This Post started out as a reply to a comment left on http://joymdivo.blogspot.com/2011/09/abortion-womens-rights-or-big-business.html. After numerous attempts to try and post it as a comment, I decided to just make it a new post, a part II rather than fight with the mouse clicking furiously for an hour to no avail. The comment was left by "Lugalia" and it read as follows:
Reproductive decisions, options, health access are a women's/ families' right and an opportunity for business.
Which part of of our healthcare and lifestyles is not an opportunity for anyone to make money?
Are an overwhelming amount of infertility cases linked to abortions?
Does planned parenthood and company make people choose abortion?
Is there a conspiracy between fertility experts, "abortionists", black market embryo traders?
Like I asked before: what are the root causes? What, who...creates an environment where abortion is consistently chosen?
Fertility experts? Embryo traders? Abortionists?
Is the solution to take away the choice the best option?
Are an overwhelming amount of infertility cases linked to abortions?
Does planned parenthood and company make people choose abortion?
Is there a conspiracy between fertility experts, "abortionists", black market embryo traders?
Like I asked before: what are the root causes? What, who...creates an environment where abortion is consistently chosen?
Fertility experts? Embryo traders? Abortionists?
Is the solution to take away the choice the best option?
The following is how I wanted to respond, and do hereby, to Lugalia's very legitimate questions: -
You keep making reference to abortion as a family's right, and yet it has been built on the suggestion that it is purely a woman's right and no one else's.
Abortion is directly linked to infertility, cancer, mental health instabiltiy (80% of women who have had an abortion report mental health issues, with 10% of these becoming chronic conditions i.e lifelong)
Documentation shows that only 1% of those who walk through planned parenthood's doors actually get referred to offer their unborn child for adoption. If the emphasis was women's health, ALL options would be availed for a woman in crisis in a PP clinic.
Is there a conspiracy? Your guess is as good as mine. From the facts I can see how one feeds off another, but if they made a conscious plan for this to happen, I cannot say.
The root cause is unwanted pregnancies. (the PC term is unplanned for) When a woman is in crisis and is pregnant, she has a time crunch to make a decision. However, due to hormonal changes resulting from pregnancy, she is also very susceptible and suggestible. Lack of support from lover, family and friend is also a factor. My take is that by offering abortion you do get rid of the pregnancy, but at the same time, you create many more problems for the woman that last much longer and will affect her entire life.
Abortion is not consistently chosen. Studies have also shown that many women who have abortions regret it and do not repeat the same in another instance of an unplanned for pregnancy. Many pro-life activists have had an abortion and do not want others to go through what they have gone through (ie the aftermath) Notably one of these is Dr. Aldeva King, Martin Luther King's niece, who has had two abortions. What it is, is that it is marketed and trumpeted as a triumph, so much so that when a 15yr old is in crisis pregnancy, she does not think of asking her mom for advise on how to deal with it, she will just look for her nearest abortuary and "get rid of it".
Abortion is not the best option, it is the worst option for the woman as well as for the child who will most certainly end up dead, and sometimes in very gruesome fashion. The price one has to pay if they chose abortion will affect every facet of their life, it is a ground zero. Women commemorate their abortion like we celebrate our children's birthdays. Some walk around seeing other children who would have been the age of their aborted child and feel the pain. Those who do get infertile wish they could turn back the hands of time. Those who die early from cancer of the breast or uterus or ovaries, sometimes don't even know where it came from, totally blindsided. Those whose mental health becomes dependent on drugs for some normalcy suffer untold anguish. It is a silent epidemic, because it is not politically correct to admit, that what has been touted for years to be one of women's greatest gains is actually their biggest pitfalls.
I reiterate, I AM PRO-CHOICE, BUT THE CHOICE HERE IS TO NOT GET PREGNANT IN THE FIRST PLACE. If one is in crisis pregnancy, then she should have a choice on whether to keep the child or give him up. If she cannot raise him, then she should not be forced to keep him, the society should take over. Women should be empowered to prevent pregnancy when not needed/desired. Since abortion was allowed in the USA in Roe v Wade, the instances of unplanned for pregnancies have actually risen since there is the perceived get out of jail free card. Instead as of 2009, 50million Americans never saw the light of day, as a result of having been aborted. That is 10million more people than Kenya's current population. If they had lived, they would now (Roe v Wade was a 1974 decision) be aged 38years and less, one of the most productive age bracket in a person's life. They would be paying taxes, that would help the American GDP especially during this recession. But alas, they do not exist, and migrants have taken up their space.
