If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times. At some point in any abortion debate, someone is on the "pro-choice" side is going to retort with the question of how many babies the people on the pro-life side have adopted. Whether they realize it or not, this is their premise: "You are not allowed to desire that a person does not murder another person unless you are willing to take on full, cradle-to-grave responsibility for the would-be murderer's potential victim."
That's the surface premise, anyways. The deeper premise is even more ostentatious and cruel than they realize, because they lack the full picture.
Once upon a time, an unwed pregnancy resulted in either a shotgun wedding or a woman struggling to raise her bastard child alone. The lucky single mother raised hers among her own extended family. Famous men could usually get away with fathering children they had no intention of supporting; in other cases, the woman's family, the male members in particular, acted to make sure that he paid in one way or another.
At one point, society decided that the government needed to be involved in this situation. First unwed mothers were required to live in group homes. Then welfare was extended to their families. Then welfare (originally meant only for widows) was restructured so that unwed mothers received more goods and services than other family types. Finally, abortion was both legalized and encouraged, with highschools enabling it secretly, receptionists glancing the other way, and advisers of all sorts telling young women that, if they carried their pregnancies to term, their entire lives, hopes, and dreams would be over. The fact that society's willingness to glance the other way has enabled many predators and outright rapists to hide the evidence of their crimes is another sordid story entirely.
What happened was this: At first, the unwed pregnancy was the responsibility of the father and then, should he manage to escape it, the mother, with an expectation that her family would step in. Then, the unwed pregnancy became the responsibility of all of us. Now, "we" are trying to escape "our" unearned responsibility by coaxing, pressuring, or outright coercing the mother into an abortion.
"So how many have YOU adopted?" means, in a deeper context, "She shouldn't be allowed to keep her baby. If she won't kill it, it should be taken away from her for her own good." Oh, it isn't a matter of legality, not yet, but the clear majority of women in even the most "pro-choice"-friendly polls and studies say that they wanted to keep their babies, but that they felt pressured or forced into getting an abortion instead. "So how dare YOU vote to lower these social programs?" means, in a deeper context, "This baby is your responsibility. If you don't pressure her to kill it, it falls to you to support the child." Have you noticed yet what is missing from this equation?
My grandmother is strongly in favor of requiring an unwed mother to give the father's name before she is allowed to receive government services, so that the State can seek him out for recompense. She was born in the mid-'30's, and is appalled at the current state of affairs, where men are 'free' to have sex with as many women as they like, without consequences, and the men (and women) who buckle down, work hard, and wear themselves out providing for their own families must now return for several more hours of work to deal with the freeloaders. When she says "freeloaders", she is not speaking of the unwed mother and her children. She is speaking of their absent fathers.
What she sees, and what I see, is a new form of patriarchal oppression. Modern Feminism loves to talk about 'patriarchal oppression', and for the most part, they are blowing smoke. That doesn't mean that there were never forms of patriarchal oppression in society from time to time. This was one of them: Men of certain stature were allowed, during certain areas of society, to avoid responsibility for impregnating women. We saw it among royalty and nobility in the feudal systems. We also saw it among slaveowners in the Deep South. Everyone else would shuffle about and cover it up, and those few men 'at the top' would know that they could do as they liked without repercussions or responsibility. In modern times, aided and abetted by Modern Feminism, we have the same situation again: Men are allowed to avoid responsibility for impregnating women.
The 'adoption/welfare' argument assumes as a beginning premise that, when a man is a cad, we are the ones personally responsible for the result. The 'pro-choice' argument itself concludes that the only way for us to absolve ourselves of his responsibility is to encourage or urge her to have the abortion.
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Monday, April 18, 2016
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
The Rape Exemption
This was my response in a Facebook page for the group Ladies Against Feminism. The topic was Rep. Akin's 'unfortunate' comments, and I am pleased to say that we managed to shift the conversation from screaming about "legitimate rape" to an actual debate on the rape exemption in a proposed ban on abortion.
