Earlier this week I posted a video of speaker Karen Shablin and wrote about the anti-feminism that is Feminists for Life. Then I came across this article from Cornell's student newspaper that further demonstrates how out-of-touch and dishonest anti-choicers are.
Shablin seems to have given the same talk that she did in the video, but this quote stuck out to me:
"We all know college students have sex, so there's no reason why there are no children. Where are the children?" she questioned. "College educated and college age women have the highest rates of abortion," she said.
Apparently it didn't occur to Shablin that college students may be using contraception, and that's why there are "no children." Of course, the folks at Feminists for Life (and other anti-choice organizations) tend to think of birth control as abortion, so perhaps Shablin knew exactly what she was saying.
Either way, I'm pretty tired of people who want to limit women's rights appropriating feminist rhetoric. You want to criminalize abortion? Make birth control illegal and put an end to any sex that isn't straight, married and procreative? Fine, but at least be honest about it.
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I don't see where you get from that quote that it didn't occur to her that they were using contraception. Since she followed the "where are the children?" question with stats about abortion rates, it's obvious that she knows that many college-age women do get pregnant (whether they're using birth control or not). Surely you wouldn't argue that all college women use contraception, use it effectively, and never have a method failure.
The quote is about why it seems so rare for women to be able to carry to term and still remain in college, and what we can to to change that so that women who get pregnant don't feel that their only choices are to get an abortion or abandon their education.
Of course, the folks at Feminists for Life tend to think of birth control as abortion
Evidence, please?
It might have made sense if she'd said something like "studies show that college women do get pregnant at such and such a rate, but most of them choose to get abortions," but instead she said that the fact that college students are having sex and not having babies directly implies that they are having abortions. That leaves contraception completely out of the equation.
Exactly. I think she jumped to the conclusion that these women all must be having abortions if they have sex without reproducing.
I'm sure those women are mature adults and know their options if they get abortions it's surely by their own choice.
The term "college aged" is such a load of crap. It implies that you are talking about people IN college instead of people between the ages of 18-24. People actually in college can be of almost any age. And people between the ages of 18-24 are not ALL in college.
That term bugs me, too. My mom graduated from college when she was 40. (As salutatorian! She's my biggest role model).
And I graduated from Hunter College, where 50% of the undergraduates were 26 or over.
They need to just say 'young adults under age 25.'
i definitely agree "college-aged" is a poorly-crafted phrase, however, she was addressing that quote to a group of 18-24 year old college students. cornell university lacks much in the way of older, "non-traditional" students, and from what i can tell from the article (as i couldn't bring myself to waste an hour of my wednesday evening listening to shablin's nonsense), her choice of words was an attempt to make her point relevant to that audience. bet she didn't think it would ever make its way to this audience, a much bigger one that (thankfully) knows her type.
reading the student comments towards the end of the full article in our student newspaper, i could barely believe what i was reading. it appears shablin completely forgot to mention that Feminists for Life is in favor of overturning roe v. wade. the non-feminist attendees seemed left with the impression that all shablin advocates is greater support and acceptance for women who choose not to have abortions and finding a middle ground between the pro-choice and anti-abortion movements. then again, the kind of student who feels compelled to attend a pro-life speaker's talk (not in order to protest or challenge the speaker's position) likely is only going to hear what he or she wants to hear...
The fact that Feminists for Life don't have a status on birth control speaks for itself.
"Preconception issues including abstinence and contraception are outside of our mission. Some FFL members and supporters support the use of non-abortifacient contraception while others oppose contraception for a variety of reasons. FFL is concerned that certain forms of contraception have had adverse health effects on women."
Being a feminist means having the choice - the choice to have sex or not, regardless if you want children. By not awknowledging that people need resources before conception, they are failing at their mission to reduce abortions.
I agree with Jessica 100%. If you want to be anti-choice and anti-abortion, go ahead. But call it what it is - undermining one of feminists' basic tenets and then calling yourself a feminist is just misleading and wrong.
It sounds like they do have a stance on contraception. There's no such thing as "abortifacient contraception." It's either one or the other. It either prevents pregnancy or terminates pregnancy.
