“Let’s be very clear about this: when a woman finds herself pregnant due to violence and chooses an abortion, it is the violence that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.
When a woman finds that the fetus she is carrying has anomalies incompatible with life, that it will not live and that she requires an abortion — often a late-term abortion — to protect her life, her health, or her fertility, it is the shattering of her hopes and dreams for that pregnancy that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.
When a woman wants a child but can’t afford one because she hasn’t the education necessary for a sustainable job, or access to health care, or day care, or adequate food, it is the abysmal priorities of our nation, the lack of social supports, the absence of justice that are the tragedies; the abortion is a blessing.
And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion — there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.
These are the two things I want you, please, to remember — abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.”
–Rev. Katherine Ragsdale (via Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless)
Jan 222010
As I said over on Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless, I am lucky enough to live in a country where, when I needed an abortion, it was arranged and paid for by the State.
I fervently believe that all women should have that right and the words of Rev Ragsdale and Sonia Renee are such compelling reasons why.
While I agree with women having choices, I still think it’s wrong that a woman can choose to abort a child without her partner’s consent or knowledge. They created the child together, it shouldn’t be only her decision to end the child’s life. Even if it was a one-night stand, it’s still his child too. This opinion does not apply in rape or incest cases where a crime was committed during conception, or in cases of severe health problems, genetic defects, or when the mother’s or child’s life might be in danger from childbirth.
I also disagree with the idea that a lot of teenagers seem to have that it’s no big deal to get pregnant they can “just have an abortion.” The idea that this is some form of backwards birth control just makes me sick.
Abortion may be a blessing, but life is a blessing too, and that’s why, when given the option of abortion or adoption, I chose to carry my child and relinquish. I was 16.
I’m all for keeping abortion an option, and I would love for it to be more affordable. However, I think we need to educate more about abortion so that it stops being seen as a reasonable alternative to pregnancy prevention. And there needs to be some way for fathers to have a say, too.
What happens when the mother wants an abortion but the father wants the baby?
What happens when the father says he wants the baby but the mother knows he’d be a terrible dad?
Who pays when he wants the baby and she doesn’t?
Does he get a say in how she eats? How much she sleeps? Where she works?
Does he get to be in the delivery room? What if she doesn’t want him there?
***I’ll stop now…***
Also…
What happens when she says it was rape and he says it was consensual?
How long does it take to PROVE that it was rape? 6 months? A year?
Whose responsibility is it to find the dad and ask his opinion?
(sorry, guess I wasn’t ready to stop yet)
Most of the time you can never *prove* it was rape unless it was reported right away and there was vaginal bruising (which can also come from rough sex, so it’s still hard to conclusively prove). Ask any woman who’s been raped (me, for instance) who didn’t know what to do when she said no and he just didn’t stop. He didn’t actually physically hurt me (except that I was a virgin), and I was too scared to report it right away, so by the time I did, any evidence that it wasn’t consensual was long gone.
I realize it seems like I’m arguing against myself here, but I never said I had all the answers or that my opinion was even plausible. I just think it’s completely wrong that a woman can choose to keep or abort a baby over the father’s objections, either way. They made the baby *together*, but it’s only the woman’s choice how it all ends up and whether he’s on the hook for 18 years of child support or not.
I’m a big fan of personal responsibility and I feel that if you took the risk, knowing the consequence, you have a duty to include the other parent in any decision you make concerning what is, at the end of the day, BOTH of your responsibilities. Maybe his less so, because he can legally get off with paying child support and never anything more unless he wants it, while we end up caring for the children by ourselves, but if he wants the child, I don’t see why that situation should not be completely reversible, where she does nothing but pay child support and he gets sole custody.
I agree that in a perfect world they would both carry equal responsibility and decision making ability. But I just can’t see a way for that to happen given the limits of current baby-making technology.
While I do agree that it isn’t a perfect situation, but if the mother does not want the child and the father does but its still her right to terminate it, how can a father be held accountable to pay child support for a child that he wanted aborted but the mother wanted to keep? I do agree that its a woman’s choice but its a whole lot to think about, father’s sometimes have very little rights.
But what happens when the woman wants the baby and the man doesn’t? He’s hosed. The law provides for a woman to decide whether or not she wants to be a parent, but the male has zero choice in the matter — he’s just at the whim of her choice. There is no “blessing” for him.
Only too true. And at the time when men can carry and nurse infants, women will be hosed in exactly the same way.
So because we can carry and nurse infants, we get the sole choice of whether or not to screw a guy (literally) out of 20% of his income every month, no matter what else happens in his life? Even though we are just as culpable since we also did not take care of preventing the pregnancy?
