Do I Look Like a Baby Killer?
This morning I went to Planned Parenthood. I go every three months to pick up my birth control pills and again in August just before my birthday for my annual pelvic exam.
My usual concerns when going to Planned Parenthood are:
A) Where am I going to park? Parking in Center City is never easy.
B) How long is this going to take? The folks at the Locust Street branch are always friendly and seem pretty efficient but if you don’t have an appointment, you can find yourself sitting in the lobby long enough to watch an entire Tyler Perry film.
I’m never worried about getting stopped by protestors because let’s face it: this is 2013. This is Philadelphia. We’re not like that here.
Plus, my visit to Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion, which makes sense because 90% of the services offered by Planned Parenthood have to do with preventive, primary care. Not abortions.
But that doesn’t stop the elderly, white-haired man on the sidewalk from accosting me.
“Would you like some information?” he asks. “Some options?”
Although he doesn’t use the “a” word, the message is clear. I’m a young woman of child bearing age. If I’m going in to Planned Parenthood, I’m obviously irresponsible, pregnant, and too ignorant to be trusted with making my own decisions about my body.
I’m too shocked to say anything other than, “No thank you.” Only then, as I hurry past, do I notice the young woman in an orange vest standing a few feet further down the sidewalk. The vest says, “Planned Parenthood Escort.”
I’ve read about the escorts before—I saw a notice in my Meeting’s newsletter about a training session for new escorts to volunteer at a clinic in New Jersey—but I never thought I’d see an escort in Philadelphia. In my city, at my Planned Parenthood.
“Don’t let them give you anything,” the old man calls out. “Don’t take anything from in there!”
I’m so angry that I can’t even open the door properly and the security guard has to tell me how to do it. My hands are shaking as I fill out my form:
Reason for your visit? Supply Pick Up
Will you be using insurance? No
Do you have insurance? No
I take my seat in the lobby and try to think Quakerly-thoughts like the smart people at my meeting in Trenton who never seem to get angry but only have wise things to say. Maybe I can talk to that man—talk some sense into him—but then I recognize an acquaintance from the tap community across the lobby and think, before I can stop myself, “Her too?”
Part of me wants to call out “Hello!” but then I begin to wonder if she’d rather be anonymous, protected from those on the sidewalk by the thick blocks of frosted glass that serve as windows and protected from her fellow “clients” by the clipboard in front of her.
And that gets me thinking: I don’t necessarily want to be recognized either. I get in and out of the clinic as quickly as possible, and whenever I have to pick up my pills, I dodge questions about where I’m really going, especially in front of my grandparents. I’m always reminding myself that I’m a “good girl,” that I don’t “sleep around” and that I wouldn’t have to go to Planned Parenthood if I had one full-time job and the health insurance that comes with it.
As fate would have it, we get called up to the counter at the same time. There’s no avoiding “hello” now: we’re both artists, we both work a hundred different gigs to pay the bills and we’re both at Planned Parenthood. This isn’t something to hide, and yet, I still feel like it is.
The nurse hands me my pills and as per Planned Parenthood protocol, she places them into a small brown paper bag. They’re already in a protective plastic blister back, a blue plastic envelope and a foil wrapper, but they (like tampons, maxi pads and most things associated with the female reproductive system) have to be hidden.
The nurse tells me to have a good day, but there’s something different in her tone than usual. She knows the protesters are out there, and she’s warning me to prepare for battle.
I’m still trying to think of something to say to the man outside the clinic when he approaches me again, proffering a fistful of sweaty brochures printed on pastel paper. He’s holding a rosary.
“Please take one of these,” he begs. He looks so old. So unhappy. So sad and in pain and I wonder if he should even be out here on the sidewalk. I’m sure he feels like he is doing God’s work and although he isn’t rude or abusive like some of the protestors I’ve seen on TV, he’s laid a sign down on the sidewalk that says, “They kill babies here.”
“No thank you,” I tell him. And then, because I have an embarrassing habit of being polite to people even when they’re pissing me off, I add, “Have a nice afternoon.”
For a moment, I consider asking him to join me for a cup of coffee at the café just next door. After all, good Quakers don’t try to talk sense into people; they listen.
But I’m not quite good enough.
In fact, I’m thinking of the summer before last, the time I went to Planned Parenthood for my annual pelvic exam and was told that I would have to go for a transvaginal ultrasound because they found “something” on one of my ovaries and since my grandmother died of ovarian cancer, it would be best to check…
I was so scared coming out of the clinic. I couldn’t tell anyone. I had only just met my boyfriend at that point and it was my brother’s birthday so I didn’t want to ruin our family dinner with the announcement that I might or might not have cancer. I ended up wandering around the city by myself, finally stopping in at a café for an iced coffee only to discover that I had forgotten my wallet.
Those few days were the scariest days of my life. And I turned out to be just fine.
But what if it wasn’t just a cancer scare? What if it was a baby? A baby that wasn’t planned and that I couldn’t support? What if I was still a teenager? What if my parents were going to kick me out? What if I had been raped? What if I did have to make that choice?
