For or Against

[teleen_fiction]

Back-Alley Abortions in 2011: How Anti-Choice Zealots Force Women to Go to Dangerous Clinics Like Dr. Kermit Gosnell's

I've spoken about reproductive rights before, but always with the understanding that some people out there are Pro-Life.  I haven't been respectful of that position, but I've at least tried not to judge it too hard.

To be clear, my definition of Pro-Life is NOT someone who is against abortion, but against women having the freedom to CHOOSE an abortion.

Everyone is against abortion.  EVERYONE.  No one ever wants to have one and if there is a tiny minority out there who are using it as their ONLY method of birth control, I don't want them contributing to the gene pool anyway.

That said, the freedom to choose is continually under assault in the US, with government funding non-existent for it (can't fund baby-killing, don't ya know?) Ironically, the same asshats who are against any sort of government subsidy for abortion are also against WELFARE, which means that a poor woman who can't afford an abortion and who will be FORCED to carry a child she doesn't want and/or can't support will have no help for the child once it is born.  So they want to force women to be broodmares, but then take no responsibility for the child after it's born.

Every day, doctors who provide abortions are threatened with DEATH.  The graduating classes of medical schools are given leaflets threatening them with what will happen if they choose to help women who have been raped, victims of incest, whose lives are in danger or, MOST IMPORTANTLY, who simply don't want to carry a child.

To be very, very clear here - to me, there are no exceptions to abortion.  As Doug Stanhope once said about those who are in favor of it only in cases of rape and incest, "What, it's only okay if the father is an asshole?"

Women have the right to have sex as freely as they wish to.  Yes, they should take reasonable precautions against pregnancy but a) birth control doesn't always work and b) someone else's sex life is NONE OF MY FUCKING BUSINESS.  Or yours.  

Either a woman's body is hers or it isn't.  After seeing this MURDER case and seeing women in the US going back to a pre-Roe Vs. Wade society, I no longer have ANY gray area here.   Well, just one.

If a woman gives birth to a child with fetal alcohol syndrome or addicted to a controlled substance, I'm willing to discuss it as child abuse once it's breathing on its own outside of her body, but even there I feel as though it's a slippery slope.  It's telling a woman that her body is no longer hers once she's pregnant and I just don't know if I can be behind that.  I almost feel as though there shouldn't be any government support for women who do this if they keep custody of the child, but again, it's a VERY slippery slope, :( and I'm willing to hear other thoughts on this aspect of it and this aspect alone.  

This is my line in the sand, friends' list.  I don't mind if you believe that life begins at conception (even though I disagree) and work to give women other options.  I'm 100% in favor of women having the freedom to HAVE THE BABY if that's what they wish to do - reproduction should never be a financial concern, even though it always is, :(.  The issue here is about giving women the freedom to be able to choose what's right for them and what they will be able to live with. 

However, if you identify as Pro-Life (rather than Pro-Woman, which is how I identify because Pro-Choice has become synonymous with Pro-Abortion), and are someone who actively demonstrates against abortion, who supports politicians who vote against my right to choose and who believes that every pregnancy should end in a baby regardless of the wishes and/or physical and mental well-being of the woman carrying that baby, please defriend me now, as I don't want to be anywhere near you, even virtually. 

Reproductive rights must be absolute and the rights of the born must outweigh the rights of the unborn, 100% of the time.  Otherwise, women are nothing more than broodmares.

Neigh.

Comments

[darth-eldritch.livejournal.com]

Second this whole post so damn hard

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[snufflesdbear.livejournal.com]

I saw that story in E Philli on the news the other day. I was in such a rage. I could not even articulate it all. ALL the news was concerned about was the doc killing the babies, the woman was sort of an after thought, and the *reason* he had such a business was not even mentioned.
You say things so well.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you, :).

[meshell-mybell.livejournal.com]

Amen! I'm very strong willed and I hate being told what I can and can't do. I love that you are Pro-Woman. I am stealing that because I agree with your sentiments on Pro-Choice.

I know women who have had to make that choice. It is one I couldn't make but I fault no one who has.

Some women shouldn't ever be allowed to give birth and in those cases should be arrested before the baby is born. When I was pregnant with my first, I had to go to a clinic and there was a woman fighting with the nurses, very loudly. She yelled, "I did heroin with my first baby I'll do it with this one." That child didn't deserve the pain of being born to that woman and the pain it would go through dealing with withdrawl.

