The letters to the editor of the Austin Chronicle regarding a recent article about family planning spending cuts are mostly whining about the cover art, but there’s actually a couple that address something important–women’s health care and how anti-science religious ideologues are a threat to it. This letter was particularly startling, so I thought I’d share it.
I’m insured, partnered, and have access to “good health care.” All that privilege did not protect me from a local obstetrician who neglected to inform me of potential health hazards or treat me after I miscarried. His advice, “You’re fine. To avoid further problems, you need to practice abstinence and get married.”
Several weeks later, after a visit to my regular physician, I had to undergo an emergency D&C. The local obstetrician didn’t “offer” that particular service, even if my life depended on it. Because of mandatory state regulations, I had to endure a waiting period and was forced to listen to a tape about alternatives to abortion. Finally, my regular doctor had to convince my insurance company that I was not having “elective surgery.”
There are so many things that I hate about this episode in my life. The local obstetrician I trusted with my first attempt to have a child couldn’t find room in his big, Christian heart for me after he figured out that I’d miscarried and I wasn’t married. He didn’t bother to tell me I might need further medical attention. I hate that I had to wait to receive a procedure necessary to preserve my health, as if I had a choice whether or not to continue a pregnancy that had sadly already ended. I hate that the insurance company needed to be convinced that my life was worth the years of premiums paid to them.
The letter writer was writing in to complain about the cover art, but I wanted to highlight this passage in my ongoing quest to kneecap the lie that anti-choicers care about “life”. This woman was pregnant and wanted a baby. But there was no baby on its way–the fetus was dead. For health reasons, she needed the abortion, but no, the doctor wasn’t going to abort her pregnancy, because he wanted her to suffer for having sex.
Forced pregnancy proponents have been very good about tricking people into using the inaccurate term “aborting a fetus”. You don’t abort a fetus; you abort a pregnancy. I’ve been acccused of hair-splitting when I say that, but it’s not hair-splitting at all, but a fundamental reminder of how anti-choicers carefully craft language to erase the humanity of women from the debate. But there was no fetus to preserve in this situation, just a sexual woman who needed to be punished.
Stories like this give us a hint of what’s to come when the state regains the power to force women to be pregnant against their will–women forced to carry around dead fetuses, patients in the E.R. who’ve had miscarriages getting questioned by the police, doctors afraid to perform routine procedures like a D&C for fear of getting accused of aborting pregnancies. All for no reason greater than to remind women that our sexual organs do not belong to us.
Under the fold, who you have to thank when this woman’s experiences become standard-issue.
116 Responses to “Your pregnancy is a punishment from god”
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Outraged. Did she report this assfuck to the medical board? Obviously he was too busy butting into her sex life to worry about her physical well-being, so perhaps he needs to be gently steered into another line of work. Like, oh, I don’t know…the guy who shovels elephant shit at the zoo?
Shouldn’t this be blatant medical malpractice?
I guess my vision for a pro-life movement differs a little from that of the obstetrician discussed in this letter.
If you want to prevent women aborting their pregnancies – and Amanda is correct: you can’t abort a fetus anymore than stopping a shuttle launch can abort the rocket – you have to offer tangible evidence that there will be a support network available to help women with practical matters both before and after the birth; that no one will judge them for good or ill based on their marital status, socio-economic status, or race; and finally, that you are genuinely interested in preserving life, and not just in stopping abortion.
There’s a major distinction between wanting to affirm the dignity inherent in all life, and falling into a level of fanaticism that dictates pregnant women, regardless of circumstance, should be denied a medical procedure based on a moral judgment.
That doctor should have lost his license.
Norah: there are some types a decent elephant just won’t associate with.
I can’t see how not offering a D&C after verifying fetal death would be anything but malpractice, but then I live in a blue state, where legislators consider women’s lives as something more than rank after rank of political pawns, and OBs know how to do their effing jobs.
Letting the dead fetus hang around until the uterus ditches it naturally can be safe, or it can be lethal. And any doctor who’s too busy lecturing a patient on unmarried sex to mention that deserves something really bad. Maybe passing a dozen kidney stones.
If you want to prevent women aborting their pregnancies – and Amanda is correct: you can’t abort a fetus anymore than stopping a shuttle launch can abort the rocket – you have to offer tangible evidence that there will be a support network available to help women with practical matters both before and after the birth; that no one will judge them for good or ill based on their marital status, socio-economic status, or race; and finally, that you are genuinely interested in preserving life, and not just in stopping abortion.
You missed the most basic, cheapest, most effective means of reducing the number of abortions; educate people about all forms of contraception, make it easily available, and reduce the stigma associated with buying or using it.
No true pro-lifer should be in favour of abstinence-only education; anyone who is isn’t pro-life (in as much as that group ever is), but simply, basically and strictly anti-choice.
Don’t believe women in blue states are all that safe anymore, Paul. Before Roe, women here had to wait for the dead to deliver naturally.
That meant over a month for an aunt of mine. Isn’t that nice and civilized?
I’ve heard many a radio wack-job describe “D&C” as a code term for abortion– I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find the procedure under new attack soon.
This highlights for me one of the things that drives me craziest about “pro-life” people: their willful naivete.
They act as though all a successful pregnancy needs is a fertilized egg, and anything that goes wrong after that must have been caused somehow by the woman. It’s like they’ve never so much as met any woman who’s ever had a miscarriage, or heard of severe birth defects.
Are you people bloody serious? D&Cs aren’t being performed after fetal death? That is *barbaric*. Someone needs to get some malpractise suits up in these faces right the hell now.
[…] I wish I could say I was surprised about this, but I’m not. […]
BTW disturbing as it is, the cartoon is somewhat misleading in that it claims the teenage girl dies as a result of Roe being overturned.
There is a case moving out of Massachusetts and up the appellate courts which tests parental notification boundries (yet again). Other states will push these laws too as they know the polls look favorable for the pro-teenage-girl-death-side.
Which makes the artwork even more frighteningly prescient.
Mnemosyne, on a related note, there are “pro-lifers” who argue that women just don’t die in pregnancy/childbirth anymore and won’t hear any evidence to the contrary, even personal anecdotes; and those who in some weird twist of hippie Earth Mother-ness believe that pregnancy is totally safe and harmless and any problems that result are just because our modern culture is “overmedicated.”
GARNET: You missed the most basic, cheapest, most effective means of reducing the number of abortions…
I limited the scope of my comments to those girls and women who are already pregnant.
[E]ducate people about all forms of contraception, make it easily available, and reduce the stigma associated with buying or using it.
I agree. The “abstinence only� curriculum doesn’t stem from the desire to teach facts; it is borne – no pun intended – of ideological convictions that aren’t overly burdened by little things like data and evidence.
But that doesn’t mean every pro-lifer is a hypocrite. In fact, someone can be totally against abortion while still supporting unfettered access to it.
MNEMOSYNE: This highlights for me one of the things that drives me craziest about “pro-life� people: their willful naivete. They act as though all a successful pregnancy needs is a fertilized egg, and anything that goes wrong after that must have been caused somehow by the woman. It’s like they’ve never so much as met any woman who’s ever had a miscarriage…
That’s quite the straw man you’ve got there.
…or heard of severe birth defects.
You mean as these defects may cause spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)? Or are you talking about deliberately aborting pregnancies that will produce children affected by serious disabilities?
You mean as these defects may cause spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)? Or are you talking about deliberately aborting pregnancies that will produce children affected by serious disabilities?
Wow, that’s quite a nice strawman you’ve built yourself. Any mention of fatal birth defects is instantly turned into, “Why do you want to kill the disabled?!?!?”
How about aborting pregancies that will produce stillborn children? Or have you really never heard of anencephaly?
I realize that you think it’s no big deal for a woman to be forced to continue a pregancy that she knows will end in stillbirth. Or for her to be told, “Well, the fetus is dead, but you need to carry it around until you either have a miscarriage or start showing signs of gangrene.” I realize that a piece of dead tissue is more important to you than a fully grown, living, breathing human being whose life and health are potentially endangered by carrying a rotting piece of tissue inside her womb.
Pardon me if the rest of us live in reality where a living woman is more important than a dead fetus that her body has not been lucky enough to spontaneously miscarry.
“That doctor should have lost his license.”
But he won’t because no jury in Texas is going to convict a doctor of malpractice for NOT doing an abortion.
So, Monkey Testicle, what do you propose for women like me, who don’t want ANY children, now or ever? The prospect of lots of help after birth doesn’t make me feel warm and happy inside. It leaves me annoyed with the fact that supposedly reasonable pro-lifers don’t understand that my dreams do not rise and set with being a mother.
Forced pregnancy proponents have been very good about tricking people into using the inaccurate term “aborting a fetus�. You don’t abort a fetus; you abort a pregnancy.
That’s right. You kill a fetus.
I would also like to point out D & C has medical use not associated with pregnancy at all. Uterine lining can have issues of it’s own. I had a period that didn’t stop for months and my gynocologist gave me loads of reading material while waiting for a few tests on me. I ended up not needing it, the thick lining thinned naturally once I was on Yasmin. But there was a possibility that D & C would be used in other cases. And it would have been a simple, in-office procedure.
I don’t have any sympathy to people who want to get rid of a medical treatment.
Ummm, Tony, in these cases, the point is exactly that the abortion would NOT kill the fetus.
Way to completely miss anything resembling a point while you’re over building your “Manly man” empire (which looks shockingly like what a blog would look like if people with 1995 internet design skills made one).
Yep, Tony, kill a fetus.
*Achoo* Excuse me, I just killed 500 million germs and need to castigate myself for harming life that was using my body to exsist.
Germs? Or sperms? What the fuck is this world coming to when a woman has more rights than a sperm?
Because of mandatory state regulations, I had to endure a waiting period and was forced to listen to a tape about alternatives to abortion.
Good to know a patient can simply elect not to have an incomplete abortion.
Although, strictly based on my clinical experience, I must say I have some doubts about this part of the story. I can’t imagine any medical professional forcing a pt with a dx of sp abx to listen to such a tape. It’s absurd.
MNEMOSYNE: Wow, that’s quite a nice strawman you’ve built yourself.
