I hate to draw inferences about Virgin Ben and his unfamiliarity with women, since I’m trying to get past shallow judgements like that. But really, today’s Townhall takes the cake. I will say, however, that there are a lot of sexually active sexist men out there who are just as incapable of viewing women as anything other than emasculating deceit-machines who have to have their rights stripped from them to protect men from having to suffer from the machinations of evil females. (Exhibit #1: People protested the banning of marital rape in Mexico two weeks ago, because, you guessed it, this is just an opportunity for deceitful women to levy false accusations to get revenge against husbands. Probably for raping them, but possibly for not taking out the trash, as Twisty says.)
Anyway, Ben’s article today in in salivating anticipation of the impending overturning of Roe v. Wade is about how abortion is a wicked pleasure, not a necessary medical treatment, and therefore needs to be banned like vibrators are in Texas. (It interests me how the paranoids assume women’s greatest pleasure are things they personally find threatening and emasculating, like the reason one busts out one of these fine products is so you can say, “Ooooh, baby, this will show those men they aren’t needed!”)
Current liberal thought posits that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” in the words of former president Bill Clinton. Only by stipulating that abortion should remain “rare” can liberal politicians escape popular outrage. Yet these same politicians refuse to answer just why abortion should remain rare. If abortion is a moral good under any circumstances (as abortion-on-demand advocates declare), why should it remain rare? And if keeping abortion rare is a rational goal, why should state governments be barred from taking steps to discourage abortion?
Whee! Abortion is fun! If you’re for legal abortion, you are logically for making sure women are constantly under the fucking knife and put through that painful experience. Why pro-choicers are pro-contraceptive, then, I don’t know. Contraceptive use is the number one way to prevent abortions from occuring and yet here we are, defeating ourselves by promoting it. Don’t you ladies know every time you grab the condom or swallow the pill, you are potentially denying yourself the fabulous party that is getting an abortion?
Dr. George Tiller of Kansas has terminated over 60,000 pregnancies; his website brags that the good doctor’s clinic has “more experience in late abortion services over 24 weeks than anyone else currently practicing in the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Australia.” Most babies are considered viable (that is, can live outside the womb with the help of medical technology) at 23-24 weeks. These are viable, living children.
I love the anti-choice characterization of late-term abortions. Seems Ben is thinking here that women go through the weight gain, loss of sleep, morning sickness and other fun parts of pregnancy and then one day wake up 24 weeks into the process and think, “Ha, I’ll bet the asshole thinks it’s too late now! But I’ll show him! It’s never to late to emasculate your man by destroying the baby he made all by himself!”
But there is no doubt that late term abortions are unnerving. I would like to point out that one thing that really clarified my thinking on this is that the right wing characterization of late term abortion as killing-living-babies-for-fun is about as far from the truth as you can get.
The fact of the matter is that mainstream pro-choice liberals are lying through their teeth when they mouth the “safe, legal and rare” mantra. Abortionists are celebrated as heroes, no matter what type of abortions they perform.
I’d love to see his logic extended to other realms. For instance, we want people to use seat belts. When they don’t and they are mangled in car accidents, isn’t it wrong therefore to treat the EMS workers who save their lives as heroes? They are simply enabling irresponsible behavior! Real heroes let people die on the sidewalk.
The reason that doctors who perform abortions are heroes is because despite the social pressure to abandon their patients, despite the fact that rabid misogynists who think they are working for a woman-hating god torment them and even threaten them to abandon their patients, and despite the fact that the law is closing in on them to ban them from helping their patients, they help their patients anyway.
This is the pro-choice agenda. For pro-choice activists, abortion is a good in and of itself. It allows a woman to exercise her “freedom of choice” at any time. Context does not matter; moral gradation does not matter; timing does not matter. The high school volleyball player who aborts her child because she does not want to ruin her body for nine months — “I realize just from the first three months how it changes everything” — is just as valid as the woman who aborts because her life is seriously endangered by pregnancy. Abortion must remain an absolute right, commonly exercised, if women are to be truly free.
In other words, women’s freedom means that women might act like they are free. Godammit, this is what our forefathers who tried to stop women from getting the vote worried about in the first place–give women legal rights and there’s no guarantee that they will be properly controlled at home. A woman with the vote might vote the way Ben wants her to, and she may vote her own way. Same with reproductive rights. Give women the right to make their own reproductive decisions, and by golly, they may act like they have a right to make their own decisions and next thing you know, they’re doing stuff this pissant disapproves of. Clearly, the only solution is to take women’s rights away until we learn out lesson that having rights doesn’t mean using them.
91 Responses to “We’re gonna have an abortion party tonight!”
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like the reason one busts out one of these fine products is so you can say, “Ooooh, baby, this will show those men they aren’t needed!”
To be fair, women do sometimes make jokes to that effect - it’s entirely possible that humor-impaired conservatards like VBen hear those jokes and fail to recognize them for what they are.
But that’s their own fault, and certainly not our problem.
Now to VBen’s own words:
Context does not matter; moral gradation does not matter; timing does not matter.
Holy shit, talk about projection. This is his entire approach to social theory in a nutshell.
Whee! Abortion is fun! If you’re for legal abortion, you are logically for making sure women are constantly under the fucking knife and put through that painful experience.
Yup. This is why, in dedication to my pro-choice principles, I went out and got an abortion as soon as my 24 weeks were up.
The healthy live baby girl kicking on my living room floor is a figment of my imagination, naturally.
The conflation of pro-choice with pro-abortion is such a common tactic that it’s getting almost boring.
Really, when are the wingnuts going to stop pushing the false dichotomy? People don’t actually believe, do they, that it’s a decision between never allowing any abortion, ever, and celebrating dead babies?
Do they?
Congrats, Nick!
