Pro-life feminism is the future

Check out this rebuttal to Ms. Campbell's post by a minister:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/05/29/quiet-faith-prochoice-clergy-speak

Can you be a feminist and oppose abortion in all circumstances?

Probably, for oneself. But not as a matter of policy or imposing those beliefs on someone else.

Can you be a person of faith and support abortion in some circumstances?

Funny, the blog never touched on this question, but the answer is YES. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has been around longer than Feminists for Life. See http://www.rcrc.org and their youth outreach, Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom http://www.syrf.org

Colleen Campbell is an idiot, and just lost my Newsweek subscription.

Good job for NOT doing your research. The only reason you think "Feminist for Life" is "gaining traction" among young people is because these young girls haven't had to shove a metal hanger in themselves like they did before Roe (It has been proven that the actual number of abortions DID NOT CHANGE after roe v wade, maybe that tells you something about the desperation women are in when faced this situation).

Feminist for Life. That is the biggest oxymoron I have ever heard. Where, I ask just like the others before me, is the "feminism" in Feminist for Life.

Just because you throw around a terms like "women dignity!" here and there does not mean you are a feminist! Laughable, this group is more deceptive than a Crisis Pregnancy Center.

To me, being a feminist is more about accepting that women have the right to determine what happens with their own bodies. If they have an unintended pregnancy, then it is their CHOICE whether or not to abort. Groups can try to persuade the woman to not abort - with legally established limits (i.e. no standing in front of the clinic yelling "baby killer"). But she is ultimately the person responsible for that child for the rest of her life.

As the old bumper sticker goes, "if you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?"

Abortion is a gray area in which there are no easy solutions. Anti-abortion people like to think it's all about promiscuous teenaged girls who can't keep their legs closed. But it's not. Women have abortions for any number of reasons - rape, incest, fetal abnormality, health of the mother, birth control failure, drug or alcohol addiction, economic problems, abusive partner, etc. Women of all ages, colors, and religions have abortions, not just teenagers of color. (BTW, 54% of women having abortions are white!) This is why abortion should remain a safe, legal choice. Because you don't know every situation and legislate against it.

I think one of the reasons that more young women are against abortion, is that they don't realize the historic reasons why people had abortions, or the circumstances in which people had abortions. One of the most important reasons (if not the most important one) for regulation of abortion is that otherwise people turn to illegal ways to abort, ways that can kill the person carying the foetus.

I'm pro-life in the sense that I care about the life of such a person carrying that foetus. Yes, I care more about the person already being alive, already trying to lead a life.

I'm pro-choice not as if it's a choice between buying milk or bread (some people here seem to think simplistic about that choice) but about a last desperate attempt of a person to safe her own life. Of course it should never be a choice out of luxury, on the other hand: the world is full of people brought up by parents who didn't really love them, who were forced to have their child, who felt themselves limited in their freedom and blame the child in abusive ways. That's a miserable, miserable life to live.

I'm pro of a life without poverty (so also: equal pay for women! which will lead to less poverty) and without violence, and I think commentators in the 'faith'-section should aim more at that, instead of having an extreme opinionated and partisan article in which people fighting for women's rights are written about as witches. That has nothing to do with faith.

Oh, and thís is just scary:
"I do wish that pro-abortion feminists would see the logical disconnect in their view that a woman alone has the right to end a pregnancy on one hand, and the expectation that men share the financial responsibilities of a parenthood a woman 'chooses' to have."
Of course there is a biological disparity between men and women because women can carry and men can't, but that doesn't mean that there is a 'logical disconnect' in the expectation of a woman that a man should take responsibility in parenthood as well. (Btw: the English army is telling female soldiers that they should take precautions for not getting pregnant while serving. That's of course very wrong: the army should tell that to ALL soldiers, women AND men!!! They SHARE the responsibility for that. So men and women: take your condoms with you, and don't expect the women taking the pill, with all the hormonal and physical consequences of that).

(Sorry if my English if faulty; I'm Dutch.)

The reason more and more young women are becoming pro-life, is that they have lost touch with feminism, they aren't actually feminists. In fact, I would be so bold as to say they look down upon self proclaimed feminists. I know this because my peers are young women, and as a pro choice feminist (who is not atheistic, may I point out) I see plenty of women from my generation and younger who mock feminists. Not only that, but they are selfish and do not care about the plight of their other fellow females, they don't care about whether their friend doesn't want to have an unplanned pregnancy if they would keep the baby no matter what happened to them, etc. It's really sad. If there was more education for young women I think we'd be seeing an entirely different thing going on.

"The way to make it not a zero-sum game is to promote knowledge of contraceptives and their proper use, and less shame about sex so people can pay more attention to what they're doing: thereby to reduce unwanted pregnancies and social pressures to have abortions to hide 'sexual sins:'"

The "pill" has been used since the late 50's and still women are not using them properly leading to over a million unplanned pregnancies per year resulting in the horror of abortion choice, a choice that results in the killing of one million growing, developing babies every year. How long before women wise up?? Ditto for men using condoms!!!

The statistics based on Guttmacher Institute numbers:

FIRST-YEAR CONTRACEPTIVE FAILURE RATES

Percentage of women (men?) experiencing an unintended pregnancy (a few examples)

Method
Typical
Pill (combined) 8.7
Tubal sterilization 0.7
Male condom 17.4
Vasectomy 0.2

(Abstinence) 0

(Masturbation) 0

More facts about contraceptives from

www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html

"CONTRACEPTIVE METHOD CHOICE

Contraceptive method use among U.S. women who practice contraception, 2002

Method No. of users (in 000s) % of users
Pill 11,661 30.6
Male condom 6,841 18.0 "

i.e.
The pill fails to protect women 8.7% during the first year of use (from the same reference previously shown).

i.e. 0.087 (failure rate)
x 62 million (# child bearing women)
x 0.62 ( % of these women using contraception )
x 0.306 ( % of these using the pill) =

1,020,000 unwanted pregnancies
during the first year of pill use.

The only terms in which pregnancy are a 'zero-sum game' as the author says, are when these things are placed in terms of how much state control a religion like Christianity enforces while also heaping scorn and deprivation on 'unapproved' mothers and the 'babies' they demand they produce.

The way to *not* make it a zero-sum game is with reproductive and sexual freedom for all: to support and value human *lives,* not just calling worship of a sperm and egg cell "Life: You're For It Or Against It And The Law Must Impose One Religious View And Choice On All Everywhere!"

The way to make it not a zero-sum game is to promote knowledge of contraceptives and their proper use, and less shame about sex so people can pay more attention to what they're doing: thereby to reduce unwanted pregnancies and social pressures to have abortions to hide 'sexual sins:'

The way to make it not a 'zero-sum game' is to value *motherhood,* not just *reproductive control by theocrats and government.*

Who *really* disrespects human life are those who want to force women to be at the mercy of theocracy, turning (potential) 'babies' into *tools of religious and sexual and political control.*

Value women's ability to choose, educate people about unwanted pregnancy, instead of promoting ignorance, fear, shame, and dehumanization, and give mothers the tools to have a real option, if you don't want to see abortions.

It'd also help to not classify things *as* abortions which are not. To not squall for any given Christian pharmacist to have the right to deny women contraception if they feel like it...

You know, be *really* civilized instead of treating women like they shouldn't be allowed to know what can be known, believe as they decide, and act as conscience demands.

You can follow your ways in your own life, this doesn't mean you have the right to pronounce what you think is 'holy law' upon everyone.

The very *fact* that this is so controversial should be prima facie evidence that there's no single belief to impose.

*liberated freed to choice civilized *(savaged backward primitive )western women killed millions of inocent lifes ,

her femenism*freedom* deluded her to thro her blood baby in the garbage no more no less than throing her bloody sanitary napikin??????????????

this is so civilized!

saint george the democraz need not to cross the atlantic nor the pacific to liberat and democratize the species.

Some famous adoptees
Aristotle - philosopher
Art Linkletter - comedian
Bo Diddley - musician, performer
Buffy Sainte-Marie - musician, actress
Carl-Theodor Dreyer - Danish film director
Charlotte Anne Lopez - Miss Teen USA
Christina Crawford - author
Clarissa Pinkola Estes - author
Crazy Horse - Lakota war chief
Dan O'Brien - decathlete
Daunte Culpepper - football player
Dave Thomas - entrepreneur: founder of Wendy's
Debbie Harry - singer
D.M.C. - hip hop artist
Edgar Allan Poe - poet, writer
Edward Albee - playwright
Eric Dickerson - athlete
Faith Daniels - news anchor
Faith Hill - country singer
Freddie Bartholomew - actor
George Washington Carver - inventor
Greg Louganis - athlete
James MacArthur - actor
James Michener - author
Jean Jacques Rousseau - philosopher
Jesse Jackson - minister
Jesus - adopted by Joseph the carpenter (Bible)
Jett Williams - country singer and author
Jim Palmer - athlete
John J. Audubon - naturalist
John Hancock - politician
John Lennon - musician
Langston Hughes - poet and writer
Larry Ellison - entrepreneur: chief executive of Oracle
Lee Majors - actor
Leo Tolstoy - writer
Les Brown - motivational speaker
Lynnette Cole - Miss USA 2000
Malcolm X - civil rights leader
Mark Acre - athlete
Matthew Laborteaux - actor
Melissa Gilbert - actress
Michael Reagan - author, talk show host
Moses - Biblical leader
Nancy Reagan - First Lady
Nat King Cole - singer
Nelson Mandela - politician
Patrick Labyorteaux - actor
Peter and Kitty Carruthers - figure skaters
President Gerald Ford - politician
President William Clinton - politician
Priscilla Presley - actress
Ray Liotta - actor
Reno - performance artist, comedian
Sarah McLachlan - singer
Scott Hamilton - figure skater
Sen. Paull H. Shin - politician
Sen. Robert Byrd - politician
Steve Jobs - entrepreneur: co-founder of Apple computer
Surya Bonaly - figure skater
Tim Green - football player/commentator
Tim McGraw - country singer
Tom Monaghan - entrepreneur
Tommy Davidson - comedian
Victoria Rowell - actress
Wilson Riles - educator

Andy Alexander (Ombudsman) is wondering why the Washington Post continues to lose women readers? Does he read his own paper one wonders?

Andy Alexander (Ombudsman) is wondering why the Washington Post continues to lose women readers? Does he read his own paper one wonders?

Andy Alexander (Ombudsman) is wondering why the Washington Post continues to lose women readers? Does he read his own paper one wonders?

Instead of picketing abortion clincs, why don't you spend your time and money helping out the abused, the homeless, the hopeless, and/or the addicted in your own neighborhood, town, city, or state? What about feeding, caring for, or providing cash to homeless men, women and kids in Appalachia, the Midwest Rust Belt, Sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh, the lowest caste members in India, or any other desperately impoverished place (there are plenty to choose from)? Put your money and time where your mouth is if you really give a crap about humanity. The hypocrasy is frightening. I don't think I've ever heard of an abortion clinic protest where they also planned to set up a place to hand out groceries, food, or money for electricity for desparate families in need.

Women have a choice. Abortion is not about choice it's about a failed choice. At least have the ovaries to state the truth..

The proper term is, indeed, pro-choice. For the record: I am a liberal and I have never had an unplanned pregnancy, much less an abortion. (Heck, I don't think I've had unprotected sex when I wasn't trying to get pregnant-- but, then again, we liberals are all about birth control, right?...) The presumptuousness of the anti-choicers, as expressed in these comments, is over the top. Also, for what it's worth, I certainly am not mad at Sarah Palin for having her son, as one of the most ridulous comments, above, suggests. That was her choice. That's the point. I do hope that women can work together to help other women. For example, I would love to see the "Feminists for Life" working together with other feminists to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

I echo an earlier poster - let's make a TRUE effort, take personal responsibility for, and take better care of the people [children and ADULTS] who are already here, already born (both in the US and abroad) before we spend effort on those who are not. Only THEN can we start debating that. Of course, loving the dirtly homeless, the disabled, the addicted hopeless, etc. is very hard. A baby has so much potential! Why muck that up by worrying about the homeless Vietnam vet, the unwashed, and the unwanted?

