President Obama, bless his heart, is under the impression that it’s possible for pro-choicers to reach “common ground” with anti-choicers on abortion. Alas, he is wrong. He’s wrong because the pro-choice position IS common ground: The pro-choice movement supports family planning, contraception, adoption and sex-education in addition to legal abortion. The anti-choice movement supports outlawing abortion. That’s it. And Democrats For Life of America just removed U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan from its advisory board – because he wanted to promote contraceptive use to reduce unplanned pregnancies.
“I can’t figure out for the life of me how to stop pregnancies without contraception. Don’t be mad at me for wanting to solve the problem,” Ryan explained.
Oh my god. Sometimes I think I should just stop reading about anti-choicers because MY BRAIN JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. Sorry for the allcaps.
I like to think that on the whole I am a tolerant, thoughtful person, I try to see things from other perspectives, but I just do not understand how anyone can take an anti-choice position. I just don’t get it at all.
I’d never even heard of Tim Ryan before, but upon reading about him, my first response was, “Oh, so that’s what a principled and reasonable pro-lifer looks like.”
I mean, he’s still wrong about abortion, but at least he sounds sane.
Sarah, you are so right. There is no talking to or reasoning with these people. They are fetus fanatics, moral Luddites and woman-haters to their cores. Statements like Obama’s makes us sound like two reasonable sides of an argument. That’s a lie and he knows it.
Man up, Obama, and tell them that women’s health is not debatable.
Around and around and around we go, eh? Un-freaking-believable. How on earth do they expect to reduce unplanned pregnancies without contraception? Forced sterilization? Isolating men from women from now till the end of time?
The anti-choice movement is deluded to the point of self-defeatism.
There is no common ground possible between those who think women are human and therefore entitled to human rights and civil rights and those who consider women a human resource.
Human rights, civil rights, you either got ‘em or you don’t.
@afteriris: I know what you mean. The reproductive rights debate is one of the very few places where my tolerance and understanding just breaks down. I can’t even speak to anti-choice people, because their position is so unethical and logically untenable that I can’t contain my contempt.
@thebewilderness: That is really beautiful. I’m filing that away for future use.
I’ll never understand why anti-choice people, who frequently subscribe to a faith that says it’s a (married) woman’s DUTY to bear children, paint pro-choicers as extremists.
I am pro-life. In my opinion, abortion is never the answer. I also believe, we as a society, have failed to fully inform and educate several generations regarding the basic mechanics of sex. There are still women out there (some with excellent college educations) who believe they can’t get pregnant if (1)they’re breastfeeding,(2)they didn’t have an orgasm,(3)they just had their period or any number of other “old wives tales” or lies told by men.
THE ONLY 100% EFFECTIVE METHOD OF PREVENTING CONCEPTION IS ABSTINENCE.
Even women on the pill get pregnant because they failed to ask, and their doctors failed to advise, that certain medications interfere with the effectiveness of oral contraceptives.
Most of the money from any legislation should go towards education and information. Ads should appear in magazines, public service announcements should be on radio and television and every form of contraception should include an impossible to miss disclaimer stating that it may fail. No one can make an informed decision without the information.
It is my sincere hope that when more people know the facts and take them to heart, fewer unwanted pregnancies will occur and fewer unborn babies will die because their parents were uninformed, irresponsible, lazy or just plain stupid.
You know that old Puritan maxim:
“If it’s not a duty, it’s a sin.”
Jennie Crain, I like how you just implied that every woman who gets an abortion did so because she was “uninformed, irresponsible, lazy, or just plain stupid.” Very indicative of how your side of the debate thinks.
“Very indicative of how your side of the debate thinks.”
Indeed. My mother has a master’s degree, and she got pregnant with a tubal ligation(performed correctly) Not to say that that particular situation happens all the time, but that brains, education, and properly working birth control aren’t such an antidote to the problem of unwanted pregnancy that they could substitute for legal and accessible abortion.
My mother had also been abstinent until marriage. She had her abortion after, as do a great many married women, or have I misunderstood and are we supposed to be abstinent for life?
I didn’t say ALL were lazy, uninformed or stupid, but too many are. Education along with a dose of reality and responsibility would save many women from the trauma and heartbreak of abortion.
Yes, reliably used methods of conception prevention sometimes fail, but that is the exception.
It’s important to focus on the primary causes of unwanted pregnancies and do all we can to eliminate them, not the innocent lives they create.