A couple of thoughts on abortion

[mousme]

This has cropped up a number of times on my flist of late, which isn't all that surprising, considering my friends.

I don't know if it'll surprise many people on here if I say that, fundamentally, I don't believe that abortion is right. Maybe it will surprise people. It won't surprise those who know me well. I am the product of someone's choice not to abort, so I feel rather strongly on the topic, to say the least.

That being said, until there are safe, viable alternatives to abortion, I will remain pro-choice.

When there is a clear and present danger to the mother's health, I am all in favour of terminating a pregnancy in a safe, medical procedure that is authorized by law. Until dangerous pregnancies are a thing of the past, I will remain pro-choice.

Until everyone who doesn't want a child is given access to birth control and other safe-sex products, I will remain pro-choice.

Until little girls are no longer raped, I will remain pro-choice.

Until such a time as women are no longer abused and raped by men they thought they could trust, I will remain pro-choice.

Until such a time as abortion remains the *only* resort for some unhappy, desperate women, I will remain pro-choice.

Until such a time as women are entirely in control of their own fertility, I will remain pro-choice.




I am not anti-life. I am pro-choice. There is a difference.


:::ETA:::

I am leaving comments open for now. Everyone is welcome to their opinion, and to discuss in a sane, rational, and respectful manner. Most of you don't need to be told to remain civilized, but this is a sensitive topic, so if you get upset, keep your hands away from your keyboard. Close friend or online acquaintance, if you insult or otherwise flame someone on this LJ, I will ban your ass faster than you can say "Bob's your mother's brother." Capito?

Comments

[fruity-spikey.livejournal.com]

Dear Daphnée

I fully understand your point but I would disagree. A child needs to be wanted and desired hence loved fully at the very start of lovemaking. A child cannot be the result of an accident, a rape, an incest, God (if there is one) should not allow life in such bad circumstances.

Back in 1989, I had an abortion because of a pill failure. The father was NOT the one, the man of my life and i was still a student in my early university years. I would have hated this child because he/she was not welcomed in my life. I felt depressed and terrible because i did not speak about it to my family or anyone among my friends because i did not want to justify my act, knowing that i would be judged and condemned.

In 1987, I was raped, do you really think that if a child had been born out of that, i would be pro-choice ? As soon as I would have been told, I would have run the first abortion clinic.
In 1993, my fatalistic and unlucky star made me encounter a bad person who sexually assaulted me, this time, i went to the police and all the dna procedures, a child did not fortunately appear nine months later. If it did, I would have made the choice to get rid of this monstruous life inside me.

When I had a dully wanted desired pregnancy, out of wedlock, knowing the father for not that long,but I was deeply in love, it felt right. Everything felt right, almost ten years later, this man is still in my life and despite the current situation, it still feels right because we love one another very much. With this pregnancy in 1999,i would not have done anything to it. Kelvin was born nine months later and he's going to be eight soon. Gabrielle is so gorgeous, it would have been a shame to abort.

Children are the results of an act of love, they need to be strongly desired otherwise their self-esteem is destroyed. "Why I am born?", "Never asked to be born", "Why did you let me be born?", these are recurrent questions an unwanted child will ask all his life. There are times when I ask these questions myself because my Mum was a single mother wanting a child and taking all the responsibilities for my education but never stopping telling me how a SOB, my father has been.
There is an amount of guilt that a child carries for the existence of his being, whether he is wanted or not. We don't choose our family but we choose our friends. I respect your point of view and thank you for having read mine.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you're saying, sorry. To me it sounds as though we're saying the same thing, that abortion is indeed called for in certain cases. Did I misunderstand your point?

[fruity-spikey.livejournal.com]

don't you ever have that feeling and question going on in your head : "where do I really come from ?", "Why was I born ? I never asked for it ?" . Do you even want to know ? Have you got the need to seek for your biological mother ?

I know someone 70ish seeking for her mother , it could be by grand-mother who abandonned her back in 1937. It just appeared in my mother's life last week, a woman looking for the descendants of our genealogy tree. An adopted person seems to seek their origins at some point or the other. This very person though waited tohave her adoptive mother to die to start doing the research. There is grief somewhere when you get adopted, I have a couple of friends and they resent their adoptive parents. Is it the case with you ?

Adoption for me would be for children you lost their parents in dramatic cases like car accidents or so. I don't see adoption as an alternative for abortion at all. Someone who aborts because they can't be bothered with condoms should be shot ! Someone who has no idea that even once , sperm and egg can be fertilized, should be MORE educated ! In France we can't adopt French children bceause they are not that many, children "abandonned" are rare, it's more a case of irresponsible mothers, teen age mothers and so. Adopted children usually are being put in foster homes or orphanages where the mother can still keep contact (a card is enough, which i find it very cruel). Law in France as regards adoption should change because it is creating hurt, angry children for the rest of their lives. The adopted children i know are now adults and they were clearly abandonned, they retain a grief inside them, an anxiety for the future and tend to be very fusionnal with people. I wished in anideal world that adoption did not even exist for when you have a child developping in you, you create a bond that's for life and you keep that child because he/she is part of your flesh.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

You and I have very different experiences of adoption, it would seem.

