Pro-choice or not(Women only)

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Tantybi, many (if not most) of those of us who argue strongly for abortion rights also fight quite hard for access to contraception; it just isn't as 'loud' because it's not as controvesial.

A lot of PLs (especially the men) are against contraception as well as abortion, but they're not as vocal about it because they know it's not a popular opinion. They just quietly try to slip things in like increasing the cost of contraception on college campuses 900% and then saying, 'oops, how did that happen...? But we're not going to overturn it even though it was an accident.'

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/0 ... _women.php

It's not just about contraception. Trust me I know the Pro Choice movement is just as big about contraception as anything else. That's how it all started with the Birth Control League. I just notice when anyone comes out with any ideas to reduce abortions (such as promoting abstinence amongst teens, increasing women self esteems, etc.), many pro choicers and women have to go on an abortion defense kick rather than saying, yeah, that's not a bad idea. A lot of times, they just assume because you are pro life (like in my case), that you are using as a way to argue against abortions rather than just trying to find a solution. God forbid a pro life person wanting to reduce abortions rather than ban them. Why do I consider myself pro life? I don't think anyone should have an abortion except in extreme circumstances. But I also don't think anyone should sign up for a Sprint cell phone contract. That doesn't mean I'm for banning Sprint.

Either way, many ideas outside of contraception that may contribute to decreasing abortions also could contribute to women's power type thing as well. If it's really your body and you'll do with it what you want in the case of an abortion, then it should be your body too before you have sex, and you will do what you want to it then as well. It's funny to meet someone who is all anti-smoking but pro choice, and they are the first to lecture you about how second hand smoke is killing them, yet they are the first to defend abortion when you are trying to lecture others about making wise life decisions such as having sex, using contraception, being picky about the men you are with, and taking responsibility for your actions.

100% pro choice. I got over my shyness and difficulty working with people doing some brief volunteering on my university campus' students for choice and NARAL pro choice America branch.
By the way, being pro choice doesn't just mean being "pro abortion" in my opinion. It means that I believe women have the right to access good health care, to safe, reliable birth control, to have sensitive and well-informed medical staff treat them. I also believe that being pro choice means the right to have your child in safe, sanitary, sensitive conditions. I am a big advocate of home birthing and midwives if the mother-to-be chooses this route. I believe that choosing to become a mother is a big part being pro choice, and as a pro choice woman, I celebrate motherhood in all its spheres. All in all, I believe that having absolute control over one's fertility and decisionmaking about your body is the true definition of pro choice.

Yes, I'm pro-choice because if the mother doesn't want the child, then what's the point of that child being born into a loveless home and having a sterile childhood. Two, because abortion helps control the population and prevent unwanted children from being born. Three, I don't think abortion is murder, because the fetus is cannot live independently from its mother, meaning outside the womb.

I would say I don't fit nicely in either category. I believe abortion is about choice, but more importantly, it should be carried out primarily when the woman's health is at risk by carrying the child to term, if the abortion will increase her chances of survival and her overall health. There are some cases though where performing an abortion would be more traumatic on the body than to carry the child to term and by carrying out the abortion the woman's life is at risk, or her health is at risk. Those are the only two situations where I haver a clear answer on abortion.

Yes, it IS shocking that the majority of Aspies haven't fallen for the bulldren pro-LIARS like to spout.

I couldn't give to fraks whether or not you're disappointed in me or not and I'll have you know if I ever fall pregnant I'll quite cheerfully abort it

Sorry, but that's a load of nonsense, many doctors will REFUSE to perform a tubal ligation on a woman who either doesn't already have three children or who's under 30 even if she has a condition that will make pregnancy fatal to her.
I know of a young woman who, at age 23, was told by her gynacologist (sp?) that carrying a pregancy to term would kill her, since she was childfree anyway she asked him to perform a tubal ligation on her.
The same doctor who said pregnancy would be fatal to her turned around and said he wouldn't perform a tubal on her in case she changed her mind about not having children.

Since those women are too selfish to adopt the countless older children trapped in the care system and only want a cute widdle baby, IMO they don't deserve a baby

And how about those of us who are medically unable to have children, and choose to have a child by a method that is not yet publically available (a transplant to allow this), or adoption, but still choose to open a shelter for abandoned children.

Thank FRAK for that, I find you extremely offensive. The above smacks "dem dirty whores had it coming, HUR HUR"

One 1000 times THIS

I would tell that woman to find another doctor, and she may swim through a few before she finds the right one. Some doctors are just not that bright. It's a wonder how they made it through med school. Not just women without kids have problems. I battle ignorant doctors all the time, some I even like, on a regular basis with my children's healthcare, and that takes so much effort that I have no time to be concerned with my own health anymore. Thank God for the internet and motherly instincts.

Not necessarily. I'd almost agree with you at first read, but there is a bonding moment that goes on between mother and baby early on at feeding time that I can see why infertile women would want that with their child, even if the child isn't biologically theirs.

I can see how the first sentence is offensive, but I see nothing offensive about campaigning for supoprting women through pregnancies and parenting. That's more important to me than campaigning for safer abortions. I'm not saying to forget about safer abortions because it is an important issue, but that improving parenting in general should be a more desired goal. Whether you like it or not, the children are our future, and to me, that makes them great assets or great liabilities. You hear so many stories about people mis-treating their kids, and many times, it's out of sheer ignorance as opposed to intentional mistreatment.

