BlogHer - Why I'm Pro-Life - Comments

I am Pro-Choice

missiowa — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:41:56 -0500

I am in college and these are the years where a lot of unexpected pregnancies happen. I know of too many already. We all know that contraceptives are not 100 percent effective. In a lot of these cases, the mothers are no where near ready to have a child. They are not finacially stable, do not have an education yet, and not ready to settle down. I know that there is adoption, but there are a lot of kids in the adoption agencies already. Also, I could not imagine carrying a child for 9 months and then having to give it up for adoption. If the mother did decide to keep the child, the child could end up having a horible life because the mother would just blame the child or neglect him/her. I believe that the mother knows herself well enough to know if she is ready or not. I do agree that some people abuse the right of choice, but I think we need to let it be up to the woman. If we let others control when/if we can give birth to a child or not, when are they going to stop taking away our rights?

I dont want to come across like I am a pro-life hater because I am not. I have never, personally, been in a situation where I would have to choose. I really liked this article and I am glad to be able to share my thoughts to everyone else.

pro-humility and pro-compassion

madeintaiwan — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:47:25 -0600

Hello, I'm new to the board and stumbled on to the post.. I don't have any easy answers obviously but I do hope that people will think about pro-choice supporters with more compassion. It is so easy to judge when you live in your little world and proclaim absolutes... but there is a big, complex, and sometimes very very dark world out there with situations that are not even fathomable to some. Why do we need to put people on trial for murder?? Because judgments on death are not so clear cut. Some deaths end up being accidental, some are due to negligence, some in self-defense...
I personally think abortions have gotten way out of hand and are way too convenient, but it would go too far to say there are any absolutes.
I also hope that people who are Christians will.. follow Christ. It is of course your duty to follow what you "feel" God is saying to you... but there are his commands that ARE absolute; namely, love each other, do not judge. So in sharing an opinion, that should hopefully come through in your post. It always saddens me to see so much cruelty from a follower of Jesus... Jesus who washed the feet of others, Jesus who loved the ostracized.
Sorry to intrude, but thanks for letting me put in my thoughts.

Pro-Life and Democracy - How Does That Work?

Gloria Pan — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:18:12 -0600

I wish I had seen this thread earlier. Serves me right for not visitng more often!

Here's a question I've never heard a satisfactory answer to. Maybe someone here can help.

How does one justify being pro-life AND a good American, one who believes in freedom of religion, one of the most important ideas this country was built on? There are many Americans who are not Christian or who just don' believe that a cluster of cells warrants the same rights and respect as fully formed human. So, how does that work? Do pro-lifers believe there's room in this country for people who think like that? Or do they believe that all people SHOULD believe that life begins at conception and those who don't are immoral and damned. If this is so, then how would this be different from religious persecution?

About equating you...

Chris Arsenault — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:50:15 -0600

Laurie - what I did in response to your comment was grossly unfair to you as an individual. Whatever opinion you hold or express regarding these issues or my expressions, doesn't mean I can disrespect you as a person. I sincerely apologize and humbly ask for your forgiveness.

Jn 20:23

Email Chris...

Denise — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:24:27 -0600

Chris, I've sent you a couple of emails. If you did not receive them, you can contact me at denise @ blogher . com

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

Three prior posts were removed! Why?

Chris Arsenault — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:55:48 -0600

I've been passionate, respectful, yet demanding for sure, because as you might have read (had you followed the link) that an immature response to the whole debate is to avoid both the head and heart issues when it comes to serious dialogue.

Admittedly, looking back, it appears I'm long-winded because the columns have thinned out.

A good case in pint(sic) might be your recent post in which, rather than discussing the issues, you refer to those who support choice as "selfish smug generations."

So others can make such statements, but when I do it, it's an ad hominen - right? Removing three prior posts was simply an argumentum ad Baculum - an appeal to force. If the argument is valid, and civil, then it should stand.

I stand by what I said - most abortions come about to hide marital infidelity AND sexual promiscuity (outside of marriage) where the child isn't wanted, and often neither is the man. People don't want to air their dirty laundry in public - it's too shameful, thus the overwhelming privacy thing. Can you think of any other reason why a husband shouldn't be informed that his wife is about to undergo an abortion? (Casey v. PP)

In certain cases, it's understandable why a woman wouldn't want the man, but then, if the sex is not rape in such situations, why was there consent in the first place? Incongruitous relationships shouldn't be condoned by the government through abortion. What's unreasonable about asking both men and women to be procreatively responsible?

