RSS feedAbortion Ban Debate
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| The Fall issue of Ms. features the cover story �We Had Abortions. |
Ms. magazine recently launched their second “I had an abortion” campaign and petition. The first one was in 1972 in the debut issue of the magazine when over 50 well-known women declared that they had abortions—even though it was illegal at the time.
With the influx of discussions in the media, online publications and the blog-sphere, I must admit I have grown somewhat weary of reading about the subject. Until I came across ‘Reflections from a Former Anti-Abortion Activist’ by Elizabeth Wardle, PhD, on AlterNet: As a good Christian teenager, Wardle was active in the anti-abortion movement. But it was her college women’s studies classes that turned her worldview upside down. The article is somewhat of a coming-of-age story if you will, that describes Wardle’s transformation from seeing the world in black-and-white to accepting the existence of shades of grey.
The most interesting part of the article comes at the end, and is maybe the most pragmatic and sensible argumentation I have read about abortion laws recently:
“Here is a pro-choice position I can get behind: Abortion is generally not the problem in need of our attention. In most cases, abortion is one result of a number of related problems; abortion is wrapped up in intimate ways with attitudes about sex, living wages, access to good jobs, healthcare, childcare, education, and so on.If we want to prevent bringing unwanted or unsupported life into this world, birth control must be accessible to all; men and women alike need education about the necessities of birth control. Birth control, sex education, and factually correct abstinence-only programs are abortion issues.Girls from conservative homes like mine do not need lectures about the shame of sex, but about the beauties and dangers of sex, and ways to avoid the dangers. They must learn to love their bodies, draw appropriate boundaries, and know what precautions to take when they are ready for sex. Hatred of women and women’s bodies in the Christian tradition are abortion issues.Women from all walks of life must make a living wage so they can support children when they are ready to have them. If two-thirds of all women who seek abortions say they cannot afford a child, improving economic conditions by providing viable job opportunities for both men and women should greatly decrease the number of abortions. Raising the minimum wage is an abortion issue.Women everywhere must have affordable health care for themselves and their children, so they can bring healthy children into the world and keep them healthy. Affordable universal healthcare is an abortion issue.Women must have access to quality daycare that will not cost more than they make at work. Government-subsidized child care is an abortion issue.Women must have access to affordable education so they can compete for living-wage jobs, and so they can promise that same access to their children. Education-related government grants and loans are abortion issues.Adoption must be demystified, shown to be a loving and generous choice, not abandonment. Adoption laws, adoption agency regulations and oversight, and attitudes about adoption are abortion issues.To engage in productive dialogue about abortion, we must account for justice and equity; we must strive to make our country one where laws, practices, programs, and attitudes nurture women and allow them the opportunity to bring babies into the world when they can support them, provide them excellent healthcare, send them to college without putting themselves in massive debt, and promise them truthfully there are living-wage jobs waiting for them.Come to think of it, if this isn’t a genuinely pro-life position, I don’t know what is.”
14 October 2006 | 03.35pm (CEST) | posted by
Hili | |
TAGS Politics & Governance | Human Rights | Ethical Values & Responsibility | Gender Issues | Health & Nutrition | Quality of Life & Prosperity
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October 14th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Something for Pro-choicers and Pro-lifers to concider…..
World estimations of the number of terminations carried out each year is somewhere between 20 and 88 million.
3,500 per day / 1.3 million per year in America alone.
50% of that 1.3 million claimed failed birth control was to blame.
A further 48% had failed to use any birth control at all.
And 2% had medical reasons.
That means a stagering 98% may have been avoided had an effective birth control been used.
I am a 98% pro-lifer, 2% Pro-choicer, who has no religious convictions at all . I didn’t need the fear of god or anything else to come to my decision, just a good sense of what is right and wrong.
You see we were all once a fetus. Is it beyond the realm of possibilities that when your mother first learned she was carrying you, she may have considered her options? What if she had decided to terminate? Would that have been OK?
You would not exist, if you have children they would not exist, and your (husband or wife) would be married to someone else. You would have been deprived of all your experiences and memories. In this day and age with terminations being so readily available and so many being carried out, if you make it to full term
you can consider yourself lucky. Lucky you had a mother that made the choice of life for you. Don’t you think they all deserve the same basic human right, LIFE?
I’m all for contraception, prevention is certainly better than termination.
Did you know you can get an implant that is safe, 99.9% effective, and lasts for three years? Just think girls not even a show for three years, wouldn’t that be great? I think too many people rely too heavily on the last option (abortion), I think if abortions weren’t so readily available people would manage their reproductive system far better resulting in a fraction of the number of unwanted pregnancies.
World wide there are over 50 MILLION aborted pregnancies each year. In America 3,500 terminations carried out every day, that’s over 1.3 million every year, 50% of all cases claimed that birth control had been used, 48% admitted they took no precaution, and 2% had a medical reason. That’s a staggering 98% that may have been prevented had an effective birth control been used. Don’t get me wrong, I suspect the percentages in Australia would be much the same.
Just a lot of unnecessary killing.
At the point of conception is when life began for you. This was the start of your existence. Your own personal big bang. Three weeks after conception heart started to beat. First brain waves recorded at six weeks after conception. Seen sucking thumb at seven weeks after conception.
I am convinced that in the not too distant future, people will look back at many of the practices of today with disbelief and horror.
Want to know how to find humanity-?
True humanity can only be achieved, by concidering others/ caring about others, as much as, if not more than yourself.
Until we do we are no more than an uncivilisation, with all the uncivilised things that we do…
October 17th, 2006 at 2:40 am
Bill Clinton once said that abortions should be available , safe and RARE. He is a very wise man.
I’d like to see an ultrasound in every clinnic to provide a more informed choice, before going through with something they may regret.
I’d also like to see effective birth control made available to all who can’t afford it.
October 18th, 2006 at 3:29 am
Have you seen ( HOT OFF THE SHOW! Throw-away babies )
a blog by Sharon Hughes?
October 20th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Well all you people who super debate this abortion thing are just a bunch of douche bags with nothing better to do than to critsize others
October 28th, 2006 at 1:54 am
I think it is amazing that some Anti-Abortion Activists do not realize that it’s not as simple as taking a life. The points raised in this blog was on-point. America needs to changed and be made more accomodating to the need of children. Make the world more “life-friendly”, if u will…
Raven