I will admit that I cringe whenever I hear someone say, “Guess what? We’re pregnant!” The phrase really rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s because I never romanticized the whole pregnancy process, so to me “we’re pregnant” just feels so corny and cloying. Couple that with my bit of anal insistence on proper language use and disdain of malapropisms, and the eyes tend to roll back into my skull — not exactly following the rules for politeness on hearing such joyous news from a friend (perhaps that’s why I don’t have many of them).
So imagine my reaction reading this piece from the L.A. Times about a Christian group — quelle surprise — that’s trying to “change abortion’s pronoun”:
These days, he channels the grief into activism in a burgeoning movement of “post-abortive men.” Abortion is usually portrayed as a woman’s issue: her body, her choice, her relief or her regret. This new movement — both political and deeply personal in nature — contends that the pronoun is all wrong.
“We had abortions,” said Mark B. Morrow, a Christian counselor. “I’ve had abortions.”
I don’t doubt that some men may feel a sense of loss, but slapping a label on it and treating it like some sort of syndrome is a bit much, is it not? He goes on:
Morrow, the counselor, described his regret as sneaking up on him in midlife — more than a decade after he impregnated three girlfriends (one of them twice) in quick succession in the late 1980s. All four pregnancies ended in abortion.
Years later, when his wife told him she was pregnant, “I suddenly realized that I had four dead children,” said Morrow, 47, who lives near Erie, Pa. “I hadn’t given it a thought. Now it all came crashing down on me — look what you’ve done.”
What have you done? You prevented yourself from lining up “baby mamas” like you were P. Diddy, that’s what. I was prepared to write it off as a guy a bit too much in touch with his feelings until I read that this melodrama was part of a bigger plot — to use the passionate stories to try and influence the Supreme Court:
Therapist Vincent M. Rue, who helped develop the concept of post-abortion trauma, runs an online study that asks men to check off symptoms (such as irritability, insomnia and impotence) that they feel they have suffered as a result of an abortion. When men are widely recognized as victims, Rue said, “that will change society.”
Abortion rights supporters watch this latest mobilization warily: If anecdotes from grieving women can move the Supreme Court, what will testimony about men’s pain accomplish?
“They can potentially shift the entire debate,” said Marjorie Signer of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an interfaith group that supports abortion rights.
I say not to worry — we all know that when a large group of privileged white men feel they are suffering an injustice, nothing is ever done about it, right?
Sales analytics are showing that the sale of the controversial morning after pill is skyrocketing, much to the dismay of conservative and Christian activists who consider the pill a form of abortion.
Putting politics, religion, and morality aside, are blessings and consequences fully being considered in the light of objectivity?
Of course, the morning after pill is nothing short of a miracle for those women who are raped or have a night of indiscretion (after all, everybody makes mistakes) in preventing a pregnancy before it’s really viable, but what are the real consequences? Could it be the lack of consequences?
Some more moderate pro-lifers may be grateful in as far as the morning after pill might affect how often an invasive abortion procedure is needed or done, but is a society free from accountability and responsibility one of integrity and boundaries?
We keep creating policies, products and procedures to circumvent consequences. While some of these inventions and policies are miraculous and life saving, is it possible that diminishing the need or skill to control ones impulses or negate sound judgment may be counterproductive? Isn’t there a benefit of second guessing oneself or making an attempt to be responsible?
One would think it’s not good practice to mix politics with business, but a New York storage facility likes to use their advertising as a venue to promote their personal politics:
In case you can’t read the photo, it says, “Your closet space is shrinking faster than her right to choose.” There’s one group that thinks it’s bullshit, and that’s the (surprise, surprise) Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. (There’s a Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights??)
“Why a storage company finds the need to advertise its support for abortion is a story all of its own, but when it seeks to depict the pro-life community—which is primarily Catholic and Protestant—as oppressive, then a line has been crossed.”
Personally, I think it’s really crass (hello, a coat hanger?) and cheapens the message it’s trying to convey. But I also think that if a business wants to wear their politics on their sleeve and face the consequences, they have the right to do it (I would feel the same way if this ad had a “pro-life” message).
Would this billboard inspire you to store your crap there, or would it make you never want to give them a dime of your hard earned money? Or does it not matter either way?
