hey monica,

how do you feel about abortion in a situation where there is a strong possibility that there may be difficulties in the birth and the mother can die? do you think the child is more important than the mother? the mother who has other children to worry about? what about the father who may now be a single parent to 1, 2, 3 etc children? i've lived through that. my pseudo-big sister almost died during complications while giving birth to her third child and i can never forget that. i don't know where i would be today without her. and if she knew that there would be complications and had chosen abortion, i wouldn't love her any less. but that's an option she should have available to her.


and what about in cases of rape or incest? as i said to my mom, if, g-d forbid, i was ever raped and got pregnant as a result i, personally, couldn't carry the child to term. it would be a child made from hate not love.

for me, my whole decision is that a woman should have the right to choose what she wants to do with her body. i don't want the government telling me what i can and can't do in that sense.

you say no one wants to take responsibility, but you have also alluded to people you know having had abortions that have struggled with that decision and also may be permanently affected by that decision. How do these two things jive? To me, that IS taking responsibility: accepting that YOU are the one making this decision, the outcome of which is yours to accept. Making that decision is the toughest thing in the world because you know you have just taken on the responsibility of doing something that is controversial, painful and that will affect you for the rest of your life. Shirking a responsibility would be never having to acknowledge that a painful chice was before you or that it wasn't really your choice to make. If you think that's how women who have abortions feel usually, you are simply mistaken. In fact, I think if abortions were illegal, women would be shirking responsibilities a lot more. Understanding that they have no choice in whether they will bear a child or not would allow them to avoid taking responsibility for that child.

do you also grieve over the many, many miscarried children that WOULD have been part of your family? You do realize that possibly over half of pregnancies are spontaneously aborted before the mother even knows she's pregnant? It would seem to me that, if you grieve the loss of that child so much, you ought to also grieve the loss of all the fertilized embryos that all of your female relatives have, unbeknownst to them, carried and lost. If only they hadn't spontaneously aborted, that child WOULD HAVE become part of your family. Are you sad for those dead babies? If not, why? It shouldn't matter that it was spontaneous as opposed to instigated by a human, as that doesn't change the fact that the embryo WOULD have developed into a child, had an obstacle (human or natural) not interefered. That embryo, IMHO, doesn't deserve less recognition simply because it was spontaneously aborted. I would grieve the death of my mother just as much if she was taken from me in an accident as opposed to a murder. I wouldn't miss her any less in the former situation. Do you see?

ok, this is where things get weird for me. the cases where i think the woman truly does have the right to choose abortion are her life being in danger, or pregnancy as a result from molestation/rape. but i also have a little feeling of pregnancies happen for a reason, so it's a hard decision for me to call.....but that's where "pro-choice" comes in for me. the mother has already gone through so much physical and emotional isht, can she really take any more? so.....yeah......but it's still a hard call. does that make any (!) sense??????

this is just a simple difference of what "taking responsibility" is in our minds. you think accepting responsibility here is dealing with the aftermath of what was done, that being responsible is just ridding yourself of the problem.....i think taking responsibility is accepting the so-called problem and taking care of your business, not getting rid of your "business." please correct me if i am wrong.....but i don't understand how "responsibility" has anything to do with dealing with emotions after the fact. responsilibility is taking care the things that need taking care of. responsibility is not feeling bad. PLEASE tell me if i just read that too fast and missed what you were saying, though....but i do think we have different ideas about what is "responsible"

as far as this:

uh, what?! there is a BIG difference here. but again, it all boils down to a BIG difference of opinion. first of all, for you to refer to MY valid feelings over MY relative's abortion is hugely offensive. questioning why i MOURN is un-real to me. this situation affected me....it affected her.....it affected my family. it still does. and there is a HUGE difference in something happening naturally, and then something happening intentionally. someone destroying their pregnancy is NOT the same thing as nature taking its course...and if your mother was murdered instead of dying in an accident, i bet you would have a lot more emotional stress to deal with. an accident is just that....an accident, unintentional. but when someone intentionally takes something, it makes it harder. it didn't have to happen, but it did.....b/c someone made sure that it did by taking action to make sure that your mother didn't exist, as opposed to an accident. do you see?

I certainly wasn't trying to say that your feelings aen't valid. And since you voluntarily shared them, I thought I would comment. I think if someone shares something in a thread, it must not be off-limits to talk about. Anyway, like I said, the intent was not to question why you would feel that way about the potential family member.

Instead it was to point out that there are more potential family members. The analogy is applicable in my mind because I would not grieve for my mother any less if she was killed in an accident or murdered. I wouldn't miss her any less. I wouldn't get over the fact that she was gone any more quickly just because it was through accident. I can agree that I would have additional feelings of anger depending on the way she was taken from me, but the feelings of missing her and losing her would not be different either way. So, my question was, while you may feel more anger in the manner in which the potential family member was taken from you, you should miss the presence, love and potential success of that potential family member no less than you miss the presence, love and potential success of the naturally aborted family members. The circumstances of their death (or non-birth or whatever we want to call it) doesn't change the fact that they would have become a human child, and eventually an adult with a life of their own, right?

