August 9, 2019

"One of her abortions was 'this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold... It was sort of a revelatory, peak moment...'"

"... or peak experience, of life. That’s what an abortion can be if it’s well supported.'"

From "New Madison group offers 'abortion doulas,' supports pregnancy options" (Wisconsin State Journal).
The group — known as Pregnancy Options Wisconsin: Education, Resources and Support, or POWERS — includes a dozen doctors, nurses, midwives, activists and doulas, which are best known for providing emotional and physical comfort during births....

“We have no agenda. It is just what that person calling needs it to be,” [nurse midwife Ingrid] Andersson said. “Personally, what almost all of us do for a living is more birth-related, whether it’s doula, midwifery or doctor work.”

108 comments:

Birkel said...

It's fun to join a death cult.

Fen said...

Their body is not a shame. Their body is not a problem. The problem is our government and culture, that makes some health care hard to access for some people.

It's not THEIR body getting sliced up and vacuummed out.

DEEBEE said...

‘Birth-related” and the shooters in ElPaso and Ohio we’re engaged in “life-related” activities

alanc709 said...

"They have no agenda"? How does any serious person makes such an outrageously self-serving statement with a straight face?

Fen said...

I should start a similar service for death row inmates.

Don't be ashamed of your murder, it was self-expression, artistic even. Why should taking a few lives bring you down? Your peace of mind is more important than those people. In a few years I'll be forgotten, so let's focus on the one that really matters, you.

Maybe we can make it a hate crime to recoil from those poor souls who have committed murder. They're just misunderstood.

rhhardin said...

Probably not unusual. Medical staff is medical staff. Vets tell you that [your breed here] is their favorite breed.

Ann Althouse said...

"Bennett said the center uses an “unbiased” decision guide that allows a pregnant woman to “take those thoughts that are spinning in her head, put them down on paper and prioritize the things that are most important to her.”"

The doulas work with the woman whichever choice she makes. They support women who go through childbirth. It's not pro-abortion OR pro-life, so why isn't this a good option?

JML said...

One of her abortions...what, she doesn't figure out what causes pregnancy? It was liberating? "Don't worry about knocking up a girl, son, she just has to have an abortion to be liberated! You'd be doing her a favor to give her that feeling."

What does it take to become a serial abortionist...to yourself?

Fernandinande said...

One of her abortions was 'this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold

It sounds like she might enjoy indulging herself in a mass abortion of quadruplets.

JAORE said...

"the center uses an “unbiased” decision guide that allows a pregnant woman to “take those thoughts that are spinning in her head, put them down on paper and prioritize the things that are most important to her.”"

It might be interesting to see what percentage of the "unbiased" priorities result in an abortion.

Whenever I read about a non-partisan group my Spider sense tingles more than Chris Mathew's thigh.

Birches said...

Thoughts in one's head always end with, you weren't planning on this, so take care of it now. That's how these things go. You'll only end up with a baby if you feel strongly about it.

But I actually don't have a problem with a support person for an abortion. At least they're acknowledging it's a big deal, not just like getting a mole removed.

Owen said...

I wish I were a woman of childbearing age. I would try to get pregnant so I could go through this experience. It would be like climbing Everest or learning Chinese —activities to enhance my existence, my sense of place in the Me-Centric Universe; milestone events I put on bucket list. And I do mean “bucket list.”

Anonymous said...

AA: The doulas work with the woman whichever choice she makes. They support women who go through childbirth. It's not pro-abortion OR pro-life, so why isn't this a good option?

You're putting us on, right? You aren't *really* clueless as to why someone who thinks abortion is a profound moral wrong would think that this is not "a good option".

I'm aware that the world is full of progs who are incapable of getting outside their own moral assumptions (e.g. here, that "choice" is a *the* rock-bottom moral/legal universal value), and therefore understanding the other guy's.

Birches said...

That hippy woman with the 17 year old is nuts. I can have an abortion in a house. I can have an abortion with a mouse. I can have one here or there. I can have one everywhere!

rehajm said...

Sounds like we could all use a couple

Jeff Brokaw said...

It’s just a choice, like what to have for lunch.