The new film Knocked Up, written and directed by Judd Apatow (Freaks and Geeks, The 40-Year-Old Virgin), is getting rave reviews from movie critics but an apparent thumbs down from some in another group — feminists. Why? Because of the basic premise — a successful woman (Katherine Heigl) gets “knocked up” by a lumpy loser (Seth Rogen) during a one-night stand, and instead of rushing down to Planned Parenthood, she decides to keep the baby. That’s it, that’s the big beef, that there apparently wasn’t any lengthy discussion of abortion. Linda Z, with WBAI Radio in New York, calls Knocked Up “right wing misogyny” (wait, I thought the liberals ran Hollywood — I’m so confused!) and says it drips with “not so hidden reactionary religious tones”.
There’s a more reasoned and less emotional discourse going on by Ann at Feministing about the film, saying that leaving out the abortion option is a “glaring omission”. Why? I’m staunchly pro-choice, but I don’t see why there should be some sort of obligation. While it’s maybe a valid point to make that Rogen and Heigl are acting a bit unrealistically, is that something to get worked up about? Doesn’t almost every romantic comedy made in the last 30 years have some ridiculous plot at its core? It’s not realistic that Julia Roberts would walk into a book store and fall in love with the guy behind the counter. It’s not realistic that Meg Ryan would dump her fiancé for some dope in Seattle that she heard on the radio. Can’t a movie just be fun and not tied to political correctness?
So why did the director choose to not address abortion? My first thought was that Apatow didn’t want to bring his light-hearted movie to a screeching halt (see also, Fast Times at Ridgemont High), or worse yet, feel the need to play up an abortion plot line for yuks. But the answer turns out to be even simpler — he just didn’t want to:
“[Keeping the baby] was the story I wanted to tell,” said Apatow. “I’m sure there are fascinating stories about people having abortions — ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High,’ one of my favorites, is about a girl having sex in high school and then having an abortion. I think both points of view [approaches to an unplanned pregnancy] are valid. But I wanted to make a movie about two people trying really hard to do the right thing.”
OK, so obviously Apatow disagrees with me on Fast Times, but the bottom line is I don’t care what awful social message the film supposedly has, it’s entertainment and escapism, not government propaganda — and if the rest of it is as funny as this R-rated international trailer, it’s sure to end up on my list of favorite films.
As reported by the Associated Press, the Supreme Court today in a 5-4 decision decided that the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act” passed by Congress in 2003 holds muster and does not violate a woman’s right to choose an abortion. One of the main bones of contention with this act was the fact that it didn’t discriminate on a case-by-case basis — if a partial birth abortion is necessary to try and save the life of the mother, too fucking bad. Justice Kennedy wrote in his decision, “the law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice.” Because, you know, a judge knows better than your doctor.
Not surprisingly, besides Kennedy the other justices in the majority were John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia. Justice Ginsberg offered this opinion:
“Today’s decision is alarming,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling “refuses to take … seriously” previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion. Ginsburg said the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”
Look, I’m not a big fan of abortion — I think it’s a tragic circumstance and a serious medical procedure that should not be taken lightly. But I also realize that’s my personal opinion, and if you want to base your thoughts regarding abortion solely on an ancient religious text, then feel free to mind your own house and don’t impose your view of morality on the rest of us.
In Italy, an aborted baby fights for his life. The unborn fetus was aborted due to a false diagnosis and false interpretation of an ultrasound, but the diagnosis turned out to be incorrect and now they’re trying to save the aborted baby at 22 weeks gestation. Of course, the procedure will most likely kill him:
FLORENCE, Italy, March 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Italian doctors are struggling to save the life of a baby whom they aborted after hospital pre-natal tests misdiagnosed him as deformed, a victim of the inaccuracies of pre-natal testing, which in many cases leads to abortion.
Read the above headline again. It makes no sense, right? That’s because you are a sane, rationally thinking human being. The extremists of the anti-abortion movement seem to think otherwise. As reported in the Chicago Tribune (and not The Onion as I originally thought):
Emboldened by the anti-abortion movement’s success in restricting access to abortion, an increasingly vocal group of Christian conservatives is arguing that it’s time to mount a concerted attack on contraception… “Contraception is more the root cause of abortion than anything else,” Joseph Scheidler, an anti-abortion veteran whose Pro-Life Action League sponsored the conference, said in an interview.
