The intensity of the pro-abortion crowd
I’ve never understand the fervent embrace of abortion by some people on the left. Yes, I know the explanations the right tends to give: they’re evil, they love death, they hate children. But although I suppose that’s true of some people who seem to find abortion perfectly fine and even something to brag about, the people I know on the left are not like that at all.
So those explanations don’t work for me to explain the phenomenon as a whole. What I think is happening is something else. One of these things is that the rabidly intense and hate-filled activists you see who seem to be half in love with abortion are a small but vocal group and probably unrepresentative sample of the whole.
I remember the days when abortion was illegal, and yet plenty of people had abortions – illegal abortions, dangerous abortions. I know many who did, and most of them went on to become loving parents later on. Some regret their abortions, some don’t seem to ever think about them any more. But I believe that for most of them, their current support for the universal availability of abortion lies in their own experience of desperation and their fear of the danger inherent in an illegal abortion.
I don’t think that’s true for young people who don’t remember those days, but it’s true of many of the older ones.
On a personal note: I always had an instinctive horror of abortion and fortunately I only got pregnant when I wanted to. The way I accomplished this feat was through rigorous birth control. But pregnancies sometimes happen even when people use birth control, although fewer of them.
When Roe was passed, the idea was that abortion wouldn’t become commonplace nor would it substitute for birth control. At least, that was the rhetoric. Abortion would be “safe, legal, and rare.”
Roe helped make it safe and legal. It did not make it rare.
Nor did birth control make abortion rare, as it was supposed to. Why not? Is it because birth control isn’t perfect, is sometimes messy and always requires forethought? Is it because even people who often use it don’t always use it, and some never use it? And would more people use birth control more conscientiously if abortion had not become “safe and legal” as a backup plan?
I don’t know. I do know that sex and its connection to birth control is one of those things a great many people are not conscientious about, and this has enormous consequences.
The younger crowd – that is, people who have grown up post-Roe – have always known so many options, including many forms of birth control and also abortion that is legal in every single state. I believe that they have probably gotten used to the idea of having all those choices that include the choice to have a legal abortion from medical professionals and consider it the norm. Women can prevent a pregnancy in any number of ways, or they can end it through abortion (including, if early, the so-called morning-after pill). Or they can continue the pregnancy and keep the baby – not an option most people took in my younger days without getting married (the so-called shotgun wedding), at a time when being an unwed mother carried a huge stigma. Or they can continue the pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption, which was much more popular in my youth because of the relative lack of other options.
All of these things have huge consequences and they are usually not easy decisions.
But people do not want to give up something they’ve always been told is a right, something they’ve always experienced as a right. And they don’t want to hear complicated legal explanations for why they must give that thing up if their state votes to do so (or travel to access it). Abortion is indeed about the unborn child, but it’s an inescapable fact that the unborn child is housed in the body of the woman for up to nine months. That’s a very intimate connection, to say the least, which is why the idea that this is a question of personal body autonomy came in when in fact there obviously are two bodies involved.
Many of the most fervent abortion advocates ignore the two-body issue or trivialize it. Many abortion opponents ignore it or trivialize it as well.
I hate the topic of abortion, hate it in every way. As I’ve already said, I’ve always been repulsed by the idea of abortion for myself and even in general. But I have witnessed the despair of women who are pregnant and feel desperate to end that pregnancy. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. And I’ve heard of bitter regrets that last a lifetime about decisions that were made as teenagers. It’s just so very very sad.
[NOTE: I’ve written many times previously about abortion. Some of those posts can be found here, here, here, here, and here.]
When you consider that sperm can live up to 5 days and impregnate and ejaculation emits up to 40 million sperm, so 1 drop contains more than enough, you begin to understand how there can be so many unplanned pregnancies. If a woman has a 28 or less day cycle that increases the odds. As for rare, years ago I remember reading that women in the former Soviet Union had 5 abortions on average. That gives an idea how frequent abortion is where there is zero stigma and in fact, encouragement.
“I hate the topic of abortion, hate it in every way. As I’ve already said, I’ve always been repulsed by the idea of abortion for myself and even in general.”
Same here – I hate abortion and the topic of it as well. I feel like most people already have an strong opinion and all the shouting from either side isn’t about to change anything.
I have cousins and other relatives who are adopted – and for some who researched their birth parents found out that they lived because the birth mother was opposed to abortion! What a strong emotion to find out you lived only because of the birth mother’s feelings about abortion.
Also, I cannot imagine how different my life would have been if they hadn’t become part of our extended family. All those summers and family holiday get-togethers spent with those cousins.
But, I do have one aspect of abortion that I often find myself arguing with BOTH sides about. That is the opinion that even those who claim to be against abortion because it is the taking of a life seem to have no resistance to allowing for abortion in the case of rape or incest. What!? They are in favor of protecting life; but, somehow or other see some lives as not worthy of protection!?
Why does that life conceived by rape or incest seem less worthy of protection? The opinion they give is that no woman should be forced to carry a baby conceived by rape – so both sides telling her that she should abort the baby which is really pressuring her to go through another physically invasive event is okay?
“But, I do have one aspect of abortion that I often find myself arguing with BOTH sides about. That is the opinion that even those who claim to be against abortion because it is the taking of a life seem to have no resistance to allowing for abortion in the case of rape or incest. What!? They are in favor of protecting life; but, somehow or other see some lives as not worthy of protection!?”
Opinion polls have been remarkably consistent over decades on that point. About two-thirds say abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or genetic defect of the baby. If you include those cases, the support goes the other way, so for decades both sides have cited the same statistics, just spun differently, to say the majority favors their point of view.
Charles I agree. The only conclusion I can come to is that in those cases a large number of people feel that compassion for the mother outweighs the life of the unborn baby. Maybe it’s an old stigma against the bastards resulting from those cases (except for genetic issues). I, myself, am an anti-abortion absolutist, but I would not condemn any woman who felt pushed into an inescapable corner to have an abortion. What I do condemn is those who profit from abortion and prevent such women from discovering the alternatives that are available. Evil women who are enthusiastic about aborting the results of their promiscuity (I have only ever met one IRL), I both judge harshly and pray for them.
