^ ^ Horrible...
Abortion
Started by Zimbochick, Feb 22 2011 08:29 PM
80 replies to this topic
#62
Zimbochick
-
- Members
-
- 2,424 posts
Members
#63
Zimbochick
-
- Members
-
- 2,424 posts
Members
Posted 13 May 2013 - 02:40 PM
Interesting perspective.
http://www.businessi...abortion-2013-5
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Criticizes Roe V. Wade
CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she supports a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, but feels her predecessors' landmark Roe v. Wade ruling 40 years ago was too sweeping and gave abortion opponents a symbol to target.
Ginsburg, one of the most liberal members of the nation's high court, spoke Saturday at the University of Chicago Law School. Ever since the decision, she said, momentum has been on abortion opponents' side, fueling a state-by-state campaign that has placed more restrictions on abortion.
"That was my concern, that the court had given opponents of access to abortion a target to aim at relentlessly," she told a crowd of students. "... My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change."
The ruling is also a disappointment to a degree, Ginsburg said, because it was not argued in weighty terms of advancing women's rights. Rather, the Roe opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, centered on the right to privacy and asserted that it extended to a woman's decision on whether to end a pregnancy.
Four decades later, abortion is one of the most polarizing issues in American life, and anti-abortion activists have pushed legislation at the state level in an effort to scale back the 1973 decision. This year, governors in North Dakota and Arkansas signed strict new abortion laws, including North Dakota's ban on abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
Ginsburg would have rather seen the justices make a narrower decision that struck down only the Texas law that brought the matter before the court. That law allowed abortions only to save a mother's life.
A more restrained judgment would have sent a message while allowing momentum to build at a time when a number of states were expanding abortion rights, she said. She added that it might also have denied opponents the argument that abortion rights resulted from an undemocratic process in the decision by "unelected old men."
Ginsburg told the students she prefers what she termed "judicial restraint" and argued that such an approach can be more effective than expansive, aggressive decisions.
"The court can put its stamp of approval on the side of change and let that change develop in the political process," she said.
A similar dynamic is playing out over gay marriage and the speculation over how the Supreme Court might act on that issue.
The court decided in December to take up cases on California's constitutional ban on gay marriage and a federal law that denies to gay Americans who are legally married the favorable tax treatment and a range of health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples.
Among the questions now is whether the justices will set a nationwide rule that could lead to the overturning of laws in more than three dozen states that currently do not allow same-sex marriage. Even some supporters of gay marriage fear that a broad ruling could put the court ahead of the nation on a hot-button social issue and provoke a backlash similar to the one that has fueled the anti-abortion movement in the years following Roe.
The court could also decide to uphold California's ban — an outcome that would not affect the District of Columbia and the 11 states that allow gay marriage. Ginsburg did not address the pending gay marriage cases.
Asked about the continuing challenges to abortion rights, Ginsburg said that in her view Roe's legacy will ultimately hold up.
"It's not going to matter that much," she said. "Take the worst-case scenario ... suppose the decision were overruled; you would have a number of states that will never go back to the way it was."
http://www.businessi...abortion-2013-5
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Criticizes Roe V. Wade
CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she supports a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, but feels her predecessors' landmark Roe v. Wade ruling 40 years ago was too sweeping and gave abortion opponents a symbol to target.
Ginsburg, one of the most liberal members of the nation's high court, spoke Saturday at the University of Chicago Law School. Ever since the decision, she said, momentum has been on abortion opponents' side, fueling a state-by-state campaign that has placed more restrictions on abortion.
"That was my concern, that the court had given opponents of access to abortion a target to aim at relentlessly," she told a crowd of students. "... My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change."
The ruling is also a disappointment to a degree, Ginsburg said, because it was not argued in weighty terms of advancing women's rights. Rather, the Roe opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, centered on the right to privacy and asserted that it extended to a woman's decision on whether to end a pregnancy.
Four decades later, abortion is one of the most polarizing issues in American life, and anti-abortion activists have pushed legislation at the state level in an effort to scale back the 1973 decision. This year, governors in North Dakota and Arkansas signed strict new abortion laws, including North Dakota's ban on abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
Ginsburg would have rather seen the justices make a narrower decision that struck down only the Texas law that brought the matter before the court. That law allowed abortions only to save a mother's life.
