Welcome to Rampaging PMS! Play nice or get tossed. Simple!
The neo-cons do not care. Their loved one's will always be afforded what they need. Even though this post made me cry, thanks for posting it. I'm sure Barbara Bush would not want us to "waste our beautiful minds" on this post. But, they had no problem making sure little Georgie's girl friend got an abortion. Two words: Two America's!
Amazing post. Thanks.
I am in 100% agreement with you.
I had a thought, however, as I was reading your post, and I don't think there's any way to answer this definitively, really, but here it is, for what it's worth. Do you think there might be a higher demand for adoption now, simply as a function of women who are waiting until later ages to begin mothering? When the vast majority of women were getting married and starting families in their early 20s, there would have been fewer fertility problems, and ergo less interest in adoption as an option.
Shrug. Just something that occurred to me. I still don't think it has anything to do with keeping abortion legal, though. 
My mother is a nurse who used to work in one of those wards. She's often told younger women who think of themselves as "pro-life" that if they had ever seen a septic abortion they'd change their minds damn quick.
Great post. Only one thing, you kept using the phrase "anti-abortion," and I think that is incorrect phrasing. They are "anti-choice."
Scott:
I see your point, but if you call them anti-choicers (I've done it before), they say, well, she had the choice about opening her legs. This is how they really think. Anti-Abortionist is like nails on a chalkboard to them, for some reason. Calling them MURDERERS (I'm guilty of that one too!) really pisses 'em off.
Shakes (I abbreviate everyone's name--laziness):
I'd say that there are multiple causes for the abortion demand. Certainly yours is a valid one to make; I do believe, though, that the reason women waited later was because they could, thanks to the pill and abortion.
Availability of adooptable children had sunk by 1973, thanks to the pill. But Roe made the numbers plummet even more. I'd love to see some of the data (if it's even out there) of the ratio of born babies to adopted babies (and age ranges of women) for the milestones since the late 50s: pre-birth control pill, the advent of the pill, Griswold, legalization of abortion in states like CA & NY, then Roe and its aftermath. Some women's studies major has surely written a dissertation on it?
As you can tell, I'm not a scholar, so maybe I'm on the wrong path here.
Green:
Oh, honey, I know what you're saying. My mother did her nurse's training at a big-city hospital. She saw them all, and was holding onto their hands while they begged for someone to help them as they felt their lives slipping away. Mumsie hardly ever cries about her patients, but she will still get teary-eyed over the women who died in septic wards, or were scarred for life. Because they didn't have to die or suffer. Not a single one of them.
Every "family" and religious issue I see these right-wingers talk about, whether it's abortion, marriage (for procreation only), social security privatization (take away their money), the right to unionize (take away their power), goes back to the underlying premise you brought up: to control women, specifically their sexual behavior. They are very good at disguising this sanctimony(witness the Terry Schiavo debacle) as righteousness. It is at heart an issue of the freedom of religion, and the freedom from religion.
Sarah:
I'll channel a Republican for you:
"Pesky commoners! They're cutting into my profits by demanding decent wages! Yeah, I don't have to be so greedy, but I am. And I could get profits through honorable means like making great products or providing great services that will sell themselves. But that takes work, and that's what commoners are for. No, it's easier to get more profits with cheap labor, but I can't get cheap labor without having those uppity women crank out the babies to flood the workforce and drive down wages. Ergo: Take away abortion, take away birth control. Plenty of people scrambling for any kind of job, at whatever wage I'll pay them. Plus more consumers to buy/use my product/services. And you know what that means for me: Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!"
Somebody tell me I'm wrong?
May I remind you that the horror you describe is going on right now. In African states where American development aid is withheld from family planning clinics that don't comply with the gag order not to mention abortion? The backstreet abortionists are having a field day in those places. Of course the so called 'pro-life' movement is anything but.
Yes, that is going on over there, and I sympathize with their plight. We're doing what we can, but we have enough of a battle hanging onto what we already have.
It all starts here. If we can't stop them here, we can't stop them anywhere.
There's one more simple thing that could be done to reduce the number of abortions, if the pro-lifers really wanted to do that: give every single woman some Plan Bs or Prevens to keep in her pocket. If every female had them with her to take after unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancy rates would drop tremendously--some scientists estimate by 50%. Recent research shows that Plan B prevents fertilization, not implantation--so the pro-lifers arguments that it's just another form of abortion are completely bogus. Right now, here in Wisconsin, the UW health services made plan B available to students before spring break. In response, the republican legislators are forbidding UW from prescribing ANY contraception.
