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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Cleft lip and palate a good reason? (Abortion)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
And I agree with Scot, too.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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St. Cuervo
Son of a Son of a Sailor
# 4725
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Gee, Saint C, I quoted the Declaration twice. I guess I've become invisible again.
I pray, madame, that you pardon your humble servant St. Cuervo for this slight. It was a merely a cross-post. When I started typing, Erin was the only person who had responded to Sarkycow.
I write some of my posts at work and, as such, from time-to-time I have to go render unto Caesar. So it can take me some time to complete posts. That is what happened in this case.
My apologies. You are not invisible nor are you the only one who chokes up at those lines.
St. C.
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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked... angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...
Posts: 295 | From: Falls Church, VA | Registered: Jul 2003
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Moth
Shipmate
# 2589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
This thread is the first discussion of abortion that I've participated in for years. Still, I've been listening all that time. Based on what I've heard, I've come to a number of conclusions: There are well-intentioned, compassionate people on both sides of the debate There are raging nutjobs on both sides too. Whichever side wins, some people will be hurt badly. There is no single answer that fits every possible situation. There really are gray areas.
For those reasons and more, I can't tell someone else what decisions he or she should make on this issue.
Good grief, Scot, we agree on something! (Where's a 'knock me down with a feather' smiley when you want one?)
One of the sad things about this debate is the existence of the 'raging nutjobs' on either side. How anyone can think it morally justifiable to kill an existing human being in the name of being pro-life baffles me. How anyone can regard abortion as merely an alternative method of contraception baffles me too.
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"There are governments that burn books, and then there are those that sell the libraries and shut the universities to anyone who can't pay for a key." Laurie Penny.
Posts: 3446 | From: England | Registered: Apr 2002
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarkycow:
So that strikes out capital punishment, as well as suicide.
Yes it does.
[ 05. December 2003, 08:14: Message edited by: Divine Outlaw-Dwarf ]
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insert amusing sig. here
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Nightlamp
Shipmate
# 266
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Posted
When does the bill of rights apply to a child?
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I don't know what you are talking about so it couldn't have been that important- Nightlamp
Posts: 8442 | From: Midlands | Registered: May 2001
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St. Cuervo
Son of a Son of a Sailor
# 4725
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
quote:
Destroying part of your body in this manner is not normal healthy behavior.
It is, when it's destroying you and it's you or it. Go back and read the thoughtful article which Laura posted.
I once read someone who described an unwanted pregnancy as like being an animal caught in a trap, prepared to gnaw its own leg off to escape.
Having had an unwanted pregnancy scare I can understand that feeling.
L
I must have read the same thing you did because I, too, recall someone describe choosing to have an abortion when being faced with an unwanted pregnancy with being an animal caught in a trap, prepared to gnaw its own leg off to escape.
That description has stuck with me and I think of it often. Indeed I was thinking about it when I wrote some of my earlier posts.
I might get called to hell for what follows but, so be it.
There is something seriously wrong when I write (referring to a fetus), "destroying part of your body in this manner is not normal healthy behavior" and you respond with "it is, when it's destroying you and it's you or it."
Good Christ Louise, a fetus is not destroying its mother! Only in extremely rare circumstances would a mother have to make a choice between her life and carrying a fetus to term. (And here it is important to note that 99% of all anti-abortion folks would allow an abortion if the mother's life were threatened in this manner.)
I don't understand what worldview would cause someone to see the fetus as a being that is "destroying" its mother's life.
This is why one of my earlier musings was on abortion and alcoholics/suicidal teens. When an alcoholic, for example, has decided that he wants to destroy his body (like a beast caught in the trap of life gnawing its foot off): how do we react?
We try to get help for him!
We talk to him or pray for him or refer him to AA or therapy or put him on anti-depressants or send him to a hospital or even to jail, but we don't let such a person destroy his body! We recoginze that something is going seriously wrong with his psyche that is leading him to want to destroy his body and we try to help.
Why is abortion so different?
In both cases a person wants to destroy part of their body. In both cases a person feels that their life is threatened unless this destructive act is carried out. Both cases disproportionately affect minority communities.
Yet "abortion" is a right and alcholism is a "disease."
I think women who want an abortion don't need more laws thrown at them, but they do need help. It is clear, when motherhood is compared to being an animal caught in a trap, that they are not getting that help. Whether it is your right or not, no one in a healthy state of mind would want to destroy part of their own body.
St. C.
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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked... angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...
Posts: 295 | From: Falls Church, VA | Registered: Jul 2003
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Rat
Ship's Rat
# 3373
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
I don't generally appreciate having other people make my moral decisions for me and I try not to make theirs for them.
[...]
There are well-intentioned, compassionate people on both sides of the debate There are raging nutjobs on both sides too. Whichever side wins, some people will be hurt badly. There is no single answer that fits every possible situation. There really are gray areas.
For those reasons and more, I can't tell someone else what decisions he or she should make on this issue.
