Abortion is always a hot topic, especially in the blogosphere. What I am seeing more and more are pro-choicers coming to pro-life blogs and offering their two cents. I find this intriguing as I never had much interest in going to a pro-choice blog to debate in the comments section. I also find the debate interesting, and yet also nerve wracking. The part I find nerve wracking is that to many pro-choicers, we “anti-choicers” are let’s see, racist, we never have a grip on reality and see the big picture, we are constantly trying to force are religion on people, and spend all our energy in trying to “trick” women into keeping their babies by lying, oh and of course none of us care about children or any social justice issues. They know this for a fact because they came to all our houses one by one, asked our opinions on the variety of social justice issues and proved that not a single one of us has ever done anything involving any other issue.
What really bugs me though, is this nonsense about “shaming”, “conning”, and “manipulating” women into having abortions keeping their babies. I think the Planned Parenthood urban legend email is a good example of this bizarre stereotype. Growing up, I had many friends who had abortions, and behind almost every abortion was in the very least manipulative boyfriend.
Now I am going to tell my story. This has been on my mind a lot lately after putting it in the farthest reaches of memory for many years. I am not sure why. I just read an almost identical account two days ago and thought it was a sign of some sort, plus a few other strange coincidences here and there.I have also been kind of feeling like since I avoid large parts of myself, I do not blog about issues that are on my mind because then I might have to reveal things about myself I would rather not. I actually told this story in the comments box at Generations for Life, when someone asked me a question. I figured if I put it in the comments box there, maybe I should retell it here.
Pansy Moss,
Can I ask you a question, since you’ve dealt with unplanned pregnancies, and obviously decided to see the pregnancy through. How do you think you might have responded if you had been denied the option of continuing the pregnancy? If the choice that made the most sense to you was denied and you were forced to abide by someone elses understanding of how they felt things should operate? I’m not attacking, I’m just interested in understanding, and perhaps showing a little of where I am coming from if I am able.
OK, here is a bit of a story (long, apologising in advance). I am telling you this story not as “pro-life” propaganda, so to speak, because there will be sentiments that will sound familiar, but as a personal answer to a personal question.
I had always been pro-life. I was a pro-life child. Many of my cousins are Jewish, and I used to go to this Jewish camp in the summers, and I remember sitting in lawn chairs with my cousin and the Rabbi’s wife as they complained about thse Catholic hospitals that would try to save the babies over the mothers (which in retrospect, I am unsure where they got their information), which would turn into these abortion debates, and my 11-year old sensibilities didn’t know this wasn’t the time or place to keep quiet. It was just always wrong to me. I am not even sure why, because the issue was not as big then as it is now, we weren’t real religious Catholics then, and I am not even sure if my mother, who was not Catholic then was even pro-life on this issue.
As a teenager I was sexually active at way too young an age. I spend a lot of time wondering what was going on, and the fact of the matter is, all I can come up with is a huge desire to fit in and do what everyone else was doing. Of course my family did not approve, but I remember having teachers, and adult family members who I was close to who used to “cool” with me and tell me that my parents were old-fashioned about the abstaining thing and all that mattered was that I used protection. All I heard in my adolescent brain “they are cool with me having sex”. Then the boys. I remember I was conned very easily by kind words by boys who were popular and wanting to fit in. So at 13 I had this “boyfriend” who would be the source of too much drama for the next 7 years, I wish I could erase those years. He was popular, his father used to work with my father and my father actually helped him with his dissertation (in other words, they were friends). He had a nice car. Both his parents were professionals, and he came from a line of Q-dogs and Deltas (black fraternities and sororities-something a bit impressive if you are AA). Other girls wanted to date him. He was a “catch” in high school.
Anyway, no surprise, I found myself pregnant at 15 right before my junior year of school started. I told my boyfriend first and he instantly broke up with me and told me to get an abortion. I told my girlfriends, and they told me to get an abortion (I was the only anti-abortion person among my peers). I told one of my cool cousins and she came down (they lived in the City and I lived in central NJ) and had talks with me about the need to have an abortion because I was too young, and all the reasons you would in good logic tell a pregnant 15-year-old to abort if you believed that was an option. My parents knew something was up and I told them. They were of course upset. The next day my father said “these are our options-I can adopt the baby or take care of the baby here, or if you want an abortion, I can’t help you find out about it, but you are my daughter and I will support you but that is a decision you have to live with, or you can put the baby up for adoption…”
“But Dad, I can’t keep it!”
