Skip to main content

Gabbin' about abortion

By Sarah Trachtenberg ~

Abortion, that perma-controversy, is in the wind with the GOP putting the “grand” in “grandly coming down on women for being sluts” and restricting abortion while making rape laws less victim-friendly. Delightful.

A woman swats away the stork which has brought...Image via Wikipedia
Perhaps it’s foolhardy of me to write about abortion in any context, thus generating a lot of antipathy, but I’d like to state my reasons for why I think abortion should be safe and legal. I realize that while anti-abortion people seem to be overwhelmingly religious (especially Christian), there are a number of atheists who share that point of view. I am sympathetic to why people think abortion should be illegal. They make good arguments for their case and I respect that they are only doing what they think is right. I felt the same way, in the respect of life, as a kid until I hit thirteen and was convinced that abortion is necessary.

It would be wonderful if there was no such thing as an unwanted pregnancy. It would be wonderful if women and girls weren’t called sluts and whores for having pre-marital sex, but that’s not the world we live in. Many people would staunchly thwart the progress towards this goal. They want this double-standard of sex. They let unwanted pregnancies happen by their counterproductive ideas.

If one incident would make me pro-abortion rights, it would be this. A professor I had, a Christian minister and liberal cool guy who taught my sexuality class, told me about an acquaintance of his who was the president of a pro-life organization. When his young daughter got pregnant and told the family, they supported her decision to get an abortion. She got one… and he went right back to work the next day.

I’ve heard of people doing similar things often enough. President George Bush the Elder said that he would support a hypothetical granddaughter’s right to an abortion– but apparently, not the rest of us.

Looks to me that when it’s a conservative’s term to benefit from something, the shoe is on the other foot.

In defense of the anti-abortion people, they are right in that a lot of people do stupid things that result in unwanted pregnancies, but I don’t think making abortion illegal will curb this behavior. It didn’t pre-Roe v. Wade and it won’t now. I can’t defend the behavior of a college friend of mine who made a stupid mistake with his girlfriend, resulting in abortion, but I don’t think they should suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives, either.

You know what would curb people doing stupid things? Sex education and good access to birth control, something anti-abortion people often oppose (not all anti-abortion people oppose these common-sense measures, but it is only anti-abortion people who do.) It’s exasperating to me that the same people who want to end abortion thwart the very things that would drastically reduce unwanted pregnancies. Their solution, abstinence education, is not realistic and is proven to not work. I don’t know how much more evidence they need! For these folks, teaching kids how to use a condom is somehow worse than the abortion that ignorance of condoms could easily lead to.

Another thing: perhaps it’s trite to say this, but I think that if men got pregnant, abortion would be in the bill of rights. Restricting abortion and birth control are ultimately about controlling the sexuality of women and girls. A man, after all, can simply walk away from an unwanted pregnancy. Men do this and have been doing so forever. A woman can’t walk away. Should the law force her to carry this burden? What punishment is there for the man involved? I should note here that many teen pregnancies are caused by older men, hence statutory rape. Some sleazoid twenty-something out there looking to bed gullible young girls got his way, now she is left with the consequences, and if anti-abortion people have their way, she has no relief.

Abortion is never an easy choice. It is never taken lightly. Women and girls don’t say, “You know what’d be fun? Let’s get pregnant and get abortions!”

I do wonder, though, why more girls and women don’t elect to give their unwanted babies to adoption instead of raising them. Adoption appears to be an unpopular option for crisis pregnancies.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi