Three ancient tales of unwed pregnancies
I grew up in an era in which abortion was both difficult to obtain and physically dangerous. Today’s commonplace alternative of raising the child as an unwed single mother was socially unacceptable in the extreme. Effective birth control was nowhere near as easy to find as it is now, either. But the lure of sex was just as great (last time I checked, that hasn’t changed).
My enormous public New York high school had a mostly working class demographic. But the two girls in my acquaintance who became visibly pregnant were from the “better” families. Although it sounds like the script of a movie, one was the captain of the cheerleading squad and one the head of the baton twirlers.
They were not my friends, and so I was not taken into their confidence about their lives. But by strange coincidence, my gym locker was directly across a tiny aisle from that of the first girl (whom I’ll call “Sally”) during our sophomore year, and similarly from that of the second (whom I’ll call “Linda”) when we were both juniors.
In those days we were required to go to gym class every day, and to suit up in hideous little one-piece blue cotton outfits with bloomer shorts. Nobody, but nobody, looked good in those things. But at least the boys never saw us, since gym class was strictly segregated by gender.
Sophomore year I noticed the formerly svelte and very attractive Sally gaining weight. I thought little about it—she had started out so thin that the weight gain still didn’t make her fat. But she also began to keep her gym suit unbelted.
Huge mohair sweaters were in style that year, and so for a while I thought little of it as I saw her changing back into her regular clothes after gym class. But her normally happy face grew sadder and sadder every day, and her native vivaciousness was replaced by a subdued demeanor.
Then one day she simply disappeared. The rumor—correct, it turns out—was that she’d been sent to one of those “homes” to have her baby and give it away. She returned a few months later with her body looking exactly as it had before any of this had happened. But there was a different aura about her, an expression in her eyes that told of dark adult experiences we didn’t share.
Junior year, when I started to observe across the way that Linda was fastening her sheath skirt with a safety pin under her sweater because the button could no longer reach the buttonhole, I was wiser. As the small safety pin was replaced by larger and larger ones, I watched and wondered what Linda would do.
Her disappearance, when it came, was briefer than Sally’s. The rumor (also true) was that her parents were raising the baby. She and her boyfriend continued to date right through college, although birth control presumably came into the picture because they managed to avoid another pregnancy. When they graduated from the university they married and reclaimed their now five-year-old child, and then went on to have several more—and to stay married, when last I heard.
Marilyn was a friend of mine during my junior year of college. Perhaps “friend” is too strong a word; she was one of four girls I shared an apartment with for a single semester. Marilyn was neither popular nor especially attractive, and her affect was what I would now call depressed. But I didn’t bother to give a name to it then.
When Marilyn began to have stomach problems—throwing up several times a day, and feeling nauseated much of the rest of the time—I didn’t suspect pregnancy at first. She was the sort of person who ordinarily was very open about all her troubles, of which she had many, and she never mentioned it as a possibility. She didn’t have a boyfriend and hadn’t been on a date in months, which also seemed to preclude a baby. And she kept asking me questions about nausea: what sort of illness might cause the kind of symptoms she was feeling? I hadn’t a clue.
This went on for a week or two before she told us: she was pregnant, after all. In those days there were no kits to be had in the drugstore or the Walmart (there was no Walmart). But there were doctors to whom one could go, and that’s what Marilyn had done.
If she had been depressed before, she was in anguish now. She couldn’t sleep and she didn’t eat. Her main activity—aside from throwing up, which occupied the bulk of her time—was crying. Her face seemed permanently puffy, her eyes a sickly pink, and so swollen they were almost shut.
The mystery of who the father might be was cleared up when she told us, with great shame, that she’d been visiting a friend at another college a few weekends earlier and had gotten drunk one night and had sex with a guy she barely knew. She wasn’t even sure how to reach him, but in any event she had no intention of doing so.
What Marilyn did intend to do was to have an abortion. But nobody knew where to go to obtain one.
Marilyn’s best friend Helen, the girl with whom she shared a bedroom in our two-bedroom-four-girl apartment, asked around. Her boyfriend knew a friend who knew a friend who knew a friend who knew…and thus it was set up. Eight hundred dollars cash was the price, a large sum in those days. The address was in the inner city. The date was next week.
Marilyn didn’t have that kind of money. And her parents were the kind she couldn’t confide in, or so she thought. So all of us gave a little bit, and we asked around for contributions. Somehow the sum was raised, and when the day came Helen went with her in the morning to the assignation.
They returned that evening. Marilyn was still crying nonstop. I’ve forgotten most of the details of the story they told, but it was harrowing. The “office” had been no office at all, just a dirty room in a foul part of town, with a lookout with a gun standing guard in the next room. The “doctor” was probably not a medical man, and he had little to say. There was no anesthetic. It had been terribly painful. At least they had the decency, and the knowledge, to tell her to take her temperature regularly for a week or two and to go immediately for medical help if she developed a fever.
Marilyn spent the next two weeks in the apartment with a thermometer in her mouth. She removed it only to eat and sleep, and to look at it at intervals to see the reading. Her crying began to taper off, as did the bleeding (the nausea was now gone), and slowly things went back to business as usual.
Marilyn had always looked sad. But now there was an extra depth of sorrow in her eyes, although her relief was palpable. I kept in touch with her for only a few years after that, and her life wasn’t going too well. But Marilyn had always had troubles, and I’m not so sure it would have gone a whole lot better even without the pregnancy and abortion.
As time went on abortion became legal. Still, I was always profoundly happy that I managed to avoid an unwanted pregnancy and the attendant terrible decisions that I never wanted to face. But I learned that many of my friends did confront them—at least half had unwanted pregnancies (often through contraceptive failure, particularly IUDs), and chose to abort. Some of them seemed to breeze through the experience with little anguish, while others feel deeply guilty to this day.
The variety is almost endless, the decisions tough. The possibility of unwanted pregnancy is something every actively heterosexual woman must face, except those who know they are infertile (and they face other sorrows). All of these women did the best they could in difficult circumstances. I leave judgment to others; I prefer to have compassion for them all.
[NOTE: The public furor about the various Palin pregancies was the impetus for this reminiscence.]
Keep it legal, rare, and safe. These are sad stories that a male has little perspective towards; great post.
You’ve done many fine essays here. This is among the best.
The economy demands that education last beyond the age of fertility. The only ways to prevent abortion are:
1. Cram the knowledge in faster. Graduate and get married at 17.
2. Delay puberty til college is done. New drugs or genetic engineerring required.
3. Get married in college and use birth control. And alter the religions to permit this (!)
4. Fool around and use birth control. Probably have to drop the religions.
5. Chastity belts, abolish mixed education.
6. Drop college, get married in high school.
7. Require homosexuality before marriage. There are cultures that do this, more or less.
I think I, like most people, find abortion abhorrent, sad, terrible, etc. but know that it is not as easy as all that. Banning abortion will not end it, but will simply drive it into the black market. I am a conservative in many ways, but I can’t begin to think that my belief in conservatism includes denying a woman’s right to choose. These women don’t do so lightly–or at least, very few of them. It’s sad, and we do need to attempt to eliminate it, but not through laws, through compassion and education…
Since you were a child, and were not actually seeking a “back alley” abortion, i assume that your just promoting the current pc message on it, accepting that whatever is said most frequently (as goebbles said) would be the truth.
I grew up in an era in which abortion was both difficult to obtain and physically dangerous.
they were neither. just as the millions of women (and men) killed by the catholic church turned out to be 300, similar propaganda has revisioned our history.
so just to set the record straight…
from: Aborted Women, Silent No More
Pro-abortionists claimed that “five to ten thousand women die from illegal abortions every year.” This pseudo-fact was much repeated by the media. Abortion proponents like former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson knew this figure was false but considered it to be “useful” in their public relations campaign. Even Planned Parenthood’s own leading statisticians admitted that the official statistics on deaths resulting from illegal abortion were very accurately reported prior to 1973. In 1972, there were only 32 maternal deaths related to illegal abortion, not the thousands proclaimed by pro-abortionists.