Scot has said succinctly what I've been flailing about hopelessly trying to formulate for days.
(Don't you just hate it when people do that?)
Thanks Scot.
Rat
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It's a matter of food and available blood. If motherhood is sacred, put your money where your mouth is. Only then can you expect the coming down to the wrecked & shimmering earth of that miracle you sing about. [Margaret Atwood]
Posts: 5285 | From: A dour region for dour folk | Registered: Oct 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by St. Cuervo:
<snipped out bits I'm not replying to>
Good Christ Louise, a fetus is not destroying its mother! Only in extremely rare circumstances would a mother have to make a choice between her life and carrying a fetus to term. (And here it is important to note that 99% of all anti-abortion folks would allow an abortion if the mother's life were threatened in this manner.)
I don't understand what worldview would cause someone to see the fetus as a being that is "destroying" its mother's life.
The fetus is not literally killing the mother, but it would destroy her lifestyle. No more parties. No more drink or smoking. No more unhealthy-but-fun foods. No more fitting into a size 6. Having to give up her job to look after the sprog, or fork out a fortune on childcare. That might not be a serious enough issue for you, and that's your choice, but to some people it is.
The fetus is (in such cases) violating the mother's Right To The Pursuit Of Happiness. And will be for at least the next 16 years. Adoption opens a whole 'nother emotional can of worms.
Understand yet?
[typo]
[ 05. December 2003, 10:34: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Hel
Shipmate
# 5248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by St. Cuervo:
<snipped out bits I'm not replying to>
Good Christ Louise, a fetus is not destroying its mother! Only in extremely rare circumstances would a mother have to make a choice between her life and carrying a fetus to term. (And here it is important to note that 99% of all anti-abortion folks would allow an abortion if the mother's life were threatened in this manner.)
I don't understand what worldview would cause someone to see the fetus as a being that is "destroying" its mother's life.
The fetus is not literally killing the mother, but it would destroy her lifestyle. No more parties. No more drink or smoking. No more unhealthy-but-fun foods. No more fitting into a size 6. Having to give up her job to look after the sprog, or fork out a fortune on childcare. That might not be a serious enough issue for you, and that's your choice, but to some people it is.
The fetus is (in such cases) violating the mother's Right To The Pursuit Of Happiness. And will be for at least the next 16 years. Adoption opens a whole 'nother emotional can of worms.
Understand yet?
[typo]
I don't think any of us has the right to medical intervention to pursue the lifestyle of our choice surely?
Posts: 667 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Nov 2003
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The fetus is (in such cases) violating the mother's Right To The Pursuit Of Happiness. And will be for at least the next 16 years. Adoption opens a whole 'nother emotional can of worms.
Understand yet?
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Let's say, for instance, that I really really can't stand you. At all. The thought that you are still alive just sends me round the bend. Is your presence on this planet violating my right to the pursuit of happiness? Can I terminate YOU with a pair of scissors and a vacuum cleaner extension to the back of your brain in that case?
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Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The fetus is (in such cases) violating the mother's Right To The Pursuit Of Happiness. And will be for at least the next 16 years. Adoption opens a whole 'nother emotional can of worms.
Understand yet?
Let's say, for instance, that I really really can't stand you. At all. The thought that you are still alive just sends me round the bend. Is your presence on this planet violating my right to the pursuit of happiness? Can I terminate YOU with a pair of scissors and a vacuum cleaner extension to the back of your brain in that case?
I sincerely hope not ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif) ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Of course, my mere prescence on the same planet doesn't force you to pursue a completely different lifestyle to the one you would freely choose.
Is this getting back to the question of whose rights have priority? Does a foetus' right to life (if indeed rights apply to the unborn - have we established that yet?) outweigh the mother's right to the pursuit of happiness?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Sorry to DP, but:
quote:
Originally posted by Hel:
I don't think any of us has the right to medical intervention to pursue the lifestyle of our choice surely?
Gender reassignment?
Plastic surgery?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
No more parties. No more drink or smoking. No more unhealthy-but-fun foods. No more fitting into a size 6. Having to give up her job to look after the sprog, or fork out a fortune on childcare.
Or - as in the case of a nice married woman I knew - no more happy family, no more contented children with a loving father in the home. You see the wholesome, fine, Christian mother went on vacation with her sister and, due to drink and that "out of time" feeling we sometimes have on holiday; she slipped and slept with another man, one of a different race. Her children were old enough to recognize pregnancy and ask questions so adoption was out. Her husband would have known from the first that the baby wasn't his and a good loving marriage would have blown-up. Some would say that she danced so she should pay the piper but in this case a whole family would have paid a very heavy price for one slip.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sasha:
You see the wholesome, fine, Christian mother went on vacation with her sister and, due to drink and that "out of time" feeling we sometimes have on holiday; she slipped and slept with another man, one of a different race.
Which was entirely her fault. IMO she has the right to abort (early), but the whole messy situation was one for which she was morally culpable.
[Edited for UBB. Is that what you wanted DOD?]