You know, I think I have a pretty consistent attitude towards surgery. Sometimes it’s the best option, but it’s better, when possible, to prevent the condition that makes surgery necessary. Sometimes diabetic people need to have their feet amputated, but it would be better if they could control their diabetes so it didn’t come to that. Heart bypass surgery is a wonderful, miraculous, life-saving thing, but it’s still better to prevent heart disease so you don’t need it. Sometimes abortion is the best way to address an unwanted pregnancy, but it’s better to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place.
Anti-choice people have a really, really hard time understanding that to pro-choice folks, abortion is a medical procedure. “Safe, legal and rare,” it seems to me, is a pretty good way to think about any surgery for a condition that could, with proper care, be prevented. It’s not a particularly controversial way of thinking about other kinds of surgery. Nobody thinks it’s inconsistent both to work to prevent feet amputations and to make sure that people who eventually need to have that surgery have access to it.
The high school volleyball player who aborts her child because she does not want to ruin her body for nine months…/i>
Yeah, that high school volleyball player should give up her dreams playing the sport she loves and settle down at the ripe old age of 15. Oh, and darling, he brings up his virginity as a badge of honor. I think you’re allowed to point out he doesn’t know anything about sex.
Contraceptive use is the number one way to prevent abortions from occuring
Oh, I bet there’s a statistically better way….
This is actually an excellent characterisation of a consistent pro-choice perspective:
>>
This is the pro-choice agenda. For pro-choice activists, abortion is a good in and of itself. It allows a woman to exercise her “freedom of choice” at any time… Abortion must remain an absolute right, commonly exercised, if women are to be truly free.>>
Seems right to me; I know he meant to be sarcastic but damn he got it.
Jax, that’s like saying we have to drive around randomly if we’re to be free to own cars. Do I have to move every few years to retain the right to live where I want? I’m all for the right being exercised as needed, but that doesn’t seem to be what the words you used mean.
If heart transplants are always a moral good, why should they remain rare?
“Most babies are considered viable (that is, can live outside the womb with the help of medical technology) at 23-24 weeks. These are viable, living children.”
This guy needs to visit any hospital NICU and see those 23-24 week babies for himself. And then go visit a high-risk pregnancy clinic and see the agony mothers go through who want to be pregnant but just told that genetic testing has confirmed the baby has a trisomy condition that means baby might not make it through pregnancy and even still after delivery will only live a few hours to days. The mom isn’t in danger or risk but the pregnancy is over no matter how much longer she carries that child. Its so sad - no one is happy about that but its her choice how to handle the situation.
Hershele —
No, I think the words are very accurate. In a nation of near 300 million people, more than a half of which are women, the need for abortion is great. Many women will need them and most women don’t have real access to it.
Your examples conflate commonly exercised with randomly exercised. Just as you don’t need some bible basher spitting in your face, legislators passing insane laws, and politicians scoring points in the pulpit when you do commonly decide to take a Sunday drive or purchase a new home, neither do women inevitably choosing to have an abortion.
Hopefully we can all agree that 99.9% of women recieve abortions do it for a reason, their own reason, and have a right to do so.
Abortionists are celebrated as heroes, no matter what type of abortions they perform.
Just a thought. maybe they wouldn’t get praised as heroes if it were just another job? No one calls the mailman a hero for showing up to work and delivering the mail. If an OB/GYN wasn’t risking their life, their privacy, and the rest of their private practice by performing abortions, along with anything else anti-choice wingnuts are willing to try to threaten, bully, and harrass, they’d just be fucking mailmen.
Contraceptive use is the number one way to prevent abortions from occuring
Oh, I bet there’s a statistically better way….
true. we could round up women and force them into breeding camps, where they are kept in tiny cages for the purposes of procreation. like veal, but for making babies instead of consuming them. That would pretty much garantee there’d be no abortions, legal or otherwise. too bad it’s a crime against humanity.
No one calls the mailman a hero for showing up to work and delivering the mail.
karpad, you clearly do not watch the Higglytown Heroes on Disney each morning.
true. we could round up women and force them into breeding camps, where they are kept in tiny cages for the purposes of procreation. like veal, but for making babies instead of consuming them. That would pretty much garantee there’d be no abortions, legal or otherwise. too bad it’s a crime against humanity.
Well, hmm, I guess that would work as well, but not what I had in mind.
. . . he brings up his virginity as a badge of honor.
Hysterical W.–He’s in denial about something:
More info than you want: I’m 52 and something I stopped doing about 10 years ago is: Men who’ve never been married. Divorcés, widowers, great. But past a certain age, if a man has never been married, there’s generally a reason. It doesn’t always reflect poorly on them (eg, gay men), but it is an indicator that they’re probably a waste of time, romantically speaking, even if you have no interest in getting married again. (I apologize to anyone annoyed by my saying this, but I stand by it.)
The thing is, at a younger age, there’s a sell-by date, too–not for marriage, but for sex.
I don’t care how pious you are, how poor you are, how scared you are–at a certain point, either you have made the effort (which admittedly, can be considerable, especially if you insist on marriage first) to make love to someone besides your own soft little fist–or sex, or women, or both just aren’t that important to you and never will be.
And Ben isn’t going to make it. I think he’s starting to suspect this. Trying to spin it as a sign of his old-fashioned virtue is more for his benefit than anyone else’s.
Sarah Silverman has the funniest take on it. “I want
to get an abortion, but my boyfriend and I are having trouble conceiving.” Because that’s what our goal is, as pro-choicers: the production of as many fetuses as possible so that we can kill them all. Really, I suppose our end goal is the production of as many dead fetuses as possible, so all y’all women who are using responsible birth control methods just aren’t doing your part.
And odd, I think we got what you were trying to say, but the proposal that women remain abstinent so’s to keep from getting knocked up while men fuck all over the place and remain free from that danger isn’t exactly my definition of equality. And abstaining from sex within the bonds of marriage doesn’t sound like fun at all. I’m sure it’s nice to pretend that abortion is the result of sex, full stop, but it actually does go a little bit deeper than that.