Prior to legalization, 90 percent of illegal abortions were done by physicians. Most of the remainder were done by nurses, midwives or others with at least some medical training. The term “back alley” abortion referred not to where abortions were performed, but to how women were instructed to enter the doctor’s office after hours, through the back alley, to avoid arousing neighbors’ suspicions.
Pro-abortionists claimed that there were one million illegal abortions performed each year. This was another made-up number intended to shock the public with the “overwhelming” dimensions of this unstoppable problem. Scientific estimates based on known deaths and complications related to illegal abortion show that the actual rate of illegal abortions was in the range of 60,000 to 200,000 per year.
Surveys of women seeking legal abortions confirm that only 6 to 20 percent would have considered seeking an illegal abortion if it was not legally available. This finding also confirms that legalization of abortion has replaced every illegal abortion that we sought to avoid with between ten and fifteen legal abortions.
There are also many deaths which are indirectly caused by abortion. Women with a history of abortion are six times more likely to commit suicide. They are also more prone to substance abuse and other forms of risky behavior that may lead to death. They also have increased rates of breast and cervical cancer. In addition, approximately 100,000 women each year will lose a planned baby to spontaneous miscarriage as a direct result of reproductive damage caused by their prior induced abortions.
Before legalization, abortion was primarily a vice of the more educated and affluent, particularly those married women who were “done” having children. Since legalization, women undergoing abortion are more likely to be young, less educated and less affluent. In this regard, legalized abortion has helped population controllers successfully target a greater number of “lower class” babies for destruction.
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there is a lot more… but if they hid that Sanger was americas formost eugenicist, who wanted abortion for eugenic purposes, and whom hitler wrote to her organizaiton for advice…
then what about the rest? well they lied about that, as they were working towards convergence. that is, duplicating the laws of the soviets here, in effect making the US like there.
Free love, no fault divorce, and abortions on demand were somthing that lenin introduced in the first few years and why russia is on the verge of collapse. the US has similar birth rates, thanks to following the same policies.
fjordman points out that in any nation where the men refuse to stand up and protect their families and women, they get taken over, which is what is happening in many eu states with islam.
recent scandals of abortion have shown (on tape) that planned parenthood is willing to take donations for the termination of babies of a specific race. that they also have placed more offices in minority neighborhoods fullfilling Sangers more for the fit, less for the unfit races.
not to mention that the US government pays planned parenthood for eacn abortion they do, but pays them nothing otherwise.
since we have legalized it more than 40 million have been terminated.
given that these are socialist utopian ideals, they have managed to have the US on par with other socialist genocides in history.
when we look to these changes that happened in the 60s… we forget to ask where did the ideas for them come from. most americans, even today, are against abortion the way it is legally laid out today. most americans are adn were against no fault divorce (and still are). the list goes on.
guess what Lenin (Vladimir, not John) did right up front to facilitate the communist revolution? He broke up the family by instituting de facto no-fault divorce, as celebrated Soviet expert Mikhail Heller explains:
It is significant to note that one of the first things V.I. Lenin did when he came to power in the Soviet Union, after the revolution in 1917, was to have passed what amounts to our no-fault divorce statutes.
Lenin, and later Stalin, determined that in order to maintain control of the people it would be necessary to completely destroy the family and restructure it.
Thus, on Sept. 16, 1918, a law was passed whereby one could obtain a divorce by simply mailing or delivering a postcard to the local register without the necessity of even notifying the spouse being divorced.
This statute, along with the communist encouragement of sexual immorality during marriage, approval of abortion, and forcing women out of the home into the workforce, accomplished its purpose of destroying the Russian family.
Unlike Lenin, who had guns, gulags and storm troopers to enforce his will, America’s revolutionaries, including the radical feminists, had no means of forcing their anti-marriage and other agendas on society other than the force of “moral persuasion” — or to put it more aptly, angry intimidation. Unfortunately, people who aren’t strong and sure of their own beliefs simply cannot withstand the demands of unreasonable, angry intimidators. They give in, they compromise, and even start to adopt the bully’s views as their own — to keep the peace.
That’s what happened in America.
“Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.” – Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10
mckinnon is a supreme court lawyer who has changed the burden of proof in legal cases from innocent till proven guilty.
“The Women’s Caucus [endorses] Marxist-Leninist thought.” — Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful, p. 597
“A world where men and women would be equal is easy to visualize, for that precisely is what the Soviet Revolution promised.” – Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, Random House, 1952), p.806
so just to get the facts out… something that few do… most just spout the party line… what they hear over and over in the mainstream… they rarely even challenge it.
they dont realzie taht in each area that was similar to the soviets, the fellow travelers here worked real hard to sell us the same beans under different names.
40 years later we are spouting the same lies and we are ignorant of where they started and whence they came. and yet we accept the invalid as valid because the left spouts the answers over and over and over and over.
even women working…
which is why palin is under attack.. NOW has said dont vote for her, and so forth.
WHY?
because they are for making a communist america, not for working toward the best for women.
and being a successful woman, who has done so by not putting off her fertility, and not being a socialist/communist, and more… is something they cant support. which is why they celebrate some nasty people like sanger, but you dont hear of otehr women…
palin shows that women can make it without communist ideologues showing the way.
feminists HATE heterosexual family, and they HATE it when such actually make things work, when no one can make their plans work.
and just so you can believe me on how the destruction of the heterosexual family, as transmitter of culture, and protector of values and morals, and a impediment to tricking the population..
here is what THEY Say.
“[I]f even 10 percent of American women remain full-time homemakers, this will reinforce traditional views of what women ought to do and encourage other women to become full-time homemakers at least while their children are young…. This means that no matter how any individual feminist might feel about child care and housework, the movement as a whole [has] reasons to discourage full-time homemaking.” — Jane J. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, p.100
“Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.” — Karl Marx
“The care of children ..is infinitely better left to the best trained practitioners of both sexes who have chosen it as a vocation…[This] would further undermine family structure while contributing to the freedom of women.” — Kate Millet, Sexual Politics, 178-179
“Millett argued that the complete destruction of marriage and the natural family is necessary to produce an ideal society.”11 — Patrick F. Fagan, Robert E. Rector, and Lauren R. Noyes
“In Millett’s view, a dismantled patriarchy–resulting from the destruction of traditional marriage–would generate the downfall of the nuclear family, a goal she called “revolutionary or utopian.”8 — Patrick F. Fagan, Robert E. Rector, and Lauren R. Noyes
“We can’t destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.” — Robin Morgan (ed), Sisterhood is Powerful, 1970, p.537
“In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them” — Dr. Mary Jo Bane, feminist and assistant professor of education at Welleslry College and associate director of the school’s Center for Research on Woman
“No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” — Interview with Simone de Beauvoir, “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975, p.18
“It became increasingly clear to us that the institution of marriage `protects’ women in the same way that the institution of slavery was said to `protect’ blacks–that is, that the word `protection’ in this case is simply a euphemism for oppression,” — Sheila Cronan, “Marriage,” in Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism, p. 214
“Marriage is a form of slavery.” — Sheila Cronan, “Marriage,” in Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism, p. 216
“Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the Women’s Movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage.” — Sheila Cronan, “Marriage,” in Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism, p. 219
“How will the family unit be destroyed? … the demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively. Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare.” — From Female Liberation by Roxanne Dunbar
“Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies.” — Andrea Dworkin, Letters from a War Zone, (Dutton Publishing, 1989
“The first condition of the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society.” [Engels, p.67]
“The institution [of marriage] consistently proves itself unsatisfactory–even rotten…. The family is…directly connected to–is even the cause of–the ills of the larger society.” — Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (New York: Morrow, 1970), p. 254
===============
these are the women that lead women…
how can women, like palin, have happy home lives?
they cant…
THIS is why the left is in even more of a turmoil. each time someone comes up like this, it threatens their standing as to who they really support…
which is why they are writing articles now that female genital mutilation in islam is a blesssing, and other things.
they tow the communist line FIRST, and the feminist line as a means to an end.
divide and conquer… (which is why they do nothing to prevent th gang rapes in malmo, and other parts of europe!).
i will leave you with quotes from SANGER,
the founder of planned parenthood..
