****Approve – Request the Governor of the Commonwealth
of Virginia to Direct the Virginia Board of Health
and the Virginia Board of Medicine Promulgate,
Publish and Enforce Appropriate Regulations for
First-Trimester Abortion Facilities and Providers
– Supervisor Stirrup
Local politicians have a unique role as public servants; they do not need to be ideologically driven. Their job is to work on every day issues that effect our daily lives. Abortion does not fall into this category.
Wouldn’t the BOCS energy be better utilized implementing programs to PREVENT unwanted pregnancies? Comprehensive sex ed, not just teaching abstinence, but teaching about birth control, has been proven, time and time again, to reduce unwanted pregnancies in young people.
How about targeting our most at-risk youth by providing quality after-school programs? Do you think that the School Resource Officers that were just eliminated had an impact on making quality connections with kids to help foster self esteem? Give me a break, if these Supervisors pass this Feet in the Stirrups Resolution, they are simply abdicating their actual responsibility to work towards creating meaningful ways to prevent the NEED for abortion! THAT they can do on a local level!
No woman chooses an abortion cavalierly. It is a very personal decision, one that these supervisors have no place inserting themselves into. Furthermore, the Feet in the Stirrups Resolution claims that “the potential complications of abortion procedures are numerous and well documented.” That is a lie. If these complications are potential then they haven’t happened so how on earth could they be well-documented? There is no object research from any credible scientific study that makes any such claims.
The Feet in the Stirrups Resolution further claims that “abortions are rationally distinction from other types of medical procedures and so may be subject to separate and specific health regulation.” Duh! Yes, abortion is different from vasectomy. A vasectomy is different that getting your wisdom teeth pulled and that is different from bunion surgery. What sets abortion apart is that it is an emotionally charged issue. There is nothing to make abortion any more hazardous to one’s health than any other procedure.
The Feet in the Stirrups Resolution, like its other Stirrup predecessors, is simply a house of cards, built of suppositions, misinformation, and emotion. Our supervisors need to tend to the business of Prince William County. This Feet in the Stirrups Resolution is simply a deflection in hopes the citizens will be distracted from the serious issues facing county residents. Funny how conservatives (and I am sure most of the BOCS would proudly label themselves this nomenclature.) want small, non-invasive government that wants into every part of your personal life. BOCS, stay out of a woman’s uterous.
To download and read the entire Feet in the Stirrups Resolution click on the blue.
Elena
&
Moon-Howler
How many people would want their young and scared teenage daughter to go to some storefront operation for any kind of procedure at all, let alone abortion? And yes, abortion is unique in that it can be done WITHOUT a parent’s consent or knowledge, regardless of the minor’s medical history or potential for complications. And when there are complications to a minor’s abortion procedure, who gets to pay for the follow-up care and suffer all the anxiety? Why, the parents who were left in the dark in the first place! Who is minding the store with these establishments that indeed are unique in being able to provide surgery to minors, when those kids can’t even get contact lenses without parental consent?
I’ll start supporting this laissez-faire attitude towards abortion clinics when I see men lining up for vasectomies at their local Walmart.
So how will Cuccinelli’s ‘regulations’ prevent such an event from occurring?
Virginia is a parental notifical/consent state. There is no reason parents don’t know unless the teen has utilized judicial by-pass. Then again, they could go to DC or Maryland. After the consent law was enacted, the teen abortion rate dropped for the first 5 months. Anti choice activists then learned that the traffic just moved over to the district and Maryland.
Emma, do you really want politicians setting medical practice?
This is the oldest trick in the book with the anti abortion people. Making abortion inaccessible is just another way to do away with it or drive it elsewhere.
OMG!! Do a couple of our Supervisors NOT realize that they were elected to serve PWC, and NOT the Commonwealth. Why in the world is our BoS addressing an issue that has NO bearing what so ever on PWC. PWC does NOT, and NEVER has had an “abortion clinic” within it’s borders. I’ve not heard of plans for one in PWC. However, if the plan came across our planning departments’ desk(s), the county staff would be sure to write a staff report to support the clinic, like they do any other piss poor plan that is up for approval.