I agree with most of that post, but like most such posts it doesn't really address the crux of the anti-abortion (or anti-choice, if you prefer) position -- which is that abortion should be banned on principle, whether it leads to good or bad results. The anti-abortion argument isn't basically a utilitarian one; it doesn't say, we need to ban abortion because it will improve people's lives. The position is that people should not be allowed to have an abortion because the fetus is a person with human rights that can't be violated, period. All the arguments you can make about the bad effects of banning abortion are as pointless, from this point of view, as arguing that we could solve people's money problems by legalizing bank robbery: you just can't do that, even if it helps.
So from a strict anti-abortion point of view, every argument in that post can simply be answered by saying: the fetus is a separate human body and it has its own human rights that the law must protect no matter what. (Or as an anti-abortion acquaintance of mine used to put it: "Her baby's body ain't hers.") I don't think this is really a particularly popular view, but it's an influential one and in some ways even an understandable one, in the sense that we all have some fundamental, core principles that we feel a society must follow even if it has some ill effects.
In other words, from this point of view, the point is not about utility -- about reducing the number of abortions -- but about showing that it's something that is unacceptable. You make things illegal partly to make them less common, but also partly (perhaps even more) to say that this is one of those things that is such a violation of someone else's rights that we as a society will not tolerate it. The big issue with abortion is whether it should be one of those things. So a person who is ideologically anti-abortion would say, "no, Gerri didn't deserve a safe, legal abortion, because abortion is taking a human life and she had no right to do that even if it produces good effects."
Now, the obvious irony is that the people who are against abortion also tend to be in favor of things like the war in Iraq, where the argument is that it's OK to kill a lot of people if it produces good effects. But that does sort of prove the point: it's not all about instrumentalism and utilitarianism. Some things (like killing people) are just wrong because they're wrong, not because they produce bad outcomes in the long run. And that means that discussion of abortion should also say a little something about why, exactly, a fetus doesn't have the same rights we have (I don't think it does, but someone who thinks so is not going to be swayed by utilitarian arguments).
MW:
Go take a reality pill. Really.
1) A potential life is not a life.
2) Abortion will never go away, no matter how many laws are written against it. Men humping each other (or women doing the same) won't go away. Greed won't go away. You deal with them all as best you can without having the laws hurt people unnecessarily. You agree what about each is and isn't acceptable, weighing the needs of society against the needs of individuals.
>1) A potential life is not a life.
I agree with this. But anti-abortion people don't, is the point. Thus from their point of view abortion must be outlawed because it is the taking of a human life.
> 2) Abortion will never go away, no > matter how many laws are written
> against it.
True, but we outlaw all sorts of things that will never go away. The point of outlawing something is not just to deal with it or to control it, but to say that we as a society find it unacceptable. The real argument over abortion is over whether it is one of those things, not whether it will ever go away (it won't, but that's not in itself proof that it shouldn't be outlawed).
I agree with this. But anti-abortion people don't, is the point. Thus from their point of view abortion must be outlawed because it is the taking of a human life.
Being wrong doesn't mean you get to be accommodated.
True, but we outlaw all sorts of things that will never go away.
The difference with outlawing abortion is that it kills and maims women when you do it, and it adds unwanted children to an already overpopulated planet. Unless you believe these things are unacceptable, then we really have nothing further to discuss.
"The difference with outlawing abortion is that it kills and maims women when you do it, and it adds unwanted children to an already overpopulated planet. Unless you believe these things are unacceptable, then we really have nothing further to discuss."
Well, again, to someone who believes that abortion is the taking of a human life, then those things are, if not "acceptable," at least better than the alternative, which is the state sanctioning of killing human beings. (There are negative and even horrifying consequences to outlawing all sorts of things, yet we do it because the alternative is worse.)
The point is that if you won't even address the question of why abortion is not the taking of a human life, then you're essentially giving up on the argument. A pro-lifer/anti-abortionist/anti-choicer (pick one) reads your post and others like them and sees it as arguing for the killing of human beings for the sake of things that, while they are bad, aren't as bad as the killing of human beings. If you're not interested in seriously explaining why abortion [i]isn't[/i] killing (apart from just baldly asserting that "a potential life is not a life," which ducks about 900 questions about when a potential life becomes a life and when we acquire our human rights), then you might as well be writing gadfjaklj sdaljfldsajf dsalfjl.