I go to Cornell, and I was at that talk. More problematic to me was when she was talking about why she became pro-life. Like in the video posted on Feministing the other day, she described seeing statistics about women who'd had 4 abortions in one year, presumably because of the family cap on public assistance.
She said, "I don't think getting pregnant four times in one year is an accident."
I'm not exactly sure what she was implying...
I could definitely agree with her on providing resources to pregnant women in college and at work, so that people who genuinely want to keep the child don't feel forced to have an abortion. She called it coercion. But I think there are legitimate reasons to have an abortion, even if you have the means and capacity to go through a pregnancy or support a child. You can't fight coercion with more coercion.
It is no accident. Women on public assistance very often can't afford yearly gyno exams and/or contraception. If they get pregnant, they will end up having a baby they can't afford to raise. Ergo abortion.
The solution, of course, is not to make birth control, medical care, and abortion EVEN HARDER to access, which seems to be what she's proposing. She's blaming all those economic factors on abortion being legal, which is so incredibly illogical I don't know how she can talk about it with a straight face. How is enforced childbirth going to solve women's problems?
“There was no choice except [pro]-choice,”
Seriously? Seriously, did she just say that imply had no choice but to get an abortion, but say she had to choose. . .choice? For the love of--pro-choice also supports your right to be an unwed mother in college. Don't blame your regrets on the rest of us.
I am thoroughly disgusted by this woman. She is less feminist than the people insisting that a fetus is life and deserves to use a woman's body to stay alive. It's one thing to say a fetus's life overrides a woman's choice, another to say that all women are too stupid to make that choice.
Also, shame on that site for only quoting pro-lifers. What a complete lack of journalistic integrity.
"She is less feminist than the people insisting that a fetus is life and deserves to use a woman's body to stay alive. It's one thing to say a fetus's life overrides a woman's choice, another to say that all women are too stupid to make that choice."
Exactly. While I disagree, I can understand the position of people who believe that the fetus is a life of equal value so a woman should not abort unless her life is threatened by the pregnancy. But arguing that women don't know what's best for themselves is about as anti-feminist as you can get. Of course, being pro-choice, I support the fight for removing obstacles for women who choose (see that, there are two sides to choice) to keep a pregnancy, but that can never remove all of the very legitimate reasons a woman may choose to have an abortion. Anti-feminists always want to paint feminists as anti-mother or anti-family, but feminists seem to be far more likely to fight for social programs, the removal of social stigmas, and rights that actually help mothers and families.
the full article that appeared today in our student newspaper did include two non-anti-choice comments. please don't knock Cornell's student journalists - they do a difficult job, pro bono, and almost never receive thanks, recognition, or anything other than negative critiques of their journalistic integrity.
signed,
long-time cornell daily sun (and feministing) reader
Well, I don't know about other college-age women, but I keep my aborted fetuses in my freezer.
I love feministing for this reason. There is always legitimate discussion refuting whatever the anti-choicers say, and then there are hilarious comments like this that show how ridiculous their argument is by subverting it entirely and bringing my blood pressure back down.
I'm happy to help anyone's cardiovascular health. :)
Ha ha ha ha YA! Now that's shame free choice and a breath of fresh air LOL!
That whole article makes me so mad. She had an abortion herself, thinking it necessary, and just because she suffered emotionally afterward (which has been shown not to be as common as pro-lifers make you think it is), she wants to prevent us all from making the same choice she did.
I don't doubt her statistic that 45% of college age women have had abortions. In my Women's Studies class we learned the statistic 1 in 3. In attributing the lack of babies to lots and lots of abortions, she does ignore the idea of birth control.
"I don't doubt her statistic that 45% of college age women have had abortions. In my Women's Studies class we learned the statistic 1 in 3."
Hmm, I have heard slightly different stats. The first being that 50% of pregnancies are unplanned and a little less than half of those are terminated by abortion leading to roughly 24% of all pregnancies ending in abortion.
