Anti-abortion people do picket Planned Parenthood, which is a sliding scale health facility for poorer women. They do harass the women going in there, and tell them flat out lies about the “dangers” of abortion, including their biggest one: ABORTION CAUSES BREAST CANCER. This piece of shit has been totally and thoroughly debunked. They also blame the increase on child abuse on abortion??? They do make abortion a racist plot aimed at blacks & Hispanics, who apparently have more abortions.
They do use the incorrect term “pro-abortion.” They do tell women “There are no doctors at Planned Parenthood. Just abortionists.”
Read the extremely misnamed site Abortion Facts. Your head will be spinning.
Wow, some real help by others met with such hash criticism to make it harder on these mothers, Annue-Xmas you have your site you requested on the force opposed to those mothers.
Oh, bull. The vast majority of CPCs that I’ve dealt with do NOT say that abortions are inherently or necessarily painful. Nor do they say that all abortions will lead to “long-term emotional, physical, and psychological damage.” They may correctly state that abortions CAN be painful (though I have yet to see this mentioned anywhere in their literature or training materials), and they may correctly state that there can be long-term emotional, physial or psychological repercussions. This is a far, far cry from stating that abortion WILL lead to such things, though.
As for infertility, there is pretty good reason to believe that abortions can increase one’s risk for such. Ditto for issues such as breast cancer and other medical complications. I’m fully aware that some pro-choicers take issue with that approach and may even cite contrary studies. Even if we grant that though, the point is that this is not a case of claims being manufactured out of thin air, as you seem to imply.
Nor is there anything "thinly disguised’ about their pro-life stance. For example, the largest coalition of crisis pregnancy centers in the USA, Care Net, is very much open about its pro-life stance. Declaring this to be “thinly disguised” is a pretty blatant misrepresentation of their stance on this issue.
A statement from an anti-abortion protestor’s lips: ALL women regret an abortion. NO woman regrets giving a child up for adoption.
When I point out to these people that many women have had abortions with no ill effects, the standard response is “The bad effects can take up to ten years to develop.”
I always check the studies used in their tracts to check the protestors statements. My favorite was the one “Sixty percent of all women contemplate suicide after an abortion.” The site was a study of adolescents who had abortions.
ETA: How is recommending cloth diapers making it harder on mothers? Even if it does, shouldn’t they be concerned about the environmental effects their actions will have on their children’s generation???
In times of great disasters and catastrophes environmental regulations are usually suspended in favor of humanitarian efforts. The number of mothers in need is such a world wide catastrophe. Borrowing against the environment is one of the few places we can borrow against with a assurance of repayment, if we can’t Mother Nature will.
But that’s not the heart of the issue. In my post I mentioned a barrier that prevents people from helping those people in need, from my post:
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
The problem is that there are those who actively push these mothers away from the very help they need. In effect there is a barrier between those who want to help and those in need and that barrier needs to be lifted.
[/QUOTE]
A force of opposition from us coming together. The opposition you brought up is exactly a example of such a force. You have people willing to help, yet you put out a negative against it, it is a demotivator and people who read your post may be influenced perhaps only subconsciously not to help this cause, which the intention of the cause is good.
There are lots of positive ways to be respectful to and encouraging good for the environment without tearing down other peoples efforts to effect good in other aspects of society. It was the initial, almost nitpicky reaction that nailed that barrier to humans helping humans instead of trying to oppose those trying to do good. Devoting good efforts into the environment will raise awareness and carry over to other aspects but in a more positive light.
It is also the quagmire argument that can be gotten into with the disposable vs cloth diapers that just waste energy and resources.
You’re generalizing. I think you should say “some” (more probably, a minority) abortion opponents picket and do sidewalk counseling (as they think of it). Of the maybe ten people I know who I consider as pro-lifers, only one of them has ever done this. The rest have been active in RCC Respect Life programs (pretty much every parish has one), which don’t tend to be picket oriented (I would say they are non-political but that’s not quite true as one of the activities I’ve seen them get involved in is voter-education guides which identify candidates’ position on “life issues,” which also include euthanasia and in some particularly liberal Catholic circles, death penalty). Oh, one more thing – some of the Protestant anti-abortion movement got an (allegedly) bad name because guys like Randall Terry were portrayed as men trying to tell women what to do. By contrast, the Respect Life volunteers I’ve seen have been just about exclusively women (well, that’s probably largely true of most church volunteers across the board).
ETA I’ve never agreed with the fearmongering about health effects of abortion, though I’d say accurate advice about any health or emotional risks is fine. But focusing on the health risk is disingenuous – it really is a moral issue driving you if you’re a pro lifer, why lead with what’s a largely utilitarian argument? If someone perfected safe abortions with no after effects, I don’t think the pro lifer would say, okay, cool, so don’t bring the health issue up front and center when it’s not your main concern.
It’s a “special case” because these are the people who are creating the situation. This is exactly the same as forcing a rapist to pay child support for the child he fathered by force.
They are forcing women to bear children against their will, which is morally no different than rape. They are insisting that they have the right to use her body as they want, regardless of her desires. So yes, I regard the anti-choice people as the moral equal of rapists at best. Probably worse than rapists, since rapes don’t normally last nine months.