Statistically, the hard cases in which the life of the mother may be threatened is very, very low - meaning all other abortions are elective, and occur under painful - not joyous, circumstances. That's rather obvious, I'd say. And merely wishing it weren't so, doesn't change that reality.

Clearly I'm not welcome here by those who have the power to delete my words - but merely removing them won't stop me from stating the reality all of us need to one day face.

Bye.

Obviously I disagree...

nelle2nelle — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:04:19 -0600

biology assigns different accountabilities to men and women. Even taking precautions isn't 100% assurance. Bottom line, what happens within one's body is the province of that person.

I've yet to meet a choicer who is thrilled by the idea of surgical abortion, but it comes down to who has the right over our own bodies?

I often see 'responsibility' tossed around on this issue, but sometimes... aborting *is* the responsible choice, and who ultimately makes that determination should be the person preggers.

Off to work!

nelle

Actually, an ad hominem attack

alyssaroyse — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:15:43 -0600

Is made when you change the topic of conversation from the issue at hand to discussing - deriding - the nature of the person with whom you are discussing the issue at hand.

A good case in pint might be your recent post in which, rather than discussing the issues, you refer to those who support choice as "selfish smug generations." Or suggesting that "most abortions come about to hide marital infidelity" which, in effect assumes that people who have abortions are also liars and adulterers.

Those are both ad hominem attacks that reduce the discussion to one of name calling, rather than trying to understand the core disagreements as to when life begins and what rights individuals have according to what moral code. And certainly doesn't allow for peaceful coexistence in a diverse society that is based on the rule of law, not of religion.

___________
Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE
make some good news!
www.JustCauseIt.com

Women have always had

MamacitaG — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:52:33 -0600

Women have always had control over whether they got pregnant or not. It's called "self control."

If you have inappropriate sex and get pregnant, who's to blame? The baby? The helpless result of YOUR CHOICE? The baby is the true victim here, not either adult, both of whom freely chose to indulge. You helped create this child, but you don't want to reap any consequences of that choice?

I'll say it again: The CHOICE is whether or not to have sex. Pregnancy is the result of that choice. Pregnancy is not a choice; it's a fact. It's the natural result of an action. It's a consequence, not a choice.

I'm all for choice. I love sex. But I'm not going to try and eel out of the natural consequences of a chosen action by calling it something it's NOT, to make myself feel better because it certainly wasn't MY fault I got pregnant even though I made the CHOICE to roll in the hay but I don't want to pay any consequences for it, I just want to DO IT. It feels good, and I deserve fun in my life. Consequences? Please. The time was right to roll in the hay, but the time isn't right to pay any consequences for it.

Sorry, fellow women. When we follow our hormones out the door, we often get knocked up. Men don't. Men can walk away. We can't.

Actually, MEN don't walk away. Little boys do, but MEN don't. That's a whole 'nuther topic, though. :)

But honestly? I don't think WOMEN walk away, either. Scared little girls do, but WOMEN don't. This one might be still on topic.

What's the solution? BETTER CHOICES!!!!!!!

Is it just me, or are many of the people commenting on both sides of this issue concentrating on the personal "what's good for me" issues and ignoring a lot of the "natural consequences of your actions" issue?

Because concentrating on the "me me me" issues seems pretty damn selfish, and immature, too.

"Don't be content with being average; average is as close to the bottom as it is to the top."

154 comments?

nelle2nelle — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:40:17 -0600

No passionate views on this subject!

I agree that there is way too much divisiveness on the issue - both plers and pcers will stand their ground. I'm one on the pc side who will... but when engaged in dialogue on the subject, do ultimately try to steer in a direction of where we might find common ground.

Before going there, when life begins is not a deciding factor, it is legal consequences, where our legal system can and should stand. With this issue, either the woman who creates and develops the foetus has rights which supersede those of the other. There is no middle ground legally. To give primary rights to one is to take from the other. Given this, it makes no legal sense to extend primary rights to a foetus,

When we get into banning choice, we get on a slippery slope that sees charges (initially murder charges) against a woman for choosing vaginal birth (hello, Utah) over a c section.