What about women who get pregnant on purpose to trap guys? How is that right?
I have two male friends to whom this has happened (this being a child aborted they wanted but the mom didn’t). One of them, it was his girlfriend of 5 years, they were common law married, and she was cruel enough to show him the ultrasound pictures after she’d already aborted the child. The other one, it was his wife (regular marriage). She told him she was pregnant, he got excited and called everyone, he thought she was excited, too, and then she went to her sister’s for the weekend and came back no longer pregnant. No discussion, no announcement, nothing, just no more baby.
Now, I’ll admit those are extreme cases, and not the “norm.” But no one will ever convince me that those guys did not deserve to have a say in their significant others’ decisions.
Also, the previous reply goes with the other message, obviously, since the questions I addressed were from there.
Well, what happens when the father wants an abortion and the mother wants the baby? The same thing SHOULD happen, in reverse.
What about all the terrible moms whose CHOICE it is to still go ahead and have the baby and try (and fail or not) to raise it themselves. You can’t always KNOW someone will be a terrible father based on what they’re like before they become one (you aren’t always wrong in your predictions, either).
Who pays when she wants the baby and he doesn’t? Again, same thing in reverse should happen.
I think he should be able to require (in so far as I know some adoptive parents can) that she be healthy, as long as he is willing to foot the bill (up to and including reasonably supporting her if she has to quit her job) for helping to keep her so.
No. Delivery room attendance has nothing to do with being a good parent, in all honesty, the only reason the woman’s there is because she sort of has to be (unless she’s chosen homebirth). If she wants him there, fine, if not, fine.
What happens when the father doesn’t give a shit that the mother is pregnant?
What happens when the father refuses to support a child because “that shit ain’t his?”
Who’s left with the decisions and the child then?
I think this sums it up well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOV7RyHjl5c
He leaves, and is completely free to do nothing more than pay his child support. Women should be so lucky.
Blood tests. There are plenty of avenues for a woman (particularly one who cannot afford legal counsel to sue) to prove a man is the father for child support purposes. Here in Texas, the Attorney General’s office will be more than happy to do so, free of charge.
My point is that women have the sole opportunity to determine the course of the man’s life for the rest his life (or at the very least the next 18 years), but that the man is given no say whatsoever. All I think should happen is that EITHER of them should be able to stop a pregnancy termination and then take sole custody of the child once it’s born.
While we’re arguing the point, I have birthed four children. They all have different fathers, and I was only married to two of them. The first when I was 16, was relinquished. The second when I was 21 and married to her father. We divorced, he pays child support and sees his daughter regularly. The third when I was 22 and married to his father. We divorced, he pays child support and sees his son occasionally. The fourth when I was 27. I never married her father, we broke up when I was 3 months pregnant, and the last I heard, he was denying she was his child. Before that, he was telling people who knew us both that I only dated him to get pregnant. I never sued him for child support, and that was MY CHOICE. Now, obviously it’s his choice too, because he knows where I live and has never even made an attempt to see her, BUT… If I had chosen to sue him for child support, he would have had no choice but to pay it, even feeling as he does (obviously he doesn’t want her, or he’d have tried to contact me, she’s three, almost four, years old!).
All I’m saying is that guys should have the same choices with regards to becoming parents that women do. Period.
Also, I would like to add that I did not graduate from college until AFTER my third child was born. Sonia Renee can poetry slam all she wants to, but some of what she says is just a cop-out. I took food stamps, WIC, and child care subsidies so that I could finish college and get a job that paid more than minimum wage. Is it harder? Yes. But again, it’s all about whether you want to be a victim or make something of yourself. It’s about whether you’re looking for a hand up or a hand out. “I had a baby when I was 16, so I didn’t finish high school or go to college” is an excuse. The assistance exists, if you choose to make use of it.
Even in the itty bitty crappy town I live in, the high school pays for daycare for every student who has a baby while matriculating, and they alter the mom’s (and sometimes dad’s) schedules to they can work, graduate early, whatever they need to do. Now, those services do end when they graduate, but they are then pointed towards new services that will help them while they get their college degree if they so choose.
I do not agree that teenagers should use abortions as a form of birth control, BUT, working with DCF, I see far, FAR too many mothers who should never have had/kept their children, and many of them who say that they did it because the fathers swore that they would be there to help them, but disappear once they discover what being a parent is really like.
I work at the local high school, and I see a lot of mothers whose boyfriends have already left them, but think that by keeping the baby they can hope to win the man back.
But I do also see the girls who are in just the situation you describe, and also the ones who make the mistake of getting married because they think that will make it work.
There is no simple solution, but I can’t condone a situation where women get to make all the choices and men get to make none once the conception has occurred.