We had been debating for some time with a couple of feminist women who have been, predictably, proceeding from the viewpoint of secular humanist atheistic feminism. I made a response that I rather liked, and so I post it here for 'everyone' to enjoy:
The problem here is that we are proceeding from a radically different point of view. I could see how, if you do not believe in anything beyond this life, sacrificing yourself for another human being may seem like a flaw rather than a virtue. We Christians, however, follow a God who chose to sacrifice His only Son so that we could have life and have it to the full. Our God is based, not on temporal pleasure, but on love... and that love includes temporal sacrifice for eternal pleasure. Therefore a woman carrying her baby to term, even to give it up for adoption and never see it again, is virtuous.
We also are mostly pro-life... that means that we believe that a human life is created at the moment of conception, a human life as worthy of respect as any human baby, toddler, child, teen, adult, or elder. We do not determine whether a human being deserves basic human rights based on his of her size, age, race, gender, or contributions to society. It follows naturally that we believe that abortion puts to death a human being. That doesn't mean that abortion is Always Evil. Just that its benefits must be stacked up against the detriment of causing the death of a human being.
Given that, I know that from your viewpoint you would never have meant to say this... but your statement did sound as if you will proudly murder someone whether it's against the law or not, because you want to, and you should not be punished for murder because you're a woman - and this is what feminism means. Coming from our viewpoint, I'm sure you can see why feminism seems far more cruel to us than it does to those who do not believe in according basic human rights under the same situation.
Finally, we are not feminists. Rather than trying to claim that women and men are equal in physical form and meant to take identical roles in biology and society, we merely believe that women and men are to be treated equally under the law and are equally capable of petitioning God, with roles in society and biology that are very different, but equal in importance and honor. Therefore, we are very aware of a woman's role in nurturing life and giving of herself to join as partners with God Himself in bringing that life to an eventual state of autonomy. Women are tied strongly to Life in this way... it's no wonder that women have so often been the peacemakers in a society. The women of Sabine and Liberia both created peace and prosperity by joining up, confronting their men, and demanding a cease of hostilities.
As such, Life is our privilege and our business, and carrying a child to term, even an unexpected one, even a child of rape, is bestowing our gift upon the world. It is our privilege to turn something terrible into a blessing. In this way, even outside of our Christian view of sacrifice, giving life and love where there was none is, again, virtuous.
Even so, many of us *are* in favor of a rape exemption for an abortion ban. But we personally would choose life and encourage other women to do the same
We had been debating for some time with a couple of feminist women who have been, predictably, proceeding from the viewpoint of secular humanist atheistic feminism. I made a response that I rather liked, and so I post it here for 'everyone' to enjoy:
The problem here is that we are proceeding from a radically different point of view. I could see how, if you do not believe in anything beyond this life, sacrificing yourself for another human being may seem like a flaw rather than a virtue. We Christians, however, follow a God who chose to sacrifice His only Son so that we could have life and have it to the full. Our God is based, not on temporal pleasure, but on love... and that love includes temporal sacrifice for eternal pleasure. Therefore a woman carrying her baby to term, even to give it up for adoption and never see it again, is virtuous.
We also are mostly pro-life... that means that we believe that a human life is created at the moment of conception, a human life as worthy of respect as any human baby, toddler, child, teen, adult, or elder. We do not determine whether a human being deserves basic human rights based on his of her size, age, race, gender, or contributions to society. It follows naturally that we believe that abortion puts to death a human being. That doesn't mean that abortion is Always Evil. Just that its benefits must be stacked up against the detriment of causing the death of a human being.
Given that, I know that from your viewpoint you would never have meant to say this... but your statement did sound as if you will proudly murder someone whether it's against the law or not, because you want to, and you should not be punished for murder because you're a woman - and this is what feminism means. Coming from our viewpoint, I'm sure you can see why feminism seems far more cruel to us than it does to those who do not believe in according basic human rights under the same situation.
Finally, we are not feminists. Rather than trying to claim that women and men are equal in physical form and meant to take identical roles in biology and society, we merely believe that women and men are to be treated equally under the law and are equally capable of petitioning God, with roles in society and biology that are very different, but equal in importance and honor. Therefore, we are very aware of a woman's role in nurturing life and giving of herself to join as partners with God Himself in bringing that life to an eventual state of autonomy. Women are tied strongly to Life in this way... it's no wonder that women have so often been the peacemakers in a society. The women of Sabine and Liberia both created peace and prosperity by joining up, confronting their men, and demanding a cease of hostilities.
