Abortion - the times may be a changin...

Pepper said:
Thank you so much for remembering Sherri Finkbine @mrstime! I was 12 and this was such a meaningful story for me, and encouraged a lot of discussion in my home and everywhere else.
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We were married in 1957, and at the time the Finkbine story broke we had 3 stair steps and I was pregnant yet again.
 

Irwin said:
A fetus is a potential life, but not at all sentient or a viable life until the final few months of pregnancy, so what makes it so special if it's unwanted?

The thing that gets me is, most of the anti-abortion crowd are also anti-vax and anti-mask — two simple things that can save lives. They supported the idiotic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which killed 100s of thousands of innocent civilians. They're pro-gun and anti-gun regulation. They don't support programs to feed the hungry or to provide healthcare to those who can't afford it. They're pro-death in almost all cases except for when it comes to the life of the fetus.

Who exactly will benefit from banning abortion?
Not the women who are forced to have children they can't or don't want to take care of.
Not the people who pass the laws, unless they benefit somehow politically.
The fetus would be allowed to grow into a person, but in many cases be born into a poor household fraught with drug use, neglect, and child abuse.

So banning abortion for the most part doesn't benefit anyone. According to historian Carlo M. Cipolla's basic laws of stupidity, when people do things that cause losses to themselves and to others, that is the definition of stupidity.

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YES!! Most of the anti-abortion people are the same people who immediately lose interest in the fetus once it is born, being unwilling to offer poor women any support in raising the child, as in financial benefits or medical benefits.

It is also interesting to me that many of those who oppose vaccination because "nobody has the right to tell me what to do with my body" are sooo very interested in telling women what they must do with their own bodies. To me, this is hypocrisy in its purest form.

Do we see any of the anti-abortionists trying to do anything to try to identify fathers and enforce child support payments against fathers of the unwanted children they want to force women to bear?? A big fat NO! The responsibility isn't all the woman's, after all. The father can just walk away. The woman can't.

Or do we see any of them trying to enact legislation that would subsidize medical care for disabled children women would be forced to bear? Another bag fat NO!!
 
The Constitutionality of Mississippi's restrictive abortion laws will be determined by the SCOTUS decision.

Guess where Mississippi is ranked when it comes to education?
Answer: Dead last
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-educated-states

Wouldn't it be better if the best and the brightest made decisions in our country instead of the worst and the...
 

Butterfly said:
YES!! Most of the anti-abortion people are the same people who immediately lose interest in the fetus once it is born, being unwilling to offer poor women any support in raising the child, as in financial benefits or medical benefits.

It is also interesting to me that many of those who oppose vaccination because "nobody has the right to tell me what to do with my body" are sooo very interested in telling women what they must do with their own bodies. To me, this is hypocrisy in its purest form.

Do we see any of the anti-abortionists trying to do anything to try to identify fathers and enforce child support payments against fathers of the unwanted children they want to force women to bear?? A big fat NO! The responsibility isn't all the woman's, after all. The father can just walk away. The woman can't.

Or do we see any of them trying to enact legislation that would subsidize medical care for disabled children women would be forced to bear? Another bag fat NO!!
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How VERY true!!!
 
Smiley Holly said:
Abortion, I feel is a very personal decision for a women. Whether they decide that is to keep the baby or have the baby and put it up for adoption or have an abortion it is still a very personal decision that needs to be weighed heavily by the women involved and not by any outside parties.
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Just curious. Are you saying the father should not have a say in the matter?
 
Remy said:
Your college professor was an uniformed moron. This would probably have been my choice if I had ever been faced with the dilemma.
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Back when most here were in HS, college or just starting jobs (mid 1970s and earlier), an "unwed" mother was often a social pariah and an embarrassment to her family. Medical coverage often didn't extend to maternity or delivery if a woman wasn't married.

One of my cousins got pregnant in HS during the late 60s and I only learned of it a few years ago. Her parents felt deeply shamed and kept her home - she couldn't even attend family functions. The explanation was that she wasn't feeling well... The baby was adopted by someone from their church. Another cousin got pregnant in college around the same time and there was a hurry-up wedding which resulted in a disastrous marriage. My cousin and that child have a very frosty relationship, I'm sorry to say.