Will never get over how awesome that quote is.
Ditto AAG and Britni.
Also…
I think father’s should get to have a say – if they are actually going to stick around and try to be the partner/father who is there and responsible. But I don’t think the final decision should be theirs. The woman/mother is going to have to do 99% of the work – carrying the baby to term, boob pain, back pain, pelvic pain, boobs leaking, people touching without permission, ankles swelling, having no control over food choices or smells, having to decide which testing they are going to do while pregnant, having to decide if they can afford to keep/raise the baby they are carrying, figuring out if the father is going to stick around long enough to care…..Yeah. And if the father has made the decision to drop his semen and go, then he gets no say in what happens as a result of his actions.
So there.
I don’t think *I* could choose abortion for myself. But I damn sure want the option to be available to all women. And I want the SAFE option to be available. Regardless of how the pregnancy happened.
But yes, there needs to be more education available to all of our teens regarding sex and the consequences it comes with – whether they be good or bad. Because the education available to most of our teens, sucks rocks.
(Gawd that was all over the place, wasn’t it? Oh well.)
peace…
Probably the broadest/loosest usage of the term “blessing” I may have ever encountered… I guess if one looks hard enough even the Holocaust, slavery in the Americas, and nuclear war could be considered “blessings”…
Well if you look at some of the medical advance that stemmed from the horrendous experiments carried out…
WOW – the holocaust huh? Ok bottom line is choice…and freedom. I am free to terminate a pregnancy…I have that choice as a person, as a woman, as a human being. I don’t need a doctor, or medical tools, I can accomplish this with herbs if need be…the point is that I make that decision. It is a personal one…highly personal; based on my beliefs, my morals, my faith, my financial situation, my living situation, my job situation, etc. Ultimately it is my decision. Now, I could chose to include other people in this life altering decision that pregnancy is…or I could exclude everyone. Again the choice is mine; I am free to decide and not because a law gives me that freedom…but simply because I have the free will to make a decision.
OK…enough philosophy. I believe that abortion is repugnant. That being said, I would NEVER NEVER make that decision for anyone but myself…because I would NEVER tolerate it being made for me. I was once a very active anti-choice person…until I needed to terminate a pregnancy to save my uterus for future child bearing(it worked BTW – I have a 16 year old daughter0. Trying to get past those protesters and dodge the rocks they threw at me and trying not to get spit on changed my mind – I tried to explain to those strangers why I needed to do this horrible thing…but amazingly they didn’t listen…and they forever changed me into a vehemently pro-choice woman. How dare strangers try to insinuate themselves into this agonizing decision? Who did they think they were?
As far as the rights of the men…that is a tough nut to crack isn’t it? We can’t legislate communication. We can’t legislate relationships. That being said….women get pregnant, women get to make the decision. Period. Women should include their men…but they can’t be made to. However I also believe that men should not be forced to be fathers – even financially – they should have a choice too….they should be able to opt out. THey should not be able to force a woman to continue a pregnancy but they should be allowed the choice to decide if they want to participate. But the decision they make should be final. Needless to say if a woman choses to give up the child – the biological father should be given the first right to adopt and then again the woman she be given the choice to opt out. But all of this is based on first and foremost – the woman’s choice. We do still own our bodies right?
The difficulty I have with the fathers having a say in it to the extent of stopping an abortion that the mother wants or needs is that a man can back out at virtually any time with few consequences. A woman cannot. It may be biology, but the playing field still ain’t fair.
Growing up I knew so many kids who had “fathers” that either didn’t pay up like they were legally supposed to, made it hell to interact with them in any way, or paid the minimum and offered nothing else. Raising a child is about more than just money. And it’s more than our government can regulate effectively.
We’re not dealing with cracks. We’re dealing with big gaping holes that people fall through every day.
I hope I never need an abortion, but I’m glad that I can have one if I decide that’s the right choice for me. I am incredibly thankful that I had parents who wanted me to be on birth control since I was 15. And I’m glad that sex education when I was younger still existed to some degree.
Abortion is not the argument, as far I’m concerned.
I’ve written 4 different comments and then deleted them becuase I found holes in my own arguments. There is no black and white because women are solely responibly for carrying and birthing babies. There are so many issues, so many what ifs, so many different cirucstances.
“My point is that women have the sole opportunity to determine the course of the man’s life for the rest his life (or at the very least the next 18 years), but that the man is given no say whatsoever. All I think should happen is that EITHER of them should be able to stop a pregnancy termination and then take sole custody of the child once it’s born.”
He has the option of NOT having sex with her. Because everytime you have sex, there is a chance of pregnancy. Can we teach all people that?
