board77

vison wrote:

13 years or 14 years seem very young to us, but in fact they are the common ages for marriage, and for childbearing, for most of our history. Women of that age have routinely borne children. It's just that we don't like it now.

Well, yes, they did, but I am not convinced that it means that they were ready for it physically, much less emotionally. It was (and is) a custom in many societies to marry the daughter (and sometimes a son) off as soon as possible, passing her from the custody of her father to that of her husband before she became willful enough to make her own choices. It is also that these women usually only lived till their mid-thirties.

You can see today that when women do have choices beyond being "barefoot and pregnant", they often postpone childbearing and choose to have fewer children. It is that power of choice that feels very threatening to many males.

I would also submit that it is that power of choice beyond being an "altruistic enabler" for their pursuits that propels many powerful men to have such a brutal, punitive stance against abortion.

Some devout Muslims say a girl should have her first period in her father's house and her second in her husband's house.

Whether our longmothers at 13 or 14 were ready for childbearing or not isn't really the issue, to me. They were products of their cultures, acting as they were expected and trained to do. And they were seldom alone in their homes, people tended to live with their clans and tribes, so women had mothers and sisters and aunts around them. The nuclear family is pretty new.

I agree with your last statements completely.

There are those who will continue to insist that there is a "moral" prohibition against abortion, due to the "rights" of the foetus. I can't enter into that mindset.

Frelga wrote:

I would also submit that it is that power of choice beyond being an "altruistic enabler" for their pursuits that propels many powerful men to have such a brutal, punitive stance against abortion.

Oh dear, I've never considered my pro-life philosophy to be brutal. I consider myself rather pacifist, in fact. I choose to see two vital people in the abortion equation (not including the bystanders), and no tidy way to satisfy the rights of both. It means there are much tougher choices to make, but I don't see how that makes me brutal.

I don't force people into my philosophy. Other than this thread, and a few conversations with people I know, I tend to keep my thoughts to myself. I used to help out at Birthright, where we gave support to pregnant women and mothers with children up to age 3. (Of course we wouldn't abandon a mother right after giving birth - she needs help all the more after the child is born). I prefer to call the work I did there "compassionate". "Brutal" is such a ... harsh word.

Well, laureanna, you're not a "powerful man" and no one has said you are brutal. From reading what you post, here and elsewhere, you seem rather like a loving and caring woman.

I can honestly say that I agree almost entirely with most of the anti-abortion people, as far as it applies to me. I think abortion is a terrible thing.

But that's ME. It's just not that simple for some other women, and it's not my right nor my duty to intefere with them. And it certainly isn't the right or the duty of the Law. It is, in my view, an entirely personal matter, personal to the woman involved, and no other.

Nothing new ever gets said on the topic, but this thread has been a marvel of civility and kindness.

How are things with you today, laureanna? Better, I hope.

Still sending kind thoughts your way, my friend.

I think Frelga was using "brutal" in reference to those that wish to force their morality into the lawbooks.

laureanna wrote:

I don't force people into my philosophy. Other than this thread, and a few conversations with people I know, I tend to keep my thoughts to myself.

And that would be why you aren't brutal.

Riverthalos wrote:

...And that would be why you aren't brutal.

Well, one of the reasons.

Laureanna, how goes it? I've read of the situation you are facing yet again - I hope you are finding strength and support enough to face it. I hope your son is well. Thinking of you often.

I knew I should've stayed out of this thread.

laureanna, how could you possibly think I was referring to you, no matter how poorly worded my post was? I know you are especially vulnerable right now, and I am deeply sorry to have added to your sorrow, even inadvertently.

Not only was I not referring to you personally, I wasn't even making a blanket statement about everybody who opposes abortion. If my post can be read that way, I must find different wording, and I apologize to everybody else who is feeling hurt by it.

In fact, I think everybody who posted in this thread agrees that abortion is not a good thing. Most of us seem to agree that it is a terrible choice for any woman to face, and nobody that I recall ever said that it should be made lightly. What some of us are saying is that making it illegal would only make things worse, and cost thousands of women's lives.