I asked a question. I didn’t attack an argument. Look up the meaning of “straw man” before using the term in a sentence.
Any mention of fatal birth defects is instantly turned into, “Why do you want to kill the disabled?!?!?�
The content of your most recent post suggests you’re as bad as the fundamentalists you so dislike: you don’t read; you react.
For example, I asked for clarification on your last point, and you instead provided a poorly written rebuttal to an argument I never made. Observe:
How about aborting pregnancies that will produce stillborn children? Or have you really never heard of anencephaly?
Yup, I’ve heard of it. What part of my posts indicated I hadn’t? Was it the part where I said women should have unfettered access to abortion, or the part where I said that doctor should lose his license for his incompetence?
I realize that a piece of dead tissue is more important to you than a fully grown, living, breathing human being whose life and health are potentially endangered by carrying a rotting piece of tissue inside her womb.
You realized all this based on my saying that abortion should be legal whether I agree with it or not? Wow, why are you posting here when you could be using your awesome deductive powers to fight crime?
Seriously, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to really want a child and then lose the pregnancy…the idea of having to carry the dead fetus to term makes me sick. You’d have all the problems of being pregnant, with no hope of giving birth to a child…people would ask you when the baby was due, and what the fuck are you going to say to them? Why the hell would anyone with a shred of humanity inflict that on someone else? Ugh.
Tony makes me wish that rightwingerism could be detected by amnio; normally I’m not in favor of a whole lot of poking and prodding, but if I was going to have to deal with the anguish of having a child with neither brains nor human decency, I’d want to know my options as early as possible.
JASMINE: So, Monkey Testicle, what do you propose for women like me, who don’t want ANY children, now or ever?
I propose you don’t have any. Use condoms and other forms of birth control. Do whatever you can to preserve your rightful sexual freedom while at the same time preventing an unwanted pregnancy.
But don’t fail to take precautions, get pregnant, and then become angry because some people may see you as irresponsible. Abortion is not a form of birth control; it’s a medical procedure that can have physical and emotional consequences.
(Disclaimer: I’m not talking about people who become pregnant despite precautions, or who are attacked etc. I’m talking about people who know they don’t want kids, and are educated on the proper use of birth control.)
The prospect of lots of help after birth doesn’t make me feel warm and happy inside. It leaves me annoyed with the fact that supposedly reasonable pro-lifers don’t understand that my dreams do not rise and set with being a mother.
Offering help to those who want it is not the same as trying to force help on those who don’t. People shouldn’t be forced to carry a fetus to term, but they also shouldn’t feel compelled to seek an abortion in part because they’re afraid there won’t be any help if they decide to have the baby.
If you want to prevent women aborting their pregnancies…you have to offer tangible evidence that there will be a support network available to help women with practical matters both before and after the birth; that no one will judge them for good or ill based on their marital status, socio-economic status, or race; and finally, that you are genuinely interested in preserving life, and not just in stopping abortion.
No. No, no, no. Monkey Testicle, if you want to prevent women from aborting their pregnancies, you make sure access to and knowledge of contraception is widely available. And then you butt out.
Period.
You know, the title bar in my firefox browser reads,
“Your pregnancy is a punishment from god at Pandagon”
You mean, it’s a punishment nowhere else?
But don’t fail to take precautions, get pregnant, and then become angry because some people may see you as irresponsible. Abortion is not a form of birth control; it’s a medical procedure that can have physical and emotional consequences.
How are they going to know this if it’s not their business? Is it because the law has to suss out who deserves and doesn’t deserve full ownership of her uterus?
BTW, abortion is birth control by definition. It’s a way to prevent having to give birth against your will. Indeed, you’re correct it’s not a great form of birth control, but a form of birth control it indeed is. And just as I wouldn’t want someone coming in and telling me that I should be using Zovia instead of Ortho pills, nor do I want the law making sure I’ve “earned” the unpleasant procedure called an abortion.
Jesus H. Christ, the very notion that women get abortions for the fun of it. And it takes a super sexist man to say, “You dumb broads may not understand, but while abortions sound fun, it’s not fun having your uterus scrapped out. Take it from me. Since I will never know, I’m the authority.”
Goodness, I hope that woman has a medical malpractice attorney on speed dial. Because I’d say she has a major case against that OB. If he didn’t want to do a D & C at the very least he should’ve referred her to an OB who would, so the necrotizing tissue wouldn’t cause an infection which could prevent her ever conceiving again.
My mom had three D & C’s, each following the miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy where the dead fetus did not evacuate itself out of her uterus, and therefore had to be surgically removed to avoid compromising her health. If anybody had ever said to her what that doctor said to the woman in the article, she would’ve punched him in the nose.
On the bright side, the malpractice suit should help this lady out with child-associated costs when she gets pregnant again.
ema - Sadly, no - the situation is not that absurd. The laws are often written such that no leeway is given for medical necessity… It doesn’t matter in the eyes of the law that the fetus is already dead or has been partially expelled - the woman still needs to be informed of ‘alternatives to abortion’ before the procedure can be performed. The clinician is in danger of losing their license if they don’t follow the law to the letter - I’ve seen it happen (not the losing the license part - the ‘inform the patient about so-called alternatives’ part).
Alternatives. Anyone want to adopt a dead-but-not-yet-gangrenous fetus? Don’t everyone leap up at once…
How are they going to know this if it’s not their business? Is it because the law has to suss out who deserves and doesn’t deserve full ownership of her uterus?
Nope. It isn’t the government’s business to decide who should and should not get an abortion. We can’t legislate morality, nor should we try. If a woman wants an abortion, for any reason, she should get it – no questions or restrictions or humiliations.
But I still think abortion is wrong, and that the alternatives should be promoted. Those women who find themselves facing a choice between abortion and poverty are just as hamstrung as those who can’t access abortions at all.
BTW, abortion is birth control by definition. It’s a way to prevent having to give birth against your will. Indeed, you’re correct it’s not a great form of birth control, but a form of birth control it indeed is. And just as I wouldn’t want someone coming in and telling me that I should be using Zovia instead of Ortho pills, nor do I want the law making sure I’ve “earned� the unpleasant procedure called an abortion.
That’s true; I guess it is a form of birth control. And the law shouldn’t have anything to say on the subject.
Jesus H. Christ, the very notion that women get abortions for the fun of it. And it takes a super sexist man to say, “You dumb broads may not understand, but while abortions sound fun, it’s not fun having your uterus scrapped out. Take it from me. Since I will never know, I’m the authority.�
Well, I’m a woman and I have a uterus, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want anyone telling me what to do with it. But I firmly believe two things:
1. It is irresponsible – really, really irresponsible – for a woman who absolutely does not want children to forgo birth control or to use it in a way contrary to the stated directions. If she doesn’t like being called on that, too bad.
2. Women should have a choice, and they should be permitted to make it without coercion – and that includes the passive coercion that exists for poor women.
(Sorry about the double-post, but I screwed up the HTMl above)
How are they going to know this if it’s not their business? Is it because the law has to suss out who deserves and doesn’t deserve full ownership of her uterus?
Nope. It isn’t the government’s business to decide who should and should not get an abortion. We can’t legislate morality, nor should we try. If a woman wants an abortion, for any reason, she should get it – no questions or restrictions or humiliations.
But I still think abortion is wrong, and that the alternatives should be promoted. Those women who find themselves facing a choice between abortion and poverty are just as hamstrung as those who can’t access abortions at all.
BTW, abortion is birth control by definition. It’s a way to prevent having to give birth against your will. Indeed, you’re correct it’s not a great form of birth control, but a form of birth control it indeed is. And just as I wouldn’t want someone coming in and telling me that I should be using Zovia instead of Ortho pills, nor do I want the law making sure I’ve “earned� the unpleasant procedure called an abortion.
That’s true; I guess it is a form of birth control. And the law shouldn’t have anything to say on the subject.
Jesus H. Christ, the very notion that women get abortions for the fun of it. And it takes a super sexist man to say, “You dumb broads may not understand, but while abortions sound fun, it’s not fun having your uterus scrapped out. Take it from me. Since I will never know, I’m the authority.�
Well, I’m a woman and I have a uterus, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want anyone telling me what to do with it. But I firmly believe two things:
1. It is irresponsible – really, really irresponsible – for a woman who absolutely does not want children to forgo birth control or to use it in a way contrary to the stated directions. If she doesn’t like being called on that, too bad.
2. Women should have a choice, and they should be permitted to make it without coercion – and that includes the passive coercion that exists for poor women.
NORAH: “No. No, no, no. Monkey Testicle, if you want to prevent women from aborting their pregnancies, you make sure access to and knowledge of contraception is widely available. And then you butt out. Period.�
So – and forgive me if I’m misinterpreting this – I shouldn’t be permitted to express my opinion, or offer suggestions based on what I believe, because other people who don’t believe the same thing might be offended?
My rhetoric is downright tame compared to anti-abortionists who lobby to make the procedure illegal. If some of you guys can’t handle me without going off half-cocked, it’s no wonder you can’t stop the right-wingers’ juggernaut.
Dude, Amanda is like totally evil.
But that doesn’t mean every pro-lifer is a hypocrite.
Well, no, but I never said they were. I limited my comment solely to those pro-’lifers’ who are in favour of abstinence-only ‘education’. If you’re not one of them, and it would appear that you aren’t, then I’m not referring to you; don’t worry about it.
And as for Tony’s ‘you KILL a fetus!!!!’ comment, yes, you do; just like you kill a virus or a bacterial infection or a tapeworm or a cancerous growth, or any other unwanted organism leeching your body for nutrients.
Monkey Testicle -
So what PRECISELY is your point? That you’re pro-choice? Because it’s obvious that is what you are despite your personal feelings on abortion.
So you think abortion is wrong? Well, fucking-a. Is it possible then that you can have an unrestricted right to that opinion, and yet NOT push it on other people by making a woman feel shameful for accessing what you agree is her right to access.
Personally I see abortion as a good. It solves a HUGE problem for MANY women; for me it’s that obvious. However, even though I feel this way I am not going to tell women for whom their decision to abort was a painful experience that they are silly cows that should just deal.
