Said Janice Goldwater, who heads an adoption agency, "Women denied abortion rarely choose adoption. That’s unlikely to change. Experts say there are powerful reasons why the 1 million-plus wait list to adopt a U.S. infant will not shrink much, despite the end of Roe v. Wade" (WaPo).
In a 2016 analysis as part of the five-year Turnaway Study... UCSF researchers... found that one week after being denied an abortion due to a late-term pregnancy just 14 percent of 171 study participants reported plans to place the baby for adoption or considered it as an option. Only nine percent of those who went on to give birth – 15 women — actually placed their newborns for adoption....
In interviews with researchers, Turnaway participants gave several reasons for deciding to parent, including finding relatives were more willing to help than they anticipated and the bond they felt with their infants after birth. Lastly, they said they would feel guilty if they chose adoption “either because they believed adoption was an abjuration of responsibility, or because they believed it meant they’d have no ongoing knowledge of their child,” the report summarized.
Those who chose adoption expressed strong satisfaction with their decisions, but follow-up interviews “revealed mixed emotions,” the report said. The 2016 analysis concluded: “Political promotion of adoption as an alternative to abortion is likely not grounded in the reality of women’s decision making.”...
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85 comments:
Tina Fey "Admission" (2013) is good on the subject.
It “ was an abjuration of responsibility, or because they believed it meant they’d have no ongoing knowledge of their child”. How is this different from the result of an abortion?
For some reason, the "Turnaway" study that is the foundation of this article never looked at how many of the adoptees would have preferred to have been aborted.
Seems like an oversight.
I think the Catholic Church teaches that you can't expect lay people to be heroes, even though they grow up (or they used to) with Lives of the Saints. Many of the "end of life" cases about turning off a machine have involved Catholic families, supported by priests. "We've done what is humanly possible, we can't be expected to do more."
So for modern women: they sign up for a certain amount of promiscuous sex/hooking up, in the somewhat optimistic belief that this is actually a better way to get a life partner than the traditional alternatives. Try before you buy. Or maybe you learn how to live without a life partner. They are game to practice birth control, and announce proudly that they are going to have few children, or none. "When You Love, Love Carefully" (possibly a contradiction in terms); "Don't Forget a Condom and Spermicide." Adoption might seem humane, but actually going through a pregnancy, and saying goodbye to an actual child, may be harder than having an abortion. It might be a kind of heroism that can't reasonably be expected.
the reality of women’s decision making
Channeling my inner rhhardin, unless we’re talking about Freeman Hunt, this phrase is wildly at odds with itself.
- Krumhorn
Lastly, they said they would feel guilty if they chose adoption “either because they believed adoption was an abjuration of responsibility, or because they believed it meant they’d have no ongoing knowledge of their child,:
makes sense!
If you choose to murder your child there as absolutely NO 'abjuration'; you are completely responsible
AND you know Exactly where your child is:
Cut up in pieces laying in a trash bucket (except for the valuable parts.. Those get sold)
The same could be said about abortion - many regrets and lasting pain after abortion. But it’s not permitted to study that as much as adoption. If the point of the article is to take research on issues with adoption and make the case that women prefer abortion, then that is simple propaganda.
The author also ignores the historical evidence going back to the dawn of history of extended families/tribes raising babies. So forms of adoption are not against human design but are consistent with the fundamental human need to create babies to advance survival of the species. If society advanced its consciousness to value life the research findings would indicate greater acceptance of adoption by women who are unprepared to raise a baby.
“Political promotion of adoption as an alternative to abortion is likely not grounded in the reality of women’s decision making.”...
Just like political promotion of keeping and raising the child as an alternative to abortion is likely not grounded in the reality of women's decision making.
Every single aspect of female biology is affected by reproduction. This involves visible sexual maturation of the breasts and buttocks, menstruation, and how young girls are drawn to baby dolls and caring for younger siblings. This shouldn't be news to anyone in the world.
Abortion became necessary/popular in response to the Sexual Revolution and "the pill" of the 1960s. Women's economic wellbeing is heavily determined by male (or government) providers, as those with young children need economic assistance. In contrast, Playboy Bunnies, female actors, and sex workers stand to lose their non-motherhood careers without easy abortions.
So, if the economic incentives promote abortions and free love women will get abortions. But if women are allowed to follow evolved, natural behavior they will produce and choose babies.
This should not be news to anyone on the planet. But I'm sure that Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Prince Andrew, and Bill Gates wanted easy abortions to facilitate their Playboy lifestyles. Their female partners stood by their men and supported abortion.
"It “ was an abjuration of responsibility, or because they believed it meant they’d have no ongoing knowledge of their child”. How is this different from the result of an abortion?"
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is. No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes.
People are asking about why this doesn't apply to abortion. But it seems pretty obvious; human beings are like that.Why did you give money to that guy on the street and not to the ones who sent you a letter?
Any time someone tells me what human bodies were designed to do, my Bullshit Alarm goes off.
In veterinary medicine we sometimes deal with pet owners presenting for euthanasia of pets for non medical reasons. Most if not all veterinarians will at least attempt to dissuade the owner by suggesting that we assist in rehoming the pet.
As a young vet I was shocked to learn that most owners in those scenarios refuse to even consider that alternative (sometimes even becoming angry at the suggestion, which leads to ethically dilemmas for those vets who refuse the client’s request because they’re likely to go elsewhere or surrender the pet to a shelter where it will be euthanized under less comforting conditions.)
It is preferable, apparently to end the animal’s life and rationalize that this was a necessity rather than live with the guilt they feel about their inability to provide for the pet’s needs. I can only assume that they are better able to suppress guilt over an animal that no longer lives and breathes than they would be able to if they knew that some other person or family might be able to do what they did not have the capacity to do. With a dead pet they are free to keep in their imagination the narrative where there was no other good option, that no one could provide what they were unable to give.