“r they can continue the pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption, which was much more popular in my youth because of the relative lack of other options.”
My key argument against abortion today is that in every case, including incest and rape, it is better to have the baby and give it up for adoption. Always better for the baby to be born rather than aborted – and almost always for the mother.
Adoption, not abortion.
But somehow our culture is more against women giving up their babies than aborting them.
In rape and incest, like all pregnancies, the zygote-fetus-unborn baby is innocent. When a woman is raped, she is innocent, too.
Having a baby is work, and the baby can be a reminder of the violation – there is more sympathy to such women’s desire to end the pregnancy than for those who have a choice, choose sex while risking pregnancy, and then want to choose to kill the human fetus.
Most pro-life folk would rather allow the rape & incest exceptions to get the law passed to reduce abortion. I think there were few pro-life folk arguing thus in Ireland as Ireland voted to legalize abortion – few pro-life supported legal abortion just for rape & incest from a position where abortion was mostly illegal. And, as you imply, many pro-choice folk are happy, or at least supportive, of any woman at any time for any reason to choose to kill her baby. (not all, but many).
I think on genetics it would be good to put the aborted baby’s DNA into a database and try to track the fathers, more easily with the mother’s help. Our society would be better with less abortion, and some financial pain for the fathers would be an incentive for such guys to be more careful.
“But, I do have one aspect of abortion that I often find myself arguing with BOTH sides about. That is the opinion that even those who claim to be against abortion because it is the taking of a life seem to have no resistance to allowing for abortion in the case of rape or incest. What!? They are in favor of protecting life; but, somehow or other see some lives as not worthy of protection!?” Charles
I think that a large measure of this anti-abortion group leaves that prospect open because it would entail immediate abortion, not waiting around while a viable baby develops. And we are not a theocracy, so forcing the point about life at conception would be ethereal in nature.
I attended a luncheon years ago where a woman who was raped and had the child (back in the day) shared her entire story, including the sad details of the rape (and she was a virgin.) Her adult daughter contacted her, was married and had a child and they met. She told the story of their initial meeting at the airport. The first words her daughter’s husband said were, “thank you for having my wife.” Needless to say, there was not a dry eye in the house for the duration.
“I hate the topic of abortion, hate it in every way. As I’ve already said, I’ve always been repulsed by the idea of abortion for myself and even in general.”
Count me in that number as well – and I think that I am about the same age as Neo – I do remember the days of dangerous, illegal abortions, and cringe. I also remember being horrified, one afternoon in the barracks (late 1970s) when the topic came up among six of us enlisted women in casual conversation, and it turned out that four of the other girls in the conversation had all had at least one abortion. (One girl more than one, because she could not carry safely). When I became inconveniently pregnant myself, I chose to have my daughter and raise her as a single parent. My baby was already real to me, valued and cherished. But a woman who becomes pregnant and doesn’t want to be does have a big problem, and some decisions to make that are all hard.
There are no easy choices – it’s a serious matter, the matter of a life.
My daughter and I have often wondered why on earth the die-hard establishment feminists have made abortion the hill to die on – why, when there are so many different and effective forms of birth control anyway, and so many other causes they could have championed, like long paid maternal leave, support of family units, better nursery schools. There used to be a body of pro-life feminists – I suppose they got drowned out by the noisier advocates.
I can countenance a morning-after pill, and a termination in the case of severe malformations – but I saw my daughter’s sonograms of my grandson from the earliest days; and he was real to us, a separate new little person, bouncing with life and energy.
“I’ve never understand the fervent embrace of abortion by some people on the left.”
Personally I think it’s a self-defense mechanism writ large.
These are people who have either had abortions themselves, have loved ones who’ve had abortions, or freely admit that they’d do so should the “need” arise.
I’m sure they consider themselves relatively good, relatively moral people…yet they are being called murderers by those of us on the pro-life side. That doesn’t compute, and as a defensive act they become militant about it. “It CANNOT be murder, because if it were I (or my daughter, or sister, or best friend) is a murderer and that simply cannot be and cannot be accepted.”
So, rather than face the reality of the death that they or their loved ones caused, they go to war to prevent any laws that would imply they are murderers.
As far as men who support abortion…that’s easy. It’s called “avoidance of child support.”
I actually supported “the woman’s right to choose” when I was younger. Partly because it was accepted as common knowledge in the public school I attended that it was the woman’s choice and only the woman’s choice as to whether to carry the child. I’d heard it so much when young I just kind of accepted it at face value without even really thinking about it critically…but partly it was because I was male, and a teenager, and at the peak of wild and crazy hormones and was eager to “sow my wild oats” so to speak and really, really, really didn’t want to face the idea of being responsible for a child.
Until my wife was pregnant with our first. When you can look at an ultrasound when she’s barely showing and clearly identify that “fetal tissue” as a human being with a face and fingers and toes and a heartbeat, it doesn’t take long to figure out that the BS you were fed as a kid was exactly that.
I hate the topic of abortion, hate it in every way.
Same here. The only time I felt driven to support a debate on the topic was when Texas was passing the 20-week law. It seemed a perfect compromise. I knew it would never satisfy the fringes, but maybe could allow other important civil problems to rise in importance and be addressed. Alas, the fringes are who pull out wallets and give donations to politicians.
I’m posting here a link to Gerard Van der Leun’s essay, “Abortion: A Personal Journey,” which he first posted in 2009 and reposted last week. He reflects on the two children that he and his first wife aborted, one before the birth of his living daughter and the other afterward. He asks toward the end of his essay whether he would mourn the two children he never had: “With abortion, you never get to know what you are missing. That’s part of the deal. And that, leaving aside all our abstract notions and the tidy ideas about consciousness and otherness, is the private hell everyone involved in an abortion enters. It’s not a hell you’re in and then walk out of, but a hell that burns within you forever.
And there are no fire escapes.”
https://americandigest.org/abortion-in-america-a-personal-journey/
PA Cat:
Thanks. I read that essay when it first came out.