Should I have to put up with an old man and his rosary and his signs and his wrinkled pamphlets making assumptions about me and my situation?
Part of me wants to tell him that I’m not pregnant. That I’m good person, that I pay my taxes and that I have a job. That I teach at a college, actually, and that I’m only here to pick up birth control, not to get an abortion.
But the truth is it’s none of his business. Unless of course he’s there to offer his services as a foster parent for all of the babies he’s trying “rescue,” in which case it’s still none of his business but it wouldn’t be quite so hypocritical at least.
His presence there on the sidewalk does have one effect though. Before I realize what I’m doing, I turn around and head straight for the escort.
She doesn’t look particularly tough, or brave, or even much older than some of my students.
“Thank you for being here,” I say. “Do you need more volunteers?”
Her face lights up. “Yes. We always need more help.”
I’m sick of hiding. Sick of lying to my grandparents when I’m going to pick up my pills. Sick of worrying that little kids at soccer games are going to find that tell-tale blue envelope in my purse when they start rooting around in search of chocolate. I’m sick of hurrying down the sidewalk for fear that someone might recognize me when I’m on my way into the clinic, sick of feeling embarrassed over the fact that I don’t have health insurance and that I can’t afford it.
Most of all, I’m sick of being afraid to say “hello” to an acquaintance inside the clinic simply because she might think I’m here for something “worse” than birth control pills: a pregnancy test, maybe, or an AIDS/HIV screening. And I’m sick of the way I react to seeing other women in the clinic, of wondering, “What’s wrong with them?”
There is nothing wrong. What’s wrong is the hiding—that and the fact that women’s bodies have become grounds for political debates that have nothing to do with reproductive rights or “saving babies.”
I doubt the old man on the sidewalk will ever read this, but just in case I want you to know that I don’t hate you. We have a broken system in this country—multiple broken systems, actually, with healthcare being just one of them—and I can only assume (since I didn’t have the courage to invite you for that cup of coffee) that you are out on the sidewalk because you feel it’s your duty. Your tactics aren’t working though; your tactics are convincing folks like me to volunteer for Planned Parenthood. And I didn’t stop there. I went a little crazy in the “Shop” portion of the Planned Parenthood website as well, so the next time I see you, I’ll be sporting my new PP gear with pride because I am done hiding.
Update: Thank you to the folks over at Freshly Pressed for featuring this post. If you feel moved to make a donation to Planned Parenthood as some readers have already done, you may do so here. Thank you for reading and for helping to shed some much needed light onto this important issue.
Kat Echevarría Richter 
592 Responses to “Do I Look Like a Baby Killer?”
I couldn’t agree more about the hiding and the secrets of the bodies we all have some variation of. It’s like there was a meeting of The Ancient Prudes at some point in history, and they all decided that the Magic Man in the Sky made pieces of people he was later ashamed of. So, instead of scrapping the prototypes and starting over, he whispered into a few crotchety old dudes’ ears and said, “Naughty bits are evil, do something about them…and be sure to include as much guilt as humanly possible.”
And by “The Ancient Prudes” I’m assuming you mean the Puritans. Or the Victorians 🙂 Or countless others, really.
All of the above, if they include grumpy old dudes threatened by change and nudity.
I love the blog post and quite enjoyed reading it. Your comment is wonderful. I agree there is something very wrong with the system when we one must feel the need to hide we cannot afford insurance and two feel that any medical care period is grounds for vilification. I have had insurance 2 of the last 15 years, and that does not include now. I cannot go to most doctors and many emergency care facilities. I must be treated like or feel like they think I am a vile slut if I can manage to get the time, money, and desire to go to Planned Parenthood for basic needs. As a new bride in a VERY broke home, I REALLY do not want or need kids. We couldn’t take care of them if we wanted them, which we don’t. Why is it anyone else’s business that I don’t want kids I have often wondered. And people have been at me about it for years. I would think the logical and most humanitarian choice is for a person that does not want kids, a person not fit or equipped to care for kids either permanently or temporarily to make that decision. I tried for years to have that particular issue removed and been informed I couldn’t do that, I might change my mind. I have often simply avoided having cysts I know I have looked at because I can’t afford the care and I know what I have to go through to have it done. It is wrong. We should never feel the need to hide our body, our basic needs, our medical action, or our decisions.
Agreed! And good for you: only you can know when having kids is the right choice. As far as I’m concerned, there is no humanity in having kids you can’t care for– whatever the reason may be. I’ve had this discussion with folks before, mainly extremely conservative friends of mine, and my response is that until you spend a few years working at an inner city school (like I did) and you’ve seen kids who are born addicted to crack and are bounced from one foster home to another, you really don’t have the right to impose your views on anybody else.
Everyone has the right to an opinion. No-one has the right to impose their views on anyone else. Thankfully (from my point of view), no one imposed their views on my grandmother either, and she carried her rape child to term and then gave him up for adoption. My father only met her and heard his own story two or three years ago. I have always been against abortion on logical grounds, and now I have personal grounds as well.
