Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Link to an obituary.

Dr. George Tiller, 1941-2009, by Katha Pollitt (The Nation).
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23 comments:

Randy said...

Thank you for linking to this. It is on point.

9:57 AM
Daniel S said...

I only read about three paragraphs, as usually every one of these is the same. It's always about trust, and women's rights, but to me it isn't. It's about choices. If you didn't think you could bring a kid into the world, why have sex?
As for trust and for precious choices, the kid and the father basically have none in this scenario. Health issues aside, late term abortions are the worst. Pulling a kids' brains out while their fingers are moving for a few seconds before they are dead, then claiming the kid wasn't alive, yeah.
If you can't "trust" a woman to make a sound decision before she jumps in the sack, how exactly can we "trust" women to make the right choice with their bodies, as obviously they didn't before they had an abortion? As I said, health issues aside.
Furthermore, I've known a few ladies that have had an abortion, and in none of those cases did it have anything to do with health. It was about appearance and "I'm too young to have a kid"...sorry, that's not trust, that's being selfish.
That said, I do feel abortion should remain legal just because ladies will still have them either way, and at least now it's only one life being lost.

2:44 PM
Ceece said...

whoa...

Daniel, do any of the women you know who had abortions have late term abortions?

These late term abortions are not abortions of convenience, either the mother or child will die, or both.
They are not decisions that are ever made lightly or without deliberation and thought.


Please take a minute to read this post, and her personal story she links to. This is a woman who struggled with infertility, not a woman who jumped in the sack without thinking.
http://www.uppercasewoman.com/wastedbirthcontrol/2009/06/rip-dr-tiller.html

I am 100% opposed to "convenience abortions" but that is absolutely NOT what this is about. At all.

I have BEEN THERE with a family who has lost their child due to a terminal diagnosis. I have seen them dealing with whether they made the right decision to terminate early or to carry to full term and let the baby pass one once outside the womb. There hurts are the same, their grief is real, don't you dare minimize that for them

2:57 PM
Daniel S said...

Depends on who you listen to
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/pbafact10.html

This quotes a doctor saying 80 percent of his partial birth abortions were elective, and he performed over 1,000 of them as of 1992. Seems like a convenient abortion to me. The problem is that the majority want to use a few cases where a partial birth abortion may be legit to excuse all of them, which is rubbish.

I'm not saying it's an easy decision by any means, but how do you know for sure? How does a doctor absolutely know the kid will die, as doctors are wrong hourly. Also, why wouldn't you want to give that kid every chance? I can understand more of the case where the mother may die, but I don't see how a mother or father could take away a natural death from their kid and replace it with a partial birth abortion.

3:22 PM
Christopher D said...

"If you can't "trust" a woman to make a sound decision before she jumps in the sack, how exactly can we "trust" women to make the right choice with their bodies, as obviously they didn't before they had an abortion?"

Often times, Daniel, the woman has no choice in this matter. Your opinion does not cover such things as incest, rape, etc.
The statement of if we cant trust a woman to make a sound decision before jumping the sack, also is not right.
It takes TWO for pregnancy, TWO. If the woman gets pregnant, it is ONLY 50% her responsibility.
Also, in terms of the father "having no choice" in the matter of abortion, I am sorry but statistics are not on the males side in this case. The thousands if not millions of deadbeat dads out there, refusing to pay child support, refusing to be a father to the babies that helped to create.
If we were to give the "fathers" the right to decide, then this would create a situation where men would refuse the womans choices, and then disappear, or refuse the choices simply as a means of control.
My personal view, abortion should NEVER be used as a form of birth control, late term abortion should ONLY be reserved for case where it is medically neccessary, or in cases of rape, or incest.
I am sorry, but placing the entire burden on wmoen as a matter of "trust" comes across as both ill informed and sexist

3:31 PM
Ceece said...

No, you don't understand, that's the problem. You've never been there, and you have no idea.

It's not your choice, leave them be.

3:32 PM
Daniel S said...

"My personal view, abortion should NEVER be used as a form of birth control, late term abortion should ONLY be reserved for case where it is medically neccessary, or in cases of rape, or incest."
Pretty much how I feel, except we both know these are the exceptions to how abortion is used, not the rule.

As far as I haven't been in their shoes, you're right, I haven't. Has anybody here been in the shoes of the dead baby? If we based our opinions on things we have actually experienced or gone through, there wouldn't be many editorials or blogs.

My point is that to say partial birth abortions or any abortion is used mostly for matters of health is basically crap. It's the exception, not the rule.

3:38 PM
Christopher D said...

My whole issue with the statement you made was the (paraphrasing) if women cant be trusted not to get pregnant, then women shouldnt be allowed to make decisions about abortions.
But that is where this debate ends with me, as you had stated, it is a far better thing to keep abortion legal, than it is to send it underground and into back alleys and basement coat hanger clinics.
Until we as MEN in general become more responsible with jumping in the sack with any woman who will give it up, and we do so unprotected, then we have no grounds to try and tell womwn what to do with the outcomes of that.

3:46 PM
The New Albanian said...

"If you can't "trust" a woman to make a sound decision before she jumps in the sack, how exactly can we "trust" women to make the right choice with their bodies, as obviously they didn't before they had an abortion?"

I can't imagine a better way to weaken the argument than this statement.

3:52 PM
Jeff Gillenwater said...

I can't imagine a better way to weaken the argument than this statement.

