coming out with his story.
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October 2, 2013 at 5:42 am
I hear this a lot. It’s as if the antichoicers have a playbook that they trot out in their attempts to win arguments. Of course, the fetus is human. It’s a statement of the obvious like saying gravity is on duty in this universe. But your arguments lack merit especially when invoking a propagandist piece like the Silent Scream which has been discredited by scholars and visual artists over and over. Your argument further fails when you say there are other options because, translated, what you are saying is abortion is not an option. Abortion IS an option and it is a good option for many women. It’s not an easy option, granted. But it is an option that should remain legal, safe and accessible to women of all beliefs, all socio-economic classes, all racial classes, all sexual orientations.
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October 2, 2013 at 9:03 am
Stella,
You don’t sound too sharp.
Please support your hokey religious position.
If an 11 year old was raped by her father would you let her choose an abortion?
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February 9, 2014 at 6:17 pm
I will be voting Gary Johnson for sure. It’s a no branier. For all the people leaning towards Romney because they believe he will be more economically sane, I say look at his record. He is a supporter of TARP, bailouts, 0% interest rate policy, increasing military spending, and he against decreasing tax revenues. This is the problem with conservatism today. They go for the cute little sound bites concerning fiscal responsibility (big bird and PBS) when they want to cut programs that make up 0.001% of the federal budget. Romney/Ryan are not going to cut anything. There is no way I vote for Obama, but other than foreign policy, at least he pretty much tells you how he will govern and then acts on it. He doesn’t hide he’s pro-bailout, easy money, and in favor of wealth redistribution. Today’s republicans are fake conservatives. All in all, the country is screwed either way.
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April 29, 2014 at 9:25 am
Hey, that’s a clever way of thinking about it.
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October 7, 2013 at 8:36 am
I do not understand any of your comparisons, they are ridiculous and make no sense.
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November 6, 2013 at 11:31 am
Do you know what happens in an abortion procedure? What happens is very different than how abortion clinics describe the procedure to women. They describe the abortion in very vague terms of ‘removing the pregnancy tissue’.
This is what happens in a D&E abortion procedure. The abortionists reaches into the uterus with forceps (pliers with backwards facing teeth) and grabs hold of a limb (arm or leg). He then twists that limb until it pops from the socket, he does this until all four limbs are removed. The head is severed from the torso, the torso is removed then the head is crushed and removed. Why dont abortion proponents talk about what abortion does to the child?
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September 30, 2013 at 10:10 pm
kate, your entries are always amazing ( as is their author) and this one is no exception
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October 1, 2013 at 5:41 am
Thanks, Rogelio!
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October 1, 2013 at 2:23 pm
Rogelio, always good to have you weigh in! You’re walking the walk!!
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October 1, 2013 at 3:35 pm
((((((((((((((chuckles!))))))))))))))))))))))
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October 1, 2013 at 5:32 am
Linda,
Thanks for illustrating the point I was making about the bombastic rhetoric of the antichoicers.
Comparing abortion to genocide, specifically to Nazi extermination, is not only an embarrassment to your understanding of government directed genocide, it’s an affront to our Jewish brethren who lost entire families.
And thanks for showing the reading public how digging yourself a deeper hole when wailing about the heartless, sadistic fanatics, as antichoicers such as yourself are wont to do, ignores the women. It makes me wonder if you aren’t projecting a bit.
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October 1, 2013 at 10:52 am
Linda,
Why are anti choicers typically anti science religious zealots that believe in magic and don’t make any sense?
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October 1, 2013 at 10:58 am
The problem with people like L-O-V-E and “Eric” is that they have no credibility in the field. We expect a dentist to know a lot about oral health and a social worker to know a lot about identifying family potential, but so-called “pro-lifers” don’t bring anything to the table except their fear of abortion.
My parents raised eleven kids (they wanted to stop at six; imagine how it feels being one of five unwanted children!), and since they did such a good job of it (only five divorces, one decades-long domestic abuse and two lifelong unresolved mental illnesses), I have no respect for any so-called “pro-lifer” who will NOT undertake to raise at least that many– how can they claim to “respect,” much less “rescue,” a human life when they can’t prove they have what it takes to really respect and rescue one?
