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

peaches · May 24, 2007

Sorry. I don't believe that because some children suffer, it's OK to brutally slaughter others.

What do you feel "sorry" about?

I am not advancing a formal argument in a thread on a message board for people who need help to avoid overeating.

I am simply confessing my feelings.

I cannot cry or feel sad for the aborted fetuses and/or babies.

Yet I grieve and shed tears for the millions of people I mentioned (who you call “some children”), who suffer horribly each day—who slowly starve to death, who must sell their own bodies or the bodies of their children, who perish from diseases that my own family members have been easily and successfully treated for, who pick through trash piles for the promise of maggots to gulp down, and who do whatever else they have to do to try to stay alive...to no avail.

These are the human beings whose suffering I would prefer to deny, but cannot. These are the lives that haunt my nightmares and my thoughts.

Perhaps there is something terribly wrong with me.

love,

peaches

gadgetlady · May 24, 2007

What do you feel "sorry" about?

Better stated: "I'm sorry, but I disagree with your position."

Yet I grieve and shed tears for the millions of people I mentioned (who you call “some children”), who suffer horribly each day—who slowly starve to death, who must sell their own bodies or the bodies of their children, who perish from diseases that my own family members have been easily and successfully treated for, who pick through trash piles for the promise of maggots to gulp down, and who do whatever else they have to do to try to stay alive...to no avail.
These are the human beings whose suffering I would prefer to deny, but cannot. These are the lives that haunt my nightmares and my thoughts.

As they do me. I have incredible compassion for the people in this world who suffer in unspeakable ways. I've said it before, in other threads, and I'll say it again. The brutality that some people suffer (and I'm using the word "some" here to qualify that not "all" people suffer these offenses, not in an attempt to minimize their situation) is horrible, and I weep for those people -- regularly. I am especially pained by the injustices suffered by innocent children, whether those injustices are hunger in 3rd world countries, abuse at the hands of selfish affluent parents, forced prostitution of teens and pre-teens, or the brutal dismemberment of the unborn.

peaches · May 24, 2007

While I am strongly pro-choice, I also do not agree with Peaches on this. I understand her point, and it is true that the world does not "need" more hungry mouths to feed. But I don't believe we help the unfortunate children of the world by increasing abortions in wealthier countries. I believe the best way to honor the lives of those less fortunate is to honor life everywhere....quote]
Mark,

I am not suggesting that "we help the unfortunate children of the world by increasing abortions in wealthier countries."

I am simply baring my emotions about a topic that seems to provoke strong feelings in many people.

Perhaps I am warped, but I cannot feel anything towards the fetuses and partially birthed/aborted babies. It is very difficult for me to relate to those who feel so much compassion for these unfortuanate beings.

The proportion of suffering just seems so infinitissimal compared to the suffering of the humans who touch my own heart. Not all suffering is equally tragic to me.

I don't know why, but there it is.

peaches

p.s. Are you an attorney?

BJean · May 24, 2007

Peaches I do understand your logic. I do also empathize with you about your nightmares.

In fact I have never been able to understand the thinking of people who rant and rave about the killing of innocent children and the horrific verbal pictures they paint of sissor-wielding heartless maniacs puncturing and sucking the brains out of little babies (who never had a "choice"), the blood, the baby killers, the poor innocent children, more blood and killing, etc., ad nauseum, because they don't believe in killing poor innocent children, and yet they have no compassion for or even apparently begin to comprehend the suffering and potential death of a woman who is faced with but one decision as far as she's concerned: abortion. Plus the fact that every anti-choice person I've been able to ask the question about the right to bear arms has said that they need their guns to "defend" themselves and that they would have no other thought but to kill someone who might threaten them or their families. It's some Jerry Falwell logic that makes absolutely no sense to me.