On the other hand, I haven’t been in the situation of being raped or becoming pregnant in other distressing circumstances. (I have been offered the option of considering abortion, when one of my children’s 19 week scans came back with some worrying signs. I declined.) I have shared a room in hospital for four weeks with a woman who had had an abortion. Knowing that about her made no difference to the way I treated her. I do not judge.
Be careful that you do not become judgmental either. Both sides of this issue have the capacity to do great evil in the name of preventing it.
Agreed. I knew one kid that had forgotten how many homes they had moved him through. He was brilliant but just never had a chance to use it or learn to deal with society. It was sad. Hearing parents say they didn’t want kids and still don’t after they have them is appalling. Why have them then? I’ts wrong and unfair.
Beyond that, why is my medical care anyone’s concern but mine. I always appreciate seeing people aware of the real world and actually thinking. I honestly do not care if I agree with everything they say, if there is a solid reason, thought, and either research or experience to back or have developed the position.
How heartbreaking it is, just how arrogant we have become to truly believe that we should say who should have died and who logically should live. We have forgotten that the act of sex is designed for procreation, and so when a baby pops up “out of the blue” and surprises us, of course we must then ‘choose’. Thus babies have become the enemy of sex. Just as we have in every other war, we dehumanize the enemy to make ourselves feel justified in our killings.
When my first love, my beautiful son, surprised me in the midst of a devastatingly dark moment of my late teens, I was, and am, forever grateful to have already seen the suffering of women who had been lied to before me. I knew that in my belly was nothing less than a beautiful baby, with a soul and a heartbeat, because why else would those women spend their lives grieving the loss of “a mass of cells & tissue”? Why would the birth of their next child be both a joyous time & a heart aching reminder of what they snuffed out years earlier?
I’m never glad for the death of a child, but I am grateful to have seen the suffering caused by the lies told by Planned Parenthood. If I hadn’t seen the truth in the faces of those mothers, I might not have given birth to one of the most beautiful souls that graces this earth today. If it weren’t for that beautiful blessing, I would never have had the courage to save my own life.
If you haven’t seen 180, well…I won’t recommend you watch it because I know you won’t. But there is one powerful clip where a group of german townsfolk take a stroll down to their local concentration camp after seeing a billow of smoke rising above it. Upon entering the – furnace?- their faces are are happy and carefree. Upon leaving, they are…in tears.
We can be told someone is not human enough times that we eventually can believe its true. But to see, firsthand, bodies burning – if you could see a baby get thrown in the trash can after having its brain sucked out, if you could see a baby have its limbs removed or be burned in acid – it would break you.
Best quote from October Baby – “I saw him lying there, shaking on the table, and I didn’t see no mass of cells, I saw the face of a child…”
To be clear, I do not believe abortion will ever be stopped. But my wish for every woman who faces what I did is that the lies and the secrecy around abortion would end. I wish for them that we might brave the truth, and speak it. I wish they could be told what their baby looks like *before* seeing him/her hauled to the trash can, because that image will haunt them forever until death do they part.
Let’s speak the truth about ‘fetal’ development, and then let who still wishes abort. Lets give women the opportunity to make informed choices, and stop allowing ourselves and teaching our daughters to become mere pawns for political gain by those who will never know the pain we might face.
A child may be killed but it doesn’t mean they never existed; they’re just dead, and a mother is still created. I am so grateful that I did not punish my “fetus” for the actions of his biological father.
I have to say, I wish I could delete my comment. Not that I don’t believe everything I said, but I don’t like arguing about this stuff anymore, and especially I don’t like putting people down & being rude. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t write on a temper i guess 😉 Carry on
I rather enjoyed your comments here. This gives me a positive note on which to leave this silly article.
Really, I should say a reasonable and reflective rather than positive note.
So, if you are going open your ignorant mouth and preach against abortion and the (difficult) private choices of others, I suppose that means you’re able and more than willing to house, clothe, feed and raise all the fetuses that other people choose not to carry to term?
No?
Then shut the hell up.
(Also, saying things like “I don’t like putting people down & being rude” while you are being incredibly insulting and rude excuses neither your ignorance nor bad behavior, it just shows that you are a “smiley” passive aggressive asshole. But still an asshole. (I’m a righteously indignant asshole and I have no problem insulting stupid people…but at least I can admit that).
dude! no man….whats wrong with you? dont attack her because her views differ from yours!
freedom of speach….freedom of reproduction? cmon dont be a wanker man!
also its people like you who probably kill foetus’? i think you were bored and didnt take your medication. naughty, now go take your meds and off to bed….go now before you spew another rant and insult yourself!
I am a licensed foster mom
I don’t like to argue about this stuff either, but I have to say that I’ve never read so beautiful, sad and true relate and point of view at the same time about such subject. You’ve opened my mind and I’m very grateful for this. Must I have to say you weren’t rude at anyway. After all say what you think on a temper may be good, because make people think. Have a nice weekend ^^.
No, don’t delete it! Thank you so much for posting it! You said what I would like to, only better. You were not rude at all, only truthful. I’d love to see the lying and deception end, too.