A more restrained judgment would have sent a message while allowing momentum to build at a time when a number of states were expanding abortion rights, she said. She added that it might also have denied opponents the argument that abortion rights resulted from an undemocratic process in the decision by "unelected old men."
Ginsburg told the students she prefers what she termed "judicial restraint" and argued that such an approach can be more effective than expansive, aggressive decisions.
"The court can put its stamp of approval on the side of change and let that change develop in the political process," she said.
A similar dynamic is playing out over gay marriage and the speculation over how the Supreme Court might act on that issue.
The court decided in December to take up cases on California's constitutional ban on gay marriage and a federal law that denies to gay Americans who are legally married the favorable tax treatment and a range of health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples.
Among the questions now is whether the justices will set a nationwide rule that could lead to the overturning of laws in more than three dozen states that currently do not allow same-sex marriage. Even some supporters of gay marriage fear that a broad ruling could put the court ahead of the nation on a hot-button social issue and provoke a backlash similar to the one that has fueled the anti-abortion movement in the years following Roe.
The court could also decide to uphold California's ban — an outcome that would not affect the District of Columbia and the 11 states that allow gay marriage. Ginsburg did not address the pending gay marriage cases.
Asked about the continuing challenges to abortion rights, Ginsburg said that in her view Roe's legacy will ultimately hold up.
"It's not going to matter that much," she said. "Take the worst-case scenario ... suppose the decision were overruled; you would have a number of states that will never go back to the way it was."
#64
Zimbochick
-
- Members
-
- 2,424 posts
Members
Posted 13 May 2013 - 02:49 PM
And a rebuttal.
http://www.huffingto..._b_3264307.html
I had the honor of having a public "conversation" yesterday with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before a large audience at the University of Chicago Law School. The topic of the event was the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Justice Ginsburg offered many interesting observations about the women's rights movement, in which she herself was a pivotal actor. But I suspect some of her reflections on Roe v. Wade must have surprised the audience.
Because Justice Ginsburg has always been a strong proponent of a woman's right to choose, members of the audience undoubtedly expected her to celebrate Roe v. Wade as one of the great achievements in the history of the Supreme Court. Instead, she was quite critical of the decision.
Justice Ginsburg's critique of Roe is especially interesting at this moment because it has implications for the same-sex marriage cases currently pending before the Court. Of course, Justice Ginsburg did not herself draw any such parallel, and it would have been inappropriate for her to do so. But the connection could not have been lost on the audience.
As it happens, I disagree strongly with Justice Ginsburg's take on Roe. Perhaps the most surprising facet of Justice Ginsburg's critique of Roe is her claim that the Court in Roe went "too far, too fast." Until the 1960s, every state made abortion a crime unless it was necessary to save the life of the woman. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, in large part because of the women's movement, several states began to ease their restrictions on abortion, and four states went so far as to legalize abortion in the first twenty-four weeks of pregnancy.
When the Court decided Roe in January of 1973, it held that a woman has a constitutional right to control her own body and to make decisions for herself about such a fundamentally personal matter as whether to bear a child. The Court therefore held that laws prohibiting abortion in the first twenty-four weeks of pregnancy are unconstitutional. Roe invalidated the abortion laws of almost every state in the nation. It had an immediate and dramatic effect on the freedom of women to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Justice Ginsburg argued that the Court in Roe v. Wade should have been more modest in its decision. It should have held only that the Texas law before it in Roe, which prohibited abortion unless necessary to save the life of the woman, was unconstitutional, leaving for the future the question of what other restrictions on abortion might be constitutional. By instead reaching out to decide the much more broader question - whether any prohibition of abortion is constitutionally permissible in the first twenty-four weeks - the Court, in her view, short-circuited the democratic process and failed to allow the states to work out for themselves how best to regulate abortion.
Justice Ginsburg's objection is that, by issuing so bold and far-reaching a decision, the Court infuriated the opponents of choice and triggered a bitter and divisive response among the Moral Majority and conservatives more generally, a response that has polarized the nation to this day. Put simply, Justice Ginsburg argued that Roe v. Wade triggered a political "backlash" that not only poisoned American politics but also energized the resistance to abortion and thus undermined the very goals that Roe sought to achieve.