Before, the clinic that is regularly protested on Sudley Rd was here, females had to go to Fairfax. If someone needs/wants the abortion they will travel to get one where legal. I worked in the Attendance Office in high school three years. I was absolutely amazed at the number of female students that were coming to school late with notes from the clinic in Fairfax. It was quite uncomfortable sometimes when you saw your friends/classmates come in with these notes. Not to mention it wouldn’t be just one girl coming to school late, but two the “caregivers” were usually another student. I would also add that the vast majority(70-80%) where Catholic girls. I found that to be quite perplexing as a student and continue to to this very day.
Emma,
LOL-vasectomies at Walmart. It’s too bad men aren’t man enough to get snipped it’s a far easier procedure than a tubal ligation. Again, the burden usually falls on the woman.
@Lafayette And that’s my problem–men get it all nice and clean in a hospital or doctor’s office, if they so choose. A woman gets to go to some very public storefront clinic, push her way through the pro/con protestors, and hope for a procedure that somewhat resembles hospital standards. I’m trying to remove myself from my personal opinions about abortion and try to look at it objectively as a medical procedure deserving of the highest standards.
While I accept that abortion is legal whether I like it or not, I still detest the exploitative nature of the industry. I think if it were an issue for men, you would see the highest standards and the utmost privacy.
If there were scores of complaints of botched procedures, I would completely understand. However, I don’t believe that’s happening. I’m concerned about restrictions making it more difficult for women to have access to clinics. I want to see the locations that are open remain open. If abortion was to become illegal, the women would be in even greater danger as the “back alley abortions” would make a come back in our society.
I wish people understood that pro-choice, doesn’t mean pro-abortion. I simply do not feel it’s my place or the governments place to tell a woman what she can and can’t do with her body. I also, recognize that not everyone has the same religious beliefs, if any at all.
There was a very graphic anti-abortion commercial on right before SNL ended last night. The really screwed up part was the statement after it aired and said the graphic nature was to be aired unedited per the law. A statement before the airing would have been nice. I don’t have a stomach for one drop of blood or needles. I thought I was going to toss my cookies.
A different prospective on the abortion issue…published in the WaPo “A” Section today in their News Digest small section:
– Associated Press
Ohio judge overrides parents, lets teen wed: An Ohio judge allowed a pregnant 17-year-old to get married without her parents’ consent after the bride-to-be said she could be forced to have an abortion if she stayed at home. The Columbus Dispatch reported that the couple, who each turn 18 in a few months, got married Tuesday after a hearing. The bride’s mother expressed outrage.
oh, the reason I wrote “different perspective” is you do not often see blurbs like this published. Most often it is the political or heavy emotional story.
It’s not publicized because it is so political. Just because we don’t read about botched procedures does not mean they don’t occur. So what if a woman’s fertility is accidentally destroyed? You’re not going to read about that. I would venture to say that most of us know more about celebrity plastic surgeries than the many medical errors that happen daily that destroy everyday people’s lives.
So with our LOCAL tax dollars our BOS has decided to get involved in Transportation, Immigration and Abortion. Do they realize they are local representative and have a specific local mission and local obligation to their constituants? Their focus should be local – Schools, Police & Fire, Parks & Libraries. Funny those areas are being reduced while we help VDOT with our local transportation program, help the Feds with our local Immigration program and now let’s take on abortion? Although, I don’t think we’ve spent in the millions yet on abortion. Are they really trying to improve PWC or are they just vying for state and federal attention and opportunities to get on MTV?
Schools, Police & Fire, Parks & Libraries – their primary responsibility – their primary failures. All have been cut to fund other ‘more important’ programs. Important to who? Building roads just increases cut through traffic in PWC, Illegal Immigration – millions have been spent to end up doing exactly what was being done before the resolution ( so we have 287g – most don’t even know what it means) now we’re going to tackle abortion.
Can’t we get back to the basics here – take care of our own local infrastructure? Then take on the world.
Begin at home.
Amen, Juturna! Why have local officials if not to tackle local problems. Lately, too many of them have been using emotionally charged national issues to hide/avoid the local failures.
