Progressive plan to end 71% of abortions

[Scuba]

[Nye Bevan]

1. I've always said, if the Catholic church had any sense,

they would be fully in favor of handing condoms out like candy.

[niyad]

3. eons ago, a friend who was a bit of a marketing genius, said that, if the rcc were smart, it would

fund one brand of contraceptives as "approved by the church". of course, he did not know at the time that the rcc is actually one of the big funders of a pharma whose main product is. . .

[jeff47]

4. They want to make more Catholics

And reproduction is easier than recruiting.

[niyad]

2. but, but. if that happened, we would not be able to punish women for having sex.

seriously, though, accurate, reliable reproductive health education is also a must (another thing the woman-hating, pro-forced-birthers are trying to destroy)

[OnionPatch]

7. Boy you hit the nail on the head.

Their stance against abortion is just a way to punish women who have sex out of wedlock. They don't even like married women to have too much fun. (Sex is for procreation doncha know?) Free and ample birth control for all women is even scarier to them than access to abortion is.

[NaturalHigh]

5. I think that all but the really radical agree with this.

Frankly, it would go a long way toward solving a lot of societal ills.

[daleanime]

6. K&R....

[SunSeeker]

8. Republicans don't want to end abortion, they want to punish women for having sex. nt

[jtuck004]

11. This. n/t

[fierywoman]

9. ... is she pregnant?

I agree with the basic premise. But, dear DU-niks, you are avoiding or evading something built into a part of our culture. Twenty or so years ago I was burnt out from being a classical musician, so I got a job for 14 months on a psychic line reading tarot and astrology (yeah, yeah, bash and pooh-pooh all you want, but listen...) We had a standard call, the bread and butter of the business, called the Do He Love Me? call. The second question that always followed: Is she pregnant? (meaning the third person in the relationship.). This is the only time in my life I talked to this segment of the population. It became clear to me that these women's identities and/or personal sense of self rested on the idea of: (1) being connected to a male and (2) thinking/assuming that they would seal the deal by creating a child to bind the male to them. I even had a girl call to find out when she could become pregnant, and she knew nothing of her cycle, and did not understand the word "conceive." After a few dozen of these calls (I did over 2,000 readings in my time there) I started giving safe sex advice (it was the early '90s and AIDS was raging.) Interesting to be "the psychic" and telling them to use condoms!

[AtheistCrusader]

10. DU-niks?

Bye.

[jtuck004]

12. Psychic, it says, and didn't see that comin'? n/t

[niyad]

15. that poster has been signed on for over a year.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. I must say, I'm a little surprised MIRT hasn't found that yet.

Am I misinterpreting the post?

[niyad]

18. no, do not believe that you are.

[scarletwoman]

19. I believe you. It's obvious there are many females who know nothing of their cycles,

whose sense of self-worth totally revolves around getting a man, and who believe that getting pregnant will "seal the deal", as you said.

Thank you for your post - I imagine that the psychic phone line job was an interesting, if disheartening, window into human behavior. At least you tried to do some good by telling them to use condoms.

sw

[progressoid]

20. It's ridiculous to make an observation of our "culture" based on the small percentage of people

willing to throw their money away on telephone psychics.

[RainDog]

13. And we need to be able to talk sensibly about females having sex

The stigma of birth control use is tied to people who slut shame younger women into not taking precautions for pregnancy.

They get beyond the reality that they want to have sex by pretending "It just happened!" - see the Palin girl, whatever her name is.

Teenage and younger unmarried women have sex.

This nation needs to deal with this reality and instead of saying "Abstinence only!", say, "Don't have sex until you're ready. Don't have sex unless you can deal with the reality that this relationship may not last."

Don't have sex without birth control protection until you are ready and able to take care of a child for the rest of your life.

Children should be planned and wanted. We no longer live in the 1800s.

Not to say birth control failures don't happen. They do. And that's a case when abortion should also be available.

[Iris]

21. take care of a child for the rest of your life?

um... well, no. children do grow up.

and no sex at all unless you are willing to take care of a child until you die? what's the point of a conversation about contraceptives then?

[truebluegreen]

22. That was, "don't have sex without birth control protection"

unless you are ready to take care of a child. For the rest, I think the idea was to emphasize the amount of commitment a child requires.

[RainDog]

23. Yes.

It IS a lifetime commitment in many cases when a child is born with a disability, and, the reality is that children grow up and most are fine, but it's also a reality that children, even when they are grown, look to parents for the emotional support that is part of an unconditional love in an often harsh world.

Too often, kids have kids so that someone will love them. That's backwards.

But the point I was trying to make, most of all, is that children shouldn't be an "oops" moment.

Sex isn't just about having children, so people shouldn't pretend that having children is something that cannot be planned for - that's good for children, not just for people having sex. Not to say that children cannot be loved and wanted even when they're not planned, and, even when planning birth control is not 100% effective.

I don't think having sex automatically means someone is ready to be a parent.

Those are two moments that are no longer automatically connected since the advent of safe, reliable birth control.

[truebluegreen]

24. Well said.

[seveneyes]

14. It makes good sense

And not just to avoid abortions. We really need to reduce the number of kids born into poverty and the disaster it is leads to.

[Dawson Leery]

17. The real battle is about contraception (reversing Griswold).

Make no mistake, there are a few who believe that abortion is absolutely wrong. Those people are few. Most in the "pro-life&quot anti-Choice) movement oppose abortion because it is a form of birth control. They do not care about "ending" life in the womb. They are angry that women have autonomy.