I feel the same way. I get the point of view but it just comes across as a ridiculous discussion by people who have never spent a single second coping with hard labor or really bad morning sickness.
There was once a study that showed that women who had had a baby had lower rates of breast cancer than women who had not. Antis extrapolate back, and reverse logic to come up with the “abortions cause breast cancer” “fact.” However, that was a preliminary study that did not establish causation. It did not, for example, separate women who were childless by choice, and infertile women, who could have had higher rates of breast cancer from the same condition that caused their infertility, or could have tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant, and had several rounds of drugs like Clomid, and there is possibility a threshold dose that is associated with elevated levels of breast cancer. It also did not separate women who nursed babies from women who did not, and in fact, another study only of women who had had babies, found lower rates of breast cancer among mother who had nursed their babies for at least six months-- but even that study did not separate out mothers who chose to bottle feed from mother who bottle fed because they could not nurse for some reason.
It really isn’t good for babies either. A Czech study found that women who had been denied abortions under the old system in Czechoslovakia, where a board interviewed women who sought abortions and either approved or denied each one, were very much more likely to have criminally abused their children, over women in similar circumstances (single, young, with few resources, mainly), who did not seek abortions.
That’s not my experience. I know two women who very much regret putting children up for adoption, and one woman who put a child up for adoption, and was so disturbed by the experience, that when she got pregnant again, she had an abortion. I also know several women who have had abortions (I probably know more than I realize, but not everyone shares), and not one regrets it, or has psychological problems as a result.
Regarding those psychological problems: if I (well, not me, but some woman) had an abortion, then had to listen to the haranguing of anti-abortionists on a daily basis, telling me I was evil, my fetus had suffered, G-d was angry with me, and I would probably get breast cancer, I imagine my general anxiety level would be pretty high. So women who have had abortions, then fall in with a fundamentalist church group afterwards, probably do have emotional problems and guilt. If anti-abortionists would shut up, women wouldn’t have emotional problems after abortions.
Or any of the bazillion other reasons why an abortion is necessary. But what gets me, is exactly what you keep quoting about how women are “guilty” and the fetus is “innocent,” et al. It’s just bringing another dimension fucking creepiness to the issue.
Sorry, this is to Lavender.
I just can’t stand how they think like that much of the time. My mom was innocent when she was raped. A friend was innocent after she had an abortion when her husband left with three kids under five for another woman. Another friend was innocent after she had an abortion for a much wanted baby when the baby had a nasty trisomy.
It’s just not helpful. Why can’t we all agree that a woman’s choices on this issue are nearly always made for very good reasons? And when they’re not, it is not in anyone’s self interest to force her into a pregnancy?
Oh, I’ve been pregnant, and I’m here to tell you that there is pregnancy-induced crazy. I was perfectly sane before I was pregnant, but around four months, developed symptoms that for all the world would have got me diagnosed with bipolar disorder if I hadn’t been pregnant. I couldn’t work, and my husband had to put up with living with a crazy woman. It was like a freaking TV movie. I didn’t know that could happen, and always thought before that women weren’t slaves to their hormones. Now that I have some perspective, it’s hard to believe it happened, but I was out of my mind for several months, and I couldn’t even take anything for it, because I was pregnant. My husband and I decided to go ahead with the pregnancy, which was planned and wanted, and now that it’s seven years in the past, it’s something I’m glad I did, but if it had been an accidental pregnancy, I would have had an abortion.
Yes, my friend was guilty when she had a brief affair with a married co-worker before starting college and had an abortion. Ditto when she finally left her incredibly abusive husband, only to find out she was pregnant, and chose abortion rather than being tied to him for the rest of her life.
I’m sure her present husband and their three children don’t see her as guilty.
I can’t really engage in the whole abortion debate because we never get anywhere, but if the child were born, you don’t see that it’s reasonable for someone to be temporarily inconvenienced in order to save its life? I know you see pre-born humans as different but if you saw them as the same, wouldn’t this be reasonable?
Aren’t you someone who refuses to donate organs? If so, you’re not even willing to help others when it doesn’t hurt you at all. (If not, obviously I have you confused with someone else.)