“Birth control: to create a race of thoroughbreds.” — Margaret Sanger, Birth Control Review, November 1921, (vol. V, no. 11); p.2.
“More children from the fit, less from the unfit–that is the chief aim of birth control.” — Margaret Sanger, Birth Control Review, May 1919 (vol. III, no. 5); p.12
“The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” — Margaret Sanger, letter to Clarence Gamble, Dec. 10,1939. – Sanger manuscripts, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
“To give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization”, Founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger in April 1932 (“A Plan For Peace”, Birth Control Review)
all these and more are visited upon us by the left as these are the keys to destroying a resident culture. after all, how would america fall? in a large scale battle, or by rotting out from the inside?
SAnger and Rudin wrote back and forth. Rudin was the guy that helped make T4 a success… that was the order that came prior to the order to exterminate the jews.
we have followed much the same orders… but through ‘soft’ methods… like movies softening us up to euthanasia (million dollar baby, salton sea)… administrative euthanasia through rationing medical care is another way.. (you think the state will let go of the taxes to save an 80 year old? nope). and pre paid abortions on demand… putting the offices in key neighborhood and visiting economic and social malaise on the people.
sanger appointed lothrop stoddard as a board member of her birth control league… here is what he said about what he saw the nazis doing..
Stoddard personally witnessed how the Nazis were “weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way.”
the russians had the same humanitarian streak…
if you dont believe read Sangers “A plan for peace”. the internet has made so many thinks like this, which were out of print and would be in a tin hatters file cabinet, freely availble.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/327166/1932-Margaret-Sanger-A-Plan-for-Peace
“But it is well to emphasize that we advocates of birth control are not so much disturbed by the stationary birth rate of the thinking classes, as by the reckless propagation of the ignorant” (“An Answer to Mr. Roosevelt,” BCR, vol. 1, no. 5 (Dec. 1917), p. 14.
“Such philanthropy . . . encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant” (Ibid., pp. 116-117).
its not hard to take her concetps and then realize that for communists, the line between fit and unfit are the lines between the party and the masses of hated proletariat. that its a two level system, with the slaves on the bottom and ruling class on the top, and so for the slaves you get one set of laws, like dhimmi/sharia… and for the ruling class another… (the parallels of political structure to islam, but with the staet as religion would be scary if we actually could realize that somethign with another name is the same thing).
note that feminists like nanci pelosi have how many kids? but give advice that prevents the prols from having as many (start late, you cant ahve as many)… and we forget that for every woman that does not have any children, antoher woman has to have FIVE children for the populaiotn to remain steady…
a population that is too small will have economic collapse due to social programs foisted on the young. it will nto be able to field a military to protect itself. it will not be able to keep its culture when millions of another culture walk over the borders. the list goes on.
and they still target groups:
the washingtom times / planned parenthood targets blacks.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/25/planned-parenthood-targets-blacks/
Since the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which overturned most state and federal laws outlawing or restricting abortion, an estimated 48,6 million babies have been aborted, according to the National Right to Life Committee. In particular, blacks are disproportionately impacted by abortion. Is Planned Parenthood deliberately acting to reduce the black population? Is it practicing a form of eugenics?
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research, 13 percent of the U.S. population is black, but 37 percent of all abortions are performed on black women. More than 10 million black babies have been aborted since 1973. Black women are 4.8 times as likely as white women to have an abortion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also indicates that one out of every five white pregnancies ends in abortion, whereas one out of every two black pregnancies ends in abortion.
One-third of all abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in 2007 were on blacks, and a majority of Planned Parenthood’s clinics are in minority neighborhoods.
so the arguments around Palin, are not what they seem. as the HARD LEFT is what gears them, and the hard left is never arguing from a point of merit, but always a point of manipulation.
so the opposition to Palin is because she is not a leftist feminist… she is a trator to them.
You know, Artfldgr, there really is something deeply, deeply, deeply wrong with you.
Please keep your mental issues to yourself. It really is not at all attractive to see them trotted out here.
This is my first time visiting your blog, and I find it refreshing. My generation may be younger, but there is still a dichotomy between the number of women who have had an abortion, and the public perception (especially among conservatives) of the character of these women and just how numerous they are.
Vanderleun,
i was not who created this history, and if you like the false revisioned one, then the soviet union was your kind of place.
however, this is the history. we have been sold that promiscuity with abortion, is better than self control with consequences for actions.
the sex ed stuff is directly out of hungary. the idea was to use sex as a lever to get the children to deny the wisdom of their parents.
read the works that they wrote… that the followers dont read (except for the hard core). i read everything, so i end up reading what the useful idiots dont read because they listen to pundits, and dont take the time to read the words of the people they support.
attacking me with an ad hominem because you have accepted the party line for so long and cant look at the actual history.
read margret sangers AUTO BIOGRAPHY… i did, and its a real pip.
Vanderleun, why dont you explain what is sick about me?
after all, i agree with the Palin family. who are not going to abort the baby, and will promote marraige of the two who had sex. meanwhile, the girl has a good healthy family aroud her, who are supporting her.
all these are negatives to the people who think that the family is a dead thing (and dont know why).
let me know what mental issues i have… that way at least neo can stamp your work and we can have an official statement.
until then, attacking me with unspecified ad hominem to shame me from making statements that are not what you agree with, is very communist/fascist of you, herr Vanderleun.
rather than attack me, how abotu a cogen post, with links for references, that lays out the real history? how about actual debate, with meritocritous points?
give me a break…
if the feminists say this is what their goal is, and they actually act on it. and sanger says this is her goal, and she acts on it. and hitler in mein kampf said that was his goal, and he acted on it.
why am i sick for actually believing the sick people at their word?
and how are you healthy denying them their own words to the issue by deluding yourself?
let me know what is sick…
since i am against such practices… and since your opposed to me, you must be FOR such?
Wow. Artfldgr. So Sarah Palin is not happy and Islamic men ‘take care of’ their women? If their teenage daughter turned up pregnant, she’d be beheaded. Or stoned to death.
I agree with vanderleun.
Reading this takes me back to when I became pregnant. I was contemplating a study program abroad and leaving the small town on an island where I was ending a relationship with someone. The anguish of being old enough to care for a child and not wanting to abort versus going ahead with my plans and aborting was tantamount. I kept my abortion appointment until the day I married the father. The confusion and sickness that comes over you during pregnancy does not help your decision making. I wish that I knew then that I was strong enough to raise my daughter alone so that we both didn’t have to suffer the results of a needless marriage. I’m emotional as I write this, only because my life has taken a different tack than I would have chosen, but choices are choices and I have a beautiful daughter who is going out in the world to make her own choices. God bless her.
You know, Artfldgr, buffer blathering is no way to go through life.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Even for an overheated brain and a full drool cup.
Artfldgr who do you think reads your comment? It takes two lines to get the idea. It’s crowded on the American left-bashing right. OK you too. That I glimpsed while checking how much you have ready and prepared for people to ignore.
Absolutely agreed Vanderleun.
rose? are you smoking sacred datura and having delusions?
i never said any of that…
your and the other persons reading comprehension are down on the floor…
Palin is disliked, i never said anything as to her emotional state. how did you get that? i was pointing out why NOW doesnt stand by her, and why the feminists are against her (do i have to put the link to the NOW statements?)
your both being leftist assholes… period.
in malmo and sweden there is a problem going on. the islamic men are attacking the swedish girls and gang raping them because of not wearing the veil. they are also robbing swedish men, and when asked they mentioned how the swedish men do not care to protect their women and such.
the point is that the men of sweden are not protecting the women. the young rad islamic are running rough shod over them and attacks are up by a few hundred percent.
how does that translate to what you said?
right nwo the feminists have gone awol against islam… they dont protest those things… they are actually either for the rule, or they are afraid of the rads themselves, or they remember their radical past and are leaving them alone. i dont know the reasons.
their followers though, still think they are against these thigns. but as i said, their followers dont read well… as evidences by your reading ability.