[ 05. December 2003, 13:29: Message edited by: Tortuf ]
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insert amusing sig. here
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Ophelia's Opera Therapist
Shipmate
# 4081
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Posted
I think that Marvin and Sasha have both suggested cases worth considering. Let me add another hypothetical case, which I stress is not based on a young woman I know.
Lisa is 15. She has come from a very difficult and abusive background and is now living in a local authority home for young people. Despite some struggles she is still attending a mainstream school and looking to do well in her GCSEs and hoping to go on to college and eventually become a teacher. She has aptitudes towards teaching and is very patient with younger pupils.
One Friday night she is out with some friends and they get into a club for over 18s, being dressed up nicely and by flirting with the bouncer. They have a good time and are drinking and mixing with some older lads. One of them pays a lot of attention to Lisa and she thinks he might want to be her boyfriend. He's a lot more fun than the lads her age anyway. Another of Lisa's friends gets dancing with one of his friends and they are both invited to go back to the friend's flat. Fueled up by the drink and the excitement, and knowing they have each other, they go.
Back in the flat things get a bit heavy. Lisa is having a good time but doesn't think she wants to sleep with Tom just yet. Tom's mate is offering more alcohol and some kind of drugs. Lisa's too drunk to think straight and she takes the speed. Tom seems more and more attractive and he obviously wants to have sex. She could say no but she really doesn't want to and she can't remember if he had a condom or not.
The following morning while walking home Lisa is picked up by the police as the home have reported her missing. She's feeling a bit woozy and embarrassed and doesn't say much to the staff where she lives. She just wants to forget about it.
A few weeks later her period is late and she's afraid she might be pregnant. She's found out that Tom is a pretty dodgy character who often supplies drugs and she doesn't want to see him again, let alone have his child. She talks to her friend and eventually to a friendly member of staff. They get a pregnancy test and it is positive.
She doesn't want to have a child yet - her own experiences growing up have always made her swear she's never having children. She was all set to do her GCSEs in the summer and go to college and become a teacher. She knows that teacher training is very intense and would be difficult to manage around childcare. She doesn't want a child not to have a dad, and she knows Tom would not be a good dad. She couldn't stay on in the home with a baby and she was hoping to stay on there through college as she likes the staff and feels at home.
She doesn't really want to have an abortion but she doesn't know what to do.
What would you suggest?
OOT
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Though the bleak sky is burdened I'll pray anyway,
And though irony's drained me I'll now try sincere,
And whoever it was that brought me here
Will have to take me home. Martyn Joseph
Posts: 979 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Feb 2003
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Divine Outlaw Dwarf: I agree, the woman I knew was morally culpable. She knew that quite well, and she absolutely exhausted me and her priest with her remorse over this.
I'm just pointing out that an unplanned pregnancy can wreck the "lifestyle" of an entire family and not just the vain partygirl of the other scenario.
[ 05. December 2003, 12:59: Message edited by: Sasha ]
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
Granted. Actually I thought the 'partygirl' scenario was a little bit glib.
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insert amusing sig. here
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf:
Granted. Actually I thought the 'partygirl' scenario was a little bit glib.
In the sense that the lifestyle example I gave was the first that came into my head, fair assessment. I don't know anybody who has had an abortion, so I'm working around this subject theoretically.
Don't for one second think I'm not asking these questions in all seriousness though.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't know anybody who has had an abortion, so I'm working around this subject theoretically.
Actually, you probably do. As it isn't just sad lot poor folks and party girls who have had them, and people tend not to publicize that they've had one, even to their closest friends.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't know anybody who has had an abortion
I don't believe you.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Oh, and the majority of abortions are to women over the age of 20 in long-term partnerships.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sasha:
Divine Outlaw Dwarf: I agree, the woman I knew was morally culpable. She knew that quite well, and she absolutely exhausted me and her priest with her remorse over this.
I'm just pointing out that an unplanned pregnancy can wreck the "lifestyle" of an entire family and not just the vain partygirl of the other scenario.
Yeah, and? Again, another unborn child has to pay the price of his mother's inability to keep her legs shut.
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Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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Ophelia's Opera Therapist
Shipmate
# 4081
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Posted
Do you not have a more considered opinion on the balance of rights and welfare of the woman, her husband and children in opposition with those of the unborn child, Erin?
Or on my example of another stupid didn't keep her legs crossed teenager?
OOT
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Though the bleak sky is burdened I'll pray anyway,
And though irony's drained me I'll now try sincere,
And whoever it was that brought me here
Will have to take me home. Martyn Joseph
Posts: 979 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Feb 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I don't know anybody who has had an abortion
I don't believe you.
Either:
1)- You're calling me a liar.
2)- You think someone I know has had an abortion but I don't know about it.
I'll assume 2), but for the purposes of the post in which I said that it's all the same anyway. I don't know about any abortions (unless you count the morning after pill), so I can't speak from any personal standpoint relating to me or my friends. Thus this whole discussion is hypothetical for me.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sarkycow
La belle Dame sans merci
# 1012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by St. Cuervo:
When an alcoholic, for example, has decided that he wants to destroy his body (like a beast caught in the trap of life gnawing its foot off): how do we react?