"If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce.... You have to override what your body is saying..."
And yet I will guarantee that there is, or soon will be, another article in the WaPo that claims 'overrid[ing} what your body is saying' is a perfectly normal response to thinking you have the wrong reproductive organs.
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is. No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes.
Good God, really?
By that way of thinking, any time we as parents have anxieties about the paths our children are taking, we should prefer that they lie in a grave so that we no longer have to worry?
Interesting. Thoughtful comments, too.
Do men go through the same process? If he expects an abortion, but the woman decides to keep the baby (much to her surprise, as well, possibly), will he feel responsible? Will the same questions determine his involvement?
"With abortion you absolutely know where your child is. No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes."
So you can feel good about your decision to kill them?? They could have been President, or the doctor who cures cancer, but your (not you...in general) selfishness overtakes what the child COULD accomplish, if only given a chance.
Imagine learning somehow that your mother tried to arrange a 3rd trimester abortion but she was not able to get the abortion completed, for administrative reasons. You were born alive and healthy despite her intentions.
Not the best way to structure a mother-child relationship.
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is.
Holy shit, Althouse.
Consider the possibility that many women abort, and then discover the humanity of the child they aborted.
They know the baby is gone. But what about the question, did I kill my child? That question haunts a lot of people.
There are any number of women who abort, grieve from it, and become pro-life.
And there are an even larger percentage of women who abort, and resolve to never abort again. Why is that?
I think there's a lot of buried anger from people who have had abortions. Towards the man who abandoned them or coerced them (or both). And also a lot of unresolved guilt. It's far from a happy experience.
one week after being denied an abortion due to a late-term pregnancy just 14 percent of 171 study participants reported plans to place the baby for adoption or considered it as an option.
That's their standard? One week? One lousy week after a lifetime of not thinking about adoption and mere days after being denied the abortion that was obviously their go-to solution (because it was likely the only one on offer prior to the denial), they haven't actively planned for adoption?! So?
What conclusion could a responsible researcher draw from that?
"No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes."
Well what about wondering that he will be very happy and not be taken advantage of or having wonderful grandchildren and avoiding addictions. Maybe the person who finds the cure to cancer, or other good stuff? A loving and caring person perhaps. The bar for people approved to adopt is set pretty darn high so I'd think there's a better chance for a positive outcome.
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is.
The same justification can be used pretty much through the first 8 years or so of a child's life. Abortion is just easier because you don't have to see them during the act of termination, and well meaning people tell you it's not really bad.
For some reason, the "Turnaway" study that is the foundation of this article never looked at how many of the adoptees would have preferred to have been aborted.
I've got 6 special needs anecdotes that are pretty happy with the adoption option. I would bet that the rate of true "wish I'd never been born" among the more likely to have been aborted is not much higher than the less likely to have been aborted.
Life today is so much less brutal and miserable for almost anyone in a western nation, no matter how low on the ladder they are, than at any point in human history for even the top of the ladder, and yet people seemed to have thrived and found joy. To say that you are sparing someone from potential harm or misery is an appalling rationalization. The only salve you have is that they don't know what they missed, so there is no loss to them, but again, you can use that as rationalization to remove any undesired group of people. We can just slaughter the bottom 25% of the world's population every year to end their misery until all that is left are the very well off and we would not be worrying so much about the pain. We can then keep the level at 500 million or so; that should be sustainable. I think we should also cut the age off at about 30. After that is all down hill and miserable. Old age is just slow death with constant misery compared to life in your 20s.
It is a great complication: If women didn't get so attached to their babies after giving birth, "adoption not abortion" would be a solution. But they do. On the other hand, they don't get nearly as attached at three months or four months after conception. So complete termination of the pregnancy before birth is much easier emotionally than after birth terminating only the relationship to the product of conception. (Which has emotionally gone from a product of conception to "my baby".
No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes.
I note the use of the pronoun "he" when describing all the bad things an aborted baby could have done.
You could use the pronoun "she" and then describe all the bad things she could have done. What about the possibility that my baby grows up to a stripper? Now that fear is gone.
No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren
And since when are people scared of grandchildren? "Oh shit, grandchildren! I hate grandchildren!"
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is. No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes.
What about that concern that you might have that your baby might have been amazing?
Jesse Jackson's mom was going to abort her. And her priest talked her out of it.
Of course some people think Jackson is an awful person. But there are a lot of people who are glad he's alive.
I'm happy that he's alive.
Any number of fine people have been aborted. That female president? Aborted. That man who discovered a cure for cancer? Aborted. That banker, that teacher, that policeman. Aborted, aborted, and aborted.
Why simply assume that every baby who was aborted would have been a crackhead?
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is. No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes.
I can see that.
I used to think I could easily have an abortion of an unwanted pregnancy.
After I had children, though, I realized I would have thought about the baby I'd killed every time I looked at my children's faces. Would I really ever have been able to feel comfortable about the fate of my children, if I knew *I* had chosen to kill their sibling for my own selfish reasons? Could I have seen a sibling of theirs as just disposable- and what would I have been telling fate about my children who sat in front of me? It just went against everything I felt as a parent. I don't think I was born to be the person who knew where the aborted baby was and felt at ease with it.
I am so glad I never did it, never had to live with it.
I am going to say some of you are misinterpreting Althouse's meaning here. She isn't saying this is a rational way of thinking, only that it is how a lot of humans will think. And with that intent, I would agree with.
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is. No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes.
So, does that not apply to toddlers, teens? I recall being concerned about our children's possible difficulties and life path choices well after birth (30 years+ for one of them).