Ralph L said...

Come on, Eileen, doula doula dead.

Bob Boyd said...

Doula comes from the Greek word for female slave.

Jersey Fled said...

Wonder if a member of the KKK felt a similar sense of liberation after lynching a black man.

Ann Althouse said...

"You're putting us on, right? You aren't *really* clueless as to why someone who thinks abortion is a profound moral wrong would think that this is not "a good option"."

If you think abortion is a profound moral wrong, you obviously wouldn't use this service. You would get on with the pregnancy and make the best of it, whether you chose it or not.

This is a service for women who do not have that moral commitment, but who are making a decision about whether or not to have a child. The service is helping the woman decide which way to go, and these are professionals who help pregnant women through childbirth, so they are not about discouraging continuing pregnancy, but helping women think through what they are doing and ideas about whether it's wrong to destroy the unborn would come up in counseling. A woman might express a fear that she will regret destroying a life and struggle with the morality. I assume that these advisers work with the woman and her understanding of the meaning of life, which is what therapists do.

Fen said...

"One of her abortions was 'this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold"

Did you happen to also consume the soul of your baby while you murdered it? That may explain your "reinvigoration". Like a vampire or lich.

Bob Boyd said...

Some doulas use a dealy mabob.

Ralph L said...

why isn't this a good option?

It dangles the quick and easy way out--for the party of the first partier.

Howard said...

You people love your abortion snuff films playing inside your heads.

Fen said...

"A woman might express a fear that she will regret destroying a life and struggle with the morality. I assume that these advisers work with the woman and her understanding of the meaning of life, which is what therapists do."

Sounds like they are going to walk her through excusing and justifying murder before the fact. I can understand seeing a priest or psychiatrist AFTER the act, to help those who.are burdened by what they have done. But this is something different.

"Hey Doc, I'm having reservations about shooting up my school. Could you help me go through with it?"

Ralph L said...

so they are not about discouraging continuing pregnancy

Assumes facts not in evidence. Quick single cash transaction > filing insurance claims for multiple visits & procedures. I wouldn't go there to have my baby no matter how many doulas & midwives they have.

Fen said...

Howard: "You people love your abortion snuff films playing inside your heads."

Gross. Please keep your Veal Fetish to yourself, sicko.

cacimbo said...

I am pro-choice and agree that counseling for those seeking abortions is a good idea.That one of the abortion counselors is someone who felt her own abortion was a "peak moment" in her life is troubling.

Fen said...

"Hey Doc, I'm having reservations about shooting up my school. Could you help me go through with it?"

How is this any different?

Fernandinande said...

Wiki:
++
The term doula was first used in a 1969 anthropological study conducted by Dana Raphael, a protégée of Margaret Mead, with whom she cofounded the Human Lactation Center in Westport, Conn. in the 1970s.[9] Raphael suggested it was a widespread practice that a female of the same species be part of childbirth [she must've been referring to the social insects], and in human societies this was traditionally a role occupied by a family member or friend whose presence contributed to successful long-term breastfeeding.[9] Raphael derived the term from modern Greek (δούλα, doúla (pron. /ˈðula/), "servant-woman"), as told to her by an elderly Greek woman,[10] Eleni Rassias.[11] Raphael also described it as coming from "Aristotle's time", an Ancient Greek word δούλη meaning "female slave".
++

Gahrie said...

I hear Hallmark is designing a series of "Hooray! You had an abortion!" cards.

Gahrie said...

It's not pro-abortion OR pro-life, so why isn't this a good option?

Because abortion is homicide.

Crimso said...

"The service is helping the woman decide which way to go, and these are professionals who help pregnant women through childbirth, so they are not about discouraging continuing pregnancy"

How do you know that? Because they say so? That "Happy Days" episode where Fonzie is dating a stripper, but he doesn't know she's a stripper; the guys find out and try to tell him. He says she's a virgin. They say she's lying. Fonzie says "Virgins don't lie."

