You proceed correctly by asking the hard questions. Thank you.
As a woman who had an abortion years ago, I asked all those questions at the time -- actually, I was forced to, by influential friends who opposed my decision & offered a modest degree of help. I am grateful for their pressure.
You proceed correctly by asking the hard questions. Thank you.
As a woman who had an abortion years ago, I asked all those questions at the time -- actually, I was forced to, by influential friends who opposed my decision & offered a modest degree of help. I am grateful for their pressure.
Later, as a Christian convert, I challenged my views, continually. They never changed: The unwanted child would have been fatherless & bi-racial, with a mother who had significant mental health problems, judgmental conservative parents thousands of miles away, a judgmental employer & no money.
I had not been protected from my mother's mental health problems, even in my intact family & I was not going to bring into the 1970's a child I could not protect, of a racial mix for which there was no adoption "demand."
It isn't a baby. It is the beginning of one, & I even had a sense of it being aware of my struggle over whether to carry it to babyhood; & understood my decision.
Did my choice culpably thwart God in an intention to bring this person to life? I don't think so. God knew my difficulties, & my intent; & He rarely presents His Will in such a neat package. It is sentimental to insist to the contrary, & outrageous to assert such a belief to force a woman to carry a pregnancy she rejects.
I don't understand how anyone can assert with a straight face that personhood, in the sense of rights, occurs at conception. That belief, too, seems to me a choice, & in common practice, an opinion that deplorably substitutes one pro-life person's judgment for what women like me feel & believe.
The Bible says nothing about this. Christian churches have "chosen life," but have often understood that the mother's life was a value too. Although to be honest, they have more often de facto decided that the value of a woman's life can righteously be set at zero when she is impregnated under bad circumstances.
If a woman intended to survive that situation, people other than the church had to help. Probably people like me, who thought, felt & believed that human life is a continuum from those first cells to actual babyhood; & the continuum can be interrupted to save a human life, the mother's.
It is certainly not true that every fertilized egg becomes a baby. There are a lot of genetic mistakes. God does indeed make mistakes, but gives us the mercy to be relieved of some by miscarriage. Perhaps a well-considered abortion is just an extension of that? I believed this, & no one who disagrees has a better right than me to the opinion, or to what I did, based on my belief. (And I fully understand that miscarriage is a tragedy in so many other situations; which demonstrates how the Will of God is much harder to discern than many glibly think!)
Counter-Arguments: There is no population problem! There's lots of resources left for every pregnancy we can force to term! THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Our Constitution enshrines "life." THIS IS NOT TRUE EITHER.
We need babies to adopt! This might be true, especially White babies, which is its own tragedy. A woman who can see the value of this, gives a great gift. But there are many stories of adoptions gone wrong, or producing life-long trauma for both mother & child. And forcing women to carry pregnancies under terrible conditions or against their will isn't going to make the stories better. Anyway, this borders on commodification of reproductIon; which is offensive.
What about the fathers? How soon after the 6 weeks does their child support start? And the rapists, stalkers & abusers -- how does a woman get free? & how much visitation, placement with the abuser's parents & child support (from the mom who gives up custody) will be compelled before she gets what's left of her life back?
These are the vile consequences that will rain down if Roe is overturned. Alito's opinion is ludicrous in the face of this hell.
We can fix all this & enter on a new age of joyful parenting! Really? You can't even confidently get righteous rape or spousal abuse convictions in most courtrooms. People with really serious health problems can't reliably get care; for years now, administrative requirements have been increased with the intention of forcing people out if these programs if they slip up. Real wages haven't risen for years, but at the slightest uptick, Fox News starts to beat the drums of fear about alleged wage inflation. We are a ongoing way from a world that doesn't warp any life afflicted by an unintended pregnancy.
And conservative people have been complaining for decades about Welfare Queens ... if we ever create meaningful financial supports for young unwed mothers, we will enable confused & immature young mothers, if they achieve nothing else in life, to at least reproduce. And the angry people will be angry about THAT.
Roe is a sad commentary, but you won't like what takes its place.
