Roe v Wade has been overturned. How do you feel about that?

[JewelSong]

Wilma, you are very wise.

Excellent questions, all.

[Hachimitsu]

Oh Thanks. I had been thinking about this for a while. Also, with sex education (which includes contraception, no abstinence only programs) and relationship classes it empowers both teen boys and girls. Since sometimes guys can get tricked. (I have seen it happen). I have witnessed young teenage girls considering children as bargaining chips.

But the thing is it empowers women quite a bit it teaches them to be assertive (which is very very important, most teenage girls are not assertive). I am very concerned that when groups don't want to teach sex education it's because they don't want to empower women and want to do the thinking for them. I know that sounds mean. Maybe they just don't realize that it is a dangerous side effect of not teaching sex education.

I will say myself when I have kids I will have to get over being embarrassed and say the official names of parts. Right now I am just as embarrased as that gym teacher ( who was a guy by the way. He could say the official names for the male parts ).

[Sassafras]

Good post, Wilma.

All good questions and all questions which have been asked many times before, by several people in this thread and by most of the pro-choice movement.

I never seem to hear a legitimate answer from those opposing abortion.

Why is that?

[sauronsfinger]

They have official names???

[Padme]

SF

You should know.

As for teaching my kids, it is embarassing to no end, but I would rather my daughter or son come to me telling me they need birth control than have them have an unwanted pregnancy.

The bigget issue I have with Roe V Wade being overturned is what happens to all those children that no one wants? So having them thrown away into a dumpster after birth is a better solution? Having them handed over to the state for 18 years is better? Its the thing that really makes me mad at the GOP, they continue to say no abortion, but give no solution to what happens to those children after they are born.

[Alatar]

I did raise this question earlier, but nobody responded. European childless couples would be only too delighted to adopt your kids, of all races.

[vison]

I did raise this question earlier, but nobody responded. European childless couples would be only too delighted to adopt your kids, of all races.

Alatar, adoption is not the answer. Is it really that simple for you? That a woman, denied abortion, will carry her pregnancy to term and then give the baby away?

Adoption, while it is a good thing for some people some time, has a whole set of problems of its own. Particularly when adoptions involve children from different ethic or cultural groups than the mainstream. I know whereof I speak.

The answer is not that simple. Nothing is that simple.

By the way, how many children in Ireland are "in care"? Caught up in Social Services or whatever you call it there. "Wards of the State". Not lovely blue-eyed infants, but, say, kids from "problem" homes, handicapped kids, "mixed-race" kids. Teenagers? Kids seized from abusive homes? "Acting out" kids?

All in desperate need of loving homes. How many? One? Two? Thousands?

[Ethel]

I did raise this question earlier, but nobody responded. European childless couples would be only too delighted to adopt your kids, of all races.

Childless American couples too, especially if the babies are fair-skinned. But here's the trouble. Back in the days when pregnant girls were sent to "homes" and their babies were taken from them forcibly before they were even allowed to hold them (see vison's testimony), there were plenty of babies available for adoption. Outlawing abortion won't have that effect though. Mores have changed, and the law has changed. There would be more babies available for adoption, I'm sure, but nowhere near enough to meet demand. That's because all those homones that wash through a pregnant woman's body, and all the discomfort, sacrifice and pain associated with pregnancy, leave girls unwilling to give up their babies - even if they have promised to do so. And the laws are all on the side of the biological mother now.

There's something else at work, too - something I don't really understand, to be honest. There seems to be a cultural pressure on even penniless young unwed mothers to keep their babies. I knew a girl in college who had borne a child while still in high school. She had intended to keep the baby, but it died. So she told everyone. Well, one night when she was very drunk she "confessed" to me that, in fact, her baby had been adopted. In other words, she had done the courageous and sensible thing. But she was ashamed to admit it.

The fact that many young women unable to get abortions will choose to keep their babies will not change their circumstances though. It will not make them good mothers or capable providers. It will not cure their drug addictions or other self-destructive behavior. Some will manage, but a lot won't. Many of those children will end up in the limbo of foster care, with a mother unable to care for them but unwilling to relinquish them. The fate of such children is not good.

[anthriel]

To address a point earlier in the thread (from Jnyusa, I think):

ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Fascinating theory. Love it. It's one of the things that will always stick in my mind, just because it was such an interesting topic in our high school class. It is TOO cool.

Also: E. coli is not a parasite in the bowel. The presence of enteric bacteria in the bowel is definitely one of the most clearly symbiotic relationships human beings will ever experience with non-humans. It's downright magical. You should be thanking your bowel flora, on a daily basis. You'd be hating life, without them. Trust me on this one.


~Anthy, ever-vigilant Thread Science Geek, signing out for now.

[Sassafras]

Thanks Anthy!

I was looking for that theory earlier but couldn't remember the name

Well, in my defense, school WAS a very long time ago.

[anthriel]

<preens>

I'll bet you knew about the E.coli, too.


[/derail]

[halplm]

Well, I did, Anthy, but coming from you it sounds much better

[Hachimitsu]

Ethel makes a very good point of those children in limbo.

Also, what about older children up for adoption? Most people want babies. Also, would European couples come to the US to adopt? (This is US law we are discussing here). Also, sadly black male babies ( in the US) are the ones that usually do not end up adopted I don;t even want to imagine what happens to them. I remember 60 Minutes had done a story on a US adoption agency which markets to Vancouver couples (Canada) since they are one of the few groups that will adopt black male babies in North America. ( This may seem strange almost like farming them out, but at least the agency has done it's job and found them a home.) Also, from what I have learned from a B77er on international adoption it is not all it's cracked up to be. Rather then being welcome for trying to help a disadvantaged society the potential parents are made to feel guilty. Adoption isn't the only answer (Although I wish it was).

There are people who don't want to even go through the process of pregnancy. What about those people?

There has to be options post birth other then adoption since as Ethel pointed out there will be people who want to keep the baby but realistically have no means to raise a child. There has to be real support of these people and societal change.

Saving the unborn has to be about saving them once they are born too. Without that, those children are lost.

[Cerin]

The zeal to protect the defenseless seems to wane exponentially once they're out of the womb. I think it's quite a remarkable phenomenon.

[anthriel]

I think that's going a bit too far, Cerin.

I know many good people who give an awful lot of time, money and energy for programs for unwed mothers and foster children, including people who are very much against abortion.


Many people are led to help the defenseless, not only the ones on the "correct" side of a particular argument.

[sauronsfinger]

Cerin has a point. It does seem at times like the right to life lobby cares much more about a baby while it is inside the mother than what happens to it once it is born.

[anthriel]

My statement stands.

[Hachimitsu]

I would agree with Cerins statement as far as it goes to government ideology and some religious groups. But there are many individuals who are against abortion and sex education who do make a great deal of effort to help the disadvantaged.

[Jnyusa]

I raised that same question on TORC once, asking those who favored government interference in procreative decisions what measures they take to assist families post-birth, and quite a few posters spoke of the extent to which their churches provide continued assistance to young women who decide against abortion and keep their babies. It was gratifying to see how many folks and institutions did make this connection and put their time and money where their mouth is.

It is in the political arena that the connection does not get made.

Jn

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You raise an excellent point, Jn. It is dangerous to rely too much on the statements and conduct of the most vocal and visable representatives of any defined group of people, because the very qualities that make those people the most vocal and visable representatives of the group are often liable to be the same qualities that make these people poor representatives of the group. And yet it is naturally based on the statements and conduct of these most vocal and visible representatives of the group that people not a part of the group are going to judge the group.

That goes for groups on all points of the political spectrum.