We try to get help for him!
We talk to him or pray for him or refer him to AA or therapy or put him on anti-depressants or send him to a hospital or even to jail, but we don't let such a person destroy his body! We recoginze that something is going seriously wrong with his psyche that is leading him to want to destroy his body and we try to help.
(Bold mine)
First bold statement:
Amen, that's the first sensible thing you've said all thread! We try to get help for them. Which is exactly what we should do for pregnant women, considering having an abortion - get them help. Help as in support, care, compassion, knowledge, help to weigh up consequences, help to do what they want (cause, you know, they're the ones who get to live with the consequences), etc.
Second bold statement:
Actually, we do allow an alcohlic to destroy his body. Sure, you can talk to them, reason with them, love them, pray for them, etc, but it's their choice. You can be with them and try to effect a change of heart (but probably fail), or you can walk away for whatever reason*. What you cannot do is force them not to destroy their body.
It's their choice.
Oh, now where have I heard that before?
Sarkycow
*Am not condemning those who walk away. Promise.
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“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
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The Undiscovered Country
Shipmate
# 4811
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by St. Cuervo:
<snipped out bits I'm not replying to>
Good Christ Louise, a fetus is not destroying its mother! Only in extremely rare circumstances would a mother have to make a choice between her life and carrying a fetus to term. (And here it is important to note that 99% of all anti-abortion folks would allow an abortion if the mother's life were threatened in this manner.)
I don't understand what worldview would cause someone to see the fetus as a being that is "destroying" its mother's life.
The fetus is not literally killing the mother, but it would destroy her lifestyle. No more parties. No more drink or smoking. No more unhealthy-but-fun foods. No more fitting into a size 6. Having to give up her job to look after the sprog, or fork out a fortune on childcare. That might not be a serious enough issue for you, and that's your choice, but to some people it is.
The fetus is (in such cases) violating the mother's Right To The Pursuit Of Happiness. And will be for at least the next 16 years. Adoption opens a whole 'nother emotional can of worms.
Understand yet?
[typo]
And that is nub of the problem of how the Abortion Act is interpeted now compared to how even though supporting the legislation's passage claimed-and in many cases genuinely thought-it would work. David Steel, the MP who led the Abortion Act's passage through Parliament basically argued at the tme that it was for a samll number of difficult cases.
However over the years doctors have interpeted serious threat to the mother as meaning anything that caused inconveinence or disruption to her lifestyle.
I think it also comes from a middle-class misperception of poverty so that many doctors have assumed that any mother on Income Support must be in danger of committing suicide if they have to bring up an extra child. Whereas the reality is, whilst I would be no means claim that living on Income Support is easy (and yes it is something I've been through myself), thousands of families do so.
There is a big difference between stress at the prospect of being pregnant and genuinely being at the point of suicide from it. The latter situation is what those behind the Abortion Act had in mind. The former situation needs counselling and practical support wheras too often all that is offered is abortion.
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all hope of progress rests with the unreasonable man.
Posts: 1216 | From: Belfast | Registered: Aug 2003
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
To counter the life versus lifestyle argument:
Think about those boatloads of refugees. They're willing to risk their lives in many cases, for what? It's just a change in lifestyle they're looking for. How many times have you thought about what it would be like to live in some of those "other places" and thought "those poor people don't really have lives". I've looked at poor shmucks that scrub toilets all day and go home to their miserable family in the almost-slums in much the same way.
I don't mean to say it's an absolute truth. I just want you to recognize that the magnitude of importance of lifestyle that can be felt.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by St. Cuervo:
This is why one of my earlier musings was on abortion and alcoholics/suicidal teens. When an alcoholic, for example, has decided that he wants to destroy his body (like a beast caught in the trap of life gnawing its foot off): how do we react?
We try to get help for him!
We talk to him or pray for him or refer him to AA or therapy or put him on anti-depressants or send him to a hospital or even to jail, but we don't let such a person destroy his body! We recoginze that something is going seriously wrong with his psyche that is leading him to want to destroy his body and we try to help.
Why is abortion so different?
In both cases a person wants to destroy part of their body. In both cases a person feels that their life is threatened unless this destructive act is carried out. Both cases disproportionately affect minority communities.
Yet "abortion" is a right and alcholism is a "disease."
I think women who want an abortion don't need more laws thrown at them, but they do need help. It is clear, when motherhood is compared to being an animal caught in a trap, that they are not getting that help. Whether it is your right or not, no one in a healthy state of mind would want to destroy part of their own body.
St. C.
St Cuervo
Alcoholics don't 'decide to destroy their bodies'. Alcoholics drink because it gives them a sense of control and because they think it will take away unpleasant feelings - but it doesn't. It happens that as a side effect it has various nasty physical consequences. It is a failed coping strategy like other addictions.