Who is not for life? But life is a complex matter. Don't try to tell a woman that other people should decide for her how to live her life unless they are willing to support her. Polls that show people being pro-life are not at all the same as showing they are against abortion in all circumstances. Oh, and let's start focusing on the already born and see that they are the priority eh?

Should have said "Courageous and brave women AND MEN, such as the late Dr. George Tiller [literally] put their lives on the line to help them have choices and now they want to turn the clock back".

If you don't want an abortion, don't have one.

Lawnman209 wrote:

"What it all comes down to is that a human life is infinitely more "valuable" than that of an eagle, seal, or whale."
-----

Now, is that a fact? Could it be because a certain "deity" is reputed to have said so? Oh yes, now I recall. There is this ancient book - filled with fables and superstition - that caters to and feeds the hubris, self-aggrandizement, and megalomania of this particularly nasty, feces-flinging species of ape. According to the scribblings in this book, humans are not just ordinary living beings, no, they are actually created in "god's" image, manufactured by direct intervention of none less than the very Ruler and Lord of the Universe himself (only the best is good enough for magnificent man, so much greater than all else that lives.)

One can never go wrong praising the magnificence and utter uniqueness of the human simian - they eat it up, self-fixated apes that they are, as they masturbate to the idea of their own wonderfulness. Yeah, all other living beings are subservient to the hairless ape, "the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals." Thus spake the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Bleeeech, what tripe from a benighted age. Enough already, it's nauseating.

Abortion may seem like a good answer to a desperate problem, but it really only creates a new problem - the problem of regret and loss over what can never be undone. It may seem easier to just get rid of a pregnancy, but the best things in life usually come through hard work, and no work is harder than raising a child. But once you have done it, you have a relationship forever with someone who came from you and you have the joy of watching their development and accomplishments from day 1. A hard-won relationship is worth so much more than an empty regret.

There is absolutely no more fundamental right for a woman than the right to choose. None. One stupid night, one stupid mistake, and a woman is supposed to pay for it with the rest of her life? I am 40 years old and I had 2 abortions when I was 18 and 20 yrs. old (stupid mistakes with men because I had low self esteem and a bad family situation) and there is no way I was ready to even carry a pregnancy then, much less be a mother. I am just not that person; two decades later, I'm not now, and I certainly wasn't then. I am disgusted with the cavalier attitude many young women take now about their rights. Courageous and brave women put their lives on the line to help them have choices and now they want to turn the clock back.

The culture of death, so rabidly pushed by the left, is under assault. We may actually be entering a new age where the concept of taking personal responsibilty once again takes hold. It is hard to believe, but it may be happening. What it all comes down to is that a human life is infinitely more "valuable" than that of an eagle, seal, or whale. Abortion is the intentional ending of a life, the stopping of a heart. When a majority in our society comprehend this fact, we will be a better society. It is happening.

Oh please stop calling them pro-choice and anti-abortion.
The groups are:
Pro-Abortion
Pro-Life
It is what it is.
Posted by: Truth35 | May 23, 2010 9:34
________________________________________

Actually, the issue is about choice and freedom.

So the groups are most accurately described as:

pro-choice and anti-choice

and

pro-freedom and anti-freedom

"But since men, by their very nature, cannot have abortions, the issue of equality simply cannot arise in this matter.

I hope that jmagi will come up with something which makes better sense!"

To rohit57; Last time I checked, women still did most of the work of childrearing in our society. Men have a long way to go to be equal in this sphere. Not to mention, the wage/pay gap between men and women has not changed much and for many demographic sectors has gotten worse with the recession. Those are the aspects of inequality that I was talking about, sorry if I failed to make that clear.

Oh please stop calling them pro-choice and anti-abortion.

The groups are:

Pro-Abortion
Pro-Life

It is what it is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I really feel like this argument comes down to when someone is considered a human. If conception immediately resulted in a living, breathing human existing outside the body, then I feel like the argument would be moot.

Please let me know if you disagree with me.

POSTED BY: MRS_S

I absolutely agree with you. The rest of your post however, is far off the mark.

You obviously believe life begins at conception. I believe it begins when the fetus can survive outside the womb, and the law, our Constitution, says a citizen is one who is BORN on American soil.

If you believe life begins at conception then by all means, don't have an abortion.

I'm not sure you realize what an slippery, muddy slope you embark on when one defines life as beginning at conception.

Whose life takes precedence, woman or zygote/fetus? What can a woman do? Can she smoke, drink, walk on ice, work, clean her home with chemicals, drive a car, leave the house, climb stairs? Because all these things can imperil the cellular life within. Shades of the Handmaid's Tale.

What if she doesn't know she's pregnant and harms the cells? Should she be charged with a crime? Would a woman have to appeal to a court if her life was in danger from the fetus in her?

And how do we prove who was conceived on American soil or not? Talk about an immigration nightmare.

There is only one way to deal with this. Let each woman decide what she does with her body. Keep your long, pointy, nose out of other people's business.

Remember, pro-choice means the right to choose to have a child. What better way to bring a child into the world than through choice and not through law.

What a nauseating, pointless bowl of Neo-Con B.S.

Most CONS arbor morons like you that find creative ways such as abortion to avoid their responsibility. Oh and by the way? Are you covered in the so called healthcare plan? NO but being the id10t you are you haven't even figured that out yet. LOL Talk about dense.

Posted by: askgees | May 23, 2010 7:16 PM
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______________________________________

Sir, with your superb mastery of the English language and obvious intellectual ability, you have set me in my place. I can't possibly begin to think that my mental abilities is anywhere near yours. You and your kind, Palin, Bachman and Bush demonstrate how such intellectual ability make the world a different place than that of just plain smart people. I only wish I could understand how people such as yourself knew that voting for Bush twice would turn our country into what it is today.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I really feel like this argument comes down to when someone is considered a human. If conception immediately resulted in a living, breathing human existing outside the body, then I feel like the argument would be moot.

Please let me know if you disagree with me.

Also, I have to address the people who compared being pregnant to being a blood or organ donor. In no way is it the same thing. In donor situations, the donor is not the person who is making the decision to end a life. While it is tragic when people do not donate, their choice to donate does not directly result in a death. When someone chooses to end their pregnancy, their decision ends a life (or promise of one, if that's how you choose to look at it).

Also, they do happen to be directly responsible for the person inside of them, because they were aware of the consequences of intercourse. For the people who believe that it is unfair gender-wise, I believe that men should be held just as responsible as women for the children they father.

I think that for Feminists for Life to make progress they need to make clear that they do not oppose the day after pill or RU-486 (the second may be difficult to swallow). As long as some pro-lifers claim that "life begins at conception" and then imply that even a day after pill is murder, they are not going to have much traction.

The only way to make progress is to return some control to women, while making the abortion of actual babies (i.e. well developed foetuses) difficult.

In my book, there is no basis for claiming choice in the second or third trimester, but, there is no basis for denying choice in very early pregnancy or for denying choice when genuine health issues are involved.

Abortion must be discouraged. But we cannot criminalize everyone who has one.

I am a pro-lifer, but despair at the dogmatism of some fellow pro-lifers.

I could never call myself a feminist. To me feminist means 50 million abortions.
Abortion was the way to go because we never had the gadgets and technology that are available today. In my opinion abortion is old school. Abortion is the law of the land and no one is blaming or making anyone feel bad for having an abortion. Women need to get passed that and not hate Sarah Palin because she had her baby. Sarah Palin understands what a woman goes through because for a slit second she was that woman and because of it she advocates for adoptions. We need to change the laws around adoption in this country. It is time women unite and say enough is enough. It is plain murder. What happens if you kill someone on purpose? Is there a difference? It is so sad that women are allowed to commit murder. It is going to get uglier from here on out. Palin is a superstar and there are millions and millions out there that love her. I mean love. Her son and grandson are going to grow up right before our eyes. Two boys that the pro-abortion feminists wanted dead and you know who you are. A long time ago a friend of mind had an abortion. Every now and then she wonders what her child would be like. I see the hurt in her that never goes away. It brings tears to my eyes. Enough is enough. We as women can do better. I am one that things there is a reason for everything. Why was Sarah Palin sent to us? I mean this woman was tucked away in the wilderness called Alaska. The place they call the last frontier. Why?

Is this the same Feminists for Life that neatly sidesteps the issue of birth control by glibly stating that it's a "preconception issue" that is "outside" their mission? Yeah. They are so for empowerment that they flap their hands helplessly at prevention in the first place. What bunk.

I am all for helping to find resources for women who *want* to continue their pregnancies but advocating forced childbirth has nothing to do with respecting the dignity of women. I won't bother addressing the multiple false statements in the rest of the article because it's not worth the time.

FFL is a farcical organization. If you can't bother respecting women enough to deal with *all* the factors in unwanted pregnancy and to acknowledge that not everyone is going to make the same choice, for a variety of reasons, the whole "empowerment" claim rings pretty false.

I agree with jmagi. There's a lot that ISN'T said in this article. Is pro-life feminism pro-sex? Does it promote abstinence for all women who don't wish to be pregnant? Does it acknowledge the lifelong burden that children place on the parents, often inequitably on the mother? I'm not saying these are necessarily good reasons to be pro-choice, but that both sides must respond to the harder questions, not just the easy ones.

"In other words, where is the "feminist" part of Feminists for Life? I agree that the pro-choice movement has been losing the argument in our culture over the last decade, but that does not mean that the realities of inequality have gone away."
Posted by: jmagi
-----------------
I find this line of argument almost incomprehensible. How on earth does the issue of equality arise in the matter of abortion? To be sure, if men were allowed to have abortions and women not, we could surely cry, "Unequal treatment!"

But since men, by their very nature, cannot have abortions, the issue of equality simply cannot arise in this matter.

I hope that jmagi will come up with something which makes better sense!

I was pleased to see this article, since I always look forward to nuanced thinking and arguments that defy ideological ghettos. While I am more of a traditional feminist (though of the male variety) I like to have my assumptions challenged and tested. However, I found none of the hoped-for substance in the writer's argument. Most of it was age-ist name-calling of women in the pro-choice movement. The only reference to feminism is this call to "women's dignity." But what about the recognition of real disparities in power between men and women? Do "'feminists' for life" acknowledge this? Do they remember the generations of women who died in self-induced or illegal abortions because they were being FORCED to bear children with no other options? Do "'feminists' for life" support comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education and universal access to birth control?

In other words, where is the "feminist" part of Feminists for Life? I agree that the pro-choice movement has been losing the argument in our culture over the last decade, but that does not mean that the realities of inequality have gone away. This article seems more like an "oh yeah?!" response to a serious issue than a nuanced, real-life approach to differences in values and ethics by good people doing the best they can in parsing difficulties that women face.

Conservatives fail to realize that the bastion of this nation is freedom of choice. The argument is not and has never been pro-life vs. anti-life, but pro-choice versus those who would impose their choices on others. To the author, I respect your choice, and I would hope that you would respect that of others. Period. If not, at least shut up about it, thanks.

Posted by: msindira | May 23, 2010 7:23 PM
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'LOL sorry but it's LIBERALS that don't seem to get it and your post proves it 100%. Abortion illegal until the early 70's doesn't seem to have really affected the country. That is until the worthless hose bags started thinking they shouldn't be forced to do anything. Well guess what?? you're not. Simply practice safe sex or don't have sex. There's always anal sex if you choose or oral. But if you fail to take the time (responsibility) to protect yourself then you shouldn't be allowed an abortion based on convenience. Nice try though but if you get pregnant simply because you didn't use protection then you are a simplet0n and we should probably just off you. I see no reason to punish the child because of the parents actions.

"Once a child is born and is a citizen with all the rights granted by the Constitution, then who pays is a matter of law. Perhaps it's not fair but lots of things in life aren't fair. Get over it."
POSTED BY: ARANCIA12

Very interesting... So, if the law is changed to reflect that the mother alone bears financial responsibility, then you'll be all for that policy. After all, life isn't fair, right??

Soon enough, abortions too will be reduced markedly by changes in law -- I think that's the underlying message Ms Campbell is getting at -- and I, too, will one day say life isn't fair. I'm sure you'll be over to get over it then, too...