Women will be criminalised for deciding what they wish to happen within their own bodies. There won't be an end to abortion, it will just be driven to high risk underground locales, with discovery leading to aforementioned criminal charges. Visions of Anthony Comstock and his war against women guised in morality.

With that as consequence, better we move away from removing the right of choice to things which can make an actual difference - prevention. Universal health care, very comprehensive sex ed (that is taught and taught and taught again) and widely available & cheap contraception.

With this, surgical abortion can be greatly reduced. Is it not better to chemically induce early on, then progress to surgical abortion? Is it not better to use contraception and prevent pregancy altogether? Yet some on the pl side have serious issue with contraception, failing to accept that passing law prohibiting the distribution and sale of plan B etc, actually harms what they are seeking to achieve?

Move to these things. None of us will step back from our entrenched view of the right to abort - but we can greatly impact the number of abortions in real time through a little common effort and advocacy.

nelle

I think you are right

mrs.spit — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:23:01 -0600

As we have established, as much as I don't like it, I wouldn't vote to ban abortion, but I sure wish that people were more honest. I think both sides of the argument lie to society, and as politically incorrect as it is to say it, that includes abortion clinics.

I wish that the pro-choice movement did point out that there are private abortion clinics, and they are "for profit healthcare, (as a Canadian, I obviously find this bizarre) and that they aren't always honest with women about the problems and the risks - some women struggle for years after an abortion, it is surgery, things can go wrong, there isn't much counselling, and women who go to abortion clinics don't get much neutral, unbiased information about all of their options. It's not the same as having your wisdom teeth removed.

I wish that pro-life supporters would stop suggesting that every woman develops "post-abortion" syndrome, or that they have all the answers to crisis pregnancies, and that adoption is the answer, and that everything can be solved with the provision of diapers and free pre-natal care. That all mothers will magically want their babies, or that adoption always goes well. I wish they provided information about abortion that wasn't couched in "fighting words" like baby killer, and that they didn't show video's of abortions that don't tell the truth about how they are performed.

There are no simple, easy answers. I don't like abortion. I wouldn't want my daughter, my friend, my god-child, my anyone to have one. I think they are horrible tragedies. Always. As someone who lost a child, I can't help but cringe when I think of children aborted. I am always reminded of something Pope JPII said - any society that kills it's children can have no future. I'm just not willing to pretend I always know how to prevent this. Clearly, I don't know. As a Christian, I do know this: My job isn't to legislate a christian moral ethic, it's to introduce people to a living God, so that they make decisions based on their relationship with him. No one ever introduced anyone to God through judicial process. I'm called to remember: we are all sinners, and my neighbours abortion at 7 weeks is no more of a sin in God's eye's than my uncharitable and unkind response to her. It's that compassion and silence thing again.

I wish we were honest with everyone, the world is complex, God knows the answers, I don't always, and the best I can do is talk about the struggle and the God who does have the answers. And in the interim, if I don't have the answers, and I acknowledge that there are no optimal solutions, maybe I should stop trying to make things black and white, make my own moral decisions, and leave others to theirs. Even when I don't like their decisions.

A bit of both really

mrs.spit — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:52:45 -0600

I think you are likely right, that my death was exceedingly likely if I wasn't induced when I was. I don’t think I’m on offence, I think most people understand why we choose what we choose, and that there honestly wasn’t much “choice” in the matter.

But that's my point. Some abortion legislation would not permit me to make the choice. Indeed, some commentators on this board have wanted to deny me the choice. I think there's an underlying sentiment that we should leave everything alone and let God sort it out.

I respect everyone's right to choose, for themselves and their families. If you want to let God sort it out, good for you. My husband and I felt that God was telling us to be induced. As my husband pointed out, the women who let God sort it out can't contribute to the post, because the sobering reality is, they are dead. Not what I felt was a reasonable, appropriate or even particularly Godly decision in the circumstances.

I don't have all the answers. I don't think I get to decide who lives and dies, because I'm not God. I don't know if a mother with Cancer should continue the pregnancy or abort. I don't know if women with tubal pregnancies or molar pregnancies or pregnancies with diagnoses incompatible with life should abort. I have no idea. There are no clear answers in these cases. If I learned anything from my son's life and death it's that there is little that is black and white, nothing that makes these situations anything other than simply anguishing and horrific, and that silence and compassion are always my best response. Indeed, they are the only response I can give. As I said before, these situations are a pain so vast and so deep there are no words.