Unless you are talking about people who have serial abortions because they have some kind of sexual addiction combined with another problem which makes them incapable of taking basic birth control precuations, then there is no comparison here.
Someone who has an abortion isn't (through a compulsion that they have little control over), destroying something they desperately need to stay alive (eg.liver, pancreas) they're destroying something which they see as a disaster for their lives and which can usually safely be removed without harming them (unlike your liver or your pancreas) thus ending the problem, not perpetuating it as an alcoholic does when he/she goes on drinking.
I come from a family riddled with alcoholics and I don't find your comparison to be in the least convincing.
quote:
I might get called to hell for what follows but, so be it.
There is something seriously wrong when I write (referring to a fetus), "destroying part of your body in this manner is not normal healthy behavior" and you respond with "it is, when it's destroying you and it's you or it."
Good Christ Louise, a fetus is not destroying its mother! Only in extremely rare circumstances would a mother have to make a choice between her life and carrying a fetus to term. (And here it is important to note that 99% of all anti-abortion folks would allow an abortion if the mother's life were threatened in this manner.)
I don't understand what worldview would cause someone to see the fetus as a being that is "destroying" its mother's life.
Now here we get to the crux of the matter and why I pointed you back to the article cited by Laura. You are making Paul Swopes case for him. Your posts are an excellent example of what he is talking about. So lets go back and hammer that point.
quote:
Unplanned motherhood, according to the study, represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as equivalent to a "death of self." While the woman may rationally understand this is not her own literal death, her emotional, subconscious reaction to carrying the child to term is that her life will be "over." This is because many young women of today have developed a self-identity that simply does not include being a mother. It may include going through college, getting a degree, obtaining a good job, even getting married someday; but the sudden intrusion of motherhood is perceived as a complete loss of control over their present and future selves
Have you been there and experienced that?
I have. I've felt that terror. Needlessly as it turned out- simply a late period, but I've never forgotten it. Suddenly everything that means anything to you is vanishing in front of your eyes. It might as well be a prison sentence - because it will destroy your life and opportunities in the same way, except that at the same time you will be expected to take on the task of running another life when you can barely cope with your own, oh and facing the physical pain and dangers of childbirth.
Yeah, right it's a 'lifestyle choice'. It's a lifestyle choice in the same sense that when people want to prate about how gay and lesbian people should joyfully embrace lifelong celibacy in order to suit their own St Paul-fuelled prejudices about gay sex that they reach for the label 'lifestyle choice'. Protecting what lies at the core of YOUR self-identity is fighting the good fight, but when it comes to what lies at the core of MY self identity, it's a 'lifestyle choice'.
If there was a bell curve made of the reasons why women pursue abortions then the tiny minority of cases at either end would be those who do it for relatively trivial reasons (I'm trying to think of one and failing - perhaps too stupid or lazy to sort out adequate contraception?) at one end and at the other end the tiny minority of cases where abortion is done to save the mother from death.
In between would be the vast majority of cases where there are serious reasons of one sort or another - can't support another child, don't feel capable of bringing up a child, can't face pregnancy or consequences of pregnancy, risks to health etc. and these need to be balanced against the potential child.
I don't think on the whole that harm to a potential child - a fetus that could if it was brought to term become a child - outweighs harm to a fully-conscious, fully-capable of suffering human being.
I know people who have had abortions and I'm at a loss to see what would have been gained by forcing them to continue their pregnancies.
Firstly I think of the 15 year old girl I knew who was pressurised into sex by one of the school thugs only a few months before her exams. I cannot for the life of me see what the advantage would be of having forced her to have a baby. How could something that has no more notion of suffering than an unborn kitten be more important than what she would have been put through?
Secondly I think of a good friend of mine, who like me came from a chaotic family and who like me made some bad choices in men at university and who had a contraceptive failure, but who was pregnant and went on to have an abortion. She is now married in a stable relationship with two much loved and wanted children, on maternity leave from a career dedicated to health provision for others which has allowed her and her husband to be able to provide for their family. Now what would have been gained by forcing her to become an unqualified single mother at a time when she was still barely able to cope with the legacy of growing up in an abusive family?
All I can see is the very high probability of having two very fucked-up people instead of four fairly happy people. And fucked up people have a tendency of producing the next generation of fucked-up people, unless their children are very lucky, and so it goes on.
The counter argument would be "ah-ha! but then you have one very dead person!" - but I do not and cannot see an unborn child as a person. I cannot see it as having a worth which would make the likelihood of a generation of misery for all concerned (including it) a worthwhile price to pay - particularly not in the early stages of pregnancy.
L.
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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Alcoholics don't 'decide to destroy their bodies'. Alcoholics drink because it gives them a sense of control and because they think it will take away unpleasant feelings - but it doesn't. It happens that as a side effect it has various nasty physical consequences. It is a failed coping strategy like other addictions.
