Abortion is Barbaric
by There is nothing enlightened about abortion. And now that cameras can see into the womb, life is undeniable. Now that preemies survive life outside the womb at a younger age than many of those aborted, the barbarism of this practice is clear to those who have eyes to see.
As a matter of advancing the cause of women, why is someone who treats her body as a commodity to be admired?
Why is a woman with so little self-respect as to have sex without commitment to be admired?
Why is a woman who has so little care for her child that she would sentence her to death be lauded as enlightened?
No. A thousand times no.
Abortion is a moral wrong.
Feminists scream about choice, but what choice does this child have, ripped from life?
And do you know the leading cause of death in black America?
Roe v. Wade should be overturned, if only to turn this debate back to the states--which is all it does. Abortions do not suddenly become illegal if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it merely restarts the arrested development of the debate summarily cut off by the courts from the people back in 1973.
There are arguments that need to be resolved, and it's long past time.
Women have more opportunity now than in the early ’70’s. Surely fair-minded observers will note that feminism in the US has largely succeeded from an economic and educational standpoint. To bear a child as a single mom these days brings no shame, though the breakdown of the family was one of several negative cultural consequences, including abortion:
One of the greatest ways women have devalued children is by accepting abortion. A respected feminist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, once said “"When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Overseas, abortion is associated with sex selection, which more than likely leads to the abortion of girls. During this election process, talk of the hanger coming back is fear-mongering. While abortions are in decline in the US, abortion pills have made the process easier, the internet as well. Of course, all this has unintended consequences--the ease and social complicity in sexualizing younger and younger girls, their being abused by older men, or in some cases coerced by members of their own family to have abortions or take abortion pills--a significant number with life-threatening or even fatal consequences--I guess I should say not just fatal for the baby.
I am not absolutely opposed to abortion for any reason, but the start of the debate should recognize that abortion snuffs out innocent life.
Putting a baby on death row for the crime of simply being conceived is pure evil.
And repeated use of abortion as birth control is criminal.
There are alternatives.
In all honesty, can we really look our daughters in the eye, or sons for that matter, and tell them that living a sexually hedonistic lifestyle is just fine, all about "personal fulfillment" and without hurtful consequences? That some lives are more "equal" than others? That is the unacknowledged subtext of being pro-abortion.
A society that holds life so cheaply is not admirable. It is neither enlightened nor civilized. It is not a guardian of individual and civil liberty when it so easily sanctions robbing its most vulnerable and innocent of life.
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Comments
You lost me...
with the idea that anyone who has sex "without commitment" has no self-respect, let alone the implication that all abortion is a tool only of promiscuous single women.
Your attack on women themselves as opposed to the procedure is misguided and your assumptions are flawed.
Mom-101
the issue
The issue is not whether abortion is barbaric. That is your opinion. You may hold it passionately, and your strength of feeling for what you believe is right is admirable. But this is the real issue:
It is whether you can make that decision for me.
Whether you can take that option away from me
Because of what you believe - and nevermind what I believe. Nevermind what I believe strongly and pasionately to be right. My opinion does not count.
You get to make that decision based on your own beliefs on my behalf, or on the behalf of any other woman for who is put into the position where she has to decide whether or not to have an abortion.
You take the choice away.
That is the issue.
"The Issue" Gets the Right Issue, but the
Wrong People
Mashadutoit wrote that The Issue:
I agree wholeheartedly that the issue is whether one person can make a decision for another, but it isn't whether one adult can make a decision for another. It's whether a pregnant woman can decide for her baby that life is not an option worth having. Abortion involves a pregnant woman deciding that, for her child, life is not worth living - that they'd rather die than live under the circumstances they'd be born into.
Now, I'm not a woman, but I was a baby once. I think I am qualified to speak on behalf of the babies out there. I think it's safe to say that they'd choose life, even if it means having an incredibly selfish woman as your mother. Living poor is better than dying. Living under any circumstance is better than dying.
The choice not to raise a child is available through adoption. The choice to kill a child rather than carry it to term is one of convenience and selfish vanity.
In a perfect world I would agree with you.
But giving a child up for adoption is not that simple, either logistically or emotionally. Simply giving birth and raising a child is not that easy, logistically or emotionally. And those children born into terribly challenging, difficult circumstances may eventually become the people that have to themselves face decisions as tough as this one. So I guess I have to wonder at what age the life of a woman becomes less relevant, less important than the life of a fetus that she may carry. Is it 10? 20? 40? If carrying a child to term will condemn both the child and the mother to a life of suffering, does the mother have the obligation to do that to herself? Does she even have the right to bring another human being into that situation?
Questions indeed.
Visit my blogs at ThreeSeven (all that's irrelevant and amusing) and
ecochick (all that's green, cool and Canadian).
I am sorry to hear it. I
I am sorry to hear it. I think sex without commitment is sad and yes, those who engage in it demean themselves.
I do not mean to imply that it is only a "tool" of single women. Of course married women abort as well--but they presumably have less incentive to do so.
My paramount goal is to defend innocent life.
Adults usually are accountable for their actions--why should this be any different?
Sterile language. The "procedure" snuffs out life. Can't get around it.
