Abortions aren’t forced on anyone, per se. However, there are pro-life women who have abortions for medical reasons, or because they’re pressured into it. (Not the same as having it forced on them.)
Robin
I’m not sure about financially. She may have spent a great deal of money on a private abortion clinic.
Or she may be spending thousands of dollars getting over the trauma of the abortion.
Or - even more seriously speaking - she may donating time and money to help other pregnant victims of rape such as she may have been.
In fact I’m not sure about emotionally either. I think one could easily have an abortion out of love for the unborn child, because you don’t want it born into an abusive relationship, or you don’t want it born severly deformed.
Is it emotional and financial neglect to have a terminally ill animal put down?
I realise many will make the obvious point that an animal isn’t a human, but my point isn’t a legal one, it’s one of compassion. The same motives that drives a loving owner to put down a long-loved pet out of its suffering could be those that would cause a woman to have an abortion.
Women who have abortions aren’t all selfish, child-hating monsters. Many desperately want children. Many already have children.
I personally find the Pro-Life Ad intrusive and upsetting, even though I’ve never personally had an abortion. If I had had one, I would consider legal action against the group for harassment.
Just to clarify the above: I don’t see women who have abortions for selfish reasons or because they hate children as “monsters” either - this isn’t my value judgement, it’s my perception of how the pro-life ad portrayed women who have abortions. Reading what I wrote again it might have looked like my opinion, it’s not.
In these exceedingly rare instances, (assuming we’re talking “life threatening” health issues) even pro life institutions like the RC Church would not criticize that decision, so this would not be considered a “pro choice” act in the generally used sense.
**
Oh hogwash…she believes that it’s OK for her to get an abortion, ergo she falls into one segment of the pro choice camp, regardless of what she says…at least in common understanding of what the term “pro choice” refers to.
And yes, i realize that “pro choice” encompasses a spectrum of viewpoints…much like “pro life” does
In my and my wife’s experience living and working in inner cities (Mrs. Diogenes is a Minneapolis social worker) we have encountered large numbers of incredibly irresponsible and neglectful mothers. Some of these women have four or five children with as many different men. They are barely able to cope with the kids they already have and require a ton of state assisitance, ECFE classes, sometimes drug or alcohol treatment, etc., and yet these women refuse to go on birth control, or to stop getting pregnant. They always say they don’t “believe” in abortion for religious reasons. (Yet God apparantly has no problem with wanton promiscuity, drug use, child abuse, child neglect, unemployment or a total lack of any other discernable religious life) Isn’t it worse to bring innocent children into shitty households, with incompetent or abusive parents than it is simply to terminate the pregnancy as early as possible?(although I would prefer some simple goddamn BIRTH CONTROL)
From where I’m standing, it’s the pro-lifers that are neglecting children. The ad is complete bullshit. How is it possible to “neglect” non-existent children?
So, let me see if I understand you now. That pro-life ad was disingenuous because it ignored the contention of certain delusional women who exercise their “right to choose” without actually considering themselves pro-choice. That was the dishonesty you perceived, eh? It was the maker of the pro-life ad who was torturing syntax and logic to a point of disingenuousness, huh? OK, now I get it.
Look, you want to disagree with the philosophy in the ad, feel free. That doesn’t mean that every attack against a pro-life “position” is valid. You can be pro-choice, you can disagree with the sentiment in the ad, and still not agree it’s disingenuous. That was the question in the OP, remember?
Erm yeah that was exactly my point, thanks.
Hogwash, back at ya. The common understanding of “pro choice” is someone who believes women should generally have the choice to have an abortion. The woman to whom I am referring does not, and from discussions I’ve had it’s apparent to me that there are a number of others like her. She’s a hypocrite, yes. She is not a pro-choicer.
Would it be OK in your philosophy to simply kill the children living in “shitty” households? That would alleviate their future suffering in the same manner that abortion does, correct? Should you make the call, since these “incompetents” are clearly making the wrong decision?
And, I would assume, you can be pro-life and still not agree that “a woman who neglects her child is called pro-choice”. The ad posits this assertion as fact, when in many cases it simply isn’t. Thus it is disingenuous.
No, it doesn’t posit this, and that is not why you described it as disingenuous earlier. From you:
**Which is it, then? Is it disingenuous because it paints all neglectful mothers as pro-choice, an inference patently silly and one which you did not raise before? Or is it because it equates women who seek abortions with a “pro-choice” belief? Try to be consistent. And if it is the latter, then my points still stand and you have not addressed them.
Uh, hello? That was a direct quote from the ad, or from iampunha’s memory of it anyway. Assuming he’s repeating it correctly I don’t see how you can claim it doesn’t posit it.
