Flutterby™! : When the Anti-Choice choose 2006-07-21 00:41:21.214775+00

When the Anti-Choice choose

2006-07-21 00:41:21.214775+00 by Dan Lyke 7 comments

"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion" - When the Anti-Choice Choose (same article, different host & formatting):

"In 1990, in the Boston area, Operation Rescue and other groups were regularly blockading the clinics, and many of us went every Saturday morning for months to help women and staff get in. As a result, we knew many of the 'antis' by face. One morning, a woman who had been a regular 'sidewalk counselor' went into the clinic with a young woman who looked like she was 16-17, and obviously her daughter. When the mother came out about an hour later, I had to go up and ask her if her daughter's situation had caused her to change her mind. 'I don't expect you to understand my daughter's situation!' she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to 'murder their babies.'" (Clinic escort, Massachusetts)

(via Sensible Erection).

#Comment Re: made: 2006-07-21 05:31:05.421969+00 by: mvandewettering

Frankly, I wouldn't expect that I understand her daughter's situation either. I certainly wouldn't presume to tell her that I understand her situation. But understanding her specific situation isn't required. The best that we can hope is that she understands her situation, and makes an informed choice. What's sad is that the girls mother apparently is incapable of understanding anyone's situation, and yet feels compelled to comment on what they should or should not do. Going one step further, she projects her own shortcomings on everyone else, when other people are fully capable of displaying the empathy that she seems to lack.

Honestly, if you don't like abortion: don't get one, and shut up about it. I'm perfectly happy with people making their own informed choices when it comes to reproduction.

Honestly, if you don't like abortion: don't get one, and shut up about it. I'm perfectly happy with people making their own informed choices when it comes to reproduction.

I don't like abortions and obviously I'm not ever going to be in a position of getting one. I don't much care for the abortion protests that block abortion clinics and prevent people from going and coming. I don't like the catcalls to the people entering abortion clinics or the intimidation tactics used on the patients and staff. The folks that resort to any level of violence in their protests of abortions are, in my opinion, terrorists just the same as anybody bombing federal buildings in Oklahoma City or flying planes into New York City skyscrapers.

With that said, I can't say that I can support telling those of us against abortions to shut up about it just because I agree with you about people needing to make informed decisions. I'm not going to say more than why I believe it to be a bad idea however there are as many legitimate arguments for not aborting an unwanted pregnancy as there are for aborting an unwanted pregnancy. For a woman to make a fully informed decision on the matter she needs to hear all sides in a non-intimidating manner. Telling one side to just shut up isn't at all conducive to that.

Have you been in an abortion counseling session, Larry? If not, how do you know for certain whether or not a woman "hears all sides" in those sessions? I have not been part of such a session myself, but have read and heard from friends that they are not "hurry up and abort now!" pressure sessions, and that they do discuss pros and cons. They likely do not preach doctrine in these sessions, but if someone is already religious enough to be concerned about there being ethical questions when considering aborting a fetus, they probably already know plenty enough about "that side".

No, Diane, I haven't and I do understand that these normally aren't pressure sessions. I also understand that the pro-choice protesters aren't there to promote or encourage abortion but to promote the availability of abortion. I just never have much cared for the phrase, "just shut-up."

Also, I don't necessarily see the need for someone to be religious to question the ethics of abortion.

Back to Dan's post, I fully agree with the views of the abortion providers in the article. I don't see an abortion procedure as something that is owed to anyone, especially those people who are a risk to come back and sue the provider or who may seem to be too unstable to make a rational decision to have the procedure.

There are those who demand a particular behavior in public, but are not committed to it in their own lives. Like Henry Hyde, who was coruscating in his denunciation of Clinton's infidelity, but excused his own long term marriage wrecking affair as a youthful indiscretion while he was in his forties. Such people wish others to be excoriated for behaviors they act out themselves. The reasons for this range from paranoid projection to simple opportunistic bashing. Such behavior varies from being ethically and legally incorrect to being mental illness.

But I can also understand that an ethical view can be weighted differently than the way that I do. I abhor the killing of another person. Such might be acceptable in the defense of ones self, or in the defense of another person. There might be other circumstances where this would be permissible, such as euthanasia. The problem comes when one defines "person". Our current law has decided that a woman has a right to her own body, and that until a fetus is capable of living on its own outside of her body, that the woman has an inherent right to end that life's intrusion on her body. So, now we generally define a fetus as a person that would probably survive if taken from the womb.

I accept that as reasonable. There is a basis for this distinction in the common law. There is no general legal obligation to prevent the death of another, where one has no specific responsibility for that death. I can see some one drowning in an ocean, and walk away without being prosecuted. It is legal, if not ethical. To me it is clear a woman should not be obligated to support a fetus in her body if she does not want to. She has the right to have it removed.

I would go beyond present law, and say that this would be true until birth. But that leaves the problem of the obligation to save the live of an 8 month old fetus, which would be viable outside the uterus. So, current law seems to be within reason.

But, I can understand that someone may believe that humanity begins at conception, though I personally disagree with that. For me, the rights of the woman supersede those of the fetus. That other person has a different ethical argument. Its not necessarily a Henry Hyde argument.

Wow. In wanting to agree with "m" I just did a search for "55th trimester", and there were only 19 results, none of them here. Even though I know I've used that phrase multiple times, sometimes in reminding children that, unlike their parents, I don't have to love them.

HAHAHA, my own nearly-17-year-old was quoting that very phrase just this past week! (But as a good parent, and reasonable judge of character, I can say that if this particular child decides not to become a father, I'll be disappointed.)