Woo HOO!! Supreme Court upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban!!!!

[Wheetsin 714]

(maybe you can tell I work in the adult education field and am just a tiny bit of a learning and education advocate)

Laurend, didn't you mention earlier more aggressive sex ed programs? If you did (I really don't remember), what if part of sex ed was birth control including abortion, and including the pros and cons of all types of birth control?

Ya know - off topic for a sec - that made me remember when I took sex ed. It was between 6th & 9th grade, but I don't remember when exactly. (And in elementary school we had a girls only ed class about menstruation where they gave us all tampons and pads). Holy crap what a waste. What I remember most is the elder lady who taught the class telling us, "Every girl has a little pink button, like a clam has a pearl. And sometimes when you're having sex with a man, his penis will run against the button, and it makes you moan!"

I hope there have been major advances in sex ed programs since then.

[gadgetlady 4]

In the case of abortion, I think you have to consider a few different issues. One is that, usually, they aren't dont with a lot of planning. It's an "oh crap" knee-jerk reaction. Not terribly conducive to research. And it's also hitting (not entirely, perhaps not even mostly, but undoubtedly) a demographic that, for a few reasons, isn't going to be the best researcher.

Very, very true.

While I am extraordinarily pro-choice, I am also pro-informed-choice. I would not necessarily be opposed to having a mandatory education session before an abortion could be performed, if it could be done in a factual and unbiased way.

Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen. Pro-lifers would never be allowed to present the information because they would be called "biased" and be accused of "scare tactics". And the abortion clinic doesn't benefit if they present facts that cause women to decide not to use their services. From the testimony of Carol Everett, a woman who used to own an abortion clinic and is now pro-life at http://www.prolifeaction.org/providers/everett.htm:

Selling Abortion to Confused Young Women

I'm sure you've seen those numbers advertised that say "Problem Pregnancy," "Abortion Information," or "Pregnant?". When a young girl finds out she is pregnant, she may not want an abortion, she may just want information.

But when she calls that number that's paid for by abortion money, what kind of information do you think she is going to get? Remember, they sell abortions. They don't sell keeping the baby. They don't sell giving the baby up. They don't sell delivering the baby in any form. They only sell abortions.

The counselor that the girl speaks to on the telephone is paid to be her friend. She is supposed to seduce her into a friendship of sorts to sell her the abortion.

There are usually two questions the girls ask. The first is: Does it hurt? "Oh, no. Your uterus is a muscle. It's a cramp to open it: a cramp to close it; it's a slight cramping sensation. Everybody's had cramps - every woman in the world."

Then they ask: Is it a baby? "No, it's product of conception; it's a blood clot; it's a piece of tissue."

When the girl goes in for the abortion she pays up front then goes into a room for counseling. They give her a 6 to 12 page form. This form is written by an abortion attorney to confuse the girl to death. It works and she doesn't ask any questions. She goes back to the two questions: Does it hurt? Is it a baby?

I cannot tell you one thing that happens in an abortion clinic that is not a lie.

[anonemouse 1]

While I am extraordinarily pro-choice, I am also pro-informed-choice. I would not necessarily be opposed to having a mandatory education session before an abortion could be performed, if it could be done in a factual and unbiased way. To go back to the parallel -- seriously, I had to go to a 2 hour "class" about the band, how the place it, what life is like afterwards, what kinds of complications might arise, etc.

I definitely agree with that. I just wish more people took the time to do their own research, especially in cases of major medical decisions. I dunno, I guess I just have the "research mentality". I can't do anything without researching first. Even buying furniture, I have to research. Plus, I am automatically distrustful of other people, to a certain extent. It literally makes no sense to me that people don't research and that the completely trust their health care professionals to fully inform them. Of course, this all came out in my psych eval. :rolleyes

[Morsaille 4]

to take Wheetsins post just a little step further. The uninformed new bandsters that pop-in are typically self-pay bandsters who did not have insurance or insurance coverage for the procedure.

Most will take the initiative to educate themselves, but often the insurance journey is a huge source of education for us.

It would make sense that the same thing would happen with abortion - just a little - right? Legislation is a hoop-jumping education. Illegality is a dark and dangerous path to the same end.

I am pro-choice, but I have second thoughts about squishing spiders. It's life for this bod.

[anonemouse 1]

I'm sure you've seen those numbers advertised that say "Problem Pregnancy," "Abortion Information," or "Pregnant?". When a young girl finds out she is pregnant, she may not want an abortion, she may just want information.

To be honest, with the exception of the "abortion information" sign (which I've never seen), all those signs (at least in my area) were for crisis pregnancy centers that couselled against abortion. In fact, the local crisis pregnancy group that did the sex-ed program that I went through in 6th grade were extremely anti-abortion, to the point where I thought that they went a little too far. They did, however, tell us about condoms, which is more than most sex-ed groups (at least, those that get federal funding) can currently say.

[Morsaille 4]

That being said, I am glad that he SC upheld the ban - partial birth abortions are just a little too much for me. At that point, there has been plenty of time to make a choice.