My point in posting was threefold:

1. To address the over simplistic post from IvyBug about what I should have done. It's extraordinarily easy to make that decision, until someone invites you into her life and her pain and shows the world exactly how grey these things can be. To simply suggest that every woman can be induced, and every baby can be saved and should be saved is patently ridiculous.

2. To address the, and forgive my bluntness, the patronizing, offensive, self-righteous and downright mean spirited assertion that any woman who doesn't try and save her baby is "throwing his little body away like it doesn't matter". I cannot begin to tell anyone how painful and horrible and untrue this statement was, and how offensive I found it. As I said, we can have a discussion, and agree to disagree, but using terms like this doesn't move the debate anywhere. It's just mean. I think enough of us have watched Bambi to know what to do about saying mean things. This wasn’t what happened to our son, and I suspect that no family in this situation would treat their child with anything remotely approaching this level of contempt.

3. To point out that no woman should have to beg doctor, a judge, her peers, her priest or her family for the right to continue living when a pregnancy would cause death. To suggest that some women vote pro-choice for reasons other than being "baby killers". That these things are not always black and white, no matter how much we would like them to be. To say that, I, for one, do not have all the answers. I'm not even sure I know what the questions are, but that have more options to choose from is a better thing. And one I will now fight for.

thanks, cw

Defense, not offense

Grafted Branch — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:44:05 -0600

Mrs. Spit...your story leaves me heavy-hearted. I have a comment on the bottom of page 3 that shares my story of "abortion for the life of the mother."

Your situation, however, sounds at the point of no return, IMHO. You weren't being asked to choose between your life and hers. Without you, there would have been no her--and your demise sounded imminent. I think a different scenario would be a cancer diagnosis that forces a woman to choose between treatment and gestation of an otherwise viable pregnancy.

The Lord bless you, keep you and make His face to shine upon you...

Pro-life/Pro-choice

KarenVogel — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:29:17 -0600

Karen - www.suburbancorrespondent.blogspot.com

I still favor the argument espoused by a friend of mine many years ago with regards to capital punishment - she said, "It's not about what it does to the victim, it's about what sort of people it makes us..." That applies to abortion also. What sort of people would hurt a mother and child this way, rather than help them? What sort of a country are we, if we say we can't afford to help the most vulnerable members of our society?

I, too, used to be "pro-choice." But I have heard too many acquaintances say that, if they had it to do over, they never would have had an abortion.

And the pro-lifers are extremely active in helping people with crisis pregnancies. It's the few lunatics who get all the press, unfortunately.

I'm concerned about a

Grafted Branch — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:19:20 -0600

I'm concerned about a fallacy I see in the arguments of some on this thread. If one is pro-life, but then is unsure under certain "unjust" circumstances--then she isn't *really* pro-life at all, is she? It seems to me that she is just pro-choice with fewer choices--choices that she, in her own doctrine, has deemed appropriate.

I lost two in 2005. The first loss was an ectopic pregnancy, and it is the one that put me on my face before the Lord for over a year.

The pregnancy looked like a miscarriage at 7 weeks, but was discovered to be in my tube after that. I was rushed into deciding to abort with chemo. If I waited, my tube could burst and I could die. (I have 3 young girls to raise--people were quick to counsel me.)

If I waited, the blastocyst (and that's what my *former* doctor corrected me to call it when *I* called it a baby) might grow big enough to need to be surgically removed--thereby losing the tube. If I lived.

The conception didn't die easily. It took two rounds of chemo to "dissolve" it.

Afterward, I discovered the rare handful of cases in which such non-viable pregnancies have actually survived to produce living children.

That messed me up even more.

I've prayed fervently for the mind of Christ on this issue. And I still don't know if I'd have the courage when the time came, but I trust that His grace would be sufficient for me so that I would--because, given the extreme conflict that it produced in me to choose (even in the case of "to save the life of the mother"), next time, I would rather let it "play itself out" so that any intervention would be more clearly defensive, than offensive.

Because only God can weave life in the womb, when we abort we are sinning against Him. And unfortunately for some well-spoken women on this thread,

TRUTH IS NOT RELATIVE. Someday every knee shall bow and every tongue confess...