I remember girls in my HS going to "visit aunts" in far away places for six months or more. There were a few whispers, but generally the thought of it being a HS pregnancy was so horrifying and scandalous that most chose to accept the storylines at face value.

There is no comparison between today's acceptance of unmarried pregnant women with the prevailing attitudes of 40-50 years ago - and earlier.
Access to safe, legal abortions have been a game changer for both men and women. That's not because abortions are a substitute for birth control, but because having a baby is a life changing experience on every possible front.
 
@StarSong I worked with a younger woman who also had a shot gun wedding. They ended up divorced. I think she was a good mother but it probably would have been better had they never got married but according to her both sets of their parents really pushed it.

I think we had one, maybe two pregnancies when I was in high school. I graduated late 70's. Now I hear on the radio when they discuss covid vaccine for high school kids and waivers for pregnant students. I can only imagine how many there may be.

BTW my mother was not married to my GI bio dad when she got pregnant with my oldest brother. She didn't know I knew this but figured it out through some paper work (birth certificate? can't remember) when I was relatively young. My oldest brother knew and he said when he asked our mother about it, she flipped on him. Of coarse, true borderline.
 
I came across this very powerful piece from an Alabama minister.

It was posted on Facebook by a Methodist pastor named David Barnhart on the double standards of pro-lifers.

“”The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.“ David Barnhart

It's easy to find with a web search.
Here's one source: https://franklycurious.com/wp/2020/12/09/the-unborn/
 
I believe that abortion should be an option.

IMO legalized abortion is only one part of what should be a comprehensive list of things including age appropriate sex education, free access to reproductive health screening, access to contraceptives for both men and women, easy access to the morning after pill, etc...

If serious efforts were made to increase education, awareness, and access to all of the choices available we should be able to make abortion an unnecessary option for most women.
 
StarSong said:
I came across this very powerful piece from an Alabama minister.

It was posted on Facebook by a Methodist pastor named David Barnhart on the double standards of pro-lifers.

“”The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.“ David Barnhart

It's easy to find with a web search.
Here's one source: https://franklycurious.com/wp/2020/12/09/the-unborn/
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Point well taken. Many "pro-life" individuals pay lip service to the sanctity of life, then go on to support politician's and policies that ignore the Prisoners, Immigrants,The sick,The poor, Widows, Orphans. Oh and yes, same individuals profess their absolute faith and love for Jesus, but hate what he actually stands for.
 
Bellbird said:
I abhor abortions when they are performed as a means of birth control, not once but on some numerous occasions, once it was legalised it was the 'done thing' . I hope some of them in their later years may live to regret it.
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I'm an abortion survivor. You may read about forced sterilizations in Puerto Rico (my birthplace) here: (1) forced abortions in puerto rico 1950s - Bing

While I oppose abortions on what some call "moral" grounds, I do recognize its legality. It was legal under the Anglo Saxon common law. See Blackstones's Legal Dictionary and check for "quickening". If the USSC decides to overrule Roe v Wade it would run counter to centuries of precedent but it would also revert authority over the issue to the states. This means that if some is from Florida and cannot get an abortion there, she may go to California and get it done there. Because of that the federal government would not be able to stop the procedure.
 
StarSong said:
I came across this very powerful piece from an Alabama minister.

It was posted on Facebook by a Methodist pastor named David Barnhart on the double standards of pro-lifers.

“”The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.“ David Barnhart

It's easy to find with a web search.
Here's one source: https://franklycurious.com/wp/2020/12/09/the-unborn/
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That's the perfect response!

In addition to what the pastor wrote, the heart of the anti-abortion argument is based on belief in Jesus, and the 1st Amendment to our Constitution provides us with protection from religious beliefs being forced upon us. There is no anti-abortion argument based on science, or not real science, anyway. Pseudoscience claims that the fetus can feel pain during early stages of development while actual science says that the fetus can't feel pain until the final two or three months, which makes sense since it wouldn't benefit at all from being able to feel pain before that time. If it could, that would have a negative effect on its development in the form of unnecessary stress, and stress is harmful to neurological development of the fetus.

Stress is extremely harmful to children in early stages of development. If we force women to have children they can't properly care for, the result is often a stressful and abusive environment, which is why there's so much violence in poor neighborhoods in the U.S. While that enriches the prison industrial complex, it's not good for society.
 