I believe all women should be validated for their reactions and experiences when it comes to their abortions, and not have anyone else’s opinion forced on them morally.
Now, as to “pro-lifers”. If they really want to reduce the numbers of abortions, then they should be support comprehensive sex education, subsidised contraceptives, welfare support for mothers, and public funding for abortion services … as societies that have these have been shown around the world to have low abortion rates. But no, the far majority of “pro-life” people don’t. I think that says it all.
1. It is irresponsible – really, really irresponsible – for a woman who absolutely does not want children to forgo birth control or to use it in a way contrary to the stated directions. If she doesn’t like being called on that, too bad.
How much birth control is acceptable btw? does she have to be on the pill, be practically oozing with spermicidal jelly, be using an IUD, a diaphragm AND two condoms - one femi and one penile - before she’s allowed to not be judged by you oh great one?
In a world where people injure themselves with toilets, holding them to always, under all circumstances, forever and ever, not use contraceptives is idealistic and unrealisticly so, and to do so simply so they can conform to your personal morality is stupid and, well… pointless really.
Oh and it’s only irresponsible if they believe the same mojo you do btw, their choice, their morality remember? if they decide it’s a person after 24 weeks, you shouldn’t be standing in the way of them aborting the pregnancy before that time, even if they feel that contraceptives of any kind are not an okay thing to use during intercourse, for whatever reason they might have.
Who the hell are you to them? an outsider who doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about regarding their situation.
This is why abortion is a privacy matter ultimately, the state and nosey busy bodies have no right to judge anyone else about their medical choices and sex life.
2. Women should have a choice, and they should be permitted to make it without coercion – and that includes the passive coercion that exists for poor women.
Are you saying that the whole “inform women of the alternatives” thing is wrong then, because that is always gussied up with a shit load of emotionally manipulative appeals to not abort?
Leave the woman alone, let her make her own decision and let her make it as soon as she wants to make it, she will more often than not have a damn sight better idea of what is good for her situation than any legislators or anti-choicer could ever know.
Monkey, most of us enjoy finding lame ways to feel superior to others. You’ve chosen a particularly distressing way in light of the right wing attempt to strip our rights. Regardless, I’m not sure why you think your desire to feel superior to others is relevant. I mean, it’s not evidence for anything and it’s not really entertaining like an IMS post. So you like to think you’d never screw up. I’m gonna guess if you’ve never gotten pregnant on accident, you’re like the rest of us and mostly got lucky. Some people do stupid things and aren’t. What does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
protected static,
The clinician is in danger of losing their license if they don’t follow the law to the letter…
I’ve never been in a situation where I had to decide between breaking the law and taking proper care of a pt, so clearly that limits my perspective.
I can’t imagine any medical professional forcing a pt with a dx of sp abx to listen to such a tape. It’s absurd.
Yes, it’s absolutely absurd. But since any physician in Texas who performs an abortion procedure without that precaution faces criminal charges, most doctors would rather have a woman listen to a five-minute recording than risk the end of their medical careers. I also know of one case in which a doctor who performed an indicated D&C for the resolution of a spontaneous abortion was later sued when his patient fell under the influence of a “pro-life ministry” and charged him with performing an “abortion” on her when she wasn’t pregnant.
As a result of the ongoing and increasing demonization of doctors who provide abortion care, ER doctors at most hospitals here in North Texas here rarely offer D&C for fetal demise anymore. They are afraid to risk even the whiff of a suspicion that they are involved in abortion. A woman who presents at an ER with fetal demise or a miscarriage in progress very often is sent home to “wait for nature to take its course.” I have seen a woman with a 12 week demise who waited for weeks before she was finally referred to our clinic for a D&C — with, by then, an increased risk of potentially life-threatening DIC.
Sadly, this is what happens when doctors who provide abortion care are persecuted by the state and ostracized like lepers by their less courageous colleagues. A woman doesn’t have to want an abortion to be trapped by TRAP laws, and people have no idea what else they’ve bargained for when they support so-called “reasonable” restrictions on abortion.
I also know of one case in which a doctor who performed an indicated D&C for the resolution of a spontaneous abortion was later sued when his patient fell under the influence of a “pro-life ministry� and charged him with performing an “abortion� on her when she wasn’t pregnant.
Please, please tell me this case was laughed out of court? Performing an abortion on a non-pregnant woman? What the hell does that even mean!
Please, please tell me this case was laughed out of court? Performing an abortion on a non-pregnant woman? What the hell does that even mean!
She had a positive pregnancy test and an amniotic sac, but a blighted ovum that failed to develop, and thus no viable pregnancy. The doctor eventually prevailed, but he spent a season in hell and a ton of money before he was vindicated.
This is an account posted on the website of Priests for Life:
Gosh, Monkey, let’s look at your very own words, shall we?
“You mean as these defects may cause spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)? Or are you talking about deliberately aborting pregnancies that will produce children affected by serious disabilities?”
Please clarify what you meant. I think my position is perfectly clear, but yours seems awfully muddled.
A friend of mine got pregnant, was overjoyed, had an incomplete miscarriage and was told that she needed to have a D&C to stop the bleeding that was threatening her life.
Imagine her surprise when her insurance company refused to pay the bill, calling it an “elective abortion.” She was somewhat less than overjoyed.
I’m a peaceable guy, but shit like that really makes me want to take a big stick and beat the self-righteousness out of that SOB of a doctor and all of the ignoramuses that make his kind of “medical care” possible.
It’s worth pointing out that even when used properly, no form of birth control is 100% effective.
So even a woman who always uses it, and uses it right, can end up pregnant. If you want to get annoying about it, a woman who has sex once a week with her husband for the ten years they’re married has had sex about five hundred times. Even if birth control is 99% effective, she’s still pushing the odds, isn’t she.
And, just for the record, the suggestion that she should just get a tubal is probably reasonably comparable to the suggestion that people who rent an apartment rather than buy a home are doing it wrong–surgical sterilization is expensive, and not always covered by your insurance even if you have it. (Plus doctors tend to do a lot of dissauding depending on your age, and certain doctors won’t do it at all based on your age or their religious beliefs.) Additionally, just because a couple doesn’t want kids for the first few (or more) years, doesn’t mean, necessarily, that they will never want kids.
Vasectomies are cheaper and less life threatening, but only relevant if A) the man is sure he never wants kids with anyone instead of the woman being sure she never wants kids with anyone, and B) if it *is* the same man all the time. Despite my best case scenario here, it’s not just married people having sex.
(Call that a straw man if you like, but I’ve heard both the “irresponsible to not get surgically sterilized” and the “stupid to rent” arguments often enough to feel it’s worth saying.)
So – and forgive me if I’m misinterpreting this – I shouldn’t be permitted to express my opinion, or offer suggestions based on what I believe, because other people who don’t believe the same thing might be offended?
Monkey, if you’re trying to express your opinion to a woman who needs a D&C or, gods help us, an abortion, yes, that is what I’m saying. She doesn’t need your suggestions, and almost certainly she will be offended. So butt out.
MT, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not a troll, althought I sort of suspect I’ll regret it.
Have you thought about the logical conclusion of this line of thinking?
First of all, the woman who doesn’t want to have children but is having unprotected sex may be in a coercive or abusive relationship–it might be out of her hands (and since, as we’ve discussed in previous threads, bcp is not always an option… hell, she might smoke). Contrary to popular belief, birth control is not necessarily a “woman’s responsibility” if she is in a relationship where she fears reprisal from her bf if he finds out she’s limiting her fertility. And yes–this happens. I’ve known more than one woman in such a situation. It’s more complex than Dr. Phil would have one believe.
Okay, fine. Let’s say you’re “calling me” on being irresponsible for having unprotected sex without birth control (note, I’m using myself as a hypothetical example, even though it’s nobody’s business either way). Wow. Pony sure is stupid, ain’t she? She’s just downright irresponsible. I KNOW, LET’S PUT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING’S LIFE IN HER IRRESPONSIBLE HANDS. That will certainly solve matters, won’t it? Even if Pony has the mental capabilities to understand that she doesn’t have the emotional maturity required to be a mother, and plans to give the baby up for adoption, she still has to endure nine months of potential fuck-ups: will she quit smoking? (I don’t, get the fuck off my back) Will she stop her love afair with the dirty martini? (okay, you caught me) Will she make all of her prenatal appointments? (if she’s so irresponsible as all that, my guess is, no) Not to mention, Pony’s bf, (G), has been known to slap her around at times, and she worries that as the pregnancy progresses, she might get punched in the stomach, or pushed down a flight of stairs, and since she doesn’t have the financial or emotional resources to live alone, she can’t just break it off. (that last sentence was stem-to-stern bs)
I think that asking women to think–really think–about whether or not they are capable of supporting a child when they don’t have a job, or a stable home life, or any other number of things that poor women are faced with, is important. Particularly when there is an anti-choice propoganda machine already seated in their consciousness, warning them that if they abort they’ll get cancer and regret it for the rest of their life and look longingly at playgrounds and their ovaries will shrivel up and pop out the next time they sneeze… you get the idea. No-one at PP is going to harrangue a woman for carrying her pregnancy to term if she insists that it’s what she wants to do. I can’t see someone at a “pregnancy crisis center” not doing the same when a woman admits that she doesn’t want to keep the pregnancy.
Monkey:
Once you concede to a person a right to do something, there is nothing left to say. To remove it from the emotional issue of abortion, consider:
A person has a right to bad taste in clothing, music, etc. and I have no intention of lecturing them. If they ask me for my 2¢ I’ll give it to them; otherwise, I’ll mind my own businesses.
So the next time a pregnant woman askes your opinion, give it to her. Otherwise, stfu.
But you (we) miss the biggest point, which is: For whatever reason and they are many & varied, men & women are going to engage in sexual activity - regardless. Absolutely regardless. It has happened since the beginning of time.
I can recall doing some serious genealogy research during the 1980s. While researcing U.S. Census records we found several instances of one census showing (for example) a six year old girl in a household and in the next census(10 years later) she was a married 18 year old. This was in the 1870 - 1900 time frame.
Abstinance and “Just say no” is total bull shit and just will not work.