Nicely said--and thank you for it. The male Justices will never understand your voice and Mrs. Barrett is too privileged to understand it either. Oh, but if your thoughts were only presented to them....
Hi there.
You proceed correctly by asking the hard questions. Thank you.
As a woman who had an abortion years ago, I asked all those questions at the time -- actually, I was forced to, by influential friends who opposed my decision & offered a modest degree of help. I am grateful for their pressure.
Later, as a Christian convert, I challenged my views, continually. They never changed: The unwanted child would have been fatherless & bi-racial, with a mother who had significant mental health problems, judgmental conservative parents thousands of miles away, a judgmental employer & no money.
I had not been protected from my mother's mental health problems, even in my intact family & I was not going to bring into the 1970's a child I could not protect, of a racial mix for which there was no adoption "demand."
It isn't a baby. It is the beginning of one, & I even had a sense of it being aware of my struggle over whether to carry it to babyhood; & understood my decision.
Did my choice culpably thwart God in an intention to bring this person to life? I don't think so. God knew my difficulties, & my intent; & He rarely presents His Will in such a neat package. It is sentimental to insist to the contrary, & outrageous to assert such a belief to force a woman to carry a pregnancy she rejects.
I don't understand how anyone can assert with a straight face that personhood, in the sense of rights, occurs at conception. That belief, too, seems to me a choice, & in common practice, an opinion that deplorably substitutes one pro-life person's judgment for what women like me feel & believe.
The Bible says nothing about this. Christian churches have "chosen life," but have often understood that the mother's life was a value too. Although to be honest, they have more often de facto decided that the value of a woman's life can righteously be set at zero when she is impregnated under bad circumstances.
If a woman intended to survive that situation, people other than the church had to help. Probably people like me, who thought, felt & believed that human life is a continuum from those first cells to actual babyhood; & the continuum can be interrupted to save a human life, the mother's.
It is certainly not true that every fertilized egg becomes a baby. There are a lot of genetic mistakes. God does indeed make mistakes, but gives us the mercy to be relieved of some by miscarriage. Perhaps a well-considered abortion is just an extension of that? I believed this, & no one who disagrees has a better right than me to the opinion, or to what I did, based on my belief. (And I fully understand that miscarriage is a tragedy in so many other situations; which demonstrates how the Will of God is much harder to discern than many glibly think!)
Counter-Arguments: There is no population problem! There's lots of resources left for every pregnancy we can force to term! THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Our Constitution enshrines "life." THIS IS NOT TRUE EITHER.
We need babies to adopt! This might be true, especially White babies, which is its own tragedy. A woman who can see the value of this, gives a great gift. But there are many stories of adoptions gone wrong, or producing life-long trauma for both mother & child. And forcing women to carry pregnancies under terrible conditions or against their will isn't going to make the stories better. Anyway, this borders on commodification of reproductIon; which is offensive.
What about the fathers? How soon after the 6 weeks does their child support start? And the rapists, stalkers & abusers -- how does a woman get free? & how much visitation, placement with the abuser's parents & child support (from the mom who gives up custody) will be compelled before she gets what's left of her life back?
These are the vile consequences that will rain down if Roe is overturned. Alito's opinion is ludicrous in the face of this hell.
We can fix all this & enter on a new age of joyful parenting! Really? You can't even confidently get righteous rape or spousal abuse convictions in most courtrooms. People with really serious health problems can't reliably get care; for years now, administrative requirements have been increased with the intention of forcing people out if these programs if they slip up. Real wages haven't risen for years, but at the slightest uptick, Fox News starts to beat the drums of fear about alleged wage inflation. We are a ongoing way from a world that doesn't warp any life afflicted by an unintended pregnancy.
And conservative people have been complaining for decades about Welfare Queens ... if we ever create meaningful financial supports for young unwed mothers, we will enable confused & immature young mothers, if they achieve nothing else in life, to at least reproduce. And the angry people will be angry about THAT.
Roe is a sad commentary, but you won't like what takes its place.
Nicely said--and thank you for it. The male Justices will never understand your voice and Mrs. Barrett is too privileged to understand it either. Oh, but if your thoughts were only presented to them....