Wow, I love this comment. Too many people dispose of babies because its inconvenient to them. It is no surprise how babies are made so if its not a good time then don’t lay down. Thanks
Woogie, you are like all the other presumptuous idiots who assume women only have abortions as a convenient means of birthcontrol…you need to get your pinhead out of your narrow ass.
Not all of us had a choice about “laying down.” Thanks for judging!
You chose to keep your child, good for you, but dont you dare judge someone else for their decision. You have not lived in their shoes, you do not know their circumstances. Women have abortions for a number of reasons. Apparently the only one that is misinformed is you. Please educate yourself on the reasons why women have abortions.
Teresa, it’s not judgmental to say that ending the life of a child within the womb is a wrong. If that child was outside of the womb and someone sucked its brain out or cut it into pieces, it would be called murder. In the womb, where it should be most protected, abortion does end a life. I disagree with you – there are not any acceptable reasons for ending a child’s life while in the womb.
Even if you believe all that to be true, it’s judgmental to say that when do this for the sake of convenience. Women get abortions for a whole host of reasons (including to save their lives). You don’t know their individual reasons, so saying that you do is not only judgmental, it’s factually incorrect.
In my case, another pregnancy could possibly kill me. Let’s say my birth control were to fail and I found myself pregnant. Should I go through with the pregnancy,knowing it could kill me? Should I just plan on telling the child I already have that it might want to prepare to lose it’s mother in a few short months? Should I tell her “Sorry, you’re not as important as a group of cells. You don’t need a mother around and your mother’s life just isn’t all that important.”
What a great way to show my child how much I love her-by planning on not being around to watch her grow up. In other words, you think I should just tell my child to suck it up and deal with it-people lose their mothers at an early age all the time.
Aren’t you just a peach!
Teresa, abortion is never a good option. Choose life or adoption. Both are easy. Here, you can find people who will give you help –> The 40 days for life organization. contact them for more info. They never judge anyone and only want to help. I’m praying for you.
Thank you for your beautiful reply! A very good friend of mine was raped. She said she never considered an abortion. She went through Catholic Charities where they set her up (per her request) at a private home where she could go through her difficult pregnacy in privacy (away from the eyes of her small town where gossip was huge. – Away from people who would judge her for following through on a pregnancy that was a result of violence.) She had a perfectly healthy baby who she gave up for adoption. That baby grew up as an only child to parents who hadn’t been able to conceive on their own. And that baby had all the wonderful priviledges of an only child. Piano and voice lessons, dance lessons, and doting parents. She has gone on to win beauty pageants and has just recently contacted her mother who gave her up for adoption. My friend who gave up her daughter for adoption, also ended up adoption when she became unable to conceive after having an ectopic pregnancy. Much to her joy, she adopted a daughter and realized with overwhelming emotion, upon holding her adopted daughter for the first time, she realized the gift she’d given to parents 20 years before.
But what about her rapist? Was he caught? Was he punished? Was he aware that his violent act not only punished her physically at the time, but *removed her from society*, altered her body permanently, interrupted her life, caused her untold anguish and grief, and caused another child to be born and grow up without benefit of knowing its history?
Why should SHE suffer this punishment for HIS actions? DO NOT romanticize what happened to her. It’s vile. You are evil for doing so.
People who worship at the feet of victims of this horrific crime of rape just because they, the victim, were shamed into suffering punishment for their own abuse, should stop and think how damaging their actions are. Please. Think about the real women who are already here, and suffering.
Also, consider that many states now recognize the right of the rapist to parental visitation. Ask yourself how well-adjusted that girl would be if she was legally forced to spend time with her mother’s rapist.
Luckily my friend had a choice to choose life! Bet that grown up baby is glad too!
What a beautiful story!
Holistic Chick – your reply was truthful and non-judgmental – thank you. Until women actually see what happens to the child within their womb, see that it is a life, they will continue supporting abortion. No one wants to believe that they could or would kill a child, so most will not look. Maybe the supporters of life, posting here, will help one woman look. Maybe even the original article writer before she escorts a woman in to that building – changing all 3 lives forever.
For your information, I did look. And my opinion remains unchanged.
I advise you to look harder.
I’m still praying for you.
thank you @Janrcc
Very well said. Thank you.
Dude, WTF are you talking about?
She’s arguing about how this country’s health care system is so fucked up that lots of women—-myself included—-have to go to Planned Parenthood in order to obtain contraception and medical care. Planned Parenthood is more than just abortion. You clearly didn’t even read the article…….
Dear Kelleynymph, there are other options besides Planned Parenthood.
I’m praying for you.
My goodness do you realize how condesending you sound? How does that help anyone? Why don’t you mind your own business if all you can do is be so annoying. What kind of praying do you actually do? Please pray that you can see both sides of the story and not be so vicious in your passive aggressive way. It is none of your business!
Sarah, it is people like yourself who have turned the perception of a much-needed resource for most women into a synonym for “Abortion Clinic.” The fact that you think your praying for us (those who believe in choice) will save us is arrogant, insulting and judgemental. I’m happy that you think you are so much better than and above all of us. Your hubris is touching. We know there are many options available but until you have walked in the shoes of every woman who has ever entered Planned Parenthood and know what is happening in her life to cause her to make the most difficult decision she will ever make, you have no right to judge! So wrap yourself in your cloak of self-satisfaction and better-than-thou. Don’t pray for me. I have my own relationship with God.