Think about it. Is abortion really the best option for women, society, the GDP?
What do you think? Please leave a comment and let me know your honest opinion.
I readjusted my settings so anyone can leave a comment, even if you want to remain anonymous.
ReplyDelete1. Women, society and the GDP? Really?
ReplyDeleteThe GDP is not suffering because there's LESS people around. The american recession isn't happening because there's less americans to pay the taxes or because the ones who are here aren't productive enough. (some of our tax problem are because the richest 2% of our population, get away without paying enough taxes, and wall street's subprime mortgage scam...) Citizen's are more than the taxes that they pay. If there's a chance that these citizens could be digging us out of this recession, perhaps, there's also a high chance that a portion of that "unrealized" citizenship actually may have increased the # of people currently unemployed, unsupported and dependent on the taxpayers...what does that do for the GDP?
2. and migrants have "taken" their place....wow. not even gonna touch this one.
3. "If one is in crisis pregnancy, then she should have a choice on whether to keep the child or give him up. If she cannot raise him, then she should not be forced to keep him, the society should take over." - Is this based on studies that honor and listen to what women in "crisis" pregnancy want, or is this opinion influenced by religious values, stubborn morality, lobbyist, judgments...
4. "Women should be empowered to prevent pregnancy when not needed/desired."
What does that look like? Affordable Birth control? Sex education? Reproductive counseling? Family planning? - (97% of the services that Planned Parenthood offers by the way - ALL OPTIONS ARE OFFERED AT PLANNED PARENTHOOD - i've accessed quite a diverse amount of services from their extremely professional and affordable services) so guess what, rallying for planned parenthood to be shut down...is also rallying for your "pro-choice" option to be put to be bed.
5. "Since abortion was allowed in the USA in Roe v Wade, the instances of unplanned for pregnancies have actually risen since there is the perceived get out of jail free card." - Cheap cheap assumption and judgmental statement. You are purporting that the availability of abortions has made folks more likely to be sexually irresponsible? What about the fact that nearly half of children birthed to married couples are unplanned? There's also another study that shows that 61% of abortions (in the US) are obtained by women who already have had one or more children? I also question the reasoning that is quick to make it seem like families are casually getting abortions?(get out of jail free (jail huh?)) Like women who end up choosing to do so don't put thinking, consideration into it or don't understand why they are doing so. Give us some credit huh?
6.I never said that abortion is the best option. My question challenged whether doing away with this option is the best option. What happens when a women doesn't want to "keep" or "give up" their child for adoption? (what are the quality of life outcomes of foster kids by the way? I know they sure aren't being adopted by Brad or Angelina in large numbers over here, or over there) Why not have ALL the options?
7. When I asked about abortion being consistently chosen, I mean over history/generations, not by people who have gotten abortions.
8. Please avoid making generalizations about the type of women who elect abortions. Women are diverse. While there are some women who may have those feelings as you so described, there might be some who might still feel like they made the right decision for their families, careers, future etc.
9. Abortion has never been the greatest gain (and I also reject the notion that reproductive rights are the "greatest gains" (ahem, voting, working, equal pay (d'oh...nope still don't have that one)
my honest opinions, pushbacks and some facts.
I read your reply and realised, this will be a back and forth that will never end. What I write in my blog is my considered opinion, and I have read widely to make the conclusions I am drawing. On this one, we must agree to disagree. In all this, my bottom line is this: What is hailed as "Choice" or "Women's Rights" is really no benefit to women, and in fact leads us to pay a higher personal price, which has a domino effect on society. France, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Germany already acknowledge while their "indegenous" women abort and refuse to have children, the immigrant communities do not, and as such, see their own populations diminishing astonishingly. China has only one major thing that silences the world, their human rights track record notwithstanding: they have over 1B people! What they cannot do in China, they are doing all over the world and taking the resources back to China. America was built as a nation of immigrants seeking freedom. As much as illegal immigration is being dealt with harshly in the States, truth be told, without immigration, there is not a big enough workforce to keep the wheels turning. This is true for the UK too. There are jobs that born citizens consider unworkable, it is the immigrants willing to do them, and they are necessary to run the economy of the country. Abortion does affect GDP, it does change the fabric of society, and it does women no favours.
ReplyDelete