Oh, I bet there’s a statistically better way….
Mandatory castration of all men?
We’ve got.. nothing better to do.
Than have an invasive procedure and drink a coupla brews.
Don’t tell Ben anything… he doesn’t wanna know.
The sequel to Scooter Libby’s bear-boinking book:
true. we could round up women and force them into breeding camps, where they are kept in tiny cages for the purposes of procreation. like veal, but for making babies instead of consuming them. That would pretty much garantee there’d be no abortions, legal or otherwise. too bad it’s a crime against humanity.
“If heart transplants are always a moral good, why should they remain rare?”
as in abortion, it’s not the transplant that is a moral good, it’s the *access to the transplant* that is a moral good. abortion itself is not a moral good; access to abortion as one part of a set of options that allow women to control when and how they reproduce is a moral good. it’s not mandatory to have a heart transplant, necessary or not, but mandatory to make it available for those who need it. that’s why abortions should be rare, but access to them should not be.
“An abortion party is just like a baby shower, except the mother can drink”
Jax, maybe it’s a semantics thing, which doesn’t mean it’s trivial. I can’t read “commonly exercised” other than as either “well, it’s time for my semiannual abortion” or … well, the Silverman line. Did you mean “exercised as necessary”? If not, what did you mean. If you did, to be blunt, why didn’t you say that?
Sally:
Beat me to the argument I instantly thought of when Shapiro took the position that “safe, legal, and rare” is dishonest.
I don’t begrudge your choice, so I’m not annoyed by what you’re saying, but I must disagree with it. There can be any number of reasons why a woman or man doesn’t get married, and they don’t necessarily reflect on his or her romantic potential. I see this kind of argument as not much different from labeling women who don’t get married by a certain age as “spinsters” or “old maids”.
I suspect a lot of people feel this way, but again, it’s an attitude that I disagree with. Of course, I’m not impartial here; let’s just say that I became sexually active later that most adults do and I’m glad for the fact that my then-partner didn’t see me as past my “sell-by” date. In my view, it can be particularly scary if you’re a man, since it’s my experience that men are generally expected to have sexual experience relatively early in their lives.
I don’t doubt that there are a lot of people - and I don’t exclude myself from this - who have various sexual hang-ups sometime in their lives. Some may never overcome them, but I don’t think there’s an arbitrary age after which it’s impossible to deal with them with the right partner.
Er, the blockquotes and my responses were an engagement with Molly NYC, not Sally. Apologies.
odd2, that’s a reasonable solution only if you consider women having sex to be bad in some way. If one considers it amoral or as a positive thing, promoting abstinence is respectively a waste of energy or bad.
You see.. Abortion is a moral good, so you should use it a lot.
In a similar fashion, I refuse to use the brakes on my car. I just count on the airbag to stop me. I figure that if the airbag is good, I should use it a lot.
VBen is a shmuck
odd2, that’s a reasonable solution only if you consider women having sex to be bad in some way. If one considers it amoral or as a positive thing, promoting abstinence is respectively a waste of energy or bad.
Hershele, it does not have to be either/or. But be that as it may, I was merely mentioning that contraceptives are not as effective as abstinence. It may not be the best solution in many cases.
But I am now kinda leaning towards karpad’s solution. I may have to ask my local patriarchy representative to look into it.
abstinece education is less effective than contraception.
manditory castration for all men is the only real world thing that would have a better rate of success as far as ending abortion goes, than contraception or forced pregnancy camps, which would still result in accidental or natural abortions, which are just as morally evil as normal abortions.
Castration - It does the feotus good!
The reason that doctors who perform abortions are heroes is because despite the social pressure to abandon their patients, despite the fact that rabid misogynists who think they are working for a woman-hating god torment them and even threaten them to abandon their patients, and despite the fact that the law is closing in on them to ban them from helping their patients, they help their patients anyway.
The reason abortion doctors are heroes is because they choose the very real risk of being killed in the line of duty.
>
The original point of my post is that wimpy liberals always cow-tow to right wing bullshit of “oh abortions are the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman and we need to do everything possible to stop anyone from going through this ghastly experience oh my god… but as a liberal I defend the right of a woman to choose.” Fuck that — pro-choice activists need to wake up and realize the majority of women in this nation do not have the ability financially or geographically to access the right to an abortion.
On semantics, I think you need to expand your definition of “commonly exercised” then and quit assuming that our vile anti-choice friend who originally used the words we are discussing gets to define our usage of language.
I think “commonly exercised” would cover abortion in most industrialized nations. It happens millions of times a year in the US, even with draconian state barriers and unequal access to clinics. If you want to defend the right to choice, we need to work hard to make sure everyone who may inevitably need the choice, rich or poor, urban and rural, has the right to an abortion and can commonly exercise that right.
So…looking through history, let’s see how effective preaching abstinence is at preventing people from having sex - and by effective, you have to be talking about a significant scale, not just “If I Never Eat Meat I Will Never Get Parasites So I’ve Never Eaten Meat” style isolated cases.
–William the Bastard. Orphanages full of illegitimate children. Magdalen Houses. Umpteen zillion baptisms too close to the date of the marriage, as can be found by looking at any family record from medieval church registers to colonial family bibles. A situation so familiar there’s a jokey term for it: “shotgun weddings”. Brothels, many of them run by the civic authorities in the Age of Faith. Brothels larger than many businesses, inside the walls of Rome during the time of Galileo, employing *hundreds* of prostitutes to cater to priests and pilgrims alike, even. Deaths from syphilus running in the thousands yearly, until the introduction of penicillin. Abortions and abortifacients routine under the euphemisim of “relieveing obstruction of the menses,” and visiting a Harley Street doctor for “female trouble” if you could afford it.