Emma, if most abortions were performed in hospitals, do you think it possible to avoid invasions of privacy, protests on wards, or threats to doctors? Just trying to imagine the charged atmosphere …
Juturna is correct. The BOCS was elected to take care of our local government, not weigh in on all the federal and state issues. So far they have drawn lines in the sand on health care, immigration, transportation, and now abortion. They need to do the job they were elected to do and leave these other issues alone.
Emma, you have not offered any examples of clinic improvements that would make legal abortion safer. If there are unsafe practices, certainly the people of Virginia would want those taken care of. So far, I have seen none. This is a ruse. It has one objective–to make abortion more unattainable.
No procedure is without risk and that includes wisdom tooth removal, vasectomy, bunion surgery, the list goes on. Perhaps all the outpatient services need to be jacked up. From what I have read, more services will be provided on an outpatient basis. Why don’t those services come under the same scrutiny? Is it because wisdom tooth removal has no emotional appeal?
Thanks for adding Health Care MH. I am patiently digging my way through health care reform to see what is what. First blush, I am thrilled about eliminating pre-existing issues for chidren. As you know I am not an advocate for abortion, however in my experience it’s difficult to find those that are against abortion and for children.
I will never ever forget several things that have happened locally. Most recent in my mind it Corey Stewart announcing in the VOICE meeting on housing for the poor that he wanted to ‘end the scourge of abortion.” He was deflecting to take people’s mind off the fact he was offering up nothing. An entire church of people turned around and stared at him like he had lost his mind.
The other incident I recall was a very nasty letter to the editor from one Chris Royse who had run for election in 2007. He took some very nasty shots at Frank Principi over abortion because Frank worked with Delegate Connolly who was pro-choice. What a leap. He called Mr. Principi’s faith into question.
http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2008/dec/06/royse_calls_out_connolly_principi-ar-443087/
While Royse is not on the BOCS, there are connections and it appears that he has called on the ‘powers that be’ within Mr. Principi’s church to sanction his politics. To threaten to deny someone the sacrements is a serious issue and I consider it tampering with how Mr. Principi votes.
The BOCS needs to do the job they were elected to do correctly. So far that isn’t happening. They are busying themselves with other issues outside their realm of power.
Will it now be necessary to know if we are electing pro choice dog catchers?
Abortion clinics that perform first-trimester abortions do not have the licensure requirements imposed upon them that a hospital would have, as these facilities classify themselves as “physician’s offices.” Those licensure requirements include disclosure of ownership, policy and grocedure manuals, requirements for medical and nursing staffing, availability of sterile supplies, maintenance of accurate medical records, and provision of emergency plans and services.
Oh, well, it’s good enough for women, anyway.
Agree. If it was brought out into the open and in hospitals only, it might eventually mitigate the back alley perception of the entire procedure. The longer it’s done in “private clinics”, it will carry a stigma.
Besides is anyone else tired of abortion and gay rights a defining politics?
Abortion will never go away as a a political lightening rod, any more that it will ever become illegal again. It’s a very effective polarizer. I drove by the pro/anti protesters on Sudley yesterday and wonder why they even bother. it makes no more sense than holding up signs to protest women’s suffrage or the abolition of slavery.
“lightning” rod, I should say. I would use the other kind for my hair highlights.
And how about a pediatrist’s office? What regulations do they have? How about the colonscopy centers or the urology clinics where vasectomies are done? Those are very invasive procedures.
I have no problem if all outpatient procedures come under the same scrutiny and have to adhere to a higher standard. But to single out abortion providers is so obvious.
The medical staffing in clinics that provide abortion is already determined under some other medical standard by the state.
Those men like to wave rosary beads bigger than my head (so they can be seen) at cars as they go by. I really don’t get the sense they are pro-children. I wonder if they really know the rosary. What a shame to toss that around. I’m sure Mary is comforted.
@Emma
Too much energy in general is wasted on abortion. If that same energy were spent on providing for the children who were already here the world would be a much better place. Even if everyone out there holding up a sign donated a meal to a hungry family once a month or bought school supplies for a child starting out the new school year, what a difference could be made.
I don’t know how to get a society to effectively use reliable contraception. There is too much push me pull me on that. If contraception were free and available, would that do it? I am not sure. Parents think making contraception unattainable and keeping it under wraps will make their children not have sex. Until that myth is dispelled, there will be unwanted pregnancy.