If this understanding of Roe has force, then it does seem to suggest that the Supreme Court should go slow on the issue of same-sex marriage, because a decision holding that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry might trigger a similar reaction to the one arguably triggered by Roe. Were that to happen, it could further polarize the political process, damage the Court as an institution, and frustrate the long-terms interests of gays and lesbians.
The problem, in my view, is that Justice Ginsburg is wrong in her assessment of Roe. This is so for several reasons. First, it is important to remember that at the time Roe v. Wade was decided it was not thought to be a particularly difficult or ideological decision. The vote was seven-to-two, and three of Richard Nixon's four "conservative" nominees to the Court supported the decision, including Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Although the Catholic Church, which had strenuously opposed abortion well before Roe, was vigorous in its condemnation of the decision, the vast majority of Americans supported it. Indeed, at the time Roe was decided, Americans by a two-to-one margin agreed that "the decision to have an abortion should be made solely by a woman and her physician," and even 56 percent of Catholics agreed with this proposition. When Justice John Paul Stevens was nominated to serve on the Supreme Court in 1975, not a single senator asked him about Roe. In short, Roe itself did not produce a "backlash."
What did produce the political polarization over abortion and other so-called "social issues" was the effort of Republican Party strategists, both before and after Roe, to use the issue of abortion to pry Catholic voters away from their traditional home in the Democratic Party and to energize Evangelicals by portraying the Democrats as the party that opposed school prayer and promoted the teaching of evolution, equal rights for women, abortion and "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll." These Republican strategists, particularly in the Reagan era, successfully brought these social issues to the very heart of American politics. But it was not Roe that caused this state of affairs.
Second, Justice Ginsburg suggested that just as no-fault divorce swept the nation at more or less the time as Roe, the same might have happened with abortion. That is, left to their own devices, and without the Supreme Court's bold intervention, the states themselves might eventually have liberalized their abortion laws through the process of democratic decision-making. On that view, Roe v. Wade was unnecessary.
This seems to me unrealistic in the extreme. Even by 1973 the gradual movement towards more liberal abortion laws had slowed, and it is difficult to believe that most states would have come around to the liberalization of abortion anytime soon. The obvious difference between no-fault divorce and abortion in terms of the depth of feeling about the status of the fetus renders the no-fault divorce analogy unpersuasive. The plain and simple fact is that the same factors that have generated fervent opposition to abortion for the past forty years would have played out in more or less the same way with or without Roe v. Wade.
Third, even if the Justices at the time of Roe had been able to anticipate that the decision would cause a "backlash," it is not at all clear that they should have given this much weight in deciding what the Constitution in fact means. The essential nature of constitutional rights is that they protect fundamental personal liberties even though others do not want to recognize them. In that sense, the Constitution is necessarily counter-majoritarian. If majorities could be counted upon to protect constitutional rights, we wouldn't need a Bill of Rights.
For the Supreme Court to have failed to protect what the justices themselves firmly believed to be the constitutional right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy because of a fear that recognizing that right would anger other citizens would have been a complete betrayal of their most fundamental responsibility as interpreters of the Constitution. Moreover, had the Court in Roe taken a gradualist approach and allowed the democratic process to work its way pure over the next ten or twenty years, many millions of women would have needlessly faced the cruel dilemma of either risking dangerous back-alley abortions or carrying to term millions of unwanted children. This is too great a price to pay for judicial incrementalism, especially after seven of the justices had concluded that such a right in fact exists.
Finally, Justice Ginsburg opined that even if Roe v. Wade had never been decided, a woman who could not legally get an abortion in her own state of residence would have been able to hop on a bus, train or plane and have an abortion in a state in which abortion was legal. On this view, Roe was unnecessary. As I expressed in our "conversation," I found this an odd argument to make in the realm of constitutional rights.