But show me the person who is raising a family on a per capita income of $3,800 per year, and I will respect them as a true “pro-lifer.” They are crebible.
The rest are just acting out their own fear of death, meeting their needs rather than fetal needs.
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October 1, 2013 at 1:24 pm
This is so amazingly true.
Why is every antiabortion maniac an individual that has no practical experience/knowledge of the issue and does nothing to help people in general? They do vote for war, decrease taxing the ultra wealthy , and for corporate welfare.
Why are their beliefs so paradoxically backwards?
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October 1, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Charles,
Terror management theory (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) attempts to account for why people need self- enhancement strategies. According to the theory, self-worth serves to shield individuals against concerns associated with awareness of death. Scholars have applied this theory to sports teams suggesting that people bask in the refl̄ected glory of particularly successful groups and individuals, including sports teams and well-known athletes, to feel valuable and special, which in turn ameliorates their concerns about mortality.
I’m thinking terror management theory can be applied to antiabortionists who feel that the act of saving a fetus would shield against the potential consequences of awareness of death. Your thoughts?
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October 1, 2013 at 2:22 pm
Hey, Kate~~
“Terror management theory.” It should be applied to aborticentrism (a focus so fixated on abortion that it precludes care for human life). The question is, how does a person introduce one concept to the other? I have absolutely no credibility in the academic field.
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October 2, 2013 at 5:52 am
Charles, if you listen to antis long enough, it becomes quite clear of their fixation–abortion is the act that gets their undies in a wad but the fetus is their prize–kind of like the dude who makes a touchdown and leaves the old geezer watching the game feel rewarded that life will go on even after he dies. He’ll manage his terror about his mortality by basking in the glory of the player, much like antis bask in the glory of handing off a bit of literature or turning a woman away from abortion. They don’t give a rat’s patootie about anyone but themselves.
The clearest example of this, and this is only one example among many, is when two protester women were able to take a woman for services at a local hospital thinking that they had turned her away from abortion and would have another notch in their belt, would have another way to reckon with their God how virtuous they were. The woman/client said they were very nice but she also said that what they said did NOT reckon with her world, her situation. They wouldn’t listen to her. When she returned to the clinic to have her procedure, they unleashed a stream of nastiness about going to hell, about regret, and the dangers of abortion. It was like, *CLICK* no more sweetness. It was all about their own fixations, as you say.
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October 2, 2013 at 9:35 am
Funny how the true face of religion always makes an appearance once you deviate from their mendacious prescriptions.
Religion poisons everything, always.
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October 2, 2013 at 7:29 pm
>>>They wouldn’t listen to her. <<<
i think that is a major problem with antis.
if we are serious about preventing abortions, we need to talk less and listen more.
every protester i know has stated that they want to help these women and their family.
how is it possible to do that when we are so busy talking that we don't listen to what the underlying cause is that makes them seek an abortion?
women seek abortions for any number of or for a combination of reasons.
it just makes sense to me that this is where antis should be focused.
for example, if a woman is in an abusive relationship and she is scared to bring another baby into a violent home, what good does a package of diapers and a can of formula do her?
regardless of what choice she makes, she is still returning to the violence.
it is for reasons like that, that i think that we need to offer the same help to women who choose to abort as we do to women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term.
if we want to save babies, we need to save women.
and ya know what? sometimes women neither want nor need to be saved. we need to accept that and hope that she remains at peace.
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November 6, 2013 at 11:23 am
Thats like saying you have to at least adopt five dogs to truly be an animal lover. Your comment is absurd.
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October 1, 2013 at 4:42 pm
I believe that the pope has recently emphasised Christs mercy and love rather than judgement which was the previous emphasis but the Catholic church has stated repeatly for two millenia from the Didache in the first century to Evangelium Vitae that abortion is murder but today reason has been elevated to a God and a false freedom to choose is common . Christ is crucified in the body of every child aborted.Life is fleeting but in choosing to abort we remove ourselves from communion with Christ now and perhaps for eternity if we do not repent. It is not complicated. Abortion is murder but God ‘s love is stronger than death and Christs crucifixion was to bring us to communion again especially in the eucharist -the source and summ it of Christian life.The communion of mother and child will transcend this life.