POSTED BY: POST_READER1

Your comments have no bearing on the subject at hand. I have simply stated facts.

The fact is I carry a zygote, you don't. You'll have to get with your creator to change that.

I won't tell you when you can have surgery and you don't tell me when I can.

Posted by: arancia12 | May 23, 2010 5:59 PM
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You seem to be slightly confused. It's the LAW that puts limitations on abortion no different than it puts limits on other things. Sorry but you'll have to learn to live with in those rules or pay the price for violating the laws of the land. However if you weren't a lazy hose bag who apparently can't afford a 2 dollar condom then good luck raising those soon to be welfare children of yours or should I say ours. That brings me to my second point. If we pay to raise your children then we should also have rights to tell you how to do so. Oh I guess you probably disagree with this also as it appears you don't feel the rules apply to you. LOL

Conservatives fail to realize that the bastion of this nation is freedom of choice. The argument is not and has never been pro-life vs. anti-life, but pro-choice versus those who would impose their choices on others. To the author, I respect your choice, and I would hope that you would respect that of others. Period. If not, at least shut up about it, thanks.

Conservatives abhor abortion because it means fewer children that they can deny healthcare to.

Posted by: jhoward343 | May 23, 2010 6:02 PM
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Not true. Most CONS arbor morons like you that find creative ways such as abortion to avoid their responsibility. Oh and by the way? Are you covered in the so called healthcare plan? NO but being the id10t you are you haven't even figured that out yet. LOL Talk about dense.

It is stories like this one - http://ncronline.org/news/justice/nun-excommunicated-allowing-abortion
-that make it clear why this issue is not as simple as Ms. Campbell would have us believe.

What an absurd argument to deprive fellow citizens of their rights and personal freedoms. Next, Campbell will tell us republicans support a clean earth because they are fond of oil spills. and Sarah Palin is an intellectual because she knows not what she has read.

Those who like to simplify abortion to "life" or "choice" have little idea how complicated the equation usually is. The absolutists on both sides get no respect from me.

This a very simple issue. If you believe abortion is wrong for you, then don't have one. But you make your decision and let everyone make thiers. In America, it is amazing that anyone would think that they should have the right to restrict someone else's personal freedoms to a medical procedure, of all things. If that is what the republican party stands for, then they are an abomination on this country. They are desparately trying to dumb down our society with the likes of Palin, Bachman, and Gingrich, who rails against the "cultural elite" and the "academic elite", even though the man has a pH.D., multiple sex partners and leads a very posh life. If that's not "elitism" then I don't what is. Besides, culture and academia are good things in our society. It is silly to say these are problems. Of course, who needs to see a play or a concert if you have a deck of cards and a six pack.

The abortion issue is an argument over when live human tissue becomes a human being. Answering that question settles the abortion issue, because no one is pro-murder (or pro-abortion for that matter.) Abortion is a serious, painful, messy surgical procedure that everyone would like to avoid. The question is, "Is it murder?"
Good people of all faiths and all measures of scientific acumen have come to different conclusions. Does a human being come into existence at conception, when the egg and sperm unite? This is a no brainer for some. Approximately 30 to 50 percent of these unions fail to implant naturally. Without implantation, there is no pregnancy.
Some people would say at implantation, when the woman becomes pregnant. Another 10 to 20 percent of these implantations self abort.
Some would have it at "quickening", when the mother first feels movement. St Thomas of Assi taught this. This usually occurs sometime in the second trimester.
Others would suggest at "viability." Of course this moves as technology improves.
Perhaps it is when the baby inhales its first breath, the so called "breath of life".
Honest, reasonable people disagree about these issues. Conflicting answers can be supported by scripture. History does not answer the questions. There are consequences to the answers to this question that go beyond the “right to choose”.
What are the consequences of assigning the status of a human being to a zygote or fetus? Deaths require death certificates, with a cause of death, and legally proper disposal of the remains (funerals, burials, cremations). Who is responsible for the costs of the disposal? Can women be charged with homicides when they are careless or reckless with their pregnancies? Does the state have the right to regulate diet, physical activities, and alcohol consumption of a pregnant woman in order to protect the child within? Just because we do not know about it, do we ignore the 30+% of unions that never implant?
The dialogue should begin without the name-calling and political posturing.

The fact of the matter is that being "pro-life" on a planet that's completely maxed out its carrying capacity is a luxury. Any reasonable person is instead giving money to groups trying to do something about the exploding birthrate in many parts of the world and the water and food shortages that will be upon society shortly.

Unfortunately, the religious fundamentalists who are convinced every sperm is sacred are driving us further and further toward the precipice. Sure hope they're going to put their money where their mouth is and lower their living standards in the coming years as precious resources become increasingly hard to come by - regrettably I doubt that'll be the case, though, since the hypocrisy billowing forth from the likes of Sarah Palin is nothing short of breathtaking.

This has nothing to do with "feminism." It has to do with shortsightedness and selfishness, with nary a thought as to the living conditions that these precious children will face.

Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, you will never put an end to abortions. This procedure will just go underground and girls and young women will die from having this done in unsanitary conditions by people who will do it for the money.

You really want less abortions to happen in this country? PRACTICE BIRTH CONTROL! And yet there are pro-lifers who are also against women and girls from practicing birth control. All they, the conservatives, want to do is control women's lives. And I don't believe that pro-lifers are feminists. You just want to be subservient to male conservatives and you want to talk a "good game".

Conservatives abhor abortion because it means fewer children that they can deny healthcare to.

Many of those on the right who are the first ones to want to take away the right of a women to choose are the same ones who are against helping children after they are born. Unaffordable day care, lack of adequate or available medical care, bad schools, poverty and lack of employment. When abortion is illegal, it's always the poor women who suffer. Rich women can always still obtain abortions, that's not going to change. If you are pro-life, but you want to do nothing to help and support millions of poor women in America today, you are just being a hypocrite and lack understanding and compassion for what many women in our society have to deal with everyday.

"Once a child is born and is a citizen with all the rights granted by the Constitution, then who pays is a matter of law. Perhaps it's not fair but lots of things in life aren't fair. Get over it."
POSTED BY: ARANCIA12

Very interesting... So, if the law is changed to reflect that the mother alone bears financial responsibility, then you'll be all for that policy. After all, life isn't fair, right??

Soon enough, abortions too will be reduced markedly by changes in law -- I think that's the underlying message Ms Campbell is getting at -- and I, too, will one day say life isn't fair. I'm sure you'll be over to get over it then, too...

POSTED BY: POST_READER1

Your comments have no bearing on the subject at hand. I have simply stated facts.

The fact is I carry a zygote, you don't. You'll have to get with your creator to change that.

I won't tell you when you can have surgery and you don't tell me when I can.

I'm willing to bet that the increase in the numbers of young women who are pro-life has more to do with science, the availability of convenient and effective birth control, and the acceptance of single mothers in society than religion. Premature children are surviving outside of the womb at earlier and earlier stages of pregnancy, and it's difficult to make the case that a fetus that looks like a baby and has a heartbeat is not a life. The argument has become more about the viability and defense of the life inside the woman than the irresponsibility of the woman who allowed herself to get pregnant.

The pro-choice crowd always wants to use rape, incest, and the health of the woman as their reasons for no limits on abortion, but the fact is that most abortions occur for reasons other than those and most of society would like those unnecessary abortions stopped entirely.

I'm pro-life and pro-choice. I'm also pro-birth control (are you, Ms. Campbell?). Most importantly, it's not the government's business whether a woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy, any more than it's government's business if a man declines to donate a pint of blood, although his donation could save a life.

The fact is, an incredible number of fetuses self-abort in the first few months of pregnancy. If the so-called "pro-lifers" are that concerned, why not advocate for significant increases in funding to stop those spontaneous abortions? Oh, wait, that might increase taxes. Never mind.

"Once a child is born and is a citizen with all the rights granted by the Constitution, then who pays is a matter of law. Perhaps it's not fair but lots of things in life aren't fair. Get over it."
POSTED BY: ARANCIA12

Very interesting... So, if the law is changed to reflect that the mother alone bears financial responsibility, then you'll be all for that policy. After all, life isn't fair, right??

Soon enough, abortions too will be reduced markedly by changes in law -- I think that's the underlying message Ms Campbell is getting at -- and I, too, will one day say life isn't fair. I'm sure you'll be over to get over it then, too...

A feminist who would force me to carry & give birth to my rapist's child?? No wonder Sarah Palin doesn't know she's an idiot- there are actually other people who think like her.

I still remember watching the View & Elizabeth didn't know the political beliefs of the women she was supporting. The public needs to keep exposing stupid candidates like Palin who would force rape victims to give birth to the children of the men who raped them.

Sarah Palin has said that she considered having an abortion since no one would know, and decided against it. People who are opposed to abortion do not "consider" or "decide" not to have an abortion. People who are opposed to murder do not have to decide not to murder a neighbor that they dislike. The very act of Sarah Palin "deciding" suggests the hypocrisy of her words. She could decide, but she would deny that choice to someone else. Hopefully, the electorate will not be fooled by such hypocrites.

Great article! As a 61 year old woman who never understood how we could come to equate women's empowerment with killing our own babies in the womb, I'm thrilled that the new generation of women is finally seeing the light. Abortion has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the baby's human rights and plain decency.
A baby is not just a clump of cells at any stage of development.Being a fetus is just that, a stage of human development just as infancy or puberty. New biological researches are confirming what, if truth be told, most of us knew all along. Killing a baby in the womb just because you cannot see him/her and pretend it's not a baby is like willfully killing someone in the dark and pretend that it's not murder.
Planned Parenthood and their ilk have no interest in reducing abortions, why should they? They have fattened their pockets with blood money, sacrificing little lives at the altar of feminism. African American babies especially have been slaughtered with abandon: I can just imagine Margaret Sanger having a good laugh from the pit of Hell as her eugenic dreams were being realized. Well, the tide is changing. With new technology young women can see that what pro-aborts called a meaningless clump of cells has arms and legs, fingers and toes and a heartbeat and that abortion kills a unique human being with a right to life. Even the Constitution promises life and the pursuit of happiness to every CREATED human being not just born. Get over it, pro-death people. Abortion kills babies and hurts women.

"Being "pro-life" is actually being anti-choice. You cannot be a feminist if you advocate that a woman's choice should be taken from her and she is returned to the status of property."
POSTED BY: ARANCIA12

You seem to forget that women don't get pregnant by themselves... It takes two.

If you want to hold such a calloused view then fine -- but, if you expect women alone to have the choice, then I trust you would expect them to finance the consequences of their own choices too...
POSTED BY: POST_READER1

____________

Your response makes no sense. The fact is a man does not carry a child and it does not live within his body. This may not seem fair to you but it is a fact.

Since the woman carries the child and it depends upon her body to grow then she gets the choice whether to carry to term or not.

You may call that callous but your choice is to practice safe sex or not. I don't get to decide if you get prostrate surgery, you don't get to decide if I get an abortion. Period.

Once a child is born and is a citizen with all the rights granted by the Constitution, then who pays is a matter of law. Perhaps it's not fair but lots of things in life aren't fair. Get over it.

Posted by: jhoward343
The fact remains that if men could get pregnant, there would be an abortion clinic on every corner. Treating women as second class citizens, not allowed to make the own decision, is quite anti-feminist, regardless of Ms. Campbell's non-sensical argument.
++++++++++

That's why men in the U.S. still can't get the male birth control pill even though men in Europe and South America already have it. Ask the Feminists why they oppose it.

Thou shall not murder/kill was on the books before religion was a consideration.

JHOWARD343 wrote: "Ms. Campbell, you have your opinion and I have mine. I promise you that your opinion is not superior to mine. Therefore let's agree for us to be free."
----

That's where you're mistaken. Religious folks and other self-appointed society-saviors, such as political terrorists, always arrogate to themselves a superior morality. The abortion debate is a perfect example of the wickedness and perfidy of the religious. They pray furiously while insisting on the birth, suffering, and truncated life and death of deformed and ill children in order to satisfy their religion, their retrograde clergy, and its ill-conceived, hubristic ideas of humans as the ultimate purpose of "creation," as if we were the center of the universe and the sun revolved around the earth.