In any event, it is worth noting that this argument, whatever its merit in the abortion context (and I don't think it has much), has no bite in the context of same-sex marriage. If Alabama refuses to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in New York, then the ability of Alabama residents to go to Massachusetts to get married is of no value to them when they return to Alabama. Abortion is different. A resident of Alabama can travel to New York for an abortion and return home no longer pregnant. A same-sex couple can travel to New York, marry, and return home to Alabama with no change in their legal status under Alabama law.
I am a great admirer of Justice Ginsburg. But in her criticisms of Roe v. Wade, I must dissent. Roe transformed the lives of tens of millions of women in this nation. It was the right decision . . . and its time had come.
http://www.huffingto..._b_3264307.html
I had the honor of having a public "conversation" yesterday with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before a large audience at the University of Chicago Law School. The topic of the event was the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Justice Ginsburg offered many interesting observations about the women's rights movement, in which she herself was a pivotal actor. But I suspect some of her reflections on Roe v. Wade must have surprised the audience.
Because Justice Ginsburg has always been a strong proponent of a woman's right to choose, members of the audience undoubtedly expected her to celebrate Roe v. Wade as one of the great achievements in the history of the Supreme Court. Instead, she was quite critical of the decision.
Justice Ginsburg's critique of Roe is especially interesting at this moment because it has implications for the same-sex marriage cases currently pending before the Court. Of course, Justice Ginsburg did not herself draw any such parallel, and it would have been inappropriate for her to do so. But the connection could not have been lost on the audience.
As it happens, I disagree strongly with Justice Ginsburg's take on Roe. Perhaps the most surprising facet of Justice Ginsburg's critique of Roe is her claim that the Court in Roe went "too far, too fast." Until the 1960s, every state made abortion a crime unless it was necessary to save the life of the woman. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, in large part because of the women's movement, several states began to ease their restrictions on abortion, and four states went so far as to legalize abortion in the first twenty-four weeks of pregnancy.
When the Court decided Roe in January of 1973, it held that a woman has a constitutional right to control her own body and to make decisions for herself about such a fundamentally personal matter as whether to bear a child. The Court therefore held that laws prohibiting abortion in the first twenty-four weeks of pregnancy are unconstitutional. Roe invalidated the abortion laws of almost every state in the nation. It had an immediate and dramatic effect on the freedom of women to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Justice Ginsburg argued that the Court in Roe v. Wade should have been more modest in its decision. It should have held only that the Texas law before it in Roe, which prohibited abortion unless necessary to save the life of the woman, was unconstitutional, leaving for the future the question of what other restrictions on abortion might be constitutional. By instead reaching out to decide the much more broader question - whether any prohibition of abortion is constitutionally permissible in the first twenty-four weeks - the Court, in her view, short-circuited the democratic process and failed to allow the states to work out for themselves how best to regulate abortion.
Justice Ginsburg's objection is that, by issuing so bold and far-reaching a decision, the Court infuriated the opponents of choice and triggered a bitter and divisive response among the Moral Majority and conservatives more generally, a response that has polarized the nation to this day. Put simply, Justice Ginsburg argued that Roe v. Wade triggered a political "backlash" that not only poisoned American politics but also energized the resistance to abortion and thus undermined the very goals that Roe sought to achieve.
If this understanding of Roe has force, then it does seem to suggest that the Supreme Court should go slow on the issue of same-sex marriage, because a decision holding that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry might trigger a similar reaction to the one arguably triggered by Roe. Were that to happen, it could further polarize the political process, damage the Court as an institution, and frustrate the long-terms interests of gays and lesbians.
The problem, in my view, is that Justice Ginsburg is wrong in her assessment of Roe. This is so for several reasons. First, it is important to remember that at the time Roe v. Wade was decided it was not thought to be a particularly difficult or ideological decision. The vote was seven-to-two, and three of Richard Nixon's four "conservative" nominees to the Court supported the decision, including Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Although the Catholic Church, which had strenuously opposed abortion well before Roe, was vigorous in its condemnation of the decision, the vast majority of Americans supported it. Indeed, at the time Roe was decided, Americans by a two-to-one margin agreed that "the decision to have an abortion should be made solely by a woman and her physician," and even 56 percent of Catholics agreed with this proposition. When Justice John Paul Stevens was nominated to serve on the Supreme Court in 1975, not a single senator asked him about Roe. In short, Roe itself did not produce a "backlash."