“Well, just remember, this is your decision, but it will be one you will have to stand by for the rest of your life…” And that was all he said.
He was not manipulating me, he was being very compassionate. Or maybe he was, but if so, his language was nicer, and heck, everyone was manipulating me. The fact is, I didn’t want to have abortion, and he was the first person to tell me I didn’t have to. I didn’t want to be pregnant either. I was up for cheerleading captain as a junior on the varsity team, I was starting performing arts high school in fall…I chose adoption as my option. For some reason I thought it would be easy.
My ex-boyfriend had a fit. At first he desperately wanted alone time with me to sweet talk me into aborting, but my parents practically dead bolted the door. Then they told his parents, and I remember my mother saying “well, we are Catholic and abortion is not an option.”
“Catholic”
“oh”
I started school. My ob/gyn didn’t want me cheerleading-well doing anything to physically strenuous, so I gave up my captainship to a senior friend. My coach was baffled at the time. I started performing arts school, and had teachers lectured me about abortion when my pregnancy became known.
“And you don’t believe in abortion?”
“Catholic”
“Oh great!”
The worst though was my ex-boyfriend. He started bringing strings of girls around to flaunt in front of me. I remember our homecoming dance being such a nightmare. The insanity was unreal. The girls would whine and complain “I hate Pansy! How would you like it if you were trying to get with a guy and she were having his baby? She didn’t have an abortion because she just wants his money.” or because “she just wants to keep him tied to her,” Yeah, like that ever worked.
He used to torment me with his “boys” in the lunch room, they would stand and point and talk about how I better watch myself on the stair well, because if I’m not careful, I might have an accident. The teachers all loved-let’s call him “Amir” because his father was on the school board and he was witty, blah, blah, blah. He used to spend his time in the guidance counselor’s office whining about how hard this was on him, and what a golddigger I was etc. He missed 70 days out of that school year and should not have graduated. He cut class to have parties at the shore with his friends, and later told the school he was so screwed up because of my pregnancy and they agreed. He graduated. I didn’t miss 70 days, btw. I did start homestudy when I went into preterm labor. But I still studied.
The teachers, and administration gossiped about me. My neighbors found out about my confinement because of the gossip from school officials, not because me or my family told anyone.
On March 30, 1989 at age 16, I had an 8 lb 1 oz baby boy three weeks early which I named John Paul. I picked the family out prior at Catholic Charities. Much of what happened in this time period is an extremely, painful blur and I have a hard time speaking about it, let alone having a desire to go through the selftorture of wanting to remember in detail. I actually have not even said this much in many years. I will say I loved my son madly and did not want to give him up, but I knew I could not provide for him the way the family I had chosen would have. Handing him over at the hospital left a hole in my heart the size of Antartica. But here is the thing, I have nightmares sometimes that I caved in to the harrasment and had an abortion. In these dreams I cry and I cannot look myself in the mirror and am left brokenhearted after having given in to everyone else’s wishes. I wake up with a huge sense of relief that my son is alive, and that I was able to help a family who wanted a child and could not have one on their own. That hole in my heart will never close but knowing that I kind of did the noble thing keeps me at peace. If I had aborted him, I think it would be a festering, gaping wound, and I don’t know how I would live with myself knowing how I feel about motherhood. I think I would be in big trouble without some type of major outside help or intervention. I am true to who I am, and that is important to me.
Oddly, after that, one by one, all my friends started turning up pregnant, and one by one they had abortions, many at the prompting of their boyfriends. One came to me crying that she didn’t want to tell me because she knew I was pro-life, but in the end felt she had nowhere else to turn or no one to talk to.She had an abortion because her boyfriend convinced her. He used to tell her that he had dreams of his dead, Catholic grandmother holding a baby, and looking at him and shaking her head in dissappointment. I brought her to a priest and he told her he had to start by forgiving herself…
My other friends, our friendships got really ugly and bizarre. Knowing the challenges, I simply said “I don’t agree with abortion, but You’re my friend and if you need my help afterwards, let me know…” I remember one friend, she used to call her ex-boyfriend and say “well, I wanted to call you because one year ago today, our child would have been born…” Of course the guy couldn’t hang up quick enough.