And on the other other hand, life ain’t fair. Shit happens, you have to deal with it. For every point made in this discussion there is a good counter. For every situation there is an opposing what if. I really want to comment on them all, but I want to have sex tonight more and it’s getting later by the minute.
The person who gets to decide whether to carry a child is the person in whose body the child is growing. As AAG points out, if in future those people are men, they’ll get to decide.
For all that I’m adamant about choice, though, I really find it hard to think of abortion as a blessing. It’s sort of like saying divorce is a blessing. Yes, it’s better than the alternatives in many cases; yes, it’s often necessary; yes, it’s absolutely the right thing to do in many circumstances. But that doesn’t make it a happy event for most, nor something I think most would want to celebrate.
Just my view, possibly underinformed.
Is divorce a blessing if it frees a spouse from physical or emotional abuse?
This goes over the line into telling a story that’s not entirely mine to tell, but in this instance, I’ll briefly cross it. I think my mother’s marriage (to my father) was emotionally abusive. I’m very glad they got divorced for a variety of reasons, as is she. But she was still sad, disappointed, and filled with regret at times. Is she glad to not be married to him? Hell yes. I’m not saying the choices should not be available. I’m taking issue with the word “blessing” (which, frankly, I hate anyway) to describe not just the ability to make wrenching decisions, but to the wrenching decisions themselves.
Most definitely!
My parents’ divorce was definitely a blessing. They were miserable together, as much as they cared for each other. After their divorce they became wonderful friends and coparents. Their platonic love is much deeper and stronger and healthier than their romantic love ever was. He was there for her when she had cancer, and she is good friends with his new partner. That’s not just “better than the alternative,” it’s the best possible outcome, and it’s beautiful.
I think depending on who you are and what your circumstances are, abortion can be a blessing. It can be a choice which is liberating and healing. It won’t be that for everyone — sometimes it’s a bittersweet relief, sometimes it’s a very sad choice — but I know people for whom it was a wonderful, beautiful thing.
I agree the lesser of two evils is not a “blessing”
ie: to the person that couldn’t find a parking space or an apartment in the slums of Germany say around the mid 1940′s…. the Holocaust was a blessing… (OH! that even felt dirty to type.. please note I am using a ridiculously extreme example to illustrate a point… not a glimpse into my beliefs)
What drives me nuts–and I’ve seen a couple of examples of it here–are the “backhanded” pro-choicers. Having to have one abortion is okay, but if you get more than one you’re “using abortion as birth control” or “you need to learn how birth control works.” Just as a woman like AAG’s kids’ birth mother N is condemned for bringing multiple children into the world that she is seemingly incapable of raising, a woman who has had multiple abortions gets the same condemnation, with the added bonus of getting called a murderer by the more, uh, compassionate. Whatever choice we make, we’re fucked in more ways than one. But yes, abortion is often a blessing. It was for me and for many other women. I felt so strongly that I created a website where women could tell their stories. Yes, I linked it. :)
I appreciate the site so much, Patricia:
http://www.imnotsorry.net/
Some forget that “choice” means being able to take any legal option, not just “have an abortion.”
This gets me too. Abortion IS a form of birth control. It controls birth. It makes you not give birth until you want to give birth. Is it an *ideal* form of birth control? Not really, because it gets expensive and can be hard on the body. But it’s not my business if someone else chooses to use it multiple times. What’s best for them is up to them.
Abortion is a blessing.
As is divorce.
I agree with others above that it was the use of the word “blessing” to describe the lesser of two evils that disturbed me with this article. I do consider myself pro-choice, but if I were ever in a situation where I chose abortion over bringing a baby to term, I would not be popping a cork and celebrating the decision.
I have seen a lot of things in the last almost 40 years of my life. I have personally known 13 year old girls with babies (the one father was just a couple years older, the other was 27 – her mother had no problem with letting her 13 year old date a 27 year old guy). I knew someone else who through 8th to 12th grade had multiple abortions every year because she couldn’t be bothered to use a condom and her mother thought she was a virgin. She looked at abortion the same way as she looked at changing her clothes, it was no big deal. I also know someone who is spending time is jail for having sex with his under age daughter who ended up pregnant. They kept the baby. Despite being married and in a stable relationship with the same person for the last 18 years and being able to financially take care of them without the help of public assistance (that seems to be a big thing for people) I have had people tell me, including my own mother, that I should have never had seven children and I should have aborted a number of them. I don’t understand how people think nor do I understand many things that happen in the world. No matter what decision someone makes regarding anything someone else is going to condone them for it. In a perfect world there would be no need for abortion but the world we live in is imperfect. I don’t like the idea of abortion but at the same time I would never want that option taken away from anyone.