So, yeah, I'm all for choice.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Ugh - horrible story! And as I said in my post, pretty much my ONLY gray area on this issue. I just wish I knew how to justify it beyond, "Ugh, that's horrible!" you know?

And when I say 'justify', I mean I need to have a really good reason to deny someone their right to well, do heroin, if I'm perfectly frank, sigh. I believe that everyone has a right to do whatever they want with their own bodies and that rights of the mother come before the baby she's carrying, 100% of the time, but cases like this make me feel like there's an exception to that.

The problem is that I haven't yet found a really good rational that doesn't give the unborn baby more rights than the mother, something that I'm extraordinarily hesitant about doing, if that makes sense?

I think that until someone can help me think it out, this will just have to be my one exception.

A woman can do whatever she wants with her body, but if she chooses to have the child and engages in behavior that is not just risky, but that will damage the unborn child for life, she should be charged with child abuse when the child is born.

The problem is that I see that position as a slippery slope, wherein the definition of 'risky behavior' could be expanded to include almost anything in order to again limit the rights of women, :(.

[meshell-mybell.livejournal.com]

I agree, it is a slippery slope. I guess I'm jaded because the father of my children was a heroin addict and I was already on edge during each pregnancy because I feared the worst.

However, I do feel that, though the mother should be the concern in most decisions, if said mother is making a concious effort to be an asshat with the full knowledge of what she is doing to that child, then I call abuse. That woman I spoke of knew what she was doing and didn't care. She could have aborted the fetus but she chose to give it life but instead of doing her best she was purposely hurting it for her own selfish needs. That is unforgivable.

Yes, any laws protecting the fetus in a situation like that will only be taken for granted and used in a bastardized form to regulate all women and their bodies. It's always the case. Can my ex be tried for abuse if he'd given me bad, drug-riddled sperm and I had a child with problems? No. Should he be? No more so than I should be for getting pregnant by the idiot. Thankfully, I have three healthy kids minus the asthmatic but that was a problem on both sides of the family.

It's a damnable double-edged sword. I think knowingly being irresponsible regardless of the consequences to the child's future could be considered if you've taken the on the responsibility of said child. I just don't know. It's so damned blurry. Gah! It's practically the thought police but for a fetus.

Of course, now I'm just sounding paranoid.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that you had to go through that, :(.

I think that you and I pretty much agree; we're just saying it differently, :).

It's not paranoid if people are really out to get you, ;).

[mero.livejournal.com]

I feel (or that's my knee jerk reaction) like there should be a sort of unwritten disclaimer "signed" by a woman once she realizes she is pregnant. She could not want the fetus, in which case a safe, cheap abortion should be provided.

If she does want to have a baby, she acknowledges that she is using her body to safe-house what will be a baby, and should agree to take the best care of it that she can. And maybe granting this "fetus" a home is when it gets its personhood, unless mommy changes her mind? But OTOH, obviously this would stop her from doing whatever she wants. Legally that (the former example) isn't something that I would openly advocate, but it's the closest thing I can think of to keep the baby safe.

The whole situation gives me cognitive dissonance, since I assume anyone that wants to continue their pregnancy wants a healthy baby at the end of it, so why NOT restrict your OWN body for the baby's sake? I know we can't legislate that.

Again, we can't legislate that but I'm hoping for a stronger moral push for wanna-be-mothers to have babies that they love and want to keep safe through ALL of their development. I think the biggest help for that would be better funded social programs for drug awareness and more accessible rehab programs etc.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Education is the key here. Better education for birth control and prenatal care.

And the one time I *thought* I was pregnant, I immediately stopped using caffeine, taking all medications and generally behaving as though my body was the 'safe house' you described.

The problem I see is that abortion has such a societal stigma that you'll have women who honestly and truly don't want the pregnancy that will treat their bodies like crap in the hopes of a miscarriage.

Or you have those who just don't care about being pregnant one way or another, i.e., the example above where the woman did heroin on her last pregnancy and so sees no issue with doing it on her current one.

[heeroluva.livejournal.com]

I agree with you here, though I with one exception. I have issues with woman that use abortion as a means of birth control (though I'm sure their would be exceptions to that even...).

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

As I said in the main entry, I would rather not have a woman who would use it as birth control either contributing to our gene pool or being entrusted with the welfare of a child, :(.