I don't know exactly how this would translate in terms of percentages for college women but if they followed the general trend of the population, for an abortion rate of 45%, 90% of college age women would have had to get pregnant unintentionally at some point, which seems unlikely.
Of course Shablin's premise is that college age women always (or mostly) have abortions if they do get pregnant, but even if you conceded that, it would require 45% of them to get pregnant accidentally in the first place, which I think is also unreasonable.
The most often cited statistic I have heard is that a little more than 40% of women will have an abortion at some point in their lives.
Personally, I don't really think the abortion rate matters at all, but we should always be on the look out for people who will use statistics (true or false!) as scare tactics.
When you have to intentionally mislead to persuade people, your credibility is definitely shot. Pretending that there aren't any ways to prevent pregnancy in 2009 is definitely misleading. Like a lot of women, I've managed to have regular sex for years and never get pregnant. My lack of child can be attributed to birth control and condoms (which of course aren't fool proof, but they've worked for me), not monthly abortions.
And as I said in the last post, the fact that their fight isn't centered around increased access to birth control makes it 100% clear that they are not truly a feminist organization and they certainly don't really care about reducing abortion. It's the same shit we've always seen from the pro-life movement, they just tried to put it in a prettier package.
I've been having married sex with no condoms or other forms of birth control for over 7 (mostly college aged) years, and I haven't managed to get pregnant and have an abortion yet.
Someone needs to tell her that we are experiencing a baby boom right now. There is no shortage of children.
There isn't anything I can say that hasn't been eloquently said by other posters - except that this lady is the reason I am fucking bald! My God, that shit pisses me off.
On another note, I am not sure if it was intentional, but looking at the article, did anyone notice how the pro-choice voices were women, yet the two anti-choice voices were men? I am not sure if there is a link, but I am guessing with her rhretoric and wordplay, one would more likely buy into it and believe it if one's body had nothing riding on it. In short, most women realize this 'women deserve better shit' is a bunch of bull ...
hmmmm. i noticed that too - my mental reasoning included the thought that when the reporter solicited comments, the outspoken female pro-choice students volunteered their opinions, and of the anti-choice group, the two most confident individuals willing to share their thoughts were men. this lines up with what i experience day-to-day at the university in question - the outspoken females are often feminists, but on average, the most outspoken students are male. just my train of thought, take it or leave it...
I don't know anyone actually in college who doesn't use birth control except for those who are non-trads and are trying to have families (well, and obviously, people who aren't sexually active). Of course, hormonal BC can fail, but we ALL use it, so the actual pregnancy rates can't be that high (I'm not denying that accidental pregnancies may end in abortions at a higher rate, but rather that the overall rates would be low in comparison to other demographics of similar age and marital status).
Maybe it's different in other parts of the country. I'm an UNH, where BC is subsidized quite a bit, the doctors will basically give you enough "free samples" to last you if you can't afford it, and condoms are free and easily availiable all over the place.
Of course, this also says college-AGE, so I suppose she's also factoring in people who are not actually in college, and may not have good access. I hate this idea that college women are all getting abortions. Women in colleges tend to have good access to birth control, unlike, say, women in conservative areas or poor areas, since doctors are willing to prescribe. They also have better education in birth control use, partially due to the college and partially due to their economic status (even poor college students often had reasonably well-off parents who value education). What's more, the schools and states will sometimes subsidize BC for students-- I use the Ring, which is more expensive, but there are $12/month BC packs availiable in my school pharmacy.
"Of course, this also says college-AGE, so I suppose she's also factoring in people who are not actually in college, and may not have good access."
See, I think this is an excellent point. Around here, I would say that women who are in college are more likely to be knowledgeable about methods of contraception, and to have avenues of contraception available to them. Heck, my last RA passed condoms around at our house meetings.
I'm not saying everybody in college has access to methods of contraception (or that they are always 100% effective), just that the term "college age" is pretty vague and misleading at best.
I'd also like to note that students who are parents are often marginalized at their colleges or universities. While I can't speak to the issues at Cornell, many of the college students I work with who are parents feel invisible on campus. Many of them have experienced discrimination by their professors and scorn from fellow students, so they at times hide the fact that they have children. This may be less true at an Ivy League university, but maybe Shablin isn't looking hard enough.