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October 1, 2013 at 5:23 pm
And what is one to do if one is Jewish or Muslim or Unitarian Universalist? Your Christ is your prophet, a person in your belief system. What if one doesn’t believe in the truthfulness of the Catholic Church, especially considering all the horrors in its history? What if one doesn’t accept your dogma?
And furthermore, in your thinking, if God’s love is stronger than death and the communion of mother and child will transcend this life, what are you worried about? Don’t you trust your own faith?
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February 8, 2014 at 10:31 pm
I’m a little conusfed. Let me see if I have this straight….. * If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story. * If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick. * Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded. * If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing astate of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive. * If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian. * If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you’re very responsible. * If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.* If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable. OK, much clearer now.
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October 1, 2013 at 7:54 pm
Kleran will not have an answer.
Religious people are the dumbest.
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October 1, 2013 at 10:24 pm
@Kieran
You don’t actually read the bible do you. God is all over abortion.
So, like most of the religious you’re transcribing what *you* believe to be moral and correct and saying “God said so.”.
Well God didn’t say so, so stop lying and stop telling women what do to with their bodies. It is not yours or your magical friends business.
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October 2, 2013 at 8:38 am
Arbourist- You take the Bible completely out of context in every one of these examples. You can make the Bible say whatever you want if you take it out of context of the whole.
1) The Bible does place value on a child’s life, both born and unborn- Psalm 139:13. Isaiah 44:24. Jeremiah 1:5. Mathew 19:14. mark 9:36-37
2)Because Newborns are not counted, does not mean they are less than human. That is a huge oversimplification. Due to infant mortality rates, they are not a reliable data set for census. That is all.
3) ‘God sometimes approves of the killing of fetuses’- God sometimes brings about the death of all people, according to His plan. This is not exclusive to fetuses, and has no bearing on this argument.
Also- Should we assume that because we all eventually die, then God condones murder? Or similarly, that if God chooses to kill, then we are free to kill? this is the basis of your argument.
Again, you can pick and choose verses from the Bible to say whatever you want, but you are simply wrong.
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October 2, 2013 at 9:10 am
You can pick and choose verses from The Wizard of Oz, Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, as well as the Bible.
At least the Wizard of Oz and the others are more likely to be accurate.
The Bible is a hokey silly magic story that nutty people that failed science believe in.
The Bible is a horror story and is anti science. There is nothing of value in the Bible. It is an insult to kill a tree to print a Bible.
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October 2, 2013 at 9:32 am
@Bud
Sounds good, let’s not include any arguments written by scared ignorant people some 3000 years ago. I’d be all for that.
Thank you for elaborating and proving my point thusly.
Basing any sort of moral or ethical stance on the bible, which is so freely interpreted, is bunk.
So let’s dispense with the misogynistic mythology altogether because women don’t need anymore than what they face already.
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October 2, 2013 at 10:41 am
@Arbourist
I am ok with you stating that the Bible should not be referenced in this debate. That is your opinion.
Just don’t take it out of context and try to use it for the Pro-Choice stance. You will not win that argument.
I will ask you this: if you do not base moral stance on the Bible, or other higher moral code? Then what do we base it on?
PS. Social relativism is not an option here because you have engaged in a debate, and thus clearly don’t hold that view…
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October 2, 2013 at 1:33 pm
How about the universal human rights of woman as a moral code on which to base a debate? Does that work for you, bud?
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October 2, 2013 at 8:18 pm
The fluidity in interpretation of the bible means that how I defined it as a “pro-choice” stance is just as valid as whatever you stated. See also how both sides of the slavery debate used the bible to support their cause.
Wow two cases already where referring to mythology is a total bust. Go figure.
Utilitarian, Deontolgical and maybe even a little bit of Virtue Ethics for kicks. All three systems work and are decidedly sky-daddy free, and unlike religious codswallop provide moral direction.
What sort of debate on ethics is *ever* devoid of contextual complexity and thus relativism? I’m sure you’ll let me know if we slip into any “social relativism”.
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October 4, 2013 at 8:39 am
Arbourist,
Tx for all the excellent comments!
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October 2, 2013 at 5:45 am
dude, i am a religious nut and an anti also, but do you even science?
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October 1, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Linda,
You are wrong.