[Wheetsin 714]

I'm the same way. But - even though I'm in the field and I see it every single day - it still never ceases to amaze me how uninformed and generally ignorant people are about things that are basic (one man's common sense truly is another's "a-ha!"), or are impacting their lives. You learn quickly to never assume anything, because it invariably bites you in the ass. In my field, it's a continous struggle to cater to the lowest common denominator.

[anonemouse 1]

In my field, it's a continous struggle to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I can definitely understand. In the labs that I teach, sometimes I really feel like asking people if they have learning disabilities that they haven't told me about. Of course, there was the one guy that supposedly did have a learning disability, but I honestly think he was just dumb as a brick. Sometimes, it's all I can do not to just stare at them with a look of incredulity on my face. Like the one girl who insisted on tilting the top-heavy $900 microscope forward on it's base until it was at close to a 60 degree angle. I was very tempted to say, "Keep doing that, genius, and your parents are really going to be happy with you."

[gadgetlady 4]

Many years ago I was in graduate school at USC. After our first written exam in one particular class, the prof went up to the blackboard and wrote "to, too, two" and began to explain the difference. My jaw just about hit the floor. Then I noticed people around me were taking notes :omg:. Scary. This wasn't community college. It was graduate school, USC. Truly scary.

[anonemouse 1]

Many years ago I was in graduate school at USC. After our first written exam in one particular class, the prof went up to the blackboard and wrote "to, too, two" and began to explain the difference. My jaw just about hit the floor. Then I noticed people around me were taking notes . Scary. This wasn't community college. It was graduate school, USC. Truly scary.

It is. I usually have to take over as editor for any group papers or things of that nature that have to be done in my classes. I just really want to take the rest of them into a computer lab, sit them down at a computer, and say, "Look, this is what we call the spell-checker. It's very useful, but you shouldn't rely on it. Always try to have at least one other person (who happens to be better in the spelling and grammar department, hopefully) look over your work. If you don't want to do that, go sit in your 5th grade sister's English class. You'll learn a lot."

[anonemouse 1]

You wanna know what's almost worse? Watching a graduate student do a presentation in front of a class (or worse, in front of the entire department's faculty and grad students), and pinpointing every single spelling and grammar mistake on his slides and listening to him mispronounce things. I mean, heck, even if you use "ain't" or "it don't" or "not never" (I live and go to university in Kentucky, can you tell?) in every-day conversation, you shouldn't be doing it in a presentation. And for Pete's sake, the geological time period was Silurian, not Siluvian.

[gadgetlady 4]

I am actually scared for my children. That's one of the many reasons I choose to homeschool. My 9yo wants to IM with my mom all the time; I told my mom to never use abbreviations with her like "u" and "2 b", to be sure to capitalize properly, etc. Needless to say, education is a BIG deal to me.

[anonemouse 1]

I am actually scared for my children. That's one of the many reasons I choose to homeschool. My 9yo wants to IM with my mom all the time; I told my mom to never use abbreviations with her like "u" and "2 b", to be sure to capitalize properly, etc. Needless to say, education is a BIG deal to me.

I think that as long as a kid's parents care about their kid's education, the kids will turn out okay. The ones that run into trouble, IMO, have parents that really don't care. Either the parents aren't educated and think "if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for them" or they don't have the time to really take interest in their kids' educations. I was never allowed to say "ain't" or "not never" or any crap like that. When I spoke to my parents, I had to speak properly. I don't know if that was because both of my parents had post-secondary degrees (three, in my dad's case) or what, but I was always told that in order to be taken seriously, I had to speak correctly.

[anonemouse 1]

That abbreviation crap really gets to me. I HATE it. I've told my classes that if they want me to respond to their emails, they better identify which class they're in, write with respect, and use proper grammar and capitalization. I don't respond to "can u tell me" or crap like that. That's one reason I never got interested in IMing people. It always took too long, because I always type everything out. It happens to be one of my pet peeves here on the board, too.

[Wheetsin 714]

I IM constantly at work. I will do "brb" or "lmk", n/p and j/k. Mainly because I can be on a conference call and still talk with people or answer questions. (Thank goodness for conference calls where you're just a name on the list). I can't think of too many others I use. I wouldn't IM, except that I can probably type more "wpm" () than I can speak. On boards I will use the standard IMO, AFAIK, etc.. In all honesty, I literally cannot understand some of the things that I see others typing to each other. I've never texted. Text is now a verb, apparently - kind of like google. And freak. My cousins were texting and wanted me to come look. I had no freaking clue what their messages said. It's like some kind of generational secret code, only instead of decoder rings the translation is via T-Mobile. I saw a commercial today where a daughter was talking to her mother in - I guess you would call it textese. Pretty damn accurate.

Oh, and on the education note, when I started in my master's program, I was _anal_ about my writing. To an extreme. I just kind of figured - it would go with the territory. I mean, the program had some pretty tight admission requirements, they must really be looking for the "T". Boy, was I wrong. My program is a campus-based program, that offers online sections. The online courses are condecuted using a Lotus DB. In many classes there's a required number of postings and interactions, questions, etc. you have to have with the other students. There are LITERALLY times when, in order to respond to someone, I have to ask them what they mean. No matter how hard I try, I truly cannot figure out what the words on the screen mean. My first class into my program was a real reality check. The good news - making the grade became a lot less stressful once I was able to identify "par".