I was thinking that too. Alcoholism is a very odd choice of comparison, as the vast majority of alcoholics don't want to die of it. And most of them don't directly, though it might well shorten their lives through side-effects. It really isn;t anything to do with suicide.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
# 2
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ophelia's Opera Therapist:
Do you not have a more considered opinion on the balance of rights and welfare of the woman, her husband and children in opposition with those of the unborn child, Erin?
Or on my example of another stupid didn't keep her legs crossed teenager?
OOT
Thinking about it... no, I don't think I do. In much the same vein as the article that Laura quoted, I absolutely cannot for the life of me comprehend how someone can say that their lifestyle is more important than the life of another human being. That kind of thinking is completely foreign to me in every possible way. For me to have a considered opinion on the case studies you guys have presented, I would have to pretty much rewire my brain.
I read this, and I truly don't think I have managed to convey how alien that mindset is to my worldview.
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Commandment number one: shut the hell up.
Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I was thinking that too. Alcoholism is a very odd choice of comparison, as the vast majority of alcoholics don't want to die of it. And most of them don't directly, though it might well shorten their lives through side-effects. It really isn;t anything to do with suicide.
No, I think the only comparison I can think of is cancer.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Phizz
Shipmate
# 4770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I was thinking that too. Alcoholism is a very odd choice of comparison, as the vast majority of alcoholics don't want to die of it. And most of them don't directly, though it might well shorten their lives through side-effects. It really isn;t anything to do with suicide.
No, I think the only comparison I can think of is cancer.
This really happens and is unbelievably sad and distressing it's called molar pregnancy. I don't think it supports either side of the argument. It's just another way that life stinks sometimes.
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ST. PAUL WOULD HAVE POSTED USING CAPS LOCK (Galatians 6:11)
Was Dr Phizz. Now just Phizz
Posts: 116 | Registered: Jul 2003
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Kyralessa
Shipmate
# 4568
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Posted
The analogies are irrelevant, because they still hinge on whether we think the fetus is a person or not. We choose our analogies based on what we believe about that.
I'm not a doctor, and I don't feel that working in the Maternal-Fetal Medicine department qualifies me to pronounce absolute judgment on a medical matter. I do know that on the side of the little criblets they put babies in here, there are some that say "DO NOT LEAVE BABY ALONE IN ROOM WITH MOTHER". This says to me that some women who don't want their babies nonetheless do give birth to them; presumably the babies are given up for adoption (an option which has been given remarkably short shrift in this seven-page discussion, I might add).
I can't say for certain whether the baby becomes a human being at the moment of fusion of egg and sperm, or at implantation, or at X weeks in. If the point of humanity is when the soul enters (and I'm not entirely sure that it is), then I can't say whether that's on day 1 or day 14 or when.
But it being the case that I'm not omnipotent enough to make that judgment, I prefer to err in the issue on the side of caution. Personally, I would rather be responsible for the birth of babies who were actually at one time clumps of cells that could in fact have been excised with no moral qualms, than be responsible for the death of babies whom I regarded as mere clumps of cells when in fact they were not.
Now I would like to ask why adoption is scarcely mentioned in this thread. When we bring it into the picture, we find that abortion is not really the avoidance of bringing a new life into the world, with all its attendant responsibilities for some sixteen long years; rather it is the avoidance of pregnancy, morning sickness, vitamin-taking, and nine-plus months of increasing inconvenience and then a grueling delivery...after which the baby is off to a new home and the ordeal is just a painful memory.
Right?
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In Orthodoxy, a child is considered an icon of the parents' love for each other.
I'm just glad all my other icons don't cry, crap, and spit up this much.
Posts: 1597 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: May 2003
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
There are lots of ways teenagers get into the state where they want to or need to have abortions. Here are some examples (no specific people).
13 yr old girls go out to local fairs, may get either drugs or under-age drinking, or just end up separated from sensible friends. Get conned into sex with older boys. Aquire STDs, pregnancies, traumas. This is not grown up behaviour and so the youngsters should not be judged as if they were adults.
Incest in family, teenager pregnant. Abuser or her father or mother beats her up and she has a miscarriage. Same scenario a few months later. She asks for an abortion to protect herself.
Teenager knows how women become pregnant and still believes that having sex standing up/ using coitus interruptus/ having sex when you're a virgin/ missing a day's pill doesn't get you pregnant.
Teenager who has been forced by her family to have an abortion gets herself pregnant "by accident" to replace the lost baby. Panics and knows she can't cope. A-levels, GNVQs in the offing.
And older women...
Woman who has just managed to have the courage to leave her abusive husband finds herself pregnant.
Prostitute gets pregnant.
HIV+ woman gets pregnant.
In this country, there are laws to allow women and girls to have abortions. When counselling we need to stick by the law. If we were not going to, we would not be doing counselling. And one thing that may happen is that when we manage to help a girl/woman to work through the issues, she may manage to go forward and not end up again in the same position. We are not in any way encouraging abortions, but helping people to ake responsibility for their behaviour.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Kyralessa is right (IMHO), this all hinges on the status of the foetus. If the foetus is a collection of cells that will one day become a human being then abortion may be morally justifiable, under certain circumstances (but K's warning about caution here is timely).