I shall admonish you.
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October 2, 2013 at 5:31 am
and the winner for the first to invoke godwin’s law goes to… *opens envelope* LINDA!!!!!!!!!!!
tell her what she’s won, johnny!
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October 2, 2013 at 2:23 pm
@Kathryn Ranieri- “How about the universal human rights of woman as a moral code on which to base a debate? Does that work for you, bud?”
Are you referencing the UN Declaration of Human rights, or something else that I am unaware of?
I am in no way trying to reduce Women’s rights, but with said rights, there should also be an accompanying responsibility. Lets remove medical advice to abort, rape victims and other unfortunate situations from the table. Those are a debate for another day and highly situational. I believe strongly if a women becomes pregnant because of a choice that she has made (sex), and is healthy enough to deliver the baby, it is her responsibility to do so.
I will generalize, but can someone tell me why abortion is a reasonable solution to a poor decision (excluding those cases mentioned above ie. health and rape)? Please, no one-offs; they dont explain 50 million abortions…
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October 2, 2013 at 5:16 pm
Dear bud, you asked “can someone tell me why abortion is a reasonable solution to a poor decision” above? My answer is straightforward:
Because abortion is a reasonable answer to an unwanted pregnancy.
Abortion is a good and moral reason that good and moral women make every day—including women of faith, women with children, women who are married, women who are single, who are do not want to be pregnant ever. Women have sex because they are sexual beings. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes when they have sex, even with contraception, they get pregnant. So they deal with the pregnancy the way it suits them best. Again, nothing wrong with that. At all. The way things should be? Abortion on demand without apology!
Perhaps this line of query of your’s is just something you refuse to understand, refuse to see into the heart of a woman. Clearly, and fortunately, it’s not your right to make decisions for women. I find it amusing, if not troubling, that you are mansplaining when you determine what is and is not to be “on the table” for discussion, what is and is not a woman’s responsibility when you assume no part of that responsibility, and that you have some idea that when a woman becomes pregnant it is because she intentionally chose sex (intimating that sex is bad, a sin, not right?) and forgetting or conveniently ignoring reproductive coercion (and I’m not talking about rape–reproductive coercion is different).
I have no doubt that you will likely not be satisfied with my response but will look for yet another angle to question the rightfulness of abortion. Nonetheless, it’s there for you to read and digest and, maybe, respond yet again.
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October 2, 2013 at 5:54 pm
@DrK8
A debate on the topic is not the concern. Debates are healthy, when done respectfully. I disagree with your stand on abortion, but at least I am asking reasonable questions and trying to understand you, rather than jamming something down your throat. First, I eliminated the biblical claims, then the statistical outliers, then asked for your view on the central issue. I disagree and we can leave it at that.
I will Leave you with this though: You question my gender as if I have no place in the debate. Males are 50% of the pregnancy equation, and as such, I refrained from sex until I was married. I am now seriously considering adopting children, and giving up my dream of having my own, because I am part of the big picture, because I care, and because it matters.
Cheers.
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October 3, 2013 at 5:17 am
>>>You question my gender as if I have no place in the debate.<<<
actually dude, she did not do that. she would have said the same thing to a woman.
your gender came up because she was pointing out that your male privilege is so obvious.
i am a male anti and she and i have had numerous discussions on the topic and she has never discounted my opinion, even though we disagree, and certainly not because i am a man.
but then again, i don't mansplain to her like i am calling the shots for her or for other people. if i did, i would expect to be called out on it by her or someone else.
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October 3, 2013 at 5:35 am
Again, you are attempting the establish the parameters of this line of responses. It comes across to me that it’s your way or the highway.
On another note, I don’t question your gender. You do that all by yourself. You also come across as a person who has a bloated sense of self-importance when you consistently use “I” statements. “I” am, “I” refrained, “I” care, “I” will, “I” disagree, “I” eliminated, “I” was, “I” have.
Have you ever considered that others view the world through different lenses and that their differences are OK? Or, do you live in a universe according to bud?
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October 3, 2013 at 7:27 am
Anopnymous: Males are 50% of the pregnancy equation, but only 50% of the fathering equation. As a veteran single father, I discount male opinion about abortion to a great degree. If, however, you raise by yourself even one child you don’t want, I will give your opinions full credence.