In our society religion has been elevated to something so special and precious that it can't even be taxed. We are all ordered to respect the irrational religious imaginarium and if we balk, the religious try to force us by using the power of the state. Legal abortion is a great victory over religion, a hard-won freedom that must not be yielded to the forces of darkness, the cursed religious, who will not be content until everyone kowtows to their fantasies and their imaginary, invisible sky-friends.

It seems vaguely preposterous even to have to say that, of course, you can be feminist and pro-life. Because regardless of how abortion supporters have spun the issue in recent decades, what does the one thing really have to do with the other?

It is true that only women can get pregnant, but the question of whether and under what circumstances a person can be killed is a human issue, not a feminine one.

Men commit 99.99% of rapes, but regardless of how the issue may be spun at drunken fraternity parties, that doesn't make enforcement of the laws concerning it a "masculine" issue; it's a human one. Victims can be female or male, and in the rare case where a woman commits rape, she is (or is supposed to be) prosecuted like a man.

Regarding the "proper" position for a person of faith, even though murder (no matter how convenient it may sometimes be) plainly must be prohibited as a general matter, just as plainly, there have to be exceptions to the general rule where individual choice will come into play.

A person of faith might choose not to kill another person in self-defense or war or might choose to carry a child after a rape or when her life was endangered. But he or she could not really impose that same choice on someone else, who might not have the same moral compass. So a person of faith would have to support reasonable exceptions to the general law, even if he or she would not take advantage of them personally.

woodyag:

You are spot-on.

Sorry but there is simply no way to define "Pro-Life" as anything except "Pro Religious Bigotry".

That's a hard word. And it's the absolute truth. All pro-lifers are working to write their religious beliefs into national law.

Or can someone explain to me how your religion legally trumps mine? Mine does NOT believe- that "life begins at conception."

Religious Freedom is one of our most sacred freedoms.

Fact- pro-lifers want to repeal it.

The fact remains that if men could get pregnant, there would be an abortion clinic on every corner. Treating women as second class citizens, not allowed to make the own decision, is quite anti-feminist, regardless of Ms. Campbell's non-sensical argument. Wanting to go back to the days of dirty backroom and alley-way abortions is actually absurd and is another step in the republican's quest to dumb America down into the dark ages. How can anyone who suggest this claim to support women? And with the constant wave of hypocrisy from conservatives, does anyone here think if a republican's mistress gets pregnant (think Newt Gingrich here) that they won't be the first to be looking for an abortion doctor? It will be the poor women who will suffer most with an anti-abortion law on the books. But then, republicans have never cared anything about the poor. They got theirs, now you get yours. That's the basic definition of conservatism.

This is the most absurd article I've ever read. Ms. Campbell here is advocating the loss of personal freedoms for everyone solely based on her own opinion. If Ms. Campbell is not comfortable getting an abortion when she is pregnant, then by all means, follow you own heart and do what is right for you and your family. But for you to suggest that someone you don't even know and have no idea about their circumstances should be forced into a decision based on what you believe is anti-American and anti-freedom. Please Ms. Campbell, you are free to make your decision, the one that is right for you. Please allow others to do the same. I'll never understand why people like Ms. Campbell insist on applying their standards to others. It is a conservative characteristic to think that their opinions are superior to others. This characteristic is blatantly opposed to the American freedom that each of us is guaranteed in the constitution. It is amusing that the same people who clamor about the constitution and what our fore fathers intended are so quick to twist the document to suit their own purposes. They argue and that the constitution gurantees them the right to bear arms (because every individual is a militia according to them), but that the same document allows them to forbid by law what they think they know is best for everyone, even if the other individuals themselves don't know it. The constitution never comes close to mentioning anything about abortion because it was not known at that time when women couldn't vote and black men were considered property of white men in many states.

Ms. Campbell, you have your opinion and I have mine. I promise you that your opinion is not superior to mine. Therefore let's agree for us to be free. You make your decision, the one that is best for you, and allow and respect me enough to make my decision, the one that is best for me. After all, I would never suggest that we pass a law that would require you to have an abortion against your will. Please allow me the same courtesy. That is freedom. Sarah Palin's view of the world is quite skewed to most intellectual people. Surely you realize that. If you don't, this fact alone speaks volumes about you.

Feminism didn't "run out of steam". The war is over and they won. Now it's just winding down. Sarah Palin is not a feminist, she's someone who has benefited from feminism and doesn't have the class to say "thank you".

Abortion is safe and legal. Women are represented at all levels in the workplace. Feminists have won. If you think they're "out of steam" just see what happens if their right to choose is ever seriously threatened.

So-called "pro-life" groups are the ones who get rebuffed, time and time again. And for good reason. Most Americans want abortion to remain legal.

You might have a better argument, Ms. Campbell, if you didn't start off with a blatant falsehood (pro-choice feminists are "affronted" by pro-life sentiments), a brutally sexist/agist attack (the people you disagree with are "aging" -- probably ugly, too, huh? -- and then cite dispproval of Sarah Palin as a mark of their unreason. Not much need to read any further.

Pro-choice and pro-abortion are not the same thing. What about the many men and women who believe abortion should be safe, legal and rare? Of course, to arrive at that point we would have to be sexually responsible. Much easier to ignore the constant promotion of sexual irresponsibility in our culture and focus on returning to the days of illegal abortions. That irresponsibility and its promotion in the name of sexual freedon are the elephants in the room.

"No one ever answers my question: How come Scott Peterson was convicted on TWO counts of homicide for killing wife and their child in utero?"

I'll answer it: I don't know.

Why don't you stop whining, and do some research.

The original feminists (that we know of) were pro-Life. Pro-Life goes very well with feminism.

Pro-Choice always seemed oddly out of place when juxtaposed with feminism. I always thought it strange that Hillary Clinton and her Hollywood feminist friends would march for Pro-Choice and claim to be "for the children" at the same time. This would sort of be like Nazi's claiming to be "for the Jews". Just doesn't make sense.

When the pro-lifers start going after the death penalty and senseless wars they may gain some credibility for their cause.

Abortion is good for America. It helps keep unemployment low.

delighted to see this column; sorry that Sarah Palin was dragged into it.
feminism is losing steam as a movement with outdated precepts and old battle cries.
happy to see the older generation marginalized as the key concerns of middle-aged and younger women come to the fore.
anti-harrassment, equal pay and access, pro-life - all these are modern and mainstream feminist concerns.
love the natural evolution to people-centered feminism and less focus on the anger and absolutism of the older crew.
even Gloria Steinem eventually said she was wrong to be anti-marriage, and was happily married.
I love men, I love my family, I detest abortion and I vote.
Proud feminist and raising two teen girls as well.
Viva feminism!

With pricey private health insurance & limits on public assistance for birth control you're going to have a lot of opposition to this kind of anti-choice "holier than thou" proselytizing.

A feminist and a potential mother can support pro-life in all good conscience. A man can support equal civil rights for women and respect for their choice to determine a pregnancy. On faith many believe to seek answers from teachings of the kingdom of God proclaimed by His Son Jesus.

Life has immense value and is not over when your body dies. Christ overcame death that we may have life eternal. Many unwanted pregnancies can be avoided by living in the grace of God through faith.

Why is a choice made to terminated an unwanted pregnancy by abortion? In most cases the abortion choice is made to satisfy the male sex or it was an unplanned mistake to be eliminated by an abortion. How can anyone be for pro-abortion?

Colleen is right. This is the first time that I have seen the fact voiced that Margaret Sanger were failing to achieve their goal of "killing the weeds before they are born (Weeds means, children of color and children from religious families)" until in the early 1950's they used civil rights leaders to saddle the Feminist and Civil Rights movement with their genocide theology.

Once the Feminist movement was saddled with the genocide doctrine (choice to kill), there was no stopping the genocide growth, Sanger had finally achieved a good portion of her goal. This is not to say that the Feminist movement was improper, as the movement was badly needed at the time, what was improper was Sanger and companies wrongful use of it.

However, the state governments, with morals, fought back, so Sanger and Company used civil rights groups to fight for the genocide racket to the Supreme Court were there were (3) judges that had already conspired to break constitutional dictates in favor of their new genocide edict, and finally acquired (2) other justices to join them, and the genocide Sanger's theology was pushed onto the state governments via the FED Court.

Today, young Feminists realize that they do not want to be labeled with the genocide, they want Feminist rights, but, not a choice to kill their young. They realize that this was an evil decision by the high court.

However, as the writer of this article states, the Democratic party has made Abortion and Feminist rights to mean one and the same thing, and have been filled with the old genocide jennies for so long they don't know how to pull away. Their funding often comes from Abortion rights groups, and they don't know where to find new funding.

The Old Genocide Jennies have wealth which is to temping to the Democratic party, and those old Jennies are not going to admit that they were wrong as many of them have youthfull-ly made the choice of death for their own young in the past.

To take a new path, is an admittance that they wrongfully let Sanger saddle them with the genocide theology in the first place, and wrongfully partook of it.

Sigh . . . What is so sad about the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice situation is the ABSOLUTELY STUPID, IGNORANT, BASELESS VATICAN CLAIM that a human zygote,blastula, gastrula, or embryo with NO functioning brain is a BABY.

MADNESS!

I read this article to my fetus friend, Mary. This was her response:

Fetus: Bravo!

No one ever answers my question: How come Scott Peterson was convicted on TWO counts of homicide for killing wife and their child in utero?

You can be pro-life and feminist so long as you're not anti-choice. The minute you say that the government will have control over a woman's body and not that woman, then you are no longer a feminist. Go ahead and be pro-life in your private life (meaning you are against the death penalty and teach your children that abortion is a choice they should not make), but don't attempt to legislate what women can do with their bodies if you want to be considered a feminist instead of someone who enslaves and degrades women.

1) Can you be against abortion in ALL circumstances and still support killing in war?

2) The comment I find most revealing is that Sarah Palin is pro-choice since she thought about having an abortion and did not. She had the legal option. There are many actions and choices that I don't approve of that are legal. Sorry, folks, life is not absolute as a value. Never has been. Read a history book or two. Oh, darn, I know that's hard work. Seriously, you can do it!

A few observations:

1) Sarah Palin strikes me as a part-way prolife woman who (after wavering) rejected abortion as a matter of personal choice, but not as someone who has avocated (at least to my knowledge) the outright banning of abortion as a legal right of choice.

2) Sarah Palin's position on abortion (as described above) seems to be the position of many prolife women who say they oppose abortion, but who also stop short of calling for an actual end to legality of abortion.

3) A more meaningful poll on the depth of pro-life sentiment in this country might be one that asks how many individuals who consider themselves to be pro-life also identify such a claim with full support for a comprehensive ban of a legal right of abortion in America.

This in my view is where the rubber meets the road on the issue of abortion in America; and until we hear the likes of this coming from the mouth of Sarah Palin and other self-professed pro-lifers, they're really not speaking to the crux of the abortion issue as it relates to its legal standing.

"Being "pro-life" is actually being anti-choice. You cannot be a feminist if you advocate that a woman's choice should be taken from her and she is returned to the status of property."
POSTED BY: ARANCIA12

You seem to forget that women don't get pregnant by themselves... It takes two.

If you want to hold such a calloused view then fine -- but, if you expect women alone to have the choice, then I trust you would expect them to finance the consequences of their own choices too...

Being "pro-life" is actually being anti-choice. You cannot be a feminist if you advocate that a woman's choice should be taken from her and she is returned to the status of property.

Choosing not the have an abortion is a choice and implies a woman could choose to have one. Feminists for Life would have a woman's right to CHOOSE life legislated away.

Women of Sarah Palin's ilk are being used by the men in their party and their lives. Unless they get to choose their future they are nothing more than window dressing for dominant males.

This line of reasoning that strong women don't need a choice because they will always choose to go full term is carefully crafted and very appealing but anything that legally takes away a woman's authority over her own body is dangerous. Follow the Palin's at your own peril.

I don't know about the meaning of feminism, per se.