Lisa Nilsson has lived in Manhatten, New York City, for 25 years. After moving back to Malm¿, Sweden, she now misses the safety of New York. She never walks anywhere in Malm¿ after dark, but takes a taxi everywhere she goes.
Rapes in Sweden as a whole have increased by 17% just since the beginning of 2003, and have had a dramatic increase during the past decade. Gang rapes, usually involving Muslim immigrant males and native Swedish girls, have become commonplace. Two weeks ago, 5 Kurds brutally raped a 13-year-old Swedish girl.
The number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six — 6 — times as common today as they were a generation ago.
so keep playing games… i am against thsi kind of cultural war… gender war… etc..
meanwhile, your knee jerk reactions without even understanding what i wrote, tells me that your in the useful idiot camp… you HAVE to work the party collectivist line… you havent even the freedom to see that i am in opposition to such things happening to ANYONE, not just women.
sigh…
Immigrant Rape Wave in Sweden
fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/12/immigrant-rape-wave-in-sweden.html
i came across this stuff when i read about the girl raped in daylight in a subway tunnel as commuters walked by…
but sweden is very feminised… and so the men do nothing. no one stopped those men, and THATS APPALLING to me..
this one is a bit dated… since it covers summers, but the important part is the part on masculinity.
How Feminism Leads to the Oppression of Women
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1908
after two generations of Second Wave Feminism, Ms. Willis and Ms. Beauvoir have had their way: The West has skyrocketing divorce rates and plummeting birth rates, leading to a cultural and demographic vacuum that makes us vulnerable to a take-over by… Islam. And feminists still aren’t satisfied.
A striking number of Scandinavian men find their wives in East Asia, Latin America or other nations with a more traditional view of femininity, and a number of women find partners from more conservative countries, too. Not everyone, of course, but the trend is unmistakable. Scandinavians celebrate “gender equality” and travel to the other side of the world to find somebody actually worth marrying.
Norway and Sweden are countries with extremely high divorce rates. Boys grow up in an atmosphere where masculinity is demonized, attend a school system where they are viewed as deficient girls and are told by the media that men are obsolete and will soon be rendered extinct anyway.
A feminist culture will eventually end up being squashed, because the men have either become too demoralized and weakened to protect their women, or because they have become so fed-up with incessant ridicule that they just don’t care anymore. If Western men are pigs and “just like the Taliban” no matter what we do, why bother? Western women will then be squashed by more aggressive men from other cultures, which is exactly what is happening in Western Europe now. The irony is that when women launched the Second Wave of Feminism in the 1960s and 70s, they were reasonably safe and, in my view, not very oppressed. When the long-term effects of feminism finally set in, Western women may very well end up being genuinely oppressed under the boot of Islam. Radical feminism thus leads to oppression of women.
go online and check out the young guys… they are ASKING for us to fail and fall…
and THATS what i meant by we dont take care of our own any more.
when a woman gets rapped in public during the day, the men will not come out and help them. they are equal to the men, and like the men, on their own.
i think thats a step back.
but i guess you think its a step forward.
i keep up on lots of things, most on the left are ignorant. you are arguing from ignorance withoute ven the decency of trying to understand what i am saying.
you jut want abortion on demand, and dont care what the reasons or consequences are. and yet, you dont find that odd? that you want something and yet cant actually cogently argue for it, and yet think the desire is your own…
i give up..
if i write small.. you dont understand..
if i write large… you complain too many notes…
if i am unprepared.. i dont knwo my subject
if i am knowlegable.. i am prepared and should be ignored.
i laid out HISTORY… which is neither left nor right… its history… its what happened. she wrote those books, started those organizations, and promoted thos ideas.. feminists thought that her original works would die out of print and they could manufacture a hero who promoted the soviet lines towards making communism.
and yet i am the one with the problem.. not sanger who sanctioned it… not the germans who copied it… not the americans today who follow it in ignorance…
nope.. i am… the man who points out that those follwing it are not following it from a moral source, but an immoral one… and so i rain on your humanist parade…
sorry, but these women and sanger did their thing more than 30 years before i was born.
My own thinking on abortion has evolved significantly from when I was younger, and unthinkingly pro-choice. All I will say is that I have no idea how I would handle such a wrenching, terrible decision and could never judge someone else for what she chose to do.
One of the best examinations of abortion I’ve ever read is here at AmbivaBlog. She has two parts and promised a third but doesn’t seem to have gotten around to it. In the end, the conclusion she comes to on abortion, speaking out of her own experience, is that the best choice is simply, Don’t even go there. Do whatever it takes–birth control, abstinence, sterilization if you know for a fact you don’t want kids–to avoid getting put in a position where you have to make that choice, because it is something that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
Excellent article Neo. Thanks for sharing this.
Artfldgr,
You may or may not have made some valid points. I don’t know. I make it a point to never read comments that are more than two or three paragraphs in length. Anything longer than that is preaching and not commenting. And, IMO, extremely rude to both Neo and her readers.
Good article.
As for Artfldgr, as far as read you said nothing I wasn’t aware of, but hijacking another’s blog is not nice.
Why don’t you start your own blog? They can be had cheap or free, you know.
Oh, yeah. Few want to read lengthy rants, so you’re reduced to hijacking.
I’ll return, neoneocon (and lurk, most likely), but I’ll certainly skip anything put up by argfldgr.
Kaba,
point well taken. though in my defense i cant seem to convey complex things in short form well, and when i do, no one will take the facts as facts since they often contradict what “everyone knows to be true”. if i would have written a two paragraph post that amounts to correcting popular history would anyone believe anything i say without more than a few examples? its tiring to have to look up things i already know, and have taken the time to know, and then real quick hash something together just to show that the points i am trying to put on the table are valid, though not at all what is “common knowlege”. even with all the examples, and writings, and links, people would rather argue from a revisioned history that never actually existed, but that they are prepared to argue and discuss from as if it did, and it was valid.
maybe its better if i just keep quiet and let everyone discuss things from false points rather than valid ones. they seem to not care if the inputs are valid or not, just as long as their arguments are not tainted by such niggling things as validity. after all, once empiracle validity is no longer a thing to care about, we could use all manner of things not related to judge and assign it, like punctuation, or length, gender of the author, really anything at all. violate any of these other points and the object is no longer valid.
thanks for the constructive criticism its appreciated 🙂
I have known a few women who had abortions at young ages. One had the abortion because she had gotten pregnant again too soon after birth and the doctor told her the chances of defects or risks were high.
Years later, she would look at a schoolyard full of kids and cry. “My baby would have been this age now” was the message in her eyes.
The woman is rare indeed who does not realize, at some point in her life, that she has in fact murdered her own baby. And the woman who doesn’t is missing some critical soul parts.
Sadly, the decision is usually made while immature and fearful, and then when wisdom and peace come later it is regretted.
As a man with no children and no dog in the race, I am just saddened by the whole thing. I know in my heart that it’s a baby, a human being, and that it is being murdered and it is innocent. But I can’t help but be responsive to the compassionate needs…. so I just thank God that such decisions do not accrue to me, and I pray for the dead babies and for the hurting mothers…. and if I meet a pregnant woman, I tell her with all the passion I can muster that she WILL regret it later if she kills her baby.
Most of them realize this, but most are just too afraid of their present lives changing that radically.
On the subject of Artfldgr:
His comments do tend to be long. But they are often interesting and offer a unique point of view. I don’t always agree with him, nor do I always have the time to read his comments, but I figure that those who want to will, and those who don’t can just scroll past.
That said, his comment here at 3:21 PM is unusually long and really goes beyond what’s ordinarily considered acceptable in a blog comment. But I assume he’ll scale it back in the future.
I have not read most of it, but I do take issue with the content of the part I did read, which is this:
Since you were a child, and were not actually seeking a “back alley” abortion, i assume that your just promoting the current pc message on it, accepting that whatever is said most frequently (as goebbles said) would be the truth.
Your assumption is incorrect, as I believe my post made clear. I fortunately did not have to seek an abortion myself, but I am old enough that I was no longer a child when abortion became legal. Therefore, the three stories I tell here occurred prior to Roe V. Wade, when abortion was still illegal.
