abortion

Is McCain-speak for overturning Roe V. Wade.

Culture of life? Is it a culture of life to continue a war that was started on false intelligence?

Or to cut funding for a center that helped teenage moms like his VP did?

Or make women pay for their own rape kits?

Or follow the direction that other countries without abortion have and make it so difficult for women to get abortions that even when medically needed doctors refuse to perform abortions for fear they will be fined or jailed?

What is so scary about McCain is that he could care less about human life. He admitted in a 1997 interview with 60 minutes to killing innocent women and children in Vietnam, to being a war criminal. More then a decade later he is now calling himself a war-hero to win an election.

I'm not the type of person to read the paper. I prefer my media to come filtered through the liberal lens of feministing, NPR or google. However I got into the habit of reading the local paper after one of my co-workers kept leaving it on the breakroom table. Of course I was drawn to the opinion section.

If negative stuff about Obama written by locals did not bother me enough I just had to read the opinion of a conservative nut job Cal Thomas. The first article I read was how Democrats are pushing away "faith voters". Voters of course who are of the Catholic faith and are also pro-life.

I saw the documentary Jesus Camp on A&E last night. This part really got to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mefXbLXlRpw

Later in the film the children stand in front of the capital with the word "Life" taped over their mouths.

I'm not against children being in political rallies or being involved in political action. If my daughter asked me at young age what abortion was I would explain it to her. This kind of propaganda is dangerous. The way in which the woman says "don't be a promise breaker" is scary. Such a small sentence, but it could have a huge impact for the girls that are in that room and then young boys that are "warriors for Jesus".

Today is national Blog for Choice Day.

I did not sign up because I was not sure whether I'd have the time, but I think it's really pretty important to get the word out anyway. The topic this time around is: Why is it important to vote pro-choice?

Here's why I think voting pro-choice is important: We're all going to be faced with tough choices at some point in our lives, and with a lot of those choices, we can never know how we'll react until it happens to us. It's easy to judge, and it's easy to rationalize and theorize, but ultimately all of that means very little when the situation arises. And when we're in those situations, it's always best to have as many options as possible, and to have information about all of them, and to then be able to make the decision that is best for us at the time.

Last week at work I was faced with a big decision. A Woman, who we know well at work, who is also quite pregnant right now, came into the bar. She had obviously been drinking and she ordered some more drinks for herself and her friends who were with her from my boss.

First of all, I was pretty shocked that my boss, who has 3 children, served her the alcohol, but also that the friends who she was there with were encouraging her to drink when she is pregnant. So when she went to sit down at a table, I asked my boss what we can do about that, and why he served her when it is harming the child inside of her. He said that there is nothing we can do about it because it is her decision and we are not allowed to get involved in it.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-380.pdf

Today the Supreme Court of the US in a 5-4 ruling upheld the ban on partial birth abortion, despite the lack of a provision that allowed for the life of the mother to override the ban. It's being greeted by anger or elation, depending on your affiliation, and is seen as another step on the slippery slope of abortion rights in the United States.

What do you all think about it? (If you don't want to read the whole thing, the dissent at the bottom by Ginsberg is definitely worth reading.)

To add to Brooke's recent post about how cheap (and moral) being pro-choice is, it's also very expensive to be pro-life in this world. You see, I frequent a message board and group on Facebook called Support A Woman's Right To Choose, which is probably the biggest pro-choice group on the site, with over 90,000 members and counting.

While we often cite science or statistics from sources such as the Guttmacher Institute, today Trevor Sorenson created his own approximations on how much criminalizing abortion as murder would cost. Surprise! It doesn't exactly fit into the Republican party line, which seems to think that being pro-life and lowering taxes is within any realm of possibility.

A couple of years ago, if you had asked me how I feel about abortion I would have called myself a fence sitter. Today, on the day before the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, I find myself sitting to write down three articles in defense of it. I am pro-choice, let me tell you why.