You most certainly can have as your primary function the delivery of babies, and start an organization on the side (for "reproductive justice," mind you) that subtly pushes for abortions. Or perhaps they are in fact what you think they are. Maybe O'Keefe will someday shed some light on this, although it's fair to wonder whether he would release the vids if it turns out this group are as loving and impartial as you think they are.

Personally, I'm like House: I assume everyone is lying.

Gahrie said...

You people love your abortion snuff films playing inside your heads.

There would be far fewer abortions in this country if the MSM allowed the display of the true images of abortion and its victims.

Fen said...

I'm so old I remember when the Left wanted to take away my self-defense rights in order to save lives. Like it was yesterday.

How do they shift gears like this? Maybe that's why they're nuts


Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Koot Katmandu said...

These people are nuts.

J. Farmer said...

I am ultimately ambivalent on the abortion issue but lean more pro-life than pro-choice, though I would be fine with some compromise in which abortion were permitted at an early stage but strictly prohibited thereafter. However, when I read people say things like, "this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold... It was sort of a revelatory, peak moment...or peak experience, of life," it really turns my stomach.

Crimso said...

"You people"

That's pretty racist.

Wince said...

"One of her abortions was 'this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold... It was sort of a revelatory, peak moment..."

Ten yard penalty: Spiking the Foetus.

Fernandinande said...

How is this any different?

Well, the service under discussion is a service for women who do not have a moral commitment, but who are making a decision about whether or not to have a child, and people who do not have a moral commitment to some strangers and who are making a decision about whether or not to kill those strangers don't get such a service.

Otto said...

Note the sincerity of Ann's words. That comes from a women who I think had such thoughts early in her failed marriage. It was not easy going to law school and being a new mother.
I think she is feeling sorry for herself.

Fernandinande said...

who do not have a moral commitment to some strangers

Let's change "strangers" to "noisy obnoxious neighbors", then both are instances of killing people because they are inconvenient to you.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...The doulas work with the woman whichever choice she makes. They support women who go through childbirth. It's not pro-abortion OR pro-life, so why isn't this a good option?

That's exactly what the many "pregnancy crisis centers" say they do. You think they're good options, too, right?

My name goes here. said...

"The doulas work with the woman whichever choice she makes. They support women who go through childbirth. It's not pro-abortion OR pro-life, so why isn't this a good option?"

You can choose to free the slaves or you can choose to keep the slaves. I will support you whichever choice you make. So why isn't this a good option?

You can choose this food or this poison. I will support whichever choice you decide to eat. So why isn't this a good option?

You can support the political regime closest to Jerusalem that stones homosexuals to death or you can support the political regime closest to Jerusalem that has Gay Pride Parades. I will support whichever choice you make. So why isn't this a good option?

Tom T. said...

It's unfortunately the peak experience of life for the fetus involved, who doesn't get to have any others.

Otto said...

Morality is a word game with atheists.

Biotrekker said...

I am for reproductive rights, but these are profoundly creepy thoughts:

One of her abortions was 'this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold... It was sort of a revelatory, peak moment...'"

That's now what abortion is, and why does she seem incapable of using birth control - she's had how many abortions?

Bob Boyd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
stever said...

The birth of a child is a profound experience, as my wife has told me and I experienced as a father. Keeps rough in those teen aged years.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Safe, legal and rare? Nah bro: safe, legal, and a revelatory, profound, ecstatic awakening.

The prophets had to wander in the desert and our Lord had to sweat blood in Gethsemane for that kind of experience, but turns out women can have it just by getting an abortion. I'm envious!

RigelDog said...

Cacimbo said: I am pro-choice and agree that counseling for those seeking abortions is a good idea.That one of the abortion counselors is someone who felt her own abortion was a "peak moment" in her life is troubling."

That's close to where I come down on this issue. I'm pro-choice, limited pro-choice, regarding where our criminal laws need to be in a pluralistic society that respects individual autonomy. But the idea that extinguishing a nascent life is anything other than a solemn occasion, at best...it's just wrong. Yesterday as I walked my dog on the edge of the woods I noticed that recent rain had brought out a lot of earthworms that were now baking on the street in the hot sun. I'd accidentally stepped on one, and felt sorry. Seems like one should feel something more along those lines upon aborting even an embryo. Not a celebration.