My best friend who had multiple abortions, she was present at my son’s birth, she was my matron of honour at my wedding, she spent a lot of time talking to whoever would listen to people behind my back, including my husband that I was a liar and not as sweet as I seemed, and that I had “four abortions” but never told anyone-and that pro-life stuff was just an act. She told everyone this, even “Amir”. I don’t even know what conclusion to draw from that except that somehow abortion distorts people, granted I am sure she started out unhinged, but this was her fixation. Part of me is glad that didn’t let that happen to me.
Comment posted June 4th, 2006 at 4:41 am
So there it is. Reading over it, I am still not why I feel better telling the story in a comments box then on my own blog.
Thank you Pansy. I really admire you. I will never forget a girl I went to school with who was getting a lot of grief for not having an abortion responding once, I made a mistake, why should I punish someone else. It rung truth to my 14 year old ears.
Pansy, thank you for sharing this. How wonderful that you chose life for your sweet baby boy.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Pansy, and thank you for choosing life for your child even at a high cost to yourself. It breaks my heart when women have abortions because of the shame of bearing their child, whether real or imagined.
I have a friend who fathered a child while in college, and it took him years and years to tell his family. Isn’t that so sad? He and his (then) girlfriend made a beautiful choice. They chose life for their child, even though it wasn’t practical or easy, not by a long shot. Yet he was afraid of his conservative Catholic family’s reaction. How messed up is that??
Hugs to you, and may God bless you for the beautiful gift you gave to your son and his adoptive parents.
God bless you for your courage. Your son — now older than you were when you birthed him! — lives and loves and hopefully makes the world a better place. And all because you stood up for him.
It’s women like you who make me proud to be female. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
PS. My husband was also the first-born son of a sixteen-year-old mother (who chose to raise him), so this resonates with me.
Sometimes her choice to carry him to term is the only thing that allows me to love and even remotely admire my MIL — but I try every day to remember what she did, and the gifts that choice gave me (a wonderful husband and three darling children.)
Like you, I have always been pro-life.
I became a single mother while at university. Abortion was NEVER an option.
I have to say one thing for Quebecers; they might be really liberal and pro-choice, but at least they include life in the choice. If a woman decides to keep her child, she DOES get support, in general. I know at least one other woman who compared Quebec to others places and said the same.
If you were a woman of my generation and became pregnant as a teen (I, too, was 16), your baby was taken away without you ever seeing or holding him or her. You had no “choice” to “give” your baby up for adoption. Your baby was taken, you were told to shut up and never say a word about it and act like it never happened, and you were treated like a pariah by your family forever. This was standard operating procedure for Catholic homes for “unwed mothers”.
And that’s why I’m pro-choice.
Because I know what it is not to have a choice.
Jane,
That sounds horrible, I agree. But why is abortion a better alternative to that? Especially now that we are much more compassionate about the adoption process?
I don’t think I would have chosen abortion if I could, but I do wonder if having an abortion would have given me more peace than I have now. How can I say to another woman that she can’t have a choice when I know what it is not to have had a choice?
The interesting thing about Roe v. Wade is that it cleaned up a lot of the abuse that was going on prior to the seventies. Once the adoption industry saw it’s supply drying up, they had to make it a lot more appealing and more about “choice” than it had been previously. Adoption has evolved steadily since then, and as you say, has become more “compassionate” (flexible, perhaps, is the word I would choose). My fear, however, should we outlaw abortion throughout the US, is that we would see a return to the less compassionate attitudes and practices young, single pregnant girls experienced in previous decades.
In a funny little twist, I think legalized abortion keeps adoption more honest.
but I do wonder if having an abortion would have given me more peace than I have now.
I think Ashli at the SICLE Cell might be a better candidate to answer that.
How can I say to another woman that she can’t have a choice when I know what it is not to have had a choice?
There are choices that are not so great, but are still morally OK. I am sorry you suffered, and I would be really POed in your shoes, no doubt about it. But you have a child alive out there, and a family who probably could never have had children had a child (hopefully). Had you aborted, that child would be dead, and you might not be happy with that choice either.
But ultimately to answer your question in how can you tell someone they cannot have an abortion is because simply it is wrong. I know people do say it is OK, and it is legal, but just the basis of your question, just because something is very difficult, the easiest choice is not the answer if it is evil.
he interesting thing about Roe v. Wade is that it cleaned up a lot of the abuse that was going on prior to the seventies. Once the adoption industry saw it’s supply drying up, they had to make it a lot more appealing and more about “choice” than it had been previously.
