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Showing Original Post only (View all)Abortion: Not easy, not sorry [View all]
Nearly one in three American women will have an abortion by age 45. Why are we so afraid to talk about itor to acknowledge that our lives would have been so much less than we hoped for without it? Why are we pressured to feel that we should regret our choice, and that there's something wrong with us if we don't?
...
For a small segment of womenand the number is small, by any reasonably scientific accountabortion is indeed a tragedy, a trauma with long-lasting reverberations. But I want to tell a different story, the more common yet strangely hidden one, which is that I don't feel guilty and tortured about my abortion. Or rather, my abortions. There, I said it.
"Abortion. We need to talk about it," Pollitt beseeches in Pro. "We need to talk about it differently. Not as something we all agree is a bad thing about which we shake our heads sadly and then debate its precise degree of badness, preening ourselves on our judiciousness and moral seriousness as we argue about this or that restriction on this or that kind of woman. We need to talk about ending a pregnancy as a common, even normal, event in the reproductive lives of women."
...
How normal? Nearly one in three American women will have terminated a pregnancy by age 45, and six in 10 abortions are performed on women who are already mothers. They're notwe're not"other." Those numbers are from Pro, and when I call it "revelatory," I want to add, oddly so. You can't live in the abortion-is-murder culture for all of your adult life and not have it affect you, even if you're pro-choice. So while I already knew much of the basic information Pollitt imparts, I'd "forgotten" some facts, and lost track of how the facts informed my pro-choice convictions.
...
In an interview with ELLE last month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that she thought that the country would "wake up" and realize that the state-by-state restrictions on abortion were untenable and that we "can never go back" to the situation before Roe, when abortions were only "for women who can afford to travel to a neighboring state." Yet it seems to me that we have gone back to that time; right now poor women are in effect being denied abortions because they can't afford them, or can't afford the gas to get to a clinic that is hundreds of miles awayor can't afford all that and to stay overnight in a hotel to comply with a 24-hour waiting period.
...
For a small segment of womenand the number is small, by any reasonably scientific accountabortion is indeed a tragedy, a trauma with long-lasting reverberations. But I want to tell a different story, the more common yet strangely hidden one, which is that I don't feel guilty and tortured about my abortion. Or rather, my abortions. There, I said it.
"Abortion. We need to talk about it," Pollitt beseeches in Pro. "We need to talk about it differently. Not as something we all agree is a bad thing about which we shake our heads sadly and then debate its precise degree of badness, preening ourselves on our judiciousness and moral seriousness as we argue about this or that restriction on this or that kind of woman. We need to talk about ending a pregnancy as a common, even normal, event in the reproductive lives of women."
...
How normal? Nearly one in three American women will have terminated a pregnancy by age 45, and six in 10 abortions are performed on women who are already mothers. They're notwe're not"other." Those numbers are from Pro, and when I call it "revelatory," I want to add, oddly so. You can't live in the abortion-is-murder culture for all of your adult life and not have it affect you, even if you're pro-choice. So while I already knew much of the basic information Pollitt imparts, I'd "forgotten" some facts, and lost track of how the facts informed my pro-choice convictions.
...
In an interview with ELLE last month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that she thought that the country would "wake up" and realize that the state-by-state restrictions on abortion were untenable and that we "can never go back" to the situation before Roe, when abortions were only "for women who can afford to travel to a neighboring state." Yet it seems to me that we have gone back to that time; right now poor women are in effect being denied abortions because they can't afford them, or can't afford the gas to get to a clinic that is hundreds of miles awayor can't afford all that and to stay overnight in a hotel to comply with a 24-hour waiting period.
Much more at link, a great read: http://www.elle.com/life-love/society-career/the-abortion-choice
I've heard it here on DU: "We don't have to *pretend* abortion is a good thing". I'm not pretending, it *IS* a good thing. Women have to control their fertility for 30-40 years. That is an awfully long time not to make mistakes, to not have any failure in process or judgement. Abortion allows us to decide the direction, to allow our education, careers and health to go the way that is best for ourselves. Abortion allows us to decide to become parents when we are ready to be good parents.
Abortion is a moral and positive choice that liberates women, saves lives, and protects families.
The Notorious RBG is correct. We need to wake up. We're losing our rights.
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Divorced, three children, one severely disabled, one abortion. I did not want another child to raise
jwirr
Oct 2014
#8
it does have to do with money for a lot of women--they can't afford to have kids.
yurbud
Oct 2014
#19
I'm proud of you for doing what was right for you and for your future family.
PeaceNikki
Oct 2014
#22
Agreed, I use to believe I am pro choice but I would never have an abortion myself
Heather MC
Oct 2014
#43
One of the lies I have seen being spread now by the Christian Taliban is that women who terminate
PeaceNikki
Oct 2014
#64
A dear friend--a former Catholic Sister of Charity nun and extraordinarily credentialed nurse--
Ineeda
Oct 2014
#71
I've gladly helped a minor over the state line to bypass the shit parental notification.
PeaceNikki
Oct 2014
#29
I find it sad and pathetic when one cannot see a private medical decision which allows a woman to
PeaceNikki
Oct 2014
#54
I don't know why you feel it necessary to inject your 'personal feelings about the nature of the
PeaceNikki
Oct 2014
#57
I am not running for any office. But if you're implying you would vote against choice because I am
PeaceNikki
Oct 2014
#78
lol. are you talking about boob jobs? because that's how i feel about those.
La Lioness Priyanka
Oct 2014
#56
When I was younger, I didn't have a single female friend who hadn't had an abortion.
valerief
Oct 2014
#65