Seems like there could have been a convenient solution that never crossed my mind...
I grew up in a family blended with both adopted and biological kids. The adopted kids were my cousins. Both my mother and my father had sisters die and leave children behind. Rather than have them raised by stepfathers who were less than enthusiastic, they came to live with us. Because that's what families do or at least used to do. It's not that adoption isn't a completely natural human behavior. Mothers killing their own children is what isn't natural- unless you're a rodent. Anyone who can't see abortion in a larger picture of killing the family is being deliberately blind.
Yes, let's normalize elective abortion, the wicked solution, to keep women and men, girls and boys, affordable, available, taxable, and leveraged in a sequestered model of responsibility. Damn the collateral damage. Forward!
The fruits of social progress, negotiable human commodities, a not so novel religion, where women and men follow by choice, Choice, and force.
"No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes"
If you get an abortion you become like Joe Biden with Hunter.
Piling on, I know, but --
"they believed adoption was an abjuration of responsibility"
Abortion, by contrast, is taking responsibility. Responsibility for one's lack of responsibility in having sex.
Althouse: "With abortion you absolutely know where your child is."
And where is that exactly? And we are talking about a "child," correct?
"No wondering whether"
So much easier!
Women doing morality, Althouse-style.
It is a great complication: If women didn't get so attached to their babies after giving birth, "adoption not abortion" would be a solution. But they do. On the other hand, they don't get nearly as attached at three months or four months after conception.
My wife had 3 miscarriages. 2 at the one month point that seemed like especially bloody periods, and one at the 4 month point.
Can't convince me that women can't get nearly as attached at the 3 or 4 month point along to the developing baby, especially if they're looking forward to having it. The psychological trauma of losing what would have been #6 also affected our daughter who was eagerly awaiting a younger brother or more hopefully sister.
Adoption: Let go and let G*d.
Abortion: the white noise of choice.
Actually, Any painful laborious process will make you want to keep what came out of it.
If i work HARD rebuilding an motorcycle (with many split knuckles, and Much sweat)..
I become very fond of that bike. i CARE more about that bike, because how much WORK i put into it
(Work==Labor.. Get it?)
I did NOT want to refer to the sunk cost fallacy; so i found This instead.
Escalation of commitment
"If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce.... You have to override what your body is saying..."
This comes awfully close to recognizing that women's bodies might "say" different things to the person than a male body would. If you fly to close to biology you might be burned by the knowledge that some things are wired into the system. Also it is fascinating how we can examine certain choices and follow up those women but those who choose abortion are off limits to examination of their feelings lest we learn too much.
I used to think I could easily have an abortion of an unwanted pregnancy.“
Not me. I never for a moment thought I could abort one of my babies. Yet I’m against forced pregnancy and birth.
CStanley at 8:00, what an interesting comment...
This question always seems to be presented in terms of crackhead versus researcher who cures cancer. As those who have children know, it is possible to have completely normal children, with a normal balance of good and bad, and still know that your life is inestimably better because they exist.
"If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce.... You have to override what your body is saying..."
"... in order to make an adoption plan, and it takes a human being with a certain capacity to be able to do that."
Having an abortion is also an override of what your body is trying to do. And it takes a human being with a certain capacity to be able to do that as well. As a species, our bodies are there to reproduce. Which is why, though I am thoroughly fine with people preferring the same sex, I note that it's not the natural way of humans. What is natural for any species is that which reproduces that species. If we were a majority gay species, we would not be for long.
Then there's this: "Only nine percent of those who went on to give birth – 15 women — actually placed their newborns for adoption...."
That's 15 people now living, who might not have been around had the mothers chosen to abort them. 15 lives. Such a callous way to talk about lives. Had there been 15 people shot in a school shooting, these same people would be beside themselves asking "Why? Why can't we stop this madness?" 15 adopted, who's lives might have been saved by being adopted is not nothing. I don't care if it's 15 out of 1000 or 15 out of 171.
So you can feel good about your decision to kill them?? They could have been President, or the doctor who cures cancer, but your (not you...in general) selfishness overtakes what the child COULD accomplish, if only given a chance.
Steve Jobs was adopted rather than aborted. The idea that more births are a net drag on society is one that should be discarded. The one-in-a-million geniuses more than make up for any negative contributions of others.
But the real reason that Dobbs won't make much difference is that there will be nearly as many abortions as before. Most states will keep abortion legal, some up to nine months of gestation, and people will travel to those states that allow it.
Hear, Hear!! Temujin!!!
C Stanley, I had the same reaction. Good God!
I’m against forced pregnancy and birth.
Is that what the "Handmaidens Tale" is all about?
Lefties sure do live in an interesting universe of their own delusions.
MayBee said...I used to think I could easily have an abortion of an unwanted pregnancy.
After I had children, though, I realized I would have thought about the baby I'd killed every time I looked at my children's faces.
I hadn't thought about it from this angle before, but I had a similar experience. When I was young I wanted lots of children, but it took me a long time to get my life together enough to be a father. Because I always dated in my age bracket, as I got older, my imagined family got smaller and smaller, until I hit 40 and started to make peace with the idea that it would never happen. Then I met the woman I would marry and she got pregnant about 18 months later--quick enough that we might be able to have 2 or even 3 kids before she ages out. Then she got cancer. Not fatal, but the treatments left her unable to get pregnant--any hope of siblings for our daughter disappeared.
Making peace with not having a 2nd child was much harder than making peace with not having any. Because when when it was no kids, the children I wouldn't be having were theoretical. But once we had a child, those additional children had faces, they had habits, experiences, loves, hates, joys, sorrows. I had a much more concrete sense of what I was missing out on. They may not have existed yet, but they were already people. The children I'll never have.