I personally know many women who had illegal abortions (not just the one in this essay), and very few of the women I know had them in what they were sure was a doctor’s office, or what even resembled one. And these women were all from firmly middle-class families. The thing you may not understand is that all abortionists claimed to be doctors, but the woman had no way of knowing who they actually were or how qualified, or whether they were once doctors and were now needing to support a drug habit or had lost their licenses or any number of other dire possibilites. Women also sometimes tried perform abortions on themselves.
There is no question in my mind that most of this did not appear in the statistics, and even that the death statistics are far from complete.
Dodger laments:
“i give up..
if i write small.. you dont understand..
if i write large… you complain too many notes…”
I take back the mean things I said and apologize, but…
The solution is simplicity itself:
Get a blog of thine own. Free and simple to set up.
Pithy comments here with pointers to longer comments there. No one can criticize you for that and you’ll glean some early readers/adopters.
I’ll add you to Google Reader.
Artfldgr is right. Margaret Sanger was an out and out racist who wanted to use abortion as a way to solve America’s “Negro Question” Much more humane than the showers, don’t you agree?
As to abortion being ‘illegal’prior to 1973: true and untrue. Like opponents of Roe want now, it was up to the individual states. Some were legal, some illegal. As a product of a humongous NYC High School myself, I have personal knowledge to the truthfullness of that statement.
And your essay’s reflection about the women’s change in personality after the abortion makes acompelling argument that abortion is against the mental health of the mother.
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swift boater: I am extremely aware of the legal history of abortion in this country. The stories to which I am referring occurred before abortion was legal in any state in the union—except some in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
This essay is not primarily about abortion, either. It’s about the hard choices women faced, and still face, whether abortion is legal or illegal. I left out the women I knew who got married because they were pregnant; I know quite a few of those, too. Sometimes it worked out rather well, sometimes not.
Artfldgr,
Validity is a very subjective idea. One man’s religion is another man’s blasphemy. And neither of them is likely to have a monopoly on truth.
I would concur with other commenters; get your own blog if you believe you have something important to say.
Though I seldom comment, I’ve been reading Neo on a daily basis almost since the day she began blogging. She often expresses my thoughts and feelings more eloquently than I ever could.
Artfldgr,
I read (most of) your post and think you are obviously well versed in this history. I’m amazed actually. The image i get of you actually pounding this stream of consciousness on a keyboard worries me a bit though. Lol
No matter what circumstances that drive such an anguish-filled choice, no one else has the moral authority to assumen the right to make it for the prospective mother.
I graduated from high school in 1959. Your high school and college experiences described in this fine essay are almost identical with my own–down to the blue bloomers.
I think that the mainstream media, the Far Left, and the Soft Left are apoplectic in their fear and hatred of Sarah Palin and what she represents. That’s what this is all about. I find these people despicable in every way. And they show very unbalanced double standards when they pile on Palin and say not a peep about one of Joe Biden’s sons who engaged in fraud in the hedge fund business. Now that’s despicable behavior: both Biden’s son’s and the jackals baying for the carcass of Sarah Palin.
Many of Arfldgr’s comments regarding how the Left/Communists want to have complete power over social engineering are right on the money.
As for myself, I am pro-choice, but not pro-abortion as a means of birth control. Keep the practice rare, safe, and legal. Over the years the numbers of abortions keep going down, which is a positive trend. As a man, I admittedly don’t have a woman’s perspective on this. But I certainly do know that there ARE circumstances under which it is the right choice. It’s never a good thing; it’s a tragic event. I know a woman who told me that (and the event she related happened back in the 1930’s) her mother’s PARISH PRIEST told her father, and this was during a difficult and dangerous pregnancy, that the right choice is to save the mother, not the baby. That kind of logic admits that when we do moral reasoning we are balancing values to achieve the optimum good.
Abortion becomes the lightning rod used by the Left during the last 28 years because it is trying to scare women into not voting for conservative candidates. And it has been a successful strategy (not based on election results so much as the tendency for single women to vote against Republicans). So, why not keep on going to the well?
And yet it does say something about our culture that our women do feel vulnerable and that they do not trust that their men are going to do right by them. Single women are off the charts in support of Obama in this election. They feel vulnerable. Why?
Married women are far more likely to vote for McCain in this election. Why?
I don’t mean to be preachy, but maybe it is my Roman Catholicism showing through (and I’m probably considered a liberal Catholic) : we have devolved towards a culture that wants to be more libertine and hedonistic like Europe’s. I think European culture is now in the gutter. And they are not far from pretty much surrendering to the Ummah, which is a much more robust cult than what the rest of Europe has got going for it, having rejected Christianity and Judaism in favor of soft-Marxism and physicalist reductionist atheism.
The people who want Sarah Palin’s head on a platter are the kind of people who don’t give to charities, have very few or no children, want a much more robust welfare state, want a foreign policy that appeases monsters and totalitarian states, want abortion on demand like they hand out condoms, no restrictions on pornography (the ACLU is not even against having sex with children and animals), and want to dis-arm citizens so they won’t have anything to keep the government obedient to the Constitution. They want to greatly reduce the military. They don’t recognize that you need a strong military and an armed citizenry so that the bad and evil characters of the world in their boxes.
I used to be on the Left over twenty years ago. I KNOW THESE PEOPLE LIKE THE BACK OF MY HAND. I’ve burned my bridge and I’m not going back over to their side. Especially after 9/11: the Left’s alliance of convenience with Islam disgusts me. But then again these people never had problems with Communist and Marxist regimes to begin with.
Sellouts, the lot of ’em. And cowards too.
Well, I’m one of those well known, much maligned Xtianist Pro-lifers. Artfldgr, there is no point in rehashing the reasons against or for abortion. We have all of various stripes made up our minds. This was neither an argument for or against, but a reminiscence, and one to be heeded for it’s historical significance.
These are indeed deeply personal stories. Those of us on the Pro-Life side ignore that at our peril, and we do, sometimes. Sadly.
“You know, Artfldgr, there really is something deeply, deeply, deeply wrong with you.
Please keep your mental issues to yourself.”
I may not agree with Artfidgr’s comment blogging as a matter of style or ettiquette, but there is definately not anything deeply wrong about passionately arguing against infanticide nor do I see how it is a sign of mental illness that a person should do so. Rather, I think it’s more a matter of mental clarity and precision of language to call the thing what it is.
Thank God for the rude and obnoxious William Wilberforces of whatever time, that refuse to let complexity get in the way of what ought to be simple. One day our children will look back on us and shudder at the holocaust we are wrecking behind our hemming and hawing about how complex this all is.
I was pro-chioce before, pro-life after, I am ashamed to say that I paid for and influenced 2 abortions and I have regretted it my entire life. It was stupid and very selfish when I was young. I didn’t admit this to my kids but explained to them the choice is there but to be very careful about it, I explained both sides and told them it was up to them but it could haunt them for a lifetime, especially as science advances.
I don’t support outlawing it but I do think the alternatives should be encouraged as much as possible.
Interesting though that the pro-choicers aren’t really pro-choice if you choose life over an abortion as Sarah Palin has.
Artfldgr,
I agree with Neo, you can sometimes be interesting but sheeesh — that comment ran on a bit looong.
Then it seemed to jump off onto what you felt were related topics, and though you may have touched on a few good points my eyes glazed over because you were trying to cram in too much stuff all at once.
Good wisdom, Neo. Thanks for sharing.
Congrats on being linked to Instapundit, Neo. Got to stroke that ego, yanno!
I am a regular ‘lurker’ here… i really appreciated your essay Neo.
I am a ‘reformed’ life is about convenience to life is sacred woman. My transformation began by the confrontation of the horrible Terri Shrievo (sp) event.
