Brain Fertilizer

I feel like I should be putting on a kevlar suit before jumping into this one...

Andy sent me the image of the abortion T shirt. I certainly didn't react with outrage. If someone feels comfortable they admitting having one, fine. The majority of women will not admit or discuss an abortion they may have had...stigma? Fear? Guilt? Sorrow? Who knows why the silence...it could be any number of things.

But I think someone who is comfortable with the fact they had an abortion is likely a person who is willing to discuss in clear terms why it was the right choice for her. Let's keep in mind, ABORTION IS CURRENTLY A LEGAL PROCEDURE.

As far as "accidents happen", Planned Parenthood is one of the few places you can easily be seen right away to get the morning after pill. Now, a morning after pill is no more abortion than is being on an IUD...less so, actually, since an embryo can implant with an IUD, morning after pill generally won't effect this.

Just my .02 (because let's face it, I am probably the only one who visits herer who has this view).

President Clinton assured us that the pro-choice lobby was only trying to assure that abortion would remain, "Safe, legal, and rare". Which part of "Because accidents happen" says anything about "rare"?

Abortion is currently a legal procedure, sure, but this is why Suspicion is my first reaction to any advocacy from the left: it starts with nice sounding language about rights, and pitiful examples of homeless poor people who are essentially good but being victimized by greedy corporations...and then ends up with active cheerleading to get more people to try it out. With the obligatory defense that it is legal, after all.

Following the same sort of logic, SSM marriage will become legal on the idea that homosexuals want it only to express pure, life-long commitments...and within 30 years schools will be encouraging 12 year olds to "try out a homosexual marriage first as a run up to your 'real' marriage...because it IS currently legal, you know..."

Blah.

Full disclosure: I still support the legality of abortion, although I'd prefer it to be severely restricted from what it is now. But the way Planned Parenthood and its subsidiary Teenwire (and the DNC, as in their pressuring Kucinich to abandon his pro-life stance as a prerequisite for running for the Democrat nomination) are pushing abortion, I may end up getting pushed into total opposition soon.

There's nothing wrong with your view, Jo. I respect you no less for it, because I understand what you think you are defending. I just think the organizations you are defending don't deserve such support any more.

I think it's good that they make clear it is the situation of an "accident" (since some detractors say it is often used as the only form of birth conrtrol).

I won't make another jump into gay marriage, I know gays who are pro-life and pro-choicers opposed to SSM, so I will avoid that.

Well, I admit that connection is a stretch...but it is a reaction honestly acquired through decades of political discussion and observation...

I really don't understand your first sentence of your second comment, tho, because "Because accidents happen" underscores the idea of abortion as birth control, as I see it.

There are ways to 100% ensure no pregnancy, including vasectomy and waiting until you get 2 negative reports. If used properly, the birth control is 99.9% effective. Thus, if you aren't using the most effective birth control, or if you aren't using it properly, what else could it be but irresponsibility?

If people don't see it that way, I guess we can thank no one else but the Left and Planned Parenthood for obscuring the plain and simple fact that sexual intercourse is designed to produce babies, that the process is so robust that even the advances of science cannot guarantee contraception, and so if you don't want a baby, the only responsible choice is to not have intercourse. And no, that's not an unreasonable expectation. It only seems unreasonable because of liberal ideologies that say "if you really want to, it must be okay, and we'll try to change society to make it okay."

Oh, and "I won't make another jump into gay marriage"????
When was your first marriage to a woman, then? [grin]

Today in Boston I saw infants plastered with pro-choice stickers. Hello little choice!

"Thus, if you aren't using the most effective birth control, or if you aren't using it properly, what else could it be but irresponsibility?"

Never known anyone on the pill to turn up pregnant?

Yep. And if used correctly (taken every day) it is 99% effective.

But even that isn't 100%, is it?

It seems pretty clear: if there is even a 1% chance that you could get pregnant, then if you can't handle a pregnancy, the responsible thing to do is not have sex. It's not really responsible or mature to say, "I won't think about the possible negative consequences unless it happens" when you are intending the termination of a life.

Companies and people get sued for accidents that result in death even when their responsibility is far less than 1%. So to kill the child due to an accident of the mother and father doesn't make sense to pass it off as an accident.

And the reason why Planned Parenthood is sick is because rather than emphasizing that risk by advising, "You can still get pregnant, even while on the pill, so be very careful or complete abstain if you don't want to get pregnant", they instead say, "Go ahead and have fun! Everyboydy's doing it! A condom's all you need, because, hey: abortions are always there if an accident happens and you get pregnant."

So 1 million babies are killed each year. Imagine a city the size of San Antonio completely destroyed by a biological weapon each Dec 31st, and that's what abortion is doing to us.

...and even if you don't accept the concept of abortion being murder, Planned Parenthood's casual approach to sex is still encouraging behavior that has resulted in a massive increase of STDs, because condoms don't protect anywhere close to perfectly. [sarcasm]Yay, Planned Parenthood! [/sarcasm]

Accidental or planned pregnancy - whatever. It is solely a woman's choice whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. IUD, RU-486, or any other means, who cares? It's nobody's business but the woman's.

I love how this all comes down to taking swings at Planned Parenthood...Personally, when I have found something I am vehemently opposed to or find repugnant, I work in other directions to counter it.

PP does not come into our school district. They do not advertise. It is merely word of mouth and the internet that gets young people in there. If they've reached that point, I imagine they're going to have sex anyway. (In addition, many GP Doctors refer low-income clients to PP due to more affordable BC and reproductive health).

If all the people who rip on PP got together and created their own agency, isn't that better than just complaining about how "twisted" PP is?