But if young women choose to be vocally dogmatic and opinionated, then obviously they aren't feeling oppressed by the men in their lives. So that's progress.

If you want to be pro-life or pro-choice, that really is your own opinion. I note that many of the most vocal pro-life advocates are middle-class white women, for whom having a baby isn't necessarily an obstacle to having a well-paying job. So before they grow up and attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, they need to spend some time with those who scrape by on minimum wage and can't afford all the nice accoutrements of modern child rearing. Those are the women that pro-choice protects - the affluent have always been able to find someone to help the women in their lives make the choice.

And I'm sorry - Sarah Palin can aver to be pro-life all she likes. The second she thought that she could be able to abort her last child, but then decided not to? She became pro-choice. Because she made a choice. Euphemistically calling it "changing her circumstances" doesn't change the fact that she made a choice not to.

"Men are expected to pay for the consequences of their own actions, which, surprise, surprise, sometimes sex is procreative, not just recreative."

Exactly -- and women too should bear in mind the consequences of their own actions... BOTH men AND women ought to take responsibility for the possibility of a life resulting from sex.

"I disagree -- but, your view is fine as long as you don't expect men to pay for the 'choices' that women make... "

Men are expected to pay for the consequences of their own actions, which, surprise, surprise, sometimes sex is procreative, not just recreative. If sometimes, by the woman's choice, you do not end up with a child to support, then that is what happens. But if you do not take actions to keep from making a baby, and a baby is a result of your actions... then expect to be liable for your share of the consequences.

...Sheesh.

"It's not feminism if it doesn't give women choice. You want to have a baby? GO AHEAD. You don't? You ought to have the option. No need to dictate what others must do."

POSTED BY: FIATBOOKS | MAY 23, 2010 12:40 PM
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I disagree -- but, your view is fine as long as you don't expect men to pay for the 'choices' that women make...

It's not feminism if it doesn't give women choice. You want to have a baby? GO AHEAD. You don't? You ought to have the option. No need to dictate what others must do.

I did not make it through this article, so perhaps I have no room for comment. But I'd like to comment on why I could not make it through the entirety -- just like the absolutism the author wants to criticize by the group she assigns as "feminists", she is displaying an absolutism about folks on the "sides" of this issue. It presupposes that there are but two "sides".

Abortion and women's rights regarding their bodies are very complicated matters and rarely can the issues surrounding them be boiled down into a few "rules". Each situation is unique, with unique facts, persons, personalities and histories.

The very fact that it is complicated, that it is not something that can be distilled down into iron clad absolutes, is why I am opposed to legislation regarding abortion. Anyone who claims that they can know and decide for someone else, has never been in the situation before. Not the very situation that they are declaring that they can sort out. They may have had their own situation, but it was theirs. Not everyones.

Each day, 30,000 children around the world under the age of five die due to the poverty in which they live. If those who call themselves "pro-life" truly cared about life, this would not be the case. Instead, they seek to impose their religious views upon others by any means possible, including deluding young women who don't remember a time when hospitals were full of young women who nearly died from botched abortions.

The anti choice crowd does not care about life; it cares about *controlling* life. If this were not the case, such people would address the issue raised above, and would wish to implement appropriate maternal leave and childcare benefits for young mothers in our society. However, they do not.

The promise of an intelligent critique of feminist orthodoxy and the pro-choice position ends up being just another pro-life rant. When will pro-life advocates recognize that the criminalization of abortion is an untenable position and start working towards advocating a program which works towards reducing the number of abortions which many from both sides agree is far too high. While the hard pro-life and pro-choice sides, armed with their absolutist moral positions continue to lock themselves into a stale mate, a culture of abortion of convenience continues to grow.

Practical measures which provide incentives to keep or adopt children and processes which make abortion choices 'less convenient'combined with vastly increased funding for contraception and sex education are all areas where there would a tremendous public consensus on.

Unfortunately, the pro-choice side aka the feminist left and the pro-life aka the christian right, in their battle to defeat each other, have only managed to defeat basic common sense.

"Oh that;'s right m0r0ns like you don't believe in God. That's ok I don't necessarily believe in God."

When you have proved that there is a god, then maybe you are free to call other people names for not believing in something that is absurdly unlikley. BTW, Morons in spelled with o's, not zeros.

Marriage and/or shared parenthood do not give you, or me, the right to assign (or to refuse) your spouse's body to anyone else, even your child. That has nothing to do with financial responsibility.
POSTED BY: CATKEN1 | MAY 23, 2010 11:36 AM

Are you serious?? Being a parent has nothing to do with financial responsibility? Wow, I'm trying to figure out whether you're a pro-abortion feminist or a deadbeat dad.

"I do wish that pro-abortion feminists would see the logical disconnect in their view that a woman alone has the right to end a pregnancy on one hand, and the expectation that men share the financial responsibilities of a parenthood a woman 'chooses' to have."

Why? If my child needs to use my husband's body or body parts to survive, do I have any rights or say in the matter? It's his choice alone whether to say yes or no. And yet, if he chooses to say yes, I still have shared financial responsibilities with respect to our son, don't I?

Marriage and/or shared parenthood do not give you, or me, the right to assign (or to refuse) your spouse's body to anyone else, even your child. That has nothing to do with financial responsibility.

Posted by: Catken1 | May 23, 2010 11:36 AM
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Are you crazy or just plain stup1d??? You're actually arguing over the fact that FEMALES reproduce and act as if man is somehow responsible. LOL Maybe you should call God and voice your objections with him. Oh that;'s right m0r0ns like you don't believe in God. That's ok I don't necessarily believe in God. So then I guess that only leaves mother nature (a female/) HUM???? maybe she can correct this horrible mistake. LOL Give up the drugs, or if you don't use them please start.

Mrs. Campbell's intelligent, reasoned, thoughtful and sensitive analysis is absolutely guaranteed to enrage the femnazis and hard core progressives.

BOB2DAVIS -

"If pro-lifers spent their days improving the lives of existing human beings....."

Sorry to tell you this, but the studies demonstrates that red state residents donate far, far more time and resources to charity than their blue state counterparts.

Please don't let your intolerance for the views of others lead you to make baseless (and ignorant) personal attacks on those that hold them.

Posted by: bobmoses | May 23, 2010 11:22 AM
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LOL the world doesn't run on Dunkin and it doesn't live by red state - blue state. Only a fool thinks a term PRO LIFE or PRO CHOICE is specific to one party or the other. And to think you actually use the word IGNORANT in your post. PATHETIC.....

"I do wish that pro-abortion feminists would see the logical disconnect in their view that a woman alone has the right to end a pregnancy on one hand, and the expectation that men share the financial responsibilities of a parenthood a woman 'chooses' to have."

Why? If my child needs to use my husband's body or body parts to survive, do I have any rights or say in the matter? It's his choice alone whether to say yes or no. And yet, if he chooses to say yes, I still have shared financial responsibilities with respect to our son, don't I?

Marriage and/or shared parenthood do not give you, or me, the right to assign (or to refuse) your spouse's body to anyone else, even your child. That has nothing to do with financial responsibility.

Years ago the feminist movement claimed that women could "have it all" -- bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, the whole nine yards. The simple physics of child rearing (particularly where the mother carries the laboring oar) disproved that. We DO have to make choices. We can't bend the time space continuim -- there are only so many hours in a day. Someone will lose -- the mom's career ambitions, the born child's need for parent's love and nurturing.... Telling young women they can have unplanned babies (likely without the support of the other parent) and a full successful future with a career etc. is pretty much hogwash in most cases. If you want to make it real you should be out there fighting for terrific infant and child care and other supports for young working and studying moms. But you're not. Which suggests to me that your "feminism" is window dressing. It's too bad you're fooling young women.

I do wish that pro-abortion feminists would see the logical disconnect in their view that a woman alone has the right to end a pregnancy on one hand, and the expectation that men share the financial responsibilities of a parenthood a woman 'chooses' to have.

Pregnancy and parenthood are intertwined. It takes two to get pregnant and, where that pregnancy comes from consensual sex, both partners should take responsibility for it. A woman alone shouldn't be expected to make such a 'final' choice, just as a woman alone shouldn't alone be expected to raise a child. Perhaps getting both parents involved from the beginning might ensure that women and men are truly equal partners with equal rights? Isn't this the ultimate goal of feminism?

"It's the responsibility of both but somehow being the ultra LIB feminist you are you think every thing is an attack against women (or you) and never really see the real picture."

Oh, so you support a law making a man's body the property of his children, to be used according to their need without any concern for his wishes, his consent, or anything that happens to him as a response? Your liver, blood, bone marrow, kidneys - these are your kids' property, not your own?

Are you advocating for those laws, too?

Posted by: Catken1 | May 23, 2010 11:13 AM
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They have that choice. But of course the law would be imposed and enforced on both mother and father. Sorry theirs that little document the US Constitution all LIB T@rDS hate that says We're all equal under the law... plus men cannot provided for women's body parts needs. So we would have to remove your liver to save your daughters life. Any other bright ideas???

"LOL. What a straw man. Why are liberals utterly incapable of actually addressing points that are actually made instead of debating these extreme and absurd positions that nobody is advocating?"

But that is precisely what you are advocating for women. When a woman conceives a child, you view her body as the property of the child, to be used without concern for that woman's wishes, continuing consent or lack thereof, or for any consequences to her. Why shouldn't you also apply that to men, if it's a simple "that's what you get for having sex" requirement?

Or is it only OK to take away a woman's bodily autonomy as punishment for not remaining celibate for her entire life? (Even if she lost her virginity within marriage, or as a result of rape...)

BOB2DAVIS -

"If pro-lifers spent their days improving the lives of existing human beings....."

Sorry to tell you this, but the studies demonstrates that red state residents donate far, far more time and resources to charity than their blue state counterparts.

Please don't let your intolerance for the views of others lead you to make baseless (and ignorant) personal attacks on those that hold them.

"Oh, so you support a law making a man's body the property of his children, to be used according to their need without any concern for his wishes, his consent, or anything that happens to him as a response? Your liver, blood, bone marrow, kidneys - these are your kids' property, not your own?"

LOL. What a straw man. Why are liberals utterly incapable of actually addressing points that are actually made instead of debating these extreme and absurd positions that nobody is advocating? What a joke.

C. C. Campbell: Is abortion murder? Answer yes or no, or stop writing about it.

"It's the responsibility of both but somehow being the ultra LIB feminist you are you think every thing is an attack against women (or you) and never really see the real picture."

Oh, so you support a law making a man's body the property of his children, to be used according to their need without any concern for his wishes, his consent, or anything that happens to him as a response? Your liver, blood, bone marrow, kidneys - these are your kids' property, not your own?

Are you advocating for those laws, too?

It is absurd to think that someone is "pro-life" if she does not oppose war and capital punishment, if she supports troops that kill on command, if she does not alleviate discrimination, if she does not work to end poverty, malnutrition and disease, if she does not establish sex education programs and adoption agencies for unwanted children and if she does not visit prisons to comfort "the least of her brothers." Pro-life should first mean supporting the living. If pro-lifers spent their days improving the lives of existing human beings, there would be far less need for abortions. If she really valued life, she would only have time to make life better for other women, not question their choices but help them deal with any and all consequences. If you support any other form of killing, you are anti-life.!

"Freedom of religion allows me to believe that some things are wrong, too. I have that freedom. God wrote us His Torah and included in it many prohibitions. More than the positive commandments."

Follow the Torah all you like. But do not seek to use the secular, civil law to impose your religious prohibitions on those of us who do not share your faith.

After all, freedom of religion isn't just for you, it's for all of us. What about those people who believe certain aspects of Judaism are wrong? Would you be willing to live by someone else's religious rules because they believed them very strongly?

What if a Catholic wanted to prohibit married religious leaders? Would you accept a law forbidding rabbis, among others, to marry because other people felt that God had prohibited sex for religious leaders?

How about a law against eating beef, because Hindus' holy texts consider it the moral equivalent of eating your mother?

Keep your belief system and man-made version of "God" off of my body. Is that clear enough?

The evil people tried to stomp out the light of God...