Abortion can be hard for men, too, although in a very different way.
There are many things I don’t understand about abortion advocacy. Before abortion was legal, it was typical to either insist that the man do the right thing (in extreme cases called shotgun weddings), or at the least be run out of town.
Then after the “feminist” championed Roe decision, if a man got a woman pregnant and he offered to drive her to the clinic and pay for half the abortion, he was considered a prince among men. “How is that a better deal for the woman?” I asked many a woman. Granted, many “shotgun” marriages were not great, but many non-coerced marriages are not great either.
My daughter and I have often wondered why on earth the die-hard establishment feminists have made abortion the hill to die on –
A hypothesis:
Because women tend to be other-directed and leftists also tend to be other-directed, so the seminal culture of Ms. and the National Organization for Women was consequential. The foundational core of post-1963 American feminism included women who had had abortions (Gloria Steinem), deeply unpleasant women (Kate Millet, Florynce Kennedy, Betty Friedan), and women with no observable inclination to motherhood (Susan Brownmiller, Karen deCrow, and, again, Steinem, Millet, and Kennedy). Women who dissented from the orthodoxy of the malevolent foundational core did not affiliate with ‘the women’s movement’.
In the subsequent decades, abortion came to be one of those issues which defined in-groups and out-groups among a certain type of bourgeois. In the Democratic Party, which is the electoral vehicle of that type of bourgeois, there has been a secular decline in the number of dissenters. There were about 60 Democrats in the House who objected to the abortion license ca. 1988; there were about two-dozen ca. 2009. Left politics bears much more resemblance to high school clique formation that it does to the political society on the right or the political society of my grandparents’ time.
Yes, I know the explanations the right tends to give: they’re evil, they love death, they hate children.
Before Biden, tolerance of pedophilia, and grooming entered the picture, those characterizations were indeed over simplistic. But things have changed. Not all Democrats are pedophiles, but groping, fondling, and making leering comments about children wasn’t a deal killer for them. My objection to calling them evil is, therefore, rescinded.
Back in 1995 and my wife pregnant with our first daughter, I was thinking about what to do if the genetic test came back with Downs syndrome. I actually thought about abortion. I was pretty selfish back then. 10 years later we got to know a Down syndrome girl in my daughter’s class. What a beautiful kid. At that point I thought “what the hell was wrong with me?!” Quite the epiphany for me.
The other aspect of it is simply this: Society no longer considers a life lived by the virtue of chastity to be admirable, healthy or desirable. Abortion is, like contraception, pornography, transgenderism, “experimentation”, “hookups” and no-fault divorce, a symptom of the larger disease of society-wide obsession with “sexual happiness”, and part of why it is so difficult to outlaw is because even among those who recognize abortion’s intrinsic evil, many are reluctant, in their heart of hearts, to forgo the behaviour habits that create the need for it.
I wonder what would happen if some brave Churchman (or Churchwoman) finally dared to get up on a pulpit and say what has been unsaid for decades: Sexual intimacy is not the be-all and end-all of life; obtaining it does not guarantee happiness, lacking it need not compel misery, and the orgasm, like all physical pleasures, will pall with overindulgence.
In a Seinfeld episode, abortion becomes the topic with regard whether to frequent a restaurant or pursue a relationship based on an individual’s position on abortion. When asked what gives the right the character of Elaine exclaims, “the Supreme Court gives me the right to do that.” This is a perfect example of the conundrum. Our rights according to our founding documents are inalienable and given by our Creator, and among them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness–not given by our government. We can see where the life issue is at stake for the baby in the womb, but what of the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness? I suppose if you believe in a Creator (the one understood by our Framers (the 10 Commandments the basis of our moral law) then abortion is insupportable. But we are not a theocracy, and no longer even a society that upholds the 10 Commandments, so if there is no Creator God or moral code to adhere to, carry on.
the guy from jag was the guest star before he made it big
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/05/13/jen-psaki-says-her-time-as-bidens-spox-has-convinced-her-that-dc-is-the-opposite-of-rotten-and-corrupt/
knowing her family’s business, make this rampant exercise in cynicism, more understandable,
In my younger, more libertine youth I was all for abortion–if I happened to get a girlfriend pregnant I was more than willing to help her get an abortion. Thankfully that never happened. Having a great marriage & raising two kids–than having four grandkids that I’m crazy about–I’m now convinced abortion is state sanctioned infanticide. It should be voted on by the citizens of a state as required by the constitution.
This is an excellent piece about abortion. I have always felt, even when I was a teenager, that our elected officials have used this issue as a wedge between party lines. The result has been a division so deep and terrible, that we have forgotten the ‘baby’.
Even as a Catholic, I am pro choice up to a point. I think the US should be more like Europe; safe and legal with restrictions. The amount of energy and money that flows through the abortion debate, could feed the hungry.
Nothing will drastically change if Roe is overturned. Having lived in Wyoming, for two decades, I know people who went to Colorado to terminate a pregnancy. In Wyoming it wasn’t illegal and it wasn’t easily available, even after the year 2000.
Most protesters are lacking the facts on this issue. However, I think there are people that just want to be angry, even if what they are being told is a lie.
Physicsguy;
Beautiful story. I had a wonderful brother who was developmentally disabled and he was the funniest and nicest person you could meet.
The amount of energy and money that flows through the abortion debate, could feed the hungry.
The only hungry people in this country are vagrants addled by alcoholism, drug addiction, and schizophrenia (and any dependents they have social services hasn’t taken away).
Even as a Catholic, I am pro choice up to a point.
That’s cute.
that our elected officials have used this issue as a wedge between party lines.
They haven’t. The crevasse already exists. People line up on one side or the other in partisan contests.
JHCorcoran, well said.
Anyone who doesn’t hate the topic of abortion needs significant adjustment to their moral compass.
“I’ve never understand the fervent embrace of abortion by some people on the left.”
I find myself in agreement with Sailorcurt in this regard. Plus, they refuse to accept reality’s consequence.
Bill Serra,
“I’m now convinced abortion is state sanctioned infanticide. It should be voted on by the citizens of a state as required by the constitution.”