I am pro-choice because I am a feminist, and I truly believe that women cannot achieve the same status as men in our society until we have full control over our own bodies. In the many countries across the world where this has been acknowledged, abortion is legal. Here in the United States a woman’s right to choose is under constant attack, and all over the world women are forced to undergo illegal abortions because their nation has refused to recognize or protect their rights.

Via Feministe:

Vanessa at Plucky Punk , inspired by Biting Beaver’s story, has come up with an action plan:

If you’re not already well versed in the travesty that happened to Biting Beaver, click here to read her story and here to read the consequences.

Long story short: an adult woman with several children in a committed relationship was not able to obtain emergency contraception in time (due to some serious backwards actions on the part of several doctors and nurses) and became pregnant against her will. Now she must pay for an abortion she really can’t afford.

Last weekend was one of the best weekends I have had in a while. Ever since I was a teenager I had fallen in love with Japanese rock music. I liked this band called Glay a lot, and my Japanese teacher gave me a CD by the band Larc-en-ciel. It always makes me remember her so fondly now. I think one of my long time favorites as far as Jrock goes would have to be the band Dir en Grey. They are beautifull men rocking out on thier guitars with thier drag like costumes and makeup. Thier look has changed a lot over the years, they almost look normal now...

Well, when I heard earlier this year that they were touring with Korn in the family values tour I bought the best tickets I could find, took time off of work, and set up for a mini vacation.

We, as AGA bloggers and by virtue of our age, have never lived in a country without Griswold and the right to access to birth control. We've never lived without Roe and the right to choose abortion. And it's easy to forget that not so very long ago these rights were greatly restricted or withheld altogether. We must remember the work of our foremothers; and the times when we forget, there is one group of women who never fail to remind me.

Before the Feminist Majority Foundation, Before NARAL Pro-Choice America, before NOW--

Heather Booth made her first referral.

There are very, very few things that make my blood rise to temperatures above 100 degrees, my face turn rosey and steam come out of my ears, but a while ago I found one. This was written by an old friend of mine from High School. When I knew her, she was an outspoken, left-wing, debate extraordinaire and she was one of my closest friends. I’m not entirely sure what prompted such a 180 in her personal agenda. A lot of my close friends have different values than me, but I’ve never felt directly attacked by them, like I was when she posted this in her blog:

“Feminists For Life

If you were a feminist, you wouldnt be suggesting that the way for a woman to assert herself is to hop on a table and allow an (unnecessary) invasive surgical procedure to violate the sanctity of her body in order to have larger instrumental value to society.

I’m generally a peaceful person. Not much gets me angry enough to cartoonishly steam at the ears, and I hate putting people down. But a good friend and I were just chatting pro-choice, and he clued me into this sorry excuse of a website: www.dr-tiller.com

In the past 30 minutes, the time that it has taken me to traverse this website...I have been pissed the hell off. A while back, I went to a Roe anniversary at Bookwoman. They played a documentary of women’s abortion stories, and it briefly mentioned a secret society which would gather women’s information and alert their parents/relatives of their decision, by mail. I’m familiar with pro-life tactics. The same good friend that I was chatting with is an escort for a North Texas Planned Parenthood location, and along with his insight, I’ve tried to keep myself up to date. So yeah, I’m familiar with their tactics – bombing clinics, cold blooded murder, stalking, exploiting pictures of partial-birth aborted fetuses for the shock value, blatantly distorting facts in their favor, slandering good names, flyering Doctor’s neighborhoods, Flying banners of aborted fetuses above and around towns, and websites like this.

I believe its hard to take a stance against something you have never been though. Its easy to be pro-war when you have never been a soldier or an enemy in a global conflict. Its easy to sit in our homes and say "I think this, or I think that" having never experienced what it is like to be that thing or be in that situation. Its human nature to make judgements based on little if any knowledge, but as Descartes said 400 years ago, while judgement is infinite, knowledge is finite...meaning while we can judge everything we can know very little about anything or any given situation.He also believed we cannot know anything that we have not directly observed or experienced.