I grew up in a warm, loving home, with two parents who wanted me very much. It made me feel all the more secure to know that there were two people, a couple, who had gone out of their way to get me. I knew I was wanted. I knew that there was no chance of my being an accident.

I knew a few other adopted children when I was growing up, and none of them seemed to feel this anxiety and hurt and anger that you're describing.

The way my mother explained it to me when I was little, so that I would understand, was that my biological parents couldn't keep me, that they understood that they weren't in a good position to raise a baby and then a child, and so they made the ultimate sacrifice by giving me to people who would love me and treat me well.

I've often wondered about my biological parents, but only in a vague, off-handed way. When people used to ask me about my "real" parents, I would smile and ask if they wanted to meet them, as they'd be picking me up right after school. :)

People don't ask about my "real" parents anymore. I know who my "real" parents are, and they're not the ones who technically gave me life.

And adopted children, by definition, don't go into foster homes. They are adopted into a new family. There are many, many foster children who stay in the system for years, and that's where the system fails them, because they have no stability, no security, and no continuous source of love and support.

It's also much harder for children who were adopted late, and were bounced around from foster home to foster home before being adopted. I was adopted when I was four months old, and being very young makes it a lot easier. I have never known anywhere but the home my parents provided for me.

[fruity-spikey.livejournal.com]

this is a lovely story and thank you for sharing it. Like you say i have only sad stories of adopted children. Yours is a success !

[luvenditti.livejournal.com]

children are the act of sperm and an egg getting together to have a party. FAMILIES are an act of love.

I think that what Phnee's getting at is that because of the reasons you just spoke about it is good that women have the choice of aborting or not aborting. I think that she's grateful to the woman who instead of aborting an unwanted child, gave it up for adoption. There is no judgement here, but personal. I do not feel, whatever the circumstances, that I would be able to abort, but I don't know that for sure because I've never been pregnant, but I have a very good, very solid network of people that I could count on if I had a baby, and so in my circumstance, I don't think I have the right to abort.

My only problem with women who abort, is that there are some women who use it as a method of birth control instead of condoms, the pill, etc.

[joane.livejournal.com]

My only problem with women who abort, is that there are some women who use it as a method of birth control instead of condoms, the pill, etc.

I hear this every once in a while, but I've never seen stats on how frequent that really is (as opposite to in the literature from the 'premarital sex is teh ebil and must be punished' crowd). I wonder if anyone's done a proper study?

It's funny; since getting pregnant, I've become even more fervently pro-choice than before. I cannot imagine forcing (through law or lack of available clinics) any woman to go through a pregnancy against her will. It is such a life-changing-body-changing-soul-changing process, and scares me, someone who is in reasonable physical shape and desperately wants the child she's carrying. How much more terrifying for someone stuck in it accidentally?

Under Jewish law, which I follow, an embryo is considered 'water' for the first 40 days after conception, and abortion is completely legal. After that, it's legal up until the very end of pregnancy if the mother's life is in danger. Some streams consider the mother's mental and emotional health to be included in that category until the end of first trimester or so.

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

but I've never seen stats on how frequent that really is

I don't know how one would even get stats on it. Even though I know of one woman who has had multiple abortions I still don't think that it is as common as some people seem to think. I have had an abortion and it was NOT an easy thing to go through, so my opinion is that it probably happens a lot less than some believe.

[luvenditti.livejournal.com]

I personally know two women (one who had 3 abortions, one who had 4 in the space of 2 years) who have because they don't LIKE condoms.

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

That isn't a statistic though. It would depend on how many friends you were polling and what their motivation was in their answers. I know one woman and you know two. That doesn't mean that it is very common, just that we know these people exist.

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

I would doubt that many women think, "I don't need to use birth control because if I get pregnant, I can just have an abortion."

I would believe, though, that many abortions happen because of things like ignorance of birth control and/or how pregnancy happens (you would be amazed at how many people don't get the fundamentals) or "oh, just this one time won't hurt" or just being drunk and not thinking about birth control and other things similar. So, while it's not a conscious decision to forgo birth control during sex and use abortion after as an alternative, it is similar.

However, that said, I don't condemn those people as bad. Instead, I prefer that people be more educated (a LOT more educated) about sex, pregnancy and birth control. Although, I could write a whole post just on that, so I'll stop now.

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

I would dearly love to see any statistics on the abortion-as-birth-control claim.  Not because I'm stupid enough to think it never happens, but because it's so often brought up when discussing abortion and the like, and I view it as one of those smokescreen statements.

[luvenditti.livejournal.com]

I personally know two women (one who had 3 abortions, one who had 4 in the space of 2 years) who have because they don't LIKE condoms.

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

That proves that they're out there, which is fine.  I didn't think they weren't.  What I want is statistics, specifically.

Not that I think it's at all possible to get, since I mean how would that even be collected?, but anything's better than "I know this girl who did it, thus we should ban it because that's abhorrent".

(I am not stating that you're stating this, just that I often see those two things (anti-abortion and "because they use it as BC, the sluts") together.)

[griffen.livejournal.com]

My only problem with women who abort, is that there are some women who use it as a method of birth control instead of condoms, the pill, etc.

Yes. That is why I am anti-abortion but also pro-choice. It is not a substitute for using appropriate birth control methods - it's a last resort.