I should have made clear I was offering an additional reason for is disingenuousness, besides the ones already mentioned by previous posters. I did not mean to imply that the equation of pro-choice women with women who have abortions was the primary objection.
Uh, hello? You didn’t imply this last sentence. You explicitly stated that as the reason for the ad being disingenuous in response to another post. Period. The fact that there may be other reasons does not alter the fact that this particular reason made no sense, and it still doesn’t.
Then, after being called on the inconsistency in your logic, you decided that you really meant that the primary objection was something else. The fact that it didn’t come up previously shouldn’t detract from its primacy, I’m sure. I should have known that’s what you really meant, just like the ad writer should know that some women who have abortions are really pro-life. Or anti-choice. Or something.
And the reason for this disingenuousness, by the way, the purpose to be served by saying all neglectful mothers are pro-choice is…what? To convince certain women who are not pro-choice that they really are? To enrage this subset of essentially pro-life women into action by wantonly mischaracterizing them?
There is no pro-life purpose in the disingenuousness you’re describing, which is what makes it a silly inference at the start. The ad remains a clumsy attempt to equate those who have had abortions with a pro-choice belief (not that this is an illogical leap), but it is not in any way disingenuous, or I am missing it. And if I am, you’re not helping me see the light.
I think it was supposed to shock/tug on heart strings in the same way pictures (sometimes doctored) of aborted fetuses are supposed to shock and tug at heart strings. The problem with this is that evidently The Pro-Life Movement has hired a bunch of retarded gorillas to handle their PR and marketing, because not only has this been most ineffective at garnering support and more people in the movement, it’s scared people/driven them away.
The action these ads have resulted in, I think, is more on the order of donations to NARAL and such. This is not entirely within the ideal response hoped for by The Pro-Life Movement.
And here we have the nature of the beast. The ad first talks about child support being the mark of a deadbeat dad, and then starts in about mothers (financially/emotionally/otherwise supporting their children) with the implication that these are already-born children and thus subject to (IIRC) child support and custody laws and says “we call them [women who don’t support their kids] … pro-choice?”
Different situation.
and lastly:
Yeah, champ, it did posit that. I don’t remember the ad verbatim, but I do remember that much.
Also, “pro-choice” does not mean “pro-abortion.” I hate abortion, and I hate that people often treat it as just another form of birth control. (Yes, their choice, but that doesn’t mean I like it).
However, I don’t want to see it made illegal, because that wouldn’t do anything to address the real problems with unwanted pregnancy and children and such.
Cheap demagoguery. A few tissue cells are not equivilent to a born living child.
Nonsense. You were clearly implying that it would be better if this child never live. So why draw some arbitrary line?
I’m saying stop the pregnancy before there ever IS a child. You can’t victimize hypothetical children.
See, there’s the problem. Far as I’m concerned, the statement “stop the pregnancy before there ever IS a child” is a contrediction in terms. Much better to prevent the pregnancy in the first place by proper application of birth control.
But I’m not going to get dragged into an abortion debate in the Pit. The subject’s too touchy for that. I suggest someone (not me, I’ve been writing all night and just don’t have the energy to think clearly enough to do this 
) open up a thread in GD about this, and other related issues.
Whatever, mate. I left out the word “also” in my first post. It was an oversight. If you don’t want to believe that, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
Well I’m glad you acknowledge that the ad is doing this. I believe it’s a calculated attempt, not merely a clumsy one.
**OK, champ, please explain how specifically associating all neglectful mothers with a pro-choice stance enhances this sentimentality. That was the question. Why is this not merely clumsy, but a calculated attempt to associate all neglectful mothers (not just those who had abortions) with pro-choice politics?
**Is there anyone listening to this pro-life ad who doesn’t understand that these children are not alive? That is what makes it tug the heart strings, correct? That this is the ultimate act of neglect, one that makes the behavior of a deadbeat dad seem trivial? Please explain why the ad more effectively serves a pro-life purpose by assuming the specific disingenuous stance you are describing.
Yeah, chief, your OP was a font of illuminating info, especially all the “something” gaps and the part about irrelevant blather. Interesting that the very question your thread asks is whether or not there is truth in this ad or if it is simply as dishonest as it seemed when you first heard it. Perhaps you’re gaining confidence in this repressed memory as time passes, since now there’s no question at all in your mind. Otherwise I’d have to assume your OP question was not a question at all, and you had already decided the matter when you opened the thread. But that would have been–what’s the word?..oh yeah!–disingenuous. In any event, I guess we can close the thread now, since the matter’s settled to your satisfaction.