Bye Bye Baby (party to finance an abortion)

[Bridget_Burke]

@Wheelz

Doesn’t anyone else smell BS here? Duncan’s article reads like fiction - a fable to make a particular point. I’m not buying that this party ever really took place.

EDIT: Ooops, I scrolled down too fast. Maastricht said this before me. But I agree.

Who is Byard Duncan? The “Byard Duncan” page at FaceBook has a link to Alternet–where the piece was published. Plus a link to The Ithacan from Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY. (Not Cornell–the “other” college.)

From the article:

It was around 30 degrees outside, and her cheeks were splashed pink from the Indiana wind.

Exactly where & when did this party happen?

Is there more than one Byard Duncan? This is sort of confusing.

[DianaG]

@Dangerosa

Are those people hosting their own benefit? If so, tacky.

But still wildly different from “celebrating” your abortion, which is what both the tone of the article and several comments made here seem to think was the point. This party didn’t “celebrate abortion” any more than a cancer fundraiser “celebrates cancer.”

[Swallowed_My_Cellphone]

@Rubystreak

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.

I agree with. Having/not having children seems to me to be a private matter. A friend’s fundraiser for his brother’s life-saving brain tumor surgery? That’s fine. Fundraiser for a vasectomy? TMI and really none of my business.

[Guinastasia]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

The analogy was only meant to compare abortion to a medical procedure which is similarly intensely private to most people, but not frivolous or flippant and not done purely for vanity. I was objecting to the suggestion that it should be compared to something as non-serious as an elective boob job.

Well, I disagree that breast implants are ALWAYS frivolous. (As others have pointed out, reconstructive surgery, or in cases of girls being borned with mal-formed breasts.)

I chose anal warts, not because I was trying to compare a fetus to an anal wart (though I can see why people would take it that way), I was just trying to use an example of something that most people would not want to publicize.

Fair enough. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. I guess, like I said, I’m knee jerking here as this seems like something out of The Onion. Something that Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity will be shouting about all over the place.
And I want to be able to criticize these moronic airheads without it looking like I’m anti-choice. (I’m wondering if they also produce menstrual paintings)

[Ichini_Sanshigo]

@Malthus

If you announced you were off to the ladies room and then illustrated by pulling a plastic replica poo out of your purse, would that be TMI?

That would be hilarious.

My stance of the party? Who cares! She needs money for surgery, so she threw a party for to raise it. Maybe the hitting-friends-up-for-money aspect is tacky, but the abortion aspect makes no difference. But then I don’t think people who choose to terminate a pregnancy should be required to be shameful and secretive about it.

[Malthus]

@Marley23

I don’t think I’ve excluded the middle. In the post you quoted, I said I wasn’t suggesting the woman should be celebrated for what she did. The general point I’ve tried to make here is that some posters have suggested ‘I’m okay with abortion, but I feel better about it if the women who have them feel bad about it.’ I’m saying it doesn’t need to work like that.

Well, yeah: but I’m saying that you don’t have to think that a woman must cast ashes on her head for having an abortion to find a fundrasing party TMI and tacky, and an example of decreased public civility.

[DianaG]

Howsabout a fundraising party for cervical cancer? Testicular cancer? They certainly have 'em. TMI?

[Malthus]

@DianaG

Howsabout a fundraising party for cervical cancer? Testicular cancer? They certainly have 'em. TMI?

I’ve already said that a fund-raiser for something that will otherwise kill you is different. It is still TMI, but with better justification.

[Freudian_Slit]

@Guinastasia

I think what disgusts me the most about this – it’s merely giving the other side more fodder to think that the pro-choice side is a bunch of heart-less morons. I don’t want these people associated with me, any more than many pro-life groups would want Randall Terry associated with them.

Yeah, this is part of why it bothers me, too. I hate people thinking, “Look, those pro-choicers, look how hedonistic they are.” And you totally know that some conservatives are so going to look at this and think that.

[DianaG]

@Malthus

I’ve already said that a fund-raiser for something that will otherwise kill you is different. It is still TMI, but with better justification.

So would it be okay to fundraise to terminate an ectopic pregnancy?

[DianaG]

@Freudian_Slit

Yeah, this is part of why it bothers me, too. I hate people thinking, “Look, those pro-choicers, look how hedonistic they are.” And you totally know that some conservatives are so going to look at this and think that.

So? I’m not being flippant, I’m asking… so? That’s what they think anyway, and Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have never changed anyone’s mind about anything. Their choirs already sing that song.

[Dangerosa]

@DianaG

But still wildly different from “celebrating” your abortion, which is what both the tone of the article and several comments made here seem to think was the point. This party didn’t “celebrate abortion” any more than a cancer fundraiser “celebrates cancer.”

And I don’t think my problem has ever been about “celebrating abortion” - just that medical procedures should be more private than the word “party” implies and probably shouldn’t involved themed decorations (and if your friends have that sense of humor and its appropriate, more power to you, but when it gets outside your group of friends and other people think its in poor taste you really can’t be shocked) and that hosting your own fundraiser is tacky.

ETA: although a fundraiser that involves abortion themed decorations seems to cross the line into celebration…

[Malthus]

@DianaG

So would it be okay to fundraise to terminate an ectopic pregnancy?

How is that any different from a cancer? It too will kill you if not treated.

[Freudian_Slit]

@DianaG

So? I’m not being flippant, I’m asking… so? That’s what they think anyway, and Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have never changed anyone’s mind about anything. Their choirs already sing that song.

But this gives them actual ammunition. There are conservatives who think that pro-choice=loving abortion and advocating it. The truth is that no one wants to go out and get an abortion but that sometimes it’s necessary when you get pregnant. Throwing a party makes it seem like pro-choicers are happy about having to do something that a lot of people–both pro choice and pro life–find very sad.

[DianaG]

@Malthus

How is that any different from a cancer? It too will kill you if not treated.

It’s not, that why I asked. You’re good with that, so that answers my question.

[DianaG]

@Freudian_Slit

But this gives them actual ammunition. There are conservatives who think that pro-choice=loving abortion and advocating it. The truth is that no one wants to go out and get an abortion but that sometimes it’s necessary when you get pregnant. Throwing a party makes it seem like pro-choicers are happy about having to do something that a lot of people–both pro choice and pro life–find very sad.

Bull. One person throwing a “Buy me an abortion!” party doesn’t define the pro-choice movement any more than one asshole shooting a doctor in chuch defines the anti-choice movement.

[Freudian_Slit]

@DianaG

Bull. One person throwing a “Buy me an abortion!” party doesn’t define the pro-choice movement any more than one asshole shooting a doctor in chuch defines the anti-choice movement.

I don’t think it defines the movement. It just makes me cringe because I know people will think that it does, the same way pro-lifers probably cringe when they see a case of some nut killing a doctor who performs abortion.

[DianaG]

But in both cases, you’re describing wing-nuts who are inclined to think that anyway. No reasonable person thinks that pro-choicers normally throw parties to pay for it and pro-lifers ordinarily shoot doctors.

[Marley23]

@Freudian_Slit

But this gives them actual ammunition.

They’ve been doing just fine with fake ammunition, so who cares? I find this a really irritating argument against doing something. If you believe pro-choicers love abortion, you have come to that conclusion based on zero evidence. News that one woman had one party will not alter your beliefs in any way. As for the rest of us, you can’t make important decisions based on how they will be interpreted by people who are opposed to you regardless of what you do. It’s a waste of time.

[supergoose]

You know, the more I think about it, the more ‘meh’ I am about the whole thing. I overreacted judgmentally and apologize. Not that anyone remembers or cares about my initial post anyway, just acknowledging it.