And then there is adult unprotected sex…..
Men have a simple task if they want to end abortion. Keep their flies up and stop back-slapping and knuckle bumping their horn dog friends for scoring.
Making it as shameful for men to impregnate their girl friends as it was to get pregnant when I was a girl would go a long way towards cutting out a lot of abortion.
In general-
I am pro-choice and have been my entire life. I think legal abortion should always be available as a safety net. However, that is not to say that anyone likes abortion or advocates it. Above all, it should never be political. It should be governed by the medical profession and the morality regarding it should come from the woman’s individual church. Churches should not be doing general policy making. What a church tells its own parishoners not to do should not be the ruling body for everyone.
Agree with you too!!! It is a personal decision – one we ALL prefer would be made as a last option. There are a lot of things that are legal that I don’t like. I guess that is the price of democracy.
I find those that define themselves by it politically to be somewhat suspect – frankly.
We should probably not forget that all of the BOCS is up for election next year. Let’s see, many of them get kudos for not spending money (turning down stimulus money even though there are 800 more students in PWC schools.), fighting evil health care, opposing illegal immigration….so they have a leg up with the constituents. I suppose they haven’t thought yet that there might be opposing points of view on some of these issues.
I sure wouldn’t mind my taxes going up a couple of bucks to keep resource officers in the middle schools. There’s nothing wrong with parents having the option of keeping their children on the health care policy once they are young adults. Many kids who graduate don’t land instant jobs that pay benefits. Too bad that the the BOCS thinks dumb and ASSumes way too much.
M-h, I’m not looking for the lowest tax rate possible either. I’m willing to pay for the services I get. I grew up in a small city where the outskirts had crappy, rarely patched roads, the rural school system sucked, and there were few activities for children. I’m not going to move there as a retiree! I want more than that town has to offer. If PWC wants to be seen as the hick sister in the metro area, these nutty resolutions will surely hurry that dream along despite a couple Wegman’s, an Uncle Julio’s, and a few more “upscale” developments in Gainesville.
We’re a looooong way from leaf pick up. I would chose that over quite a few other things that have come down the pike. Like a newletter from BOS mailed to my house….
Leave pick up would be great. I don’t think that is in our future. The City has leaf pick up, I think.
Leaf pick up would be nice. I do appreciate the street sweeping though. My block got swept twice last week. Most cities’ have leaf pick up and trash pick up. Here in good ole PWC we pay a solid waste fee(tax on real estate bill), then on top of that we pay a trash service for pick up.
I would appreciate a survey from my BOS member mor than a newsletter – asking me what I’d like. Not telling me what they decided.
Excellent point, Juturna. What would it take to make that happen?
The school system at least attempts to do that, even though they often ask stupid questions and I believe the surveys are random since I haven’t gotten one but once or twice.
The only survey comes from BOS asks how well they’re doing. I think it is done by UVA. Again, we get to comment on what they’ve decided. I don’t know how to make it happen. They don’t ask what we want. And since no one runs against them, guess they don’t have to!!
They need to ask about citizen interests, wants and needs. Who cares how they are doing. They don’t care. Why should we.
“….do you really want politicians setting medical practice?”
“We have to pass it so that you know what’s in it.”
“Health Care Reform”
The irony…it burns…..
Women have a simple task if they want to end abortion. Just say no.
Making it as shameful for women to get pregnant again as it was in the old days….. would go a long way towards cutting out a lot of abortion as birth control. Except…not really.
Every adult knows what must be done to prevent pregnancy. There are no more surprises now.
Both men AND women are to blame. However, if being pregnant is shameful and that shame was the reason that women got abortions in the old days, the logic shows that any shame would therefore drive demand for abortions up.
Being pregnant outside of marriage is no longer shameful so THAT reason is no longer valid.
Now, if you brought back shotgun weddings…THAT might reduce abortions.
I am trying to figure out why a person would not want to have a guarantee that they wouldnt loose insurance if they changed jobs and had a pre-existing conditions.
Actually, I don’t consider when I was growing up ‘in the old days.’ Let’s establish that very few women use abortion as primary birth control. It is expensive, painful and emotionally agonizing for most. Saying that women use abortion for birth control is just insulting and the statement is more rhetoric not based on any kind of fact.
