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April 9, 2011 at 8:39 pm #722017
redblackParticipantDP: the problem is that republicans are trying to frame safe access to abortion as a lifestyle or birth control issue. the fact is that, while unpleasant, it’s a legal medical procedure, and in many cases (don’t have the stats) it’s done out of concern for the health and safety of the mother.
it’s important to remember that pregnancy itself is a women’s health issue. if the mother can’t provide herself with quality prenatal care – which often runs to five figures – the potential baby will suffer. so will the mother.
we can also cite other reasons for abortion, which usually involve rape or incest. we don’t need to debate that here.
but whatever the reason, the constitution says that we, the people, will provide for society’s general welfare. to the “i don’t want my taxes to fund abortion” argument, i would say that the general welfare of our society includes the ability of women to have good reproductive health and prenatal care, no matter what their income level is. and if that means not bringing a baby into the world, so be it.
what’s disingenuous is republicans trying to paint planned parenthood as an abortion clinic in order to make a stupid, selfish argument about the federal budget.
April 10, 2011 at 2:58 am #722018
dawsonctParticipantIt pisses me off that nearly forty years after door-belling with my Mom and brothers for the ERA,
women in our Nation, our Mothers, sisters, wives and girlfriends, are still essentially second-class citizens in their own country.
April 10, 2011 at 3:35 am #722019
datamuseParticipantI’m not strongly against abortion, but if I were, I wouldn’t want any of my tax money going to an abortion provider, regardless of what other services they provided.
There’s plenty of things I don’t want my tax money going toward, and yet it does.
I looked up some stats today when discussing this elsewhere. I can look for them again if anyone’s interested, but the salient point is that abortion makes up something like 3% of PP’s services overall. Whereas contraceptive services makes up around 35%–you know, the things you use so you aren’t faced with the decision of whether to have an abortion in the first place. And over 50% goes for testing and treatment of STIs and cancer.
Yeah, I know. Funding ANY abortion, even indirectly, is bad, full stop. That’s the argument. No problem, except that defunding Planned Parenthood would likely lead to MORE abortions, quite probably obtained illegally, due to the lack of preventative services they provide. And as Redblack says, it is a legal medical procedure, at least for the moment.
April 10, 2011 at 2:13 pm #722020
anonymeParticipantThe tax argument is a good one. I don’t want my tax dollars going to fund wars, but I don’t see Congress fighting to allow me to “opt out” due to personal belief. Lots more people, including women, children and unborn fetuses are killed by war than by abortion. Oddly enough, the same folks who are pro-war also seem frequently to be anti-abortion. So, the fundie/conservative passion over the issue would appear to be more about control over women than genuine concern over the rights of fetuses. Add poverty to pregnancy (a not infrequent combination) and you’ve created a virtual cultural prison.
April 10, 2011 at 2:51 pm #722021
EscondidoMemberThis just about says it all:
Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC
April 8th – Rewriting Lies on Planned Parenthood
April 10, 2011 at 4:46 pm #722022
dawsonctParticipantAnonyme, they also seem, by a very large proportion, to be pro-death penalty, pro-imprisonment, and anti education,
as well as against anything that would PREVENT an unwanted pregnancy, and therefore an abortion.
And these are also the same people who demand “personal responsibility” from everyone but the very, very wealthy.
Their seems to be a constant disconnect.
April 10, 2011 at 6:28 pm #722023
anonymeParticipantdawsonct, I totally agree. Include sex education in the anti-education stance. I’ve also had fundies tell me that only women are to blame for unwanted pregnancies, as men cannot be held accountable for giving into sexual temptation – and therefore are not responsible for taking care of the child they will not allow to be either prevented nor aborted. So much for “personal responsibility”.
April 10, 2011 at 8:36 pm #722024
odrokuParticipantWith no regard as to my personal opinion on any of that, I just cannot fathom the stones it takes to say, “Sure, we’ll agree to pass a measure to push enough money through to pay, say, the military, but only if you agree to defund particular services” and THEN to label any disagreement to such an idiotic proposal ‘playing politics.’ Adding riders to bills should be outlawed, post-haste. It’s an awful practice.
April 10, 2011 at 10:00 pm #722025
DPMemberI don’t want my tax dollars going to fund wars, but I don’t see Congress fighting to allow me to “opt out” due to personal belief. Lots more people, including women, children and unborn fetuses are killed by war than by abortion.
Right. That’s a good argument, anonyme. Why are people who claim to be “pro-life” so gung-ho about war and capital punishment?
By the same token, I could our “pro-woman” Democratic Senators Murray and Cantwell: If you’re so concerned about women’s rights, why don’t you vote to stop funding this war in Afghanistan that’s killing women every day?
Or are the lives of American women the only women’s lives that matter to the good Senators?
Like I said above, there’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around on this issue.
April 11, 2011 at 2:01 am #722026
JoBParticipantif the pro-life movement
was actually concerned with the health and safety of the fetus…
they would be shoveling money at planned parenthood since that is where the women most likely to consider abortion as a family planning alternative get their reproductive and prenatal health care…
there is simply no way around the fact that a healthy mother is far more likely to produce a healthy child.
the truth is that all those sweet baby pictures are one heck of a smoke screen for legislation that has more to do with control than with any concern for life.
April 11, 2011 at 2:02 am #722027
JoBParticipantApril 11, 2011 at 3:55 am #722028
datamuseParticipantDP: totally with you on that one.
April 11, 2011 at 9:22 am #722029
dawsonctParticipantDP, maybe it is simply a show of support for our single remaining American industry and export, weaponry, death.
Imagine how many fewer enemies we could create if we built schools and clinics to educate and heal.
But cruise-missiles blow up and need to be replaced,
and the profits are greater for the few who are profiting off of America these days.