Anonymous said...

AA: If you think abortion is a profound moral wrong, you obviously wouldn't use this service.

You did say "good option", not "good option for women who don't think abortion is a profound moral wrong". And stated that it could not be objectionable, on the grounds that it was all about the client's choice - implying that "choice" was the fundamental moral issue here that everybody agreed (or should agree) on.

Thus my comment. If I misread your original comment, then I'm relieved to see that my inference was wrong.

mccullough said...

Sounds like just a new revenue stream for the doula industry.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Story idea: a man and a woman drunkenly "hook up" (thanks to Tinder or some trendy dating app, sexy hook for urban youth) and she gets pregnant. She contacts him and tells him she 100% intends to keep it and he's going to have to support them both. He's very unhappy, was just starting his trendy career, thinks this will ruin his life, whines and complains endlessly about the destruction of his preferred future, etc.
Boom--the woman's fetus is killed in some tragic way (she was hit by a Republican-driven truck in the bike lane, she was wounded in a mass shooting perpetrated by an NRA supporter, whatever). She lives, her baby dies. Sad. Or is it?
The guy then talks about the incredible relief he feels, the profound emotions of joy and transcendence, the power that "getting his life back" in that one moment has on his outlook and the rest of his life.

Now. Would nice centrist people like Professor Althouse enjoy that story and feel warmly towards that man?

Sebastian said...

"peak experience, of life. That’s what an abortion can be"

Peak for thee but not for me, croaks the baby as it's getting crushed and ripped out.

Anyway, the story nicely illustrates the Althouse justification for a constitutional right to abortion: women should have the private, individual, autonomous right to deliberate morally about the morality of abortion--and lo, some hit on the moral insight that it is liberating.

exhistoryprof said...

I suggest the term "ghoulas" rather than doulas

Ralph L said...

Doula, ghoula, what's the difference?

mtrobertslaw said...

Andersson's belief that abortion can create "this profound sense of liberation"and "a profound sense" one's "life has come back tenfold" will keep her from passing a background check. And that's a good thing.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...The service is helping the woman decide which way to go, and these are professionals who help pregnant women through childbirth, so they are not about discouraging continuing pregnancy, but helping women think through what they are doing and ideas about whether it's wrong to destroy the unborn would come up in counseling

Right, and again, that's exactly what the many hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers/pregnancy resource centers say they do. Nice centrist people are typically persuaded by the Media that those places may say they're neutral and just try to support women and present them with facts and options but in fact they have an agenda and their beliefs influence the women who come to them for help.
In those cases nice centrist people don't take the claims of the people running the centers at face value. Do you take the claims of the people running this center at face value? If so that seems like something other than cruel neutrality.

Ralph L said...

Too late again.

narayanan said...

from POWERS website

POWERS Community Doulas network is an unlisted group of full-spectrum and abortion doulas who live near and around the state.

Abortion doulas can be difficult to find in Wisconsin. When you google doulas in your area, look for full-spectrum doulas -- they offer abortion, as well as birth, support. You can also contact birth doulas -- some offer abortion support but do not advertise this specifically.

SGT Ted said...

When women are splooge stooges, they get a choice to decide they will get their life back.

SGT Ted said...

It's the self serving selfishness of women posing as civil rights that gets me.

Jupiter said...

HoodlumDoodlum said...
"Boom--the woman's fetus is killed in some tragic way (she was hit by a Republican-driven truck in the bike lane, she was wounded in a mass shooting perpetrated by an NRA supporter, whatever). She lives, her baby dies. Sad. Or is it?"

If you really want to make a good analogy, he should hire someone to rip her arms and legs off and sell her parts on the internet. Someone from the helping professions.

Bob Boyd said...

I think some doulas will attend the loss of your virginity as well nowadays. They're branching out.

Temujin said...

The problem is our government and culture, that makes some health care hard to access for some people.”

In the US there were approximately 840,000 abortions in 2017. That number is actually going down, but it hardly seems like there's a lack of availability. While there may be some people in some areas who don't know where to go or what to do, the vast, vast majority of people seeking abortions seem to be able to do so.