Yeah, preaching abstinence works real good at convincing humans to not have sex as a way of forestalling all the possible negative consequences thereof. *Much* better than prophylactics.
God, Shapiro’s an idiot. I want to declare a new rule of the internets: If you’re celebrating legal restrictions that shrink the number of doctors who are allowed / willing to perform abortions, you forfeit your right to complain that the fewer doctors who are left wind up performing more abortions each. Call it “the obvious rule of inescapable denominators” or something.
Did anyone else notice the moral equivalency Shapiro was using—abortion is either bad, or it’s good, and if it’s good it should be legal and if it’s bad it should be illegal. (That Harvard Law School hasn’t taught him that distinction does not spell great things for our nation’s future.) To my mind it’s precisely parallel to the thinking behind the Iraq war—al Qaeda hates America and was responsible for 9/11, Saddam hates America, and all those Arabs look aliek to me anyway. Whadda yutz.
Every anti-choicer should have a copy of that Ms. article stapled to their forehead.
This is a low-point even for him. Maybe he’ll wake one of these nights, alone, in a damp bed, wondering why he’s never taken into account WHY women need to have abortions, and decide to do a little research rather than just leaf through his copy of The Scared Virgin’s Guide To Bad Stuff until he finds a nasty statistic. He might even get to meet women who isn’t Ann Coulter that way.
abstinece education is less effective than contraception.
That’s interesting, but doesn’t mean contraceptives are more effective than abstinence.
let’s see how effective preaching abstinence is at preventing people from having sex
bellatrys, who said anything about preventing people from having sex, or preaching, or negative consequences?
Simple statement: abstinance is less likely to lead to an abortion than contraception. Ask yourself this: if you were offered $1,000,000 if only you could avoid pregnancy for today, would you:
a. use a condom
b. abstain today
Odd, now that you’ve clarified your comment, I see that your suggestion, while not especially sexist or sex-negative, is unhelpful and useless. It’s true that people who never have sex never get pregnant (reported exceptions are highly disputed). However, few people are unaware of this nowadays, and most choose to have sex anyway. The question, then, is this: given that reality, how can we prevent unwanted children?
umm….I’d use the condom.
And if I got pregnant, and didn’t want to be, I’d have the abortion.
I’m sorry if I’m being flip, but I think the question is a silly one.
Odd, long term abstinence is not a realistic expectation. I might forgo an evening of sex for $100,000 but extended over the long term, it isn’t worth it. I’m going to take my chances with contraception because abstinence has its own price and I would speculate that this is the consensus.
Given that, it seems to make far more sense to acknowledge that people have sex and contraceptives prevent unwanted pregnancy.
I’m married with a fairly young child. I forgo many evenings of sex. Where’s my payout, odd?
I read the original article that has Virgin Ben stomping his little feetsies in anger just last night.
If someone read just VBen’s Townhall op-ed, they’d conclude that Harrison has only ever performed abortions, and miss the fact that: Before giving up obstetrics in 1991, Harrison delivered 6,000 babies. Many of the same docs who perform abortions also assist with childbirth and other ob-gyn stuff such as Pap smears and the sort.
Of course, you’ll never see antis like VBen acknowledge this…wonder why {sarcasm}.
see, and i thought odd’s “statistically better” way of reducing abortions was to abort all the black babies.
now i just feel silly.
How does this paraphrase sound?
Sounds like something from Pride and Prejudice to me.
For $1M I’d still use a condom. I don’t mind a 5% chance that I’d get $0.
Hm, if I got a vasectomy, would I get $1M a day for the rest of my life? I’m young, so that would run into quite a bit of money.
If anyone past a certain age has never been in a committed relationship, it suggests they’re either not interested in commitment or repellant in some way. If they haven’t been in a relationship with someone of a particular sex, we can also add in the possibility that they’re not romantically or sexually interested in people of that sex.
But past a certain age, if a woman has never been married, there’s generally a reason. It doesn’t always reflect poorly on them (eg, lesbians), but it is an indicator that they’re probably a waste of time…
Sounds like something from Pride and Prejudice to me.
sounds true to me. Once anyone gets past a certain age. they don’t remain single by accident. It doesn’t have to reflect poorly on them (gay, dated but never met someone they wanted to marry, expressly decided not to marry.) but if you’re looking for someone to marry, and you’re looking in the 40s, the people who have never been married are either people who don’t want to get married (which, if you’re looking for someone to marry, would be “a waste of time”) or someone who is a horrible jackass, a la Virgin Ben.
this isn’t always the case, hence the modifier “probably.” 40-Year-Old Virgin pointed out to some people that yes, you can, just through sloth or mild social phobia, miss out on most of that sort of life-movement stuff. (I know a few who are nigh-up there)
you know, sort of like “you know, marrying someone who’s been married 7 times is probably a bad idea.” there are certainly situations which might make it understandible someone was married 7 times, and that they’d be fine people who would want to commit to you. but it should raise your hackles, just a bit.
Second sentence in bold is my words, not a part of the article. Sorry about that.
love thy neighbor is a ideal much preached too, bellatrys, but history has an even worse track record on that one.
it’s not really the *ideal* of abstinence at issue, it’s the failure to deal with the reality of massive failure to meet it.
Haha. That reminds me of my favorite VBen quote:
We’ve got a brilliant legal mind, here…
‘”Ooooh, baby, this will show those men they aren’t needed!”‘
With all that said, the introduction of the product on the site does state, “We’ve all heard the myriad reasons why vibrators are better than men.”
“Most babies are considered viable (that is, can live outside the womb with the help of medical technology) at 23-24 weeks. These are viable, living children.”
I imagine this vingette . . .
Woman: I’d like to have an abortion
Doctor: I’m sorry, you are carrying a 23 week old fetus. It is a viable living child that can live outside the womb with the help of medical technology.