Devana · May 24, 2007

Let me ask you a question, green. Did you agonize over your decision to abort? Was it a harrowing experience for you (other than the painful part of it that you've described on this board)? Or did you just know you didn't want to be pregnant and once you found out you were, made the decision to abort and did it?

I think it's entirely appropriate to have some regrets over certain decisions, whether it be to have an abortion or to not follow your lover to Timbuktu or whatever. That does not necessarily mean that that was the wrong decision for you.

gadgetlady · May 24, 2007

Perhaps I am warped, but I cannot feel anything towards the fetuses and partially birthed/aborted babies. It is very difficult for me to relate to those who feel so much compassion for these unfortuanate beings.

I completely understand your not feeling compassion for these babies. I would propose that that's partly because society doesn't generally present them as worthy of our compassion. When we view someone as less than a person, we are less likely to empathize with them.

gadgetlady · May 24, 2007

I think it's entirely appropriate to have some regrets over certain decisions, whether it be to have an abortion or to not follow your lover to Timbuktu or whatever. That does not necessarily mean that that was the wrong decision for you.

<br /> <br /> I didn't ask because I thought she had regrets. I asked because it has been proposed that abortion is an exceedingly difficult decision for women and to say all women don't agonize over the decision is an inappropriate, ignorant , and unacceptable characterization of an intense life-changing decision. <br /> <br /> I asked green precisely because I thought she did NOT agonize over her decision but rather, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, deliberately and without emotional upheaval made the decision to abort and then did it. I sense Alexandra would classify her experience the same was green did.

gadgetlady · May 24, 2007

Can I just say one more time that I HATE the edit function these days??? GRRRRR!

BJean · May 24, 2007

Perhaps Peaches doesn't feel much compassion for these "babies" because they are not viable human beings.

To characterize abortion as an exceedingly difficult decision and that women agonize over the decision and that it is a life-changing event, is undoubtedly true in some cases, but certainly not in ALL cases and I would submit probably not even in MOST cases. Many women are thrilled beyond belief that there exists a medical procedure that will prevent them from having to endure the major life-altering event of a pregnancy and potentially giving birth to a child. The least possible change in a woman's life who is extremely distressed by an unwanted pregnancy, would be by having an abortion, not by choosing not to have one.

I know most everyone considers abortion to be traumatic and horrific, but if a woman is in the position of having been impregnated without her consent or without a workable plan for handling pregnancy and possibly a child, or who is in a life threatening situation due to a pregnancy, an abortion would not be traumatic, it would be a welcomed procedure and it could be life-saving for her.

(Please don't take issue with my phrase, "possibly or potentially a child." Two young women in my family have endured full term pregnancies and normal labor, but unfortunately delivered babies who had died in their wombs.)

Alexandra · May 24, 2007

I asked green precisely because I thought she did NOT agonize over her decision but rather, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, deliberately and without emotional upheaval made the decision to abort and then did it. I sense Alexandra would classify her experience the same was green did.

You sense correctly, at least partially. I didn't "agonize" over the decision, but there is no question that there is emotional upheaval. When faced with an unplanned pregnancy we are forced to look at a variety of potentialities, and that is a dizzying experience.

When the dust settles, one path seems clear and right to the woman and at least in my case it was easy to proceed on that path. But it is not correct to say that it was done without a ride on an emotional rollercoaster. I remember my experience as a period of shock, uncertainty, fear, anger (at my failed birth control), and confusion, followed by peace and relief. There really was no sadness.

green · May 24, 2007

You sense correctly, at least partially. I didn't "agonize" over the decision, but there is no question that there is emotional upheaval. When faced with an unplanned pregnancy we are forced to look at a variety of potentialities, and that is a dizzying experience.
When the dust settles, one path seems clear and right to the woman and at least in my case it was easy to proceed on that path. But it is not correct to say that it was done without a ride on an emotional rollercoaster. I remember my experience as a period of shock, uncertainty, fear, anger (at my failed birth control), and confusion, followed by peace and relief. There really was no sadness.