Pregnancy is not a temporary inconvenience. Why do anti-abortionists often use such a ridiculous phrase? The real miracle is that anyone voluntarily does it at all.
Because they either dumb as a stick, or they want to minimize the ordeal that pregnancy can be.
and pregnancy is not nine months of incubating the already formed human.
instead it is taking nothing more than a genetic blueprint and creating life out of your body and blood, out of your self.
it is huge and important and people need to get out of the decision making unless it is THEIR body.
Blech, I hate beer. I do have a brie, about 6 oz of puff pastry, some almonds, a couple apples [granny smith] and some cinnamon. I could do up a baked brie if someone else has crisp bread and sangria …
…you’d better be thinking of a *white *sangria or there will be Words.
If trees screamed out in pain when they were cut down, a lot of people would probably feel differently about cutting them down. But trees don’t do that.
I don’t see embryos and fetuses, let alone blastocysts, as the same as humans that are already born. I just don’t, and I don’t understand people who do. You can call a duck a goose, but that doesn’t make it one.
I also don’t understand someone who thinks of pregnancy as an “inconvenience,” but they didn’t experience my pregnancy. Some women like being pregnant. They can go and be paid surrogates for people; that’s their business. But for some women pregnancy is an onerous ordeal. Go Google “hyperemesis gravidarum.”
Lavender isn’t actually quoting anybody. It’s another parade of “the other side says and thinks this” where the pro-baby-killers* like to talk a lot about what others think and feel instead of actually asking them and listening.
Incidentally, I was driving home today behind a car with a few bumper stickers. One was a link to a clearly pro-life website and the other was a phone number with the label “help after abortion.” Now isn’t that something. Not only does this person care about the fetus, but also the mother, and even after she’s had the abortion. When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas, so this thread had me doubting myself a bit. But then I saw the sticker and knew that I was right all along.
*Not sure why all of a sudden everyone is saying “anti-abortionist” in this thread instead of pro-life. Doesn’t seem so kosher from the other side, does it?
Hilarious. It’s like you’ve seen people argue and you think you know how but you just can’t quite figure the whole thing out.
Yep – and in one sense you’re right. My distinction would be not actively killing versus a natural death, but I can see your point. Thanks for saying this.
I call them anti-abortionists because pro-life is a joke of a term. And I wonder exactly what that person with the bumper sticker meant by help. Because when I google the term “help after abortion” what comes up are a lot of really shitty sites designed to tell women who’ve had one just what shitty people some anti-abortionist think they are. That doesn’t sound like help at all.
There might not actually be real help for women who’ve had abortions. They might be getting some ultra-religious gasbag berating and slut-shaming them.
And I don’t use anti-abortionist. I use anti-choice. I’m pro-choice, but I’ve never had an abortion, and the circumstances under which I’d have one would be more limited than maybe the next woman’s. But that’s MY choice.
And this is exactly what I was doing when you lied about me the first time, then you said my anecdotal evidence was irrelevant, and now we’ve come full circle again. Is this you posting now or an alternate personality? Because truly, even you don’t know what you’re saying. Which, ironically, neither do any of us. Although we appreciate the continued entertainment.
I know this upcoming but is difficult, but stay with me. See, this is where something like intelligence comes in (yes, I understand that’s a hypothetical for you, but don’t fight it)… for me (here we go again on the personal experience level – have you learned anything so far?), I use my head to realize that I shouldn’t assume things about people that either 1.) they didn’t tell me themselves directly (like your buddy, Hector, does with his own words) or show me by their actions (again, here it comes, like those people [who mattered, then didn’t, but do this round apparently] I mentioned that I know). So, using your example, here’s some ideas, just off the top of my head, one could have about the person in the car…
A.) They really believe what it says and put their money where their mouth is. If so, bully for them.
B.) They believe in ‘helping’ in such a way as those so-called outreach programs that also harass women who’d like to give up their baby by pushing inaccurate information on them and trying to force them into making decisions that makes them happy, versus what the woman may need.