As such, Life is our privilege and our business, and carrying a child to term, even an unexpected one, even a child of rape, is bestowing our gift upon the world. It is our privilege to turn something terrible into a blessing. In this way, even outside of our Christian view of sacrifice, giving life and love where there was none is, again, virtuous.
Even so, many of us *are* in favor of a rape exemption for an abortion ban. But we personally would choose life and encourage other women to do the same
Friday, June 29, 2012
Babies, hormones, and abortion
I have a new baby in the house, my third and very likely my last. He is six weeks old this week, still tiny and vulnerable, and still needing nourishment several times during the night. I was sitting up last night, having just fed him, and didn't want to try to put him back down just yet. I leaned back on the couch, lifted him to snuggle on my shoulder, and just spent a moment enjoying it.
Yes, mothers love their children because it's right and natural. For now, though, I'd like to lean on the word 'natural'. The simple act of child-bearing involves some of the strongest hormonal shifts known to the human race. The love that binds that mother and infant snuggling in the early morning is strongly driven by perfectly natural bonding hormones that work on their senses of sight, hearing, and especially scent.
Child-bearing isn't the only system that involves hormonal tweaking of social behavior, of course. Every now and then, two people meet and become very attracted to each other. Nowadays, we call this 'being in love'. Of course, the word 'love' as it has meant throughout the ages has very little to do with the hormonal cocktail driving this initial euphoria. Still, we treat it as though it is the 'strongest force in the universe', capable in many of our stories of breaking down every barrier and vanquishing every foe. We glorify it, put it on a pedestal. Increasingly, we are even using it as justification to break our most sacred contracts and important societal conventions. As long as they're "in love", why deny them anything they feel they need?
Those of you who read the title of this post are no doubt wondering where abortion comes into this. Now's your opportunity to find out. When debating pro-choicers, I often hear the unborn referred to as a 'parasite'. I have also heard the argument about whether it would be right to force a woman to, say, remain in a hospital bed to provide life support for some stranger for nine months, or even one day. The reason why pro-lifers stop and stare in dismay at people who provide these arguments is not because it is such a good and decent argument that they simply have no good counter. The reason is because we do not understand how pro-choicers can neglect the most important issue in abortion -- what the unborn actually is.
Now I'm not going to start on about whether a perfectly human life starts at conception or when you measure brain waves or when the lungs are formed... that's a perfectly good argument for a different post. I would like to address the part of the abortion debate that is rarely if ever brought up. The unborn is the woman's baby. The unborn is part of the woman in a very real and intricate way. Would pro-choicers argue for the inalienable right of a man to amputate his own perfectly healthy and properly-functioning arm? Of course not! We would be more likely to regard the man as if he was mentally ill for even wanting to do such a thing. But nature binds the unborn.. and post-birth infant.. to his mother as surely as if he was a natural, healthy, normally-functioning part of her body.
Remember, half of that unborn comes from something which has been part of that woman's body since before she was born. It is in the womb that the unborn baby girl develops in her ovaries every egg that she will ever have. Even if the father was a complete stranger, the baby is not.
Arguments that refer to the baby as a 'parasite' or a stranger with which the mother must provide life support completely neglect the identity of the unborn, a human being containing part of the mother within himself, forming a hormonal, natural bond with his mother that is every bit as real and valid as the act of 'falling in love' that we prize so highly.
Yes, mothers love their children because it's right and natural. For now, though, I'd like to lean on the word 'natural'. The simple act of child-bearing involves some of the strongest hormonal shifts known to the human race. The love that binds that mother and infant snuggling in the early morning is strongly driven by perfectly natural bonding hormones that work on their senses of sight, hearing, and especially scent.
Child-bearing isn't the only system that involves hormonal tweaking of social behavior, of course. Every now and then, two people meet and become very attracted to each other. Nowadays, we call this 'being in love'. Of course, the word 'love' as it has meant throughout the ages has very little to do with the hormonal cocktail driving this initial euphoria. Still, we treat it as though it is the 'strongest force in the universe', capable in many of our stories of breaking down every barrier and vanquishing every foe. We glorify it, put it on a pedestal. Increasingly, we are even using it as justification to break our most sacred contracts and important societal conventions. As long as they're "in love", why deny them anything they feel they need?