If they are worried about access to health care, that's one thing. Access to killing babies seems just fine.

Did I state that indelicately?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Contrast the joyous highs nice centrist people like Professor Althouse accept some women experience when they "get their lives back" by having an abortion with the disgust those same nice centrist people express when men talk about wanting to avoid the burden of being responsible for a child. I remember the Professor spitting on men who dare to compare their concerns about their "mere money," by which we mean their very lives, being fundamentally redirected against their wishes in order to provide for a child they don't want to be responsible for.

When men express their disinclination to have their lives "ruined" by having to care for (provide for, etc) a child they don't want nice people like Professor Althouse treat that expression with scorn and disgust. When women express their near-religious joy and relief at having the burden of caring for a child, and having their lives "ruined" by having to bear that burden, nice people like Professor Althouse don't seem to treat that expression with disgust, do they? Weird asymmetry, there--doesn't seem like a cruelly neutral evaluation can be the cause.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Oh, by the way: the trump card for nice centrist people like Professor Althouse is always the woman's bodily autonomy--when discussing the morality of actions, etc, and the balancing of rights we always come back to that point, which is understandable.

But please note that what the excerpt discusses is not the joy from not having to undergo a temporary loss of bodily autonomy, but instead a joy at not having to have her life changed by being a parent. That's very close to the kind of desire nice centrist people like Professor Althouse categorically reject, as unworthy of consideration, when expressed by men who would prefer not to be responsible for raising children they father.

The sincere desire not to have his "life ruined" by being responsible for a child is given no weight by nice people like Professor Althouse. Whatever harm that may do to him is irrelevant--too bad, asshole! The same desire by a woman, when fulfilled via abortion, causes the immense joy that's celebrated here and that joy itself is an implicit argument for abortion (or at the very least for access abortion/abortion-friendly services, counseling, etc).

But hey, that's cruel neutrality for you--men's desires just matter less than women's, or something.

PM said...

Certainly the prospect of not having to spend the next 18 years raising a child is, for some, a 'liberating' experience. As for the unborn boy or girl, at least they're spared those 18 years of living with a mother who didn't want them in the first place.

Critter said...

"One of her abortions was 'this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold... It was sort of a revelatory, peak moment...'""

When I first saw the quote I thought it was from Charles Manson. At least it could have been.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

It's such a strange order. Per Justice Kennedy it's impermissible for the State to enforce any given definition of personhood (since to do so would violate an individual's liberty to "define [their] own concept of existence," but in almost every other case I can think of Kennedy and everyone else agrees that the State is allowed to enforce all kinds of beliefs and allow a given set of beliefs to undergird laws and regulations.

Who counts as a person? Well the State simply can't say. What counts as a "body of water" or "valid religious expression/worship" or any other thing? Hey the State not only has an answer but no one would ever dare say it's somehow WRONG for the State to make a determination--certainly Kennedy wouldn't. We don't have a problem with the State telling us exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and neither do we have a problem with the State making laws premised on deep philosophical beliefs, but in the one case of "when does a fetus become a person" we simply can't allow the State to express an opinion. Odd!

HoodlumDoodlum said...

How long until we get a similar article about trans-doulas and organizations that give counseling and medical assistance to children who want to change their gender? Who could object?!

HoodlumDoodlum said...

After some consideration I've decided it's sad. Warped people are sad.

If you want to treat people differently, cheer for some and jeer at others, even absent any consistent standard (while simultaneously insisting you have and apply such a standard) there's not really any chance of me changing your mind.

Celebrate people who think helping women give birth and helping women get an abortion are equally praiseworthy activities, sure.

Sad.

David Docetad said...

"But the idea that extinguishing a nascent life is anything other than a solemn occasion, at best...it's just wrong."

And that pretty sums up why abortion must be celebrated. If life is celebrated, an abortion is just a choice, then as sure as night follows day abortion must be celebrated. That is why
"safe, legal, and rare" was always a lie. The only reason for "rare" is if there is something wrong with having an abortion. The pro-choice side must make abortion a positive good, a celebration, and this indeed what we are seeing.

tim in vermont said...