Abortion is a last resort 99.9% of the time and though I might find it personally reprehensible, I would never impinge on the rights of that .1%, simply because I feel that women should have absolute authority over their own bodies.

[heeroluva.livejournal.com]

Agreed, though I wouldn't go as far as saying it was reprehensible.

Aren't there now less than 1000 licensed clinics in the country?

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I find women using it for birth control reprehensible, but that's my issue, not theirs, and my rights end where their bodies begin.

836 was the last number I heard, :(.

[heeroluva.livejournal.com]

Oh, heh. Apparently I really need to go to bed and get some sleep. I was thinking you were saying that about abortion in general and I was like er that's kind of against what you were saying. My tired brain has problems. And wow. That's way less than what I last heard. :(

(and goodnight)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

:)

Sleep well, :).

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I'm fully in support of a woman's right to choice, but the whole concept makes me feel somewhat blah. There were nearly 190,000 abortions in the UK last year, and I grew up in a youth culture where abortion seemed to be seen as a form of contraception. I'm also fully in favour of reducing the limit of 24 weeks except in cases of serious risk of physical harm, because babies have survived being born premature at 20 weeks, which suggests that they are already alive and are just on a life support system which is unfortunate enough to be a human being.

That said, I'd rather have the situation we have here than the one that exists in the US.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I'd rather have the one in the UK as well.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

Most of my misgivings are based on the fact that it doesn't encourage safe sex practices. Same about use of the pill, it's no substitute for a condom, and all STIs are accellerating here

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly agree that everyone needs better education with regards to STI prevention and birth control, but I can't be in favor of restricting abortion.

ETA: *headdesk* I managed to say the exact opposite of what I meant - sorry about that, :(.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Your opinion is more than welcome here (I actually think you're right about a lot of things), but I'm going to respectfully request that you delete this comment and repost it with another icon.

Nazi imagery isn't welcome in my journal under any circumstances.

[ms-daisy-cutter.livejournal.com]

Everyone is against abortion. EVERYONE.

I'm not. To me, it's unpleasant on the order of root canal or heart surgery, but I'm not against either of them. I think abortion is a good thing, and I think the framing of it as a "tragedy" has given the forced-birthers a huge PR victory.

No one ever wants to have one and if there is a tiny minority out there who are using it as their ONLY method of birth control, I don't want them contributing to the gene pool anyway.

Yeah, because women are never in coercive relationships where their men sabotage their birth control or anything like that. Or brainwashed against birth control by fundie xtian or whackjob-Catholic upbringings, because planning to have non-procreative sex is a "sin" (though somehow they manage to justify the abortion).

Any form of "I'm pro-choice, but..." = "I'm in favor of legal abortion but I just can't resist commenting on all those irresponsible sluts out there who don't do what I think they should be doing with their bodies." I don't think it's any of your business, or your other commenters', how many abortions a woman has or why.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Okay, this icon I love. :)

And you're right. I have no right to judge any woman for what she does with her body. I'm not living her life.

Still, my 'gene pool' argument has gotten at least one person in my offline life to reconsider their position on the topic of restricting abortion for those who have more than one, so I can't quite bring myself to get rid of it.

Thanks for your thoughts & for re-posting, :).

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

So you're proud of making other people think women should be restricted to one abortion?

How does this make you any different from the people you claim you can't be near and what gives you the right to decide how many abortions a woman can have?

Oh and I'm sick of the "but they use it for birth control!" B.S. It is just that- B.S.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Um, no - you misread me.

I was arguing with someone offline who was IN FAVOR of restricting abortion to only one, but when I used the gene pool argument, he backed off and told me he was 100% pro-choice (whereas before he'd only been 95%.

No one has any right to judge any woman for what she does with her body. EVER.

My right to tell someone else what to do ends where their body begins and the rights of the born outweigh the rights of the unborn 100% of the time.

Anything else is a slippery slope that I'm doing my best not to step on (even though I fail with that from time to time, obviously).

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

My mistake. Apologies that I misread you, but there seem to be a lot of comments here that say "I'm pro-choice but..."

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I getcha, :).

[ms-daisy-cutter.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

I think it's a pity that most people have to be convinced by framing the argument as "We're actually punishing the person more effectively this way!" I think punishment has its place, but, at least in U.S. politics, it's given too much emphasis over solutions that actually work.