I’m not going to lie about those people to make them feel better about themselves. They are no better than rapists; no matter how much they want to consider themselves good people, they are anything but.
This was about a group of people with a desire of their heart to help mothers and infants in need vs. a barrier of negativity to their efforts to them getting help as expressed by Annie Xmas. But such a group does figure into abortion. By supporting women with infants you take away some of the fear that a woman may have in bringing her child to term, take away some of the fear of raising the child.
In general people who wish to lend a helping hand to mothers with infants in need will not be the same group as people who wish to help women through all stages of abortion (and help to the fetuses through perhaps prayers). But there are people there to support women who have had a abortion also.
We are all unique and have a positive things we can contribute to society, my point is don’t use your desire for good be used to tear someone else desire for good down. That is the distraction that wastes energy and no one gets any help.
As for abortion, I see the catastrophe is how common abortion is, how scared pregnant woman are that so many of them feel it is the option for them and their child, things like people coming together to help mothers with infants will encourage more births at the expense of abortions and less fear by woman of having a child. Thus dealing with abortion at it’s root, getting rid of fear.
I’ve been studying case summaries in a medical coding book which are quite interesting in regard to the situations that can arise.
Example: A patient at 12 weeks gestation finds out that the fetus is anencephalic and wishes to have the pregnancy terminated. This is coded as a therapeutic abortion secondary to fetal abnormality.
I can totally understand why someone would choose to abort in such a case. What I can’t understand is why someone else would interfere with that decision and/or expect the woman and/or her partner to go through with the pregnancy if they choose not to do so.
There are also cases of nonviable fetuses whose parent(s) opt for abortion rather than continue with the pregnancy and delivery of a baby with severe defects that will die very quickly after birth, or perhaps linger for some weeks and then die. Others may choose to see it delivered so they can hold it and say goodbye, but not everyone wants to do that.
It’s cases like these that make me sigh whenever I see bumper stickers that say things like “Abortion stops a beating heart.” Well…yes. But it’s not that simple.
I wonder how many dead fetuses there are in Iraq? :rolleyes:
The majority of the “pro-lifers” in this country are anything but pro-life. This country, “pro-lifers” included, cheered on the Iraq war like it was a football game. You don’t get to cheer on war and then claim to be pro-life. If these people were actually pro-life, they would have been outraged by the lack of WMDs and the lack of post-war planning, and Bush wouldn’t have been able to win the 2004 election. They can pretend all they want to care about innocent life, but it’s very clear that these are people who routinely cheer on death and destruction.
Yeah, there are a few people here and there who genuinely take life and death issues to heart, but that’s not most pro-lifers, and it’s certainly not you.
They must not have read about the women who have killed their children and themselves because of depression after the birth of a child. It used to be called" the baby blue"s. Not all women suffer this, nor do many after an abortion, unless they are chided by the people who would force their beliefs on another!
If God provided there would be no poor people. I wonder why God is said to have closed the wombs of some of Israel’s enemies, but can’t close the wombs of women who are not ready for raising a child, and then, there are the women who spend many dollars to conceive but can’t!
I’ve read anti-abortion tracts that describe the effects of abortion being the same as the effects of rape.
Let’s face facts here: Some anti-abortionists use scare tactics to prevent women from exercising their legal right to an abortion. They have the idea that adoption is some kind of magical la-la land where nobody suffers. I read the transcription from the hearins when New York was first considering legallizing abortion. One of the judges described the idea that a person should be able to carry a fetus for nine months and then hand it over to strangers with no ill effects as “an abomination.”
The absolutely most bizarre thing I’ve read in an anti-abortion tract was “25% of all miscarriages occur within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. Wait to see if you will miscarry and you will avoid the effects of abortion.” Of course, a little google will inform you that 20% occur within the first eight weeks. The same tract says the age of viability is 21 weeks. Go figure.
Roe v. Wade has been the law since 1973. I think the anti-abortion crowd should be concentrating on having it overturned legally and/or helping women who give birth and need help, not harassing women who are exercising their legal rights.
Humans need more then things, in some ways things are one of the least important of human needs. Humans need family, community hope and love. On my visit to Haiti, in some of the poorest conditions imaginable I saw more of that then in places in the US. God can use poverty to show us what we really need.
So I reject your statement.
You can look to the story of Sarah and Abraham, it is today’s story of turning to artificial insemination - very possibly these are the people not ready, but so determined to do it anyway.
Besides being physically ready to have a child there is a heart that is ready and a mind that is ready. God works usually at the level of the heart, but our mind sometimes overrides it with false beliefs. I generally believe that women who have a child are ready in their hearts, but false believes imposed by others challenge that. So the wombs are open at the correct time, the heart is ready to grow and has such a desire and prepares fertility for a new life to sprout.
As for closing the wombs of the enemy, I believe this is a reversal of the injustice, those who hold power frighten the population into not having children, just as modern day society does. This closing the womb is the karmic effect that must go back to sender once the ones oppressed turn to (God/ their heart) and no longer are bound by the lies told to them.
Edit: Oh, I want to play this game. Pro-choicers don’t support every choice under the sun for every situation, therefore they’re not really pro-choice. Yay!