If one believes abortion to be State Sanctioned Infanticide, then those who vote for it though obviously in disagreement, are in that view, voting for infanticide.
Charles,
“even those who claim to be against abortion because it is the taking of a life seem to have no resistance to allowing for abortion in the case of rape or incest. What!? They are in favor of protecting life; but, somehow or other see some lives as not worthy of protection!?”
Generally and at base, an objection to abortion rests upon religious premises. God does not condone rape and therefore cannot have intended a resultant pregnancy. I.E. it wasn’t supposed to happen. Arguably, the rapist has literally usurped God’s prerogative.
However, the victims of rape generally have the opportunity to avail themselves of the morning after pill. Why wait to find out if a pregnancy has resulted from the rape?
In the case of incest, consent is the determinate.
It cannot be God’s will that a minor become pregnant as a result of an incestuous intercourse to which she could not legally consent.
If both are adults and the relationship was consensual, the same metric applies in a normal relationship, so an abortion cannot justify the ending of a resultant pregnancy. You play the game, you accept how the cards fall. However unintended the pregnancy may be, both parties accepting the consequences of their actions is the only morally correct path.
Art Deco;
First, I do appreciate your insight. You write your opinion much better than I do. I am being sincere.
My statement was not to be cute about ‘being a Catholic and being pro-choice up to a point’. It runs much deeper than what I wrote. Without going down a ‘rabbit hole’. Here goes;
I had reasons to speak to a priest to discuss abortion. He was a smart, wise, and an elderly man. He had spent time at the Vatican, spoke several languages and loved God. I confessed to him about an abortion that evolved me. And I was emotionally distraught. Being prepared to be damned to hades (confessions were in person at this point) his response was surprising. He said women were stoned to death for adultery in biblical times, men were not. That abortion was ultimately a decision and act that only women go through. He blessed me, had me say 5 Hail Mary’s, and be kind to someone and that could be me. He didn’t condone abortion, but he didn’t condemn.
When I write that I am pro choice to a point it means a lot a things. I have had years to read and think about this issue. 1) It is not for ‘Women’s health’ and it is not normal. It also affects men. Human’s are mammals and any animal documentary will show the importance of having offspring. Go to Yellowstone in May, where there are baby animals everywhere. 2) Planned Parenthood should be dissolved, because it is in the business of abortion. The more the better. 3) It is easy to find out if you are pregnant in 2022. If you are sexually active (especially teenagers) be responsible and take a pregnancy test at least once a month. 4) Abortion is not a form of birth control. Late term abortions are a terrible idea. I try not judge, but I think adoption is a better choice.
I don’t think banning abortions will work. They will still happen. Keeping it legal, with restrictions, (I think) will lead to less abortions.
Finally, there are hungry people other than vagrants and the mentally ill. In rural communities there are people that are not getting by. They do not drink, and they have jobs. I volunteered at a soup kitchen and most of the people that came in had jobs. The working poor have food insecurity.
Many of you are familiar with Tammy Bruce, a radio/television commentator who is gay and definitely (defiantly?) right-leaning, but who at one time had been president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women.
I saw a you tube video of her yesterday, in which she pointed out that in her time as an organizer for the left [N.O.W.], flogging the abortion issue was the only way (Ms. Bruce’s characterization) that they (her left-leaning comrades) could raise any substantial amount of donations.
She said that very adamantly.
Follow the money, as is often said . . .
Some studies have suggested that abortion restrictions decrease unplanned pregnancy overall, as people are more careful – women take birth control more diligently, couples wait to have sex or use more than one form of contraception – when they know they won’t have easy access to abortion as a backup. That does make intuitive sense. https://secularprolife.org/2021/09/sources-for-deconstructing-three-pro/
The relevant links are at the bottom of that page, but SPL is a good source for pretty much any topic related to abortion.
A long time ago – about a decade ago, I think – I watched an old talk Tammy Bruce used to give on why she left the left and became conservative. I still remember her talking about how the left needed to keep their pet causes, like abortion, live and controversial – that they didn’t actually want certain issues to be resolved because they had to perpetuate their activism. NOW needed a reason to exist, its leaders didn’t fundamentally want women’s issues to be resolved and to have a reason to dissolve their organization. The same insight can be applied to government bureaucracies everywhere.
I think, in their hearts, they know it is morally wrong (in the vast majority of cases) so they lash out in anger. Most people get very, very defensive when called out on something they do or believe that they know is a lie.
I was adopted at the end of WWII by a mom and dad an Army Major who wanted to adopt their their third adopted baby, dad was stationed in Texas and they were told that Texas babies were for Texans and they were Oklahoman people so they they went to Oklahoma City where they had adopted their other two children and there they found me. My mom was able to go in and pick me out of a crib because she already had two dark head children and I was a little red head child.
What a deal, I was raised by wonderful well educated people with a younger sister and we all turned out pretty much all right. I am so thankful for my birth mom who I discovered a few year after she had passed away and have found my birth siblings, four neat people three sisters and a brother who have turned out rather well.
I am so thankful for a woman who traveled a lot of miles when she was a 22 year old single person and gave me life and then within a few years she was married and had my sister two years later. I am blessed to find and know of significant people in both the adoptive family and birth family and in three weeks I will turn 77 with eight grand children who are all wonderful people ranging from four years old to 24.
Oh what a deal to be alive and have some too follow, that will be all !
Very well written post by neo and I appreciate all the comments here. Some really interesting personal stories.
My father was born when abortion was illegal and his mother sought a “back alley” abortion when she was carrying him. His father found out, found her and forcibly removed her from the “provider’s” facility.
My father’s childhood was not a picnic. There were legitimate reasons his mother thought terminating the pregnancy was for the best. My father will be the first to tell you his adult life has been an amazing surprise. That he would marry and raise children and his children would accomplish what they have accomplished… It has all been an amazing, incredible journey for him.
My father is pro-choice. He has tremendous empathy for children raised in households were they are not wanted. My grandparents were truly wonderful grandparents. They were a great, positive influence on my life but my father has shared stories of his childhood and the struggles and difficulties.
