abortion classic or dud?

http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/display/04716e74-a9f1-4477-ad9d-54b10501f6c5.JPG

are you going??? sounds fun

would it be rude to eat the papaya, after

OK that baby papaya thing is amazing.

I've heard of that, gbx. In that one article where the woman med stude went to the same workshop. Did I ever find that Wash Po article for you?

Laurel I think you did because I read it after you mentioned it.

I don't think you did!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111401698_pf.html

She linked to it upthread. Unless you're talking about a different article?

Good memory, E! Thanks for reposting.

Papayas??

Regarding the idea that abortion is "traumatic to the mother"

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/127868/why_are_even_smart,_liberal_men_freaked_out_by_abortion/

And I wanted to throw in that I am fond of replacing "pro-life" with "compulsory pregnancy advocates" (thx Jenny, and feminist bloggers everywhere).

oh cool, thanks, i will read that E!

....later, at least

Ah, now I understand about the papayas, sort of.

I would totally go to this fyi. Even if there were not fr33 f00d.

So would I.

should i go and BLOG about it?

You should go and learn about it so that if you decide you want to provide comprehensive women's health care services, you know how.

yowch

abortion never tasted this good
http://www.tinymuse.org/~mint/fastfood/papaya.gif

How was that a "yowch"?

Wasn't meant to be zingish.

oh sorry, i thought it was a zing :( but yeah, you are correct, I should go! am reading that article now, btw

hey GBX when does the medical community consider embryo/fetus a person? i mean is there a point your average dr considers "too late"?

too late for the abort, of course

I recalled the article when it was posted a while ago; it seemed relatively well-balanced and. . .

OK I bring the baggage of working in a lab with a very talented med student who chose the OBG-YN path but was all "no, I'm Catholic and there is no way I'd condone abortions." This was really bothersome to me--I really feel that particularly as a women's health provider, you are ethically obligated to provide at least a neutral opinion on abortion; even if you do not do abortions yourself, ethically you are obligated to advise a women of her options and make the appropriate referals according to her choice.

Obv. this is a debatable stance.

That question is decided by each state, sunny. Usually in the low-20s (weeks).
xpost

wow that seems late. is that to account for birth defects found at 20 wk ultrasound or also for people who decide they dont want a baby? or is that not an issue?

Quincie I agree with you 100%.

SS - in MA for instance it's legal up until 24 weeks for any reason but only after 24 weeks if the mother's life is in danger.

Ugh I know of women--girls, really--who don't even understand that they are pregnant at 24 weeks???

Limits are imposed based on how each state defines "viability", or when a fetus could survive outside the womb. Exceptions for health of the mother are in place to allow for abortion even past those limits.

I, too, agree with you, quincie. I will not allow myself to get started on that topic...

x-post Yeah, I've seen that happen. It happens more frequently then you'd think esp with young girls.

There are so many situations that can make a woman seek an abortion that late. I one woman who was married but in an abusive relationship. She hadn't known she was pregnant until around 3 mo and then it took her a couple weeks to decide that she had to terminate. She then had several these complications with medical clearance due to a heart condition and rescheduling so that she just made it in at 23 weeks by which point she had to undergo a saline abortion which is really intense procedure.

q: When does human life begin?

a: What is the smallest number of grains that can constitute a heap?

(Inconveniently, the insolent physical world refuses to reconstitute itself to conform to our words for it.)

one of the most depressing things in the most recent abortion debate in britain was the way the time period was floated as an entirely subjective, moral, flexible measure; while there should obviously be debate that looks for an appropriate measure between one week being o k and fifty weeks not being o k, there are still fundamental, natural stages that should dictate the limits. the brain of a foetus is not fully developed at twenty weeks, and will not continue to develop outside of the womb, and so viability becomes this skewed measure of potential life trumping quality of life. it seems kind of low key to concentrate on the small variations between states and their time limits, but a consensus drop towards the low 20s would be pretty disasterous i think.

the girls not knowing they're pregnant thing is complicated too - young girls who don't present, people who don't or aren't in a fit state to acknowledge the pregnancy, people who for whatever reasons (relationship, economic) wouldn't have access to a doctor until closer to the time limit - i know it veers close to the grey areas the article talks about, but targeting the tiny group of late term abortions as a way of decreasing the number as a whole really hits some of the people most in need of abortions the hardest.

xp enbb - right. the stats on the number of abortions that happen in this period - it's miniscule, but it'll really disenfranchise sections of society desperately in need of such services

Schlump, what you said there is exactly what I would have tried to say had I not been exhausted and about to go to bed when I last posted. It is also the reason that I'm 100% pro choice for any reason at any time. Thank you.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/abortiondifficult.jpg

As evidenced in my previous posts on this thread this is a very serious issue to me and quite frankly Omar I'm offended by that.

sorry :(

Actually I'm not, it's awesome.

So is this ad for Baby Safe Haven brought to you by the people of my glorious state.

whew~

i will refrain from reposting the five second films pregnant woman clip though

lol @ "if you have a baby and don't know what to do"

man that rap gets downright mf doom in the middle

The Baby Safe Haven clip is one of my fav things ever. The fist time I saw it on TV my jaw just dropped. I knew that the program existed but I couldn't believe the ad wasn't a parody.

is it intentional that the baby is not seen? like was there research that if they showed the baby it would make people feel like that baby shouldn't be given up?

I think it's probably more because given the $5 budget they probably had they couldn't hire a real babby and people wouldn't feel so bad about whatever doll that girl is holding being given up.

ok i will repost it

It is a difficult issue. I've never understood why the sides are necessarily alligned as they are: That is, Democrats consider themselves champions of the powerless, which could be the basis for a pro-life position, and Republicans consider themselves defenders of liberty against government intrusion, which could be the basis for a pro-choice position.

Anyway, I'm pro-choice, but conflicted about it. I like the old Clinton line about keeping abortion "Safe, Legal and Rare."

No to take away from D Esq. serious post but

xpost omg hahahahahahahaha @ that video

i definitely understand how non-asshole, non-bible beaters can be conflicted on this issue but at the end of the day, (1) legal = safer, and (2) none of my business, so...

what really grinds my gears is that if the religious right were reaaally that concerned about reducing abortions, they'd maybe get behind proper sex education and making contraception readily accessible. but they don't, which makes me think it's not really about their concern for the unborn and maybe more about political litmus tests, sexism and discrimination. and so maybe FUCK them.

(1) legal = safer

i'm pro-choice in a lot of ways, with (2) - constitutional right to privacy way behind a lot of other good reasons, but sometimes i think it starts and ends with (1); that old line about the time for an abortion debate being when abortion is readily and safely available. abortion is an option and is going to happen, so government should accommodate this and act accordingly. actually rolling back the existing laws - which i know is perpetually in the balance, but apparently at the moment 51% of usa is pro life - would be retrograde in so many ways beyond controlling whether or not women have reproductive rights or not.

re: daniel - i know that it's been polarised since forever in the states, but i think the entrenched democratic/pro-choice, republican/pro-life split has been reinforced by the rise of the religious right; there's a way more logical pairing between beliefs and policy there.

Without the proper legal training but with some knowledge of the Supreme Court battles since Griswold vs Connecticut, I'm very curious about the line of reasoning that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, among others, follow: finding a right to abortion amid the right to privacy was a poor decision, and came too soon, at a time when state legislatures were about to allow abortions anyway. Thoughts?

(in other words, I'm open to the argument that justices like William O. Douglas went too far in pursuing a results-oriented jurisprudence)