Thanks for the comments. Of course it’s an extremely divisive topic, so always likely to bring varied responses, as has been the case. I definitely agree with Tina’s point about the importance of educating young people about their responsibilities, and I don’t like the idea of forcing anything upon anyone, but I suppose it could be argued that one of the things most needs to be taught is that (aside from instances of rape) those who have sex (both men and women) are by virtue of that decision choosing that they are happy to bring a new life into the world. And that that comes with responsibilities. I definitely agree that outrage is not a helpful response, but I also have a problem that abortion is seen (at least by some) as an easy way out of a difficult situation. I do also wish the subject could be discussed in a less frenzied manner by people on both sides of the debate (not in this particular thread, in which the comments have been quite civil, but in general).
I actually just wrote an article about this topic. Bill Clinton's comment triggered me a little at one of the rally's with Tim Walz where he was talking about the illegal population would help with our declining birth rate. I of course had to get some numbers from the declining birth rates from abortions that they push for financial gain. To give a number, since 2000 the estimate is there were 23,818,940 abortions. That is from my research. What that wouldn't do for declining birth rates.
What bothers me is the way they have changed its meaning. Reproductive healthcare has nothing to do with abortion. That was added into the equation. No one has ever said on either side that women couldn't decide whether or not they could have children. What has changed is people being responsible about their sexual practices. Life is a gift from God. The women who want that freedom are creating more irresponsible men in the society because they are letting them off the hook. It is your body, your child, you decide. I'm out. All men aren't that way, but movements create change in society. I had an ex-wife that got pregnant while I was away during military training. She told me when I returned. She decided she wanted an abortion. I supported her decision, but didn't agree with it. The day we went to the clinic for the procedure sitting in the waiting room, she started crying. I asked her are you sure this is what you want? She said no. We left and that child was a beautiful girl. Why blame the life God created for the mother's mistake? She has grown up a beautiful woman with her own family now. The children don't have a voice. Many things are happening to them in this country and they don't have a voice.
I pointed out in my article, the people pushing the cause as the government should stay out of women's healthcare. They are the same people that said vaccinate, mask, stay away from grandma, isolate, keep kids out of school, etc. All of their healthcare government decisions are when there is money involved from lobbying or investing.
I also touched on Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood is trying to erase her true history and distance itself from what she really did.
I was among the first generation of women who could safely abort pregnancies unlike our mothers who had to risk their own lives. I can tell you that this decision is never taken lightly. It is agonizing and every situation has its own set of complications obviously. The idea that women are flippant and have a disregard for the sanctity of life is terribly misguided and has been used by the religious right and fanatical advocacy groups for decades, not to mention as a political tool on both the right and left to seed division every election.
This is not to dismiss the very well meaning people who feel it is contrary to their religious teachings. I can appreciate that and understand how, if ever faced with a surprise pregnancy, abortion would not be an option they would consider. The point is no one is forcing them to have a baby. It is their choice. Whereas "forcing" a woman to give birth is not only NOT her choice but depending on the circumstance might be a deadly option.
The best practices we can instill is in the home, in the raising the next generation of sons and daughters, in teaching them about loving caring relationships, in helping them understand their sexuality and how to be responsible for their bodies. As adults, we can't deny teens information about sex, ban books about sexuality, shame them about natural urges, prohibit them from access to birth control and then be surprised or outraged when an unscheduled pregnancy occurs. And at that point, outrage is the last thing that teen needs. They'll need your love and support.
Tina, I am of your generation and I must strongly disagree with your comment. It was the era of the sexual revolution and feminism. I knew many young women, unfortunately including myself, who had abortions to remove a "parasite" from her body. I do not think the attitude has changed all that much, and is perhaps worse, now. In fact the number of abortions have been on the rise. Anyway. It is not 1975 or even 1995. There are so many birth control options for women these days, I see no excuse for a "surprise" pregnancy (except in the case of rape or incest). While I agree that the best approach is to teach teens about sexual responsibility, teens account for the lowest rate of abortion, while women in their 20's are by far the largest cohort getting abortions. I am afraid many women are still quite flippant about abortion. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7209a1.htm#:~:text=From%202012%20to%202021%2C%20the,years%20for%20whom%20it%20increased.