C.) The bumper sticker is actually a cultural (highly conservative area) or religious (severely devout family of Catholics, say) artifact. Put on out of a sense of duty or obligation or guilt or peer pressure or God only knows what.
D.) The person believes the sentiment, but putting up the bumper sticker is as good as it gets.
E.) They’re borrowing the car or the sticker came with it when they purchased it.
F.) They’ve got it solely to piss someone off.
G.) Probably other scenarios I’m not thinking of. But I’m sure others will get my drift. You, not so much.
Going back over the list (alert: it’s another anecdote and I’m not sure where you are on approving of them or not now, so I guess you’ll just have to suck it up, buttercup), lemme see if I can break it down for the [still] reading comprehension challenged…
Of A, I know three people who have strong feelings about abortion who back up their words with appropriate actions for babies both sides of the womb. The difference I’m sure you’ll ignore? They aren’t fundamentalists, like I had been talking about. And they certainly aren’t extreme in how they go about trying to help. Because it’s the real kind, not that shit that goes in scare quotes.
With B, sadly one church I went to when I was younger sponsored this sort of hell house, so I have no idea how to quantify how many people would fall into this category. Also, due to the circle my family ran in in those days, lots of other sister churches felt (and supported) the sale way. I’ll leave it as an exercise to anyone interested on those numbers.
I had one Catholic friend from college who would fit C. She believed in no way like her very devout and strict family did, but they’d said many times that not only would they pull any financial assistance from her if she didn’t tow all the right spiritual lines, but she could pretty much count on no more loving. She was still young enough that their approval mattered greatly, so she faked it, replete with things like stickers (on her computer instead of a car) to show her compliance. It was so sad.
D is everyone I was talking about in the anecdote you lied about, so no rehashing those folks, only to end up on your bipolar roller coaster. Sorry. Or as Hector would say, “sorry, not sorry.”
I think most people have fallen under E. My husband used to drive my hippie mobile sometimes, yet I’m pretty sure not many people thought he was big on GRRRL POWER! However, that might’ve believed he was “The Next Mrs. Alice Cooper.” I’ll have to ask. Similarly, I’ve had to drive my mother around, and I in no way, shape or form, believe that we need to impeach Obama because he’s not a naturalized citizen. Maybe your mileage varies?
Ah, back yo my husband, God love him. He’s done F to annoy his ex-wife. While they were still married, it was minor, supporting famous shit that she hated to no end (like a band). After they divorced, he temporarily had one that ridiculed some closely held beliefs of hers, like, for example, Darwin eating the fish or some such. Fortunately, he got all that bitterness out, matured some more, and then took all that nonsense off of any of our cars so we didn’t have to be reminded of that psychotic bitch on a daily basis.
Conclusion? All that fun ass explaining and speculating is simply to illustrate that people can only go by what is reality, not by what the voices in your head dream up when you’re out of Cheetos and mom’s at work. I can only go by what a person shows me, which is why Hector has hung himself and you’ve followed suit like a puppy in heat. I’d suggest if you prefer fantasy so much, perhaps it’s time to throw caution to the wind, toss out your stamp collection and dedicate yourself to full time prepping. For that would completely fit your mentality and mindset.
Okay. I think I’ve finally got a handle on how honestly addled you are. I mean, "baby killer, being far more inflammatory than “anti-abortionist,” was one if the first things that was thrown around in the other thread. So gooses and geeses and all that. But if you’ll note (or someone, I’m sure your hands are probably pretty busy while you troll), I didn’t even use that against sonny boy. So, my choice of “anti-abortionist” is for two reasons only: one, it’s accurate (which I know you don’t like, you poor thing) and two: for the type of people, like Hector, that I’m pitting, I don’t think they’re the least bit pro-“life.” Pro-natal, maybe, or pro-fetus or pro-“anything during the 9 month gestational period, but not a second more” (yeah, ya can’t dance to it), but for me, they don’t get to wear that moniker. I’ll reserve it for someone respectful, like Bricker.
TLDR: You’re slacking. Try harder or we’ll all lose interest.