What’s interesting is that the videos, the most recent one in particular, just amount to the exact same thing anti-choicers have been doing for decades – they think that holding up a photo of an aborted fetus will turn people against abortion, as if pro-choicers had no idea what the term actually meant. The people who made the video must have wet their pants with excitement when they were permitted to film inside the room where the tissue was stored. (Presumably PP has tightened up their privacy policy in the succeeding months.) It’s like standing outside a hospital and showing videos of appendectomies in order to gross people out and give them second thoughts about getting one. Yes, we live in a sanitized version of real life. When you read about someone dying in a car crash, the abject horror of the scene is completely obscured. Peeling back that veil can be shocking, for sure. But it’s nothing new, which makes the behavior of our elected representatives, who are shocked, SHOCKED to learn of the TERRIBLE things that PP is doing, all the more pathetic.
I’m going to take a wild guess skippy that you have a penis. If my opinion that this op ed is a piece of raw sewage offends you, too fucking bad. You admitted yourself you “didn’t think” about this angle of health care. No surprises there…but guess what? We did.
You and your pal Nicky can take your Chicken Little routine and roll down a mountain of lego.
Wow. Get help now. You have a serious attitude problem. Plus you are wrong about most things.
Yes, I do. I have a whole lot of attitude with men telling women what to do, how to think, and that we should just shush our mouths and accept YOUR word as law when it comes to an issue of access to their own health care.
Aint gonna happen. If that makes you uncomfortable…good. Because we have been made to feel uncomfortable about this subject for long enough.
So find your own help with your obsession over Planned Parenthood’s demise. And if you don’t like my comments on it, don’t read them. A free country also means you are free to ignore what I say and free to find your way out of talking to me.
You misinterpret what I wrote and get all angry about it. These two sentences are as much time as I’m willing to spend on an unpleasant person like you.
I just came back to this discussion to see what had been added since yesterday.
JJRothery, you’re obviously a passionate feminist, with a zero-tolerance sort of viewpoint about this subject…
As I said in my post yesterday, I throw money at PP every time a new video comes out, so I feel comfortable with my support of the pro-choice side. However, as I also said, to me abortion carries the air of personal tragedy. I know this personally, even though you may disqualify my experience on account of my being a man. The tragic aspect doesn’t make abortion wrong; but it seems to me this characteristic of abortion goes a long way to shore up the feelings of the pro-lifers and enforces their belief that they’re essentially “right.”
What would you say if you were in a debate, and someone asked whether you agreed that every abortion is a tragedy?
I’ve been trying to make this argument for quite some time. Republicans are great at framing a conversation or debate, if nothing else. They get democrats to talk about the things they want to talk about, on the terms they want it discussed.
The conversation needs to change. Why are we defending PP for doing something that is legal, and was already protected by the SCOTUS? Why are republicans trying to remove the right of women to care for themselves and their body? Sure, the facts are worth pointing out. I have no problem challenging republicans when they blatantly lie about what PP does or how much of their services are for abortion. But there is no reason to trivialize or get defensive about abortion services. It is either legal or it isn’t.
“By defending Planned Parenthood as “only” three percent abortion care, we are reinforcing abortion stigma.” I don’t see telling the truth being a problem.
This reminds me of when the current crop of “debaters” decry the President because he doesn’t use the words “Radical Islamic Terrorism,” as though those words had some magic association that would prove that he is a true “American.” It is a completely false litmus test.
Insisting that someone comment on whether they believe that abortion is a tragedy is just another example of a fake kind of test. Every abortion is proof that we are an imperfect bunch of humans. Every abortion is difficult.
You want to know what is a tragedy? A baby – a completely dependent being – treated badly by a mother who doesn’t want it, love it, or care for it; a child who learns early on that they don’t deserve a loving family; and a woman who didn’t prepare for sex now having a dependent child that they can’t take adequate care of. That is a tragedy.
I worked in Reproductive Medicine, helping couples who want to have a baby more than anything, achieve that goal. I adopted three children of my own (including twin boys), so I have a healthy respect for what it is to want a child desperately. However, I also worked for many years in Emergency Rooms, and I saw horrific examples of children who were abused, or just ignored; I still remember a sweet looking 10 year old boy who broke both legs when he jumped off a roof, trying to commit suicide. His mother refused to come to the hospital and suggested that he should be put in foster care.