What did produce the political polarization over abortion and other so-called "social issues" was the effort of Republican Party strategists, both before and after Roe, to use the issue of abortion to pry Catholic voters away from their traditional home in the Democratic Party and to energize Evangelicals by portraying the Democrats as the party that opposed school prayer and promoted the teaching of evolution, equal rights for women, abortion and "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll." These Republican strategists, particularly in the Reagan era, successfully brought these social issues to the very heart of American politics. But it was not Roe that caused this state of affairs.
Second, Justice Ginsburg suggested that just as no-fault divorce swept the nation at more or less the time as Roe, the same might have happened with abortion. That is, left to their own devices, and without the Supreme Court's bold intervention, the states themselves might eventually have liberalized their abortion laws through the process of democratic decision-making. On that view, Roe v. Wade was unnecessary.
This seems to me unrealistic in the extreme. Even by 1973 the gradual movement towards more liberal abortion laws had slowed, and it is difficult to believe that most states would have come around to the liberalization of abortion anytime soon. The obvious difference between no-fault divorce and abortion in terms of the depth of feeling about the status of the fetus renders the no-fault divorce analogy unpersuasive. The plain and simple fact is that the same factors that have generated fervent opposition to abortion for the past forty years would have played out in more or less the same way with or without Roe v. Wade.
Third, even if the Justices at the time of Roe had been able to anticipate that the decision would cause a "backlash," it is not at all clear that they should have given this much weight in deciding what the Constitution in fact means. The essential nature of constitutional rights is that they protect fundamental personal liberties even though others do not want to recognize them. In that sense, the Constitution is necessarily counter-majoritarian. If majorities could be counted upon to protect constitutional rights, we wouldn't need a Bill of Rights.
For the Supreme Court to have failed to protect what the justices themselves firmly believed to be the constitutional right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy because of a fear that recognizing that right would anger other citizens would have been a complete betrayal of their most fundamental responsibility as interpreters of the Constitution. Moreover, had the Court in Roe taken a gradualist approach and allowed the democratic process to work its way pure over the next ten or twenty years, many millions of women would have needlessly faced the cruel dilemma of either risking dangerous back-alley abortions or carrying to term millions of unwanted children. This is too great a price to pay for judicial incrementalism, especially after seven of the justices had concluded that such a right in fact exists.
Finally, Justice Ginsburg opined that even if Roe v. Wade had never been decided, a woman who could not legally get an abortion in her own state of residence would have been able to hop on a bus, train or plane and have an abortion in a state in which abortion was legal. On this view, Roe was unnecessary. As I expressed in our "conversation," I found this an odd argument to make in the realm of constitutional rights.
In any event, it is worth noting that this argument, whatever its merit in the abortion context (and I don't think it has much), has no bite in the context of same-sex marriage. If Alabama refuses to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in New York, then the ability of Alabama residents to go to Massachusetts to get married is of no value to them when they return to Alabama. Abortion is different. A resident of Alabama can travel to New York for an abortion and return home no longer pregnant. A same-sex couple can travel to New York, marry, and return home to Alabama with no change in their legal status under Alabama law.
I am a great admirer of Justice Ginsburg. But in her criticisms of Roe v. Wade, I must dissent. Roe transformed the lives of tens of millions of women in this nation. It was the right decision . . . and its time had come.
#65
TAP
-
- TFHL Peep
-
- 2,777 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationHades
Posted 04 July 2013 - 03:59 AM
http://www.guardian....-legal-abortion
I have two kids. I love them. I wanted them to be born. I wanted to be a parent for years before my wife gave birth to them. I cried when I saw their first ultrasounds. My wife and I even bought a cheap fetal heart monitor so we could listen to their heartbeats some nights before we went to bed, smiling.
I fly a lot for work. Now, when there are babies or toddlers on a plane who make a racket or cry, I don't mind. They remind me of my own children, and any noise they make (which previously would have driven me nuts) makes me miss my own kids and count the days till I can be home with them wishing they'd pipe down.