Cargo, you missed my entire point. I am sitting on my hands not to type ‘typical male.’ Once again the entire burden falls on women in your statement. I would be willing to accept all that if men would just STFU and stay out of an issue that will never happen to them. But that isn'[t how it works. Much of the organized national anti choice movement is comprised of men who do their best to bully and intimidate those going in to clinics.
As for the old days that you have hung on me, let me tell you about the old days, just before Roe v Wade was codified. Most companies forced you to quit your job when you showed and that is even being married. If you quit you lost your health coverage. If you were single and anyone found out, you were often fired. Shame sort of kicked in later, after the sharp reality of being an unwed, unjobbed, uninsured mother set in.
Roe was decided Jan. 1973. Griswald v Conn. was decided June 1965, making contraception available to everyone in every state. Before that Griswald decision, there were no guarantees that a person could even get contraception, especially in northern states where there was a great deal of church influence against contraception.
And to say that being pregnant outside of marriage is no longer shameful take a lot of nerve. It all depends on the family. I would say that is simply not true. I grant you that society as a whole if far more forgiving, but that doesn’t make an individual family any more likely to open its arms to a blessed event with one’s 15 year old today than it did 40 years ago.
“Once again the entire burden falls on women in your statement. ”
I didn’t say that. I was just parroting your style. You were putting the blame on men. It takes two to tango. But, if you insist……
Since men have no rights in your world of abortion rights, then the women, perhaps, should have the responsibility. Since no man can say or do anything to assert his rights over a baby not yet born, why should he have any responsibility? It does not matter if said man would marry, or pay for all medical bills, etc….previous statements show that said man would not have ANY rights to his baby. So. if they have no rights, then they have no responsibility.
And yes, women ARE using abortion as birth control:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1238612/Girls-using-abortion-birth-control.html
Teenagers are using repeat abortions as a form of birth control, with some girls having four or more terminations by the age of 18, it has been claimed.
Nearly 1,500 of the 19,000 girls under 18 who had a termination last year had previously undergone one earlier abortion for an unwanted pregnancy – and in at least one case a teenage girl had her eighth abortion.
Also: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/air/air_vol8no1_1995.html
The frequent use of abortion for such a purpose was observed by doctors at the Stanford University of Medicine in 1971 when abortion was becoming more utilized. They said: “As the legal induction of abortion has become available, it has become evident that some women are now intentionally using abortion as a substitute for contraception. This alternative to contraception is especially appealing to women who have any one of innumerable reasons for desiring pregnancy but not reproduction. It is also appealing to perceptive women in appropriate circumstances who note that it is cheaper to have a welfare-supported abortion than it is to personally purchase contraception. This substitute is also being embraced by certain women and couples who consider themselves to have a minimal risk of pregnancy because of infrequent or erratic coitus or because of known or suspected low fertility.
You want men to STFU, but how about women that object? Or question? Do you want them to STFU about deeply held beliefs and values?
As for said guarantee of not losing insurance on job changes….that’s easy. Change the tax laws that were put in place so that it was easier for jobs to offer insurance in place of salary, and set up the rules so that INDIVIDUALS can pay for the insurance, without monopolies in the state. We can’t get that insurance because we are not paying for it. The business is.
In any case, what makes you think that the insurance company will even offer any insurance? They are dropping new policies left and right. Why? Because there’s no profit in insuring sick people. The new HCR is such a POS that the new rules will restrict doctors from being in private practice, force insurance companies to drop polices, have not saved any money, have forced seniors to drop their insurance policies, shorted medicare, have not set up rules to allow insurance companies to insure high-risk or pre-existing illness patients at a profit, have not set up gov’t resources to do the same either, made it too expensive for companies to insure their workers, and has turned the health care system into a bureaucratic nightmare with the new agencies. And that’s not counting the unfairness of allowing certain connected companies and unions to have waivers while other smaller businesses and citizens are screwed.
Reform? Yes. This crapola? NO. Repeal it and kill it. And vote out the idiots that passed it.
I didn’t “hang” the good ol’ days on you. You brought it up. I was using your scenario.