I find this focus on the supposed irresponsibility of women who don’t want children but also don’t make perfect use of birth control a little offputting. I mean, I know I’m just an out-of-control mindless sperm cannon attempting to impregnate anyone with two X chromosomes who blunders into my path, but surely there must be some men out there capable of exerting self-control or reading the directions on a condom box. It seems odd that anyone complaining about women’s irresponsibility should take as a starting point a position that effectively denies the existence of any moral agency for men.
I’m so tired of Fetus Worshippers, who for whatever reason view pre-human life as the only kind that matters. Hell, why not just make gametes full humans, and punish anyone who ovulates or ejaculates without it resulting in a new life?
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a woman’s private choice, period, full-stop, end of line, and unless you’re someone who’s been able to live an absolutely perfect life, you’ve got sweet FA to say about it.
Also, props to Mighty Ponygirl for bringing up the point that gets far too little coverage - what’s the deal with forcing parental resposibility on someone who doesn’t want to be a parent? Is stopping the abortion ALL that matters, and the quality of parenting (as well as general quality of life) doesn’t matter at all? I know, I know, it’s about “punishing sluts”, not about dealing with two (or more) actual lives. And if we punish enough of them, magic candy fairyland will come back and we’ll never hear about sex or death or foreigners or industrial music or David Cronenberg films (etc) again.
“Anyone want to adopt a dead-but-not-yet-gangrenous fetus”
No doubt there is funding for this somewhere in the Bush budget.
“Mills said in an interview Thursday that she sought the abortion despite her pro-life stance because she was attending college at the time and raising two young sons with her husband.”
Yep. It’ just all those irresponsible women who are having abortions for the sheer joy of it. It’s one of the distinctive calls of the species Prolifeus hypocritii, easily recognized- see, my/my wife’s abortion was a uniquely serious and necessary decision, unlike all those baby-killin’ freaks . . .
>Shakes head
“It’s worth pointing out that even when used properly, no form of birth control is 100% effective.”
My parents are not stupid. They have four kids. Only one was conceieved on purpose. They has the financial resources to take care of four kids and rather liked them, so they decided to keep the other three as well.
However, since their third (me) was born with serious health problems and went in for major surgery the fall my mother was pregnant with the fourth, I’m not so certain she would have continued with that pregnancy if my dad hadn’t had a decent job with decent health insurance. I could be wrong, and I can’t think of life without my little brother and all, but seriously - what weird world do these people live in where birth control works all the time and every woman not only wants to have another kid every time she gets pregnant, but has the resources to do so?
I think people are being a little hard on MT. He/she has already stated that they believe abortion should be legal, and birth control rather than abstinence-only education encouraged. That’s the same end point as most of the commenters here, only MT’s getting to that end point via a different reasoning process.
For what it’s worth, I too have emotional issues with abortion. I absolutely and completely support its legality, and believe that the pregnant woman is the best (only) person in a position to judge whether she can handle a pregnancy at this time or not. However, like MT, I’m still uncomfortable with abortion.
The range of political responses and emotional responses is a wide one. It’s not like there’s people who don’t have any issues whatsoever with the concept of abortion over in the pro-choice corner and people who are absolutely opposed to it under any circumstances over in the other corner. People are more complicated htan that.
Yes, politically I am most definitely in the pro-choice corner (as I think MT is), but emotionally I’m somewhere in the middle, and I know quite a few women in real life who are much the same way. I do think it should be safe for women to express their doubts in a feminist forum. I mean, given that both MT and I have stated that we are politically committed to abortion rights, the emotional response is hardly cover for an attack on the right to choose. Y
eah, I realize this is in part a reaction to the right-wing attempts to make every woman who gets an abortion feel horrendously guilty. BUt without in any way accepting the right-wing political position, I do think that it’s reasonable for some women (even committed feminists) to have mixed feelings about the subject of abortion. I mean, a person can only control their actions, not their feelings.
For the record, I don’t know MT from Adam.
Reminds me of when I had my post-miscarriage D&C (couple of months post, due to my stubborn conviction that the bleeding really was going to stop Any Time Now. ‘Twas the anemia finally convinced me.). It was done in a hospital, and I had a distinctly unpleasant nurse afterwards (nothing blatant, nothing you could exactly put your finger on, but definitely unpleasant), and I’ve always wondered whether she thought I’d had an abortion (the procedure being the same, after all).
Women have to be aware that they serve only a few real purposes in life:
1. To prevent real men from becoming homosexuals. Real men need a real receptacle to relieve themselves in. Sort of like some sort of sexual toilet. And real men need servants and mommies. Who else will kiss away Dubya’s boo-boos when he dares to go outside his bubble?
2. To get pregnant. Women will go absolutely crazy without kids. The Bible says so, even if you’re only the container for the man’s child. That’s why abortion is a no. It’s the man’s child, not yours.
3. To suffer for Eve’s sin. After all, Adam had nothing to do with it. Besides God’s a guy. You don’t expect one guy to blame another. The Bible says so.
Other than that, it’s the generosity of your lords.
I’d like to say that this was pure snark, but I’m afraid this is where we’re headed.
Raincitygirl —
I appreciate what you’re saying, but I would ask you to look deeply into yourself about why you say it. It’s more than just, as you mentioned, the right-wing’s attempts to shame women who have had them. We have a serious problem with raining down judgement on people in this society, particularly women, for any choice they might make. Women who have abortions are automatically assumed to be irresponsible sluts. Women who don’t have abortions (who are poor) are automatically labeled as leeches on society’s resources. Women who choose to stay at home with their babies are labeled as elitist narcissists who have a maternal Napoleonic complex to “out-do” all the other mothers out there. Women who choose to work are labeled as selfish bitches who shouldn’t have bothered to have babies they weren’t going to take care of. At the same time, when we make these decisions in our lives, there are often a whole slew of very good, very personal reasons for making the decisions, but we are unable to accept that other people have very good reasons for making their decisions as well.
The idea that a person can be “politically pro-choice” but make sure that everyone knows that they feel there is “something wrong” with abortion is the kith and kin of this need to judge the decisions of others in the harshest light possible. It isn’t until we are forced to personalize something that we look at it in a less judgemental light.
If you feel gang-piled for making statements like the one above, this is probably the reason why.
It horrifies the hell out of me that doctors can’t just give patients the care they need. As scary as the idea of getting pregnant is (right now, I’m not ready for kids, and that’s okay), the idea of having to cart around a miscarriage that could start me rotting from the inside out…um…is the ickiest thing I’ve heard all week. Talk about “my body, my life!” Sad as it would be to go through that, I’d want it out!
Add me to the list of people who think this woman needs to sue.
And let me be the first to say how unsurprised I think I’ll be when discovery turns up many more stunts of this type in this doctor’s past.
My anti abortion sister had a miscarriage and refused to have a D and C under the mistaken assumption it was an abortion. And then she became terribly sick, couldn’t walk and learned the hard way that she was being just plain stupid. So then she had the D and C.
And this is a woman who was an engineer.
AM: “Monkey, most of us enjoy finding lame ways to feel superior to others. You’ve chosen a particularly distressing way in light of the right wing attempt to strip our rights. Regardless, I’m not sure why you think your desire to feel superior to others is relevant.�
I expressed a fairly reasonable opinion on an internet bulletin board where people were commenting on the subject, and got flamed for it because it’s none of my business. Not only that, but my comments were deliberately misinterpreted or outright ignored by people content to argue against a weak caricature of what I said instead of against my actual position.
This might sound like a trollish thing to say, but wowee you guys don’t like it when people disagree with you. The devil’s advocate isn’t welcome here.
The right is trying to strip you of your rights, but I’m not. I merely have an opinion; not an opinion I would ever want to see become law, or an opinion I think should be expressed on a picket sign in front of an abortion clinic.
“I mean, it’s not evidence for anything and it’s not really entertaining like an IMS post.�
Yes, because goodness knows, if I disagree with you, I should act like the amusing idiot that I surely must be.
“So you like to think you’d never screw up.�
Make up your mind; either birth control is highly effective, or it isn’t. You can’t castigate rightists for misrepresenting the effectiveness of birth control, and yet moan at me because I think birth control is the responsible defense against “accidents.� Unplanned pregnancies will occur regardless of protection, but the likelihood is much smaller when using one or more methods of birth control.
It is irresponsible for a woman who does not want children to not to take every precaution she can against the possibility of pregnancy. She knows she doesn’t want kids. She knows some highly effective ways to avoid that happening. If she doesn’t use these methods consistently, she’s not acting responsibly.
Yes, you can trot out the abused partner or the rape victim or the incest victim, but from this side of the fence, it seems as if you’re using them as political tools to further your own goals. You’re not talking about abortion just for them; you’re talking about it for every woman who wants one. And I’m not talking about abused or coerced people at all; I’m talking about average people in typical situations.
MP: MT, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not a troll, althought I sort of suspect I’ll regret it.
Well, thanks.
First of all, the woman who doesn’t want to have children but is having unprotected sex may be in a coercive or abusive relationship–it might be out of her hands (and since, as we’ve discussed in previous threads, bcp is not always an option… hell, she might smoke).
That’s true. And none of my comments – except maybe the one where I said women shouldn’t be coerced – really applies to them. How about this: Women who have the option of using birth control, but don’t use it despite their desire to avoid pregnancy, are acting irresponsibly.
I really don’t see how this statement could be controversial. I’m genuinely interested.
Wow. Pony sure is stupid, ain’t she? She’s just downright irresponsible. I KNOW, LET’S PUT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING’S LIFE IN HER IRRESPONSIBLE HANDS.
First off, there are different levels of irresponsibility. A woman who doesn’t use birth control may be acting irresponsibly in that area, but this doesn’t mean she’s some brain-dead freak who is incapable of any responsible action.
And secondly, since I think abortion should be legal for any woman who wants one, no questions asked, I’m not saying she should be left with a child as punishment for messing around without protection either.
I AM saying there is a moral dimension to abortion that doesn’t exist for (other) forms of birth control. I AM saying it’s a radical action. And I AM saying I believe it’s also a wrong action.