Those of you who read the title of this post are no doubt wondering where abortion comes into this. Now's your opportunity to find out. When debating pro-choicers, I often hear the unborn referred to as a 'parasite'. I have also heard the argument about whether it would be right to force a woman to, say, remain in a hospital bed to provide life support for some stranger for nine months, or even one day. The reason why pro-lifers stop and stare in dismay at people who provide these arguments is not because it is such a good and decent argument that they simply have no good counter. The reason is because we do not understand how pro-choicers can neglect the most important issue in abortion -- what the unborn actually is.
Now I'm not going to start on about whether a perfectly human life starts at conception or when you measure brain waves or when the lungs are formed... that's a perfectly good argument for a different post. I would like to address the part of the abortion debate that is rarely if ever brought up. The unborn is the woman's baby. The unborn is part of the woman in a very real and intricate way. Would pro-choicers argue for the inalienable right of a man to amputate his own perfectly healthy and properly-functioning arm? Of course not! We would be more likely to regard the man as if he was mentally ill for even wanting to do such a thing. But nature binds the unborn.. and post-birth infant.. to his mother as surely as if he was a natural, healthy, normally-functioning part of her body.
Remember, half of that unborn comes from something which has been part of that woman's body since before she was born. It is in the womb that the unborn baby girl develops in her ovaries every egg that she will ever have. Even if the father was a complete stranger, the baby is not.
Arguments that refer to the baby as a 'parasite' or a stranger with which the mother must provide life support completely neglect the identity of the unborn, a human being containing part of the mother within himself, forming a hormonal, natural bond with his mother that is every bit as real and valid as the act of 'falling in love' that we prize so highly.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Teen pregnancy: Many generations, no 'evolution'
Back in the 1950's and earlier, teen pregnancy was a problem just as it is today. Back then, however, we dealt with it in a horrible, barbaric manner... so say the feminists, at least. A pregnant teen was often shuttled off to a relative's house or a special house for pregnant teens, hidden away from Polite Society until her baby was born. Many times, that baby was either raised by her parents as her sister, or adopted out to another family. Shame was the order of the day. Her friends and schoolmates might suspect, but "ideally" should never have actually known for sure.
Now it's much better, or at least that's what impressionable teen girls are taught by those who are trying to inculcate them in the New Method and keep them from questioning it. Now, instead of being hidden away for months in a state of shame, they are taken away for only a few hours, maybe even less. It is still a hidden place, a place of shame, where advocates do all they can to assure that the procedure they undergo is done in the strictest secrecy. Even the girls' own parents often are not allowed to know about the abortions that the Planned Parenthood consultant or the school nurse will so gladly procure for them.
In the end, however, the mindset is the same, and the word of the day is shame. The 50's girl was taken to a hidden place to have her baby. The modern girl is taken to a hidden place to abort her baby. In both cases, they are given the message that their mistake is being 'fixed', in such a way that will not embarrass them in public. So what is the real difference? Not in cause, not in mindset... only the effect is changed. Before, at least a living person would have the chance to see the light of day and grow up to make all of her choices. Now, not only is that living person snuffed out, but her mother is held down and violated with sharp metal instruments tearing at her insides and, disturbingly often, causing physical as well as emotional damage that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Pro-abortion people, and, unwittingly, pro-choice people, call this Progress.
I would like to introduce another way of thinking about teen pregnancy.
When I was a young adult, I picked up a book that has fallen out of favor in modern day highschools. It is called The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nowadays, it is generally barely mentioned, and only in derision. This book, in which an adulterous woman is sentenced to wear an embroidered red A on the chest of her clothing for the rest of her life, is condemned as a primitive Puritan shame-fest. It should be re-examined for what it actually is.
The young woman who bore the letter, Hester Prynne, was discovered in adultery when she became pregnant during a very long absence of her husband. She found a quiet, small house in which to live and raise her daughter. Over time, her scarlet A lost its initial horror as the people became accustomed to her. As she showed her skill with the needle, earning her keep, and showed herself to be a sober person committed to raising her child with dignity, the A further lost its sense of shame and horror. Living with her shame presented outwardly to society instead of hidden away, she beautified her life and became accepted within the community.