But also a lot has changed in how we deal with people and each other period. People did not speak to their children. My grandmother was born in 1922, and I view her as typical of the generation you speak of. She believed breastfeeding was wrong. She believed you should take receiving blankets and pin them over the babies to their cribs. She believes that holding babies too much spoils them. She thinks there is something wrong with large families. In dealing with the adult people in her life, she thinks being manipulative is as equal form of love and has no concept of respecting boundaries. If she had been in charge of a teenage pregnancy out-of-wedlock, I am sure she would have handled it the exact same way you described. I think she would today.RvW has little to do with her thought processes in how she treats people. I think we have become more sensitive to the fact that people will turn out certain ways as a direct response to how they are treated. That seems to have been a foreign concept before.
No, I don’t think we would see a return in the old style adoption you described. It is highly illegal for one thing. And charities like Catholic Charities spend a lot of time cleaning up the damage of abuse, I am sure they do not want to be the source of willfully afflicting it.
Catholic Charities ran the home I was in. Maybe they spend a lot of time cleaning up abuse now out of guilt.
As “cleaned up” as the adoption industry is today, and as unlikely as what happened to so many women of my generation is to happen again, I am certain coercion still exists. I’m always amused by how the more rabid pro-life organizations insist that there is coercion in the abortion industry (and I don’t doubt them) but insist with equal fervor that there is no coercion in the adoption industry.
Should pregnant girls find themselves with fewer options and without places like Planned Parenthood and other organizations to help them obtain abortions, then they are once again at the mercy of their parents and the more conservative, right-wing religious organizations. I have no doubt in my mind that coercion would increase, and that all of a sudden we’d see all kinds of proposals for laws giving parents and CPC-type organizations some kind of authority to remove the child against the girl’s will.
I can’t change my mind about choice. I walk through life not a whole person, and will until the day I die because of the choice that was denied to me. I would rather make a bad choice and regret it than to have all choice removed from me.
The reason you say what you say about knowing your child is still alive and with a family and how it’s one big Hallmark Channel three-hanky Movie of the Week is because you had a choice. I wonder how you’d feel if you’d never been allowed to lay eyes on your child or hold your child? You would see that family as the enemy. As thieves who stole your child and destroyed you in order to snatch undeserved happiness for themselves.
I just wanted to offer a different perspective. I’m not here to change your mind, and I won’t change mine. I’m glad you had a supportive family and resources and a choice. It wasn’t always that way.
Catholic Charities ran the home I was in. Maybe they spend a lot of time cleaning up abuse now out of guilt.
I figured, which is why I am sure they will not go back. I didn’t say they were perfect. BUt people just don’t do things like that anymore. Guilt or not, if they worked like that today, there would be litigation, to say the least.
Should pregnant girls find themselves with fewer options and without places like Planned Parenthood and other organizations to help them obtain abortions, then they are once again at the mercy of their parents and the more conservative, right-wing religious organizations.
Or their boyfriends (did you read my story?). Again, I think what happened to you was terrible, but because of PP, my story is the more common one since 1973. If I didn’t have a caring [conservative, religious] family, I would have done something I know I regretted…that I would never be able to look myself in the mirror again for.
I have no doubt in my mind that coercion would increase, and that all of a sudden we’d see all kinds of proposals for laws giving parents and CPC-type organizations some kind of authority to remove the child against the girl’s will.
You cannot possibly believe that. I spent my adolescence volunteering at a CPC. No one ever coerced girls to give children up for adoption. No one even coerced girls to not have an abortion. When pregnant women came there for help, they simply said “sorry, we don’t have information on abortion”. That’s it. They could leave without a second word from us if that is not what they were looking for. We helped girls find places to live if they had parents forcing them to have abortions against there will. We had drives for formula, diapers, baby clothes. We helped a lot of girls at the local colleges with whatever they needed to finish school. Whatever we could help them with.
Adoption is a rare choice because it is hard as hell, so we simply didn’t see a lot of it (some, but not a lot).Being a single mother doesn’t have the same stigma as it used to, so there is no reason to forcibly remove children from their mothers.
I would rather make a bad choice and regret it than to have all choice removed from me.
