Dream
Well-Known Member
Well, yeah. We men need our cures. I'm giving out Stop Female Disagreement pins. Here, let me pin one one you....SFD...there. Now you're one of us! Simon says "jump up and down."
Abortion
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seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
{Insert irreverent Mother-in-law joke here.}
I've never really heard it put that way before. Good post, Dream! I'd give you some positive rep, but I'm all done repped out.
Janz
What's Amatta U
Exactly, Dream. Motherhood does need to be respected and that choice of becoming a mother needs to be supported by all our society. To me, Feminism is about choices..real choices and we need to respect whatever choice a woman makes in a non-judgmental way. I have seen life from both sides now; from win and lose and still somehow, its life's illusions I recall: I really don't know life at all. (Thanks to Joni Mitchell, who will always be my song writing, artist alter ego).
Making abortion illegal, will NOT decrease the demand for it.
I firmly believe that one should put feet to their protests and one of the ways of doing that is through philanthropic organizations such as Catholics for Choice and crisis pregnancy centers like the Real Choices Pregnancy Care Centers that are located across the United States.
Catholics for Choice (CFC) was founded in 1973 to serve as a voice for Catholics who believe that the Catholic tradition supports a woman’s moral and legal right to follow her conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health.
At Catholics for Choice, We Imagine a World:
*Where all women and men are trusted to make moral decisions about their lives.
*Where the decision to start a family is thoughtful and planned.
*Where policy makers and advocates are free to support policies that create a more just and compassionate society.
*Where life-saving health interventions aren't blocked by sectarian interests.
*Where abortion is safe, legal and truly accessible, and both contraception and child care are available and affordable.
For more see: Catholics for Choice | Topics & Issues
The following is the mission of one of the Centers located in Colorado. I am sharing this FYI, not as a recruiting or promotional tool.
"The mission of Real Choices Pregnancy Care Center is "to minister and provide Real Choices before, during and after unexpected pregnancies." We are a Christian, non-profit, non-political organization that helps clients find constructive alternatives to abortion. Real Choices Pregnancy Care Center delivers all of its services and programs in a caring, non-judgmental, non-discriminatory manner.
To me what is most important of all is supporting single Moms during pregnancy and after the baby is born!!
"Real Choices Pregnancy Care Center offers peer support and practical help for single, pregnant women of all ages. We will do whatever we can to help you. Real Choices Pregnancy Care Center will try to assist you in finding shelter, food and transportation. If you are a student, we will help you stay in school. If you are a college student, we can also assist you in obtaining student housing, loans and grants. We work with other community organizations to meet the various needs of single, pregnant women. Real Choices Pregnancy Care Center has mentors, or "trusted friends," who will be there for you during this delicate time. We offer Expectations!, a peer group where single, pregnant women can lend support to each other. Expectations! also provides education about pertinent issues including legal matters, available financial resources and childbirth education."
"Real Choices Pregnancy Care Center offers support and practical help for single women, of all ages, who are new moms. Our Center can assist you in finding shelter, food, baby clothing and baby items. We work with other community organizations to meet the various needs of single women who are new moms. Real Choices Pregnancy Care Center has mentors that will serve as a resource and a trusted friend, who will support you in your new role as a parent. We offer our M.O.M.S. support group for single women and their babies. M.O.M.S. provides support, encouragement, educational resources on parenting, and opportunities to socialize and participate in a variety of activities. Free childcare is provided."
Until we can address the issues behind why women choose abortion(and then do something to help), making it illegal is an exercise in futility and accusing women who have abortions of being murderers is NOT helpful. I suggest that reading the book Real Choices; Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion by Frederica Matthewes-Green is a good place to start. Warning: Matthewes-Green is a passionate and compassionate follower of Jesus Christ.
PS Thumbs up or rep up for you, Dream.
Faithfulservant
Well-Known Member
My best friend while growing up at the age of 14 got pregnant. She had an abortion and if you ask her what her biggest regret to date would be she would say that was it. It had more than just the emotional and psychological damage.. it damaged her internally. She had numerous miscarriages and it was a miracle that she ended up with two children. She had to have a hysterectomy at the age of 34 because her uterus was so scarred up. My heart ached for her so many times. She cannot forgive herself and has a birthday every year.. she has named what she thinks would have been a daughter and she would have been 22 this fall.