I imagine it would stupefy all of us if we had knowledge of every coupling in the past, 100,000 years, or so, that led to our births.
I don’t know how to reconcile this with modern life, but having raised children of every gender (all two of them) I can appreciate how western society and other cultures have implemented systems of chaperoning, matchmaking, even arranged marriages.
Young women are at tremendous risk and biology makes navigating dating much more serious for them. Whether we openly admit it, or not, they are prey in a sea of predators and there is no shortage of men who will lie, cheat or steal to snare them. Of course, there is also no shortage of women who will lie, cheat or steal to snare men, but, as a man, I never had to fear of being saddled with a human growing in my own body if I guessed wrong when apprising a young woman’s intentions.
Northam, recently governor of VA, said that, after the baby is born, it is to be kept comfortable until the mother and doctor decide what to do about it.
That’s pretty severe and I never heard him called a radical on the subject.
With all those fools dressing up as Handmaids, it is all theatre to them.
I’ve never understand the fervent embrace of abortion by some people on the left. Yes, I know the explanations the right tends to give: they’re evil, they love death, they hate children. But although I suppose that’s true of some people who seem to find abortion perfectly fine and even something to brag about, the people I know on the left are not like that at all.
neo:
Great, sad, true post.
I find the right is more accurate about the left than vice-versa, but that’s a low bar.
Old Texan; Rufus T. Firefly:
Very moving stories.
“I don’t think banning abortions will work. They will still happen.”
Do you have data for this experiment? Poland, after easy commie abortion, has increased restrictions and there was HUGE decrease – from 100,000+ down to 1,000 or just a few hundred for a few years.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-poland.html
There are other claims that up to 30,000 out-of-Poland abortions occurred.
The number of abortions, if legally and socially unacceptable, will be far less.
Sowell says: “There are no solutions to human problems. Only trade-offs”.
A key trade-off is that of making the woman who choose abortion either more or less socially, or financially, more comfortable. Each such woman is in a tough spot … BUT making her tough choice to abort “easier” means more women will make that choice.
The end of “slut shaming” meant more women became sluts (promiscuous sex with men they’re not married to. I liked such sluts when I was in college and womanizing – many are nice girls and reasonable friends.) Most pro-life folk today support the woman having the child, and understand the idea of punishing the single women with kids, by calling them sluts or treating them badly, increases the number of abortions.
The vast majorities of abortions occur after desired sex – part of the choice to choose sex is contraception, of what type, or not. Plus abortion as a last resort, or not.
The topic is sad, but our society will heal better with more restrictions and far far less abortions. It’s very important.
Many many pro-life folk did NOT like DJ Trump, but voted for him for the judges – and their single issue votes were rewarded. Or were a counterbalance against the pro-abortion feminists.
Salt-n-Pepa sang “Let’s talk about sex … everybody has sex … we should be making love”.
We should be making more love – having sex with a person you love, the one you’re committed to. Sex without commitment can be fun, orgasmic, but it’s not love.
Funny sad that so many young people are avoiding sex, and even dating – and driving the abortion rate down with their semi-voluntary celibacy. Increasingly, NOT everybody is having sex. I’m very glad to be in love and married to my friend and lover and wife.
There’s no way to legislate love.
Do strawmen and strawwomen love?
Yes they do, it’s thinking they’re bad at. It’s tinmen and tinwomen who don’t have hearts.
Richard Aubrey,
“Northam, recently governor of VA, said that, after the baby is born, it is to be kept comfortable until the mother and doctor decide what to do about it.”
Northam is far from alone.
Take Peter Singer, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University
“Fact Sheet on Peter Singer”
https://www.independentliving.org/docs5/singer.html#:~:text=Infanticide,most%20infants%2C%20for%20other%20reasons
“California and Maryland consider bills that would legalize infanticide “
https://fism.tv/california-and-maryland-consider-bills-that-would-legalize-infanticide/
“Pro-abortion California bill could legalize infanticide for months after birth, attorney warns”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/california-bill-could-legalize-killing-babies-months-after-birth-in-newsoms-abortion-sanctuary-state/
“A California bill reveals what abortion activists really want—the convenience of an unrestrained right to murder babies.”
“Activists’ days of using sanitized euphemisms to mask the horrors of abortion are drawing to a close. The vague “right to choose” mantra is quickly morphing into the right to kill a full-term baby after birth, with no questions asked.”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/12/california-bill-openly-admits-abortion-was-always-about-killing-babies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=california-bill-openly-admits-abortion-was-always-about-killing-babies
“Maryland will pour $3.5 million each year into training people who aren’t medical doctors to perform abortions after lawmakers overturned Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s Friday veto.”
https://www.wnd.com/2022/04/lawmakers-override-governors-veto-pour-millions-training-new-abortionists/
Colorado: “EDITORIAL: Barbaric new bill allows postnatal ‘abortion’ rights”
https://gazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-barbaric-new-bill-allows-postnatal-abortion-rights/article_815f281a-9e55-11ec-bee7-738fa046b5ef.html
“Beto supports zero limits on babykilling…”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/beto-there-should-zero-limits-on-babykilling/
I couldn’t find the link but if memory serves, Massachusetts is also considering what amounts to de facto infanticide.
Ironic, isn’t it how the topic of human reproduction seems to generate the most intense happiness as well as a correspondingly intense anger/sadness, depending on the circumstances? The agony of unexpectedly and unwillingly pregnant females is balanced by the agony and frustration of females desiring to conceive but failing to do so. Must be some fundamental forces at work here. Let me observe, nonetheless, that having gone through the experience of having daughters who became pregnant out of wedlock (to use a quaintly out-of-fashion phrase), the end result (wonderfully happy and well adjusted grandchildren, now productive adults) was worth it. To think that there was available the means to end those lives fills me with revulsion, particularly when I observe the passion with which some people–sadly, too many in my opinion–defend and support the availability of such means. To kill an innocent baby in its mother’s womb is a most barbaric act, far worse than the killing of an adult in combat. And by the way, why are we so complacent about combat deaths in Ukraine to the point where our current Washington cabal seems to be egging on the current Russia cabal to go nuclear pending more “conventional” deaths of both combatants and civilians? Why aren’t we attempting a negotiated settlement? Why are we even involved in that morass in which we have no national interest? Sadly, like almost everything else that is taking place today, including abortion, the answer to the question, “Cui bono?” is best found by following the money.