Both times my wife was pregnant, I would sometimes envy the fact that she got to carry our babies around in her all day and all night. She was getting to know them before me. It seemed like the ultimate snuggle.
Our oldest is two and the younger one is an infant. We're already talking about having another. My wife loves being pregnant and we both love babies and kids, so signs point toward a third. We may adopt. We've talked a lot about that, too.
I also believe that a woman should have access to a safe, legal abortion if she wants one.
This belief of mine exists in the same mind whose general knee-jerk reaction upon hearing the word "abortion" is to conjure to mind a sad, scary surgical procedure that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near. This belief exists in the same mind that practically combusts with excitement when I hear a friend or relative (or even a stranger or fictional character) is pregnant.
I support a woman's right to safe, legal abortion because centuries of history shows us that women are going to get abortions whether they're safe and legal or not. And when they're not safe and legal, these women will often die terribly or be damaged irreparably. In my fantasy utopia, there would be no abortion. There'd be contraception readily available and there'd be education geared toward preventing unwanted pregnancies. Adoption would be easier.
We don't live in a utopia, however. We live in a country where scoundrels are certain and nuance is vilified. I opened up my own thought process above to demonstrate that it isn't neat. But it's all taking place unified in one man's skull. And I'm not unique in having a complex thought relationship with abortion. I'm like a lot of people. Most people.
People like to have sex. My own research has shown that it feels really, really good. It's OK to want to do it, and it's OK to do it. It has its price, however, and the price for women is so very many multiples greater than it is for men. I see it in my own life. I have the incredible good fortune to be able to spend a lot of time at home with my wife and kids. I was even able to take three months off from touring as a standup for the final weeks of my wife's most recent pregnancy and the first weeks of our new son's life. I was, and am, present.
But even when I'm in the same room as my wife and sons, my contribution to their lives pales in comparison to my wife's. I'm not feeding them with breastmilk my body made out of its own blood as my uterus repairs itself and as my body and mind approach even basic tasks from a formidable sleep and energy deficit. My wife, at her resting state, is heroic, and I am, in essence, just some guy.
If I wanted to, I could split and suffer limited consequences. In the worst-case scenario, I'd give up half my income, or some such paltry nonsense, which wouldn't even nip at the heels of my wife's gift of her body and soul to our children. Not that a father who raises his children isn't a wonderful thing; he is. He just better enter the game with a suitcase of humility and gratitude toward the woman who birthed his child.
I don't know how to look at those who'd restrict or deny access to abortion, contraception and abortion and not see misogyny. Not sexism; that's a gender neutral word. Misogyny is the hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women. It's an ugly word and it represents an ugly thing.
And Good God, is it lazy. And disingenuous. And it is the warm and welcoming home to the idea that a pregnant woman who doesn't want to take her pregnancy to term should not have access to a safe and legal abortion.
If you've never done it, imagine a man, in this man's world in which we live, peeing on a stick after throwing up out of the blue one morning, and discovering he was pregnant. Imagine him looking down the barrel of a 40 or so week pregnancy, with his body betraying him in new and fascinating ways, potentially including but not limited to: HPV flare-ups that can turn into cervical cancer with astounding speed, gestational diabetes, or an ectopic pregnancy that could find him bleeding to death on the floor of his office bathroom. (He's a man, so he didn't go to the doctor early enough to find out why he was in constant, thrumming pain from his lower back up to his shoulders.)
Or perhaps he simply doesn't want to bring an unwanted child into a world with dwindling resources, and orphanages loaded with children who, it is mathematically certain, will never be adopted. Or perhaps, we never even find out why he wants the abortion, because he's a man, and no one asks.
If you've imagined that far, then you know the next logical thing to imagine is that very same man galloping on horseback to a hospital or abortion clinic, flanked by a police escort, where his path is impeded by not a single protester, to get the safest, most legal abortion possible, likely while watching "Man of Steel" though a state of the art 3-D headset, so he might be comforted by explosions and alien warfare as the doctor treats him.
I've written this as a father of two children I'm insane about, and as the husband of a woman I look forward to getting pregnant again, per her stated wish. I've also written it as someone who, to his knowledge, has never been responsible for a pregnancy that was aborted. And, perhaps most importantly, I've written it as a man who thinks of abortions as a sad, scary and wholly undesirable thing.