Yep, my experience of abortion was much the same as that of Alexandra's. The array of emotions I felt, including my initial denial, all hinged upon my discovery that I was pregnant. The abortion was the solution to the blind terror which was one of the feelings which I felt. I have never felt guilt or regret over this decision. An interesting side note, perhaps: my mother did feel regret from time to time; she would have liked me to have given her a grandchild.

peaches · May 25, 2007

Perhaps Peaches doesn't feel much compassion for these "babies" because they are not viable human beings.
To characterize abortion as an exceedingly difficult decision and that women agonize over the decision and that it is a life-changing event, is undoubtedly true in some cases, but certainly not in ALL cases and I would submit probably not even in MOST cases. Many women are thrilled beyond belief that there exists a medical procedure that will prevent them from having to endure the major life-altering event of a pregnancy and potentially giving birth to a child. The least possible change in a woman's life who is extremely distressed by an unwanted pregnancy, would be by having an abortion, not by choosing not to have one.

I know most everyone considers abortion to be traumatic and horrific, but if a woman is in the position of having been impregnated without her consent or without a workable plan for handling pregnancy and possibly a child, or who is in a life threatening situation due to a pregnancy, an abortion would not be traumatic, it would be a welcomed procedure and it could be life-saving for her.

(Please don't take issue with my phrase, "possibly or potentially a child." Two young women in my family have endured full term pregnancies and normal labor, but unfortunately delivered babies who had died in their wombs.)

I am not exactly sure what is meant by "viable human beings" (although I've read this entire thread.) It won't be all that long, historically speaking, until humans will not need women's wombs--at all--to grow a baby from an embryo to a fetus to a new"born". I don't think it is wise to base the definition of viable human being purely on scientific grounds for science and technology and capitalism have become increasingly entertwined. Also, science is not neutral, ethically speaking, for it has always been culturally bound.

Since we can now keep some bodies "alive" indefinately (for decades beyond the point of brain "death"), the whole person who was once the spark behind the eyes may no longer exist, to you and me. But that person may yet exist in the eyes of beloved family members. An absolutist definition fails the beloved ones who still "know" that body as the person.

How does one separate the knower from the known?

Similarly, the fetus is not a person unless the woman, of which it is an inseparable part, KNOWS it as a person.

This is admittedly a cultural definition (a social construct), but that is all any of us has to offer. It is not something that can be resolved by debate or by consensus. The relationship between a woman and a fetus growing within her is a deeply private one.

The woman is the both the knower and the known.

Because she is both the knower and the known, the experiences of pregnancy and abortion and birth are deeply personal. No one else, NO ONE, knows what the woman knows. Her knowledge is her own. Her knowledge is her power.

No person other than the woman (knower/known) has the knowledge to make choices on behalf of the knower/known--unless she chooses to share that power with another.

BJean · May 25, 2007

Well Peaches, a good portion of your post describes very well how I would like to define the "viability" of a human being. It wasn't a purely scientific interpretation that I was thinking of, but one that is definitely all about nature. I'd just like to say that your post works for me. Thank you.

rrod0991 · June 11, 2007

When another person's body is involved, however, that's where I draw the line. And in the case of abortion, another person's body is involved.

So when I was pregnant with my daughter I should not have aborted her? She had half a heart, clubed feet thick skin, one umbilical artery and one umbilical vein, Water on the brain that had stunted the growth of her brain making it so that she would never be able to breath on her own, and she had many more problems that I did not find out about until I was 25 weeks pregnant. Some of those problems I could have dealt with some of them I would not let her suffer through. I have a 15 year old son with Tourettes Syndrome and if I had found out that he had it before he was born I still would have had him. My daughter came after him and having had a child already I killed me to have to do what I did but I was thinking of my child . I delivered her and she died in my arms within minutes because she as unable to breath on her own. That child will always be a part of my life and family. Was I wrong to do what I did???