The choice that was taken from you was a choice to keep your baby or not. The choice your talking about willingly taking from your child is if they want their life or not. That choice was not taken from them.
I wonder how you’d feel if you’d never been allowed to lay eyes on your child or hold your child? You would see that family as the enemy. As thieves who stole your child and destroyed you in order to snatch undeserved happiness for themselves.
Of course I would feel that way. I am jealous of the family I picked for my child. But my first choice was to have sex at too young an age to care properly for my son. I made a bad choice, and he should not have had to pay the consequences. But even if God forbid, what happened to you happened to me, like I said, I would be angry as all get out at the people involved in doing that to me. I would be unturning every stone to find out how the heck how I could sue the socks off of everyone involved (well maybe, not if the end result would be the detriment of my child). Someone probably did that and that is why adoptions have changed. But my anger would not be because I didn’t have an option to kill him. My anger would be because I didn’t have an option to keep him. Fact is, if I wanted to kill him, I really wouldn’t care too much.
I just wanted to offer a different perspective.
Again, I am sorry for your pain. I really cannot imagine. I just don’t think one evil to replace another is the answer though. The answer is to handle these difficult situations correctly.
I wrote out a long response and then deleted it because it’s pointless. This conversation is over. You lost me with the “bad girls who make mistakes deserve to have their babies taken away mentality”. I heard that once too often to tolerate that kind of thinking.
I want to make one thing clear, however. I am not angry because I didn’t have the choice to abort, I am angry because I had no choice at all. And that is why I fight for choice. You never lived in a world without choice, so you can’t know how I feel.
You lost me with the “bad girls who make mistakes deserve to have their babies taken away mentality”.
I did not say that. I said I made a bad choice to start with by creating a life as an umarried 15-year old. I said I willingly gave my baby up for a better life than the one I could provide. I said nothing about if I didn’t give him up someone would have rightfully taken him away against my will. Personally, I felt for his benefit, there was little alternative, which I realize is not the samething as what happened to you, as I ultimately made the decision. But I never said it was because I (or anyone else in that scenario) deserved punishment. Not only did I not say that, I gave examples of how the CPC I volunteered for never would have suggested such a thing.
You are putting words in my mouth.
I am not angry because I didn’t have the choice to abort, I am angry because I had no choice at all.
Then why have you determined that because of what happened to you, the answer is to be pro-choice?
I was denied choice. I am therefore pro-choice.
The logic is quite simple, really.
It doesn’t matter what the choices are or if I approve of them or not. It only matters that choice exists and is available to all young women regardless of age or economic situation.
I was denied choice. I am therefore pro-choice.
OK. I understand you were denied a choice and are hurt and angry, rightfully so. I don’t know anyone who would not be in your shoes. What I do not understand is:
1. why you are not angry that choice to give up your baby, or to raise you child was not given to you as opposed to it coming down to the choice of abortion. If you loved this child and are upset that another family is raising him or her without any concern to you, then that does not sound like abortion is the problem. I am not trying to be nasty, I am just trying to understand.
2. If you are very upset by the fact that you were not given a choice, and that is what ultimately what drives your thought process, why is it OK to take a choice away from a whole individual to live?
I am angry that the choice to keep and raise my own daughter, that the choice to even see or hold my own daughter was taken away.
I am not angry that I wasn’t able to abort. Now it’s you who are putting words in my mouth.
I am angry that other people took my choices away.
Therefore, no matter what the choice is, I will never be on the side of removing any choice from any woman.
We’re talking about choice. Autonomy. Basic rights to one’s own body. The freedom from enslavement. The freedom for the weak and powerless from abuse at the hands of the strong and the powerful. It’s not about any one particular choice. You’re making it about abortion. You’re saying you’re all for choice as long as the particular choice you personally don’t approve of is removed from the set of available options. You’re no different from the people of previous decades who thought girls who got pregnant shouldn’t have the choice to keep their babies because they didn’t approve of that choice.
It’s not about you and your wishes. It’s not about anyone’s wishes but those of the woman in question.
Your religious views or personal opinions don’t override her right to choice. The theoretical life of a fetus does not override her right to choose.
If you don’t understand, you don’t understand. I can’t help you anymore. You never lived in a world where there was no choice and where the very people who ought to have been your supporters and protectors betrayed you, cast you out, and denied you basic human rights. I can see where you can’t understand. But I can’t convince you anymore than you can convince me, so this is beyond pointless now and causing me more upset than I want to bother with.