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October 3, 2013 at 11:38 pm
@bud
Wow, yet another dude that believes that consorting with teh ‘peen magically removes a woman’s bodily autonomy.
Pro-tip – Coitus does not change women’s rights to their bodies.
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October 3, 2013 at 5:43 am
Let’s all applaud The Arbourist for the most intelligent response to bud’s question.
Bud:
“I will ask you this: if you do not base moral stance on the Bible, or other higher moral code? Then what do we base it on?”
Arbourist:
“Utilitarian, Deontolgical and maybe even a little bit of Virtue Ethics for kicks. All three systems work and are decidedly sky-daddy free, and unlike religious codswallop provide moral direction.”
Me:
Loved “codswallop” the first time I came across it years ago. Used in this context is spot on. Thanks, dear Arbourist.
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October 3, 2013 at 11:42 pm
@DrK8
My pleasure. 🙂
I seem to have the spoons as of late to deal with educating dudes on the internet.
Thank you for hosting the forum for such a lively debate.
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October 4, 2013 at 5:52 am
(blush), thanks.
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October 4, 2013 at 6:35 pm
spoons?
i’m sorry you’re dealing with a health crisis.
i hope your spoons are plentiful for a long time to come.
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October 4, 2013 at 8:49 pm
@rogeliotavera
No health crisis. 🙂 Thanks for your concern.
Having enough spoons is short hand for having enough mental energy to deal with the various challenges that life throws your way.
Probably from Shakesville.
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October 5, 2013 at 4:00 pm
ahhhh ok!
i was thinking of it from the POV of the spoon theory.
we never know what is going on in someone’s life unless they share it with us, and some illnesses aren’t visible with the human eye.
but that doesn’t make the illness or disability any less debilitating, does it?
i’m glad you’re alright.
i don’t visit this blog as often as i should, and i have really enjoyed your posts.
i am an anti ( not a forced birther, just an anti) and some of the best insights i get about how to anti more effectively comes from choicers.
i consider it a great gift when others share their wisdom with me, whether they realize they are doing it or not. 🙂
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October 3, 2013 at 4:22 pm
If you enjoy reading the consensus opinion of experts as a source of information rather than hokey magic belief systems.
Click to access PIIS0002937813002615.pdf
Archer DF. et al. A statement on abortion by 100 professors of obstetrics: 40 years later One Hundred Professors of Obstetrics and Gynecology In press Am J Obstet Gynecol
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October 3, 2013 at 4:46 pm
Thanks so much, Elena.
The key concept is “evidence-based” and not sky-daddy mumbo jumbo BS.
Like I said in the blog post, all these antiabortion activists rely on the scientific and medical credibility of pediatricians, cardiologists, dermatologists and internists. Yet, throw out medical and scientific evidence when a gravid uterus is involved.
Go figure.
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October 3, 2013 at 8:35 pm
the ones about a link to breast cancer and about “PASS” are particularly disturbing.
PASS doesn’t exist. it is a name made up for political reasons. of course it is possible to suffer from PTSD from any major life experience although, thank god, that is usually not the case the majority of times with abortion.
i am glad that it is acknowledged for those of us who dealt with it, but making a term for political purposes makes me feel like we are someone’s poster children or something.
why can’t we just move on with our lives without being defined by the experience?
it ticks me off when some people start screaming that abortion causes these things when evidence states that it doesn’t.
it is almost as though they want for people to suffer from these things.
it is as though they get off on the thought of it.
why? why would anyone want emotional pain or cancer for another person?
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October 4, 2013 at 1:51 pm
rogelio, it gives them a sense of power. They are able to prove to themselves that because they can bully someone, they are powerful. Obvvously, it indicates that they feel they lack power otherwise in their life.
They might actually be powerful in other areas of their life, but they don’t feel powerful enough (I’m thinking of Deanna, the hyper-religious one who posted here some time back), so they work to get more.
But they don’t want to have to work to acquire “legitimate” power, the sort that comes from being recognized as near the top in their field– they don’t want to have to take classes or submit to a regimen, to spend three or four years in a discipline or disappear into a monastery or convent. So, they choose to bully.