I think that asking women to think–really think–about whether or not they are capable of supporting a child when they don’t have a job, or a stable home life, or any other number of things that poor women are faced with, is important.
And if they think – really think – that they’d like to have the baby but wouldn’t have the help necessary in raising it, then they’re being coerced into abortion.
Particularly when there is an anti-choice propoganda machine already seated in their consciousness, warning them that if they abort they’ll get cancer and regret it for the rest of their life and look longingly at playgrounds and their ovaries will shrivel up and pop out the next time they sneeze… you get the idea.
Yeah, except that most of the pro-lifers I know don’t argue those things. They may not even play the regret angle.
Just because the PLs you know of sit around thinking up new lies to tell vulnerable women doesn’t mean everyone is like that.
MP: “The idea that a person can be “politically pro-choice� but make sure that everyone knows that they feel there is “something wrong� with abortion is the kith and kin of this need to judge the decisions of others in the harshest light possible. It isn’t until we are forced to personalize something that we look at it in a less judgemental light.�
I think there’s something wrong with saying the Nazi holocaust didn’t happen, but I support free speech. I think there’s something wrong with smoking, but I think smokers should be allowed to light up pretty much wherever they please. I think there’s something wrong with one person having millions upon millions of dollars when other people are starving, but I support that person’s right to make money as she’s able.
I think a lot of things are morally wrong that should be legally right. Morality isn’t an appropriate area for government intervention. But it is an appropriate area for public discourse.
And yes it is judgmental to have a belief based solely on morals. I am being judgmental when I say the things I say. I admit it. Guilty as charged.
There’s nothing wrong with judgment, just as long as one doesn’t mix it up with “what ought to be right for everyone.�
“If you feel gang-piled for making statements like the one above, this is probably the reason why.�
I suppose that must be true on the rightist forums, too: if you make a statement they disagree with, and they slam you for it, there must be a reason.
RCG:
For the record, I don’t know MT from Adam.
Why is it that I was giving you the benefit of the doubt on the sock-puppet issue until I got to that sentence?
Ledasmom:
It was done in a hospital, and I had a distinctly unpleasant nurse afterwards (nothing blatant, nothing you could exactly put your finger on, but definitely unpleasant), and I’ve always wondered whether she thought I’d had an abortion
If so, and since it was nothing blatant, it’s entirely possible she was pro-choice in the same way as MT and RCG, and — not necessarily consciously — thought less of you because in her mind you were an irresponsible slut. Who should certainly be legally permitted to abort a pregnancy.
MT:
if [poor women] think – really think – that they’d like to have the baby but wouldn’t have the help necessary in raising it, then they’re being coerced into abortion.
By whom? I know your sort thinks Planned Parenthood sets up booths in shopping malls where they accost pregnant women and say “you’re making a big mistake!” but I suspect it’s more likely that people are making the rational decision not to have a child they can’t raise. For whatever reason.
MT wrote:
I’m not talking about abused or coerced people at all; I’m talking about average people in typical situations.
Abuse and coercion may not be typical as you define it, but it’s a lot more common than a lot of pro-lifers would care to admit. And laws should certainly not only protect “the average” because that term itself is highly subjective;Not to mention often used interchangeably with other murky concepts like “normal.” I realize that my desire for no children, ever, under any circumstances is probably not “typical,” “normal,” or “average,” by your standards. And that’s tough toenails. I still get to end my pregnancy if I want to. To hell with your concept of whether it’s appropriate or not. It’s what *I* find appropriate.
“RCG:
For the record, I don’t know MT from Adam.
Why is it that I was giving you the benefit of the doubt on the sock-puppet issue until I got to that sentence?”
I’ve commented a few times on Pandagon before. Also, you are welcome to ask Amanda or one of the other people who run Pandagon to check whether my IP address matches up with MT’s IP address. It won’t, but I don’t expect you to take my word for it when proof is so easily obtained.
I put that sentence in simply because it occurred to me that as I was the only person expressing a view rather similar to MT’s, it might behoove me to point out that I’m not a sockpuppet. As I know Pandagon has had problems with sock puppets before, a la Daphne and Milly.
Also for the record, I don’t think women who have abortions are irresponsible sluts. I just don’t believe that it’s the choice I would make if I were in that situation (and I’ve never been pregnant, so it’s a hypothetical at this point). I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad. I can’t force myself to feel differently on this topic because apparently I’m a bad feminist for my feelings. Not my actions, not my political choices or the activism I’ve done in my real life (and I’ve been involved with pro-choice organizations, for what it’s worth), just my feelings.
HO: Why is it that I was giving you the benefit of the doubt on the sock-puppet issue until I got to that sentence?
‘Cause you’re paranoid? ‘Cause you can’t conceive of anyone sympathizing with my position unless it’s…me? ‘Cause, since I disagree with almost everyone here, I must also be a lying sneak who creates sock-puppets?
Sorry buddy, but yer wrong. There is actually ~GASP~ someone else in the world who doesn’t share the prevailing belief in here.
If so, and since it was nothing blatant, it’s entirely possible she was pro-choice in the same way as MT and RCG, and � not necessarily consciously � thought less of you because in her mind you were an irresponsible slut. Who should certainly be legally permitted to abort a pregnancy.
Boy, you sure called me right. I didn’t actually say that, but somehow you knew. That is so totally what I think. Get out of my head!
Now, if only I wrote like Marie Jon’ or Grant Swank, you wouldn’t have to take anything I said seriously
I’m a bad feminist for my feelings. Not my actions, not my political choices or the activism I’ve done in my real life (and I’ve been involved with pro-choice organizations, for what it’s worth), just my feelings.
Did anyone hear call you a bad feminist, Rain ? I didn’t see it.
At any rate, I personally care far less about how a person feels than how they act. If your actions are those of a pro-choicer, I’m totally cool with that, FWIW. I don’t think anyone has to actually have an abortion to be pro-choice, nor do I think that anyone here suggested that. It’s rubbish.
One of the drawbacks of feeling under siege by extremists is that even moderate opinions become scary to the besieged. They feel as if giving a nod to even a moderate emboldens the extremists. I’m afraid that there may be some truth to that, too, which was the gist of Pollit’s recent opinions as recounted in one of the earlier threads.
MT: How many women do you know who don’t use any form of birth control (even condoms–and I’m talking about women who actually know what birth control is, not women who believe you can’t get pregnant if the guy pulls out, or if you have sex on a trapeze, or whatever), and who aren’t in coercive or abusive relationships, and who don’t want to get pregnant?
Your Pregnancy is a Punsihment from God…
Your pregnancy is a punishment from God and sluts need to be taught a lesson: “It’s not about abortion, it’s about the sex. These people are absolutely crazed at the thought of women who have sex and like it. They want it to stop, and if young women h…
MT
Why are you picking a fight here? I went back and looked at the thread. After your first (pretty innocuous) post, you deliberately went after posts by Garnet and Mnemosyne, neither of whom had responded to you. Both were writing to the larger issue. Shortly after that you snark at Jasmine.
You seem to want to have it both ways, to be respected for having a (basically) prochoice position, but able to judge women whose luck is poor or whose choices you don’t like. What most have been writing back is that you can have the former, but not the latter.
Kicking Widows and Orphans, Why Religion and Medicine Don’t Mix, & Various Bloggy Tidbits…
From Pandagon a letter to the editor from a woman whose doctor - who is hopefully being sued to the high heavens for malpractice - wouldn’t inform her of the need for or perform an emergency D&C when she miscarried…….
Elaborate on this please… I have a hard time believing that there is a moral problem with removing from my body a little clump of dividing cells that doesn’t have a) a brain, b) a heartbeat, c) the ability to feel pain (which is what most pregnancies are when they’re aborted–first trimester pregnancies are 99% of abortions out there, the rest are later on, and usually as a result of complications).
As far as the whole “I would never do it myself” matter — Again, I know enough people who used to say that until there was a pregnancy staring them in the face. Long/short: I hope you never find yourself in the same spot.
You could go on just about any forum and, if you tell the people there that they are doing something wrong, you’ll get slammed. I mean, really. Did you really think that you could come onto a thread where it’s a fair assumption that one or more of the posters have had an abortion and talk about how women who have had them are irresponsible and immoral and think that would be okay? I’ve been on videogame forums where people talk about how videogames lead to violence and are the downfall of society and they’re ripped a new one just as well as anyone else, and I’m pretty sure the posters there never gunned down their schoolmates. If I went to a rightist forum and told everyone there that they were engaging in a moral wrong for supporting the war in Iraq, even if I was right, I would expect an alien shitstorm of epic proportions to come down on my head. It’s not just that I’m disagreeing with people–it’s that I’m calling down judgement on people in their own space.
“I mean, I know I’m just an out-of-control mindless sperm cannon attempting to impregnate anyone with two X chromosomes who blunders into my path”
Paul, I should not have been drinking Coke when I read this because it’s now all over my keyboard.
Ledasmom, some floor nurses are unpleasant, not because of patients, but because of the workload, and the bureaucracy, and because it’s a high burnout job. Most likely it had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with having worked 10 days in a row or two doubles back-to-back (most people are pretty cranky with 32 hours of work in a 48 hour time period — and remember, this is both a physically and mentally demanding job). Or maybe her back hurt; that’s another downside to this job. I should know, I’m a nurse. While I seldom work a floor, believe me that I hear plenty from my peers.
On the “D&C just means abortion” question, can someone confirm or deny a notion I picked up in antenatal classes while I was having the CLP? That is, can you go through nine months of pregnancy and give birth to a healthy live baby (the pinnacle of what the pro-life crowd want for you) and STILL need a D&C because the placenta didn’t deliver properly? ISTR this was given as a reason for the syntometrine injection, but I could be mistaken.
For me, the trouble with pointing out the “moral dimension” to a strong pro-choicer (abortion on demand) is that the pointer assumes that I have never pondered the morality of abortion. FWIW, I have, at length. I didn’t just pick my belief in abortion on demand out of a hat. My moral sense is perfectly compatible with my strong pro-choice position. Please don’t make the mistake of assuming that it’s immoral or simply instinctive. It’s neither. As far as I’m concerned, the only circumstances under which my beliefs would cross the line into immorality would be if I suddenly decided that COMPULSORY abortion under some circumstances is a great idea.