Let me start from the bottom up and say I am so sorry for your pain. You may not realize it, but I feel some of what you feel. I think there are parts to adoption that are so painful, and what you and I fell is commin ground there. Your pain I am sure is is that compounded by 10,000 due to the horrible circumstances. I was going to blog a bit more, simply on the adoption aspect (not abortion) becaue it ws not a Hallmark movie story. This is an issue for whatever reason, I have not spoken about in 15 years. I have mentioned here and there I put a baby up for adoption as a teen, but I never “talked” about it. I do not know why I feel compelled to now.
Secondly,I apologise you are upset, and to my own fault,I get a bit overzealous at times. It’s that I am trying to change minds. I don’t have a problem when someone says “I am pro-choice”. Well, I do, but I normally go about my way, I know I really cannot change minds. What starts me going is when people say things like (let me give some true examples I have read) “all pro-life, religious, right conservatives think…” “pro-life people are out of touch with the real world” “pro-life people are all gun-toting racists” “pro-lifers only care about children before they are born, but couldn’t give a s*%t about alive children…” and your example that if abortion did not exist, all right wing, religious people have a desire to take children away from unmarried teen mothers and adopt them out against their will” In your pain, I understand why you feel this way, but in the real world in 2006 this just is not the case or part of culture anymore. Anyway, OCD runs in my family and something about the lack of continuity of logic (or my not seeing it) gets me going.
Anyway, the last point, I did not mean to put words in your mouth. You said:
I am not angry that I wasn’t able to abort. Now it’s you who are putting words in my mouth.
From my perspective you keep saying since you did not have a choice, you would not take that choice away. You see, we do not have a meeting of the minds, and I am not trying to change yours, just trying to find a common place. Abortion just is not part of my beliefs, so to me, it is nonexistentwhich I guess is where we do not meet. But to me, when you say you did not get to choose to adopt you baby out therefore you would not take the choice of abortion away from another woman is the same exact thing as saying “I went to Macaroni Grill the other day and wanted a glass of Yellow Tail Shiraz, but the waitress said was all they had was house wine, when I found out later they did have some Yellow Tail. The choice of wine was taken away from me, therefore I don’t believe any choices should be taken away from women.”Anyway, my point in the analogy was not to argue, but to illustrate what I was thinking and why I asked for an explanation.
I wanted to explain that not to extend the debate, but so you do not walk away from this angry at the idea that I am superimposing ideas onto to you that do not exist, because that would annoy the heck out of me.
and your example that if abortion did not exist, all right wing, religious people have a desire to take children away from unmarried teen mothers and adopt them out against their will
Never said that. Which is why I find this statement to be completely disingenous:
I wanted to explain that not to extend the debate, but so you do not walk away from this angry at the idea that I am superimposing ideas onto to you that do not exist, because that would annoy the heck out of me.
For the record, I don’t have OCD and I’m not acting illogically or from emotion. I speak from experience. That there has been a cultural shift in the way we view single parenthood and premarital sex doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who still believe as it was socially acceptable to believe a half-century ago anymore than the fact that segregation is no longer public policy and racism is no longer socially accpetable means there aren’t racists anymore.
Also for the record: To me, real life, flesh and blood women are more important than the menu at a third-rate chain restaurant.
You’re right. We have no common ground and never will.
Ok look. You said:
and your example that if abortion did not exist, all right wing, religious people have a desire to take children away from unmarried teen mothers and adopt them out against their will
Never said that.
I came to the conclusion that is what you believed because earlier you said:
Should pregnant girls find themselves with fewer options and without places like Planned Parenthood and other organizations to help them obtain abortions, then they are once again at the mercy of their parents and the more conservative, right-wing religious organizations.
You said:
For the record, I don’t have OCD and I’m not acting illogically or from emotion.
I didn’t say you were OCD, I said it runs in my family which is why I continued to attempt to makes sense of your argument. I didn’t say your thinking was illogical. I said that I cannot seem to get the logic of your thinking from your statements, which again, I was hoping to get, which again was why I pursued it.
Also for the record: To me, real life, flesh and blood women are more important than the menu at a third-rate chain restaurant.