It is an extremely emotion filled path making a decision regarding life vs death. I cared for each of my parents prior to their deaths from illness. They would have chosen to end life sooner, not because of their suffering or pain, but to relieve me of the burden of their care. Abortion is retroactive birth control…one of my myriad of job experiences was as a ‘gofer’ pre med high school student… and even in the 1st trimester abortion at that time required the content of the vacuum to be reconstructed of 6 parts of the ‘feotal material’ 4 limbs, trunk, head, before woman was allowed to be released from the recovery room. (there were laminated photos of what ‘limbs’ would appear as under the power lighted magnification scope)
i support the right to each state choosing whether to allow legal and safe abortions on request. I also suggest that information is clearly and factually provided in our sexual ed/health ed courses required in our public schools. The facts of the procedure… i offer support/grief groups for women working through the reality of choices made many years earlier without information.
my new found move towards life is sacred is from reading the late Pope John Paul’s discussions and my own struggle over the ‘who should decide’ on the Terri S. issue… i am not Catholic by the way
when euthanasia becomes accepted as easily as abortion is today our seniors will feel an obligation to choose to end their lives… their children will view them as ‘selfish’ for continuing on even when the inevitable (as it is for each of us) is death
and even though we claim ‘it is humane to allow one to choose death when they are in such pain or suffering or their quality of life is so diminished” but one’s point of view is different when it is all the life you have…
my aunt who recently died, suffered a massive heart attack 6 years prior to her passing. She remained non responsive, determined to be ‘brain dead’ by physicians but my uncle and cousin would not act on her medical directive to be removed from life support… for 6 months in a coma regained the ability to communicate at 6 1/2 months eventually lived another 5+ years completely functional and she was semi aware of her surrroundings off and on during the coma but unable to communicate. We shared many hours of conversation about this and how each of us have been strong advocates in our professional positions in our communities and politically for choice at both ends of life… but choosing life seems to be offensive to many in my political party
i can only admire Palin’s commitment to life. I don’t know i would make such a decision knowing the demands it would add to my life and others lives. I am appalled by some of the responses and judgments being offered by my ‘tolerant, open minded and educated’ fellows in the media at this time.
So there were lies told trying to make abortion something doctors and women weren’t prosecuted and jailed for? Along with the fear involved anyway? One single death caused by improper procedure is one too many. One woman who can no longer give birth because of improper procedure is one too many. God knows I hate the very idea of abortions, but if a woman decides that one is the best thing she should do, that is her decision, and the matter is between her, God, and the physician. The less the unfeeling grim gears of government intrude into anyone’s medical life, the better.
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“God knows I hate the very idea of abortions, but if a woman decides that one is the best thing she should do, that is her decision, and the matter is between her, God, and the physician.”
I’m not sure, however based on my understanding of what abortion is I would also say that the unborn person is affected in there too. Dunno about that one though, they may not be affected at all. At the least all we hear about is how bad the women getting the procedure have it – I’m certain most do have it bad but I’m also fairly certain that the embryo/fetus is getting the short end of the stick on this one.
Of course, that is the crux of the issue – is that a wad of cells or a person?
If it is human then it doesn’t matter how many women die in the process of trying to kill it – we generally consider that part of the risks of killing another human being. For the strong version of this thinking there is *no* difference between killing said zygote/embryo/fetus and deciding that a 5 year old kid is too much of a life burden and killing them.
If it is not then it is simply a plain old surgical procedure and if there are any needless deaths then they should be avoided at all costs. We try and avoid poor operating procedures for removing an appendix and if the fetus is simply a part of the womans body then it should be treated as such.
Then there are a few people out there who consider it murder but want it allowed anyway. I can understand both of the above stances even though I tend to side with one over the other, however saying it is murder but you just want it so make it legal is mind boggling to me.
I generally fall on the side of it being a separate human – I don’t see anything other than wishful thinking or ignoring many issues that says otherwise. However I don’t go so far as the “same thing as a five year old” – for instance I don’t have that much of a problem with the so called “day after pills”. However, once much past the zygote stage the only times it should be legal to abort it is for the same reasons we are willing to allow one human to kill another (that is, life in danger).
If someone goes through what is described – oh well. I can’t say I’m terribly torn up over someone who gets murdered or mutilated when a contract killing or attempted murder goes bad either (in fact, there are all sorts of illegal – and some legal – activities that I don’t get all worked up over because they go bad for the person doing them). I see no reason to make those things legal simply because they are inherently dangerous due to having to go to the so called “black market”, nor do I see any reason to make abortions legal for the same reason. Now, if it was simply a wad of cells and part of the woman’s body I would wholly agree, but it isn’t.
However I more strongly generally fall under the idea of it not being the federal govts place to tell us. I generally figure that the Constitution was pretty clear on the matter and it was that way to keep what is going on now from occurring. That is it is up to the state in question to decide. If that means that it is legal everywhere then there are more that feel the way I do. If that means it is illegal everywhere then that is also a part of it.
I will say the same thing about the older Terry Shiavo debacle – if you make it states rights then some states will not do what you want. You can’t have it states rights but the federal govt decide when you don’t like the way it turns out. That wasn’t bad because the conservatives pushed to have her live (though I actually disagree with that stance), but because they had pushed for “states rights” and then when they got it and a state went against their wishes they wanted the federal govt to step in. It showed that states rights was just lip service because many thought it was the easier path to get their ideas into law (the same reason many liberals/leftist look to the courts instead of the legislative branch).
I would like to see the statistics on what the average age of someone getting an abortion was and what they felt ten years later. I suspect that most are really young and regret the decision later in life more than they felt hard times when they got it. At the least that is the most common story amongst either those that had one or those that know someone who did.
A great essay by Neo, and one I felt compelled to weigh in on…
IMO, the only people still “arguing” the abortion issue are Sixties Hippie Boomers. As far as Gens X and (especially) Y are concerned, the life movement is SOP. The movies Knocked Up, Waitress, and Juno (the pro-life trilogy) follow that position and are reflective of it, despite Boomer critics who of course called the movies agitprop. And glory to God for that, because there are more than a few other countries in this world where the life movement has not prevailed, and birth/replacement rates are down, and those places are dying like a plant without water. Wilting and drying up. That could have happened here too, but the American Church collectively stood up and said No, this war will be fought and won.
My son was conceived out of wedlock. I shook my (at the time) girlfriend’s hand and said “Congratulations” when she came out of the doctor’s office with the news that she was pregnant. We split up for three months, got back together, married, and then had Chris. 26 years later, the marriage is strong and I’d rather play golf with my son than anybody else I know. It’s true that not every life story has happy endings. But it’s also true that there are happy endings, all of which begin with decisions to let babies be born.
Great post, comments on an issue that is just a major part of our passage here.
De Witt Clinton 1965
Great writing.
“God knows I hate the very idea of abortions, but if a woman decides that one is the best thing she should do, that is her decision, and the matter is between her, God, and the physician.”
The entry of negative feelings denotes that one, deep down in a place that you don’t really want to visit within yourself but is still there (see: conscience), considers it much more than just a clump of cells or cytoblast. Anyone whose had root canals or minor cartilage removal surgeries have no such negative feelings about removing THOSE unwanted masses of tissue. Deep down, one thinks that the abortion isn’t really the thing that one has been rationalizing about all that time, if one has negative feelings about the concept of having one.
the source is the very agenda’d lifesite…
[though the facts in the article are correct]
The Lancet, one of the most reputable medical journals in the world, has published a report that opposes the American Psychological Association’s (APA) dismissal of abortion-related psychological trauma, and calls for post-abortion counseling as an important part of patient care, reports BioEdge.org.
The Lancet states that, “The fact that some women do experience psychological problems after a termination should not be trivialized. … Women choosing to terminate must be offered an appropriate package of follow-up care, which includes psychological counselling when needed.”
The August 23 article was published in response to a recent report by the American Psychological Association (APA) claiming that there is no meaningful connection between abortion and later psychological trauma. The 90-page report stated that a first-trimester abortion of an “unwanted” baby was no more likely to cause psychological harm than carrying the baby to term.
Critics of the APA, which has long been known for its advocacy of abortion as a civil right, pointed out that most of the members of the committee behind the report were publicly pro-abortion.