As a parent, I feel like there aren't too many useful services to me. WIC is awesome for nutrition, but anymore, the government wants to tell us how to be a parent rather than guide us through it. All the parenting magazines and websites offer too much useless info that it's hard to filter through it. It seems to me that this world is anti-parenting anymore. One thing I'd like to see is someone advocate on a federal level to add to the equality statements for moms and dads governed by the EEOC that it should be illegal for anyone to base hiring/firing/etc. on the concept that someone is a mom/dad and that if the parent needs to handle kids (sick, school, etc.) they are granted permission to do so without reprimand, and maternity leave should be like military leave (granted for a certain, reasonable time with promise of a job afterwards). They say it's illegal to fire someone for being pregnant, but I was fired for that reason. Many states are now at-will states and can fire for any reason. At least a black man who didn't get the job because he was black can get some support from the EEOC whereas a mom who didn't get the job because she has kids cannot. All you can do with that is play it smart or get an attorney. I did have a friend fired by an attorney for being pregnant, and he was cheating on his wife with the secretary and she's the one that told my friend in front of the attorney, so my friend still lost her job, but she got a very nice severance pay out of the deal. But she would have a hard time fighting it if he didn't. He could put it in writing and she still couldn't do much about it. That's ridiculous. To me, it's not pro choice when it's easier to find and maintain a job by getting an abortion than it is to keep the kids. To me, that's pro abortion, and that's the world we live in.

It's quite sad that parts of the world (well, actually most of the world) is like this.

Ohhhh. Hot potato or what?

I am pro-choice. It means exactly that - choice. Important to stress that, because some pro-lifers talk as if pro-choicers were going round gleefully encouraging women to have as many abortions as possible, and that's not what it's about. Some women will choose to have a child, others won't. You will never stop people (of any age or marital status) having sex. And there is not yet a foolproof method of contraception. Accidents happen. Women will seek abortions. The business of any responsible, compassionate person should be to make sure that they don't have to risk death, injury or harrassment to do so, and to make sure that ideally, as few women as possible need them in the first place. That means promoting comprehensive sex and relationship education and responsible contraceptive use. And while (because it, you know, takes two) that definitely means telling boys a few home truths about the consequences of their actions, it especially means empowering girls to make healthy choices.

(Also, and perhaps paradoxically to some people, I think it means putting more emphasis on pleasure. I think someone else touched on this, but I'm pretty sure if girls were more clued up on their own bodies and what they enjoy, they'd be less willing to sleep with guys out of pressure or a need to feel grown up or to fit in, and more likely to wait for the right person, time, place and take precautions. Abstinence ed won't cut it - from what I've seen, that's teaching girls their bodies belong to God, then Daddy, then the man they marry, and that's reducing a girl to property just as much as the 'slut' paradigm does; what we need is girls knowing they own their own sexuality...and don't have to throw it at all comers.)

Anyway. A spot of biology. I work in a pathology lab, where we see the results of naturally failed pregnancies fairly regularly. Even allowing for the fact that miscarriages often mean there's something wrong with the embryo, there is rarely very much to see at that stage. Very, very many women who miscarry - and miscarriages mostly happen before 12 weeks - just have something like a very heavy period with clots and cramping. A termination at that stage, which is when most of them also happen, is unlikely to contain anything that looks human. I say this not because the idea of the embryo 'looking human' says anything about its actual human status or otherwise, but because the pro-life movement seems to think it does. It's purely emotional; far fewer people are about to get upset about the idea of 'killing' the pink Rice Krispie (that's roughly the shape, size and appearance of it) that is a 3 week human embryo. (Some clarification: in medical terminology, it's an embryo up to 9 weeks, a fetus thereafter till birth.) This explains what some of you have noticed: a lot of pro-life sites do indeed feature fetuses which are labeled as much younger than their actual gestational age, and also give 'facts' which are provably untrue - for instance, while nobody's sure when a fetus can feel pain, it's accepted that the neural tube is just beginning to close in the third to fourth week - yet some sites will tell you the embryo's nervous system is fully formed at that point, which is ludicrous. Stuff like that seems to be all too common. Message to pro lifers: if you can't get the known facts of human embryology right, how can you expect anyone to listen to you on the more speculative stuff?

Another small point: we hear plenty from the 'happy accidents' whose mothers decided not to abort them and later learned to love them and who are grateful pro-lifers as a result, but nobody seems very interested in the other kind of accidental child. I was that kind of child - one whose parents, although not abusive in any of the obvious ways, never wanted or accepted me, and who expressed it in no uncertain terms - and it's a major reason why I'm pro-choice. If you grew up in such circumstances and you feel differently, good luck to you, but this is how I feel. I will not bring an unwanted child into the world.

Also, just a word for whoever implied that a couple can't really love each other if they don't want childen: My husband and I happen to fall into that category, And you know nothing about us or our relationship. Really you don't. So speak for yourself, but realize that you don't speak for him or me, or any other happily childfree couple in the world.