Dream
Well-Known Member
My mom used to have a dream about each child. Once she had a dream about a child that she miscarried, and she has always felt since that there was a child missing from her life. She has had 5 children. That miscarried one would have been the third and would have made 6 the total number.
Funny, my mother did the same thing, for the two she lost. That would have made us seven.
citizenzen
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Do you think that this would never happen if we forced women to carry they babies and give them up for adoption? I'm sure that there would still be regrets, still be heart ache, still be birthdays for children they never raised.
It would be compounded by the likelihood that it would be more common for children to be raised their whole childhood in orphanages. I don't have the exact numbers, but there were over 800,000 abortions last year and only 120,000 adoptions. Where would happen to this flood of orphans?
How much heartache will be felt by women who wonder if that 22 year old they see on the street could be their son or daughter? Psychological damage won't magically disappear if we force women to bring their babies to term.
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
I dreamed about my son during the year before he was conceived. (I even bought a book called Baby Dreams of Childless Women, as the dreams were so persistent.) Needless to say, I was extra careful with my contraception during that time. My ex and I still can't figure out how our son managed to be conceived, with how careful we were. 
(That's what prompted me to go through the statistical data for contraceptive effectiveness over a woman's reproductive lifetime, rather than just considering the "per year" statistics the makers of the contraception advertise.)
(That's what prompted me to go through the statistical data for contraceptive effectiveness over a woman's reproductive lifetime, rather than just considering the "per year" statistics the makers of the contraception advertise.)
citizenzen
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greymare
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hmmm, perahps these orphans might get , gee, i dont know, ADOPTED. Oh yes, cz, because we all know what hapens to orphans, !!!!! waht, they become people who live on the street?!!!
you know what? Some do, I suppose, some dont, some go on the have lives !!! yeah, think about!! Crazy Idea, i know!!!! A persons conception, may or may not go own to haunt them for the rest of their lives!!! Incredible!!!!
With your example you used above.... Alot happens between conception and then when that child grows up and is ..22. But are you saying that because this child was an unwanted pregnancy that they would have been better off aborted?? What about the 9 months gestation, the following 22 years, that had nothing to do with them being on the street? Come on, CZ, get real!!!
you know what? Some do, I suppose, some dont, some go on the have lives !!! yeah, think about!! Crazy Idea, i know!!!! A persons conception, may or may not go own to haunt them for the rest of their lives!!! Incredible!!!!
With your example you used above.... Alot happens between conception and then when that child grows up and is ..22. But are you saying that because this child was an unwanted pregnancy that they would have been better off aborted?? What about the 9 months gestation, the following 22 years, that had nothing to do with them being on the street? Come on, CZ, get real!!!
citizenzen
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A little something I found about the psychological damage to mothers who give their babies up for adoption...
Unresolvable Grief: The Damage to Mothers
Women who have surrendered children to adoption most often have great difficulties in getting on with their lives and endure a vast array of psychological problems stemming from the separation such as: unresolvable grief, relationship difficulties, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, secondary infertility.
"Few [exiled mothers] had sufficient contact with the child at birth or received sufficient information to enable them to construct an image of what they had lost. Masterson (1976) has demonstrated that mourning cannot proceed without a clear mental picture of what has been lost." - "Psychological Disability in Women who Relinquish a Baby for Adoption," by Dr. John T. Condon (Medical Journal of Australia, vol 144, Feb/86)
Women who have surrendered children to adoption most often have great difficulties in getting on with their lives and endure a vast array of psychological problems stemming from the separation such as: unresolvable grief, relationship difficulties, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, secondary infertility.
"Few [exiled mothers] had sufficient contact with the child at birth or received sufficient information to enable them to construct an image of what they had lost. Masterson (1976) has demonstrated that mourning cannot proceed without a clear mental picture of what has been lost." - "Psychological Disability in Women who Relinquish a Baby for Adoption," by Dr. John T. Condon (Medical Journal of Australia, vol 144, Feb/86)
citizenzen
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By who? We currently adopt out around 120,000 a year. Increase the supply by 850,000 thousand. Where do they all go? Believe me, I'm trying to be real here.