Comparing WWII, the Third Reich and Nazi regime, the Holocaust, to a medical procedure, is a perfect emphasis to a central point of this well-written article – the abortion protester served to clarify and strengthen and empower the writer’s resolve to not to be messed with, and stand firm in her own choices. Which compelled her to show support for Planned Parenthood.
Seeing this comparison (and having watched the anti-abortion propaganda film, “180”), doesn’t influence me to believe the choice to have an abortion is wrong – it makes me think an anti-abortion position is wrong.
Don’t assumed that every woman who has had an abortion is grieving the loss of that mass of tissue and cells. Don’t assume that every woman who has had a child following an abortion grieves all over again. Yes, there are women who have that experience. On the other hand are the countless women, women like me, who felt nothing but relief following an abortion. There are women, again like me, whose later decision to have children simply reinforced that feeling. I chose to have an abortion because I felt that I was in no way equiped, emotionally, financially or otherwise, to have a child. My boyfriend at the time would have been worse than useless as a co-parent. Having my son years later drove home for me that I did the right thing back then. I would have been a terrible parent, that child would have suffered and I wouldn’t now have the wonderful, amazing little boy in my life that I have now. I am so grateful that young and stupid me was at least smart enough to get this one right.
Your knowledge of fetal development led you to a particular conclusion. That does not give you the right to dismiss those of us who came to a different conclusion as ignorant. Many women who choose to get an abortion are well aware of that information, but view it very dfferently than you do.
I have no doubt that you made the correct decision for you. I’m happy for you that you knew yourself well enough to make the best decision for you. But you are not me. Your experience does not invalidate mine. Please stop. Stop assuming that everyone else is just like you. Stop judging people who aren’t just like you. Stop thinking that the stories of a few people are representative of the whole. Just stop.
Thank you so much for bringing up this point. For me, the ultimate goal in life is to reduce suffering. This principal plays into other areas too, (I am a vegetarian) but was particularly important when I was trying to decide if I supported Choice or not. I was raised in a fairly sexist, religious household, so according to my step-dad and everyone but myself and my mother, Abortion is murder. However, the collection of cells that some consider a baby, do not have brains, thoughts, emotions, even nerves. How can a clump of cells suffer, before the organ that interprets pain has even developed. I am pro-choice, because the right to have an abortion has helped many women reduce thier own suffering, while preventing the suffering of their children. I would never force someone else to have an abortion, but don’t you dare try to keep me from exercising my rights to live the life I see fit for myself.
You seem to believe that most women that have abortions know nothing about fetal development when the majority are mothers already. The most common emotion after having an abortion is relief. Also the majority of first trimester abortions are done with pills now, so sucking anything out isn’t necessary. At 9 weeks a pill abortion is like a miscarriage or a bad period. It’s nice that your pregnancy worked out so well for you, it’s not a good idea though to assume what worked for you works for everyone. You know what they say about assume.
I think too often people are shot down for an opposing point of view. Yours may not be politically correct but I applaud you for posting your comment. It was one of the best I’ve read when discussing such a topic. It was well written and moving. Thank you.
It sounds like you are saying that this child would have been better off if he had been aborted. Do you really believe that? I don’t want to judge anyone or argue with anyone about abortion – people sometimes make choices when they think they have no other choice, however I just don’t understand how we can be such an enlightened society and still think that killing unborn babies is ok. It makes me sad.. I keep reminding myself that God is still in charge and he has a place in heaven for the unwanted babies. And he knows the hearts of men, so therefore I leave forgiveness and judgement to him, but it still makes me sad and sometimes angry that we live in such a callous world. And yes, I get that a person who was raped is also a victim of that same callous world. Which is why I’m glad God is the judge and not me.
If you can decide if a child can live or kill him, what can Got decide?
No humanity? Define “can’t care for.” Not enough money? Well then, most people shouldn’t be having kids–they get by on consumer debt. But even people with not enough money can sometimes be creative and find other ways to get the job done.
And even when you can afford the child at the child’s birth, that doesn’t mean you won’t hit hard times later. That was my experience. I had one baby I could afford and then later his dad went to jail (no one saw that coming, not even his parents) and I couldn’t afford him. I had another baby I could not afford, many years later, and then circumstances changed and we have a much better life now. So this is one thing you DON’T want to judge about. The first words out of your mouth around a situation like this should not be “Why did you” or “Why didn’t you” but “How can I help?”
Just like the escort at the clinic would have asked you that question, had that old man done worse than talk to you. I mean, your being there wasn’t HER problem, right?
Dear Kat, I can see you have good intentions. You remind me very much of Abby Johnson. Please, look her up and the organization she is part of, 40 days for life. Abortion is never an option. It causes cancer and infection. Please, take my advice. And remember: I’m praying for you.