Meanwhile, she continued to staunchly refuse to reveal the name of her child's father. While her shame was open for everyone to see, his shame was hidden. Out of unexpressed guilt, he deteriorated, destroying himself by his silence while she built herself up by her deeds. Her good deeds, you see, in the face of her shame, rehabilitated her image by demonstrating her repentance. His good deeds only mocked him, giving him an image that he did not deserve, hurting him instead of easing his conscience. Finally, by the time he set out to break the bonds of hidden shame over his heart, it was too late... and the effort killed him.
When we hide away pregnant teens until their babies can be 'properly' killed so that 'nobody has to know', we are condemning them to the life of Hester's co-adulterer. When we used to hide away pregnant teens until their babies were born and spirited away, at least we were not adding murder to our efforts to hide their shame. We have not 'evolved', we have not progressed. We have regressed.
Someday we will face real progress, and create a society in which the shame of the pregnant teen is brought out into the open and faced clearly. Only then will we be able to build them up in the light instead of tearing them down in the dark.
Now it's much better, or at least that's what impressionable teen girls are taught by those who are trying to inculcate them in the New Method and keep them from questioning it. Now, instead of being hidden away for months in a state of shame, they are taken away for only a few hours, maybe even less. It is still a hidden place, a place of shame, where advocates do all they can to assure that the procedure they undergo is done in the strictest secrecy. Even the girls' own parents often are not allowed to know about the abortions that the Planned Parenthood consultant or the school nurse will so gladly procure for them.
In the end, however, the mindset is the same, and the word of the day is shame. The 50's girl was taken to a hidden place to have her baby. The modern girl is taken to a hidden place to abort her baby. In both cases, they are given the message that their mistake is being 'fixed', in such a way that will not embarrass them in public. So what is the real difference? Not in cause, not in mindset... only the effect is changed. Before, at least a living person would have the chance to see the light of day and grow up to make all of her choices. Now, not only is that living person snuffed out, but her mother is held down and violated with sharp metal instruments tearing at her insides and, disturbingly often, causing physical as well as emotional damage that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Pro-abortion people, and, unwittingly, pro-choice people, call this Progress.
I would like to introduce another way of thinking about teen pregnancy.
When I was a young adult, I picked up a book that has fallen out of favor in modern day highschools. It is called The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nowadays, it is generally barely mentioned, and only in derision. This book, in which an adulterous woman is sentenced to wear an embroidered red A on the chest of her clothing for the rest of her life, is condemned as a primitive Puritan shame-fest. It should be re-examined for what it actually is.
The young woman who bore the letter, Hester Prynne, was discovered in adultery when she became pregnant during a very long absence of her husband. She found a quiet, small house in which to live and raise her daughter. Over time, her scarlet A lost its initial horror as the people became accustomed to her. As she showed her skill with the needle, earning her keep, and showed herself to be a sober person committed to raising her child with dignity, the A further lost its sense of shame and horror. Living with her shame presented outwardly to society instead of hidden away, she beautified her life and became accepted within the community.
Meanwhile, she continued to staunchly refuse to reveal the name of her child's father. While her shame was open for everyone to see, his shame was hidden. Out of unexpressed guilt, he deteriorated, destroying himself by his silence while she built herself up by her deeds. Her good deeds, you see, in the face of her shame, rehabilitated her image by demonstrating her repentance. His good deeds only mocked him, giving him an image that he did not deserve, hurting him instead of easing his conscience. Finally, by the time he set out to break the bonds of hidden shame over his heart, it was too late... and the effort killed him.
When we hide away pregnant teens until their babies can be 'properly' killed so that 'nobody has to know', we are condemning them to the life of Hester's co-adulterer. When we used to hide away pregnant teens until their babies were born and spirited away, at least we were not adding murder to our efforts to hide their shame. We have not 'evolved', we have not progressed. We have regressed.