The references you cited were from pro-life sources. I don’t consider those types of statistics to be valid.
Do I want men to STFU about deeply held values? Yes, unless it personally affects them. They should not have any deeply held values about what is best for me or my family. That is at the core of this. You are free to make your own morally appropriate choices for you and your family (unless your wife tells you to STFU) That’s between you all. No one has the right to start making those kinds of decisions for me.
It probably did sound like I was ultimately blaming men, but I was not. I was responding to something Juturna said about men waving rosaries. Much of the national anti abortion leadership is men….militant men. You think I am militant on this subject? They make me look like a pussy cat.
In an ideal world, those kinds of decisions are made as a couple. Often the world is not ideal however, and untimately, the one who owns the problem, the woman, is the person who makes the final choices.
The Stanford statement is disturbing. In 1971 abortion was not fully legal in California. It was allowed in cases of rape, incest, health of the mother and fetal anomoly. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States I find the comments cited about the Stanford doctors so insulting that I simply refuse to discuss them.
As for hanging it on me, yes you did, you just didn’t know you were doing it. I remember pre-Roe days very well.
“Yes, unless it personally affects them.”
See…this is the point. Two people make a baby. If a man wants to keep said baby, and is willing to do whatever it takes to pay for, raise, etc, the baby, it doesn’t matter. Losing a child ALWAYS personally affects a parent. The father has no rights under your system. So the rights of the father are discarded.
Oh MY, I no you din’t! You have demonstrated, 100%, why abortion decisions are not a part of a mans realm. How about THIS, you and ALL men get vascectomies, and when YOU are ready to fully participate in parenting, YOU can get them reversed! How about YOU donate to research to make men responsible for their own birth control pills!!!!!!!! Oh, wait, men don’t HAVE such an option.
Let me tell you stories about women who had back alley abortions and died! How about all the women that are relegated to poverty because the father’s daddy takes off.
Yeah, THIS issue IS all about women and I thank you for reminding us all of that fact!
Both are wrong, forcing a woman to have an abortion is unacceptable, just as forcing her to bear a child is unacceptable@Raymond Beverage
Cargo,
Since you have no idea how difficult it is to “grow” a child and then subsequently “birth one” I really cannot fathom your flippant suggestion that a man has equal rights to a womans body.
Here’s the problem: men don’t get pregnant. To force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term so a man can have a child really reduces women to being incubators.
So, hopefully it is a decision that both men and women share. In a perfect world, every child would be a wanted child. I would say in most cases, becoming a parent is a shared responsibility. I am not sure that is the case.
It’s a complicated issue, made more complicated by the very nature of biology and throwing in a legal system and a modern society. If men owned women, then the complexities would simplify.
Without apology, I am a baby boomer who came of age in a pre-Roe world. All the rules of society were predicated on the fact that women got pregnant–where you worked, where you went to school, what kind of job you had, how you behaved socially…
It all centered around the fact that you got pregnant if you were female. If you were 15 and pregnant, your butt was thrown out of school. The male got to continue. I knew of girls who disappeared. They had suddenly gone to live with their grandmother out of state or something like that.
Well…now women are in more control of the situation. All the rules aren’t centering around that biological uniqueness.
M-h, there is even a book about girls and pregnancies called “The Girls Who Went Away”.
The fact that Cargosquid can so easily say that the solution for women is “Just say no” is no surprise. That’s all too common a solution for conservatives. I find my reproductive decisions to be no one’s business other than my and my husband’s. And then ultimately my decision alone. I don’t tell Bob Marshall, Marc Aveni, and his ilk how many children to have and I expect the same curtesy. If he wants to regulate abortions, maybe I should be able to force him to have a vasectomy. I’d still like to see the logic behind making abortions harder to get and fertility clinics easier to fund.
@Censored, then there is the absurdity of making contraception more difficult to obtain and trying to throw up road blocks to abortion. To me, preventing pregnancy is the best way to curb abortion.
Yes, prevention is the best way to curb abortion. But – OMG! – one would have to discuss SEX!!!
*ACTUALLY* the likelyhood of one losing her fertility is much greater AFTER having a baby than with LEGAL abortion. There is a condition known as secondary infertility….and with the preponderence of c-sections these days, a botched DELIVERY could interrupt all future pregnancies.