Many universities offer services to students with children. Did she look at the non-traditional student office or at her campus' women's center?
This isn't to say that students should (or shouldn't) have children, FYI, but that those who aren't often visible to students without children.
Yes, honestly, the non-trads are hardly bringing their children to class with them. If a college student does have children, the kids stay at home or go to daycare.
I actually went to the talk, along with other representatives from the Cornell Women's Resource Center, and Shablin never mentioned her stance on contraception and proper sexual health education, which would be obvious for someone who is anti-choice to be in support of since contraception and proper sex ed lowers the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
The anti-choicers who are against birth control believe that it is a form of abortion because it is specifically for eggs, and that could potentially be a life. So why not stop men from masturbating because if eggs are life, wouldn't sperm be too?
The Q & A afterwards focused mostly on the view of whether or not a an embryo/fetus or whatever you may call it is a life or not. She never covered the title of her talk "Abortion: A betrayal of feminism." As Jessica said in another post about Karen Shablin, wouldn't "fighting to limit the reproductive choices of other women" be a betrayal of women?
The organization is an oxymoron.
A lot of very conservative people probably are against the idea of men masturbating, but there isn't much they can do about it. From what I understand, if a guy never orgasms while awake, he will start having nocturnal emissions, which wastes the sperm just as much. Seems like god didn't really care if every sperm was sacred. Same with eggs-- they get washed down the toilet every month.
Oh, also, if you look at the statistics of how many pregnancies end in miscarriage (often before the woman even knows she's pregnant), it seems strange to argue that god cares about each and every fertilized egg becoming a person.
Also, attempting to prevent nocturnal emissions and masturbation can result in decreased fertility later on for men.
Anyone with a basic understanding of biology thinks the idea of sperm and eggs being sacred is beyond absurd. After all, 99.9% of sperm don't reach the egg in procreative intercourse, and they die; then there's the eggs that die every month and the sperm that die in the night unless he physically attempts to prevent it, in which case his body will kill them anyway, since they have such a short shelf life.
So even though miscarriages could be considered "natural death," considering how many sperm and eggs die, the only way a person could consider themselves to not be killing such a thing out of action or inaction would be for a woman to be on continuous birth control (to suppress ovulation) or pregnant at all times, and a man to carefully masturbate into a cup and have the sperm each injected into an egg (since they cannot have sex normally, as that is willfully destroying millions of sperm).
Which is also impossible, since there are far more sperm on earth than there are eggs.
Because men are the sexual creatures, and masturbation is their god given right. Women don't like sex, so they're no problem.
The anti-choicers who are against birth control believe that it is a form of abortion because it is specifically for eggs, and that could potentially be a life. So why not stop men from masturbating because if eggs are life, wouldn't sperm be too?
What irks me is that gametes *are* alive. All cells are alive, gametes are cells, hence they're alive. So I hate this "life begins at conception" crap, it just reveals their scientific ignorance and unwillingness to grant women physical autonomy.
I have a had a glut of anti-choice vitriol over the past few weeks.
Some of it has been items I've stumbled across on news sites or blogs or seen on TV. Others have been punishment I've actively sought in my quest to find logically and politically consistent pro-Lifers (as opposed to reactionary and willfully blind anti-choicers).
I geunuinely want to engage with such Pro-Lifers because I *was* pro-Life the majority of my life. But looking back on my arguments, they were inevitably couched in problematic notions borne of gender essentalism, learned/internalized misogyny, and straight-up PRIVILEGE.
So, I search now for Pro-Lifers whose views do not come from such problematic perspectives, whose views are both consistent and made in good faith.
I tried earlier this week, if you're interested:
http://www.baylyblog.com/2009/03/medical-abortions-the-antiabortionists-achilles-heel/comments/page/2/
I posted twice: once to wade in to the fray, and a second time to offer responses to others. I haven't the time this week to go back and do a second addressing of the follow-up responses. To be honest, the thought of it wearies me.