Really? Does it? Cause cancer and infection? Lady, you have no idea how wrong you are. I was pregnant with a very much wanted and hoped for child. At 11 weeks I began bleeding, and went to the ER. I was told that the fetus had stopped growing weeks before, and that in my best interests, since the fetus now had no heartbeat, that I should have a D&C. This is the same, the EXACT SAME, procedure that women who have abortions go through. Because this was my first child, and because my cervix was tightly closed, I had no other option than to have the procedure. Risks of attempting to let my body abort (yes, honey, that’s the medical terminology, a “spontaneous abortion”) the fetus included infection, infertility, and yes, cancer. So you tell me: was my D&C wrong? Should I have carried a dead fetus, knowing the risks? And when I came out from anesthesia I was reassured by medical professionals that this was not, in fact, a baby. That it was a cluster of cells, that even had the heartbeat stopped that day, it still was not a “baby”. Why was mine different? I can’t imagine the heartache and self-examination that a woman has to go through to make that decision. To know that she is mentally, emotionally, or financially incapable of having a child. I work in social services, and I see daily the children who are left behind by parents who can’t or won’t care for them. Why are you not protesting for them? The ones who are alive, and starving for affection or food or safety? Where are your picketers and adopters there? Why do you not demand that the children who are already here are cared for, instead of protesting and passing judgement to put more of them into the same position? If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one. It is not your right to tell another woman that she can’t. If you want to save the children, save the ones who are abused and hungry and becoming more damaged by the minute while you hold signs and berate women for a deeply personal and difficult choice. If, after every living unwanted child is safe, loved, and fed you want to protest abortion clinics, you will probably get more support. Until then all you are doing is adding to the suffering.
Abortion will always be an option just as it always has been, maybe not for you, but then that’s your decision to make. And if you pray for me I will be forced to make a sacrifice during the next full moon.
The Magic Man in the Sky is STILL wondering why we are ashamed of what He has created and wondering when we are going to teach our children that sex is a responsibility…
Magic Man? Sweetpea, God is not a man.
He’s the biggest male the universe has ever seen, and if anyone ever calls him “she” around a Christian, they get their butt handed to them. I dunno, you tell me.
To this Christian God is most definitely female. I dunno you tell me how you know he is male and big?
nobody wants their butt handed to them by an angry Christian.
if you do, just decline their invite.
they go ape-shit
Still I appreciate how you said this!
I FIND THIS BLOG VERY NEEDED IN TODAY’S WORLD. IT’S SO TRUE AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THAT SAME OLD MAN IS STILL STANDING OUT IN FRONT OF MY LOCAL PP. I SEE HIM ALL THE TIME. MAKING GIRLS FEEL BAD ABOUT THEMSELVES, EVEN IF THEY ARE JUST GOING IN FOR BIRTH CONTROL OR ARE WITH CHILD AND LOOKING FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO TAKE CARE OF HERSELF AND THE CHILD(WHICH I WAS DOING THE 1ST TIME I WHEN INTO PP). YOU KNOW WHAT I WOULDN’T MIND BEING A PP ESCORT, ALTHOUGH WE DON’T HAVE THEM HERE IN FORT LAUDERDALE. BUT TO BE ABLE TO SAY TO HIM, JUST WHAT YOU SAID, “ARE YOU HERE TO BE A FOSTER PARENT TO ALL THESE SO-CALLED BABIES THAT YOU ARE SAVING!” WOULD BE JUST ENOUGH FOR ME!
Ok, awesome. First of all, props for the post itself. It is a very controversial topic and it takes a lot of guts to put your opinion out there for all the world to see. It’s nice to know that there are those out there who have the courage to point out the fact that women really shouldn’t have to put up with religion-fanatics telling you it’s wrong to go near planned parenthood. The fact of the matter is, it isn’t anyone’s business. And I think it’s great that you offered to volunteer. And by the way…most forms of birth control are free now because of ObamaCare, although you probably still need insurance to qualify…it might be worth looking into. 🙂
I know I am not the only one concerned that we will have issues if we visit a place without insurance given the new laws fining people without insurance.
Tanaista, I’m afraid you are misinformed. There are no fines for people who cannot afford health insurance. Hardship exemptions have been built into the legislation. Fines are for people who can reasonably afford insurance, choose not to purchase it, then use the public health system, mooching off others who pay into the program.
People without insurance are not “fined” under ACA. If you can’t afford it, there are subsidies available. Learn the rules for your state.
Very simple question … If no body make children … Who is going to pay your retirement ? So… It business of everybody , it is our future, we are all on the ship
People ARE still making children. We have legal abortion in the United States and also legal contraception and we still have women willingly childbearing. I am completely pro-choice and I’ve had *two* kids. And no, it’s NOT any of your business. Have your own if you are so worried about it.
Nice job, Kat! Way to stand up for what you believe in! I’m glad you posted this – more people need to read it.
Loved your insight!!! What a world we live in!!! Can’t believe that people feel they have the right to pester and humiliate others about their choices in another person’s taking control of their own healthcare and their own lives!!!