If the foetus is already a human being, then abortion at any time is murder, and should not be pursued. It is morally wrong:
- even if severe disability is diagnosed
- even if the mother has been raped
- even if the mother's life is threatened by the pregancy.
That is a logical and easily understandable Christian position (it is the official RC position), but not one that I hold. Those of you whao have been advocates of the rights of the foetus, would you oppose abortion when the mother's life is at risk? (BTW Erin, I think I understand how deeply you feel about this, I just disagree with your opinion of the status of the foetus.)
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
Kyralessa,
quote:
Now I would like to ask why adoption is scarcely mentioned in this thread. When we bring it into the picture, we find that abortion is not really the avoidance of bringing a new life into the world, with all its attendant responsibilities for some sixteen long years; rather it is the avoidance of pregnancy, morning sickness, vitamin-taking, and nine-plus months of increasing inconvenience and then a grueling delivery...after which the baby is off to a new home and the ordeal is just a painful memory.
I have had many teenagers say that they would never allow a baby of theirs to be adopted; they say it is kinder to kill it before it is born. they could not hand it over knowing that it might end up unhappy or abused. They also say it would hurt themselves more than the abortion.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
What people used to go through when being pressured into carrying children and giving them up for adoption -
exhibit documents the ordeals of young unwed mothers who gave up
children in the years before Roe v. Wade
Even when you take away the old stigma against unwed mothers you're left with something which is not for everybody.
quote:
Another myth Fessler exposes is the one propagated by the social workers at the homes: that the girls would forget their babies and move on.
''You have to move on, but [the baby] never leaves your heart,'' says Slosar, who for years has taken her son's birthday off from work, instead busying herself with physical labor to take her mind off that painful day.
Slosar, who has connected with other birth mothers through the Internet, says the extent of depression and alcoholism among that group is high.
"just a painful memory" is understating it a bit, from what I can make out. It's that and more than that.
Again why put people through this suffering for something which in itself cannot suffer so?
If you have a moral or religious conviction that a fetus is a person then I can understand why, but if you don't - then why put people through that?
L.
[ 05. December 2003, 20:56: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Adoption hasn't been brought up so much because it doesn't really have much to do with whether abortion is right or wrong. Of course, it's an alternative. I'd even go on to say that, if good college girls gave up their babies rather than aborted them, there'd be a huge market for the adoption of such kids, as they are vanishingly rare in the US.
Adoption isn't that simple, though. It is my understanding from a friend that was adopted herself that the psychological issues linger, especially for the boys for some reason. So is it better than being dead? I don't know. And I think people who give kids up often have lingering psychological issues.
Now, that said, if abortion is in fact murder, then adoption is by far the better choice, especially for teenaged parents.
As to general perceptions of adoption, it is widely held to be a bad thing, especially in black and hispanic communities. The article I linked to discusses in detail the general "average woman's" point of view on the subject.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Again, from the Swope article:
quote:
Adoption, unfortunately, is seen as the most "evil" of the three options, as it is perceived as a kind of double death. First, the death of self, as the woman would have to accept motherhood by carrying the baby to term. Further, not only would the woman be a mother, but she would perceive herself as a bad mother, one who gave her own child away to strangers. The second death is the death of the child "through abandonment." A woman worries about the chance of her child being abused. She is further haunted by the uncertainty of the child’s future, and about the possibility of the child returning to intrude on her own life many years later. Basically, a woman desperately wants a sense of resolution to her crisis, and in her mind, adoption leaves the situation the most unresolved, with uncertainty and guilt as far as she can see for both herself and her child. As much as we might like to see the slogan "Adoption, Not Abortion" embraced by women, this study suggests that in pitting adoption against abortion, adoption will be the hands-down loser.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Kyralessa
Shipmate
# 4568
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Adoption hasn't been brought up so much because it doesn't really have much to do with whether abortion is right or wrong.
So what you're saying, Laura, is that anyone who (as many have done on this thread) argues for abortion because otherwise someone's life will be screwed up by having to raise a child for umpteen years is talking through his/her hat.
If adoption is irrelevant to the issue at hand, then so are arguments about the time and expense involved in raising the kid. What's sauce for the goose, and all that.
Posts: 1597 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: May 2003
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Beg pardon?
Kyralessa,
My point is that the discussion of whether abortion is ever justified is a separate one from whether adoption is available or desirable. That's all.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Jerry Boam
Shipmate
# 4551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kyralessa:
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Adoption hasn't been brought up so much because it doesn't really have much to do with whether abortion is right or wrong.
So what you're saying, Laura, is that anyone who (as many have done on this thread) argues for abortion because otherwise someone's life will be screwed up by having to raise a child for umpteen years is talking through his/her hat.
If adoption is irrelevant to the issue at hand, then so are arguments about the time and expense involved in raising the kid. What's sauce for the goose, and all that.