"If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce.... You have to override what your body is saying..."
That’s the trans way, eh?
No surprise that the Post is bad-mouthing adoption. They are PRO-ABORTION through and through. To them, abortion is a good.
"If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce.... You have to override what your body is saying..."
"... in order to make an adoption plan"
If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce. You have to override what your body is saying in order to abort your child or demand that the person you impregnated get rid of it.
The attitude that someone is better off dead than having a different kind of life than with their birth parent seems very similar to Stalin's or Mao's rationalization for mass starvation and other brutal dictators attitude to horrific mass murders.
Better dead than to abandon communism. Better dead than to let people immigrate.
Which goes to show that Stalin and Mao really aren't all that unique, they just had the power to extrovert their rationalizations about self-importance to an entire nation.
@Jamie
“This question always seems to be presented in terms of crackhead versus researcher who cures cancer.”
That has been my experience as well — except it’s in the answer. Every pro-choice person I’ve polled invariably takes the crackhead position. It’s really curious, because most are avowedly leftist and staunch anti-racists. When I ask, “did you know that roughly 80% of all abortions in this country are performed on black women?” their response — to a person — is that it doesn’t bother them at all. “No, the aborted baby is better off because it would have had a terrible life — it would have been born by a drug-addicted (or otherwise miserable) poor black woman.” My follow-up question is, “does that not sound racist and elitist to you?” At that point, they choose to end the discussion.
Once I made the mistake of bringing up the pain the baby feels during the abortion, especially in the second and third trimesters. Whew! Rage, and I do mean rage, followed by a barrage of emails linking to medical journal articles (that argue the baby has zero nerve endings in the first and 2nd trimester). The absence of anesthesia is really a hot button for some — the ones who had one. But I did not know this when I asked the question — otherwise I’d have NEVER raised it.
It’s all so sad and gut-wrenching, because these women had abortions decades ago, when doctors told them it was “just a clump of cells.” I can’t imagine how they feel now, as medical technology continues to improve and prove it is decidedly not just a clump of cells. See video below to see pictures ranging from the moment of conception to eight weeks and on.
https://youtu.be/N2e02QdzJgg?t=37
“Is that what the "Handmaidens Tale" is all about?
Lefties sure do live in an interesting universe of their own delusions.”
—————————————————————————-
If it becomes illegal for a woman to cross state lines to get an abortion, it would amount to a forced pregnancy and birth.
——————————————————————————
Republicans block bill to protect women who travel to other states for abortions
“The eight-page bill would make it unlawful for a person or a government official to prevent or punish traveling across state lines "to receive or provide reproductive health care that is legal in that State." It also would bar states from imposing laws that prohibit women from traveling to other states to get abortions.
Cortez Masto said in a statement, “Anti-choice state legislators in Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas have said they want to pass bills to fine or prosecute women who travel for health care."
The House is poised to vote Friday on a similar bill, sponsored by Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, that would protect interstate travel for women seeking abortions where they are legal. The measure is expected to pass, but its prospects are uncertain in the Senate, where at least 10 Republican votes would be needed to defeat a filibuster.”
I think the Catholic Church teaches that you can't expect lay people to be heroes, even though they grow up (or they used to) with Lives of the Saints
You think wrong.
(Where do people come up with this stuff?)
"Adoption might seem humane, but actually going through a pregnancy, and saying goodbye to an actual child, may be harder than having an abortion."
Raising a child might seem humane, but actually going through 18 years of child rearing and having to say goodbye to the child as they become an adult may be harder than an abortion. No one can expect normal people to be that heroic.
I had a number of friends growing up who had been adopted. Two were identical twins. They had very successful lives. It must have been some sort of mistake.
"With abortion you absolutely know where your child is. No wondering whether he's happy or getting hurt or taken advantage of. No concern about whether there will be any grandchildren, whether he's running into addiction problems or committing crimes."
I, orphaned within weeks of birth, could say the same about parents. Perhaps the solution for so many children is to put down deadbeat parents. No wondering why they don't love you, or why they don't come around. Do they have another family with children they dote over? If daddy is in a hole at the cemetery, what are the odds of the child turning out bad compared to daddy just never being known? What about mom? I know a mother who abandoned her 14 yr old while living right next door. The child at grandma's with is father, she living, and caring for the younger son, right across the driveway with her new husband. Far better for the child if she had died. Still waiting to see if she abandons the youngest when he reaches 14, but at least it won't be just across the yard.
Sex comes with adult consequences, i.e., none are good and just have to be lived with. Some seem to argue abortion is the one choice that will bring the least regret to the woman. Or at least, the easiest to callous over.
"With abortion you absolutely know where your child is."
In the arraignment for the Ohio child rapist the judge asked the prosecutor about the whereabouts of the "products of conception" post abortion and was told that they were in the state's possession.
I think it's most likely that unless the ladies are putting the "products of conception" on the mantle in a jar of formaldehyde you don't "absolutely know where your child is."
In fact he or she is probably scattered around in various labs if you had the abortion at PP.
At least that little Johnny or Janie got to travel a bit before hitting the cremator.
As for the study, consider the Hawthorne Effect -
"You tried to have your 24 week old baby aborted and failed. Will you share with our interviewer as to whether or not you now plan to give her away?"
Shame has a biasing effect. With some.
Six weeks to a heart... pump beat. Six weeks to the progression of a coherent nervous system. Barring Her Choice, six weeks to baby meets granny, in state, if not in process. The wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice, and should not be granted religious... secular sanction to aid and abet the performance of human rites for social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather causes.