Undesirable, that is, unless the woman in whose body the pregnancy is occurring desires to have one. In that case, I'm writing it as a man who will protect her right to have it safely and legally.
I have two kids. I love them. I wanted them to be born. I wanted to be a parent for years before my wife gave birth to them. I cried when I saw their first ultrasounds. My wife and I even bought a cheap fetal heart monitor so we could listen to their heartbeats some nights before we went to bed, smiling.
I fly a lot for work. Now, when there are babies or toddlers on a plane who make a racket or cry, I don't mind. They remind me of my own children, and any noise they make (which previously would have driven me nuts) makes me miss my own kids and count the days till I can be home with them wishing they'd pipe down.
Both times my wife was pregnant, I would sometimes envy the fact that she got to carry our babies around in her all day and all night. She was getting to know them before me. It seemed like the ultimate snuggle.
Our oldest is two and the younger one is an infant. We're already talking about having another. My wife loves being pregnant and we both love babies and kids, so signs point toward a third. We may adopt. We've talked a lot about that, too.
I also believe that a woman should have access to a safe, legal abortion if she wants one.
This belief of mine exists in the same mind whose general knee-jerk reaction upon hearing the word "abortion" is to conjure to mind a sad, scary surgical procedure that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near. This belief exists in the same mind that practically combusts with excitement when I hear a friend or relative (or even a stranger or fictional character) is pregnant.
I support a woman's right to safe, legal abortion because centuries of history shows us that women are going to get abortions whether they're safe and legal or not. And when they're not safe and legal, these women will often die terribly or be damaged irreparably. In my fantasy utopia, there would be no abortion. There'd be contraception readily available and there'd be education geared toward preventing unwanted pregnancies. Adoption would be easier.
We don't live in a utopia, however. We live in a country where scoundrels are certain and nuance is vilified. I opened up my own thought process above to demonstrate that it isn't neat. But it's all taking place unified in one man's skull. And I'm not unique in having a complex thought relationship with abortion. I'm like a lot of people. Most people.
People like to have sex. My own research has shown that it feels really, really good. It's OK to want to do it, and it's OK to do it. It has its price, however, and the price for women is so very many multiples greater than it is for men. I see it in my own life. I have the incredible good fortune to be able to spend a lot of time at home with my wife and kids. I was even able to take three months off from touring as a standup for the final weeks of my wife's most recent pregnancy and the first weeks of our new son's life. I was, and am, present.
But even when I'm in the same room as my wife and sons, my contribution to their lives pales in comparison to my wife's. I'm not feeding them with breastmilk my body made out of its own blood as my uterus repairs itself and as my body and mind approach even basic tasks from a formidable sleep and energy deficit. My wife, at her resting state, is heroic, and I am, in essence, just some guy.
If I wanted to, I could split and suffer limited consequences. In the worst-case scenario, I'd give up half my income, or some such paltry nonsense, which wouldn't even nip at the heels of my wife's gift of her body and soul to our children. Not that a father who raises his children isn't a wonderful thing; he is. He just better enter the game with a suitcase of humility and gratitude toward the woman who birthed his child.
I don't know how to look at those who'd restrict or deny access to abortion, contraception and abortion and not see misogyny. Not sexism; that's a gender neutral word. Misogyny is the hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women. It's an ugly word and it represents an ugly thing.
And Good God, is it lazy. And disingenuous. And it is the warm and welcoming home to the idea that a pregnant woman who doesn't want to take her pregnancy to term should not have access to a safe and legal abortion.
If you've never done it, imagine a man, in this man's world in which we live, peeing on a stick after throwing up out of the blue one morning, and discovering he was pregnant. Imagine him looking down the barrel of a 40 or so week pregnancy, with his body betraying him in new and fascinating ways, potentially including but not limited to: HPV flare-ups that can turn into cervical cancer with astounding speed, gestational diabetes, or an ectopic pregnancy that could find him bleeding to death on the floor of his office bathroom. (He's a man, so he didn't go to the doctor early enough to find out why he was in constant, thrumming pain from his lower back up to his shoulders.)