I'm guessing you wrote this before reading the rest of Laura's post, because this is pretty much exactly not what she said.
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If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not for you.
Posts: 2165 | From: Miskatonic University | Registered: May 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Carrying a baby to term is "death of self"? In what bizarre world?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Carrying a baby to term is "death of self"? In what bizarre world?
Possibly in a bizarre world where some folk seem to think it's no big deal to carry an unwanted pregnancy, go through labour, face stuff like getting torn from vagina to anus and then face a choice of the bereavement and trauma of giving away a child delivered at full term, or struggling with motherhood whilst utterly frightened and unprepared for it.
If your beliefs lead you to think that you're dealing with something equivalent to a child lying in a pram from the moment of conception - then yes, that gives meaning to such suffering, but if you don't believe that, if you don't believe that a first trimester fetus is a person then it's all suffering for nothing.
L.
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Kyralessa
Shipmate
# 4568
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
...in a bizarre world where some folk seem to think it's no big deal to carry an unwanted pregnancy, go through labour, face stuff like getting torn from vagina to anus and then face a choice of the bereavement and trauma of giving away a child delivered at full term, or struggling with motherhood whilst utterly frightened and unprepared for it.
If your beliefs lead you to think that you're dealing with something equivalent to a child lying in a pram from the moment of conception - then yes, that gives meaning to such suffering, but if you don't believe that, if you don't believe that a first trimester fetus is a person then it's all suffering for nothing.
Should sex have no consequences? Certainly it's not fair that the woman should have to bear the potential nine-month burden and the man shouldn't. But the argument for abortion here seems to be as a way to even the score. A man has unprotected sex: he gets a disease, or else has no consequences. A woman does the same: she gets a disease, or a baby, or else no consequences. Ah, but if she can abort the baby, then disease or nothing are the only outcomes: and so man and woman become equal. It's only fair.
Now if it's not really a baby, but just a clump of parasitic cells, then it's perfectly reasonable to even the score this way...but then we're back to square one again, to the thing no one can prove either way.
So, is this a dead horse yet?
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In Orthodoxy, a child is considered an icon of the parents' love for each other.
I'm just glad all my other icons don't cry, crap, and spit up this much.
Posts: 1597 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: May 2003
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Nobody has said anything about evening the score and even less about making women equal to men. I think we're all clear that the fact that the woman has to deal with the consequences is a biological fact, and most of us that abortion is bad. What certain folks seem to be entirely unable to grasp is that there is a non-frivolous good-faith argument that the fetus, though not "just a clump of cells" (though thanks for setting up that straw man again) is as a proto-human worthy of respect, but is SIMPLY NOT ENTITLED TO THE SAME RIGHTS as the woman carrying it, and therefore that abortion can in certain circumstancesnot be the same as murder.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Kyralessa
Shipmate
# 4568
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
...there is a non-frivolous good-faith argument that the fetus, though not "just a clump of cells" (though thanks for setting up that straw man again) is as a proto-human worthy of respect, but is SIMPLY NOT ENTITLED TO THE SAME RIGHTS as the woman carrying it, and therefore that abortion can in certain circumstancesnot be the same as murder.
Since the odious analogy has been drawn elsewhere on these boards between those who once used the Bible to defend the practice of slavery, and those who now use it to object to the practice of homosexuality, it would seem more than fair that at this point I make a similarly odious analogy between those who think fetuses aren't normal people and don't have rights, and those who once thought black people weren't normal people and didn't have rights.
And now that I've probably pissed you off ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) , I do sincerely apologize for setting up the "clump of cells" straw man, but quite honestly I wasn't aware that it was a straw man. Does "proto-human" mean something different to you than "clump of cells"? If so, what is the distinction? And what sort of practical difference does it make in one's decision about the rightness or wrongness of abortion?
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In Orthodoxy, a child is considered an icon of the parents' love for each other.
I'm just glad all my other icons don't cry, crap, and spit up this much.
Posts: 1597 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: May 2003
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
Host
Odious is the correct term Kyralessa. You are not entitled to state that persons who support a woman's ability to have an abortion are the moral equivalent of persons who support slavery when you are posting in Purgatory. The smilie does not take away from the evil analogy of the remark. Please apologize. If you desire to continue making personally insulting remarks you may do so in Hell.
/Host
[Edited for Freudian slip.]
[ 06. December 2003, 03:59: Message edited by: Tortuf ]
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Okay if I call you an asshole? See how inoffensive that is when I put the big grin?? You festering intolerant pustule!
Okay, back to the debate, I think it fair enough to make the analogy to slavery -- that is, that it's legal doesn't make it right. But that's not what I'm saying. Again, the distinction between abortion and slavery is that the slaves were born humans. I understand that you, Kyralessa, and others do not recognize this as a distinction, but there are lots of people of good will and intelligence and ethics who believe this to be a meaningful distinction.
[ 06. December 2003, 16:51: Message edited by: Laura ]
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
Host
You don't get to do it either, Laura.
/Host
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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