The sad part is that they find it so emotionally satisfying, but it’s indicative of the cancer at the heart of their dysfunctional self-help movement.
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October 5, 2013 at 4:05 pm
i need to ponder on what you have shared with me, chuckles.
it gives me several different emotions, and none of them are good.
to deliberately hurt another person for the sole purpose of lifting oneself up in their own minds is just evil to me.
but the way you explain it also makes me feel sorry for them.
i’m not sure what it says about me that i feel sorry for someone who deliberately harms others.
i remember deanna. she came up with the outlandish story of having adopted numerous minority children and then posted a link to a photo, and it was obvious that they were not her children by the poses and positions of the people in the photo.
she was 2 sandwiches and a deviled egg short of a picnic.
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October 7, 2013 at 3:39 pm
Hey, rogelio, I don’t think you feel sorry for the perpetrator as much as you feel sorry about the situation and mistake the object of your feelings. The so-called “pro-lifers” are indeed a sad sack bunch. I just have a real hard time feeling sorry for them rather than despising them for the harm they do. Clearly, my approach is not going to get them to change their mind– yours is more likely.
Ah, Deanna! I missed that photo link; thanks for the information about it.
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October 3, 2013 at 8:26 pm
elena, are you the one who makes the captions for the photos here?
i just love love LOVE some of them!
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October 4, 2013 at 5:51 am
Rogelio,
I make up many of my own images. Others, possibly Elena (?), add here and there. The hypocrisy one was made just for this post. The brain one I made up several years ago and it has gained a small currency in the blogosphere. I made it in powerpoint…obviously nothing very high tech. But it works.
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October 4, 2013 at 8:31 am
DrK8:
I didn’t remember you made that brain image!
I really love that one!
Tx!!
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October 4, 2013 at 6:41 pm
so YOU’RE the one!
all of the captions in this one are just amazing!
i literally laughed out loud at the hypocrisy and the forced birther captions!
i remember a while back around thanksgiving ( i don’t recall what year) there was one of a turkey and it was titled “abortion thanks”.
i laughed until i cried at that one!
captions SO make the pictures for me!
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February 9, 2014 at 4:47 pm
re: JamesT [October 12, 2012 at 4:51 pm]: You’re right on about the Republican judges. Children of the Blue States fear that Romney will itnlasl a christianist avatar of the Ayatollah Khomeini in the SCOTUS. Doubtful. I doubt the senate will flip GOP. If the blue states build up a senate firewall, Mittens will have to go for someone like John Roberts rather than a super-Scalia. Sure, Romney will front a religious right SCOTUS pick in the first round just to fulfill a promise to the religious right. The senate will choose a second Romney pick who will (nominally?) guard the secular republic. Robert Bork might be Romney’s SCOTUS go-to man. Still, Bork’ll bork another Bork? Betcha.
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October 4, 2013 at 8:34 am
Hi Rogelio!
I make very few original images.
I wish I had the skills!
Most are posted to the site or the FB page.
Tx for your continued commentary!
E
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October 5, 2013 at 2:51 am
Hey, this is all rubbish.
abortion is killing after all.
it is life that one is destroying.
y have premarital sex and destroy your life? y get pregnant accidentally?
it’s just an excuse
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October 5, 2013 at 8:49 am
@Sam babu Joseph
No.
Women’s rights are not rubbish.
Your low opinion of women and their reproductive rights your are noted.
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October 5, 2013 at 11:06 am
Masturbation is a type of killing, too. Got a problem with the little swimmers dying?
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October 5, 2013 at 3:45 pm
Click to access prendafactsheet.pdf
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October 5, 2013 at 4:00 pm
Out of curiosity.
The sex/race abortion ban laws are obviously more veiled attempts to restrict access to abortion.
Is anyone aware if genotype (not paternity, not disease state, etc.) has ever been used by anyone in the US to decide to choose abortion based simply and solely on race?
The premise of the AntiChoicers was that banning “race” abortion would lower the rate of abortion in some minority groups.
It is amusing that the only examples the anti choicers could find of “discriminatory” abortion were of a few cases of White relatives “forcing” a woman to have an abortion because the potential father might be of a race not desirable to Them.