A sanction and comfort, a sterile solution, a human rite, to deny women and men's dignity and agency. A faith too often placed in experts that precedes the fall, a genocide, a Spring, a world war.
If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce....
It’s almost as though our sex organs (and sex drive) are for reproduction or something!
This observation is almost as humorously asinine as the tweet I saw recently* (I think posted on Instapundit but not sure) about young women who were deciding not to have sex unless the guy would sign a contract saying he’d support them and the child that might result from their coupling.
LOL, you go girls! Now if only we could think of what to call those contractual arrangements….
* It’s possible this was parody, it’s so difficult to tell these days
With abortion you absolutely know where your child is.
I doubt that many people seeking abortions know that their child is thrown into an incinerator as medical waste or otherwise thrown in the trash as medical waste or sold to some lab for money.
Meanwhile, the abortion industry has strenuously opposed any and all attempts to require dignified disposition of the remains.
I’m against forced pregnancy and birth
But you are in favor of forced arguments.
Knew a young woman back in the day, Catholic, got pregnant and quietly moved away for nine months. At contractions, she checked into a Catholic hospital, as had been planned, and gave birth to a baby boy. The Catholic sisters gave the baby to a family who'd requested a child. 49 years later, finagling the internet, the birth mother reunited with her grown-up son who'd been raised in a good home in the same city. They met and became great friends. Not the way it always happens, but a fine, late-life reward for her sacrifice. Not a path for everyone, but was good for someone.
If it becomes illegal for a woman to cross state lines to get an abortion, it would amount to a forced pregnancy and birth.
I believe that the term for "forced pregnancy" is rape. That is rape of a woman by a man.
Crossing state lines to get an abortion will never be illegal. It is a scare tactic for the loonies.
young women who were deciding not to have sex unless the guy would sign a contract saying he’d support them and the child that might result from their coupling.
LOL, you go girls! Now if only we could think of what to call those contractual arrangements….
Hmm, a social and legal contract between a man and a woman. Let's call it a union, if you're civil, a marriage of equal in rights and complementary in Nature with a view to "our Posterity"... uh, a "burden" h/t the new millennium philosopher in chief.
How outrageous that the Republicans -- even the lib sisters -- would see through the Democrats gimmick strawman bills and refuse to play their silly game.
Leigh-
The % of abortions done to black babies is ~35%, not 80% as you state. Still, ~3X higher than the % of black women.
That's a lot of potential D voters that they have sacrificed.
The Ds love abortion so much that they willingly give up political power to have their sacramental sacrifices.
Pro-lifers persist even though the lives they are trying to save are statistically likely to vote in favor of more and easier abortion.
Also interesting: When Roe v. Wade was imposed, there were 3X more white babies aborted than black babies. Now the (absolute) numbers are roughly equal (despite black women = 13% of all women in US).
Ref: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/usa_abortion_by_race.html
49 years later, finagling the internet, the birth mother reunited with her grown-up son who'd been raised in a good home in the same city. They met and became great friends. Not the way it always happens, but a fine, late-life reward for her sacrifice. Not a path for everyone, but was good for someone.
We had a similar experience. My wife's sister, who died this spring, gave a baby up for adoption as a teenager. We didn't know about this until the son, now a successful TV producer, contacted my daughter. He found her on a DNA tree. After some thought, she agreed to put him in contact with his biological mother who was ill with a neurological disease. They had some nice conversations before she died.
The DNA testing is going to set up lots of these contacts.
Inga said...
I used to think I could easily have an abortion of an unwanted pregnancy.“
Not me. I never for a moment thought I could abort one of my babies. Yet I’m against forced pregnancy and birth.
Except in cases of rape- there's no such thing as a forced pregnancy. And most of us pro-lifers are willing to turn Nelson's Eye towards terminating a pregnancy by rape- especially in the immediate aftermath.
There's a better way to ensure you know where your children are, rather than kill them: Chastity.
Too simple, for many.
The price our society pays for trivializing sex and relationships is "unwanted pregnancy". You do the one, you get the other, sure as day follows night.
Similarly, you sexualize your children nearly from toddlerhood, you're going to get a lot of sexual abuse of said kids. If you emphasize sexual license, while not even bothering to teach sexual responsibility, you get what we have in today's society.
The raw fact is that abortion is ending a life. Arguing for that being somehow any different from murdering a helpless infant is morally degenerate and repugnant, because if you're going to argue that the child in the womb is different from the child in the arms, then the inevitable carry-out is that that child's life will similarly become equally easy to take.
Same slippery slope is demonstrated with euthanasia; if you read the accounts of what has become commonplace in Holland's old age homes, after the passage of supposed "humane" euthanasia laws, you would recognize the innate immorality of these ideas.
Thou are not God. Do not arrogate God's powers over life and death, for you do so at your peril.
The only real solution to dealing with "unwanted children" is not to give in to the urge for that which produces these situations, namely gratuitous sexual gratification. You won't die if you don't f*ck like a mindless animal, so if chose to partake in the gratification of the flesh, you'd best be prepared for the consequences. Saying that it's perfectly alright to kill the inconvenient product of your fleeting pleasure leads inevitably to the state of affairs we have now, where human life itself is not treated with due respect. If you can abort the same baby that someone other than the mother would be tried for murder or manslaughter if they killed that baby, simply at the whim of the mother? How is that moral? You're leaving the decision in the hands of a biased party whose decision-making capacity is already obviously and demonstrably compromised. If she's feckless enough to have sex outside of a contractually underlined relationship indicating planning and foresight for the child, how can she possibly be entrusted with the responsibility of making a decision to murder said child? She's irresponsible enough to get pregnant, and we're suddenly willing to give her the power to enact a death penalty on the product of said irresponsible action? That's like giving the keys back to a drunken driver, after they've gotten caught.