BTW, I hope you don't mind, but for anyone who didn't see my original comment and was wondering: The icon was of Hitler with the words "My mom chose life." My sense of humor is probably darker than yours; I respect your choice not to have that icon on your journal, but I wanted to make clear to anyone wondering that I wasn't simply throwing around swastikas or the like gratuitously. (FTR, I'm ethnically Jewish.)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Definitely a pity, no question, especially since it really is no one's business, :(.

In the US, we appear to be going backwards where abortion rights are concerned (though I don't think that we ever got very far with them), :(.

And I don't mind, :).

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

EVeryone's against abortion.

Yeah..no. You don't speak for everyone and this idea that we should apologize for abortion needs to stop. Abortion is wonderful. I'm not making excuses. That's sucking up to the anti-choice people.

And you're going to allow discussion about a woman who may have a drug-addicted baby? Isn't that kind of not your business? Besides, nice compassion there. One doesn't become drug-addicted in minutes and did you know that most drug treatment programs don't allow pregnant women in? Drug addiction is not something I'm terribly well informed on, but I do know these women have even less options than any other pregnant women and waht they need is compassion, not punishment. It's funny how often people only remember that when it's a white woman. When it's women of color they get clapped in jail, often still bleeding.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Considering it's the anti-choice people who are currently making our lives hell, I generally try not to fuck around with them if I can avoid it. Plus, I was basing my opinion on a documentary I watched about abortion, in which that was pretty much the phrasing used by the people at the actual abortion clinic, "No one wants to have one, but for some people it's the only choice." They were doing their best to make the women at ease with their decision and I WILL NOT fault them for that.

Yes, in a perfect world having an abortion would be about the same as getting a root canal - removing something unwanted with no muss and no fuss. We don't live in that world and until we do, I'll phrase my opinions in the way that I feel will reach the most people.

And I'll allow discussion about whatever I fucking well please in MY journal, just so you know.

You're absolutely right, it is none of my business, but these sorts of discussions come up on abortion every single time the topic comes up and I'd rather talk about it than let it fester.

I'll be compassionate towards those who didn't choose to pick up the drugs in the first place, i.e., victims of human trafficking.
Sometimes people become addicted to drugs against their will - pimps use it as a method of control over the men and women they enslave every day.

However, if they CHOSE to snort the coke, push the plunger or pop the pill, they should take some fucking responsibility for what it does to whatever happens to come out of them. If they don't want to have the baby, that's cool with me - I think that abortion should be as easy to get as a bandaid. But if you CHOOSE to have sex and get pregnant after CHOOSING to use drugs, there needs to be some fucking personal responsibility for things like fetal alcohol syndrome and crack-addicted babies.

The key word there is CHOICE, though. If someone has lacked consent at any of those steps, I'll have compassion for them.

However.

I've worked in the sex industry for a very long time and I've seen women who knew they were pregnant smoking and getting bombed out of their minds while at the same time planning baby showers and that shit just. Isn't. COOL.

Well, unless they are willing to be 100% responsible for all of the child's medical needs after it's born. But again, if CONSENT was not present anywhere in the process of how they came to be addicted to drugs and pregnant, then I'll believe they deserve all of the help that society can provide.

The double standard between how women of color are treated versus white is staggering. I know they lack the very resources of which I'm speaking, not to mention that it's probably assumed that they had a choice about becoming addicted far more often than a white woman would. I know it intellectually, but I have no concept of how difficult their lives are compared to mine beyond the barest abstract.

I believe that all drugs should be legalized in any case, but again, if you choose to have sex, choose to get pregnant and STAY pregnant, then you should also have responsibility for the life you're creating.

A woman has a right to change her mind about becoming a mother right up to the instant the baby is outside of her, but once it is, I believe she's responsible for what she did while it was inside, if that makes sense?

Everyone has a right to choose to do whatever they wish with their own bodies, but if someone CHOOSES to stay pregnant (as opposed to being forced to be because they don't have access to an abortion provider because some asshat killed every doctor in their area), they should be responsible for the child they bear.

With all of that in mind, I think that it's only my business in a perfect world. In the world in which we're living, most women don't have the privilege of choosing whether or not to be addicted to drugs, whether or not to get pregnant, and whether or not they stay pregnant. And when consent is eliminated at any of those stages, the woman is no longer responsible for the drug-addicted baby.

Thanks for your thoughts - I truly appreciate you giving me the opportunity to think this out.