“Profound sense of liberation!”

That’s what Claus von Bülow said too!

And every woman who ever got away with poisoning her husband.

El Supremo said...

"That’s what an abortion can be if it’s well supported.'"

That sound great. I want one. Life is so unfair. Maybe I can transsexualize and then get one of those abortions. Are there any available on Groupon? I'd like to buy a six pack of abortions. If it's really all that, why not do it regularly like a spa treatment or a pedicure?

El Supremo said...

Making women feel good about their choices, no matter what they are, is now a religion.

Men's choices are always bad even when they have no choice.

Today that is the biggest difference between the sexes: holy versus evil.

TestTube said...

People who encourage women to have abortions are icky weirdos. Older, infertile, women who encourage fertile women to have abortions are especially creepy.

The are worse than Ursula in "The Little Mermaid".

Ursula just stole the Little Mermaid's voice -- she didn't destroy it, put it beyond recovery for anyone to enjoy. And it was just a voice, a thing, a characteristic with no soul or consciousness of its own!

66 said...

Abortion ends a human life. That is a fact. Whether you call the life an embryo or a fetus or an unborn child, there is no denying that abortion ends a human life. There is also no question that the mother participates in the creation of the human life -- even in cases of rape, where participation was not voluntary, there was still participation by the mother in creating the life. The only question in every abortion is whether the mother's desire to end the human life that she helped create is greater than her willingness to allow the human life to continue to live. At bottom, it is a question of whether the mother's desire for death is greater than her willingness to tolerate life.

effinayright said...

But hey, that's cruel neutrality for you--men's desires just matter less than women's, or something.
*****************

Yeah, as I keep saying, all those guys buried at Normandy should have asserted the "right to control their own bodies" and avoided getting machine-gunned on the beaches.

M said...

Ann Althouse said -“The doulas work with the woman whichever choice she makes. They support women who go through childbirth. It's not pro-abortion OR pro-life, so why isn't this a good option?”

I wouldn’t take my children to a doctor who chose to participate in administering the drugs for a death penalty case even though I whole heartedly support the death penalty in cases where there is no shadow of a doubt.

I want my children’s doctor to be 100% on the side of LIFE. Always. What kind of mentally twisted woman would want the life of her unborn child in the hands of people who kill new life because they are an inconvience to the one carrying them?

Leland said...

Abortion is my least important issue as a voter. I understand both sides. I personally am against abortions and do believe that Planned Parenthood was established as a means to curve the population of minorities and the poor. Yet, I also understand that not all pregnancies are wanted or intended, and if men want to enjoy sex for pleasure, than they need to understand the risk woman face in wanting the same. So I see a middle ground and therefore agree with various state laws allowing abortions up to 20 weeks without significant restriction and then some restrictions for abortions after 20 weeks.

With that preamble, I think what this group is doing is appropriate (at least up to the first 20 weeks). They are providing counseling. And once a decision is made, the group supports whatever that decision is. At a time like this in a woman's life; I think she should have such support.

If you are truly prolife and see any abortion as murder; then I understand not agreeing with the group. But I do wonder if you restrict sex to procreation activities only. Note, I just came from the Jill Filipovic thread.

El Supremo said...

Let's say man doesn't want to have a child, but his woman is pregnant, so he gives her some kind of abortion drug without her consent. Can we talk about him similarly, support his choice, celebrate his liberation? Why not, I'm sure he feels all that same stuff, and has similar motivations.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

1. Abortion ends a life. How do we know? Because we have to perform violence on this thing to kill it. That's tells us it's alive.

2. The life that is ended is a human life. How do we know? Because if left alone, it will grow into a recognizable human being--and it does it pretty early early in the pregnancy. If you check the chromosomes, you will find it is human from the get-go.

It's a life and it's human.

The prophet Jeremiah had a word to say on this:

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee."

Darkisland said...

As someone else mentioned, it is always all about a woman's bodily autonomy. The people saying this don't give half a shit about a man's bodily autonomy. Unless the "man" is actually a woman.

And it is not even about a woman's bodily autonomy other than the right to have an abortion. They are all quite happy restricting a woman's bodily autonomy is many other ways. Just as they are a man's.