But abortion on demand is not the same thing as compulsory abortion. I’d like for the pro-choice moderates to please keep that in mind before implying that I can’t hold the views I hold and still be a moral person.
I know there’s all sorts of reasons for nurses to be unpleasant, but, out of (I think) four stays at that hospital, three overnight, she’s the only one I got that “I don’t like you” vibe from. As I said: hard to explain, but there.
Dan S. - I’m sure moiv could tell you lots about the daughters and wives of rabidly anti-choice politicians sneaking in through the back door of clinics to get their procedures done - or about clinics that have little areas set aside as unofficial waiting rooms that are hidden from the public eye, to spare women like that the embarassment of being seen waiting for their abortion.
Nick Kiddle - I believe the answer to your question is “Yes”, but I am not an MD, nor do I play one on TV…
MT:
#If so, and since it was nothing blatant, it’s entirely possible she was pro-choice in the same way as MT and RCG, and � not necessarily consciously � thought less of you because in her mind you were an irresponsible slut. Who should certainly be legally permitted to abort a pregnancy.Boy, you sure called me right. I didn’t actually say that, but somehow you knew. That is so totally what I think
It’s historically a fair enough assumption about the anti-abortion crowd, even that segment that doesn’t want to accomplish the goal by direct legislative means.
RCG:
“RCG:
For the record, I don’t know MT from Adam.
Why is it that I was giving you the benefit of the doubt on the sock-puppet issue until I got to that sentence?�
I’ve commented a few times on Pandagon before. Also, you are welcome to ask Amanda or one of the other people who run Pandagon to check whether my IP address matches up with MT’s IP address. It won’t, but I don’t expect you to take my word for it when proof is so easily obtained
My point was that the disclaimer was inserted. I do, in fact, think you’re different people, and it’s not just a statistical thing — the opinions may be more or less the same, but the writing style is different.
Honestly, I semi-agree with MT and Raincitygirl. An unpopular opinion, I know.
In a perfect world, my liberal fantasyland, women who want to have abortions have abortions, no driving seven counties over or to the next state to get one. Done at their local hospital or clinic. But those that want to keep the babies, though they may not have some of the resources as better off folks do, get those resources, free of charge, to go through pregnancy and for the next 18 years. If said women wants to be able to stay home with the kid, I think they should be able to, instead of having to work two jobs just to live in a rathole and feed the kid. If someone doesn’t want be pregnant, that’s fine, but for some women who do, I think there should be support for them, resources that they could use if they wanted to stay home with the kids, like a two year maternity leave, applicable to both mother or father. I know a few people that really wanted to have the children, and yes, they were in situations that they couldn’t, and had abortions done. But in a perfect world (or one a little more compassionate than this one), situations like that would be rare.
But we don’t live in a perfect world, and we’re so far away from anything like I imagine, that yes, I do understand everything everyone has brought up. But that still doesn’t change my fantasy. IF, and it’s a big if, we ever get to that point, I’d be happy. I don’t want to punish a poor women if she wants to have children and doesn’t have all of the resources available to her. Legal abortion and contraception, as well as good (and national) health care is a start.
Am I uncomfortable with the idea of abortion? Yes. I’m Catholic, and yes, I am uncomfortable with abortion. Do I think that everyone should be? No. Do I think that because I’m uncomfortable with it, that it should be outlawed, restricted, hard to get? Absolutely not. If someone asked my advice on whether or not they should have one, I wouldn’t try to convince them that they shouldn’t. Some people, and some religious people, honestly don’t like the idea of abortion. But you know what? It’s an imperfect world and it’ll have to do. I don’t want it outlawed. What if by chance I was in that situation? I’m not going to judge or punish someone because they don’t believe what I believe or don’t make the choices that I do. I can still be uncomfortable with the idea, but also recognize that it’s important and necessary to have it, and without restrictions or judgement. There’s tons of uncomfortable things in the world I don’t like, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be outlawed or censored.
And about that doctor who wouldn’t do the D&C? Ugh. That’s gross. If that had been me, I would have been screaming, “Get it out of me!” The thought of a dead being still inside my body makes me shudder. And I’ve heard of it happening where I live, and I just hope that no doctor ever does that to me. The woman’s already struggling with the fact that the baby’s dead, but to endanger someone’s life like that is horrible.
(Sorry for the long comment!)
In your version of liberal fantasyland, Sporkey, some of us would still choose abortion. I’m guessing that overall abortion rates would drop dramatically, but there would always be a handful of women who didn’t want to give birth under any circumstances at all.
MP: Elaborate on this please… I have a hard time believing that there is a moral problem with removing from my body a little clump of dividing cells that doesn’t have a) a brain, b) a heartbeat, c) the ability to feel pain (which is what most pregnancies are when they’re aborted–first trimester pregnancies are 99% of abortions out there, the rest are later on, and usually as a result of complications).
First: The first trimester is about 12 weeks long. Near the end of four weeks, the fetus develops a heartbeat and a rudimentary digestive system. The brain begins forming shortly after, and so does the spinal cord. By eight weeks, I think, the fetus has a blood supply, a heartbeat, and a brain. By 12 weeks, all internal organs are developed.
I believe life begins around then. Some believe it doesn’t happen until the baby kicks. Others believe it doesn’t happen until birth, and still others don’t believe it happens until months after the baby is born; which brings me to…
Secondly, there exists an argument concerning the termination of a ‘potential person’. A few years ago, I published an article about how �dispatching a cluster of cells� is not morally objectionable and certainly not tantamount to murder.
I held that opinion for a number of years, until I encountered the work of a bioethicist named Peter Singer. He believes (in a small nutshell) that infanticide is morally permissible because a baby is not yet a person – only a potential person. (For a more neutral and comprehensive discussion of his views, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer)
Singer argues that “birth� is a purely artificial line most people draw between when it’s acceptable to kill a baby, and when it’s not. He then said that the standard for murder should be sentience: If it’s not sentient, killing it isn’t murder.
To take it once step further, he then argues that killing a baby within a certain timeframe after birth is not murder; and that killing certain infants is, in fact, morally correct.
And he’s right: birth is an artificial line. Infants aren’t self-aware. If killing a fetus isn’t wrong, killing an infant isn’t terribly wrong either.
I understand that the baby is no longer a physiological drain on the mother after birth, thus distinguishing it from a fetus, but if she chooses to raise the child, it’s still going to be wholly dependent on her for many months after it’s born.
So I asked myself what I had against infanticide, and the answer was clear: it’s wrong not because you’re killing a person capable of longing for life, but because you’re killing a human being with the potential to become a person. Instead of pushing the line ever forward, like Singer does, I pushed it back to the only point that isn’t artificial: implantation.
His advice, “You’re fine. To avoid further problems, you need to practice abstinence and get married.”
Being married prevents miscarriages? That’s going to come as a surprise to all those married women who suffer them…
What a fucking evil poison toad of a doctor. Either that or he’s a clinical imbecile. I’ll look forward to hearing that he’s been barred from practice, but somehow I don’t think I should be holding my breath.
So…. how do you feel about forcing people to give blood, or donate kidneys?
mt - what do you mean by “by 12 weeks, all internal organs are developed”? This is a talking point one hears fairly regularly, and I’m never quite sure what the relevance is. The organs are there in more or less recognisable form by 12 weeks, but mostly they’re a very long way from being mature and able to function independently. “Developed” seems to be intended to give the impression that a 12-week fetus is basically ready for life and only needs the next 6 months or so to prove like a rising loaf. Not so; there’s a whole lot more development still to do, as well as simple growing.
Oh don’t be silly, Mighty Ponygirl–that’s different….cos it is.
I mean….obviously, the life of a “potential” person is sooooooo much more important than *any number* of lives of already-realised persons. Especially if those already-realised persons are nasty irresponsible women.
Birth may be an artificial line, but more measurable correlates (i.e. the ability to feel pain and respond to stimuli) are not. Where Singer’s argument falls flat is that ’sentience’ is vague. It’s kind of silly to say an infant is only a potential person when he/she can feel pain. If you know anything about child development and language, it’s odd to say the child is anything but interacting with its environment and absorbing information.
That said, I think the argument about abortion and these more concrete properties of ’sentience’ then stands. If I thought I was causing harm or pain to something sentient, I would not have an abortion (very complex cases aside!). We can all have opinions about where to personally draw the line, some based in religous faith, but I don’t think that Singer’s argument is compelling to use as an argument for the ‘moral continuity’ of pregancy or the fetus.
If killing a fetus isn’t wrong, killing an infant isn’t terribly wrong either.
Ooh, sorry, but thanks for playing!
Killing an infant is wrong for the very reason that stopping a woman from getting an abortion is wrong; nobody has the right to control the biological functions of another human being. We as a society may occasionaly grant individuals or groups the privilege of doing so, though even then it’s not so much instituting control over someone as over something, saying that people may not ingest item X, but there’s no right to own slaves or treat others like your own personal property. And since the infant is no longer dependant on the mother’s body once it’s been delivered, the mother no longer has any right to take actions that will lead to the death of the child, because it’s no longer a part of her.
Shut up, Crys. And hand over that kidney. I’m sick of waiting for the trolls on those other abortion threads to cough one up.
She knows some highly effective ways to avoid that happening.
and strangely enough, one of those is abortion.
I think I get what you two are so upset about with these “irresponsible” slutty type women, you have in your head this image of a woman sitting down before sex and thinking “hmm, should I use contraceptives or should I just rely on abortion if I get pregnant?” and then deciding to forego contraceptives.
And I agree that those women are EVVVEEEL slutty sluts who deserve hatred and contempt thrown their way (to a given amount of slutty EVEEEL sluttiness I guess).
It’s just a shame they don’t actually exist in reality.
And because of reality not conforming to your imaginary assumptions you’re being judgemental of people who are not in way shape or form going to change their behavior because of your judgmental attitude.
Every precaution? No matter how much they limit and restrict her life?
You should walk to work, you know. Even if it’s twenty miles away. Because it’s irresponsible for a person who does not want to get in a car accident to not take every precaution he or she can against the possibility of a car accident.