But they couldn't...

Freedom of religion allows me to believe that some things are wrong, too. I have that freedom. God wrote us His Torah and included in it many prohibitions. More than the positive commandments.

The secularists want to stomp out that light of Torah. Well, they will fail. Big time.

"I personally am very much against shooting abortion doctors, but aren't those who do so free to choose?"

If it is the only way to get the abortion doctor detached from your body, and to keep him from using your physical resources against your will, go right ahead.

And Askgees, ad hominem (or ad feminem) attacks are quite typical responses for someone who has no logical argument in response. Your view is simple, and I get it. Women's only choice is celibacy or slavery, and any other choice is irresponsible or selfish. I'll accept that argument as reasonable when you apply it to men, too. Are you willing to have your body made the personal property of any child you happen to conceive, whatever the circumstances of that conception? If not, why are you selfishly demanding the right to "bang anyone you please" without taking the consequences?

Posted by: Catken1 | May 23, 2010 10:57 AM
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LOL Obviously you DON'T GET IT. It's the responsibility of both but somehow being the ultra LIB feminist you are you think every thing is an attack against women (or you) and never really see the real picture. But hate on and remember, it's NEVER YOUR FAULT. LOL

Note to "Feminists for Life": it's an oxymoron to claim that you're a feminist and anti-choice. Period. Do some actual reading and research on the history and foundations of feminism.

"That is unless you are murdered by the boy friend while pregnant then they charge the assailant with 2 homicides."

If the born child needs his father's blood, bone marrow, or organs to survive, the father has the right to say no, without being arrested for murder. If he chooses to say yes, does the fact that he could have said no justify the mother or anyone else in shooting both him and the child? Will she not be charged with murder?

There is a difference between refusing someone the use of your body, and killing a third party who is not in any way physically dependent on you for survival.

"I personally am very much against shooting abortion doctors, but aren't those who do so free to choose?"

If it is the only way to get the abortion doctor detached from your body, and to keep him from using your physical resources against your will, go right ahead.

And Askgees, ad hominem (or ad feminem) attacks are quite typical responses for someone who has no logical argument in response. Your view is simple, and I get it. Women's only choice is celibacy or slavery, and any other choice is irresponsible or selfish. I'll accept that argument as reasonable when you apply it to men, too. Are you willing to have your body made the personal property of any child you happen to conceive, whatever the circumstances of that conception? If not, why are you selfishly demanding the right to "bang anyone you please" without taking the consequences?

Life begins wherever these religious types says it does; there's no arguing with them. So here is what I say. Yes, I sometimes want to kill babies. Thank you.

Posted by: GDWymer | May 23, 2010 10:23 AM
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That is unless you are murdered by the boy friend while pregnant then they charge the assailant with 2 homicides. The law is shifting and abortion is going to become illegal very soon. There is no need to waste time discussing freedom of choice. All men and women have freedom of choice but they now what freedom for responsibility. At least have the balls to speak plainly...

And because a woman's first choice failed, she has no further choices and must submit to becoming someone else's property for nine months?

Posted by: Catken1 | May 23, 2010 10:15 AM
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Typical hose bag. Wants to bang everyone she wishes with out any possibility of paying for her actions. LOL They should tie your tubes to prevent you from reporducing. The planet has enough free loading useless simplet0ns like you as it is.

I personally am very much against shooting abortion doctors, but aren't those who do so free to choose?

At long last, the cold ruthlessness of the old-guard feminists is being replaced by a sense of compassion and respect for human life.

The same people opposed to abortion are also opposed to universal health care to provide medical assistance to the mother and child, opposed to any kind of child living assistance, such as food stamps and unemployment payments or any form of welfare assistance to women. In our society the vast majority of those in poverty are women and babies.

So if I was prolife, I think I'd work on these facts first and then maybe, just maybe more women will choose to have a baby if they see they live in a country that actually loves children, feeds its children, clothes its children, provides housing for its children, willing to provide for its education. You know, all those things you are supposed to do when you love a child.

No, you just want to throw little babies out into the street, let it join gangs, kill, rob and get stoned and finally die. Either it dies on the street or in Falusa burnt to death and hanging from a bridge.

Been there, done that.

Pro-life feminism is all well and good in theory. You think women should be equal to men - a good idea - and that abortion is wrong - nothing to critique there either.

As soon as you start trying to take a woman's right to choose away, you lose the feminist label. Even if you're a woman.

Life begins wherever these religious types says it does; there's no arguing with them. So here is what I say. Yes, I sometimes want to kill babies. Thank you.

"And abortion is not a choice it's a reaction to a failed choice."

And because a woman's first choice failed, she has no further choices and must submit to becoming someone else's property for nine months?

If I'm a "baby killer" for not wanting to co-opt another woman's body to save a fetus's life, without her consent, then you are a "child killer" for not wanting to have men's bodies assigned by government to their children, to be used whenever they need an organ, blood or bone marrow donation, without the need for consent or any concern for what happens to the man afterwards. After all, the men chose to have sex, right? Their birth control might have failed, but that's too bad - once you have conceived a child, that child's life ought to take precedence over your right to choose, too, right?

"Would you agree that somewhere on this spectrum lies the beginning of a human person? Would you be willing to at least try to find exactly where?"

Sure, if you're willing to tell me where on the spectrum of conception lies the end of a pregnant woman's status as a human person. Is it when she loses her virginity, when the sperm meets the egg, or when the egg implants in her uterus that she becomes a thing, a piece of property belonging to her fetus, to be used without her consent or any concern for her situation, wishes, feelings, or any cost to her or her existing family that may result from her being used?

Whether a fetus is a clump of cells or as human as I am, it still retains no more right to live inside another person and use her body parts without her consent than I do.

"Greyhound1 is the only pro-choice commenter with the guts to address the issue as a pro-life person sees it: Is the thing about to be aborted a person?"

How about you have the guts to address the issues as a pro-choice feminist sees it: Is a pregnant woman a person, or an incubating machine?

Everyone is pro-life. It is just that some are against women having liberty and freedom of concience, and the freedom to make our own life decisions.

Posted by: John1263 | May 23, 2010 8:05 AM
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LOL that's funny but let's put it into prospective. WOMEN have a choice. They don't have to have sex, they can use protection, they can have their partner wear protection, And abortion is not a choice it's a reaction to a failed choice. My guess is that you impregnated several women as you have no self control or self respect let a lone respect for women and because they aborted the babies you we're able to avoiding responsibility. TYPICAL LIB T@RD use smoke and mirrors to hide your failures.

One can be anti-abortion with regard to one's own life and action and still be feminist.

But anyone who would deny another woman sovereignty over her own body is not a feminist. There's simply no two ways on this.

"Why does the pro-choice side refuse to talk about the post-abortion issues? Many women struggle deeply with depression, even years after their decision."

Why does the anti-choice side refuse to talk about post-adoption and post-unwanted-pregnancy issues? Many women struggle deeply with depression, even years after those decisions.

Bottom line is, it's a difficult choice, and either way a woman chooses, she may suffer for it. She might suffer more if she had chosen the other path, but she might still suffer even for taking the choice that was right for her. Which is precisely why no one else can make that choice for her. She knows herself and her circumstances best, and she is the one who will face the consequences of her choice. Not you, not the government, not people who preach about their support for equal rights for men and women but have no trouble seeing a pregnant woman as a thing and the property of her fetus.

"I think so many people have gotten so caught up in the word "choice". It isn't about "choice" -- it is about another HUMAN LIFE."

Yes, and in EVERY CASE where one human life is using the body and body parts of another human life to survive, that second person, the donor, has the right to CHOOSE to say no or to withdraw consent at any time during the procedure. Isn't the life and dignity of a four-year-old who needs a bone marrow or blood donation equal to that of a mass of cells without a brain or nerve ending, which requires a far greater donation of energy, time and pain from another person than the child does? Why don't we, then, take away your right, my right, and everyone else's right to say no to a donation of body parts that someone else needs?

"As a human -- I find it horrible that one can find that taking the life of another is ok in order to make her life better...it is this kind of selfish and entitlement thinking that is the problem."

I find it horrible that one can find that taking the life of another is OK just so they can avoid an hour in the blood donor center and a needle stick. Is that not just as much selfish and entitlement thinking as the woman who wishes to avoid nine months of being inhabited by another person, perhaps throwing up all her food the first three months, unable to find a comfortable position to sleep for the last three, unable to walk without pain in the last month or two, continually being kicked and pummeled from the inside, being constantly tired and drained of energy, having serious and frustrating mood swings that can even lead to suicidal depression, experiencing drastic and frequently permanent changes to one's body and mind, and then undergoing the agonizing pain of labor? And that's just some of the costs of a healthy pregnancy.

"I am pro-life and I consider myself in the general sense a feminist in that I am for equal rights for women."

Unless she is a pregnant woman, in which case you are for assigning her body as the property of someone else, to be used without regard for her choices, her wishes, her existing family, or her well-being (unless you're SURE the pregnancy will kill her, in which case you MIGHT graciously deign to concede to her the right to protect her life, if she can prove it to YOUR satisfaction).

Let's be clear about equality, shall we? If you respect a man's ownership of his body, regardless of his fatherhood status or promiscuity or the morality of his choices, and allow him to give or withhold his body to others as he sees fit, but assign a woman's body to her fetus without allowing her the right to choose to withhold its use, you are not for equal rights. Talk about "obvious hypocrisy."

I think that being pro-life is an entirely valid position to take on its own merits. It doesn't need to be somehow feminist, and let's be perfectly clear on that point, it's not. Or, to put it a different way, if a pro-life stance is supposedly in line with traditional feminism then it is either not pro-life or not traditionally feminist. I'm not sure why claiming to be feminist adds or subtracts from the life equation.

To be fair to feminist thought: feminism isn't the suggestion that women should have the maximum number of options, opportunities, or choices regardless of the freedom to decide whether or not to make them (ie forced upon them). As in, if being pro-life means that by not having the option to end the pregnancy you are actually becoming more empowered by being forced to both become a mother and work, then it is in effect not providing any kind of egalitarian freedom or equality at all.

Or, perhaps actually laying out the "pro-life feminist" thought process makes things clearer: I'm pregnant. I won't have an abortion, because doing so takes a life and basically means that I feel like I'm unable to both work and raise a family. I'm a strong, modern woman though, I can do both!

Pro-abortion rights feminist thought: I'm pregnant. I can either keep the baby or end the pregnancy. If I keep the baby than I will be raising a child and trying to focus on my career. I can alternatively choose to either focus on just the career or just the baby. I want children but this may not be the right time. While I need to consider my options, I'm a strong, modern woman and will do what I decide is best!

See the difference? One can perhaps consider themselves pro-life and feminist in a society where abortion is legal and the choice can be made to, in theory, "not make a choice." The moment that abortion rights are taken away though, it would no longer be feminist to believe women can raise children and work all at the same time (which, by the way, is in no way exclusive to pro-life women. That's ridiculous). It would just be the law.

Abortion is the high sacrament at the alter of the church of liberalism.

And what a bloody sacrifice and alter it is....

Dino - could you please site your stats? Thanks.

Missouri is a "bellwether" state? Deep South - Bible belt - fundamentalists - evangelists - less educated - and we are to take the views of women in a state like this as gospel truth? I don't think so.

Mentioning the sex-selective abortions as increasing is questionable without facts and figures. Does this author not think to blame the fathers in part for sex-selective abortions? They are mainly the ones who just have to have a son to "carry on the name".

Until women such as this author adopt unwanted children - the crack babies, the teen-agers tossed from foster home to foster home, the children with mental and physical challenges - they are, in my opinion, blowing smoke. Yes, I was adopted as were two of my children. And I am a firm believer in pro-choice.

People need to go back and read the ruling. It established a woman's right to privacy and to determine what happens to her own body. There would not be feminists now without the groundbreaking and difficult work of brave women to demand this right.
Note that the law does NOT say anyone HAS to have an abortion--but opponents wish to deny this right to women. It's YOUR business whether you do or you do not. It's a private matter, not a plank in an election platform. Funny, how this is the one law related to civil rights that people feel they should overturn or limit for half the population. Use the right or don't, but you can't limit other people's access to the right. It's the law.