The basic notion of an emancipated woman choosing an abortion and labeling that a racial discriminatory act seems to only exist in the encapsulated world of the same people who desire to destroy our economy so they can prevent people from getting heath care?
Does anyone have a clearer thought on this issue? I can’t wrap my mind around it quite yet . . .
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October 11, 2013 at 8:02 pm
a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
“race” abortion doesn’t exist.
i do find the gender selective abortions to be a paradox for choicers, though.
it has to be difficult to support a choice that is based on misogyny. but if you withdraw a choice for that reason, then what other reasons would be deemed unacceptable?
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October 12, 2013 at 8:20 pm
Considering that it is the latest meme in the forced-birth advocates quest to nullify women’s rights it hardly seems paradoxical. They will do and say just about anything in their misguided attempts to save ‘life’. Thus gender specific abortions are another way to attempt to erase women from the equation.
You see, we all live in this greater system of oppression it is called the patriarchy. It has been specifically designed to enshrine male dominance and power within society. This is the matrix that women, the subordinate sex class swim in for all of their lives.
So in essence you are correct, but are not seeing the larger picture. The gender imbalance in abortions is par for the course because men are valued more than women because the system is designed to benefit men. I would be completely shocked it is was any other way.
You do not withdraw choice from women certainly not because of one single aspect of misogyny. Perhaps first we can address the reason why females are valued less in society before we go to the old anti-choice ‘solution’ of taking away their rights.
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October 20, 2013 at 5:59 am
good morning, arbourist!
i’m sorry for the delay in replying. the last week has been mad crazy!
as always, your response provokes a great deal of thought.
i wish i could express myself so well using so few words as you seem to always do.
>>>Thus gender specific abortions are another way to attempt to erase women from the equation.<<<
of course they are! so are the other laws placing restrictions.
the anti-choice legislators who claim that this bill or that bill are proposed to make the procedure safer for women ( you DO want it to be safer, don't you? DON'T YOU????) are in reality proposed to chip away at abortion rights.
i am an anti, but i have no intention of trying to BS anybody that they are anything other than what they are.
the size of a custodian's closet has zero bearing on the safety of an abortion procedure.
laws requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at certain hospitals overlook the fact that most hospitals require doctors to admit a certain number of people within a certain amount of time, and the fact is that while certain media will explode anytime a woman has complications from an abortion, the actual numbers are few enough that those doctors do not meet the required number of admissions that are placed on them.
i could go on and on ( and i have been known to 🙂 ) but i think we are on the same page there and those laws neither reduce the number of abortions, nor offer any other solution for women who are facing unplanned pregnancies, do they?
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October 20, 2013 at 6:02 am
>>>You see, we all live in this greater system of oppression it is called the patriarchy. <<<
yes!
and that same patriarchy is harmful to men as well as to women.
no matter how enlightened i ever try to become, the fact is that i have male privilege and any type of privilege can be blinding to anyone who has it.
i do not say that to distract or to diminish the harm that it causes women.
but i did want to point out that because i have it, i am often blinded because of it.
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October 20, 2013 at 6:07 am
>>>Perhaps first we can address the reason why females are valued less in society before we go to the old anti-choice ‘solution’ of taking away their rights.<<<
oh my science! that is exactly what i meant and you put it so much better than i ever can!
the laws restricting gender specific abortion is rather like placing a band-aid on a bullet wound.
it does nothing to resolve the underlying issue of misogyny!
and as long as women are not valued equally within any given society, the illness and damage will continue regardless of laws.
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October 7, 2013 at 6:20 pm
Great article!!
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October 15, 2013 at 8:49 pm
I realize there are strong feelings on all sides of this issue which is extremely complicated and not simply black/white, right/wrong. However, I (am pro-choice) have worked in a center and until you sit and listen, not yell your judgments or project your beliefs, but really listen to the women of all ages tell you what their life is like and what they need not to mention the difficulty of the decision they’re making you just might learn about a world you clearly haven’t known. We don’t yell at you for feeling the way you do – have your beliefs – and please have the values you profess and don’t yell at us.
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October 20, 2013 at 6:10 am
that is a major flaw in the anti-choice movement and i say it as an anti.
we need to stfu and listen to the women who are living with whatever obstacles they are facing.
and what’s more, if we are willing to offer “help”, it needs to be offered regardless of the choice she makes.