You Don't Get To Define Sex
or who has sex or the nature of their sexual practices.
You don't get to judge the quality or the nature of other people's decisions about their sexual activities. Sex is not evil. Sex is not just for married people. I'll take the bump and grind over piety any day!
From a bio-chemical standpoint if you are proposing that folks abstain from sex until and unless they are in a "committed relationship" your are being totally unrealistic.
Your paramount goal is to defend innocent life?
No, I don't think it is. I think your goal is to apply your belief system to a wide range of situations. There are times when abortion is medical necessary. You would intercede in that decision between a patient and a doctor.
There are times when a crime has been committed and pregnancy is the result of that crime. You seem to have no compassion for the choices a woman might have to face in that situation.
It is not a capricious decision to have an abortion. It never has been. I am not about to change your mind. I understand that.
If you have not done so please read the prior post on the topic:
http://www.blogher.com/why-im-pro-life
http://www.blogher.com/why-im-pro-choice
Gena - Out On The Stoop
Ah. But what choice does the
Ah. But what choice does the baby have?
Who speaks for the child?
You take the choice away.
And for the baby it means her death.
"Put in a position" Everyone
"Put in a position"
Everyone has a choice about that too.
You should not be able to make a choice to
end another life
I see liberals defend animals, trees and choices, but not babies. Makes no sense.
<a href="http://wakingsophie.com>Waking Sophie</a>
This Is Not A Liberal or Conservative Issue
I respect your opinion but drop the wedge, ok? If you believe in pro-life I assume you value the life of liberal babies as well as conservative ones?
If your premise is that there are no liberal pro-life folks then you are mistaken, there are.
Not me, I believe in choice. I respect your viewpoint but let us move beyond so-called baby killing liberals and holier than God conservatives.
Gena - Out On The Stoop
Okay, that is going too far
To say that every woman has a choice about being put in a position where she might consider abortion.
Women who become pregnant because of rape have no choice.
Children who become pregnant because of rape have no choice.
Women who discover at their first ultrasound that the fetus they are happily and willfully carrying has no brain, or has a horrible condition that will result in certain painful death, didn't choose to be put in that position.
Women who are carrying multiples and discover that they may have to choose to abort one to save the others DID NOT CHOOSE to be put in that position.
A married woman who is already a mother of four who finds out that she is pregnant a month after her cheating husband left her, or a month after her family lost their home in a fire, or a month after both parents were laid off.
A woman who finds out she has a health condition that will force her to choose between her own life and carrying to term.
These women did not CHOOSE to be put in those positions.
Say what you want about abortion itself, but DO NOT claim that every woman facing a difficult choice put herself in that position. Not only is that demeaning and insulting to literally thousands of women who are suffering terribly RIGHT NOW, it is also dangerously naive.
I agree with you on many of your statements.
But I'm still pro-choice. And not because I'm a heartless monster that supports murder and barbarism, although maybe I am because I do...
But my reasoning for being pro-choice is I don't think it's my place to tell another woman what she can or cannot do with her body or anything directly dependent on it. Whether that be aborting a child or removing a tumor. And adoption will become a feasible alternative when the millions of children already needing homes find them. Until then - let's deal with the surplus of unwanted and unloved kids that we already have in the world.
(And yes, yes I did just compare a fetus to a tumor.)
- Maria
http://immoralmatriarch.com
who speaks for the child?
the mother speaks for her own child. She gets to decide if the responsible thing would be for this child to live or not. For all the reasons that jaelithe lists and may more. The mother speaks for her own child. Sometimes a decision is not easy. Sometimes there is not a right choice, or an easy choice. But she is the one who will speak for her own child. Not you - whether or not you like what these mothers decide. They will have to live with their choice - the consequences of the abortion, or the consequences of not aborting.
We defend lots of babies
after they are born. Which is when so many conservatives say "you are on your own."
BTW, I'm one of those women whose health/life would be threatened by pregnancy, and it always burns me that "pro-lifers" have no value for my life.
-Lisse
@ Home in the World
Everyone knows all women really want bebbehs!
Oh, if only it weren't for the radical feminists and filthy liberals brainwashing us women folk, we'd be free to embrace our natural position in the world as lean, mean, reproducin' machines.
Puh-leaze.
Your post is naive and ridiculous, implying that it's those dirty heathens and hedonists who cap off a night of drinking and debauchery with an abortion (although I'm sure if the dirty heathens and hedonists were reproducing at an alarming rate, your post would be about what terrible influences they are on their children).
I've been married for 3 years. My husband and I dated for 12 years before that, starting in our sophomore year of high school. We're about as boring, stable and committed as a couple can be (especially for dirty heathens).
We do not like kids. We barely tolerate most adults. The thought of selfishly bringing another person into the world, a world I'm trying to get by in the best I can given the stupidity and ignorance that run rampant, turns my stomach. It's not merely the fact I don't want to be a parent or ruin my girlish figure, it's that I'm morally and ethically opposed to personally adding to the population. And why should an embryo take precedence over that?
Good point, Sarah C., thank
Good point, Sarah C., thank you. It just points out the ethical inconsistency of the pro-abortion arguements.