Research published by the Elliott Institute supports The Lancet’s call for post-abortive care with evidence that women commonly experience several psychological problems after abortion, including post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual dysfunction, suicidal thoughts, alcohol and drug abuse, and eating disorders.
most arguments on the subject are political (not referring to this blog), and fail to use real information, which relegates it to the same old parroting of arguments. frmo teh false argument of penumbras, to the states right argument, to the necessity in horor cases (rape, incest), to just another form of birth control while denying that fact.
i admit that i do not have an easy answer as any answer that would attempt to make things better in the way of allowing it for rape and incest, while making it illegal as another form of birth control, etc. would have need to be intrusive. the issue gets even worse when the person involved is a child.
and no one even thought that the father has any rights here. that its automatic that he has none, and can exercise no desire to want the child. even after birth, she can abandon the child and deny the father his rights to be a father and avoid paying support for the child, something that he can go to jail for now (and more often since the courts are setting support on salaries that they make up).
so i cant say abortion is good… because it isnt, it dovetails and fits too much with the goals of social destruction of the society that has given the world most of its progress.
and i cant say its totally bad, because there are incidents that invariably create the exception that proves the rule. though the way we offer it now, and the way its promoted, with alternatives shut down, leans me towards bad. when i know women personally who have had upwards of 6 or 7 abortions, and are generally sodden messes from them, i wonder how good it was allowing them to make the choices based on what is mostly false information as to the risks, the outcomes, and so forth. as the lancet thing points out.
too much politics, too little facts available for people to make their own choices.
mainly because they ahve an agenda as to which choice they want the prols to make. which technically is unfair to the average people.
peri menopause starts in the mid 20s… they of course are now painting the image that a woman can conceive past the 40s. they certainly dont advertsie that like palin they will have a much higher risk of downs syndrom. because we were made to have kids at what we consider a young age (but nature considers middle age in a natural setting).
we are being systematically denied the information and morals we need to make good decisions in our lives, because the crisis that this generates creates opportunities for the left to argue for more control and more programs which cause more crisis.
through this we are accepting a level of statism that we as americans have never ahd before with the feminists declaring everything is political, we no longer can live a normal apolitical life away from the eyes of the state. with their destruction of the family and the replacement of the male in the home with the state, we are heading towards what they affectionally call the nanny state. but ALL totalitarian states claim bo be nanny states.
so along these lines abortion is more than just the issue of a pregnancy and whether it continues or not. it becomes a wedge that allows for such misery that it accelerates the destruction of the things they want to destroy for alternative reasons answering the qeustion as to western culture and its destruction.
its a wedge that establishes that the end justifies the means
the presumed quality of the mothers life in the future justifies her actions killing her offspring today. all that such a thing need have once in place is to slide the acceptable reasons over till any reason will do. like perhaps not having the life one is planning to hacve (which no one actually has).
the issue of morals is one that costs and consequences have to be born out, and in that way morals prevent us from using end justfies the means thinking, and changes our behavior BEFORE the act. not make a mess after the fact.
ultimately as long as we accept such practices, rather than accept alternatives, like sanctity of all life and adoption as an alternative, then every pragmatic and expedient thing is also allowed on the table!!!!!
you cant say that killing old people is wrong, if you cant say that killing babies is wrong, especially since the reason to kill the babies is seldom rape or incest, and mostly the desire to not have our planned lives derailed (or as the left says “punished”).
so the reasons its so important to the left have little to do with the morals and reasons they sell us on. i do not say that the answers are easy, they are very hard, and that gives them leverage. but as long as we accept the expediency of such acts to get our lives back on course, we also accept the expediency of other acts for the common good, like euthanasia, and not just eugenics (of which the act cant be separated. even if the only eugenic point was that people willing to do so, are less genetically fit and so provides a convenient way to remove them from the population).
we accepted the wrong arguments based on wrongful data, and accepted that how we want our lives is more important than how our lives are naturally, along with releasing the sanctity of life, brings in all the monsters of socialism. from eugenics, euthanasia, work camps, etc.
all of them are founded from the same source premises in philosophical thought, pragmatism, expediency, determinism over sanctity, end justifies the means thinking, and much more.
which is why its such a hard issue, its more than just the simple facts in the foreground.
I, too, tend to side with strcpy in that I don’t fully understand the argument that abortion is the wilful ending of a human life but should still be kept “safe, legal and (wink, wink) rare.” If we ensure the first two, the last is pretty hard to guarantee.
It seems intuitively that at some point the fertilized egg makes its magical transformation into a human, at which point unjustifiably ceasing its existence is murder. The real argument is at what point does this happen. Currently, that is the point of delivery, but I have a hard time logically justifying this choice from a scientific position, as the delivery day (or let us call it “humanization”) could differ significantly even among fetuses (feti?) at identical stages of development. It would seem logical that this point of personhood, from a purely scientific perspective, likely happens prior to birth. Leaving aside when it actually happens (conception, implantation, “quickening,” whenever), legal abortion on demand past this point simply means that we have decided that one person’s life is of such little value that we are willing to allow complete control over its existence to be held by a single individual with no questions asked. This is an idea with which I am very uncomfortable.
Marie Stopes, the notorious early 20th century contraception campaigner, eugenicist and anti-Semite, did for Britain what Margaret Sanger did for the US: preached the doctrines of eugenics and promoted contraception and sterilisation to achieve “racial hygiene.” So successful was she at altering British society in favour of her eugenics doctrines, the British government has chosen her to be included in a “Women of Distinction” line of stamps.
seems that they support similar ladies and people to sell similar doctrines…
Christopher Howse, another Telegraph writer, criticised the choice this weekend, calling it “absurd.” “It is hard to think the postage stamp committee was fully aware of the craziness of Miss Stopes’s life and ideas.” Howse noted that when her only son Harry announced his engagement to a woman who wore spectacles, Stopes became furious, writing, “I have the horror of our line being so contaminated and little children with the misery of glasses.”
Born in 1880, Stopes was a paleobotanist by education, but it is her legacy as a promoter of eugenics, Nazi racial theories, mandatory sterilisation for poor people and artificial contraception – what the Royal Mail calls “family planning” – for which she is best remembered. Marie Stopes International is a major engine of the world’s abortion and population control movement, with nearly 500 centres in 38 countries.
In 1921, Stopes opened Britain’s first “family planning” clinic, offering artificial contraception to married women of the lower classes in an attempt to control the population of the poor, whom she considered to be polluting the race. Reflecting the racist message of the eugenics philosophy, her birth-control organisation was called the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress. Her 1921 slogan, echoed by the modern abortion movement, was, “Joyful and Deliberate Motherhood, A Safe Light in our Racial Darkness.”
In 1930, other such organisations joined to form the National Birth Control Council, later the Family Planning Association, which remains one of the most powerful voices of the abortion lobby to this day.
The BBC biography noted that Stopes spent the last years of her life writing poetry. The BBC declined to mention, however, that in August 1939, just a month before Britain went to war with Nazi Germany, she sent a collection of these to Adolph Hitler, accompanied by a note reading, “Dear Herr Hitler, Love is the greatest thing in the world: so will you accept from me these (poems) that you may allow the young people of your nation to have them?” In 1935 Stopes attended the International Congress for Population Science in Berlin, sponsored by the Nazi regime.
In her 1920 book “Radiant Motherhood” Stopes called for the “sterilisation of those totally unfit for parenthood (to) be made an immediate possibility, indeed made compulsory.” She also heavily criticised the abolition of child labour for the lower classes.
Following Stopes’ death in 1958, a large part of her personal fortune went to the Eugenics Society, the organisation that lives today as the Galton Institute. The Galton Institute continues to promote eugenics through artificial reproduction techniques such as in vitro fertilisation, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and direct manipulation of human beings, and their genome, at the embryonic stage.
for something with such a presumed noble social purpose, they sure have some horrible people creating and establishing it in each country under similar reasons of eugenics and population control.
and loe… populations of the lower classes is going down.