Thanks for your reply. Clearly your experience was different than mine in regard to feminist attitudes. And you are right, women have come a long way since 1975 in many respects including medical care. The study you offer doesn't offer qualitative data on attitudes, just number of reported abortions. And no mention of the reasons for the abortions (medically necessary or otherwise) which is more relevant to our conversation here. Not a statistician but breaking it down to 11.6 abortions per 1000 women total, 28% of which in their 20s, means 3 abortions per 1000. Certainly not an explosive number. My point is not to advocate for abortions, it's to state that demonizing or worse criminalizing women for a choice they make, and equating this with a disregard for human life is ill placed.
A few words from Dr Bernard Nathanson, former Director of the largest abortion clinic in the Western world and the last surviving founding member of NARAL, the pro-abortion organization that brought legal abortion to the United States.
"I am personally responsible for over 75,000 abortions. We founded NARAL in the late 1960s with our purpose to export our pro-abortion mentality everywhere. To achieve that end, we adopted the strategy to deny what we knew to be true: THAT ABORTION KILLS AN EXISTING LIVING HUMAN BEING. We denied that fact in order to mislead the American public and the courts of this land. This was the greatest mistake of my life and legal abortion is the greatest mistake that this nation has ever conceived." - Dr Bernard Nathanson
It's because it sets something without a developed brain as equal to the fully developed human being carrying it. An embryo or fetus an inch or two in size, with no consciousness or ability to feel pain or to think. It also makes carrying a pregnancy to term more important than the health or even the life of the mother. She becomes expendable, no matter if that fetus is viable or not, or if carrying it to term could kill her. She becomes the next Savita Halappanavar, ready to be sacrificed on the altar of the fetus.
Women in 100s of countries over centuries have practiced many means to deal with unwanted children - AND SO HAVE MEN. Yet we do not demonize men for killing children over religion, oil, money and weapons or for any of the other insane situations that men put kids and women into which aren't good for their health. Any man can outlive a rape conviction a 1000x better than any raped woman or even a woman who 'finds' herself pregnant. (Do you ever think about the millions of young animals that are killed before their prime, never to reproduce? Men have been forcing extinctions on the whole planet for millennia.)
We've also written 100s of books and articles about this very topic - some of the most famous women in the world have addressed and are still doing so, often live on the net.
It's only just occurred to you that you 'should' have an opinion on the subject because yes, after ALL, men do play a teeny weeny role in human reproduction. Yet women are seen as evil for having to do the best they can in dealing with unwanted children or fetuses and we're certainly not allowed an opinion when men control the vast majority of lawmaking.
If only men would take a second to imagine themselves in the identical position. If only men would take a second to speak to women about this sincerely and not with a 'yeah but'. If only men would make a firm decision never to have sex with women who don't want to get pregnant. Yet the vast majority of women do exactly this - yet we are the devils.
If you were writing on any other subject, how much more or less time would you spend researching it before publication? How seriously do you take women and our life or death decisions if you can't even figure out why this is such a massive controversy. You could even look into all of the other means humans have imposed on ourselves to limit populations and wonder about how humane that was.
Beautifully written, and I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of mourning "too soon" deaths against the fervent nature of abortion defense without the same mourning. I also appreciated the "haven't nailed my colors to either mast" phrasing because that's where many of us are, I'm sure.