So bullshit on this bodily autonomy claim. We should all have it.

And the claim of a woman's bodily autonomy does not address the baby's bodily autonomy. Does that baby have the right to choose whether to live or die? I would say, under the bodily autonomy principal s/he absolutely does though probably not until reaching their majority.

Certainly nobody else has the right to make that decision for them.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Perhaps we need to look at this from the baby's viewpoint. There they are, fat dumb and happy, probably as good as it will ever get in their lives. They can look forward to being born, being told what to do forever, going to school, going to more expensive school, working 40 hours a week (if they are lucky) usually with at least a few assholes. Then they get old with all the aches and pains that brings and finally they die.

They might be thinking that the pair of scissors they see coming at their head, by cutting out all that middle stuff, looks incredibly liberating.

On the other hand, they might be lying there fat, dumb and happy, thinking how good they have it. Thinking "I'm with my mom. She loves me and is taking good care of me. Wait, what's that shiny thing? Looks like scissors. Hey Mom...Mom?... MOM!!!!!...Help me ple..."

Not much of a choice for him or her, is it?

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Forget where now but this morning I saw a cartoon supporting a woman's right to choose what method of self-defense they should rely on. Constext was what kind of gun they should carry.

I suspect that most gun stores have gun doula's, male and female, who can help them make the right choice.

John Henry

n.n said...

Ann Althouse said -“The doulas work with the woman whichever choice she makes. They support women who go through childbirth. It's not pro-abortion OR pro-life, so why isn't this a good option?”

Yes, they are Pro-Choice, two, perhaps three choices too late, which means pro-[elective] abortion. Pro-Choice is a quasi-religion established with a belief that women and men lack agency and are therefore poorly equipped to make a moral choice. It is a wicked solution, to an albeit hard problem. That said, the Pro-Choice quasi-religion, selective, opportunistic, is a universal "ethics", not limited to selective-child a.k.a. "planned parenthood".

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Darkisland said...

Another thought on the argument for women's bodily autonomy.

Many, most?, pro-abortion rights folks who use that argument say things like "It's a woman's personal choice and she can make it for any reason she chooses."

But, when you ask them if they are OK with sex selective abortions, especially if the woman wants to abort a girl baby because its a girly baby, they get all jittery and quiet. A lot of the folks who support abortion for any reason at all really mean "except sex selection" and that sends all their arguments crashing to the basement.

John Henry

n.n said...

Human from conception. A presumptive source of consciousness from around the 5th week. Pro-Choice/selective-child is a wicked solution that discriminates by age and development; denies a human right to life, a voice to protest (see deplatforming), and arms (see Second Amendment) to confront tyranny; and denies women's agency and capacity for moral choice and moderation.

n.n said...

The first choice is abstention. The second choice is prevention. The third choice is adoption. The fourth choice is personal responsibility exhibited by women and men with agency and moral character. The wicked choice is selective-child a.k.a. planned parenthood a.k.a. reproductive rites.

n.n said...

re: The first choice, second choice, third choice, etc.

Huh, it seems that I am pro-choice. That's one less straw-clown to box.

Comanche Voter said...

One of her (presumably multiple) abortions was "profoundly liberating". Yes, like she could continue to enjoys rolls in the hay with her boyfriend(s) without having to get up when she hears the baby cry. That's profound liberation (sarc).

Sarcasm aside my wife and I were in Los Altos California for a friend's wedding in June. Can't get more early Silicon Valley than Los Altos. At one intersection there was a Planned Parenthood building on one corner. There was a Women's Medical Center.
From the signage Planned Parenthood was pro-abortion, the Women's Medical Center was pro-life.
A young woman could simply choose her destination--but since they were not on the same block they didn't share a parking lot.

jeremyabrams said...

When a pregnant woman is carrying a male fetus, and the fetus develops a penis, whose penis is it?

Or, if I steal a gold coin from you, and cut open my leg and sew the coin up inside my thigh, whose coin is it?

Marcus Bressler said...

Abortion, in my view, is evil. So if you support it, you are evil. See how that works?
But it's your blog.