And if one believes abortion to be a terrible thing, there are two routs to take. One is to do what you are doing, what jewelsong is doing - to focus on the most vulnerable women and help them get to the point where having and raising a child is a bearable option, or in the case of teenagers where they make better choices about having sex in the first place. I would call that a loving approach, which can't fail but make this world a better place to live. This is saying "abortion is terrible, and we must change the world so that women don't need to resort to it."

The other way is to say, "abortion is evil and we will punish every woman who turns to it". Women are portrayed as irresponsible, wicked, wanton fornicators (in those precise words), selfish bitches, who cheerfully abort their pregnancies just so children do not interfere with their narcissistic pursuits. As vison has pointed out, at the root of that position is very often contempt for women in general and fear of the power they may gain should they have control of their sexuality.

It is that approach that I referred to as brutal. I didn't get the impression that anybody here supported it, at least not as a conscious choice.

I hope this makes better sense. If it doesn't, please consider it my failure to make myself clear, and not in any way a personal attack on anybody here.

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I don't deny that there are some women (mostly the very young) who abort without real thought to what they are doing

Almost certainly. And there are those who have their children and attempt to raise them with a similar lack of forethought. I can't help but wonder which has the worse long-term effects on the individuals involved, and society...there is a book entitled Freakonomics that, despite its title is a serious and thought-provoking look at why things happen in societies. It proposes (among many other things) that the real reason behind the drop in crime rates in the 90's was the availability of abortions in the 70's...do I believe that? I don't know...and I doubt evidence would ever be decisive one way or the other.

Sorry, I'm off on a bit of a tangent. These topics tire me out after a while, as all Sisyphian labors do...

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Almost certainly. And there are those who have their children and attempt to raise them with a similar lack of forethought. I can't help but wonder which has the worse long-term effects on the individuals involved, and society

Good point. I think this is also why that "I'm not sorry" movement is important too.

That is, there is often a feeling of defense on the pro-choice side, as if they have to say that abortion is a terrible terrible thing but it's a necessary evil, as if you first have to establish yourself as being hurt personally by the idea or else you're a monster. I doubt there's any woman who wants to go through the experience of an abortion it is not something that necessarily haunts you throughout your life the way many people feel it should or say it will. Everyone should be free to say how the idea strikes them, but no one should feel like they have to say it's horrible in ways it wasn't for them.

-m

Link

I've been looking for this. I didn't think I could join in properly without posting it.

Laureanna,

*~Pips~*

I don't have time to wallow through all the 11 pages of this thread so, my two Euro cents just very briefly:

Abortion is never a good thing.

However, there are situations in which it is the lesser evil. And, the situation described in the first post is definitely one of those.

I know this is OT but I just wanted to offer some support to Laureanna I hope things improve. I knew of some of your past struggles.

In an interesting an related twist case in Italy...

Judge sentences girl to abort baby

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An Italian judge ordered a 13 year old girl from Torino to abort her unborn child because her parents were opposed to the baby.

Italian legislation states that a minor is not allowed to decide whether to abort or not and the 'decision' falls entirely on the guardians or parents.

The shocking story was brought into light by Italian newspaper La Stampa in which the paper reports that the girl didn't want to abort the baby but had to after the ruling. She then had to receive treatment after telling her parents she was going to attempt a suicide

Ok, the judge didn't really sentence her to an abortion ... he told her he had no power to overturn her parent's decision for her to abort. Much like the case on page 1, the 13 year old had no choice in the matter, just that the decision she didn't make went the opposite way.

Something else I'd like to point out...In Florida, a baby born at 21 weeks gestation has survived, and is ready to go home with her parents.

Most hospitals won't even attempt to save babies born earlier than 25 weeks gestation.

So, how do we decide when a 'fetus' becomes a viable human life, capable of surviving outside the womb? Hmmm??

Sometimes I wish for a return to the Bad Old Days when abortion was illegal, and teenage moms weren't allowed to keep their babies, but could stay in special homes for unwed mothers, where they were looked after until they were ready to deliver.