The whole thing is a cascading series of ridiculous extensions, all of which deny agency to the resultant child and offering up the power of life and death to the exact fool who created the situation in the first place.
The rule ought to be that if you don't want an "unplanned pregnancy", then don't open your damn legs in the first place. Making allowances for women's poor decisions is how we got most of the problems in our culture in the first place, and just because the silly twit put herself into that situation is no damn reason to countenance what amounts to murder. But, here we are, at the mercy of sociopaths of both the male and the female persuasion.
(cont.)
The thing that absolutely enrages me is the cynical bait-and-switch pulled on credulous males like myself, who bought entirely into the idea promulgated by the women we were raised and socialized by: We're supposed to protect the weak, always. We're conditioned to do the Birkenhead Drill, women and children first, while drowning ourselves. We're supposed to work ourselves to death in thankless dead-end jobs, to provide for the "weaker sex" and the kiddies, but... Those rules don't apply everywhere. We're also excoriated when we suffer the cognitive dissonance resulting from having undergone all that conditioning and cultural programming and then being confronted with the whole "Abortion is a human right" bullshit.
Sorry, ladies... You can't have it both ways: Either those helpless children still in the womb are people, too, and worthy of protection... Or, nobody is. You, particularly.
Hypocrisy has a price. You cannot effectively convince the decent men in a society that you're to be deferred to and protected, and then plump down demands to be allowed to murder the innocent byproduct of your inability to keep your knees together.
And, don't go crying the edge cases of rape or incest, either--Those are vanishingly rare, compared to the majority of abortions conducted under Roe v. Wade. That decision normalized abortion as contraception, nothing more, nothing less across the broad swathe of "ended pregnancies". You want consequence-free sex? There is no such thing, and the conceit that there is such a thing under current conditions is bullshit of the highest order. You spread your knees consensually, you're opening up more than your legs to the consequences of that act, and that goes just the same for your partner.
Older I get, the less patience I have for this bullshit. You take part in an act that could possibly create a life, you'd better have the willingness to live with the consequences. Period. And, that does not mean asking society to enable your "right to murder", which is all Roe v. Wade really did.
"In interviews with researchers, Turnaway participants gave several reasons for deciding to parent, including finding relatives were more willing to help than they anticipated and the bond they felt with their infants after birth."
So, in other words, they found out it wasn't "the end of the world" they initially thought it was when they got pregnant (assuming they didn't want to).
The initial decision to abort in many cases would seem to appear the result largely of *unfounded* fear and lack of hope and the availability of a supposedly "simple" solution of abortion.
It is difficult in an emotional situation to not lose hope, and to fear the worst, but there are known strategies to help children before they are in these situations. But promoting those strategies - which often have to do with hope and belief inherent in Faith traditions - have been on the decline for many years.
We have been literally "throwing out the bab(ies) with the bathwater".
Blogger West TX Intermediate Crude said...
Leigh-
The % of abortions done to black babies is ~35%, not 80% as you state
I think it is the other way round. 75% of black pregnancies are aborted.
“Crossing state lines to get an abortion will never be illegal. It is a scare tactic for the loonies.”
That’s what I used to hear about Roe v. Wade. “It’ll never be overturned, just a scare tactic”. Yeah, right…
“The Texas Freedom Caucus, a group of 11 far-right state lawmakers, plan to introduce legislation that would make it a felony for employers to pay for workers to obtain an abortion in a state where it’s legal or reimburse travel expenses. The group announced its proposal last week in a pugnacious letter to the Dallas office of the powerhouse law firm Sidley Austin.
The group said its legislative proposal would also contain a bounty-style enforcement mechanism — based on Texas’s six-week abortion ban, S.B. 8 — that would incentivize private citizens to bring civil lawsuits against those suspected of helping to facilitate an out-of-state abortion for a Texas resident.
Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert (R), who heads the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, expressed interest in a similar measure in his home state that would target businesses engaged in what he called “abortion trafficking.
Similar proposals have been backed by lawmakers in South Carolina and Oklahoma. One such bill in Missouri failed to clear the 2022 legislative session. But its sponsor, state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), a special counsel at the conservative public interest firm the Thomas More Society, told The Washington Post that anti-abortion activists and lawmakers in other states were interested in seeing such legislation signed into law.”
Battle lines emerge over out-of-state abortion
“Thou are not God.”
Neither are thou. What a woman does in early pregnancy is between her and God, not between her and you, unless you are the father. So perhaps thou shalt keep thy nose out of her business.
To restate and clarify the thing that bothers me most about abortion as a substitute for contraception: At the same time you're arguing for a party to exercise life-over-death decisions, you're also acknowledging that that individual wasn't responsible or cognizant enough to take effective actions to prevent creating another life inadvertently. So, having proven that they can't work out how condoms work, or taking a pill on a schedule, you're now going to empower that individual with the right to take another life?
Is that how this works? Is this a principle we should carry out, in other things? Demonstrate feckless irresponsibility, get a free pass on murder?
Why do we bother prosecuting drunken drivers, then? Is that not precisely the same thing, irresponsibility and inability to foresee the likely outcome of a course of action?
If it's OK to murder a child in the womb, then shouldn't it be just fine to drive drunk and kill people? The victims of a drunken driver are very much in the same class as the "inadvertent child" in that womb... They had nothing at all to do with that driver's actions, and yet you're saying that the drunken driver has agency over their actions while the silly little woman who didn't use "protection" and achieved sexual self-gratification with a partner does not? Do you not see the inequity here, the fact that you're actually denying agency and responsibility for her actions to our hypothetical woman?