Woman: Okay, in that case lets induce labor or have a c-section.
[Doctor performs c-section]
Doctor: Okay, now we need to put this living 23 week old fetus on some kind of life support if it is going to survive.
Woman: Well, I don’t think I want to use artificial support on my child . . . I don’t have to, do I?
Doctor: Of course not. There’s only a 10% chance it will survive even with life support, and a 50% chance that it will be disabled if it survives. It is totally your call.
Woman: What was the point in preventing me from getting an abortion if the child can’t survive without intensive life support that I can, as the childs parent, waive?
Doctor: Yeah, that thought occured to me too.
With all that said, the introduction of the product on the site does state, “We’ve all heard the myriad reasons why vibrators are better than men.”
“because with them, frigid is a good thing?”
no, no, I thinking of that t-shirt, why beer is better than women.
I imagine a frigid sextoy would be right at the top of “shit that’ll ruin your day.”
Molly and Karpad,
I don’t think so. My step-mom is a perfectly well-adjusted woman who just had other priorities during the 47ish years she lived before she met my dad. She’s a perfectly good spouse, (and feminist Christian preacher–yes, they exist) and their relationship is very strong. On the other hand, my step-dad was married once before he married my mom, but that doesn’t stop him being an emotionally abusive jackass. And no, I don’t know why they’re still married.
I don’t think there’s a general rule you can have for people and their marriedness. People’s experiences are too wide-ranging.
William, I imagine THIS vignette.
Woman: I’d like to end this pregnancy.
Doctor: I’m sorry, you are carrying a 23 week old fetus. It is a viable living child that can live outside the womb with the help of medical technology.
Woman: Okay, in that case lets induce labor or have a c-section.
Doctor: You gotta be kidding! Why would you want to have a C-section, which is major abdominal surgery, when a vaginal delivery carries much less risk and is easier to recover from?
Woman: OK, so let’s induce. Bring on the Laminaria! [Hops up on delivery table.]
Doctor: My Dear Woman, you’ve already carried this child for 23 weeks. If you’d carry the child for another 12 weeks, to the 35th week, the chances of the baby’s being delivered healthy will be close to 95%. We could induce labor then, if you don’t want to wait the extra couple of weeks or so before you’d go into labor naturally.
Woman/Mother: But I can’t take care of this child. And I don’t have anyone in my family who will want it either. Isn’t it cruel to bring a child into the world whom no one will want?
Doctor: Don’t be so sure NO-ONE would want your baby. Let me refer you to someone who can go over profiles of prospective adoptive parents with you.
Mother: Really? They’d check these people out first to make sure they’d be good parents?
[12 weeks later….]
Nurse: [Stands with gurgling little girl in receiving blanket] I’m going to let you spend some time alone with your little one. I’ll be back in an hour. If you’re ready to say goodby then, we’ll bring this little gal over to the mama and daddy you’ve picked out for her.
Mother: [to little baby girl] Well you decided to come out by yourself early, my little one…[rocks baby]. [sings to baby]
[cries a little] [tells baby, and self, that she’s made a decision that she thinks is best for the little girl.]
[baby falls asleep in her arms while being fed a bottle]
[one hour later]
Very Brave Mother: [lips quivering] I’m ready now, nurse.
[next day….]
Adoptive Mother on phone to sister-in-law: SHE’S ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!
***
I didn’t just imagine the vignette above. Last week, I became the proud adoptive aunt of the Little Baby in question. My brother and his wife had been waiting for a child to adopt for THREE years. There were many, many mothers (of biracial children, by the way) who had agreed to let my brother and his wife adopt their child, and changed their minds when the baby was in her arms. And that was a better ending than abortion would have been for those babies, too. My point is, there are many people who are waiting to adopt babies. There’s not an overabundance of babies waiting to be adopted.
There are some kids who are harder to adopt, older children with profound disabilities. I work with kids who are being raised by the state, they live in group homes. It isn’t the life any of us would choose for ourselves, but it’s far from hell. I see smiles and hear laughter from these kids all the time. Surely the United States is not so impoverished as to decide the fate of these children purely in economic terms?
William, I imagine THIS vignette.
Woman: I’d like to end this pregnancy.
Doctor: I’m sorry, you are carrying a 23 week old fetus. It is a viable living child that can live outside the womb with the help of medical technology.
Woman: Okay, in that case lets induce labor or have a c-section.
Doctor: You gotta be kidding! Why would you want to have a C-section, which is major abdominal surgery, when a vaginal delivery carries much less risk and is easier to recover from?
Woman: OK, so let’s induce. Bring on the Laminaria! [Hops up on delivery table.]
Doctor: My Dear Woman, you’ve already carried this child for 23 weeks. If you’d carry the child for another 12 weeks, to the 35th week, the chances of the baby’s being delivered healthy will be close to 95%. We could induce labor then, if you don’t want to wait the extra couple of weeks or so before you’d go into labor naturally.
Woman/Mother: But I can’t take care of this child. And I don’t have anyone in my family who will want it either. Isn’t it cruel to bring a child into the world whom no one will want?
Doctor: Don’t be so sure NO-ONE would want your baby. Let me refer you to someone who can go over profiles of prospective adoptive parents with you.
Mother: Really? They’d check these people out first to make sure they’d be good parents?
[12 weeks later….]
Nurse: [Stands with gurgling little girl in receiving blanket] I’m going to let you spend some time alone with your little one. I’ll be back in an hour. If you’re ready to say goodby then, we’ll bring this little gal over to the mama and daddy you’ve picked out for her.
Mother: [to little baby girl] Well you decided to come out by yourself early, my little one…[rocks baby]. [sings to baby]
[cries a little] [tells baby, and self, that she’s made a decision that she thinks is best for the little girl.]
[baby falls asleep in her arms while being fed a bottle]
[one hour later]
Very Brave Mother: [lips quivering] I’m ready now, nurse.