I can honestly state that I am semi-*open* to being convinced back to the Pro-Life position. I doubt it will happen, because I believe so strongly in the arguments I have formulated to support Choice, but I come from a place of good faith and intellectual curiosity when I engage with people who hold views different to mine. If I come across a truly stunning argument that I have never before considered, believe me: I WILL consider it, putting all my views temporarily on hold, and will be prepared to eat crow and adopt that new view if I find it convincing enough.
What kills me is that whenever I interface with people of opposing or different views, I have stated and demonstrated that I'm ready to be convinced of their position. Yet, the first thing they do is begin spouting off offensive knee-jerk reactions (e.g. "your arguments are nonsenical").
Now, I ask you, Feministing-ers: if you were part of a movement that despised X and thought it was humanity's path to perdition, wouldn't you do everything in your power to convince others of your movement's view? Take it further: wouldn't you then go *out of your way* to be as polite, respectful, reasoned, and generous as you could in making your arguments?
When a respectful, reasonable poster comes on here being honest about the fact that they see merit in a certain MRA argument, which response makes sense: tearing into this poster or greeting him or her with an equally respectful and reasoned argument?
Personally, I have never and would never espouse OR reject a position based on how well I liked its supporters, but not all people are like me. So, given that, why would a pro-Choicer be receptive to being swayed pro-Life in light of the amount of vitriol they're met with when they engage with Pro-Lifers ?
Are anti-choicers trying to drive away people from their movement?
The funniest thing about this is that I'm a Bayly Blogger. I made the mistake a few months ago of trying to look up a friend who is part of Silent No More - I forget what I typed "Silent No More" "Indiana Coordinator" abortion or something and got a website:
http://community.livejournal.com/abortioninfo
The website is called " The whole truth and nothing but the truth unbiased abortion information"
A woman on there asked something about her abortion saying something like, "When will the physical and emotional pain end" and I wrote honestly about my and my wife's abortion from over a decade ago and saying unconfrontationally "the pain may never go away, it hasn't for us but we have had healing in Christ for killing our child" and we were told flat our that we were liars.
You wouldn't have believed the immediate onslaught I received - it was vicious and it was completely irrational. I was called a liar in the most unkind ways by many posters. My wife posted and she was also called a liar. I asked them what part of our story they questioned, telling them that I wished very much that we were lying but I gave them the name of the hospital where we went and the month and year saying look it up if you like, we don't have the heart to.
They deleted all of my posts and banned me from posting on that site again, as well as my wife.
That page with its "unbiased abortion information" made the worst at Baylyblog.com look like the most mild episode of Romper Room.
The funniest thing about it was that after I was called a liar for my post where I said the pain of abortion lasts a lifetime the moderator of the site said, "There are never any physical or emotional affects from abortion!" Then she replied to the original poster saying that, "My physical pain lasted several months, and I was suicidal for years after and still am sometimes."
They contradict themselves almost mid-sentence, certainly mid-post.
This shows clearly what abortion does to the mind of women who've been victims of Planned Parenthood and the abortion world we've created and drown in. They become completely irrational, compartmentalizing their sin so badly that they almost seem to have Disassociative Personality Disorder.
Anyway, Okra, I know that we seem violently "anti-choice" but that's because we have seen in no uncertain terms what abortion does to the the women, men and even the children. We have seen the effect on our culture, we have been foster parents, adoptive parents for special needs children, case-workers, parents, mothers, fathers, brothers and we've seen the pain...
And we've been saved by Christ, so we see ourselves in all the victims and yes, Okra even in you, you are so like how most of us were at earlier times in our life.
I was so much like you the day I rationalized the killing of the first of my six children - I hate that person I used to be and sometimes that hate for my sin comes out in how I treat people like you and for that I'm sorry and ask your forgiveness, honestly.
However, we call all of you to repentance and the ability to see the lies for what they are. The Bible explains it all for those who's heart is not soaked in darkness, as my own was for many years. We come from all backgrounds, professors, factory workers, teachers, students, musicians - some of us have hardly any education, many of us have PhDs.