First of all, Kat – Wow! Great post, great process, well said, well lived. Now, as to “trying to think Quakerly-thoughts like the smart people at my meeting in Trenton who never seem to get angry but only have wise things to say”. If any of us has anything wise to say, it is because we ourselves have been consumed by our self-righteous anger and engaged a process much like the one you describe here and therefore can share our experience. What I read here is a journal entry from a faithfully engaged young Quaker woman.
love you!
Thank you, Maia– especially as you were one of the exact people I was thinking about!
Wonderful post. I am especially struck by how we hide any symbol or artifact of women’s reproductive systems. We have sex. We have periods. We shouldn’t have to endure anyone eles’s opinion of our choices around these issues when we’re trying to take care of ourselves. I don’t dig the “baby killer” title of the post because of the overt judgement (whether it’s your own or not – it perpetuates the opinion) but otherwise, thank you for such a thoughtful post.
Thanks, Meridith– I couldn’t agree more! And I’m with you on the title as well, even though I am of course the one who decided which words to use. A while back I wrote a post entitled “Why I Think All Republicans Are Idiots (but wish I didn’t…)” and it was the same sort of thing: perpetuating an unnecessary polarity.
Excellent post, thank you for sharing your story. Sometimes I’m convinced we’re still in the Dark Ages.
Wonderful and Very True Soooo many Women are afraid and I for one agree with you we need to come out and just be US!! I always see them protesting in front of our clinic in MD and it is their Right BUT It is ALSO My Right to be there and NOT Feel Ashamed or Confused and Yes I have caught myself getting ready to defend myself and like you thought WTH am I doing it’s Not their Body it’s Mine and I don’t have to explain ANYTHING……THANK YOU Soooo Much for this Post!!!
Yes, there is difference between free speech and intimidation– not to mention downright poor taste– in my opinion. I’m against war but I wouldn’t go protest as military funeral. I see this as a similar situation. My boyfriend and I had a pretty long discussion about this when I relayed the story to him because he knows that I’m usually all for protests.
Thanks, Kat for your heartfelt post. I’ve been visibly supporting my Media, PA Planned Parenthood office for over a year now- any Saturday I can make it- during the protesters hour long rosary. It has been an eye opening sociological experience. I’m so glad you asked about volunteering! A friend passed your blog onto me on FB because your words made her think of my weekly support. Our bodies health and individual choices need to come out of the shadows of embarrassment and into the open for the health of all generation of women.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thoughtful. Kind. Strong. Powerful. True. Inspiring. Motivating. Thank you.
Reblogged this on Serendipitina and commented:
Kat captures what so many of are always thinking, but could not put into words as eloquently as she has. Excellent post worth reading, sharing, and living.
I’d argue – and maybe I’m wrong – that the Quaker way of doing things, the Kat-way of doing things, is to – and I’m channeling Stephen Covey here – is to seek first and then to be understood. Seems like you genuinely have opinions, but are open-minded, and will listen prior to telling someone your position. That’s one of the most effective ways of communication, IMO.
Yeah, that’s the general idea 🙂 Which is why I’m still kind of pissed at myself for not having asked the guy to join me for coffee. I would’ve really liked to have known why he felt he needed to be there.
First of all, thank you for writing this and making me cry two days in a row–
Now, for the right to assemble…PEACEFULLY! Those darn amendments… folks just don’t take the time to study them in FULL before throwing them in your face. When we have protested, especially w/ CodePINK, dialog with OTHER COUNTER PROTESTORS is one of our goals. Unfortunately, rarely achieved and even rarer to achieve peacefully, but I don’t expect that they have taken training for that as many peace activists do. (@TWD) Dialog is ALWAYS the goal for a peaceful protest, as you tried to envision with this gentleman… You were not a counter protestor at a rally.
If anti abortionists want change, they need to find sensible ways to work around this issue of why abortions are needed in the first place. what happens when women can’t control what is going on in their bodies? Why are the financial burdens of pregnancy and subsequent childcare more daunting than it should be, why woman who choose not to have a child and have been “responsible” still get pregnant? And most of all, what about parenting classes while in the hospital instead of kicking women out after 24 hours? There is sooooo much to do before resorting to telling a woman what to do with her body when faced with this awful choice.
These same folks undoubtedly vote AGAINST healthcare reform, against school budgets, and against social systems that provide job training, meal assistance, provide daycare, but are pro-war, and fpr the death penalty, etc. It is beyond hypocritical to stand in front of a clinic where mostly underpaid or under insured women have to go for their healthcare and preach to them about “killing”, without embracing the rest of it.
Rich women can, have and always will be able to do anything they want to do their bodies, Women need to work together to find sensible solutions, programs, medical advances, education, and most of all SUPPORT for each other with regard to our healthcare and our bodies.
Haha, first racism and now women’s rights– I’m on a roll! (Or role? Evidently I can write but I still can’t spell.) As for protesters and counter protesters, I am STILL pissed about the way in which Medea Benjamin’s latest “outburst” (during Obama’s speech about drones and Guantanamo) was portrayed in the evening news that night. She was labelled as a “heckler” when in fact she wasn’t screaming or booing but speaking intelligently and making points that Obama had just glossed over. Yes, she had to shout to get her point across but she’s petite– she’d probably have to shout to be heard at a deli counter! But she wasn’t portrayed as a protester, or as a “patriot” or as anything else even remotely constructive (even though Obama himself acknowledged that what she said made sense and that her viewpoints deserved to be taken into consideration). It’s funny how one goes from being a protester to a heckler.