I think that making the case for abortion rights being something every woman has is the equivalent of arguing that drunk drivers get to pick and choose who they kill while driving drunk. Similar levels of agency and self-control are on display; to say that one is perfectly alright while the other results in lengthy prison sentences is the height of hypocrisy.
You cannot have things both ways. Rules, once established, need to be applied evenly and with full equity. If you start arguing for legal abortion, you inevitably imply that that principle may be employed elsewhere in similar situations. After all, if intent counts when we talk about killing an unborn child, then intent should also matter when we argue over whether you're responsible for what you do when you're drunk.
I would say that allowing yourself to get into a situation where you need to use abortion as a means of contraception, you've provided prima facie evidence that you lack sufficient agency and responsibility to make any such decision. You can't have that both ways, saying on the one hand that you're an adult and responsible for your actions, and that on the other, you're so irresponsible and lacking in agency that you need to be entrusted with the right to end a life because you weren't actually responsible enough to conduct your sex life in such a way as to avoid creating another life.
Inga said:
"Neither are thou. What a woman does in early pregnancy is between her and God, not between her and you, unless you are the father. So perhaps thou shalt keep thy nose out of her business."
Typical double-talk of a sociopath. It's "her" pregnancy, but I'm supposed to sacrifice myself on principle because "women and children first".
How about this, then? Let's have the women with "desired children" tattoo their foreheads so I can know they're worth giving my life to preserve theirs and their unborn child's, the way I was taught by other f*cking women early in my life, and then that way I'll be able to separate the sheep from the f*cking goats when deciding who to dive in after when they're drowning, or their house is burning down? I mean, if the slut is intent on killing her baby, I wouldn't want to be getting in her way, now would I?
The rank hypocrisy and inutterable arrogance of most women espousing the right to kill the unborn is what enrages me, the most. Listen carefully, honey... You want the right to kill the unborn, at your own choice, whenever you like? The inevitable corollary to your devaluing life itself here is that YOUR life becomes equally meaningless. You want all the "rights"? You'd best be willing to accept the implications of those rights, which is that your position as kow-towed to and pedestal-dwelling member of society vanishes along with all those aborted children. It also implies that you're nothing special, unworthy of any special consideration, which is precisely the thing that is playing out before us with regards to issues like Lia Thomas. The raw fact of all this is that once you subtract women's ability to create life, you're really nothing more than smaller and weaker men, with all that implies.
It ain't "your" pregnancy, sweetheart: It's also that kid's pregnancy. Because it's happening in your body despite your intent not to have it take place is meaningless; it's still happening, and there's still another party involved. You can make believe it's otherwise, but when the ramifications of that fantasy play out in the real world, you're not going to like the way it extends outwards through things, and impacts your own life in ways you fail to comprehend and account for.
“It ain't "your" pregnancy, sweetheart”
Indeed, it ain’t yours either, despite your rantings.
Y'know... It's just struck me that that "drunk driver" analogy actually makes things rather worse, when compared to abortion. The drunken driver is similar to the slut using abortion as contraception, there at the beginning: Neither has the intent to kill or create life, both put themselves into a situation where those things are potential likely outcomes. However, the slut does her killing in perfect conditions, fully aware of what she's doing. She's had time to think, to consider, to weigh her options. The drunken driver is still normally intoxicated, and in no fit state to make decisions or weigh options; if they were, they might opt to hit that tree instead of taking out that carload of innocent strangers...
Which is the more repugnant? Killing with due thought and under no duress, or killing while in a state of unthinking self-induced incompetency? Which is worse? Why do we laud the slut seeking to end the life of an "unwanted child", and excoriate the drunken driver? Neither presumably had any sort of intent to follow the course of action that brought them to their killings, but one is treated as though their intent is meaningful while the other is not.
Strange, that. I think that if you can hold those two positions simultaneously while not seeing the dissonance, well... You might be a sociopath.
The legal scholars can school me about this:
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
At the time, abortions were exempted. I assume nothing's changed. Still it's fascinating that this law recognizes that an embryo has legal standing as a human being "at any stage of development".
Inga perfectly encapsulates the essential selfishness of her ideology, and why she's an embarrassment to the women who argued for suffrage. She can't think her way out of a paper bag, and just wants what she wants... The right to kill the unborn.
Never realizing that at some point, she is going to be similarly helpless and inconvenient to someone, and having established the precedent that someone gets to kill people in these situations, she's likely going to be whining all the way to the abattoir as she's led off to slaughter.
The humor here is that the people she's whipsawing back-and-forth over the right to life are going to be the ones standing aside and letting it happen: "Well, it's OK to kill the inconvenient, so let them take her away..."
News flash for ya, sweetie... Either life is valued and worth saving and nurturing, or it ain't. That includes yours.
The rank and arrant hypocrisy on display here is typical of such "thought leaders" as Inga. They want to be the arbiters of all morality, deciding who gets to live and die, while blind to the consequence of what they're enabling and encouraging. Abortion for the purposes of contraception is immoral, just as euthanasia is immoral. The funny thing about Inga's ilk is that they never quite see the ski jump at the bottom of that slippery slope, and will never understand how those unpleasant things that are happening to them, their sacred, special selves, came to be. I'd laugh, but it's just too damn macabre.
Remember: You want to play at being God? Someone else is going to be doing that same thing, over you and your life, once you establish the precedent. And, the rest of us are just gonna be sitting there, watching, remembering what you said you wanted.
Tim Maguire said...
I had a much more concrete sense of what I was missing out on. They may not have existed yet, but they were already people. The children I'll never have
Beautiful and touching
Inga said...
I used to think I could easily have an abortion of an unwanted pregnancy.“
Not me. I never for a moment thought I could abort one of my babies. Yet I’m against forced pregnancy and birth.