Thanks for the comments. Of course it’s an extremely divisive topic, so always likely to bring varied responses, as has been the case. I definitely agree with Tina’s point about the importance of educating young people about their responsibilities, and I don’t like the idea of forcing anything upon anyone, but I suppose it could be argued that one of the things most needs to be taught is that (aside from instances of rape) those who have sex (both men and women) are by virtue of that decision choosing that they are happy to bring a new life into the world. And that that comes with responsibilities. I definitely agree that outrage is not a helpful response, but I also have a problem that abortion is seen (at least by some) as an easy way out of a difficult situation. I do also wish the subject could be discussed in a less frenzied manner by people on both sides of the debate (not in this particular thread, in which the comments have been quite civil, but in general).
Well thought out.
More thoughts:
https://zephareth.substack.com/p/the-emotional-responses-to-abortion
ZL
I actually just wrote an article about this topic. Bill Clinton's comment triggered me a little at one of the rally's with Tim Walz where he was talking about the illegal population would help with our declining birth rate. I of course had to get some numbers from the declining birth rates from abortions that they push for financial gain. To give a number, since 2000 the estimate is there were 23,818,940 abortions. That is from my research. What that wouldn't do for declining birth rates.
What bothers me is the way they have changed its meaning. Reproductive healthcare has nothing to do with abortion. That was added into the equation. No one has ever said on either side that women couldn't decide whether or not they could have children. What has changed is people being responsible about their sexual practices. Life is a gift from God. The women who want that freedom are creating more irresponsible men in the society because they are letting them off the hook. It is your body, your child, you decide. I'm out. All men aren't that way, but movements create change in society. I had an ex-wife that got pregnant while I was away during military training. She told me when I returned. She decided she wanted an abortion. I supported her decision, but didn't agree with it. The day we went to the clinic for the procedure sitting in the waiting room, she started crying. I asked her are you sure this is what you want? She said no. We left and that child was a beautiful girl. Why blame the life God created for the mother's mistake? She has grown up a beautiful woman with her own family now. The children don't have a voice. Many things are happening to them in this country and they don't have a voice.
I pointed out in my article, the people pushing the cause as the government should stay out of women's healthcare. They are the same people that said vaccinate, mask, stay away from grandma, isolate, keep kids out of school, etc. All of their healthcare government decisions are when there is money involved from lobbying or investing.
I also touched on Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood is trying to erase her true history and distance itself from what she really did.
Oh just what the world needed: Another man’s unformed, wishy-washy opinion on whether or not women should control their own bodies 🙄
I was among the first generation of women who could safely abort pregnancies unlike our mothers who had to risk their own lives. I can tell you that this decision is never taken lightly. It is agonizing and every situation has its own set of complications obviously. The idea that women are flippant and have a disregard for the sanctity of life is terribly misguided and has been used by the religious right and fanatical advocacy groups for decades, not to mention as a political tool on both the right and left to seed division every election.
This is not to dismiss the very well meaning people who feel it is contrary to their religious teachings. I can appreciate that and understand how, if ever faced with a surprise pregnancy, abortion would not be an option they would consider. The point is no one is forcing them to have a baby. It is their choice. Whereas "forcing" a woman to give birth is not only NOT her choice but depending on the circumstance might be a deadly option.
The best practices we can instill is in the home, in the raising the next generation of sons and daughters, in teaching them about loving caring relationships, in helping them understand their sexuality and how to be responsible for their bodies. As adults, we can't deny teens information about sex, ban books about sexuality, shame them about natural urges, prohibit them from access to birth control and then be surprised or outraged when an unscheduled pregnancy occurs. And at that point, outrage is the last thing that teen needs. They'll need your love and support.
Tina, I am of your generation and I must strongly disagree with your comment. It was the era of the sexual revolution and feminism. I knew many young women, unfortunately including myself, who had abortions to remove a "parasite" from her body. I do not think the attitude has changed all that much, and is perhaps worse, now. In fact the number of abortions have been on the rise. Anyway. It is not 1975 or even 1995. There are so many birth control options for women these days, I see no excuse for a "surprise" pregnancy (except in the case of rape or incest). While I agree that the best approach is to teach teens about sexual responsibility, teens account for the lowest rate of abortion, while women in their 20's are by far the largest cohort getting abortions. I am afraid many women are still quite flippant about abortion. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7209a1.htm#:~:text=From%202012%20to%202021%2C%20the,years%20for%20whom%20it%20increased.