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October 16, 2013 at 8:44 am
abjonespsydab, the so-called “pro-lifers” simply cannot do what you ask; their anger, rigidity, insensitivity and close-mindedness are part of their makeup. The public in general does not see the chasm between their professed care for human life and their refusal to actually care for children. If the public did see that abyss, they would be better able to understand the dysfunction driving the whole movement. It is a mark of its success at public relations that the movement has been able to keep this knowledge from the public.
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October 16, 2013 at 4:46 pm
Sadly, true. However, the Pub belief has come true – the more you say something true or not the more people are likely to believe it. May as well do it on our side and we’re being honest!
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November 6, 2013 at 11:17 am
Abortion is murder. The ‘legality’ of abortion is irrelevant. If you want to talk about legality, then that means no black person was ever ‘murdered’ in the pre-civil war south because it was ‘legal’ for a slave owner to whip/sell/kill his slaves. Would you pro aborts argue that black werent murdered because it was legal? Abortion is the taking of a human life, period!
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November 6, 2013 at 1:35 pm
linda, if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? As Abe Lincoln said, “Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
Calling a fetus a child does not make it a child unless you intend to make it a child. If it’s not your fetus, it can’t be your baby. You cannot protect it from anything. Developmentally for the first two trimesters it functions pretty much at the level of an earthworm. When I was a kid, I aborted quite a few earthworms on a fishhook, and I don’t think it would have bothered you a bit.
Pregnant women have to make a moral judgment about their pregnancy, and it often comes down to, “What sort of life can I provide for another child?” In my own family, I feel my parents would have coped better with the remaining ten children if they had aborted me. If you want to take on the moral authority for another woman’s pregnancy, the best way to start is by posting $260,000 for her to spend on the child’s upbringing. That is the cost of raising the average child. Then you will have some clout in compelling her to remain pregnant, and you can also be assured the child has a relatively good chance of becoming a fully-functioning adult.
You cannot tell another woman what is her best course– well, actually you can, but you can’t force her to follow it. Sometimes women will choose an abortion because an increase in family size would destroy her other children. You can’t make that decision for her, one way or another.
Consider two separate cases– in both families, the teen pregnancy was shameful and hidden from the neighbors and society. Both children were raised to believe their grandmother was their mother and their mother was their sister. Would you have insisted both of them bear a child?
One of the kids grew up to be singer Bobby Darin (“Mack the Knife,” etc.). The other one grew up to be Ted Bundy.
How would you explain yourself to the parents of the three to five dozen young women that Ted Bundy killed? Aborting him would have saved a lot more killing, after all.
Of course, nurturing Ted Bundy could also have saved their lives, but you weren’t there for him. However, you can be there for the next one. You could start with $260,000, so the woman isn’t ashamed of her pregnancy.
So, what are you doing to prevent the next Ted Bundy from developing?
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November 6, 2013 at 2:42 pm
Fetus simlpy means ‘offspring’, it in no way negates the fact that its a baby. Its simply a term for stage of development. Like infant, toddler, teen adult, senior. Just because you dont like the fact its a baby doesnt mean you can take its humanity away.
Ted Bundy is irrelevant, you could just as easily abort the scientist who would have discovered the cure for cancer. You cant kill someone for what they might do 30 years down the road.
As for paying for a pregnant womans baby, you seem to fail to realize a woman can prevent a pregncy if she wants to. Should people who are against euthanasia of homeless pets be forced to adopt 5 dogs to really be considered an animal rights person?
Being poor is not a crime, using that logic 80% of the worlds population should die.
You can ‘abort’ all the earth worms you want, killing another human being is not the same thing. Thats a twisted set of morals you have there to compare the two.
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November 6, 2013 at 2:50 pm
Why do you think the term fetus, negates the fact that its a baby? Doctors always use medical terms the lay people dont use. i have never heard anyone say “I’m having a myocardial infarction’ while having a heart attack. Just like I’ve never heard a woman say my fetus just kicked, or my fetuses due date is, or my fetus is a boy.
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November 27, 2013 at 11:20 pm
Hi there! Good stuff, please do tell me when you lastly post something like this!
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