Today there are thousands of parents having to search outside the country for healthy infants to adopt, because abortion has become so popular. Meanwhile, there are teen moms out there having one baby after another, many of them born drug addicted or with fetal alcohol syndrome. They either wind up in foster care or dead.

There was one incident in Toronto recently where a 17 year old mom gave birth to a premature baby. The social worker released it into her care, because she was staying at a women's shelter, and thought shelter personel would keep an eye out to make sure the baby was being well cared for. She let the newborn starve to death. She already had two other children in foster care.

I just look at the system, and shake my head. I know it would be a violation of human rights, but I wish there were a law on the books that could prevent something like this from happening, like forcing the mother to go on birth control (which can be done by a monthly injection.) She's already failed to provide adequate care for two children. What about the kid's rights? Shouldn't they have the right to be born to someone who will look after them?

[sigh] The system's broken, obviously. How do we fix it?

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Shouldn't they have the right to be born to someone who will look after them?

There is no way that can be guaranteed by any system short of a draconian and authoritarian police state on one extreme, or an enlightened utopia on the other. You can't make parents love their kids.

Ax, I know, it's probably a hopeless situation, where we don't stand a chance of being able to change things unless draconion laws are passed that violate individual rights and freedoms, thus striking at the very heart of a liberal democracy. But I look at it this way: the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing in the same way, and expecting different results. That's what we're doing by letting some of these moms continue to have baby after baby.

Maybe someday the taxpayer is just going to stand up on their hind legs and say: WHOA!! I'm PAYING for all this! This haas got to STOP!

Yeah, I know. Wishful thinking...

Sunsilver wrote:

Maybe someday the taxpayer is just going to stand up on their hind legs and say: WHOA!! I'm PAYING for all this! This haas got to STOP!

No, because to change it, it will have to be by democratic vote, and sadly the people who are breeding, and producing more and more voters, are not the people who would vote against it.

Downside of democracy folks

I know of one case where a young mother nearly killed four young chiildren. Those four were thankfully taken away from her, but only because the grandparents stepped in and made a lot of noise. They had to completely bypass social services and take it straight to court, because SS refused to do anything.
Sadly, this mother has since had two more children with a different man that she is not taking care of very well.
In cases like this, I would support forced tubal ligation or birth control. Anything to stop her from having more children.
The problem with that, though, is where do you draw the line? How many children does some drug-addicted young mother have to have before someone steps in. Then on the other hand, some young women are perfectly capable of raising six children, and will put the necessary effort into it.
There are too many gray areas to implement such things.

Making a brief excursion into board77 and this catches my eye ...

Sunsilver wrote:

Sometimes I wish for a return to the Bad Old Days when abortion was illegal, and teenage moms weren't allowed to keep their babies, but could stay in special homes for unwed mothers, where they were looked after until they were ready to deliver.

Hmm well, can't agree with that one, Sunny, because of my own story. My birth-mother was one of those teenage mums and that's exactly what happened to her (I traced her in 1997). An unmarried mother in those days was expected to give up her child and relinquish all rights to that child. Adoption was not the open process it is now. There was nothing wrong with my mum: she wasn't a delinquent, she wasn't an uncaring person, she was simply a middle-class lass in a long-term relationship who got caught out and was abandoned by her boyfriend to face the music. It's a painful time for her to talk about, but she has told me some of it and I can guess the rest.

I do agree that society has swung way too far in the other direction since the judgmental days of the 1960s. Not that selfishness, fecklessness and child cruelty are anything new, but there's certainly a lot of that about.

The UK has both the highest teenage pregnancy rate AND the highest abortion rate in Europe. A double whammy.

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The UK has both the highest teenage pregnancy rate AND the highest abortion rate in Europe. A double whammy.

That takes some doing.

Sunny--

By the time it gets to that point it's too late to do much. A nation can't easily undo what an upbringing, or lack of one, rather, has done. And even with the best and most loving families there is no ironclad promise of success.

Sorrow is a necessary byproduct of being human and caring.