As to the other comments, as I said above, I am not absolutely opposed to abortion for any reason. Rape and incest are even more horrifying than abortion. And the life of the mother, if at risk of her dying, takes precedence over that of her baby, unless she chooses to save her baby first.
Women do suffer natural miscarriages, and of course they should be given every care to ensure there is nothing left inside to harm them. And of course there are instances where the baby may not survive the birth. But at least give them the chance. I find it quite ironic this talk of painful death. What do you think happens when they are chopped up or a scissors is inserted in their skull to suck ther brains out?
I don't think people should play God with other's lives. If you can't cope, there are alternatives.
A fetus as a tumor, birth as a disease, motherhood as an affliction, life as ?
If feminists are concerned about dealing with unwanted children needing adoption, why not make that their cause? Why not expend as much passion and energy on that? But no.
Sex has consequences.
Wow, that was presumptuous....
And wrong.
-Lisse
@ Home in the World
Sex has consequences
"Mommy, why did you and Daddy have me?"
Well, honey, you were a punishment for engaging in behavior that a vocal minority found morally repugnant but for whom there were no direct or indirect consequences.
"So, you didn't want me?"
Of course not, dear. That's why we were using birth control, but sometimes accidents happen.
"I was an accident?"
Yes, honey. An accident and a punishment. Sweet dreams!
A child is not part of a woman's body
That is a ridiculous thing to say. Why is it ok to kill a baby when it is in the body and not when comes out? If it is the mother's right to decide if a child lives or not, why can't she kill the baby if it keeps her up all night, or when it is teething?
God creates life, not woman. God should have the final say whether a baby lives or not. That is why we punish murders, at least of adults and some children.
Waking Sophie
You may want to try that
You may want to try that argument on someone who isn't an Agnostic Atheist with Apathetic principles.
'God' allows babies to die every day. Starvation and mutilation in 3rd world countries, abuse and neglect in our own backyards. Diseases and other ailments constantly. So when 'God' decides that every baby's life is worth saving, I'll put a bit more merit into 'only God should have this ability'. I don't really like 'God''s methods of choosing which children live or die.
For you to attempt to push your ideals onto anyone else is what's truly ridiculous. And um, a baby is a part of a woman. That's sorta the whole gestation thing...
- Maria
http://immoralmatriarch.com
I guess then if I swallow
I guess then if I swallow rubber it is a part of me too.
It's only a part of you...
until you poop it out.
(Like this comment I find that argument totally ridiculous.)
Victoria, aka VDog
http://www.vdogblog.com
What is your part, other then forcing other
women into you think
And how many of these unwanted children have you adoted or fostered?
Isn't just as cruel and barbaric to let some of these "babies" be born in to poverty and abuse?
There are thousands of children in the system, in dumpsters, and in abusive homes because they were unwanted.
Most of the protesters I see are white middleclass women who probably have the resources to be able to have an unwanted child, who don't come from at risk neighborhoods and families. I often wonder how many of them put thier own money into running group homes or have adopted these kids.
It's the same people who want to take away sex education in schools and birth control options to teenagers. Sure they should'nt be having sex and the parents "should" be teaching the kids at home, but that is not reality. You can't have it both ways.
You want to stop it ? Then start educating and stop preaching. The time and money spent are more productive then taking away the CHOICES we have now.
People are not going to stop having sex just because they can longer have an abortion.
I was born into poverty and
I was born into poverty and an abusive home. I over came that and have a wonderful life and I contribute to society. It is not someones choice to decide if my life is worth while.
Waking Sophie
Just as it is not your right
Just as it is not your right to decide if someone else's life or choice is right or wrong.
I spent 13 years of my life and a portion of my health defending freedom. All freedom, not just yours. And that means that everyone has the right to make their own choices, good, bad or indifferent, regardless of what I think of those decisions.
What if those in the military (or police) decided when to defend you? Or who to defend?
Jim Heivilin
Hello Jim, thank you for
Hello Jim, thank you for defending my freedom. I truly appreciate your service to our country. I still stand on the point that in this country we do not have the choice to do what ever we want. We are not allowed to harm others. That is a really basic principle. These babies need defending and protection.
Waking Sophie
Hmm...
Do women not need defending and protection?
Why is the life and wellbeing of the fetus more important than the life or wellbeing of the mother?
Visit my blogs at ThreeSeven (all that's irrelevant and amusing) and
ecochick (all that's green, cool and Canadian).
So grown women need
So grown women need protection from fetuses? Really?
If you want to go down that road...
Pregnancy isn't easy and yes, it can risk the life and health of the mother. In addition, having a child can certainly leave a woman with decreased financial resources, more vulnerable to exploitation from those who see desperate women trying to feed their families, more likely to remain in abusive relationships for the sake of the child... I could go on.
Having a child is a wonderful thing, when you are healthy, when you have the means, when you are able to care for the child properly. When you are not, it is not a wonderful thing. It is difficult and terrifying.
Visit my blogs at ThreeSeven (all that's irrelevant and amusing) and
ecochick (all that's green, cool and Canadian).
I am glad
to hear about your site Lisse.