Thanks for your reply. Clearly your experience was different than mine in regard to feminist attitudes. And you are right, women have come a long way since 1975 in many respects including medical care. The study you offer doesn't offer qualitative data on attitudes, just number of reported abortions. And no mention of the reasons for the abortions (medically necessary or otherwise) which is more relevant to our conversation here. Not a statistician but breaking it down to 11.6 abortions per 1000 women total, 28% of which in their 20s, means 3 abortions per 1000. Certainly not an explosive number. My point is not to advocate for abortions, it's to state that demonizing or worse criminalizing women for a choice they make, and equating this with a disregard for human life is ill placed.
A few words from Dr Bernard Nathanson, former Director of the largest abortion clinic in the Western world and the last surviving founding member of NARAL, the pro-abortion organization that brought legal abortion to the United States.
"I am personally responsible for over 75,000 abortions. We founded NARAL in the late 1960s with our purpose to export our pro-abortion mentality everywhere. To achieve that end, we adopted the strategy to deny what we knew to be true: THAT ABORTION KILLS AN EXISTING LIVING HUMAN BEING. We denied that fact in order to mislead the American public and the courts of this land. This was the greatest mistake of my life and legal abortion is the greatest mistake that this nation has ever conceived." - Dr Bernard Nathanson
https://youtu.be/KqqBTssw5hU?si=vbuA_DWRfJd3MSja
It's because it sets something without a developed brain as equal to the fully developed human being carrying it. An embryo or fetus an inch or two in size, with no consciousness or ability to feel pain or to think. It also makes carrying a pregnancy to term more important than the health or even the life of the mother. She becomes expendable, no matter if that fetus is viable or not, or if carrying it to term could kill her. She becomes the next Savita Halappanavar, ready to be sacrificed on the altar of the fetus.
I'm adopted and even though I'm not entirely pro-life I do advocate for the unborn most of the time.
Women in 100s of countries over centuries have practiced many means to deal with unwanted children - AND SO HAVE MEN. Yet we do not demonize men for killing children over religion, oil, money and weapons or for any of the other insane situations that men put kids and women into which aren't good for their health. Any man can outlive a rape conviction a 1000x better than any raped woman or even a woman who 'finds' herself pregnant. (Do you ever think about the millions of young animals that are killed before their prime, never to reproduce? Men have been forcing extinctions on the whole planet for millennia.)
We've also written 100s of books and articles about this very topic - some of the most famous women in the world have addressed and are still doing so, often live on the net.
It's only just occurred to you that you 'should' have an opinion on the subject because yes, after ALL, men do play a teeny weeny role in human reproduction. Yet women are seen as evil for having to do the best they can in dealing with unwanted children or fetuses and we're certainly not allowed an opinion when men control the vast majority of lawmaking.
If only men would take a second to imagine themselves in the identical position. If only men would take a second to speak to women about this sincerely and not with a 'yeah but'. If only men would make a firm decision never to have sex with women who don't want to get pregnant. Yet the vast majority of women do exactly this - yet we are the devils.
If you were writing on any other subject, how much more or less time would you spend researching it before publication? How seriously do you take women and our life or death decisions if you can't even figure out why this is such a massive controversy. You could even look into all of the other means humans have imposed on ourselves to limit populations and wonder about how humane that was.
Beautifully written, and I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of mourning "too soon" deaths against the fervent nature of abortion defense without the same mourning. I also appreciated the "haven't nailed my colors to either mast" phrasing because that's where many of us are, I'm sure.
Great job, and thank you.
Well written. Thank you for publishing it.
Thanks for your thoughts! It is simply a matter death too soon and we mourn for those who leave us, even those not fully known.