Abortion is wrong for many reasons but the best reason which you will see as no reason at all is that God is sovereign and He expects us not to kill our children - to sacrifice them to Molech - and if He didn't intends for a child to die or a "pregnancy to be terminated" then He will do it; life begins at conception because scriptures tell us this.
I've come across that blog on occasion before, and it always pushes my rage-o-meter to a new high. I read most of the responses and was very impressed with you and the other pro-choice contributor. Unfortunately, I think the (male) commenter that took offense at the term 'anti-choice' because they do believe in choice - a woman has the choice not to have sex! pretty much says it all.
Now, I ask you, Feministing-ers: if you were part of a movement that despised X and thought it was humanity's path to perdition, wouldn't you do everything in your power to convince others of your movement's view? Take it further: wouldn't you then go *out of your way* to be as polite, respectful, reasoned, and generous as you could in making your arguments?
I wonder if this is not exactly what they think they are doing. Aggressively, yes, but they are convinced that their arguments are reasoned and polite, considering that others are in their opinion denying the authority of Scripture. They go out of their way to tell someone like me how I'm denying the Truth, and what could be kinder than that? I also sense a sort of self-righteousness there in being so magnanimous as to engage respectfully with pro-choicers at all.
There can be no meaningful debate when one side is not interested in listening to their opponents' arguments. That basic reciprocity, I think, is vital for an attempt to convince to be possible. There's no point in pointing out studies that show that the pill is no 'abortifacient' because they don't want that to be the case. There's no point in demonstrating the difference between a blastocyst, a zygote and a fetus because they don't want there to be one. There can be no discussion because they don't want there to be issues and cases worth debating. I'm not even sure convincing others is the point, but that would be a whole 'nother thread.
It's very depressing.
Sorry, the above was meant as a comment to Okra's post.
Thank you for reading through all those posts. I feel better just knowing that someone else understands the ho frustrating it is to come up against the Wall of Deliberately Unshakeable Belief.
Their beliefs--and, being honest, the beliefs of many pro-Choicers--are unshakeable *because* they have decided that they will be so. The unshakeability doesn't flow organically from the belief; rather the reverse is true: they have begun the intellectual enterprise already determining that they shall not be moved.
There's a big difference between these two, and I wish more people could see and acknowledge the distinction.
Sure, my belief in pro-choice may well turn out to be unshakeable in that every time I examine the evidence, I find that criminalizing abortion is a an abuse of both the pregnant woman's human rights and the would-be child who may suffer dreadfully from being forced into an abusive or otherwise harmful situation.
But that's a very different thing than waking up in the morning and deciding, "No one and nothing shall shake me from belief in Choice." And then refusing to open my ears or mind even *a crack* to well-reasoned and consistent anti-Choice arguments.
As to the specific points raised in that thread:
-- I agree that they feel they ARE being respectful of me and other dissenters. I grew up in several fundamentalist southern churches (we moved fairly frequently, so I always got to try out and experience new ones), so I know exactly the mindset they come from: they believe they are using "tough love" and that forcefully "proclaiming the Gospel" is a means of "loving the sinner."
But my point is that if they really cared about reducing abortions and they refuse birth control as a legit means of doing so, then they must try and convince as many people as possible to join the Pro-Life bandwagon, which will eventually effect the legislators we elect and thus the laws.
Which brings me to your interesting point. Yo wrote:
I'm not even sure convincing others is the point, but that would be a whole 'nother thread.
---------------------
If getting more people on the bandwagon is not their concern, then, given our representative democratic system, that would suggest that they don't really care about abortion as an act as much as they claim to, wouldn't it? I can believe that some are just more interested in being "right" and looking as though they have a moral stance, but there are significant numbers of other Pro-Lifers who do indeed, I believe, really quake at the thought of abortion as murder, and would genuinely like to reduce it via legislation.
Could you elaborate on your thought?
Has this woman never heard of lesbians? Or even LUG, Lesbian Until Graduation? Lots of sex, no babies!