[next day….]
Adoptive Mother on phone to sister-in-law: SHE’S ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!
***
I didn’t just imagine the vignette above. Last week, I became the proud adoptive aunt of the Little Baby in question. My brother and his wife had been waiting for a child to adopt for THREE years. There were many, many mothers (of biracial children, by the way) who had agreed to let my brother and his wife adopt their child, and changed their minds when the baby was in her arms. And that was a better ending than abortion would have been for those babies, too. My point is, there are many people who are waiting to adopt babies. There’s not an overabundance of babies waiting to be adopted.
There are some kids who are harder to adopt, older children with profound disabilities. I work with kids who are being raised by the state, they live in group homes. It isn’t the life any of us would choose for ourselves, but it’s far from hell. I see smiles and hear laughter from these kids all the time. Surely the United States is not so impoverished as to decide the fate of these children purely in economic terms?
Delete the first one if you want, Amanda. The second one has my URL.
Linneaus & Random Liberal–I’m just saying.
If you’re past your early 30s or so and you’ve never been laid, or your mid-40s and never taken the other plunge, it’s likely something other than pure chance is stopping you (for example, RL’s stepmom having “other priorities”). It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a jackass, or even unattractive. But good or bad, you are what you are. And as you get older, you’re less likely to change.
Obviously, out of a population of ~6.5 billion, there must be some perfectly happy people who got into the game late, and have partners who are perfectly happy with them.
But some people stay out because, whatever excuses they make for themselves, the rest of the world has collectively decided that sex is too good for them. Shapiro’s one of those people. And I think he’s starting to figure that out.
The Finally One-Act Play:
Woman: I’d like to end this pregnancy.
Doctor: You’re under arrest.
Oh, I like plays with happy endings so much better, Hysterical Woman.
Let’s change yours:
Woman: I’d like to end this pregnancy.
Doctor: You’re under arrest…for no more than nine months.
My husband wrote that.
Let’s change yours:
Woman: I’d like to end this pregnancy.
Doctor: You’re under arrest…for no more than nine months.
Oh, you’re right. That’s much better.
Miraclewhip,
Congratulations on your new niece, and best wishes to your sisters family! I think women who choose to carry a child to term are heros. And I think that if a woman is willing to carry a child to term, it would be a tragedy if they got an abortion simply because they didn’t know about adoption and for no other reason.
Here’s the thing: 12 extra weeks of pregnancy is non-trivial. That’s 3 months! If a woman wants to terminate the pregnancy, asking her to wait 3 months is really a long time. Why not require women to wait 4 extra months? 5? How about 9?
At 23 weeks there is no chance of survival without artificial life support. None. Just like the 3 week old embryo can’t survive outside the womb. Without artificial life support they are equally dead outside the uterus. And parents are not required to put their children on artificial life support when there is little chance for survival. Not at 23 weeks, not when they are 6 years old.
So back to my original point: why should the fact that it is possible for a 23 week old fetus to survive outside the womb under certain circumstances legally oblige women to not have abortions whenever inducing labor at 23 weeks and withholding artificial life support would give the exact same result?
Or do you think that folks should be required to have artificial life support too?
Hey wingnuts:
Wanna reduce the number of abortions? Give these unfortunate young women a decent place to stay, free medical help and $10,000.
If the babys are so precious why don’t you help out. How many more desperate young women are going to have abortions because you just cut foodstamps? The lowest rung in hell is reserved for hypocrites.
You tell ‘em, Magis. I don’t know much about the ordering of “rungs in hell”, but I fancy right next to the ring you’re describing will be the dwellingplace of the unrepentant “peacemakers” who DIDN’T protest Clinton’s military adventurism (only because Clinton was pro-abortion) and DID protest Bush’s military adventurism (only because he styled himself as anti-abortion.)
Thanks, William: I didn’t like your original play, and I’ll revise your original POINT as well.
The hullaballoo about 23 weeks isn’t so much about the fact that babies born at this point COULD survive outside the womb as it is about the fact that babies at around this stage of development HAVE survived attempts at being aborted, have grown up, have banded together in a group called Alive and Kicking, and are acting as advocates for the preborn whose lives are also at stake.
Please look at Gianna Jesson’s face in this link, and see if you can read your original “I want an abortion” play while you’re looking at it. If you find you have trouble getting through it without breaking down, look me up and we’ll talk about artificial life support.
“babies at around this stage of development HAVE survived attempts at being aborted, have grown up, have banded together in a group called Alive and Kicking, and are acting as advocates for the preborn whose lives are also at stake. ” - miraclewhip
I visited the Alive and Kicking website and maybe it was just a poorly thought out website but I do not get the impression that this is an organization that is aborted babies “grown up and banded together”
As far as I can tell from the “Who are we link” this is an anti-abortion lobby taking place in the UK using Gianna Jesson as a poster child. Not so much the Coalition of Aborted Babies.
I also did a quick google search for “saline abortion” and came up with some anti-abortion sites which told me that saline abortions usually take place in the first three months. The link I followed for Gianna Jesson told me that her mother tried to aborted the pregnancy at 7 and a half months.
One of the web sites also mentioned that saline abortions are infrequently performed these days.
Lastly, I paid a visit to the Planned Parenthood website and information on saline abortions was nowhere to be found.
I’m not calling bullshit on the Gianna Jesson story in particular. I’m just a bit suspicious of the claimed hordes of unabortable babies lobbying for an end to abortions.
Simple statement: abstinance is less likely to lead to an abortion than contraception. Ask yourself this: if you were offered $1,000,000 if only you could avoid pregnancy for today, would you:
a. use a condom
b. abstain today
Fun with contrived hypotheticals! Yay! May I play?