Why I'm Pro-Life

rocksinmydryer — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:45:56 -0600

I wasn't always pro-life.

In the early '90's, I was a card-carrying, sign-waving, Clinton-campaigning pro-choicer. I held to the notion that a fetus couldn't fully be life, since it was dependent entirely on another for its existence. And I believed the notion that abortion is unfortunate, but it wasn't any of the government's business.

I wish I could point you to a specific point on my journey where my views shifted entirely. There was no dramatic morning where I woke up suddenly pro-life. My thoughts on the subject have meandered down many roads before winding up where they are today. I've been asked to tell you why I believe the way I do.

I will, and I invite you to come to this conversation with respect and courtesy. There's too much yelling over this issue, on both sides, making it impossible to hear each other. I understand (because I've been there) that pro-choicers stand their position firmly because they believe they're defending the fundamental value of choice.

And I understand (because I'm there now) that pro-lifers stand their position firmly because they believe they're defending the fundamental value of life.

Volumes and volumes have been written on the subject, and smarter people than I have debated it for years. Time and space will not allow for me to address every imaginable facet of this debate.

But I will address the two issues that ultimately were responsible for changing my heart on the subject of abortion: that of a embryo/fetus as life, and the issue of choice.

The embryo and fetus as life
I'm no scientiest, but I pay enough attention to know that defining life is no black-and-white matter. For many years, I made myself comfortable with the definition of life as that which could be sustained independently from another human.

It was a tidy argument, I thought, until I began to expand it outward. If only independently sustainable life really "counted" then what would we do with the Alzheimer's patient who would wander off into danger without constant supervision? Or the mentally disabled child who could not eat without being fed by someone else? Or the young mother dependent on dialysis for survival?

By my old definition, I was discrediting the "alive-ness" of people who needed help to exist. The slope was so terribly slippery that I found myself flailing as I slipped down it. If I could no longer consider dependence on another a pre-requisite for being human, then where would I draw the line? Science seemed to be making things more ambiguous, but my heart craved a more concrete answer. After reading and looking investigating and comparing, I realized I had to admit to myself there was only one un-ambiguous start of life that satisfied me:

Conception.

But there was that slippery slope again. Where did this put that important issue of a woman's right to choose?

The issue of choice
Choice is a beautiful thing. It is a fundamental part of what makes us humans. I passionately defend a woman's right to choose a career or schooling or housing or any number of life avenues. I defend her choice to decide whether to have sex, and with whom, and how often, and whether or not to use birth control.

But absolute, unhindered choice is not a guaranteed human right. Think about it: civil society already tells us that we cannot "choose" to abuse a child or "choose" to steal a car. There are legal consequences to those actions, because "choosing" to burglarize a home infringes on the basic liberties of the person who lives there.

The precedent is set. When our right to choose bumps up against the right of another to exist peacefully, our choice is blocked by civilized law.

And it is with this in mind that I realized, as I came to terms with the validity of the human-ness of a embryo and fetus, that I had to accept there was a moral point at which a "woman's right to choose" ended. Her right to decide what to do with her body bumps up against the right of that baby's right to exist.

The only place I could arrive after looking at the medical/legal/social/civil/constitutional issues was that something had to give. A woman's right to choose an abortion cannot logically co-exist with a embryo/fetus' right to be born.

Simply put, life trumps choice.

And no, to answer the question that inevitably arises when this issue is brought up, I don't think the pro-life movement is perfect (then again, is any movement?). I cannot be responsible for everything every pro-lifer does, but I can be responsible for what goes on in my own heart and head. I recognize that crisis pregnancies are very real and very serious, and pro-lifers who dismiss the anguish of such situations are unkind and naive. We, as pro-lifers, should be at the forefront of helping women in very practical ways to navigate unplanned and crisis pregnancies. Many pro-lifers, to their credit, already do this. More should.

Perhaps, if both sides of this debate stopped shouting, we could focus better on the people at the heart of the issues: babies and pregnant women. Both deserve our respect and our best efforts to help them live with dignity.

* * * * * * * *

For some other pro-life blogs and websites written by women, see the following:

Shannon is a Contributing Editor (Mommy and Family) at BlogHer, and she also blogs at Rocks In My Dryer and Bloggy Giveaways.