Good lord, GB. I’d heard a bit here and a piece there. But I had no idea of all that is going on in the field of legal infanticide.
Seems as if neo’s sad, non-intense pro-choice friends are going to be voting for a horror, notwithstanding their sad lack of intensity on the subject.
I too intensely hate the topic of abortion and I hate even more the politicization of it.
BrooklynBoy and Tom Grey,
I agree with you both. Art Deco mocked me for stating it in writing, but at its core it’s not a legal or political issue. I hate that our society has turned it into a political war with slogans, chants and parades.
but at its core it’s not a legal or political issue.
Whatever ‘at its core’ may mean.
“Whatever ‘at its core’ may mean.”
Ah, the depends on what the meaning of is, is… argument.
If only pro-abortion people had been aborted prior to birth, we wouldn’t be having this problem now.
Conflating the evil of abortion with the evil of Vlad’s little adventure into Ukraine is a display of misdirected emotion. One hates rape and abuse of the weak be it individual or international.
Vlad cannot revive the dead that resulted from his folly. He can stop this, or is he just a little puppet?
that our elected officials have used this issue as a wedge between party lines.
“They haven’t. The crevasse already exists. People line up on one side or the other in partisan contests.”
Both are true. The two are not exclusive.
The group Act Blue has brought in over $28M in political donations since this issue got pumped up by Politico.
_____
Eva Marie, Love the Wizard of Oz word play.
There is no mystery in sex and conception. A woman has four choices: abstention, prevention, adoption (“shared responsibility”), and compassion (“personal responsibility”), and self-defense through reconciliation. A human life is, by law, viable from her first to last heart beat, from the emergence of coherent nervous system function (“consciousness”) until her disordered conclusion. A reproductive rite is exercised for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes, a wicked solution to a purportedly hard problem: keep women appointed, available, and taxable, is neither a good nor exclusive choice. The nominally “secular” Pro-Choice ethical (i.e. relativistic, opportunistic, politically congruent) religion (i.e. behavioral protocol) denies women and men’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable commodity. Whereas Abortion is Her Choice, elective abortion through choice (hers), Choice (e.g. selective-child, or delegated force via normalization), or coercion (e.g. one-child, final solution). Roe, Roe, Roe your baby… granny (e.g. Witmer/Michigan, Cuomo/New York) down the river Styx, essentially codifies that the State or individual can commit homicide in the darkness, in privacy, if they can get away with it, which is true for all homicides, but planned parent/hood is aided and abetted in order mitigate collateral/visible damage (e.g. awareness).
Mao did it for social progress, Stalin did it without care, Hitler did it to relieve “burdens”, Sanger did with diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), Cecile did it for profit, Gosnell the ripper et al… sound familiar?
I rarely comment here. I can be seen regularly using my nom deplume on Mark Wauck’s substack and prior hosted blog Meaning in History. Occasionally I will reply elsewhere, but not much.
I think I last posted here on a post about abortion wherein I posited that women have made themselves almost godlike in their what is or is not life in the womb.
Expanding on that view, I believe this is mainly due to centuries of male oppression. This does not make it right, just helps give a better understanding.
Whoopi Goldberg, a stage name, just said that out loud.
For what it’s worth, I should have been aborted, along with my sister.
My mother was 16, my father was in his early 20s. Things were different in Florida in 1970. No abortion allowed there then. Sure, she could have went somewhere else, but she didn’t.
That’s power that no US President or UN official has.
Roe v Wade explicitly stated they weren’t defining when life began, but they implicitly did with their trimester regime. Of course, Casey obliterated that making it truly a woman’s only decision. And, once that decision was made, many a man have been on the hook if they were told about it not.
I am grateful, along with my 4 boys, that my mother, who abandoned me when I was 4, did not kill me in the womb when, by all accounts, that was the best thing to do for her and, by disgusting arguments made by others, for me. Yep, my best option was to never be born.
Who knows, maybe that guy in San Diego would have survived the riptide he was in without me. Maybe not.
There is all the appearance of some of the pro-abort fanatics having taken aboard the old demon Moloch. How else to explain the passion and frenzy?
Rufus T. Firefly:
I agree that “at its core” it’s not a legal or political issue. But that’s true of just about all the big legal questions except procedural matters (and even some of them represent larger philosophical issues).
Vlad cannot revive the dead that resulted from his folly.
Ukrainians have been disenfranchised, denied essential services, and under attack by the Kiev, military, paramilitary aligned axis since the Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring eight years ago, two years under the current regime. Why do people… persons, nations, and transnationals care about their viability, selectively, NOW? Why didn’t the international community send peace keepers to temper Kiev’s ambitions or negligence? Was Ukraine intended to be a gateway to a Libyan solution (for oil), Egyptian transfer, South African redistribution (for resources), Israeli coup (e.g. allegations of apartheid, Obama electoral intrusion), etc.? South Africa was taken over through invasion. Libya was taken over through delegation. They hope Russian resources will be acquired through a Libyan model. Afghanistan once had a thriving, if not first-world, second-world society that recognized women and men with equal rights, NOW an Afghan Spring defended with billions of dollars in weapons transfer to sustain the Taliban regime. Deja vu.
n.n.:
See turtler.
Last time I checked Vlad decided that the Russian military was the best option to settle affairs inside Ukraine. Russian Federation and Ukraine, something about those two things aren’t the same. Oh, I remember, they arent the same entity.
Do try to stick to the current situation.
Deja vu? Whatabout, whatabout, you, Vlad?
His little adventure is feinting away it seems. Gone agley?
Time will tell, (as his death toll mounts).
Geoffrey Britain; Richard Aubrey:
I wrote a three-part series about Peter Singer. Part I is here, Part II is here, and Part III is here.