I have an answer for your question:
No, I don’t think abortion is a tragedy. It is a medical procedure that, hopefully will not be needed in the future except in extreme situations.
Good for you and all your experience, Your last paragraph would have sufficed, because that is all most people would remember.
I also believe attempting to disqualify this question (or any other question) is bogus.
Here’s my answer to my own question, fyi:
I think it is natural for people to view abortions as tragedies of a kind, and I share this view. Many pro-lifers base their views on religious grounds, but even the most scientific pro-choicer should agree that the ultimate purpose of life is to sustain life–to reproduce. Abortion terminates this process after fertilization–when it has begun in earnest. You may feel “tragedy” is too strong, or emotional, a term to use here, but personally, as a dedicated atheist pro-choicer, I don’t.
I zoned out after the first sentence of the reply to your question…so you see, there is no one right answer despite your demand and insistence there is.
Frankly, CVilleDem’s answer is the truth. The actual truth. It’s a medical procedure, and one that no woman I know who has ever chosen has done so lightly or without thought and consideration. The stigma has been attached to it by those who oppose it and those who believe somehow religion trumps science (when frankly, religions around the world are half based IN science, but another debate altogether). The stigma also gets attached when the media allows those who disagree this is a medical decision between a woman and her doctor - nobody else - to frame the discussion without any consequence or pushback.
Once again, for those in the cheap seats: our uterus? NOT your political football. The only uterus that is any of your GD business is the one you personally have, if you have one. Otherwise…nope.
Which brings us back around to my original comment about the op ed and the unmitigated gall of the media to blame those of us who support PP and a woman’s right to choose, when it isn’t our framing that’s done the damage. What I had an issue with from the start is the op ed framing this as somehow being primarily OUR fault, when the loudest microphone on the issue is those with the pen and the circulation list. Like Lauren. And yet, they don’t use it to fight back against the stigma.
So those who want to paint me as an angry feminist (talking to you skippy)…go for it. I’ve been called worse. Your dismissal of me as nothing more than that proves you really aren’t an ally in this fight anyways as you’re much more comfortable framing this as nothing more than my incivility rather than your own complacency.
I’m assuming your response was to me.
I didn’t demand or insist anything. I was trying to address what I perceive as an aspect of abortion that many in the pro-choice crowd actively ignore. To describe abortion as only a medical procedure may be to state a literal fact, and that may be enough for you and other true believers, but that’s not where the battle is fought.
Some years ago, I lived with a woman who was as angry a feminist as you are. Together we marched in D.C., and donated time and money to causes that we both believed in. It was when she asked me to drive her to her volunteer position at a women’s clinic, then told me to pull over and let her out that things went wrong for me. I asked why she needed to get out. She told me she couldn’t tell me where the clinic was. Neither could she give me the phone number. There was no way I could contact her or find her when she was there. Why? Because I was a man.
That’s where I got off the bus, so to speak.
Your posts seem to have the same sensibility. If every pro-choicer did what I’ve done and continue to do, Planned Parenthood would be able to steamroll anyone who opposed it. I think it would be a better use of your time to look for allies rather than sniff around for enemies in your own camp.
SMDH. (btw I put in brackets who I was speaking to and it wasn’t you…but you felt the need to defend yourself regardless, so the rest of this IS addressed to you)
So of course because I question the original op ed position, I’m not only an angry feminist, now I’m a man hater?
Of course I am. Because how could I be anything but an angry shrill feminist man hater? (that’s sarcasm btw) I couldn’t possibly be angry at the writer of the op ed of course for refusing to take some of the blame for how this issue is perceived in the press…no, that’s not it at all. Because it’s all about you, your feelings, and how you felt some strong female presence in your life emasculated you at one point that a woman with a strong opinion who has no issues voicing it, can’t be anything other than a militant.
Here’s a pro tip: it isn’t always about you. In fact, most of the time it’s not about you, at all. I’ll even go further as to say that not all feminists are man haters…but I’d hate to burst your bubble about that meme, because you seem pretty comfortable in that belief.
I don’t hate men. What I hate, are hypocrites who say they support me and my decisions when in reality what they support is me and my decisions when they don’t affect you personally and don’t somehow put you out or hurt your feelings.
