Congratulations on never having had an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. That's so nice for you. |
Congratulations on never having had a difficult pregnancy, or one that threatened your job, your education, or your financial future. Not everyone can be so lucky. I posted on the Republicans are mean thread that it seemed to me conservatives lacked the ability to imagine the difficult situations others find themselves in and therefore can't empathize very well. This is a prime example. I love my kids more than anything, tried for years to get pregnant and cherished each of my pregnancies. But I can imagine the terror someone could feel at facing an unwanted pregnancy or one that isn't going to bring a live, healthy child into the world and would never, ever deny that person the right to make her own decisions regarding her future. |
This. "[Republican Ohio Representative Jim] Buchy is a longtime proponent of restricting women’s access to abortion — in 2012, he told Al Jazeera that his ultimate goal is to ban abortion completely in the State of Ohio. Then, the reporter asked him an interesting question: “What do you think makes a woman want to have an abortion?” He pauses. Then he says, “Well, there’s probably a lot of reas— I’m not a woman.” He laughs. “I’m thinking now if I’m a woman why would I want to get … Some of it has to do with economics. A lot of it has to do with economics. I don’t know. It’s a question I’ve never even thought about.” http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/ohio-lawmaker-never-thought-about-why-women-get-abortions.html |
There is a great line from the new Amazon series, "Good girls revolt" where the women are at a consciousness-raising group meeting at someone's home. They are talking about their lives with kids. One of the women says of her kids, with some sadness, "I mean I love them, but I didn't choose them." The look on her face and the context in the storyline says everything. I loved this series, and which has several sub-plots/scenes which are good reminders about the choices facing women who have kids. Frankly, after I watched the whole series, I thought a lot has changed and a lot hasn't changed. Maybe that's my perspective as a person who got fired from a job I loved after discovering that I was accidentally pregnant. |
"It's a question I never even thought about...." And that right there, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need to have more women (and more diversity in general) at every level of governance! |
Women don't even register as people with these nuts, do they? Well, gee, Buchy, you want to kill women with your law and you never once considered why they might seek abortion? Oh holy ruck. |
I am an Independent that leans conservative and think you are correct that Republicans are less likely to put themselves in the shoes of others less fortunate. They do see things in more black and white while liberals see more shades of gray. That doesn't mean they don't care about other people though. I have a pretty evenly divided mix of liberal and conservative friends and the conservatives donate far more money, time and resources than my liberal friends. That's anecdotal of course but in my experience conservatives aren't cold-hearted uncharitable people. Going back to the abortion issue, a conservative sees abortion as murder. Plain and simple. So while all these old male legislators may have no idea what it is like to be a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, they also can't get past the fact that they see the act as murder. I see both sides that's why it is such a tough call. What I do adamantly believe in though is easy access to birth control. I don't think it's right for Republicans to be anti-abortion and anti-birth control at the same time. |
| Should everyone get free birth control? |
I'm the poster who said I don't view pregnancy as being hostage to an embryo. On a personal basis, I do know the feelings that can arise from having an unplanned pregnancy and am not unsympathetic to women who are in tough circumstances. It's just that I also hold the view that women should protect the growing life that they helped conceive. I do very much agree with your recommendation re easy access to birth control for all men and women. |
Actually, you have no idea--not one iota--about my life, my upbringing, my pregnancies, my family, my beliefs, or my career. |
of course we do. we know you are smug af, and since you can't picture anyone feeling differently than you about pregnancy, you make your own feelings the basis for forcing everyone to act like you do. |
Truly amazing that you would view someone as smug because she doesn't view pregnancy as being hostage to an embryo but a life to be protected. You're the one who can't accept that others might not agree with you. |
To the absolute contrary, we are the ones who think that women can feel differently about their pregnancies, and should be able to make different choices when faced with them depending on their own circumstances. So PP is free to be smug AF about hers, while others are permitted to be less so. |
And you are certainly free to make that decision for yourself, to protect any embryo inside you no matter how much or how little you had wanted it. Just don't try to legislate that decision for other women. The state is not the one facing the consequences of an unplanned or doomed pregnancy and the state should not be the one who gets to decide what to happen with it. |
You do know, don't you?, that the logical extension of the idea that life must be protected from the moment of conception means that all of the most effective forms of birth control are considered by pro-lifers to potentially cause abortion -- all birth control pills, all iuds, all hormonal contraception, all emergency contraception and mifepristone (abortion medication). Any hormonally-based contraception is considered to cause "chemical abortion". Although there is no conclusive scientific proof that hormonal contraception causes the death of fertilized eggs, pro-lifers see it as abortion and think these forms of birth control should be illegal as well. So, really, the only permissible pro-life forms of birth control are barrier methods, spermicides, natural/withdrawal or abstinence. All of which (except abstinence) have 10-20% failure rates or higher. So, in this context, I'm not really sure how valuable "easy access to birth control" is when really it means "access to the least effective forms of contraception only." As a parent who had an accidental pregnancy while using a diaphragm and spermicide (about 80% efficacy -- if only I had known!), I am very concerned about my daughter's future contraceptive options. |