This isn't "Pie in the Sky" thinking. We have an alterna-PP right here in my little town. It's called a "pregnancy resource center", they offer free pregnancy tests, info on adoption, and free maternity clothing and assistance with food and shelter if there are any problems in that realm. Yes, there is strong pressure not to have an abortion, that's their schtick. But my point is, instead of people demonstrating outside PP or funding extremist groups, they're actually volunteering their time to assist ill-prepared mothers-to-be.

Sorry for the digression. just don't think abstinence works for everybody. What happens after the fact can be swayed by any of us if we are willing to help.

Oh, and hi Marty! :)

Abstinence, while effective, is a joke. Planned Parenthood is about (shudder) sex and therefore must be "banned" by those who are set on imposing their version of morality upon everyone. How about amending abstinence into the Patriot Act? Yeah - that's the ticket...

Hi Jo! How are ya?

It most definitely is a swing against PP. And Teenwire. They do advertise, Jo...that's what the pen is. They do "word of mouth", too, which is why I'm attempting to counter that with word of mouth, too.

I don't like the part Planned Parenthood plays in convincing our youth that it's okay to go ahead and have sex, because they're safe with condoms and the pill, and if something bad happens, there's always abortion!

I don't like it. I'm criticizing it. I'm doing that here.

In order to make it clear what I don't like about Planned Parenthood's main message, I have to point out that calling abortion a responsible act is false and misleading, and that means that I have to use 'tough love' terms regarding the kids and adults (because the responsibility falls upon the father every bit as much as the mother) who find themselves in that situation, but emotionally, my empathy is with them. Which just increases my anger at the misleading propaganda disseminated by PP.

Abstinence is a joke? It is imposing a version of morality on everyone? That almost makes me angry, since the point is that the only way to prevent pregnancy 100% of the time is to abstain. It seems that our own bodies are attempting to impose morality, Marty. They don't listen to your wishful thinking that sex should be costless. That is every bit as much "imposing a morality" as doing more to encourage abstinence.

OK...for argument's sake...say you're five weeks pregnant and barely even earn a liveable wage and have no health insurance. You don't want a baby whatsoever, and getting pregnant was not your intent. You've been told you're "high risk" and will have to stop working completely, you've not been with your employer long enough to receive unemployment or paid leave and pregnancy is not considered "a disability".

What, then, is the "responsible" thing to do?

For argument's sake, let's point out that you can hypothetically set up any situation you want to make your point, but it doesn't really prove anything.

I think my answers above should already make my response clear.

1) Your scenario is way off topic, since the topic is that Planned Parenthood's propaganda is directly increasing the chance that this scenario occurs, and I'd like to stop that, not an argument over whether abortion should be legal or not.

2) The problem started LONG before she was five weeks pregnant. You can't just wake up one day and say, "Well, I'll be responsible today." The actions were irresponsible at several points before this. Abortion is not absolution, is it? It doesn't make everything better, and it certainly doesn't encourage better decision-making the next time.

3) Arranging for an adoption in which all her medical expenses are covered is certainly an option, and one far more reponsible than abortion.

So since you got to invent a scenario to make your point, let's look at a real event: a woman finds out she has triplets, doesn't want 2 of them, and so kills them. The murder is much more stark, since it is concurrent with a pregnancy that will come to term. There is absolutely nothing different about the child who will live from the two who don't have that chance.

Is this responsible? Are her actions in agreement with the principles and words of Planned Parenthood, or in opposition?

It's not about me "needing" to invent scenarios...frankly, we both MET due to a blogger who publicly wrote about her abortion in a scenario similar to the one I provided.

re: the triplets

I think Planned Parenthood supports the right to choose, and that includes choosing what I think is a very sad and pitiful alternative. But although I personally do not like it AT ALL, I support her right to abortion. Not glowingly, not happily, if anything I support it with a bout of nausea. but I do nonetheless.

But, women do elect to have this sort of procedure...they just don't go to the Times about it.

I am disappointed in women who choose gender-specific abortion and multiple-fetus abortion because my personal belief is if you were planning and trying to have a baby, you can handle almost anything an ultrasound reveals.

Anyway, to go back: I don't feel that PP advertises nearly as much as they could.

I think we've gotten way off topic here, but the statement "it certainly doesn't encourage better decision-making the next time" is rediculous. Do you think girls have an abortion, go through the physical and emotional pain to jump right back up and say, "Yay! let's go through all this again!"? Please. I know atleast two girls personally who went through it and turned celibate in high school.

I will let your final comments stand unnoposed by me because I think I've already made my point as strongly as necessary.

Sorry, Nathan - what was your point exactly? That Planned Parenthood, because it provided people with alternative to being parents, contributes to "irresponsible sex" and therefore is leading the U.S. down theat slippery slope of moral decline similar to the Roman Empire?

Whatever! Planned Parenthood provides a valuable service to many individuals. Just because some people think their moral values are superior to mine and that people should not even have sex, let alone enjoy it, Planned Parenthood should be muzzled? That sounds like "Taliban" thinking.

And if a woman wants to abort a fetus for gender selection or because she doen't want triplets, weel that is fine. Know why? Because it can only be the woman's choice whether or not to carry a child to term.

And any woman who considers whether or not to undergo an abortion, goes through counseling, performs due dilligence and elects to have an abortion is not only making a responsible decision, she is making a rational decision.

Seems like "old times"...

A little deja vu here!

That it does, that it does...
...including the fact that your view and mine are so far apart that I can't find anything to say to respond to your last comments that you would accept as a valid point! [grin]