Or perhaps he simply doesn't want to bring an unwanted child into a world with dwindling resources, and orphanages loaded with children who, it is mathematically certain, will never be adopted. Or perhaps, we never even find out why he wants the abortion, because he's a man, and no one asks.
If you've imagined that far, then you know the next logical thing to imagine is that very same man galloping on horseback to a hospital or abortion clinic, flanked by a police escort, where his path is impeded by not a single protester, to get the safest, most legal abortion possible, likely while watching "Man of Steel" though a state of the art 3-D headset, so he might be comforted by explosions and alien warfare as the doctor treats him.
I've written this as a father of two children I'm insane about, and as the husband of a woman I look forward to getting pregnant again, per her stated wish. I've also written it as someone who, to his knowledge, has never been responsible for a pregnancy that was aborted. And, perhaps most importantly, I've written it as a man who thinks of abortions as a sad, scary and wholly undesirable thing.
Undesirable, that is, unless the woman in whose body the pregnancy is occurring desires to have one. In that case, I'm writing it as a man who will protect her right to have it safely and legally.
- Zimbochick likes this
Show me your dragon magic
#66
freedom78
-
- TFHL Peep
-
- 6,667 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationIndiana
Posted 04 July 2013 - 01:23 PM
I can honestly say that I hated the overwhelming majority of that article. I liked the parts about sex and his ideal of contraception and adoption, but the rest tended toward sappy, overly cloying BS.
Sister burn the temple
And stand beneath the moon
The sound of the ocean is dead
It's just the echo of the blood in your head
#67
Zimbochick
-
- Members
-
- 2,424 posts
Members
Posted 04 July 2013 - 02:55 PM
Yes, but you're a robot.I can honestly say that I hated the overwhelming majority of that article. I liked the parts about sex and his ideal of contraception and adoption, but the rest tended toward sappy, overly cloying BS.
#68
freedom78
-
- TFHL Peep
-
- 6,667 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationIndiana
Posted 04 July 2013 - 08:41 PM
Beep.
- Zimbochick likes this
Sister burn the temple
And stand beneath the moon
The sound of the ocean is dead
It's just the echo of the blood in your head
#70
artcinco
-
- Admin
-
- 3,325 posts
Inactivist
- LocationZones of moisture...
Posted 25 April 2014 - 09:36 AM
Why do you read that kind of crap, Art? Seriously, I don't get it.
#72
artcinco
-
- Admin
-
- 3,325 posts
Inactivist
- LocationZones of moisture...
Posted 25 April 2014 - 11:01 AM
^ I agree. Get some use out of them.
- Mr. Roboto likes this
Why do you read that kind of crap, Art? Seriously, I don't get it.
#73
Mr. Roboto
-
- Admin
-
- 6,723 posts
Administrators
- LocationProvo Spain
Posted 29 November 2015 - 04:04 AM
"It was like I was in high school again, but fatter."
#74
freedom78
-
- TFHL Peep
-
- 6,667 posts
Advanced Member
- LocationIndiana
Posted 29 November 2015 - 09:58 AM
Without pointing fingers, I see acts like this as a natural, if sad, outcome of our politics. Our rhetoric is so fucking over the top on every issue. Did you know that the Koch brothers want to enslave everyone currently in a union? Did you know that Democrats have a plan of forced abortion for Texas Republicans? Ok, I made those two up...but we talk crazy in our efforts to win votes and to demonize the other side. A few weeks (months?) back, Carly Fiorina was referring to a video in which an aborted fetus was kept alive to "harvest its brain"...but that video doesn't exist. Are we then surprised that people take this and run with it?
Sister burn the temple
And stand beneath the moon
The sound of the ocean is dead
It's just the echo of the blood in your head
#75
Mr. Roboto
-
- Admin
-
- 6,723 posts
Administrators
- LocationProvo Spain
Posted 29 November 2015 - 01:03 PM
She also wouldn't let up after it was proven that the video was clearly doctored and no brains were sucked out of an infant's head. Neither would the rest of the GOP field to be honest.
These statements have real life consequences.
- Zimbochick likes this
"It was like I was in high school again, but fatter."
1 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users