College-educated women are probably the least likely to get pregnant accidentally, so I'm guessing the abortion rate for this bracket is actually lower than non-college-educated women the same age.
What I love (not) about the abortion debate is how the pro-life faction assumes that only single young women in high school or college choose abortion.
Statistics I've read put MOTHERS in the highest abortion category! And the #1 reason cited for abortion is the cost of raising a child.
So "Where are the children?" I'll tell you where the children are. They're in some crappy daycare because Mom has to work some crappy job earning 70 cents on the dollar so she can see her little one for a few hours at night -- just long enough to feed her, bathe her and tuck her into bed. And Mom loves that little child and cannot risk plunging her further into poverty by having yet another child, getting laid off b/c she's pregnant, or having to quit her job b/c it doesn't childcare for 2.
That's just one scenario (a common one, apparently) but it's a scenario that is utterly ignored by the far right. They want us to believe women have abortions b/c of hating children. Bah. Many more women have abortions because they love children -- often a specific child who is already living, breathing, and needing more money, time and attention than the mother has to offer.
So knock off this "Where are the children?" garbage, FFL, and start asking some more logical questions like:
Where are the fathers?
Where is the healthcare?
Where are the quality, affordable daycare centers?
Where are the jobs that pay women $1 on the dollar (and not minimum wage)?
Many more women have abortions because they love children -- often a specific child who is already living, breathing, and needing more money, time and attention than the mother has to offer.
------------
Not only is this true, but I go further and add that some women have or want abortions because they care about the potential suffering the unborn would have undergo it were born.
I have actually read statements by anti-choicers that say that women in abusive households and single women dying of terminal illness are being selfish in their decision to abort.
WTF?
Aborting in those situations is the HUMANE thing to do. Bringing into the world a sentient human that is going directly into a situation of extreme suffering (and possibly into a succession of foster homes) is what's selfish.
She made a good point. I am sick of the lack of concern about children (outside aborting them) coming from feminists.
Funny, because I am sick about the lack of concern about children--outside abortion--coming from non-feminist anti-choicers.
I'm sick over the fact that strongly held anti-choice views correlate noticeably with strong abstinece-only, anti-public assistance, anti-family leave policies, anti-public educaiton improvement, anti-government daycare, and anti-universal healthcare views.
I'm sick of the lack of concern anti-choicers have over the HUMAN BEINGS created and then, in anti-choicers' ideal non-abortion world, being wantonly injected directly into abusive and harmful situations.
Other non-feminists who do no good to children are MRA activists who chafe at child support supporting single mothers and patriarchal religious fundamentalists (of all religions) who set up their elder daughters as slave labor and teachers to the younger children, because girl children are not to be formally educated beyond a certain level.
Seems to me that there are more non-feminists than feminists who have a "lack of concern" about children.
I'm Pro-Life and I go to church with dozens of people who have and are waiting to adopt children - not because they are infertile but because they hate the murder of children and want to help as God commands us.
There is no lack of regard for children - this is lie you tell yourselves so that you can pretend that abortion is needed. At any given time there are more people wanting to adopt than there are abortions.
My wife and I are seeking to adopt at least one special needs child - we have five kids of our own and we don't qualify because we only have three bedrooms.
So you tell me, who is preventing who from adopting, it's our stupid liberal child protective services - I think our house is large enough, and you know what - when we had foster kids before (three of them) they didn't give a rat's tail how big our house was - they were just glad to have a family.
We're adding onto our house soon to be able to have foster children to adopt but for now we don't have the money. The rick pro-abortion people are usually sitting in their fancy houses with no children unwilling to adopt - it's not the staunch Christian Pro-Lifers - this has been told me by many Foster case-workers - they said that the Christians who don't have much money are always the ones who are willing to adopt (which means that you don't get paid for their care) the rich and non-Christians never will.
Wait, you can abort *children*?
Sure.