In other news, removing all emissions controls from cars will help reduce global warming…
Parents in Maine reportedly kidnapped their 19 year old adult daughter, bound and gagged her; in a kidnapping attempt aimed at forcing her into a late term abortion. This is really, really going to piss off the pro-choice and pro-life advocates. This is NO-choice and “baby murder” rolled all into one. How many people can you possibly offend at once??
My guess is that these parent’s won’t be getting many holiday cards this year.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Police charged a Maine couple on Monday of kidnapping their pregnant 19-year-old daughter, who was bound with rope and duct tape and bundled into her parents’ car to force her to have an emergency abortion.
Nicholas Kampf, 54, and his wife, Lola, 53, were arrested on Friday in a New Hampshire parking lot after their daughter Katelyn escaped by persuading her parents to untie her so she could use a Kmart bathroom.
A court affidavit said her parents chased her out into the yard after an altercation, grabbed and tied her hands and feet together. Her father then gagged her and carried her to their Lexus and they drove toward New Hampshire.
“The case facts are somewhat bizarre,” aid Mark Dion of Maine’s Cumberland County Police Department, which is involved in the investigation. “It is a bit of a shock.”
He said the Kampfs, who were arraigned in New Hampshire’s Salem District Court on Monday on kidnapping charges and held on bail of $100,000 each, appeared to have been angry that their daughter was pregnant by a man who is now in jail.
UPDATE: Jay over at Parents Behaving Badly found another disturbing nugget that wasn’t in the original story. Apparently the mother “was pretty irate at the fact that the child’s father was black, and she had made a number of disparaging remarks about that”, which may have been their motivation for the kidnapping. What a couple of fine individuals.
Although I understand social stigma’s and medical resources vary, to terminate your infant at 6 months gestation simply because you think they’re not pretty enough brings a pathetic moral implication to an already controversial debate. There is no question, the baby was in excruciating pain at that point of development. What makes me even more sad is that there are those whose politics come before their morality and desire to protect these babies.
My son was born two months premature. Perhaps that is why I will never understand or condone late term abortions or think of them as victorious to women’s advancement. I think they are a sad indictment of women in general and people in general. People who are without compassion and ability to protect the innocent.
I am no pro-lifer, in fact, I support a woman’s right to choose in the first trimester, but I will never, ever sacrifice my moral compass and desire to protect babies who’s only fault in this world is having a horrible person as a mother, that they would allow their infant to be tortured and killed because of the way they will look. It’s absolutely grotesque.
And the morning after pill isn’t even going to prevent women without heart from doing this to their late-term babies. Of course, if it is determined that the baby or mother’s life is in jeopardy, that is one thing, to do this based on aesthetics is quite another.
Beijing, China (LifeNews.com) — A woman who has posted in her Internet diary a notation about having an abortion on a baby with a cleft lip is coming under international scrutiny. Both Chinese and American media outlets have written about the woman and the condemnation that has followed the abortion.
The woman says she had an abortion six months into pregnancy of a health baby with no other physical problems other than a cleft lip — which can be surgically repaired in what has become a routine medical procedure.
“I am totally and utterly distressed at the thought of my baby mumbling and stuttering the way my niece does who also has a harelip. I cannot find a way out,” the woman wrote originally on her diary, according to the China Daily news service.
She also wrote of the ultrasound she had done and the pictures she saw of her baby.
“It was the first time I had ever seen the lovely creature who has accompanied me for six months as I lay on a hospital bed for a check up. He is so cute. Sometimes he stretches, sometimes he gapes, and sometimes he sucks his little fingers. However it makes me shiver to see a cleft, ranging from 3 to 7 millimeters in his upper lip,” she wrote the next day.
The unnamed woman says she asked her parents and husband what to do and decided to have the abortion.
“I called my husband, parents, brother and friends. To my surprise, they also thought I should have an abortion. Finally I made up my mind to give him up,” she wrote, according to China Daily.
Numerous people have posted comments in reaction to the woman’s story saying they strongly disagree with her decision to have an abortion.
One poster, Dr. Zhang Silai, wrote that “Being a doctor, I don’t agree with Fish, since a harelip is not incurable and a life shouldn’t be terminated for such a tiny defect.” Read the rest…
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January 8, 2008 at
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