greymare
Well-Known Member
This is true, it would be very difficult to give a child up for adoption. It would be a very traumatic time for the mother. however, this is completely different from abortion. The child is getting a chance and perhaps the best chance it can ever get. I dont know about the "old times" , or the conditions of orphanages, i was too young to remember. but i will say this, my life turned out alright, thank you mother.
greymare
Well-Known Member
because, cz, there are people out there who want to have kids, believe it or not.!!! Not just your 2.5 kids with the 4 bedroom house etc, I mean, loveing families, that would love for as many kids as they could. Not psycho weirdoes, either, in case you were thinking that. in my small town, i know its in Oz, but just let me use it as an example, In my small work place, there are 3 families, (ie, husband and wife) that have been trying for years for children, are lovely people, would make the best parents ever.... but due to medical reasons, cannot conceive or carry, etc.. CZ there are millions of peple out there who regard children, all chidlren as wanted and loved.
As far as the circumstances go, on the conception, I dont have the answers....sex ed at school doesnt seem to be working.,, but its not only the teens doing this, its working professionals too, and i dont want anyone charged with murder, i just want the murder to stop. all chidren are wanted and loved, i dotn think that is too much to ask.
As far as the circumstances go, on the conception, I dont have the answers....sex ed at school doesnt seem to be working.,, but its not only the teens doing this, its working professionals too, and i dont want anyone charged with murder, i just want the murder to stop. all chidren are wanted and loved, i dotn think that is too much to ask.
Heh, well, there's still no cure for baldness, and while breast screening programs have been heavily promoted there is still rare mention of prostate cancer, despite the fact that it remains one of the commonest and most deadly cancers*.
I think the adoption issue is over sold - as is the notion that sometimes we really aren't ready for a child. I don;t think anybody really ever feels ready, and the idea that we can magically determine our age and time that we start a family is a complete fallacy. Some people I think may feel they would need to set up their child for adoption, but find nearer the time it just isn't an option.
Of my three kids, only 1 was planned - the first and last were a surprise**. With the first, I didn't even think abortion was an option - while still pretty liberal on the issue then, I knew it would have been devastating to my partner to try and push the issue, and it just didn't feel right to go that road.
By the time of expecting the third, being long-term unemployed and living in a run down and unhealthy property, the rising stress made me physically ill. Now I'm financially sound, the kids are well looked after and loved - it's amazing how circumstances can change.
I think we need to realise that becoming a parent is commonly unplanned, and no matter how unprepared we may feel about it, that's all a very natural part of being a parent.
* Or so I'm given the impression - 2c.
** From the Roseanne Barr Show:
DJ: Was I an accident?
Roseanne: No DJ, you were a surprise.
DJ: What's the difference?
Roseanne: Well, an accident is something that you wouldn't do over again if you had the chance, but a surprise is something you didn't even know you wanted until you got it.
DJ: Oh. Was Darlene an accident?
Dan: No, Darlene was a disaster!
nativeastral
fluffy future
So true, good luck to surrogate mothers; By the same token l know a couple of adopted people who have been affected long term by being 'abandoned' as a baby despite having loving parents and who now have problems with present relationships due to this early experience [these are folk who have not met their biological parents]. Difficult issues and one cannot generalise and make blanket statements/laws.
greymare
Well-Known Member
ah, yes , there are those issues. HOwever i believe that those kinds of problems arise even with people who werent adopted. Some people are just more susceptible to things like that perhaps. I mean, we all have "issues". Life complicates things, and we all get issues, we just have to deal with them. But those folks, that you know, that were adopted, i know how they are feeling... its the "what ifs".... its the "maybes"...
but i digress...
but i digress...
nativeastral
fluffy future
Yeh, l think nowadays there is more of an awareness and need for counselling in all these aspects [that used to be ministered by the priest and still are for those religious if they wish to confess] but they are not as fully developed and integrated nor financed as much as is needed in the secular sphere.. a lonely fragmented place if family/community is weak or non existent.
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Whaddaya mean, not fully integrated?
Psychologists are the secular confessional professional specialists.
nativeastral
fluffy future
hehe, here in the u.k. getting a psychologist is either extremely difficult or have a [too] long waiting list, or if private extortionate; the point l was making was folk in this situation may not want to reach out through either shame or cost or whatever, the system does not easily provide counselling, you have to push for it which is prohibitive if you are not of that ilk.