Anyway, re: responsibility, you did misunderstand me. They key to what I was saying taking responsibility is is NOT "taking care of" the problem, but recognizing that the decision rests with you, that "with great power, comes great responsibility" (to quote Spider-Man) and that whatever decision you make, you are the only one you can blame, congratulate, or whatever the case may be. If you had no choice in whether to have that baby, then you truly are not responsible for ultimately "deciding" to have it...because you never had the responsibility to decide whether or not you would carry it to term. To me, taking responsibility is about recognizing the role you play, and accepting the decisions you make without trying to blame it on others (or pawn off the responsibility). Whatever decision one makes, by recognizing that there is a decision to make, and that it can only be made by her and that she will have to be accountable for her decision forever, is what is taking responsibility.

I recognize that I am accountable for any abortions I may have had or have in the future, and I will not shirk that accountability in any circumstances. Just because I am willing to be held responsible for my actions doesn't mean I believe my actions are wrong, but simply that I recognize my own accountability in making the decision and in any consequences that may ensue. I think one of the biggest problems in our country is people that refuse to take resopnsibility. Whether it is as an active in the chapter with those sisters that just won't live up to their duties or to the requirements of membership, or in "real life" with people that are always looking for someone else to blame when things don't go the way they planned.

it's all fine and good to make a reference to my situation, but i felt like you were like, "huh? huh?!? HUH?!?!?!?" ya know? it's uber sensitive....my apologies for the attack, but yikes. :eek:



the truth about this is, you only miss the ones you know about. i don't crave the attention of ppl half across the globe b/c i don't know them. but i knew about this baby.....and b/c its presence and life was known to me, and then taken from me, all in the same day...makes me want to fight abortion that much more. whether myself or other women in my family have had spontaneous miscarriages doesn't matter to me b/c i didn't know. it's natural, it happens, no outside forces, it's just nature. does that make sense? it doesn't make it less important, but it's when you know, and it's when the loss was intentional that hurts and was wrong.

i just wanted to quote this b/c you quoted spider man....LOL......glad to know i misunderstood, my bad. i understand now what you're saying.....we're just different thinkers....all makes the world go 'round.

mon- i definately see your side of the point... and it is a very difficult thing to go through... a few friends of mine have gone though it- and it is true that it doesn't have to happen... but it does- and women do have to make that decision... it isn't a good one.... i think taking responsibility before hand is a valid point... but unnecessary... you can't go back and change what happend... so now they has to deal with it....

as someone brought up in another post about the instances of unsafe abortions occuring all over the world today- and so many of them in the united states before roe. v. wade... i just want women to be able to have the option for a safe procedure... thats all.... :(

Of course. Perhaps there is one thing we could agree on. I won't assume, because some people still wouldn't agree with this, but I truly believe that if we could make sure that all women and men were knowledgeable about contraceptives, had access to them, and were scared enough to use them, we would all be comforted knowing that we were reducing the need/desire for abortions. Many European countries have good access to contraceptives and comprehensive programs that educate young men and women on the use of them and what has been found in study after study is that they have less unintended pregnancies, less abortions AND, as an added bonus, and contrary to what may seem intuitive, the average teen in those European countries wait LONGER before they have their first sexual encounter than the average American teen. I think those are all things to celebrate, and I wish we could see that happen here in America.

New question (and another SLIGHT hijack) for the 'womens right to choose' stance: Are pro-lifers mysoginist or anti-feminist on ANY level?

I think some are. I read a biography of Randall Terry (the founder of Operation Rescue) and even though it wasn't written with a feminist viewpoint at all, it still made him look like quite the misogynist. It could seem that way just because so many of them are hard-line Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, and believe that the Bible demands that women be submissive.

It's been my experience as well that some of these men are white supremacists, and are fighting for the lives of white babies. But that's neither here nor there.

I'm not sure I would go so far as to characterize it that way. Certainly not for the group as a whole. Undoubtedly so for some of the most extremist in the population. But, much can be said about extremist on any side of any issue.

However, it does make me suspicious that (what I see, which may not necessarily reflect reality, is that) most pro-lifers focus more on making abortion illegal or condemning abortion, with their time, money, etc. I quite sincerely believe that the time and money pro-lifers spend on preventing abortions (and the time and money pro-choicers spend trying to defend abortion) would be better spent on preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place. It is obvious, both intuitively and through evidence, that preventing unwanted pregnancies reduces abortions. If that's the goal of pro-lifers, they could probably do just as much good that way as through fighting abortion itself. Nevertheless, these particular ones to which I am referring, seem to be purposely not achieving their goal in the most effective way possible. Why would they want to do that?