Particularly when paired with a lament that the male in the situation, having made the same "untrustworthy" choice as the female, doesn't get the opportunity to make more choices.

4:03 PM
Daniel S said...

Maybe not the best wording but the point stands. A woman has sex and later decides to have an abortion. I made a mistake is usually the story. So now I am supposed to believe you are thinking clearly when you decide to abort? Women go through all sorts of emotions during and after pregnancy. Most of the time it seems the choice is made for selfish reasons and me being opposed has nothing to do with me not trusting a woman to know her body, it's the mind I am worried about. If a man pushed for abortion I say the same thing.
I used to work at a child support agency and it's horrible to see how much money is owed, but not paying child support is illegal. The fact it's not enforced better is because politicians aren't concerned enough, and it's pathetic. They spend more time worrying about how to keep abortion legal as opposed to feeding and caring for the kids we have. It's a chain reaction.

4:11 PM
Iamhoosier said...

What about the politicians who spend more time trying to make abortion illegal as opposed to feeding and taking care...

That's a chain reaction, too.

4:23 PM
John Manzo said...

Half of the 'why's' of abortion that are published are crap. Probably more than half published by people who have used some anecdotal instances to come to broad conclusions as to why women have abortions.

I think it's perilous to try and conclude the 'why's' of abortion; probably as perilous as trying to presume why women have sex with some of the men that they do. Of course, there were males in the bed at the same time so trying to presume much about either of them at any particular time can only get a person into a great deal of trouble. Frankly, I do not like to speculate on the sex lives of people and I actually find it odd who fascinated we all are about the sexual behavior of other adults.

I'd also be cautious about using the word 'selfish.' What one person determines to be selfish is not necessarily the same as another. If a woman who has 8 children chooses to abort child 9 because she can barely afford to feed the 8 she has selfish? Or what about the woman who has 2 children and can't afford the third? Or the woman who is.....

Here is where I'm going to be really annoying on the abortion debate. I really never share my opinion on the subject because, frankly, I don't believe that I am entitled to have much of an opinion on the subject. Frankly, we need to respect women enough to allow them to determine the ethics of this. They are the only gender, right now, who can become pregnant and, to be quite honest, I think they are the only one's who ought to be having a say in all of this.

5:02 PM
Daniel S said...

This argument to me will always be flawed because most just turn it into a gender issue, when to me it's anything but. Once again the selfishness, it's about "women's rights" and if you're against abortion you're against women. That's sexist in of itself and just a way to turn an argument of life and death to a debate on the rights of one gender.
Call them species a and species b for all I care, if b pressures a to get rid of the kid or a decides they're going to abort regardless, to me it's wrong for most reasons. And yes species b does have a say in this, because species a isn't asexual.
A friend of mine in high school dated a girl for awhile, really cared about her, and one day got her pregnant. The girl was 16 and her parents forced her to have an abortion. The father hated it, tried to convince them otherwise but had no say. He was depressed about it for so long and though I've lost touch with him, I'm sure he still feels the same.
But under the reasoning I read here, his feelings don't matter, because it only takes two to conceive, raise and financially support a kid, not to make decisions on whether it should live or die.
What's really ironic about the whole thing, is that this is the same thinking that led to women being treated as property and slavery in the first place.But no, we're not free to do what we want to with our bodies when it hurts another person.

5:23 PM
Christopher D said...

Daniel,
On a side note, I give you the highest of respect for voicing your opinion and doing something becoming more and more rare in this day and age of putting your name to what you say.
On this issue, we will have to agree to disagree on most points and leave it at that.
I simply am neither pro or anti abortion, for many of the same reasons that Mr. Manzo cited.

5:49 PM
Daniel S said...

Same here Chris. I do respect you, I lost respect for Iamhoosier a long time ago...

6:19 PM
Iamhoosier said...

Now you've went and made me cry!!!

7:02 PM
G Coyle said...

I'm with the NewAlbanian on Daniel S.'s hysterical screed against the morality of women. His comments are basically why women will fight to the death for the right to be full citizens who are viewed as morally and ethically capable of making life and death decisions that involve only women. Thank you good men who respect our innate morality.

9:46 AM
Daniel S said...

"Thank you good men who respect our innate morality."

I needed a good chuckle this morning. Once again someone trying to turn an abortion argument into an argument over gender, totally missing the point and showing your side doesn't have much of anything to stand on except trying to paint those who oppose you with the same brush. To argue that murdering a child somehow makes you moral, geesh... Anyways..my argument had absolutely nothing to do with the morality of women, it's about choices and consequences for men and women, I guess in this society that is pretty hysterical these days. Do you not find it damning that even the lady in Roe V. Wade is now very much opposed to abortion? What happened, did her moral clock run out?

10:47 AM
The New Albanian said...

"To argue that murdering a child somehow makes you moral, geesh."

I forget the word that describes the act of taking for granted that we all agree on a proposition, while the truth of the matter is that we don't agree at all.

Daniel, quite obviously the discussion would proceed differently if we all agreed that abortion is murdering a child. That we don't is the point of the disagreement, no?

2:14 PM
Daniel S said...

True.
I just don't like the sexism argument. I don't want to tie women to a chair and force them to birth a child while feeding them heavenly hill to ease the pain.

2:49 PM
G Coyle said...

Thank you Daniel, your comments do more to advance the pro-choice stance than anything I could say.

3:16 PM
Daniel S said...

If you think there's nothing morally wrong with killing a kid hey, there's nothing I could do or say that's going to change your mind. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

3:50 PM

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