In my response above I was talking mainly about the very religious anti-choicers who argue solely from their interpretation of the Bible because it's the only valid authority. They can try to show others that their interpretation is the right way, but after that only God can change those hearts. (This is based mostly on my personal experience of living in a conservative Christian area where I still have many relatives, so it is a highly subjective opinion). And in a way I do feel that religion is more important to many of them than the actual saving of 'babies', because on some level those blastocysts are only potential persons to them also, and keeping to religious mores about purity and innocence are more important than the actual prevention of unwanted pregnancies.
I've tried theological arguments for a pro-choice position, such as there being no mention of abortion in the Bible other than a miscarriage not being considered murder, that the Psalm verse 'you knit me together in my mother's womb' might imply that a fertilized egg becomes a person later in pregnancy, or the way Jewish law places importance on the life of the mother. They don't want to reconsider their 'literal' interpretation of Scripture, which contains a lot of pre-conceived ideas about 'the sanctity of life'. I also wonder why they are not more upset that Bush and the Republicans, despite controlling so much of government, didn't outlaw abortion as they practically promised to do. It seems to be accepted that the shadowy, all-powerful 'liberals' kept them from getting anything done. The feeling that 'true Christians' are being persecuted by the secular world is strong and perhaps even empowering, and it's better to avoid the pro-choice crowd until the Rapture. (I use the quotes for terms that my relatives apply to themselves, and I hope it doesn't come off as disrespectful, since I love them but not their political opinions, to re-phrase a common expression).
When it comes to more moderate pro-lifers, the attempt to convince is more nuanced, such as emphasizing the steps of fetal development, the wonder of motherhood and the horror of empty wombs, etc. The medical arguments work both ways though - I, for one, am very convinced that a zygote is not a person yet, and it would take some drastic changes in how fetal development is understood to change my mind. The terms pro-choice and pro-life are so misleading in any case. I might be 'pro-life' in the sense that I'm uncomfortable with 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions, but 'pro-choice' in the sense that I believe women have the moral agency to decide when an abortion is right for them, coupled with the fact that few women, if any, have late-term abortions unless it is absolutely necessary, which is something that the pro-life side often refuses to be the case.
It's very unfortunate that the anti-choice side were able to claim the term 'pro-life' for themselves and make it the default position of a 'good' person. I know people who say "I'm pro-life, but I wouldn't want to legislate other women's choices". Well, then, you are actually pro-choice, awful as that might sound. I've also met people who were staunchly anti-choice, no exceptions, until they themselves had a unviable pregnancy and had to make a horrible choice. I think that once you admit that there might be cases in which abortion is the only option, then you open the door to admitting the legitimacy of a woman's right to control her body. And since ardent pro-lifers want to uphold the innocence of the 'unborn children' while simultaneously declining to fund programs that would help mothers and their babies, I wonder about their sincerity in actually valuing those lives. If we are talking about innocent lives that we all need to protect, wouldn't it be better to raise taxes - to do all that it takes - in order to help them after birth as well?
The abortion rate is just as high in countries where it's illegal, and reducing abortions - which is what all of us wants - won't happen unless sex education, contraception, and health care become accessible to all. The fact that the anti-choice movement tend to be against those things makes me doubt their motives, and thus I find it very hard to be convinced of their stance. I think the anti-choice movement as a whole is so caught up in who gets to have sex, when, and how, that it is very difficult to find common ground. They sentimentalize and foreground women-as-mothers while simultaneously discrediting women's knowledge of pregnancy, motherhood, and their value aside from vessels, and I find that baffling in its misogyny. The anti-choice movement is and has been sincere (and successful) in its attempt to legislate morality and inevitable pregnancy, and I wish they would see that it's not working. Since it seems that they won't, I have to wonder whether 'saving innocent lives' is the point at all, or if it's the idea of unborn perfect innocence that is the true appeal. Harsh, maybe, but after years of fighting this battle I'm getting discouraged.
(Sorry for the length - I'm short on time and it's hard to do justice to your question!)
Again, this is to Okra above - I double-checked and don't know why this keeps happening! I hope you see this, Okra, and sorry for messing up the thread.
Where are all the children? ha ha that's a good one. Well let me tell you what. Abortion is NOT a dirty word.