Irwin said:
Stress is extremely harmful to children in early stages of development. If we force women to have children they can't properly care for, the result is often a stressful and abusive environment, which is why there's so much violence in poor neighborhoods in the U.S. While that enriches the prison industrial complex, it's not good for society.
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There are thousands of children born every year to mothers who don't want them, or fathers who refuse to support them. In far too many cases, I suspect that the primary reason some of these kids are born is to increase the welfare payments.

In addition to allowing abortion, I would like to see mandatory Vasectomies for men who "impregnate" women with No intention of taking care of their "spawn".
 
Alligatorob said:
That is interesting. Can you post a link to something that explains it? I tried searching but was unsuccessful. I think it is an important point.
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Pepper said:
https://thelawdictionary.org/quickening/
https://www.bionity.com/en/encyclopedia/Quickening.html
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Thanks both for the question and the subsequent link.

Over the years people from the pro life side have said our Founding Fathers did not ever consider reproductive rights or even know what is was. That is totally incorrect as most were fully immersed in the law, the so called common law:


common law defined:

com·mon law
/ˈkämən ˈˌlô/


the part of English law that is derived from custom and judicial precedent rather than statutes. Often contrasted with statutory law.
  • the body of English law as adopted and modified separately by the different states of the US and by the federal government.

    modifier noun: common-law


    source: Google



    ------------------------------------






    As shown in the reply above abortion was LEGAL under the Anglo Saxon common law as proven by Blackstone. This in contrast to the beliefs of the pro lifers. The common law in entrenched in the 7th Amendment to the USA Constitution:



  • Constitution of United States of America 1789

    In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

    Therefore, all protections people had under the common law during the time of our Founding Fathers are to be preserved today. This includes reproductive rights. This is why if Roe vs Wade (a federal ruling) was overturned, the states retain their right to legislate as they see fit on the subject. Some states may abolish, others preserve it so that if one cannot get the procedure done in, say, Florida, they can move to another state such as Oregon and get it done there.




 
Don M. said:
In addition to allowing abortion, I would like to see mandatory Vasectomies for men who "impregnate" women with No intention of taking care of their "spawn".
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I have long thought of a future time when babies where "fixed" at birth. Later on as an adult, they could petition to have the procedure reversed, provided that they can demonstrate sincere desire to become a parent, and some (at least) rudimentary skills and means.
 
Smiley Holly said:
I feel they should be in the discussion process of course, but the ultimate bottom line decision to have one or not should be of the women.
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I agree, because as a practical matter the unwanted pregnancy has such a more powerful impact on the woman, both as to her health and to her whole future. Unless the man is willing and able and committed to being an equal partner in child rearing and care (which I don't think I've really ever seen, even in a marriage) the burden is always going to be more heavy for the woman. Even if the man is paying a reasonable amount of child support, it is still the woman's everyday responsibility to care for the child, stay home when the child is sick, etc. The man can just pay his money and go on as if the child isn't even there, while the mother is stuck.
 
StarSong said:
Back when most here were in HS, college or just starting jobs (mid 1970s and earlier), an "unwed" mother was often a social pariah and an embarrassment to her family. Medical coverage often didn't extend to maternity or delivery if a woman wasn't married.

One of my cousins got pregnant in HS during the late 60s and I only learned of it a few years ago. Her parents felt deeply shamed and kept her home - she couldn't even attend family functions. The explanation was that she wasn't feeling well... The baby was adopted by someone from their church. Another cousin got pregnant in college around the same time and there was a hurry-up wedding which resulted in a disastrous marriage. My cousin and that child have a very frosty relationship, I'm sorry to say.

I remember girls in my HS going to "visit aunts" in far away places for six months or more. There were a few whispers, but generally the thought of it being a HS pregnancy was so horrifying and scandalous that most chose to accept the storylines at face value.

There is no comparison between today's acceptance of unmarried pregnant women with the prevailing attitudes of 40-50 years ago - and earlier.
Access to safe, legal abortions have been a game changer for both men and women. That's not because abortions are a substitute for birth control, but because having a baby is a life changing experience on every possible front.
Click to expand...
So true. I remember a fellow student from my 1976 graduating class being denied graduation because she was pregnant. And yes, she was a "pariah" as you've described. So tragic.
 

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