Ok Odd, I got one for ya. If you were offered ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollars if all the teenagers in your community were able to successfully avoid pregnancy and/or STDs based on the educational strategy you chose it would be:
a. Abstinence only
b. One that recommended abstinence as the best protection but also included information about contraceptives, with a particular emphasis on condoms.
Which would it be odd? Hmmm? Remember, you’d only get the money if NONE of the horny kids got knocked up or diseased.
You tell ‘em, Magis. I don’t know much about the ordering of “rungs in hell”, but I fancy right next to the ring you’re describing will be the dwellingplace of the unrepentant “peacemakers” who DIDN’T protest Clinton’s military adventurism (only because Clinton was pro-abortion) and DID protest Bush’s military adventurism (only because he styled himself as anti-abortion.)
Didn’t take long for the the Clinton-bashing from the wingnut trolling asswipe did it? What next miraclewhip? A timely Chappaquiddick reference?
Please look at Gianna Jesson’s face in this link, and see if you can read your original “I want an abortion” play while you’re looking at it. If you find you have trouble getting through it without breaking down, look me up and we’ll talk about artificial life support.
Aww…shuckie wuckies….But sorry, no breaking down. Shit, I didn’t even stop eating my fritos the whole time I was reading it. I call bullshit on that site too.
Oh, I like plays with happy endings so much better, Hysterical Woman.
Let’s change yours:
Woman: I’d like to end this pregnancy.
Doctor: You’re under arrest…for no more than nine months.
This creeps me out beyond words.
rabbitredux:
Wikipedia mentions using saline to perform abortions, but refers to it mainly as a third trimester procedure (it’s under the “Surgical Abortion” part).
But still, forcing a women to carry a child to term when she doesn’t want to is just plain wrong. And the woman isn’t under house arrest just for 9 months; if she keeps the baby (as in, coerced not to give it up for adoption by friends, family, society, etc.), she’s also legally responsible for that child for the next 18 years.
” Wikipedia mentions using saline to perform abortions, but refers to it mainly as a third trimester procedure (it’s under the “Surgical Abortion” part). ” - Sporkey
Doing a more indepth google search and adding planned parenthood to the search did turn up more on results which does seem to indicate saline abortions are used for abortion of more advanced pregnany. Although I think this may be a method which is not often used any more? (I’m having a hard time picking through the bullshit of all the right to life etc. web sites)
Anyway, regardless I believe what I was orginally getting at is that saline is a form of abortion which is not nearly as common as D & E and D & X (and especially since I guess it is a late term sort of thing after all, which itself is already less common) which makes me wonder how much of the Gianna Jesson thing is just exploitation of a highly unusual case resulting from a saline abortion. A procedure which, I got the impression (perhaps mistaken?) is more prone to this sort of thing. Again having trouble picking through bullshit to find the facts.
Okay so maybe this was kind of a biologist’s tangent but I think it’s interesting how a google search for abortion procedures immediately pulls up a load of anti-abortion websites which can’t even agree amongst themselves on abortion procedures. Especially when the best thing to have when an anti-abortion person starts yelling things like “partial birth abortion” is straight-forward, scientifically valid information. (*cough*plan b is not an abortificant *cough*)
Just my two cents, humbly offered as a mostly-lurker.
Doctor: You’re under arrest…for no more than nine months.
‘at’s supposed to be a happy ending?
listen, you were taking that thing I said about forced breeding camps a bit too literally (like at all).
Forcing someone to physically provide sustinance for some thing like that is assault.
doing it systematically (as “your under arrest” implies, everyone’s forced that way) is a crime against humanity.
I agree with Jax. The “rare” in “safe, legal, and rare” was a concession to the right, and obnoxious as Virgin Ben may be, he was catching liberals in a contradiction.
“Free abortion on demand without apologies” would be a much more consistent position.
Miraclewhip,
Thank you for “revising” my point, however I would have prefered that you responed to it.
What a sweet article about Gianna Jennson. It would have been nice if it had information about the chances of her survival without artificial life support, which, medically speaking, would have been zero at 23 weeks since her lungs would not have been developed enough for breathing until week 28.
(By the way, contrary to what the Alive and Kicking folks would have us believe, only 12% of Abortions in England and Wales take place after the 13th week of pregnancy, 2% after the 19th week. Unless Scotland and Northern Ireland are really picking up the slack, there’s no way that reducing the abortion limit age from 24 weeks to 18 weeks will cut the number of abortions in the UK by half.)
So instead of revising my points and linking to www sites with dodgy information, how about just answering them straightforwardly? What’s the point in prohibiting a woman from getting an abortion at 23 weeks when she can legally withhold artificial life support from the child and have the same result?
Foolish Owl,
There’s nothing in Roe v Wade that says abortion ought to be available at no cost, with no restrictions, at any point in the pregnancy. Liberals can support Roe v. Wade without being in favor of “free abortion on demand without apologies”. For example, I think at a minimum that abortions should only be legal if they are done by licensed medical practitioners. That isn’t a contradiction to my support for abortion rights. Its a reflection of the reality that the folks who talk about “abortion with no restrictions” or whatever are jousting with a strawman.
Liberals can say consistantly that they want abortion to be safe, legal and rare . . . we actually have a plan that would decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies and therefore make the demand for abortion less. This plan works in other countries, and it works in the USA. Its called “comprehensive sex education”.
Donna:
“Didn’t take long the the Clinton-bashing from the wingnut trolling…”
As in Kipling:
“…having your words twisted by knaves to make traps for fools.” Good heavens, I was only suggesting the Repugs either put up or shut up.
Owl:
I agree we should have free clinics. It is not so complicated a thing (I don’t think) that a PA couldn’t do it with proper training. I would like to see the young women have some options where the state would support them if they chose to come to term.
There’s a difference between abortions being rare because of societal pressure to carry to term or restrictive laws making it difficult to get one and abortions being rare because HBC, condoms, and Plan B are readily available. Is anyone opposed to the latter? I realize the inclusion of “rare” presents certain propaganda issues.