No bombing ourselves to peace, nor prosperity.
We won’t create allies by killing their families.
Conservatives, are you REALLY worried about our National debt? If that were the case, rather than your paranoid obsession with homosexuals in love, a non-existent threat to your guns, or women making private medical decisions with their doctors, then you would be screaming at your representatives just as loudly to end our militaristic ways.
But militarism equals authority, and living under authority makes you feel comfortable.
April 11, 2011 at 12:29 pm #722030
KenParticipantTime for this again:
Bob Altemeyer’s – The Authoritarians
April 11, 2011 at 4:17 pm #722031
JoBParticipantdawsonct…
funny.. but building schools was pointed out as an alternative funding source for Afghanistan …
right after we helped Osama and his friends boot out the Russians and handed the country over to the Taliban…
that idea was dismissed as irrelevant..
bombing with schoolbooks was apparently an idea before it’s time
or ours for that matter
but that idea was floated for a single hope inspiring moment in our history…
and by a man who never met a weapon or a war he didn’t like..
We can’t change public perception about strength and the power of education soon enough…
April 11, 2011 at 4:30 pm #722032
JoBParticipantcasaboba…
As a young woman, i too traveled the world..
both inside and outside our borders…
i suspect the difference between your travels and mine
is that the currency i brought to my travels
beyond the intelligence i kept to myself
was my value as arm candy…
i was pretty enough and witty enough and thin enough and sexy enough and sported a gorgeous head of strawberry blond hair… the color women spent fortunes trying .. and failing… to achieve with what was then modern chemicals…
Those attributes were my ticket to places and people i would never have had either the opportunity to meet
or the freedom to listen to their candid conversations..
inserting the random “isn’t she cute” comment here and there that provoked thought.
and i was able to trade that card long past it’s usual expiration date.
I am not downplaying that card because in the greater scheme of things it turned out that it was a good thing that i had more than my intelligence to count on since my illness makes expression of that unreliable…
but… I am proud to say that my daughter has traveled the world as well…
and even though she is a strikingly beautiful woman..
the currency she used has been the intelligence i was smart enough to conceal.
The difference in opportunities is what i fight every day to maintain for my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren
and millions of women i will never know.
The difference in opportunity is what feminism is about..
and why the pro-choice movement is so vitally important..
you may think that opportunities once earned can’t be taken away..
but a little time spent in the personal writings of women that have recently emerged quickly disabuses one of that notion.
there was a time.. not so long ago.. that the dissonance created by being an intelligent woman in our society was medically treated by lobotomy.
If you have to count on someone else to give you rights…
you don’t have any
April 11, 2011 at 8:13 pm #722033
AnonymousInactiveAll this talk about womens’s rights, yet no one even mentions the fetus whose LIFE is terminated.
Amazing.
April 11, 2011 at 8:31 pm #722034
elikapekaParticipantWell, T-Rex, that’s really what it comes down to in this argument, is when does life begin? I don’t believe that a collection of cells is a life. Now at some point that collection of cells becomes a person. When is that? Some may believe it’s the moment of conception. I don’t. And frankly, what I believe is not anybody else’s business and what others believe is none of mine. This is a deeply personal and difficult decision that can ultimately only be made by the woman involved, hopefully with the support and assistance of the important people in her life and good, sound, unbiased medical advice.
April 11, 2011 at 9:34 pm #722035
datamuseParticipantWhat’s amazing to me, T-Rex, is that you seem to think that none of us could possibly have considered that.
Because if we had, we’d have come to same conclusion as you indubitably have, right?
April 11, 2011 at 9:40 pm #722036
AlkiRagdollParticipantT-Rex — Many of us do not agree with you. To live, the cells would need to be viable outside of the mother. While personally, abortion would not be my choice, I have no legal, moral, religous, or intellectual right to require others to follow my belief. The God that I pray to is a caring and giving God, who would understand the difficult decision that a woman would have in a situation of unwanted pregnancy where she could not care for the child. My God would not condemn her for making such a difficult choice, but rather forgive her and society for placing her in such a position.
The Talaban does not believe in choice. Thus, I must equate your thinking to that of the zelots like the Talaban. The world needs a backlash against zealots, whether they be the Talaban or the “right-to-lifers”.
April 11, 2011 at 9:41 pm #722037
anonymeParticipantIs any kind of life, no matter how empty or brutal, better than a potential one? I don’t think so.
April 11, 2011 at 10:07 pm #722038
AnonymousInactiveJust glad my dear sweet mother choose life.
You may compare me to the Taliban all you want but I am pretty sure the majority of Chrisitan faiths do not support abortions either. I am not judge or jury in this debate, I just felt it neccesary to say what I wanted to say.
The biggest issue I have with abortions is the fact that it has now become a form of birth control in this world. I find that incredibly sad.
April 11, 2011 at 10:22 pm #722039
datamuseParticipantThe biggest issue I have with abortions is the fact that it has now become a form of birth control in this world.
“Become”? I’d assert that, with so many modern options so readily available, it is less so now than at any time in prior history. But the question’s pretty academic since reliable historical statistics are hard to come by.
Be that as it may, I fail to see how defunding an organization primarily concerned with prevention, prenatal care, and sexual health would decrease the number of abortions.
April 11, 2011 at 10:38 pm #722040
chrismaParticipantYep. What datamuse said. [Like!]
April 11, 2011 at 10:56 pm #722041
AlkiRagdollParticipantT-Rex: I am a christian, and most christians I know support choice (its not about supporting abortion – as most do not choose abortion).
I suspect, but have no facts, that abortion is rarely used as a form of birth control.
I fear that your sect of Christianity, like the Taliban (a sect of Islam), does not support choice.
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