Yes, you can trot out the abused partner or the rape victim or the incest victim, but from this side of the fence, it seems as if you’re using them as political tools to further your own goals. You’re not talking about abortion just for them; you’re talking about it for every woman who wants one. And I’m not talking about abused or coerced people at all; I’m talking about average people in typical situations.
And the doctors will all automatically be able to tell the difference between average and abused.
Personally, the only reason I think less of these mass-abortin’ strawwomen, as compared to actual women who sometimes need to have an abortion because precautions X, Y and Z have failed, is that they’re using up a far greater amount of finite medical resources than they should. I have no objection save the purely utilitiarian.
Of course, since these mythical abortion-loving super-sluts don’t exist, it’s not a call I have to make very often.
[…] Via Pandagon: I’m insured, partnered, and have access to “good health care.â€Â? All that privilege did not protect me from a local obstetrician who neglected to inform me of potential health hazards or treat me after I miscarried. His advice, “You’re fine. To avoid further problems, you need to practice abstinence and get married.â€Â? […]
Alsis–yeah, it is odd, isn’t it, how life is so sacrosanct until it’s *their* bodies that will be used so that others can live? Then, all of a sudden, protecting life don’t mean shit.
Birth is not a very arbitrary line, of course. Before birth, a developing fetus lives in a sheltered, low sensory input environment; after birth, which process must be pretty shocking in itself, the baby has open eyes and is hearing things and experiencing all manner of new sensations–which its brain is geared to start processing and make sense of. Thus if we want to define “sentience” and admit we do need some kind of arbitrary line, birth is an excellent one.
Also there is the simple fact that before birth, the fetus is dependent on the woman for survival, and afterward the baby needs care, but not necessarily from its mother. Thus before birth it is a matter of the woman’s rights (and if we attribute humanity to the fetus some time before birth, a matter of balancing the rights of these two people) but afterward the mother’s rights relate to her rights as a mother, not as a human being whose life is in question.
As I understand it the Roe v Wade frame essentially says humanity and associated rights come on gradually–being essentially zero at the time of conception and implantation, and rising to become a matter for the state to take an interest and start protecting the fetus’s interests more and more. Some time before birth in the Roe frame, the law regards the almost born fetus as being practically human–and this is consistent with the 2 factors I outlined above. By then, the nervous system is well developed and although the uterine enviroment is quiet and stable, the fetus has had some experience, notably of sounds, and perhaps learns to recognize voices. And especially with modern medical technology, the birth process could be accelerated or the fetus surgically removed and kept alive, so if society is willing to spend the money and take a chance (and put the woman through what may or may not be worse than a later birth experience would be) the fetus’s dependence on that particular woman can be ended.
It is theoretically possible for society to go down the “slipperly slope” toward infanticide and to keep upping the age of “sentience” too, but I really think the danger of that is negligible. It is unreasonable in a way that terminating a pregnancy is not. We are in much graver danger right now of an equally unreasonable and far more damaging demand that women must serve as incubators regardless of their will and intentions, and indeed the whole basis of this thread is that we have examples of women who were willingly pregnant, eager to bear a child, whose fetus died within them despite their best efforts–and were _punished_ (in some cases by doctors, in others by internalized guilt and arbitrary moral rules) for this “failure” by being forced to carry a _dead body_ in their wombs! That’s how nutty we are right now about the “sacred right to life” which _only_ applies to fetuses–even ones that actually aren’t alive!
Does anyone think it is an accident that the places where this sort of Handmaiden’s Tale attitude (remember that in that novel, women who had miscarried had to carry the pickled remains in jars hung around their necks!) prevails are the same places that do the least to actually _support_ the incubator-women or even their precious offspring, certainly not once it is born?
Amanda is dead on, we need to see all this in terms of enforcement of patriarchial domination of women, and via dominating women, anti-democratic rule of everyone. And anyone who is serious about valuing human life, has to recognize that patriarchy is deadly poison, for all of us. If that leads to doctrinal conflicts–something is wrong with the doctrine. Because we are going up the wrong path, clearly.
“You don’t abort a fetus; you abort a pregnancy.”
“… it’s not hair-splitting at all, but a fundamental reminder of how anti-choicers carefully craft language…”
What? Do I hear the pot calling the kettle black?
Yes, it is hair-splitting. And you are a hypocrite for “carefulling crafting language” yourself while complaining that your ideological opponents do the same.
Nick: If the placenta fails to deliver within a reasonable amount of time after the baby, that’s called “retained placenta” and must be dealt with, generally by an injection to stimulate uterine contractions or by manual removal (I’m not sure exactly what that entails, and I don’t want to know). In delivery or miscarriage, it’s quite possible for part of the placenta to stay up in there, which is why the doctor or midwife examines the placenta to make sure it’s complete - which would be simple if all placentas were nice big uncomplicated oval thingies, but there’s placentas with accessory lobes and such that complicate the process. I retained part of the placenta with my miscarriage, which resulted in bleeding for, as I recall, quite a while (couple of months at least, and that’s not spotting, but blood with clots), and that was treated with a D&C to get everything out.
Gad, I’m glad I’m done with the pregnancy thing.
Make up your mind; either birth control is highly effective, or it isn’t. You can’t castigate rightists for misrepresenting the effectiveness of birth control, and yet moan at me because I think birth control is the responsible defense against “accidents.” Unplanned pregnancies will occur regardless of protection, but the likelihood is much smaller when using one or more methods of birth control.
MT, you are indeed blowing hot air by saying that you feel superior to someone else, when that superior feeling, by your reckoning, shouldn’t actually dictate the law. Yea! You’re a step further than the misogynists trying to pass laws that will get women killed. But this dissembling here didn’t address the question–do you make mistakes? Do you feel other women are flawed human beings? Do you think that forgetting to use birth control is a crime that should be punishable by 9 months of enforced labor and the rearrangement of one’s body?
I’ve forgotten to take my birth control pill a time or two in my life. It happens. I mean, you’re perfect, obviously, but for us mere human beings, the occasional mistake is unavoidable. Maybe I got up, made my coffee, and on my way to the bathroom to adhere to my perfect birth control schedule as mandated by MT, my cat knocked over and broke a vase of flowers, creating a huge mess, that, while I was cleaning it up, made me forget my pill until 8 or 9 hours later when I got home. Is this because I’m a reckless, irresponsible mess of a human being who should be learned a lesson by having a child against my will, lest people like you who don’t know me from a hole in the wall don’t feel entitled to pass judgement on my reponsibility levels?
Well, obviously it’s just a hypothetical to you, because you’re one of those Ideal Women and you’d probably be able to telekinesis that vase back together in the time it took you to swallow your pill.
Wally, I know your skull is thick, but what I said was IT SEEMS LIKE HAIR-SPLITTING, BUT IT’S IMPORTANT. I didn’t accuse my enemies of hair-splitting. I accused them of deliberately skewing language away from what’s known as the “truth” in order to erase women’s personhood.
Aborting a pregnancy is the medical terminology. “Aborting a fetus” is dipshittery designed to make it seem like babies are born out of cabbage patches and women get abortions for no reason at all.
MT -
I can agree that birth is an arbitrary line. However, any line you would have drawn in this issue could be construed as arbitrary. After the blastocyst stage? Arbitrary. After implantation? Arbitrary. Before the fetal stage? Again, arbitrary. The point is that birth, once the being is removed from the woman’s body, is a perfectly reasonable standard.
Any other standard has the potential to have a slippier slope when it comes to law. Some women do not know they are pregnant until quickening, at roughly 20 weeks. Are you going to prosecute the woman for having too many cocktails or not getting help with her drug problem before she knows she is pregnant? What about a woman taking powerful antibiotics for a severe infection who then finds out that she has been pregnant for a few weeks? This is then involuntary manslaughter if the embryo/fetus aborts or child abuse if it develops medical complications.
The problem with this logic is that any standard of abortion along these lines has the possibility to be used for accidental (read negligent) as well as purposeful acts. Complicated, huh? That is why birth is such a clear standard - read Mark’s post above. Perfect, no, but better than all the other possibilities.
I’m going to have to line up with the majority on the most recent thread of discussion here. To my mind, birth is most definitely the bright line, and as has been pointed out by other posters, it involves a baby who is a physically autonomous entity, independent of the woman’s uterus and placenta. Hence adoption and so forth, because the biological mother doesn’t have to be the person taking care of the baby.
I’m also going to have to line up with the majority on the subject of ‘irresponsibility’, because:
a) it is extremely difficult to come to a fair judgment of an individual woman’s situation unless you’ve walked a mile in her shoes.
b) If a woman is irresponsible enough to not use birth control when she has the option to do so, do you really want to put her in charge of looking after a fetus for 9 months? There are some fairly horrific birth defects associated with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, for instance. If someone’s that flakey, I highly doubt they’re going to take their prenatal vitamins and cut out smoking/booze/drugs in order to preserve the health of a fetus they don’t even want to be carrying.
c) It’s none of our business. Her body, her call. The right to choose means that *all* women get that right, not just the white, middle-class, university-educated ones who can best articulate the reasoning behind their choice and make the rest of us feel better about it. And a woman shouldn’t have to justify herself to any third party, so said ability to articulate why she’s doing this is pretty much irrelevant.
Look, I am fully aware that there is a cognitive dissonance between my political beliefs and my personal discomfort with abortion. But while I disagree with MT on quite a few issues, I’d say we are both uncomfortable with abortion. And there are a lot of women in this world who are in a similar position. They want it to be legal, but they don’t *like* it, and they can have a hard time accepting arguments that totally bypass their discomfort.
I see abortion as a necessary evil. Maybe Katha Pollitt is right and me seeing it that way is a way of allowing patriarchy and anti-abortion activists to frame the discourse and falsely claim the moral high ground. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling that way. I think there has to be a way to constructively engage people who are on-side politically, but have some reservations. Because there are a lot of them out there, and they vote. Does that mean that people in this thread have to change their minds and agree with me? No, of course not. But I think we need to work on a way in which people who are politically pro-choice can be accepted and put to work (whether that work be volunteer work, financial donations, going to rallies, writing letters to the editor, whatever) even if their personal beliefs don’t align with their actions.