Abotion is illegal in most circumstances in Northern Ireland.
I kinda get off on that whole aspect of it. . . I would encourage more men to try embracing inadequacy and emasculation. Some ways of being emasculated are FUN!
Happy family plays like miraclewhips are exactly why adoption was NOT an option when I found myself unexpectedly pregnant due to BC failure. Because of my own religious beliefs, I thought I would never have an abortion myself (though I’ve never opposed that choice for others), but after a lot of thought, the idea of turning a baby over to people who would raise it in a saccharine cloud of treacly sentiment seemed worse than never being born. And if you feel that’s an unfair judgment of treacly people, well, it probably is, but it is one that I felt then and still feel now. It turned out that it was a moot question, as God (or the universe) decided for me and I miscarried.
Nor was the miscarriage the pit of despair I had been led to believe it would be. I was upset, yes; sad, yes; but my life did not end and I was not thrown into a pit of depression, and I was, yes, relieved as well as saddened. It was not a trivial experience though, nor, would I imagine, would an abortion or an adoption be either.
Interestingly enough, though now I am considered an agnostic by my deeply religious family (and myself, really) and am now single, I am still considered to be the caretaker and potential guardian for my sister’s children, should that ever become necessary. Nor would I rule out having children of my own (biological, adopted, step, whatever). But I don’t regret my soulsearching then, or the decision, actions, and experiences then.
Although I guess I should point out, my pregnancy never progressed past the first trimester, as I can’t imagine a scenario where I waited to decide what to do about a pregnancy for 5 or 6 months, unless something medically went wrong during a planned pregnancy. Speaking only for myself in that regard, however.
I wonder if a big divide on this issue is between people who think all women want, or should want, more than anything else to have lots and lots of babies (and I do mean babies, not children or offspring or descendants), and those who think women might want a variety of different things.
Wonder no longer, IMO. It’s still not considered acceptable for a woman to choose not to have children.
not really related, but I didn’t want to muddy another thread with this. and hey, we haven’t gotten any blogging on this yet.
Pharmacists at Walgreens in Illinois refuse to fill EC scripts on moral grounds, Walgreens puts them on “immediate unpaid leave”
bravo.
karpad:
There was a thread on this but I can’t find it now.
(Pssst, there’s an inquiry about trophy karpads on the other thread)
I think it’s more bravo Illinois than bravo Walgreens, though, since company HQ said that they only disiplined the pharmacists because of the Illinois regulation. One of their options is to move to another state, where it’s fine by Walgreens if they refuse to dispense EC.
Anne, that’s society at large. I mean, are pro-choice types — really pro-choice, not that wishy-washy “well, of course I’d never do it, but if you want to murder babies go right ahead” bullshit — also more likely to think a woman is entitled to decide what she wants just like a man is in other areas?
Hershele, not everyone who decides abortion is not for them believes ‘of course I’d never do it, but if you want to murder babies go right ahead’. Prior to my experience, I would have said ‘oh no, I wouldn’t have an abortion’, but I have never characterized abortion as ‘murder’.
There are complex reasons why women make the choices they do regarding their reproductive lives. And those choices aren’t made on some desert island, they are very much influenced by society, friends and family. So all the various attitudes towards reproductive freedom cannot not be pigeonholed into pro-choice or anti-women. Most fall in a muddled middle, like so many other sociopolitical stands.
That’s a difference in degree, redbraidy, not in kind
How so? I’m not trying to be sarcastic, I don’t exactly see what you mean.
I don’t consider myself wishywashy or any less committed to prochoice because I thought I would not personally choose to have an abortion while not condeming others who did so. Anymore, I suspect, than the antiwomen ‘prolife’ women who had an abortion secretly, but continued to work to make abortions unavailable for other women consider themselves wishywashy.
It is a complex topic, and many people never fully examine their attitudes toward sex itself, nevermind the rest of the reproductive package.
Red, I mean people who think it’s not wrong, not people who are willing to concede it’s not their place to make the decision for other people.
This and this got me thinking about what’s been said in this thread, and got me wondering — if RU486, which is already not invasive, were as cheap as a condom (well, as cheap as 1.15 condoms, reflecting the 13% chance that unprotected sex won’t lead to pregnancy), would we still stick to the “rare” part of the trio? I’d have to learn more about what it does to the body — both the getting pregnant to that point and the RU486 itself — but I don’t think I would.
Er, make that 1.09 condoms, reflecting not only the 13% chance that unprotected sex won’t lead to pregnancy, but the 5% chance that sex with a condom will.
i used ru-486, and from what i’ve seen with friends who went in to get surgical abortions, i’d always urge other women to choose surgical over ru-486. it was the most painful thing i’d ever been through, although i don’t think i was typical. unfortunately, like rabbitredux pointed out, it was almost impossible for me to find real information about other women’s experiences with it, and i was not prepared for what happened. also, the way it was set up here, i still had to go in to the office three times (wisconsin has a 24 hour waiting period- so the initial visit, where i watch the video about how abortion is bad, one visit where they watch me eat the first pill, and another visit to make sure it worked). surgical abortions only take 2 visits. ru-486 should be widely available, but nobody should think it’s the easy option.
i feel like i’ve been harping on this a lot lately, but i didn’t realize before how little real information about abortion was out there. it’s not treated like a biological issue, and that’s really harmful to women. the politicization of abortion is harmful, just as the politicization of sex ed is. obviously, the wingers are afraid of science. i believe that all these issues- men’s rights to fetuses, access to abortion, abstinence ed, creationism, the schaivo case- are all because people don’t understand or respect biology.
Part of the problem is the huge explosion of CVS / Walgreens chain pharmacies on every corner. The near-saturation has caused a huge demand for pharmacists, so even the crazy ones have a lot of job security- they’re too hard to replace.