As a woman who has two children AND who had an abortion in the 1990’s – let me say that my pregnancy and two deliveries were FAR more painful and dangerous than the fast procedure I endured in 1995. And my healing time from pregnancy was FAR longer and stressful than my abortion. Sure there are accidents in ALL surgeries – abortions, deliveries, root canals, heart surgery, plastic surgery, etc…..but do we outlaw pregnancy adn delivery because THAT poses a higher risk for women? Do we outlaw wisdom tooth extractions because complications such as dry socket and tooth decay can occur hurting the health of the patient? Absolutely not.
And as for teenagers being able to get an abortion without their parents consent/knowledge….SO??? Did they get permission to have sex? Do they need permission to have a baby???? The only completely ignorant people concerning abortion and a woman’s choice is everyone BUT the woman making her choice. She is FULLY aware of her circumstances AND what she feels best is for HER future and any potential children she may have. The PW BOCS is a bunch of mysogynistic a-holes who care NOTHING for women or babies. Are they going to increase funding for women and children programs? Increase funding for maternial and pediatric care for the needy? Nope – didn’t think so. This whole sham is based upon their lofty moral assumptions on what THEY think is right. Women and children be damned.
Ironically – the same board and members who rally against government intrusion in immigration, medical reform, etc…are the same people who want to invite the government into peoples’ bedrooms and physicaian offices.
@Cargosquid
The women who had abortions in the olden days (pre-roe) were mainly MARRIED women. Women of middle or upper classes could obtain safe abortions through their physicans. It was an open secret. HOwever the poorer classes and people of color went to the back alley hack jobs or performed the procedures on themselves because they couldn’t afford a doctor. Many died or suffered lifelong complications from these back alley procedures.
And accidents DO happen. Not all birth control is 100% effective. And married people STILL get abortions to limit the size of their families when birth control has failed them.
As for the shame of being unwed and pregnant or unwed and a parent, the stigma still does VERY MUCH exist. Just because women can have jobs and children without a spouse does NOT mean that people look away and there is no judgement. Think about that the next time you see a young teen with a belly the size of a watermellon….or a group of teen mothers pushing their babies along in the mall. Heck – you can see it here on this thread with reference to young teens who do get pregnant. The shame is alive and well.
I see what you are saying, but no matter how much a man may wish his partner to keep her pregnancy SHE is ultimately the one who must bear it, deliver it AND rear it. He may be there with her, but it is her body on the line. And as much as a man may say he wants the child….he ALWAYS has the opportunity to walk away from the pregnant woman and decide afterall that he will NOT be there – leaving the woman alone to deal with it all herself….because you see it is a WOMAN’s BODY that carries the pregnancy, not a man’s. So the decision must be left up to her, for she has the most to lose.
Holy cow, Bubba, you sure covered all the bases. Next time I feel frustrated by this issue I am going to call you and get you to speak. Excellent. funny how all of us (and you and I have never met, to our knowledge) all feel the same way.
Thank you for a very elegant rant! I hope people feel our fire when we speak.
Thank the good Lord I have never had the need to for an abortion. All my friends have not been so lucky. I went through a pre-Roe one with a very close friend. It cost more than twice her monthly paycheck. In addition, she had to endure a psychotic psychiatrist to ‘certify’ that she was in emotional distress, which was certainly true after she dealt with him. The road to legal abortion has not been the piece of cake that opponent make it seem like.
Then there is the agony of fetal anomoly, rape, etc. Not every day events but definitely not uncommon.
There is a new effort on the part of anti choice groups and individuals to trivialize the pro-choice community and to make us feel isolated and dirty. Ha! That isn’t going to work. I don’t feel isolated and I don’t feel dirty. I feel like I need to dig in and refuse to vote for anyone, once again, who isn’t pro-choice. I was thinking there were other issues more important …now I am not so sure. It seems that the anti choice politicians all want to back door us in to going back to the back alleys by signing ‘Resolutions’ like the Feet in the Stirrup Resolution.
While Corey fights the ” scourge of abortion” he needs to realize that he is going to create the scourge of ILLEGAL abortion. Beware of unintended consequences.