THEOLDMAN

etbass said...

Althouse, have you ever had an abortion?

traditionalguy said...

Killing human babies as a sacrifice to satan is as old of a thrill as is known to fallen man. But to do it right the attendants need to add loud worship music to accompany the death of the soul.

Fen said...

AA: If you think abortion is a profound moral wrong, you obviously wouldn't use this service.

"If you are unhappy with Auschwitz-Birkenau, just don't buy the lampshades", she waved.

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

creepy thoughts: "this profound sense of liberation, a profound sense of My life has come back tenfold... It was sort of a revelatory, peak moment..."

If you had an inspiring moment like this, wouldn't you try to repeat it?

I wonder if she will get pregnant again solely to have another abortion for the euphoric revelation

You think I'm being hyberbolic, but these people are sick. The whole Kavanaugh Gang Rape slander was cooked up in service to the Cult of Abortion. Someone willing to kill their own baby is capable of the most monstrous acts you can imagine.

JamesB.BKK said...

Heard in the yard: "I felt so liberated after stabbing my wife and mother in their necks and burning my children in the house. So liberated. It was a peak moment."

JackOfClubs said...

This make me sad. I am reminded of the scene in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire where Louis is exulting over his first human kill. I can't locate the exact quote but it is something like this one:
“His blood coursed through my veins sweeter than life itself. And as it did, Lestat's words made sense to me. I knew peace only when I killed and when I heard his heart in that terrible rhythm, I knew again what peace could be.”

Nichevo said...


etbass said...
Althouse, have you ever had an abortion?

8/9/19, 8:21 PM

N-word pleez, she won't even say who she voted for half the time. Which reminds me:

Althouse, who did you vote for in 2012 and 2016 for POTUS? I've been under the (mis?)apprehension that you said you went Romney in 2012. I have gathered that you voted HRC in 2016.

Please clarify.





Mike Petrik said...

Ann:
"If you think abortion is a profound moral wrong, you obviously wouldn't use this service. You would get on with the pregnancy and make the best of it, whether you chose it or not."

You might think so, but no, this isn't true at all. People do all kinds of things they think are wrong, even profoundly so. Selfishness, weakness and fear are part of the human condition. The legal and social infrastructures of a well-ordered society are designed to help its members overcome or avoid such things.

Jamie said...

On first reading, that a *doula* would support a woman in an abortion struck me as... obscene.

Then I thought about old roles. When we all lived in tribe- or clan-based groups, the woman or women who would help other women give birth might also know plants or methods that might end a pregnancy. That *might* end a pregnancy, always with significant risk to the pregnant woman. So in those days, the choice she had was between significant risks.

Now we live in a time and place in which pregnancy and abortion are both very safe. The only hazard left, in practical terms, is the moral one. No one seriously questions whether becoming a parent is a moral thing to do. (Ok, there are the loons who are foregoing parenthood to save the planet, but calling them "serious" to anyone but themselves strains my credulity.) So the only way to level the playing field is to render abortion similarly moral. It's not self-evident, since now we also KNOW exactly what violence it entails and what its victim looks like. It's a stretch. Abortion proponents work very hard to present it as a moral choice - as a choice that is just as morally defensible as going through a pregnancy and giving birth.

But they're bound to fail, because birth and abortion are obviously not the same, morally, and there's no way to make them the same. So other strategies must be deployed too: make it seem no more important than a nice high colonic, and - apparently - make it into a peak experience like a silent retreat in a convent or skydiving. Profoundly narcissistic attempts to gain absolution for something everyone knows is wrong, or at least less morally right than having the baby, even if they embrace it.

(I am cautiously and reluctantly limited-pro-choice, I guess: if my high school daughter got pregnant I would keep abortion on the table, which is why when the need appeared to arise, I took her to get contraception instead, putting it in starkest terms.)

n.n said...

Doula or death dealer. Doctors and nurses, too? Abortion and corruption. This is and other liberal causes is why The Hippocratic Oath was deprecated as politically and socially inconvenient.

Elective abortion is a wicked solution normalized through progressive policy.