Someday we will face real progress, and create a society in which the shame of the pregnant teen is brought out into the open and faced clearly. Only then will we be able to build them up in the light instead of tearing them down in the dark.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Lack of Hatred
I can't believe it took me this long to realize this. I must be going senile. Perhaps I can blame this 'failing' on my pregnancy. Then again, as I haven't specifically seen anyone else writing about it, perhaps we have all simply fallen into a certain level of taking things for granted.
This morning I was getting ready for the day while talking to my husband, who was also getting ready for his day, and it occurred to me to wonder about the community response to President Obama rescinding the Mexico City Policy. This policy, for those of you either hiding under a rock or not involved in the abortion debate, prevented the U.S. from funding abortions overseas. This is a definite blow for those on the pro-life side, and so controversial among many Christian and/or conservative groups that he even signed it secretly and off-camera.
So I sat down to chat with a friend of mine. "Hey, you hear more from the mainstream media than I do," I typed. "Over this past week, have there been an upswing of stories about pro-life violence against pro-choice groups/people/abortion clinics/abortion doctors? White powder sent to clinics, people trying to enter a clinic being knocked down and beaten, things like that?"
"Not that I've heard of," he answered.
I told him that it was interesting, but also what I'd expected to hear. He wanted to know why, and I pointed out that the Mexico City Policy had been rescinded a few days ago. "So?" he responded.
"That's the second interesting thing I noticed," I typed.
See, when the gay activists don't get their way, they go on a rampage. They threaten, they cause violence, and they not only boycott places, but they prevent other patrons from entering. Interestingly, nobody's surprised when they react this way, and I have heard more than once the phrase "I can understand their anger." However, when pro-lifers don't get their way, nobody goes on a rampage, and nobody is surprised.
The same thing happens when Christians are marginalized in the media. When Muslims are marginalized, the protests invariably start. Places are set on fire, people are injured or killed, guns fired, knives used... it's not a pretty picture. Parts of Europe refuse to even criticize Islam anymore for fear of seeing death and destruction. However, people are allowed to speak downright blasphemously about Christianity without fear, because Christians do not respond with violence, and nobody wonders why.
In many cases, groups that used to claim their way as the peaceful solution are bullying their way into society merely by making people afraid of the violence that they'll visit upon us if they are not given their way. Meanwhile, the groups marginalized in society as mean and violent and evil are simply remaining civil... and what's more, nobody's surprised by it!
This morning I was getting ready for the day while talking to my husband, who was also getting ready for his day, and it occurred to me to wonder about the community response to President Obama rescinding the Mexico City Policy. This policy, for those of you either hiding under a rock or not involved in the abortion debate, prevented the U.S. from funding abortions overseas. This is a definite blow for those on the pro-life side, and so controversial among many Christian and/or conservative groups that he even signed it secretly and off-camera.
So I sat down to chat with a friend of mine. "Hey, you hear more from the mainstream media than I do," I typed. "Over this past week, have there been an upswing of stories about pro-life violence against pro-choice groups/people/abortion clinics/abortion doctors? White powder sent to clinics, people trying to enter a clinic being knocked down and beaten, things like that?"
"Not that I've heard of," he answered.
I told him that it was interesting, but also what I'd expected to hear. He wanted to know why, and I pointed out that the Mexico City Policy had been rescinded a few days ago. "So?" he responded.
"That's the second interesting thing I noticed," I typed.
See, when the gay activists don't get their way, they go on a rampage. They threaten, they cause violence, and they not only boycott places, but they prevent other patrons from entering. Interestingly, nobody's surprised when they react this way, and I have heard more than once the phrase "I can understand their anger." However, when pro-lifers don't get their way, nobody goes on a rampage, and nobody is surprised.
The same thing happens when Christians are marginalized in the media. When Muslims are marginalized, the protests invariably start. Places are set on fire, people are injured or killed, guns fired, knives used... it's not a pretty picture. Parts of Europe refuse to even criticize Islam anymore for fear of seeing death and destruction. However, people are allowed to speak downright blasphemously about Christianity without fear, because Christians do not respond with violence, and nobody wonders why.
In many cases, groups that used to claim their way as the peaceful solution are bullying their way into society merely by making people afraid of the violence that they'll visit upon us if they are not given their way. Meanwhile, the groups marginalized in society as mean and violent and evil are simply remaining civil... and what's more, nobody's surprised by it!
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