Ken Kesey, author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” interviewed by Paul Krassner, on abortion:
_________________________________________
You are you from conception, and that never changes no matter what physical changes your body takes. And the virile sport in the Mustang driving to work with his muscular forearm tanned and ready for a day’s labor has not one microgram more right to his inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than has the three-month’s fetus riding in a sack of water or the vegetable rotting for twenty years in a gurney bed.
Who’s to know the value or extent of another’s trip? How can we assume that the world through the windshield of that Mustang is any more rich or holy or even sane than the world before those pale blue eyes? How can abortion be anything but fascism again, back as a fad in a new intellectual garb with a new and more helpless, victim?
I swear to you, Paul, that abortions are a terrible karmic bummer, and to support them – except in cases where there is a bona fide toss-up between the child and the mother’s life— is to harbor a worm of discrepancy
Krassner: Well, that’s really eloquent and mistypoo but suppose Faye [Kesey’s wife] were raped and became pregnant in the process?
Kesey: Nothing is changed. You don’t plow under the corn because the seed was planted with a neighbor’s shovel.
Krassner: I assume that it would be her decision, though?
Kesey: Almost certainly. But I don’t really feel right about speaking for her. Why don’t you phone and ask?
[Krassner phones Faye Kesey in Oregon and reviews the dialogue. She asks: “Now, what’s the question, if I were raped, would I get an abortion?” Krassner: “That about sums it up.” Faye Kesey: “No, I wouldn’t.”]
https://stjohnoneone.com/tag/kesey-interview-on-abortion/
n.n.
Vlad better get Jen Psaki on retainer his PR needs some help and sorry, but he needs a professional:
https://youtu.be/1GUrNPPTSWM
BBC story about Roosians murder of civilians near Kyiv prior to looting. Fog of war, and all that.
h/t LegalInsurrection.com
The pro abortion fervor is so intense, it’s almost as if progressives want abortion to be mandatory for all pregnancies and a permit required to give birth.
@ huxley > the Kesey interview is as much about euthanasia of the old as of the young. The Left unarguably connects the two (plenty of citations on the web).
Curiously, the only demographics to whom the Left does accord full rights to life regardless of character or behavior are:
(1) people convicted of murder, sometimes of a gruesomely horrific manner, including those whose guilt is NOT in question (I have no problem with holding off the death penalty until everything is really, really sure);
(2) Palestinian Hamas fighters wantonly killing Israelis; (3) Middle-east terrorists in general (granted, some relatively “innocent” people are swept up in military action, but most of Gitmo’s guests are blatantly guilty, and leftist lawyers get bonus points for defending them); (4) Communist Chinese systematically killing Uyghurs.
The list can be expanded to everyone being freed by Leftist DAs and judges who then go straightaway and kill someone else, and the fatalities resulting from cartel-coyotes shuttling illegal migrants through our southern border and afterwards.
I would not personally want to live for 10, 20, 30 years the way Freddy “those pale blue eyes” Schrimpler and the other “vegetables” have (or even in less dire straits, as do many elderly who are still sentient and somewhat active, but are confined to 24/7 caregivers).
That’s my view right now, but I might be convinced by Freddy’s observation when I get to that stage for real.
I am personally convinced that I have known several people who chose when to pass from this mortal plane to the immortal one, conditioned by their personal mental and/or physical condition, and I have heard friends observe the same about their own friends and family.
@ Esther > “and a permit required to give birth.”
I’ve seen that suggested, and not just in Communist China.
(this is just the first thing that came up on DDG)
https://goodmenproject.com/misc/should-you-need-a-license-to-have-kids/
Tells you something about Freakonomics readers, of course, but the point is that there ARE people in America considering adding parent-licensing to the mile-high stack of regulations.
And we KNOW there are a frighteningly large number of people who want to regulate the rights of parents after they have the kids.
Any doubts about who will, or won’t, get birthing permits under a Democrat regime?
And I wouldn’t trust the Republicans either.
Well, is bad parenting responsible for irresponsible children of leftist adults? Or Freakonomics readers? Are wacked out, grooming teachers caused by bad parenting? They seem to have no concept of parental rights and parental obligations and the limits on teacher roles, but are hell bent on their own agenda.
Before Roe, there were demonstrations for making abortions legal and (always always always repeated) rare. (Oh such a lie such a damned lie that was.)
After Roe there were standard demonstrations — standard MLK style or standard save babies demonstrations. Yes some violent moments lit up the dark landscape of baby slaughter. Yes this whenever the boundaries of Roe were expanded or when they were curbed. All mostly within thelimits laid out for demonstrations.
This time none of that applies. What you get, in big and small gangs, is a Bitch-Driven Demon Parade of zombie minds:
“Spontaneous” Bitch Driven Demon Parade at the Farmers Market
AesopFan, oh no! Thanks for sharing the link. I could feel it, but I didn’t think it was something anyone was actually talking about outside of dystopian fiction. Stuff of nightmares.
Esther: “it’s almost as if progressives want abortion to be mandatory for all pregnancies and a permit required to give birth.”
Well, they certainly seemed to have felt that way about Sarah Palin’s child Trig!
Neo, I’m surprised at your waffling on birth control. With the advances in science, the low cost and wide availability of many kinds of birth control, there should be little to no need for abortion. Period. It is clear that the sexual revolution led a lot of women to have unprotected sex and they are using abortion as a birth control method. It’s stupid and expensive.
Delilah:
And I’m surprised at you calling it “waffling” to acknowledge that birth control sometimes fails – even those types that are most effective – and also that some people can’t use the most effective types for medical reasons, and that even those who use birth control 95% of the time don’t use it every single time.
Human beings are human. Birth control is fallible.
I have never met a liberal who isn’t morally defective. A once good friend, one of my college roommates, was a Democrat candidate for Congress in a major US city. Twice. He is active in his church. I know he genuinely thinks he is more moral and more caring than people who disagree with him.
