abortion classic or dud?

seriously almost all my focus on this is "what good can we do, now?" (A: only support candidates who are unapologetically prochoice; donate all you can to NNAF & similar organizations) but just to say what's in my heart, this is exactly the stuff that tiresome guys like yrs truly were hollering about when all the ground was being conceded on abortion rights in re: the health care bill. the pro-choice party made it abundantly clear, at the local & national levels, that it wasn't willing to spend any political capital defending the right to choose as a basic health care right. more shame on the people directly attacking the right, but great shame on those who didn't stand up for it when this season might have been prevented imo

WTF? i had no idea some states had those laws on the books...you can be charged with murder for taking drugs while pregnant?? how to i contribute to her defense fund

Incidentally, the only people I've ever heard of that were in favor of those laws were men's rights groups.

A federal court blocked the state of Kansas from enacting new temporary regulations for abortion clinics that could have shut down two of the three clinics in the state -- but state officials say they are devising an identical set of permanent regulations.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia granted a temporary injunction against the law, which requires all of the abortion clinics to be licensed annually under a new set of regulations by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

Robert Moser, secretary of health and environment for the state, said the department will follow the law, but "Judge Murguia's ruling is narrowly tailored and does not prevent KDHE from moving forward to establish permanent licensing regulations."

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/court_blocks_kansas_abortion_rules_--_but_state_pl.php#more

/WTF? i had no idea some states had those laws on the books...you can be charged with murder for taking drugs while pregnant?? how to i contribute to her defense fund/

Incidentally, the only people I've ever heard of that were in favor of those laws were men's rights groups.

yeah I think I posted itt about this a couple years ago but there are vehemently pro life women that oppose these laws too

he baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how these charges came about. how did anybody apart from the mother and the doctor obtain any medical info about the mother's health and the cause of death?

... the father?

what kind of asshole sues a woman that just had a miscarri - oh never mind...

more info: http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20091209/ARTICLES/912095014/1011/NEWS?Title=Mom-on-trial-in-baby-s-death

there's a kind of sub-channel of alterna-depressing logic in the story linked above, in deeming prison totally-the-best-solution-for-the-people-involved, provided you accept the ridiculous logic in the first place. a hypothetical fifteen year old with a coke problem working their way out of a lost pregnancy does not need prison, no matter how much you want to intervene.

Women's Clinic Hit With Molotov Cocktail. (You don't even need to click that link to guess that this took place in Texas, probably.)

The incident is also unique because the McKinney location does not provide surgical procedures or abortions for their approximately 4,000 clients, Morgan said.

"It's an all-preventive care location: well-woman visits, breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control," she said. "They don't provide legal safe abortions, only preventive care."

Why, it's almost as if the problem were with women's sexuality itself, and not abortion as such!

Texas, by the way, had the third-highest number of abortions of any state in the US as of 2007. They are also tied with DC and Oregon for the 9th-highest rate of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44.

Texas, by the way, is the second most populous of any state in the US.

Well, sure. But for a bunch of abortion-haters they sure have a lot of them. As many as those godless liberals in DC!

me and the (then) missus got one once. i didn't really realize how traumatizing it was till i apologized years later for not being there for it, and mrs. wannabe was like "what are you talking about, you totally took me, you hung out with me before and after and stuff, thanks for that." and i was like "i did?" and she was like "of course, it was snowing and shit, don't you remember?" and i realized i had totally blocked it out and seriously couldn't remember the whole day at all. anyway it kinda makes me sad even now to think about killin off a lil' messiah, and i still cant even remember anything about that day.

but, i'd do the same again, thank god i the option was there, etc, so... sorta both. i mean i'm firmly in choice camp, but classic seems a little, um, glib?

kinda feeling this is gonna cause a big rift in my family soon. my stepsister who is 18 just got knocked up by a 19 year old guy who she has been dating for a few weeks, who promptly dumped her upon hearing the news. my stepmom is trying to convince her to just "take care of it" as she knows the responsibility for the baby is going to fall on them, as she is in school and not exactly destined to be a doctor. i think she wants to have the baby to "get back" at her mom, as dumb as that sounds. but yeah we have some pro-lifers in my family, including my wife who was always brought up to believe that "it's still a baby". i'm not looking forward to this...

It also sounds like a generation gap thing to me--the stigma against young unmarried women having children is now completely gone, and I haven't met anyone under 21 that's pro-abortion rights for sometime now.