Ohmygosh, yes, of course it is! But I make no more connection as to why you feel because the way your adoption was handled, and that you say abortion was most likely an option for you, that makes you pro-choice, then the scenario I put forth at the restaurant would make anyone pro-choice.
You make the analogy about racism. I have been on the receiving end of racism, and I despise it and see it in a light many other people are unaware (like you saw a side of the adoption industry).I spend a lot of time in my own way trying to fight racism because I know how evil it is. Instead of saying I think racism is mean, I think it is everyone’s right and OK to be racist to other people. No, I want racism to end. In the same breath, I don’t understand how “I didn’t have a choice, so I think it is fine to take that choice for life away from a child” makes sense. That is all I am saying.
My energy would be spent working to make the adoption industry better and to make sure what happened to me stopped happening to anyone else. I never wanted to see girls coerced into abortion, which was why I volunteered at a CPC.
I make no more connection as to why you feel because the way your adoption was handled, and that you say abortion was most likely an option for you, that makes you pro-choice
Except I never said this.
The reason you can’t wrap your head around my logic is because you’re not listening, or reading, rather. It’s almost as if you’re working from a script and have all these pat little answers and expressions and arguments down and you’re just waiting for a moment to jump in with them. If you think you can’t follow my logic, then please try to understand how I am finding your continued misrepresentation of what I’ve said extremely frustrating and, at this point, offensive.
I never said I wish I had had an abortion. Do I wonder if my life would have been different and perhaps I could have avoided a lot of mental anguish had I had that option? Compared to what I did go through? Of course I wonder! I’m human. But I don’t think I would have made that choice, as I already stated!
You continue to create strawmen and to argue things I’ve never said. That’s why you don’t understand what I’m saying.
I make no more connection as to why you feel because the way your adoption was handled, and that you say abortion was most likely an option for you, that makes you pro-choice
Except I never said this.
You are right. I actually did not mean to say that, and cannot even remember typing it. I must have been preoccupied. Either way, I apologise. My point was not that you wanted to have an abortion. My point was that I am not sure why your experience has made you for abortion rather than against treating women the way you were treated in adoption situations.
It does not matter.
Why can’t I be both? This is why you’re not understanding. You see the word “choice” and you read “abortion”. Pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion. Choice merely means deciding between an array of options. I want women to have options and the right to choose the one she feels is right for her without being manipulated, coerced, denied her rights, abused, harrassed, etc. This goes for women who choose to give their babies away, too.
You seem to think that if I’m pro-choice, I think abortion should be the only option. Of course I’m against women being treated as I was, or coerced or manipulated, however subtly and even if the manipulators and coercers feel they are operating under the best of intentions. Of course I am! This goes without saying. Why the fact that I’m also pro-choice (not the same as pro-abortion, remember) negates this in your mind, I don’t know.
Jane,
I’m sorry we keep talking past each other. The whole point of my post was to show that many years after Roe vs Wade I was being pushed from all sides to abort, and I think that was lost.
There is nothing left for us to say.
if I might comment, I think Dani is trying to say, yes women should have a choice, except those that are morally wrong. In 2006, abortion is legal and for those who label themselves “pro-choice” it is a morally correct choice. You can be pro-choice however, without being an official part of the “Pro-choice” crowd. I think the act of choosing is a good thing, it shouldn’t be taken away. It is the choices that are either good or bad. I would not not choose to enslave, torture, kill, steal from, beat up anyone, but neither would I turn around and say “But the next person has the right to choose to do so, because he has the right to choose.” Having the right to choose does not override other people’s right to life, freedom, ownership of property and health and well-being. What this all boils down to, is that we all believe in choosing. However, you believe that abortion is a valid choice and we do not, as it infringes on the baby’s own right to life.
I am going to take a big leap here and correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t seem to view an unborn baby as a person with rights too. Because if you did, being as mad about having your right to choose taken away from you as you are, you would logically be mad about anyone else’s right to choose as well, including that unborn baby’s right to choose life for himself. The only way you could include abortion in the valid choices is if you do not think an unborn baby has any more rights than say, a stray pet that (no matter how cute and cuddly it is) noone wants anymore, and can be “put to sleep”.
If that were the case, then yes, abortion would logically be a choice that should be granted to every woman, who should have every right to choose any valid choice available.
We, however, do not believe that the right to choose overrides unborn babies’ right to life. Therefore, we are pro-choosing but anti-abortion.