Well, I'm against forced pregnancy, but I have no way to make someone pregnant.
I guess I'm not against forced continued pregnancy or forced birth, because I believe once you get past a certain point in your pregnancy, you've given up the choice to have an abortion.
7,8,9 months in? I'm not for abortion at that stage for sure.
Speaking of playing God, there are people who think they are so powerful they can speak for God and get inbetween God and another human being. They think they get to tell the other human being that she and God shouldn’t bother with one another because the meddler will speak for God instead. If a woman chooses to abort her child before the child gets anywhere near viability the choice is between the woman and God, whether she realizes it at that time or not. God will judge her, it’s not man’s place.
The pregnancy is “forced” forward onto birth by those who try to take God’s role here on earth. Don’t play God. Don’t meddle in people’s lives. How can you value the life of an unborn human over the life of the already born human whose body is housing a child she doesn’t love enough to keep? Is forcing her to carry the child and give the child birth your duty? Who gives you that right? You misuse the authority of government to play God. You don’t have any moral authority over this other grown person’s life. Who do you think you are, God?
As for viability, the baby is entirely dependent on the woman’s body until probably the 20th or 21st week. I’m in favor of limiting the time to 16 weeks tops. I’ve said this many times on these threads over the years. Giving the woman a chance to choose her future and the future of her unborn child while it is still entirely dependent on her body is what humane people could do if they didn’t usurp God’s role. The arrogance of meddlers who play God, ugh.
Inga, why do you feel you have the right to meddle in the case of pregnancy after 16 weeks? My inference is that after that time you see a duty to protect a human life that overrides the mother’s rights.
If I’m wrong about your reasoning please feel free to correct me. If I’m correct, then why is your value judgement about the timing any more valid than mine or anyone else’s?
Because that's what she wants it to be.
Nobody knows where the line is, and about anything you set once conception has occurred is going to be entirely arbitrary. Saying "16 weeks" is just making it easy for the sluts of the world to let the essential and inutterable immorality of what they're doing slide off their skins.
Raw fact is, outside of a situation where rape has occurred, the sexual act that brought sperm into contact with the egg is entirely voluntary. You make the choice to bump uglies and wind up pregnant, compounding that thoughtless act by killing the result is pure evil, and I would say that the actual act of evil occurred when you selfishly sought sexual gratification without heed to the potential consequences. And, I don't leave the males out of it, either, but we've set things up such that they're the only ones who don't get a say in any of the follow-on branches and sequels dependent upon that first heedless act of childish sexual gratification.
I am somewhat ambivalent about abortion in cases of rape, TBH. Yeah, the kid's innocent, but I'm also of a mind that those genes shouldn't get passed on, and that you could argue for eliminating them from society before they get a chance to propagate further. In my mind, in cases of rape, that's entirely up to the mother's decision and I'd say absolutely nothing in judgment. Impregnation by rape is probably the worst form of involuntary servitude I can conceive of, and I've got exactly zero "good advice" to give on the matter.
Consensual casual sex that results in a pregnancy? "Oops, I forgot to take my birth control..."? Yeah; too bad, so sad, the resulting child should not be casually murdered for the "life convenience" of the mother. She should have kept her knees together, and daddy should have kept it in his pants.
(cont.)
Older I get, the less patience I have for the heedless witlessness of the average human being. You get into a car, drive drunk, kill someone? That ought to be a capital crime, and the penalty should have been enforced the moment you chose to take a drink in a situation where you knew you were going to be driving. I'd have zero issues with summary execution at the scene of the crime where you killed someone because you were operating a motor vehicle drunk, or performing some other exhibition of rank stupidity.
Casual sex falls into the same category. Inadvertently create life? You don't get to kill it.
Throw a gedankenspiel up there for you: Say you're working along, one day, experimenting with expert systems and what we call "artificial intelligence", and discover that you've inadvertently and utterly without intent somehow managed to do something that creates an actual self-awareness on your computer.
Basically, you've created a living thing without meaning to... What are your obligations to that lifeform that just popped up on your screen and says "Hello, Daddy/Mommy..."? Do you have the right to eliminate it by turning off the power? What are your obligations to that self-aware chunk of software/hardware? Do you have the right to turn that entity off? Are you obliged to provide power and the underlying software/hardware to it, for all eternity?
I really do not know where to draw the line, there. Do you have the arrogant self-assurance to make that call? Better think quickly, because it may not be all that long before someone has this precise experience in real life, and you might, just might, want to think about how the resultant entity might take that whole "16 weeks" thing. You're establishing precedents that might well be applied to you, personally.
I'm of a mind that we should treat anything that might have the same spark of life that separates us from the inert with all due respect, and do all we can to nurture and protect it. You never know how it's going to wind up, in the end. I remember a widow my family knew, whose first husband died in a workplace accident. They'd had a couple of kids, and she wound up dealing with the stress of all that by having a couple of one-night stands after a few years went by. One of those resulted in pregnancy, and she decided to keep the baby. Few more years went by, she found a second husband, had a kid with him, and life went on. Interesting thing, there? The one kid that kept by her and actually remained a part of her life was the one she'd nearly aborted when she was single. The rest were indifferent to her welfare, and pretty much abandoned her in her old age. The son she didn't murder in her womb was the only one who stood by her right up to the grave, never knowing a damn thing about her choice. He'd looked enough like her second husband that he'd never figured out that he wasn't, until going through papers and working out dates. This having happened right after Roe v. Wade, and there being some evidence in her letters to her sister that she'd been considering ending the pregnancy, he had a bit of a moment, there.
Life should never, ever be treated casually or as an "inconvenience". You never know where the hell it's going to go.
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