You are the first to talk about how it would feel to be Gerri's family. No one has ever brought up how her mother must feel, actually how she must have felt. My grandmother passed away in the early 1970s so she no longer lives with the horror. There are quite a few of us who still do, though. I am Gerri's younger daughter and believe me, the memories of my mom's death are still vivid today - for my older sister, my aunt, my uncles, my cousins and for me. I think about her every day and will fight to keep women safe for the rest of my life. Five of us were at the March for Women's Lives in DC last April including my older daughter, who never got to meet her Grandmother. I have two other children who also never knew my mom. The toal devastation just isn't talked about much. There were two lives lost and so many permanently altered. I don't know if you'll ever read this as it's been a while since the last message was posted, but, if by chance you do, just know that your sensitivity and willingness to speak out is appreciated.
Joannie:
Thank you for your kind words, and please accept my condolences for all the heartache you have known. What I wouldn't give for you never to have known it...
I've posted a longer response to you in another thread, which you can find here, along with some additional remarks. As I said there, please feel free to stop by there, and comment if you like. I, for one, want to hear you.
So from a strict anti-abortion point of view, every argument in that post can simply be answered by saying: the fetus is a separate human body and it has its own human rights that the law must protect no matter what.
But even if you grant that a fetus is a separate human body, what gives that fetus a right to feed off of my equally human body?
I don't have a right to eat. If I'm out of a job and have no money and it's get food now or die, I still don't have a right to demand that anyone give me food that the law must protect. If I shoplift an energy bar to keep myself alive, the law doesn't protect me, it prosecutes me, and it will do that even if I'm pregnant and the life that's being saved isn't just mine, it's a fetus's.
So why th f*ck does a fetus have a special right to my body that I don't have to anybody else? Or that it doesn't have to anybody else through me but, according to the pro-birthers, me?
Never mind, I know the answer. It's because that fetus is "innocent" and I am "guilty." That's about as unsound, both theologically and biologically, as they come, but still, they judge.
I love to approach the abortion protesters. I always ask them a few questions.
How many children to you have?
How many of your children are adopted?
How many of your children are special needs?
How many of your children were born drug or alcohol addicted.
I have yet to find one who has adopted a child (let alone a special needs or drug/alcohol addicted baby).
Those orphanages you speak of.... well, they aren't doing a good job of clearning them now are they? A fellow blogger has gone through her sixth home study and is begging her social worker to finalize her paperwork (there is absolutely no reason for it not being done - just that she doesn't feel like it) so that she can foster and possible adopt a few children in desperate need of a family.
Abortion is necessary and must remain safe and legal.
I remember reading this story on Ms. a few years back and I was so saddened. (It motivated me to begin my crusade with vigor and passionate determination thought.)
Sure it's been legal ever since I've been alive and so far we haven't known that experience, but it was heartbreaking to read that story bc I could only wonder about her children (then and now), how her mother felt....agh.
A Nut:
And yet Joannie says that so few have asked what that was like for her, or the rest of her family. It just breaks my heart that people don't understand how many lives illegal abortion affected (and still does). Her saying that still brings tears to my eyes.
Actually (and trust me, I don't say this from any pro-life/anti-abortion/anti-choice (insert your own politically incorrect label here) viewpoint) my aunt has adopted two babies. She is anti-abortion and actually called me on the phone when I was pregnant out of wedlock to tell me she'd personally shoot me if I even thought about having an abortion (charming, auntie, I love you too, bitch) (as a further aside, I miscarried that pregnancy).
One of her adopted daughters (she has 3 birth children as well) is a very talented figure skater. The other is a Downs Syndrome baby who had been rejected for adoption by several other couples.
While I don't like my aunt and don't speak to her if I can help it... she does put her money where her mouth is.
I can respect that. However, most of them don't do this. If most people had done that, say, in the 50s, no kid would have been in an orphanage. But orphanages were all too real, and all too full. And they will be again.
What's sad is that overcrowded orphanages will only matter because these very people will get mad about how much more MONEY it costs to raise a child on the state's dime than it is to let a woman have an abortion.
People like that make me sick.
Joining this conversation really late- but I'm wondering if you have seen the documentary about this specific case. Following links, I found your great post and it reminded me of the film I saw years ago. I'm searching for the title/distribution info-
Thanks.
You bloody legend. I agree completely with everything you said.
Please. Gerry should have had respect for herself and she wouldn't have had this happen.
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