Your post is actually quite revealing as to how your support is conditional upon the women in this movement being everything BUT what you’ve labeled me. As long as we all know where we stand. I don’t have to sniff around for enemies in my own camp, they always reveal themselves in time.
ciao.
So of course because I question the original op ed position, I’m not only an angry feminist, now I’m a man hater?
Angry feminist and man hater were originally your words, not mine. I don’t have a problem with “angry feminists,” per se; I loved my angry feminist girlfriend (if that phrase is allowed) very much. I’m not too keen on man-haters, though.
I have never in my life felt emasculated (your words, again). I felt I could not accommodate her decision about prohibiting me contact with her at the clinic, as it was based solely on my sex, prioritizing that over the years we had spent together and the love and trust we had achieved. To put it in masculine words, I thought she should let me know how to find her in case I got run over by a bulldozer and wanted to say a quick good-bye. What can I say? It made sense to me.
I don’t hate men. What I hate, are hypocrites who say they support me and my decisions when in reality what they support is me and my decisions when they don’t affect you personally and don’t somehow put you out or hurt your feelings.
When my angry feminist girlfriend got pregnant, it was upsetting and frightening to me, as well as her. I didn’t want to be a father yet. Still, I made it clear the choice was hers, and if she had the kid I’d have been a father twenty years ago. She made her choice, and I went with her to have her medical procedure performed.
Still, my angry feminist girlfriend who didn’t hesitate for a moment in her decision was devastated for a time by the whole thing. Now why do you think that was?
Well, my dick-swingin’, opinion goes something like this: Her abortion was a personal tragedy for her because she was carrying the seed of a life, and she chose to terminate the process. She was entirely within her rights to do this thing; no one questioned her decision, and I supported her as well as any dick-swinger could. So, everything was the way it should be. But still…
If this strong, independent, intelligent, beautiful, successful woman experienced her best-circumstances abortion as a tragedy, you can be damn sure she’s not the only one. This is the “stigma” you dismiss as a political/religious concoction. Willful blindness like this is not only destructive to the cause; it’s insulting to any compassionate person.
If you’re going to condemn me for putting words in your mouth, I’m calling you out for doing the same thing right there and respond one last time before I forget you. Because it’s necessary.
You don’t have any clue whatsoever how I feel about the stigma attached, because you made it clear you don’t care what I think; your entire post is centered around you and what YOU think and what you assume I think. You also have no idea as to the circumstances in my own life that have led me to supporting vociferously any woman’s right to make the choice and keeping that choice between her and her doctor. And what leads me to call out Lauren for a truly half assed effort at shifting the blame when there is plenty to go around.
You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m fully aware of what kind of thoughts and emotions go into this kind of choice, based on personal direct experience. Not that I think you will, because you’ve made it pretty clear what I think matters little. So if that’s the case then you’ll have no problem just continuing on your way and not giving two shits of my opinion any longer.
BTW, before you go off thinking that I somehow put words in your mouth, this is from your post:
Also:
Your words in the second quote may not be exact, but your implication was quite clear in its intent.
But it was awfully nice of you to take the time to pass judgment on what I think and feel, so feel better about yourself. 
My “Some years ago” comment was sarcasm, referencing your earlier suspicion that others consider you an angry feminist. I wasn’t the one who planted that suspicion in your head.
And yes, your posts do have an anti-male sensibility; referencing men not as men, but essentially as things attached to penises.
It’s not that I don’t care about your opinion; not at all. It’s your opinion as someone unwilling to consider anything that even has a hint of being from “the other side” that concerns me. It’s willfully blind, as I said, and I consider it dangerous.
Finally, contrary to what you state, your response wasn’t necessary; you wanted to write it. And neither will you forget me or this exchange right away. I know you’ll read this. This will all remain on your mind for some time. And that’s normal; I’ll remember it for a while, as well. But I have no problem saying so.
Which just ties back into my starting point. Acknowledge the complexity of the issue, and the variety of ways it plays out, even if it’s not to your advantage. In the end, it will make you a more effective communicator.
The pro-choice movement doesn’t need people who write. Like. THIS. It needs compassionate, dedicated people with open minds who see the imperfections in their own arguments, and work to accommodate it all in pursuit of the best end.
Peace.
I disagree that the "ultimate purpose of life is to reproduce"we are not ants or bee colonies. The ultimate purpose of life is to live.