Why does the pro-choice side refuse to talk about the post-abortion issues? Many women struggle deeply with depression, even years after their decision. I saw a woman in my clinic the other day who had an abortion 24 years ago and said she still thinks about that every day and it was the biggest mistake she ever made. Is she in the minority? I'm not convinced. I've met many more. Deciding to abort the fetus/cells/child within you isn't akin to deciding what you're going to wear one night or where you're going to party. It might be the most profound decision you ever make. But yet, almost all pro-choice organizations provide no funding for women to deal with the aftermaths of their decision. Why is that?

Feminism, feminist, pro-life feminism blah, blah, blah.

Fact, abortion IS, was, and always will be a fact of life and choice in the sexual life of young girls and women.

Hopefully, with "God's Blessing :))" it will continue to be a legal right in any civilized Nation in the world today and in the future.

Now, we may go through a time where this legal right is taken away due to those who oppose this legal and human right of women but that will NOT END ABORTIONS nor will it contribute to the "emotional, intellectual or sprititual" life of any child," meaning you can force a women to have a child but one cannot force that child's life to become a life filled with love, health and well-being, therefore the conditions where abortions are born, nurtured and made reality will still exist and have a need of expression with the desire to be legally acted upon.

So, fight it, deny it, hate it, put the fear of god in it's reality but like the ease with which a young girl can conceive that egg, that "possibility" of a human life, is the same ease that carries with it the need of choice and the "fact of life" that IS a women's human right of choice.

So, this "Pro-life Feminist Abortion beliver" is not in fear that the reality of abortion, this human right of women will ever be gone for long, but, if, somehow, in the "ignorance of the forces that be" tries to deny or legally withold
it, and, are, somehow, successful, it would not be for long.

Abortion IS, was, and, always, will be, no matter, the legality of it, and this is a known fact for all who deal in sexual realism.

ps. you write...."Indeed, they are. They are young, their ranks are growing, and the girls and women among them are not buying yesterday's orthodoxy about the inextricable link between abortion and women's liberation. No matter how many times the feminist establishment tells them to sit down and shut up, they show no signs of doing so. Let the debate over the true meaning of feminism begin."

Please, if you think that the yesterday's orthodoxy was about the "inextricable link between abortion and women's liberation" then you obviously don't know what you are talking about when you are putting the two together and why the arguments against this human right are so weak in comparison to the actual reality of this basic, human, sexual, female right.

Against abortion? Don't have one.

Abortion is murder. Contemplate, if you can, a third trimester abortion....and know that your next door liberal Democrat thinks its just fine...'hey it's their choice' or whatever....

Happy Sunday you blood-soaked Democrats! You have the blood of aborted babies on your hands. Repent of that in church this morning! Church!! For you!?! Right!! LOL!

That great that you get to choose that you are pro-life...but the idea behind feminism is that the women get to make decisions for themselves. I love how now the anti-choice are now hiding behind feminism. Give me a break. It is NOT feminism when you take women's rights AWAY!! Maybe you were able to fool uneducated women with this article, but no luck with me! Find another way to push your agenda.
By the way Colleen, do you have a "baby safe haven" sign outside your door? If not maybe you should consider getting one so you can walk your talk.

Greyhound1 is the only pro-choice commenter with the guts to address the issue as a pro-life person sees it: Is the thing about to be aborted a person? If there were an answer to this question, it ought to have some bearing on the law of the land.

Grey says it's not a person, but without giving any evidence. There's no real conversation without at attempt at evidence. Consider the following stages of development:

* I can survive outside the womb.
* I can feel pain.
* I have a heartbeat.
* I have a body (more than a clump of cells).
* I’m a clump of cells, or a single cell, but I have the potential to develop into a new individual human being in the right circumstances.

(I could have added the actual moment of birth at the beginning and even added more stages on top of that, but I hoped it wasn’t necessary. Personally I'm closer to the bottom than to the top.)

Would you agree that somewhere on this spectrum lies the beginning of a human person? Would you be willing to at least try to find exactly where? If so, then you are serious about this issue.

The motto "refuse to choose" is remarkable.

"Ignorance is strength." - George Orwell, 1984

Years ago I thought that when we had 51 female senators the issue might turn the other way--away from an issue of power (which will have been won) and toward the issue or what is right and moral. I'm surprised that it is turning so soon.

LET'S FACE IT

DEMOCRATS ARE BABY KILLERS

PLAIN AND SIMPLE

BABY KILLERS

HAVE A NICE DAY DEMOCRATS

Everyone is pro-life. It is just that some are against women having liberty and freedom of concience, and the freedom to make our own life decisions.

I have to admit here that I lost interest in this article after it mentioned Sarah Palin. SP attaches herself to anything which keeps her face and her 'opinions' in the news, any group stupidly willing to pay her any amount of money to 'speak' for them, to them.

A collection of human cells, started by the union of a sperm and an egg, is human. However inconvienent it may be to consider, it is how we all began.

Being Pro Life starts with the premise that Human life is precious, having value in and of itself because it is human, not because we 'chose' it give it value.

Where there is life, there is hope.

Why is the Post publishing this vile thumper, with her pieties about abortion? I'm especially offended that somebody who worked for the first war criminal of the 21st century -- George W. Bush -- is allowed to be any sort of moral beacon.

The people who want to save every fetus, no matter how deformed and sick, are repulsive. In order to follow their bizarre religious ideas they are fully willing to condemn a child to a life of suffering, surgeries, bandages, pain, and a miserable death. To hell with these selfish hypocrites. Life may be precious, yes, even in spite of the daily carnage we see in nature, but there is nothing precious in suffering. The people who oppose all abortions are merciless and dogmatic, without a single brain cell used to think for themselves. In this matter, religion is simply wrong.
________________

This is so typical; rhetoric instead of thoughtful analysis. The author made a very important point: valuing all human life is what makes our individual lives truly valuable. Please address that instead of accusing others of not having a "single brain cell" (should you look in the mirror)?

If your counter-argument is that a fetus is not a human life, then prove it. Where there is doubt, err in favor of life. Moreover, isn't it essential, when it comes to protecting human life, that government makes the decision on the most objective basis possible? Otherwise we end with subjective opinion and moving targets like "viability." You may think this is a good thing, but make your case for it; don't assume the rest of us find conclusory analysis and name-calling persuasive.

The term "feminism" was born during the time when women were fighting against the oppression they were experiencing at the hands of a male-oriented society. They were tired of being told what to do, how to do it and not being treated as equals.
So now, isn't it ironic -and certainly hypocritical- that these "feminists" want to oppress women by telling them what to do and how to do it?
Choice is a right for all.
Posted by: topwriter
---------------------
But is it really true that this is how feminism was born? Were American women really "oppressed" in the fifties? Were they actually as badly off as blacks or gays? They were not.

Many American women were dissatisfied with the status which society conferred on them, they rebelled and now women constitute about half of the work force. Fine, but are they better off?

40% of American children are now born out of wedlock and many single mothers have a really hard life. Essentially, women who were ambitious, who wanted money and power, have benefitted. Women who cared about family and relationship have lost out.

Should we "turn back the clock"? Maybe not. Anyway, it would be impossible. But it is an illusion - created largely by feminist propaganda - that women were "oppressed" and are now better off.

If there are "feminists" then we need a term to denote men who favor men's rights. But we do not since men are the dominant group.
Posted by: farnaz_mansouri2
---------------

Tell that to the millions of men who were FORCIBLY sent to Vietnam, with 58,000 dead and countless injuries. Tell that to the 2 million men in America's prisons, at a rate of male imprisonment which is 30 times that of India. tell that to the countless men who are denied contact with their own children and who are called deadbeat dads when they cannot, because of joblessness or poverty, pay exorbitant child support payments.

If men are the "dominant gender" then why is it that the male rate of suicide is higher than the female rate?

Feminism should be about love and dignity -not about hating men and hating the unborn.

The term "feminism" was born during the time when women were fighting against the oppression they were experiencing at the hands of a male-oriented society. They were tired of being told what to do, how to do it and not being treated as equals.

So now, isn't it ironic -and certainly hypocritical- that these "feminists" want to oppress women by telling them what to do and how to do it?

Choice is a right for all.

This is the junk that passes for policy these days. A speechwriter is a word bender by a different name. Denying women access to the health care of THEIR choice is in the tradition of the Taliiban.

As an adopted child, a mother of five, and an unabashed feminist, I respect every woman's right to bear children or not -- without government interference, or interference from self-appointed moralists whose counsel has not been sought. The facts that may render a pregnancy untenable cover a broad spectrum. I personally would find it difficult to opt for abortion, even if my own life were at stake, but who knows until the situation presents itself how one should or will proceed? The decision of whether to terminate the pregnancy is best reached by the mother in consultation with those she trusts. Anyone who would take that decision from the mother and place it in the hands of the government may be many things, but s/he is no feminist.

The people who want to save every fetus, no matter how deformed and sick, are repulsive. In order to follow their bizarre religious ideas they are fully willing to condemn a child to a life of suffering, surgeries, bandages, pain, and a miserable death. To hell with these selfish hypocrites. Life may be precious, yes, even in spite of the daily carnage we see in nature, but there is nothing precious in suffering. The people who oppose all abortions are merciless and dogmatic, without a single brain cell used to think for themselves. In this matter, religion is simply wrong.

I think the anti-choice zealots have succeeded in demonizing feminists. Feminists have been responsible for expanding rights for women, even those you don't agree with. A sampling: equal pay (in theory), access to credit in one's own name, opportunity to serve in the military, ability to keep one's job while married and/or pregnant, access to reproductive health care (which is not just about abortion, despite what the anti-choice folks say).

Me, I'm on the side of the feminists. Cassie123, it's easy to believe in "no exceptions," but the chances are, there are women in your family who had to use an exception at one time or another. But they just don't talk about it. And, besides, do you REALLY want the government to sit in judgment as to whether your life is in danger if you are in that situation? I can't think of any government appointee or politician I would like to decide that for me, or my daughter.

Sorry but anti-abortion feminist is an oxymoryon. As a Catholic, you know that women are seen by the Vatican as only valuable so long as they serve the men in the church or act as boxes for babies to grow in. A female who is not in a religious order or the mother to as many children as possible is looked down on and admonished by the clergy and by the men in the church. You only have to witness the excommunication of mothers in Latin America that get excommunicated for letting their 11-year-old daughters abort pregnancies resulting from rape or the excommunication of the nun in Arizona for choosing to save a woman's life over the life of a fetus, to know that women are not valued by the Catholic church. And when the "life" of a of a zygote means more than the life of a fully fledged female, there can be no such thing as a pro "life" feminist. A feminist is simply someone who believes that women are as valuable as men and zygotes.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but this entire debate (still!) seems to boil down to some people trying to impose their belief system on everyone else. That's wrong, like trying to legislate that Christians must believe in Zeus. Conversely, no pro-choice activist is imposing their beliefs on anybody; no one is forcing anyone to have an abortion they don't want. (And no, I'm not including the proto-child; until it can survive outside the womb, that cluster of cells is neither a child nor a person - not yet - just as a sperm or egg cell isn't a person, though it has the potential to develop into one.) Think abortion is wrong? Then don't have one.

I'm (obviously) pro-choice. Having said that, the situations in which I would even consider such a course are vanishingly small - but the point is that I could make that choice if I had to. By all means, educate on abstinence and - if you actually want to be effective - contraceptives. Tout the value of adoption, or of struggling through. If the woman then chooses to bear a child, that's wonderful (and I mean that), but it's still *HER* choice. Influence, convince, sway, whatever - and then trust her to make the best choice for her particular circumstance.

Abortion as a form of birth control. While most anti-abortionists are against providing safe sex instructions and contraceptives to school age children they are not against using birth control methods themselves. However, it is inconsistent to be against abortion and to also use any form of birth control(yes, even the rhythm method). Why? No birth control method is perfect. Any child conceived while birth control was used is by definition not as wanted as as a child conceived when the couple is trying to have a child. An unwanted pregnancy is more likely to be terminated than a wanted one.