Palin has how many kids? she obviously didnt follow the feminist track (which is why NOW doesnt support her).
how about pelosi? she has FIVE children… so i guess while plugginf the feminist line, she sure didnt tow it in her real life.
a large majority of those higher up play a dynasty game. that unlike the ‘lower classes’ who are being crushed (as lenin said), between inflation and taxes, and their desire to do well for their own, and so put off having kids, or abor them till later, etc.
its a case of do what i say, not as i do. and it helps them reduce the population of the lower classes in a way that they dont revolt.
if you wanted to do that, how would you do it? gulags had political liabilities, but self directed extermination of your own family line at your own hands, that is a soft clever way to get that job done over the long term.
[of course no one has noticed that the communist regimes dont allow the same political deseases that they visited on us to exist in their countries – and refuse to accept now as we press them to be normalized like the US or UK]
Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate that is not high enough to replace an area’s population. In developed countries sub-replacement fertility is below approximately 2.1 children per woman’s life time, but the threshold could be as high as 3.3 in some developing countries because of higher mortality rates.[1] Taken globally, the total fertility rate at replacement is 2.33 children per woman. 2.33 children per woman includes 2 children to replace the parents, with a third of a child extra to make up for the different sex ratio at birth and early mortality prior to the end of their fertile life.[2]
this means that fore every woman that doesnt have children in the west, another woman has to have 5 children so that the population and culture can be maintained. without it, the cultures of europe die out.
and here is the crisis they are manufacturing with such policies if you add them together rather than look at them as separate disconnected points.
Sub-replacement fertility can also change social relations in a society. ….. Having many families with only one or two children also reduces greatly the number of siblings, aunts and uncles.
Population aging poses an economic burden on societies, as the number of elderly retirees rises in relation to the number of young workers. This has been raised as a political issue in France, Germany, and the United States, where many people have advocated policy changes to encourage higher fertility and immigration rates. In France, payments to couples to have children have increased birthrate[5]. Subsidizing childbirth, however, can erode government funds needed to finance pensions or health services for an ageing population, which may mean the financial burden may fall upon future generations in the form of higher taxation, but perhaps the population growth is enough to provide for both situations, the which otherwise could be worsening.
the young suffering under these varous economic weights put on them by their elders accepting socialism before they were born, will mroe readily have them accept cmmunism as a solution to get the system off their backs.
so the keepers of sexuality (feminists. where the keepers of race are who?), have as their points of push, policies that reflect population control more than they reflect the desires of their constituency (women). in fact, when a woman like Palin makes it, they attack her because she shows that women dont need the femnazis, but can make good choices in their lives if they have good information to do so.
from the viewpoint of politicos, the abortion issue has play on population dynamics and demographic outcomes.
in this they get to play things off of each other. sell a short term good that is a long term bad, and wait to reap the negative benifits.
its a lot more complex than just what happens at the point of a woman making a choice. we forget that having the choice influences the actions prior to needing to make it. just as insurance and helmets tend to increase the number of accidents till a new stable point is reached.
Unlike the 50s, pregnant teens/young women can get a whole slew of government benefits for popping ’em out. Free apartment, food, energy bill, cheap phone, modest car, a check every month, and occasional emergency assistance.
You get more of what you incentivize.
A friend is an RN in an OBGYN clinic and has learned of this strategy from her patients: find a guy who has a good job and a good paycheck, but no other children or child support payments. Date; get knocked up. The family court gives bigger child support awards to whoever’s first in line. Never date a guy who already has a kid or your payment will be smaller.
You get more of what you incentivize.
Not to try and hijack the blog, but I can no longer sit on my hands and ignore Artfldgr. Like others have already said, you may have good points, but they tend to be obscured in the background noise of your endless quotes. Some suggestions:Try to keep comments to no more than two or three short paragraphs. If it is longer then consider posting only the most important points.No disrespect, but this blog is named “neo-neocon” so it is no surprise that most people come to read her articles and thoughts and see what others have to say about them. Keep comments on topic, relevent and hopefully of interest to as many readers as possible. The life and times of Marie Stopes and data on sub-replacement fertility may be fascinating, but I fail to see their direct relevence to neither the original post nor the general discussion.If someone else has already published it on the web, don’t copy and paste it into your comment. One or two lines to get the main theme with a link to the source is best. If you are not confident in your HTML tagging skilz, just copy and paste the URL.
Sorry for repeating myself, but the previous post didn’t like my <ul> tag and no preview (please delete it, if possible).
Not to try and hijack the blog, but I can no longer sit on my hands and ignore Artfldgr. Like others have already said, you may have good points, but they tend to be obscured in the background noise of your endless quotes. Some suggestions:
1. Try to keep comments to no more than two or three short paragraphs. If it is longer then consider posting only the most important points.
2. No disrespect, but this blog is named “neo-neocon” so it is no surprise that most people come to read her articles and thoughts and see what others have to say about them. Keep comments on topic, relevent and hopefully of interest to as many readers as possible. The life and times of Marie Stopes and data on sub-replacement fertility may be fascinating, but I fail to see their direct relevence to neither the original post nor the general discussion.
3. If someone else has already published it on the web, don’t copy and paste it into your comment. One or two lines to get the main theme with a link to the source is best. If you are not confident in your HTML tagging skilz, just copy and paste the URL.
Artfldgr — I stopped reading your lengthy posts long ago. I scroll through your posts with annoyance. I’m surprised it’s taken people this long to let you know. I hope you get the message.
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I guess I went to high school just as things were changing. When I was a junior, a couple of senior girls left school due to pregnancy. In my senior year, the administration was warned that if they expelled one of our classmates, we were all walking out. She stayed.
Oh the places we are left, resulting from an unintended pregnancy. I am in one of those unconfortable betwixt and between places… having become unexpectedly pregnant while unmarried, while yet being of fairly adult years and posessed of a stable income, medical care and a close and loving family. Unfortunatly that did not include the father of my child… and so, at the same appointment where I was told that yes, I was indeed pregnant, I was also offered an abortion, if I chose that direction. It was done very kindly, and consideratly, on the part of the nurse-practitioner who broke the news to me. (In a military hospital at an AF base in Japan.)
Oddly enough, I have always been grateful for having been freely offered the choice. I had suspected that I was pregnant and was horribly torn and in despair about what I would do if I was pregnant.
But the funny thing was – as soon as the words were out of her mouth, I said very firmly, “No, I will keep the baby and raise it myself.” It was very strange, to make such an firm decision, and to feel that I had made it freely. Being a parent is hard enough, but at least I could tell myself that I had chosen that path, that the curcumstances of the time had not forced one way or another upon me.My daughter is now 28, a Marine veteran and in school to be a veterinarian.
I have never regretted my choice. It was hard in some ways, to be a career NCO and to raise a child by myself. It was easy in others, being of good health, employed and with reliable medical care and childcare – but I can appreciate and sympathise with choices that went the other way. I really can.
stopes was to show that the UK had equivalent eugenicists who pushed abortion, and incentivized it, while reraping eugenics in a soft nanny blanket.
There was an interestingletter in yesterday’s Dallas Morning News that I thought was interesting:
Thoughts (if anyone’s still reading this thread, that is)?
And forgive the Department of Redundancy Department in my last post. *sigh*
Artfldgr, you cite a list of noncontextual quotes from radical feminists, and present them as if they are representative of your average, work-a-day feminist. They are not. Many, in fact, live in traditional families, have a husband, kids, a dog, a job outside the home or not. Some even vote Republican!
As for Sarah Palin, most women I know oppose her because of her policies and her handling of power while in office.
P.S. You cite the death of European cultures as a result of abortion. Just checking — is that code for white people? European culture will survive even if white people don’t. Just as places like the Uk, for example, embaced a great deal of Indian culture, India has aborbed and embraced a lot of English culture. The whole world has. Call it a free trade in culture. Shakespeare and Moliere will not only survive but thrive. So don’t worry. (I am assuming you are actually worried about the cultures dying, and have no racist underpinnings.)
Most pro-life pregnancy centers have compassionate post-abortion programs, or can refer to one, as can most pro-life organizations. Contrary to what you might hear from the pro-choice lobby or their friends in the media, helping people who have participated in abortion is a huge part of the pro-life movement. For those who regret an abortion, a good place to start might be http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/.