I haven't met anyone under 21 that's pro-abortion rights for sometime now.

that's interesting to me. i wonder whether there's a lot of people w/a kind of vestigial teenage default position that abortion is killing a baby &c, that either comes up for review shortly after this period, or just doesn't. like i can imagine that there's a 'stage' at which you are primed to reconsider that, if you're lucky enough not to have to, but i would've thought it was maybe before 21. obviously ten trillion variables here.

i think the "stigma" is really the least of her worries here

I agree.

i know literally dozens of--probably more than a hundred--people under or around 21 who are pro-choice!

it's new york versus somewhere else though, right; bc i am in the same boat but i feel like it's a 'i don't know anyone who even knows anyone who voted bush!' kinda situation

in NYC, in LA, in NJ, in college w/ people from all over

iirc the numbers on abortion rights hold pretty evenly across age groups, unlike most other so-called "social issues"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/28/us-abortion-northcarolina-idUSTRE76R6LW20110728

NC legislature overrides their governor's veto, women will be required to wait 24 hrs, be 'counseled", and have a mandatory ultrasound

I think Christine lives in what is probably a predominantly Christian part of Florida. That could have something to do with it?

I know and have worked with people all across the board. Most of my friends are pro-choice but, for example, I'd say the majority of the kids I worked wiht last year (young inner city minorities) would probably identify as pro-life. From working in a clinic where terminations were provided, however, I know that identifying as pro-life doesn't necessarily mean much when it comes to behaviors. I saw a lot of women there for pre or post abortion appts who were "definitely pro-life".

I blame all the Teen Mom bullshit.

yeah i always heard about "did you find your way to the clinic okay" "yes i used to picket here".
that's interesting about the numbers holding per age group, i would've thought it was still pretty regionally weighted, in the same way that i'd imagine that it's religiously weighted.

x-post - Heh. Well as someone who has also worked with and in support of teen parents I have some pretty strong feelings on that "Teen Mom bullshit" but I don't really think this is the place to get into that.

Just to be clear by "bullshit" I meant the ridiculous amount of hype that show is getting wrt to magazine covers and gossip sites and stuff. No larger comment on the issue of teenage pregnancy intended by my snarky, jokey comment.

I appreciate the clarification - it's a complicated topic!

someone make a thread about that show I would read it

I've thought about doing so many times and even discussed it with horseshoe but I am worried it would get ugly and tbh I'm not a regular watcher so don't really feel it's my place to start one.

Yeah I didn't mean for that to come out weird, just comes from a place of seeing so many people on my Facebook feed talking about Teen Mom.

I guess fuckyeahteenmom is a tumblr

lol started like a week ago

Following the Teen Mom tag is exhausting.
Every other post is, “Ryan is so hot!”

i watch teen mom sometimes (one of my sisters is obsessed with it) and if anything i think it's a force for good in terms of raising consciousness about birth control and reproductive choices in general. it can be really sad and hard to watch but it's a good show!

i defer to Erica on this subject, though, as she is an expert!

Yeah, I agree with that in general.

wait XPOST

I'm not agreeing with being an expert. lol.

"I would like to point out that I have been OTM on this subject, since I am an expert and all"

well, you are!

haha not you P3rry

"raising consciousness about birth control and reproductive choices in general"

I agree with that, I think. But then, well, I got in invitation in the mail yesterday to a baby shower for one of my former participants who is due with her 2nd kid in a couple months. I was at the birth of her 1st a little over a year ago. She updates her FB all the time about Teen Mom. IDK what I'm trying to say or what this has to do with anything but I watch that show and I'm like, "Shit that looks hard etc." and cringe when the girls/guys say things like, "We didn't use condoms because buying them is embarrassing" and yet it doesn't or hasn't had the same effect on some other viewers and I still don't get why. If we knew why then perhaps we'd be able to approach sex ed from a different angle and yeild some different results. idk. It's really complicated and I'm not being very eloquent here.

I find some of the research into adolescent brain development and decision making capability really interesting when it comes to this sort of thing but that's pretty tricky in terms of trying to empower teens while at same time recognizing that they literally might not actually have the capacity to make good and healthy decisions for themselves yet in terms of this stuff.

yeah it is complicated! i am actually really curious about how young women react to the show. my sister and i basically just view at as one big ad for condoms--these girls' lives are so hard! and so many of them are so so careful about birth control after they have their first kid, sort of heartbreakingly. but my sister and i are older and have no kids and are pretty set in our ways as far as reproductive rights are concerned. maybe it doesn't read that way to actual teenagers.

And forget about even thinking about that stuff in terms of abortion because that could be potentially devastating in terms of parental consent laws and stuff. See? COMPLICATED.

Not to derail the thread here but I thought that having a baby shower for your second child was NAGL. We only ran into this because lesbian friends of ours were having their second child, but since the other partner carried the first we thought that the partner carrying the second child deserved a shower but the emphasis was really taken off of presents. Anyway, point being a bunch of people got all up in arms and it caused kind of a rift among our friends.

Back to topic at hand.

I strongly dislike the show teen mom but have prob watched too much considering who I think I am

And just who do you think you are, fantasy?