I’m a pretty tolerant sort, but this is the grossest thing I’ve heard in a while. I mean, it’s almost so bad it’s funny but then not.
Link from Jezebel.
I have no idea why Jezebel devoted the article to why the guy writing it was misguided. I don’t know–am I close minded or is this really icky?
Sorry, is that in the US?
Abortion was the ONLY gynecological procedure all my insurance carriers, uh, carried. The year I was leaving UM, I still received (and should have kept to show to people) the pamphlet for the insurance graduate students had to take for the following school year: if covered only one gynecological procedure, and it was abortion. Excuse me, “voluntary termination of pregnancy.” Yearly exams weren’t covered, pregnancy prevention wasn’t covered, pregnancy and delivery weren’t covered, miscarriages, cancer, cysts… weren’t covered. Only voluntary termination of pregnancy.
And if you’re uninsured, there’s free clinics that even after a month in-country I had heard about (what I didn’t hear in five whole years is that there’s free clinics for other gyne procedures as well). Either those people are so full of shit they should change their name to Sewer, or they know less about their own country’s medical system than someone who’s been there for a month.
I assume it’s in the U.S., even though they didn’t specifically say so. Usually mention otherwise, I’d think.
:eek:
That is all.
:eek:
ETA: So she was too broke to pay for an abortion, but she could afford to throw a huge fundraising party?
I’m unambiguously pro-choice and I am repulsed by this. Maybe in a month or so, Maggie can throw another party to raise money so she and her partner can buy condoms.
This makes me kind of sick, too. Sure, women should have the right to have abortions, but they’re nothing to be celebrated, in my opinion. Necessary and not something to be ashamed of, but it’s still about killing a potential human being and that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
I also don’t get why Jezebel seems to think that the abortion party itself is par for the course, but the writer’s reaction about the girl’s friends is way out of line:
I know Jezebel is supposed to be all young and hip, but blech.
A hundred years ago, a lot of the stuff we see on TV every day would have made women faint and men blow chunks, and we sit there eating cereal as it plays. Men kiss men in the street and we don’t bat an eye, we’ve built an entire world economy on usury and not a single soul is stoned for it.
Times they a’change.
Ultimately if the logic holds, you have to trust that the ease with which the new generations do something that before was full of meaning or horror, really just isn’t that meaningful a thing after all and they’re the ones doing it right.
I am grossed out by this too. I guess my feeling is that having an abortion is and should be personal. Not that it needs to be a secret, but it’s not something that you’d put publicize. People who broadcast their most intimate personal business like this, especially for money, are creepy, regardless of the nature of the personal business.
The linked article is weird because it scolds the boyfriend for trying to figure out why all his girlfriend’s friends were attacking him, because “Rather than examining what it might mean to “celebrate” your abortion, what he really cares about is what abortion means for men.” No, he’s upset that all his GF’s friends are giving him shit for even trying to be involved in the decision and is trying to figure out why. However, his biggest crime is not failing to celebrate the abortion. “Celebrating your abortion” is a grotesque idea anyway. I’m not saying you should have to castigate yourself and wear sackcloth and ashes, but it’s not a cause for celebration, for chrissake.
It seems to me that everyone involved in this party was an asshole. JMO, YMMV.
I agree with most of the posters here. I am most definitely pro-choice but the idea of a party disturbs me somewhat. An abortion is nothing to be ashamed of, but it doesn’t strike me as something celebratory either.
It also kind of bothers me that the abortion party is all well and good but Jezebel thinks that Paris Jackson speaking at the memorial yesterday was borderline skeevey/manipulative. Er, wrong priorities.
Sage Rat, I’m not sure it’s a generational thing. I’m not that much older than the girl who had the party and I think it’s pretty wrong. So far most people I’ve asked–twenty something folk–think it’s utterly disgusting.
I agree completely. I just reread the article and saw the part about the three year old being there. What kind of a douchebag brings their three year to a fucking college beer/abortion party??? Jesus. I feel really, really old right now.
Huh. I’m of two minds.