At our college reunion, he explained to me that a father who got upset if his little girl came home from school crying because she had to shower with boys was a bigot. My old friend said such a father needed to be educated on why he was a hater for being upset about his daughter’s tears. I don’t think there has ever been a political issue where he has expressed disagreement with the party narrative. Over the years I have come to understand that, for him, loyalty to the party is the way he understands and determines morality.
My friend is very definitely morally defective. The reasons are many. The failure of humility is shocking. He is so typical of liberals today. He believes he is morally entitled to dictate how others live.
Neo, do your liberal friends in New England look down their noses at the South and Southerners? Most do. Do your “non-evil” friends consider themselves better than people in flyover country?
Do your “non-evil” friends think Voter ID is racist? Do they agree with the Democrats that black people are too stupid to figure out how to get a photo ID? Most Democrats have such blatantly racist beliefs yet are convinced of their own moral superiority.
Do your “non-evil” friends believe that they are smart enough, educated enough, expert enough to dictate how other people must live? They do if they vote for Democrats.
Do your “non-evil” friends support candidates who regularly and routinely slander others as racist, fascist, nazi, white supremacists? Is it even possible to be a moral person and support such nasty, vile, vicious lying and othering?
Stan:
Do you use a brush at all or even open the paint can? You seem to just throw the whole thing at the target.
Saw this last night, at the Instapundit (Ed Driscoll). A mother wrote to a Slate advice column, horrified that her seventeen-year-old daughter had gone to a pro-life demonstration with her boyfriend, without notifying her parents. They grounded her and took away her phone. Where did they go wrong in raising her???
https://instapundit.com/520280/
Kate:
I saw that also, oh, the horror, her daughter has a mind of her own!
}}} I feel like most people already have an strong opinion and all the shouting from either side isn’t about to change anything.
Having an opinion is one thing. Having a strong opinion at the top of your voice is another thing entirely.
Rational discourse is how you change minds — even more so in a semi-public environment like social media, where others are often lurking and not being obvious about their review of what is being discussed.
You may have no hope of changing the mind of the hidebound jackass with whom you are having the discussion, but you are putting forth in public your arguments for your position for people to weigh them and find them valid or invalid from their own point of view.
It is essential to do this, or else all the lurkers encounter is the opposition’s point of view, often at the top of their voices. By being politely straightforward, not only do you make them look foolish and mentally inept, you often detract from their common talking point that YOU are the one who is unreasonable and evil.
This is one important reason why The Left is often so determined to shut up opposition voices, lest anyone actually consider the arguments on their merits, which all too often leads to them losing hearts and minds.
I echo Delilah (5-15, 12:03 pm). To be a human being entails moral responsibility.
Abortion beyond the fetal heartbeat stage is homicide perpetrated by “fallible” murderers.
}}} Sexual intimacy is not the be-all and end-all of life; obtaining it does not guarantee happiness, lacking it need not compel misery, and the orgasm, like all physical pleasures, will pall with overindulgence.
Mrrrr, not really accurate, as stated.
Sexual intimacy is important when you tie it to relationship intimacy. But when one takes a casual attitude towards sexuality, you’re reducing the actual value of it to the formation of relationship intimacy, something that is a really bad idea.
Relationship Intimacy is what matters, what leads to happiness and overall satisfaction with life.
I’m not a firm believer in chastity –I do think that, if you end your life with about 2-6 sexual partners, you’ve probably found the right middle ground between extremes. So taking sex lightly is just as bad as turning it into a magical perfection that only one person can ever help you attain. Because the fact is, you’re likely to only find true relationship intimacy with one or two people in your life, it’s too difficult to find that emotional connection, the inter-reaction of likes and dislikes, the synergies of personalities, and so forth that makes any relationship a deep-seated “fit” of two people. Obviously, that 2-6 varies with you, your luck with encounters, and so forth. Perhaps you met that perfect person at 18 and never needed to go searching again until one of you passed away in your shared four-score-and-ten. But the more of them you went to bed with, the harder it became for you to actually use the intensity of sexual connection to help form that emotional bond, too — so having lots of lovers arguably does not do the job for anyone, either.
Obloody:
Or, as the Bee Gees said, “Too many lovers in one lifetime/ Ain’t good for you…”
stan:
Most of my friends are not especially politically oriented and most don’t consume tons of news, and the news they consume is the MSM. They have always voted Democrat, their friends vote Democrat, they really aren’t spending a ton of time examining issues in any depth. They think they are on the side of good rather than evil. In their personal lives they are not morally compromised.
Om, I suppose you might discuss each individual when examining the politics of 330 million people but I find it rather unwieldy and a bit time consuming.
In a histrionic age where ALL conservatives are smeared relentlessly in the nastiest and most vicious terms imaginable, why shouldn’t we wonder about the mindsets and moral sensibilities of those who embrace and support the nasty viciousness?
If your concern is REALLY the broad brush, the most worthwhile inquiry would be to examine why liberals are so eager to support the broad brush slanders of their leaders. Most sane people expect more measured and considered nuance from national party leaders than from short blog comments. But not all people are sane.
Stan:
Did you read neo’s response
to your paint baloon?
In 1987, Ted Kennedy used a “broad brush” to nuke Robert Bork. It was nasty, vicious and defamatory. It was cheered by liberals and continues to be celebrated by them today. It became the model for all left-wing political discourse since.
“ “Robert Bork’s America” as “a land in which women would be forced into back??alley abortions, Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.” https://www.cato.org/commentary/original-sin-robert-bork
Every Democrat voter with at least a room temp IQ has listened to nasty, vicious rhetoric like this for over 35 years. I think the argument that they aren’t aware of the ugly viciousness that they are supporting is beyond silly. They know exactly what they are supporting. They’d have to be stupid to not know.
It is likely that you do not know any of neo’s family, friends, or social acquaintences, but we all know the history of the Bork, Thomas, Kavanaugh hearings.
You be you.
Stan:
Not paying attention is not the same as stupid. Many people don’t like politics and pay little attention to the details. If they just sweep the headlines, they miss a great deal. And back when Bork was being borked, a lot of people just assumed the accusations were correct, if they knew about them at all. One would have to take a special interest and do research (not so easy in those pre-internet days) in order to get the real story.