Garnet:
Personally, the only reason I think less of these mass-abortin’ strawwomen, as compared to actual women who sometimes need to have an abortion because precautions X, Y and Z have failed, is that they’re using up a far greater amount of finite medical resources than they should. I have no objection save the purely utilitiarian.
I have a problem with it for their sake. I’ve had surgery, and it’s not fun, folks. I mean, granted, a fetus isn’t going to affect your quality of life by its absence the way a terminal ileum or gall bladder does, because the default state of a woman is to have those organs but no fetus, but still, it’s surgery.
Of course, just as I wouldn’t outlaw surgery just because it’s a pain in the ass, I wouldn’t outlaw abortion, or even discourage a woman from getting one if she feels that would be best.
Of course, since these mythical abortion-loving super-sluts don’t exist, it’s not a call I have to make very often.
Well, yes, there is that.
Eh. It’s their body; if they want to subject it to a lot of unnecessary surgery, it’s not my business. I’d probably prefer, for their sake, that they didn’t, but pretty much in the same way that I’d prefer, say, that nobody smoke. It’d be better for them, yeah, but it’s not my lungs, not my teeth, not my hair, not my money… not, in short, my problem.
But again, there’s the whole not-existing thing.
But that doesn’t stop me from feeling that way. I think there has to be a way to constructively engage people who are on-side politically, but have some reservations. Because there are a lot of them out there, and they vote.
Raincity wrote:
I don’t know what more engagement committed anti-choicers need or have a right to expect. I’ve already explained multiple times that my taxes go to support their children and I’m not going to call for the spigot to be shut off no matter how many they have or how they’re raised. If that’s not good enough, too bad.
Let’s be honest, as well. Clinic workers are full of stories of anti-choice women who have availed themselves of legal abortion services. I’m sure that was the case with illegal abortion as well. In states where legal abortion is already impossible, you can bet that anti-choice women avail themselves of illegal services and that will continue when Roe gets trashed for good. So I don’t see why I should cater to another woman’s probable hypocrisy. Sure, she knows my abortion is WRONG but she’ll sit on the fence and reap the benefits of feminists’ hard work just in case she feels the eventual need to justify her own.
Boil away the bullshit and that’s what fence-sitters’ “reservations” amount to. Fuck it. Let them shit or get off the pot already. I’m sick of them having their cake and eating it too and then whining that it’s my fault because I won’t pretty-up my philosophy for them. Why should I ? It’s bad enough being a 2nd-Class citizen in this country. I have to compound my humiliation and disgust by lying for the sake of another citizen’s feelings now ?
And to hell with their “discomfort,” too. Just try being a woman with no maternal instinct whatsoever in a room full of mothers or aspiring mothers. I can tell you all about “discomfort,” Thanks. It’s part of being human. Live with it like the rest of us already.
MT,
I AM saying there is a moral dimension to abortion that doesn’t exist for (other) forms of birth control. I AM saying it’s a radical action. And I AM saying I believe it’s also a wrong action.
Abortion (terminates a pregnancy) is not a form of birth control (prevents a pregnancy). If your contention is that, in the U.S., abortion is, indeed, used as a method of birth control (like, for example, in Japan), then please provide some evidence for that.
In the context of our discussion, what is radical? Or, more to the point, given that pregnancy is associated with higher morbidity and mortality vs. termination, why are you saying abortion is a radical action?
NK,
That is, can you go through nine months of pregnancy and give birth to a healthy live baby (the pinnacle of what the pro-life crowd want for you) and STILL need a D&C because the placenta didn’t deliver properly? ISTR this was given as a reason for the syntometrine injection, but I could be mistaken.
Yes. Contrary to the free-floating “preborn” fantasy belief of some people, there’s more to a delivery than just expelling a fetus. The delivery isn’t complete until the placenta delivers (and the uterus contracts).
Briefly, if all goes well, the placenta separates from the uterus [there’s a special plane of cleavage] and delivers in toto. Sometimes there’s a bit of a problem, and you need to “help” the separation along–manual removal. [With apologies to Ledasmom for the description, you insert your fingers and gently push along the plane of separation.] Other times, there’s a big problem–parts of the placenta are retained/there’s no separation plane (that’s bordering on catastrophic, depending on the degree of placental penetration in the surrounding tissue–partly into the uterine wall; the entire thickness of the wall; into adjacent organs like the bladder; etc.). That’s when you need to do a D&C (or remove the uterus entirely).
MT,
And he’s right: birth is an artificial line. Infants aren’t self-aware. If killing a fetus isn’t wrong, killing an infant isn’t terribly wrong either.
Ah, to be a philosopher! Birth could not be a more real line–in the “birth is the one essential act needed to enable breathing” sense.
I understand that the baby is no longer a physiological drain on the mother after birth, thus distinguishing it from a fetus, but if she chooses to raise the child, it’s still going to be wholly dependent on her for many months after it’s born.
It’s not a question of the fetus being a physiological drain. A fetus in utero does not, and cannot, breath/circulate blood/etc. [you know, the basic metabolic functions required for life]. It only acquires those functions after delivery/clamping of the cord (lungs expanded, etc.). The distinguishing characteristic is not having a capability (fetus) vs. having it (neonate), even if dependent on a caretaker, or ventilator.
MF,
And especially with modern medical technology, the birth process could be accelerated or the fetus surgically removed and kept alive, so if society is willing to spend the money and take a chance (and put the woman through what may or may not be worse than a later birth experience would be) the fetus’s dependence on that particular woman can be ended.
I have a bone to pick with this idea of “as soon as technology permits, we convene a committee, take a vote, strap the pregnant woman to the OR table, yank the fetus out and plop it in an incubator, and, voila, problem solved”. First, surgical delivery is major abdominal surgery. [Even induction of labor leading to a vaginal delivery isn’t a walk in the park.] Second, it’s an incredible double standard. Performing any procedure (C/S, induction) on a pregnant woman who is carrying the pregnancy to term without her consent, even in the face of fetal distress, or imminent demise, is considered assault. But the second we have a pregnant woman who doesn’t want to continue the pregnancy, poof, society is entitled to cut her up any way it wish? Good to know.
MT,
I pushed it back to the only point that isn’t artificial: implantation.
First, define “artificial”. Second, explain why implantation isn’t artificial.
Ugh, “any way it wishes”.
But again, there’s the whole not-existing thing
Me, I’ve always agreed with Charles Hartshorne, who said:
“I may be told that if I value my life I must be glad that I was not aborted in the fetus state. Yes, I am glad, but this expression does not constitute a claim to having already had a “right,â€Â? against which no other right could prevail, to the life I have enjoyed. I feel no indignation or horror at contemplating the idea the world might have had to do without me. The world could have managed, and as for what I would have missed, there would have been no such “Iâ€Â? to miss it.”
(Throws roses at alsis’s feet)
I pushed it back to the only point that isn’t artificial: implantation.
Whoops, good catch Ema; I missed this little bit of nonsense. And no, MT, implantation is no less artificial than fertilisation or the third trimester or the first kick or whatever. The only natural line at which the fetus has a legitimate and near-total right to life is once it’s outside the mother and capable of supporting itself, in as much as an infant can.
All right, hang on. MT has still not defined “responsible birth control”, whether you ought to be able to get an abortion if you used it and still got pregnant, and how you manage to prove afterwards that you not only used it, but used it correctly.
I don’t think we ought to go any further with the “perfect/not-perfect” business till we have some definitions and procedures clear.
[…] Ok, I shouldn’t even read the various feminist blogs because I know I’ll end up finding some incredibly annoying link that will make me all ranty. Here are a few of my recent (non-) favorites. I haven’t the strength to even comment on them right now; narrowly escaped a migraine today as it is. […]
[…] You know reading things like this does even surprise me anymore. You can also read some of a different story which references the first one here. People like to ignore these issues because they would like to believe everything is going to be fine and they won’t really take our rights away, but that isn’t true. They are taking our rights away. They will continue to do so until enough people stand up for what they believe in. What is going to happen when the rights of women and gays have been destructed and we have no where else to go? I know a lot of people who used to look to Canada as their safe haven in case things in America get worse, but with their newly elected conservative President it looks like our options are getting slimmer. […]
Abortion is murder . Plain and simple . It’s a fact . It is disgusting how little value some Americans put on the life of an unborn child .
Your probably an animal rights activist too , right ?
There is crime committed against my wife and I need full investigation.
But I do not where to go and how to start.
My wife lost both kidneys after her second childbirth.
She was very healthy woman but the last 2 weeks of her pregnancy she started swelling and sudden gain in weight, her worsening elevation of blood pressure 192/117, headache and blurring of vision. so I rushed her to Rose Hospital in Colorado there they called her OB/GYN doctor, they told her that her doctor will see her at the clinic after 2 days and discharge her.
she went to the clinic and told the doctor that she gain 7 pounds and she suffer of blurry vision, headache and she feel sleepy all time and we have video tape of her that date showing her swelling bad but the doctor insist to deliver her 5 days later do not know why ?
On February 14 2003 she went to Rose Hospital and there right after the delivery she suffered heavy bleeding vomiting and horrible abdominal pain can you imagine you are in this condition for full 8 hours and she is screaming and the resident doctor think it is normal after delivery by the morning because the delayed decision for treatment her kidney failed.
She was at the ICU for 24 days laying in the hospital bed with all this tubes and machines connected to her she was unable to see or hold her daughter like any other mom and her dream was shuttered, she is a disable for the rest of her life.
We hired a lawyer that he said he is a doctor and did work there and we have great case I found out later that we are the first case for him and he is new lawyer
Every few weeks he says that he is building strong case… Guess what few weeks before the statue of limitation ends he said I’m sorry I can not take this case.
Now my wife is disable the rest of her life on dialyzes 3 times a week, her kids now help her instead of her helping them, medical bills and house went foreclosed because I lost my job due this circumstance.
We need your advice we do not know how the system works that is why they toke advantage on us if you know where to start to punish this doctor please guide us.
We do not want to see another victim like my wife.