I was at the free clinic a few weeks ago and heard that the price of the RU abortion pill runs $450. And that was the no-insurance, dead-broke price in California, arguably the most liberal and Right-to-Choose-supportive state in the union. Moreover, you can only take the pill up until the 8th month of pregnancy, and they start counting based on the first day of your last period (I was shocked by the price and read some of their literature). So, by the time you would even suspect a pregnancy, you’re 4 or 5 weeks along, by their reckoning, and would have only 3 weeks to find a spare $450. Alternatively, you can wait a few more weeks and pay for the much more expensive surgical procedure. That would be a huge chunk of money for me, the recent college grad, to come up with on short notice. So, I can understand the Girl’s need for funds.
In a weird post-modern kind of way, I applaud her ability to come right out, be honest, and hang a lamp shade on the whole thing. “I need a medical procedure, I can’t afford it, please help me and have a party at the same time.”
On the other hand, I would personally be so mortified at my own failure/lackadaisical birth control that I would likely never admit an accidental pregnancy to anyone. I’d quietly stockpile the necessary cash as quickly as possible, shelling out for the more expensive procedure if needed.
I meant to include the authors of the article in my assessment, btw. They’re assholes too.
I don’t know. Maybe they’re in South Dakota or something (with its lone abortion clinic) and need money to travel, too. The article implied they might have to travel out of state. I just attended a benefit party for a friend of a friend, raising money for her to seek experimental cancer treatment I consider snake oil. But hey, if it’s what she wants. Tragic, too, but people still managed to have a good time.
It’s an odd event, sure, but it’s one abortion fundraising party out of 46+ million procedures performed internationally every year. It didn’t sound like the couple hosting it was having a blast, either. It was sort of hard to tell, since the author didn’t really seem to have all the facts. He definitely had an air of college naiveté about him but overall I thought he was taking a thoughtful look at something that’s pretty common but still shrouded in secrecy. It was very odd that the Jezebel author decided to go after him for this rather than discuss the ‘abortion party.’ But having been on that board before, I know they’ve posted about the rarely discussed relief and even happiness felt by women who have had abortions quite a bit, so maybe it was old hat.
But pastries? Dancing? A red sheet draped over a light to represent a womb? I just think this seems a little too…happy.
It’s not a given that things will go that way, but certainly if people used to be able to eat popcorn while watching hangings in the public square on the weekends, I don’t imagine that it’s all that questionable that this could be the way we’re all moving. Obviously different people will be ahead of or behind the curve.
In the end, we’re talking about unfeeling, unthinking meat. It had the chance to become a human sure, but so might have sperm and I don’t give a second thought to flushing that. Nor would I feel particularly evil for making a party with a Flushing Sperm theme.
Hey, the cancer party had booze and mani pedis! And I’ve been to funerals with dancing. It’s not as if they were denying people the right to feel sad about their own reproductive choices and, again, from the writer’s tone it seems like it was mostly out of desperation (and, okay, a massive dose of ironic hipsterosity). That’s the saddest bit, to me – that they couldn’t afford an abortion between the two of them. Hopefully, if anything, it had attendees asking questions about access to abortion and the like. It’s usually the sort of thing people don’t even think about until they’re confronted with an emergency situation (and then there’s the stigma that keeps people from asking around – ‘So, does anyone know where I can go for an abortion around here’). At least it got the author of the article and his girlfriend discussing the issue.
I stop and bat an eye*.
*If they’re hot.
I have to say I think it is perfectly fine. If you agree that abortion is something that should be freely available it is pure hypocrisy to whine about how inhuman this is. To me, the general tone in this thread is all about shame and condemnation. Shame on this loose woman with her drinking and her dancing and her kegger-throwing sex-having self. If this woman was having a baby that was the product of an accidental pregnancy, no one would bat an eye at her having a baby shower. (In fact, the article mentions such a party.) By talking about the issue, this woman simply embraces this fact. Good for her. If you believe that abortion is killing another human, then complain about the fact that women are allowed to get abortions. Complaining about the party seems like missing the forest for the trees. And a little hint–women can still get pregnant even if they are using condoms and birth control. So let’s drop the judgmental nonsense.
And it’s not like she was celebrating the abortion by throwing a party–seems a bizarre connection to draw. Did the party my friends threw to raise money for another friend’s leukemia treatments celebrate leukemia? Did it mean we were happy my friend had leukemia? Quite the opposite. I would be glad to help a friend out in the same situation–having a baby is not exactly the same as having a form of terminal cancer, but it still changes your life a whole lot. If you are not in the right situation, it can destroy your life. That’s exactly why access to abortion (and that includes being able to afford it) is so important.