We need to give women choice otherwise we will revert to the third world legacy of treating women as property or worse.

If you look at an abortion-laws map of the world such as is found on wikipedia.com it is apparent that the unpopular migrations of poor people are from third world countries with strict anti-abortion laws into developed countries where abortion is legal on request. While there may be many reasons for migration it doesn't take a Thomas Robert Malthus to figure out that when population overruns infrastructure people migrate. It is interesting that conservative republicans want tough immigration laws but are also anti-abortion!?

If a woman, for reasons of conscience, decides not to terminate her pregancy after receiving a prenatal diagnosis of a severe fetal abnormality, she can proceed knowing that the future costs of maintaining the child will forever be paid for by the general taxpayer. To put it less kindly, as it often is, she can dump the child in an institution which has a nice name but which receives most of its funds from Medicaid and other levels of government. She can dump the child into one of these institutions and never look back. A tour of one of these institutions might go far in offsetting images of aborted fetuses. And some of these same women don't want their tax money to fund abortions!?

Time for a reality check. Since most women have prenatal exams and over ninety percent of women who receive a fetal diagnois of Down's Syndrome (a relative mild fetal anomaly) terminate their pregnancy then I can only surmise that quite a few pro-life women have taken a personal exception.

"This rising pro-life sentiment among women has begun to surface in public opinion polls.
...
"Researchers found that the share of Missouri women identifying themselves as "strongly pro-life" rose from 28 percent in 1992 to 37 percent in 2006, with the ranks of the "strongly pro-choice" shrinking from about a third to a quarter of Missouri women. This pro-life shift was even more pronounced among young women."

And Hitler came to power through a popular vote.

Lifeonmars - First, I am sorry if I misunderstood you before.

Let me explain my views on killing - which is quite simple and fair. I am only for taking another's life in situations of self defense - when absolutely necessary. I do not like the death penalty. As a Christian, I cannot be ok with being responsible for eliminating someone's period of grace - that is the time that they have to accept the love of God and experience salvation.

My view on abortion is that it is only ok in ONE and only ONE situation - when the mother's life is at stake (because then both would die - and this is a rarer occasion than with abortions). Every other situation: abortion is wrong. It is murder in my opinion. I am not saying that raising the child would be easy.

I think that Sarah Palin's point...and I am guessing here as I can't climb into her head and hear her brain working...is that by law, she could have chosen to abort her child. But she didn't, because it would be wrong.

As the sister to a mentally and physically handicapped sister, Sarah Palin's decision affects me deeply. My mother could have chosen the same thing, but she didn't because it was wrong -- sure it has been hard and expensive, but abortion was wrong.

Choice cannot override taking another's life. If I have to choose between the two "rights", I take allowing another human to live. LIFE is a much more intrinsic right than CHOICE. Plus I think abortion is a states rights issue...but the Supreme Court wants to decide everything don't they (another debate for another day).

Finally, let me say that abortion isn't about choice per say. Choice is just a word that has been attached to this debate. Abortion is about a human either living or dying period. You can chose to do the right thing, although it costs you, or you can chose to do the easy thing which is wrong (assuming you think taking another life is wrong). "Choice" sounds a lot better than kill the fetus.

Meant to write:

What SHE seeks is best described as limited gender apartheid.

There are no "pro-life feminists." Arguably, there are neither "pro-life" anything nor "feminists."

If there are "feminists" then we need a term to denote men who favor men's rights. But we do not since men are the dominant group. There are, perhaps, civil and human rights activists, who are concerned about the deprivation of justice to women, the attempts to control their bodies.

Pro-life would seem to mean that one favors life over death. On that, all sane people agree. It is true that some might place value on all forms of life, including cockroaches, but we would need a different term to reflect the nuance that distinguishes them from all sane others.

Assuming that all sane people prefer life to death, the contstruction "pro-life" is meaningless.

In the context of forced pregnancy and delivery, the author is best described as an anti-choice activist, or, perhaps, a pro-zygotist or pro-natalist. Since, along with other anti-choice activists, she believes she has the right to legislate in ways that affect women only, her position is similar to that held by segregationists, except that hers lacks even the pretense of equality.

What seeks is best described as limited gender apartheid.

Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Colleen Carroll Campbell would push Feminists for Life into our faces. She seems like the type of "activist" and "joiner" who would embrace a vacuous, poorly informed group devoted to the principles of stay-at-home motherhood.

And, really, what can you say about an organization whose website features a department called "Covetable Stuff"?

I suppose it's possible that some people might want to send holiday cards that depict a toddler with her ear pressed against a bare pregnant belly. (This is the "Peace Begins in the WombTM greeting card," and, yes, that is a trademark sign you see). But I personally don't know anybody who wouldn't laugh uproariously at such drama-queenism.

This kind of watering down of the real feminist messages is part of a systematic program to roll back the progress of the past 40 years and return women to their rightful place in the home, at the hearth, and in the birthing stirrups.

What Colleen Carroll Campbell and her ilk just don't get is that real feminists ARE pro-life -- just not her kind of pro-life. In CCC's world, "life" is defined as an unformed embryo, which she calls an "unborn child" no matter what its level of development. Conversely, real feminists favor preserving life by not sending fully alive human beings wantonly into war; by not withholding the kind of government support that can feed and clothe and shelter women (and their babies) who would otherwise have no options. Real pro-life feminists favor widespread education on health, nutrition, and contraception, because these are the issues that give women control over their lives and the possibility of gaining and maintaining their health and that of their children so that they can live long and productive lives.

In Colleen's simplistic worldview, however, the ONLY important thing is that miniscule blob of cells that, while actively involved in dividing and becoming something akin to "life," is nevertheless nothing more than the sum of its ever-increasing cells.

To rate the significance of this developing life form above that of fully formed, "fully born" humans is the real sacrilege, but women like CCC will never understand this because they've been brainwashed by their religions and by the male influences in their lives to value that which will always end up controlling them.

"I also find it incredibly ironic that the same woman who touts her devotion to preserving the life of the unborn so strongly supports war"

This is a silly apples to oranges argument that one might expect from a college freshman. If we follow this analogy to its ultimate conclusion, then no state should defend itself against invasion (e.g. Poland 1939) and Pres Calderon of Mexico is committing a criminal, immoral act by fighting a war against the Mexican drug cartels.

"Keenan said: "I just thought, my gosh, they are so young. There are so many of them, and they are so young."

Sounds like something a member of the Soviet Politburo (Kosygin? Brezhnev?) would have said.

Oh, but I forgot. That's exactly what the leadership of feminist organizations has become: a groupthink, politically correct, censoring Politburo intent on repressing free speech and independent thought.

Nature or Nature's God is the #1 taker of everyone's life. That gives some rational for killing the unborn or those suffering from dementia, mental disease or Alzheimer's or anyone who might inconvenience our lives???

We constantly battle the forces of nature. We do not succumb to these forces by eliminating defenseless children!!!!!

With respect to saving the life of a mother vs that of her and her husband's child"

With modern technology, that situation is a rare event. When it does occur, the decision should be a made by the mother and father of the child. With no father in the picture, the decision should be left to the mother or her parents if the mother is incapacitated.

And it is very, very disturbing that we give legal protection to the fertilized eggs and the developing young of protected animal and insect species but give no legal protection to our developing young ones.

Again, some famous adoptees:

Andy Berlin - entrepreneur: chairman of Berlin Cameron & Partners
Anthony Williams - politician
Aristotle - philosopher
Art Linkletter - comedian
Bo Diddley - musician, performer
Buffy Sainte-Marie - musician, actress
Carl-Theodor Dreyer - Danish film director
Charlotte Anne Lopez - Miss Teen USA
Christina Crawford - author
Clarissa Pinkola Estes - author
Crazy Horse - Lakota war chief
Dan O'Brien - decathlete
Daunte Culpepper - football player
Dave Thomas - entrepreneur: founder of Wendy's
Debbie Harry - singer
D.M.C. - hip hop artist
Edgar Allan Poe - poet, writer
Edward Albee - playwright
Eleanor Roosevelt - First Lady
Eric Dickerson - athlete
Faith Daniels - news anchor
Faith Hill - country singer
Freddie Bartholomew - actor
George Washington Carver - inventor

"Palin is no accident."

I prefer to think otherwise.

Cassie, you say "I agree that liberation does not mean that you have the right to kill someone. As a human -- I find it horrible that one can find that taking the life of another is ok in order to make her life better...it is this kind of selfish and entitlement thinking that is the problem."

How do you feel about the death penalty? How do you feel about war? These are both examples of taking life in order to make other people's lives better. We kill every day in the name of liberation, in one way or another.

Cassie123 said "Perhaps I am not entirely getting your point of veiw..."

I was expressing two points. One is that Palin is a hypocrite. She talks about her choice and her daughter's choice frequently, but does not support other women having the right to choose. She talks about the sanctity of life while supporting a violent war that daily claims the lives of innocent victims, many of whom are women and children. If life is sacred and should be protected under all circumstances, then she is very much at odds with herself in several ways.

My other point is that I feel that no one, especially not Palin, has the right to force me or any other woman to bear a child at any cost - even at the cost of my own life - and especially while touting her own "choice".

I did not, and never intended to address the rather ridiculous point of view that if we can choose abortion then we should be able to choose to run a red light. I could argue that if you can take away my right to abortion then you can take away my right to wear red clothes or eat cookies, but I don't make that argument because it's obvious to most people that this is not what the conversation is about.

I agree that Sarah Palin is inconsistent in her view of abortion and war.

I think so many people have gotten so caught up in the word "choice". It isn't about "choice" -- it is about another HUMAN LIFE. If it were about choice and we should all choose what we want to do, then there should be no laws and we would slip into a chaotic state of affairs.

The abortion issue isn't about choice. The Supreme Court made it that issue -- the right to privacy -- choice -- in order to rule on it.

Perhaps I am not entirely getting your point of veiw -- how I see it is: if you want to be completely consistant on your view of abortion...then shouldn't we all get to choose what we want to do in every situtation and case? I want to run that red light because I am in a hurry...of course I can't do this. It affects other people's lives. That is why I can't. Abortion is the same. Although it may seem easier to abort an unwanted child, it should be done...why? because it affects another's life -- kills them to be exact.

You say that "We hear a lot about the absolutism of women like Palin, who opposes abortion even in the hard cases."

I'm not so sure that you've been listening. Sarah Palin has spoken many times of the difficulty of the choice that she made to keep her down's syndrome baby and of the difficulty of Bristol's choice to have a child as an unmarried teen mother. Both of them 'chose' to give birth to their babies. All we ask is that other women are allowed to make the same choice. Sarah Palin and those like her are happy to have the choice, and would like to take that choice away from the rest of the female population of this world. It seems as if she thinks that other women are not capable of making good choices for themselves.

Reproductive choice (and functional sex and reproductive education) are important for women in this country and in the developing world.

I also find it incredibly ironic that the same woman who touts her devotion to preserving the life of the unborn so strongly supports war, which brings death to so many women and children in so many terrible ways. If she is pro-life, she should support the sanctity of all life, not just that of the unborn child in another woman's body.

I consider myself a feminist, and a relatively young one at that. I have two children, I stayed home with them when they were small and I've never had an abortion. All of these things were choices that I made. I support a woman's right to make the choice that is best for her situation in life, whatever it is.

Sarah Palin does not have the right to impose her version of morality on me or anyone else.

Great article! I agree. I think the "typical" feminist movement many of us have become accustomed to hearing from has convinced us (or tried to in my case and many others) that there is only one feminism - their feminism. It has, to me, become less about women's rights and equality and more about political gain. This obvious hypocritical way of thinking has turned many off - so I am not surprised to read the statistics you quote.

I am pro-life and I consider myself in the general sense a feminist in that I am for equal rights for women. I sit within the 18-29 yr old group you mention. I view abortion as wrong - in ALL cases/situations except when the mother's life is at risk. No exceptions.

I agree that liberation does not mean that you have the right to kill someone. As a human -- I find it horrible that one can find that taking the life of another is ok in order to make her life better...it is this kind of selfish and entitlement thinking that is the problem.