Medea is the epitome of trying to use dialog, especially when we were accosted by the crazies and I remember having a conversation with her about how to find common ground with the teabaggers, she had tons of ideas which I witnessed and attempted to learn, to no avail, unfortunately. Of course she had to shout to be heard, but she doesn’t yell/shriek, and her thoughts are well researched, spot on and speak to truth, something we don’t applaud in the media, although I thought that was the point of media?
LOL, apparently even the spelling of “protestor/er” is under protest 🙂 as there are countless debates on-line about it, who knew? Passionate writing often includes “whoopsies” in grammar and spelling—
Bravo, Kat!
Beautifully said as always. I am looking forward to reading about your experience as an escort!
Goodness, I’m a bit confused about this “planned parenting” thing. It sounds like somewhere where people can go to get ADVICE about parenting, and how to plan a family. Kind of like a “family planning clinic”. As for getting the pill and a pelvic exam, isn’t that just what you do at the doctors and the local pharmacy? We Australians have the impression that it is very expensive to get medical assistance in the USA. Is that why the place you went to exists? To offer free or cheap assistance to people who need to plan their parenting? Good on you for holding your chin up. Everyone has opinions about things, including that old man, and just because they have an opinion does not make it a right or a wrong opinion. It’s merely that. An opinion.;
Good point! And yes, that’s exactly what Planned Parenthood is.
I was just thinking the same thing – here in Australia it seems like such an odd thing to happen or have to go to because of our healthcare cards and that. Here you just visit your local doctor or the pharmacy and can get birth control pills for $5. A gynaecologists office isn’t surrounded by protesters. At least I hope they aren’t because I’d like to have a simple exam in peace. I feel really lucky about our healthcare (that isn’t even perfect) and sorry if this comment is sounding like I’m rubbing our easier access to these things in your face as I don’t mean to sound that way!
Unfortunately, I’m sure that old man would ever be able to see that he is simply making people feel worse about their decisions rather than changing their minds.
Good approach to this topic! It seems like you can’t say anything on it without someone yelling ‘NO’ straight away. There’s no shame in being a woman who has you know, menstruation needs like a silly period, how dare they collect birth control pills to help that amirite. And even if a woman is there for something different, leave her alone.
Good luck with the volunteering!
PP provides the entire range of women’s health services: pelvic exams, testing, birth control, mammograms, and yes, abortions. They’re a low-to-no-cost option for women with no insurance.
There should be no shame. But there is. Like hiding the fact that I was on those little pills in order to protect my own future: I needed them to help prevent endometriosis and stop the pain it caused my cycles. I know we shouldn’t have to defend ourselves. But maybe if more people spoke up about everything they do for women, people wouldn’t assume we were all just aborting bad decisions.
You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. The shame should be on the old man for trying to tell you what to do. I hope someday mankind doesn’t turn the smarter half of the species into a political or religious debate and will just le them be.
(And yes, I am admitting that women are smarter than men. Heck, I grew up in a family full of women. Most of the stuff I learned that makes me a better man came from them).
It was intriguing to read an account from the other side of the issue, since we tend to see only from our own perspectives. Thank you for being brave enough to write it.
But aren’t you still verbally hiding, at least a little? Say it, if you believe it: a woman has a right to allow the human being inside her to be killed, at least before that smaller human being sees the light of day. The whole crux of the issue is that there are two bodies here, not one.
This argument only makes sense if you think that something 2 inches long weighing half an ounce is a human being. That is the development at 12 weeks. And you seem completely immune to the plight of the woman – raped? Incest? The 8th baby and hubby has no job? The half ounce 2 inch blob has more rights than the woman? Spare me.
No, I don’t think any human being has more rights than another–so I agree with you on that.
I just don’t know what the little 2 inch long thing is if it isn’t a human being.
It’s a fetus. It’s not a human being until it is viable outside the womb, in my opinion.
So I guess human DNA plus viability is your definition of human. But wouldn’t that still mean that humans are killed in Planned Parenthood clinics? Don’t they perform some late-term abortions of viable fetuses?
I don’t believe that abortions of viable fetuses are legal anywhere. In fact a doctor was recently convicted of murder in Philadelphia for aborting viable fetuses.
We’d have to agree on what point constitutes viability. Way above my pay grade.
This is a really difficult question and one that people have been struggling with for millennia so it’s hardly surprising that we can’t reach agreement on when someone becomes a person. My view is that abortion is legal and therefore women have the right to have an abortion when they feel they need one. If we want to reduce the number of abortions, we need to reduce the number of women who need abortions – by providing better contraceptive advice, by reducing the number of families living in poverty, by altering society so that people who want to have children but can’t see how they could possibly cope at this stage no longer have to say “I can’t do this”. I will say it. Women have the right to choose whether or not the foetus inside their body will see the light of day. It’s a right I hope never to make use of, but I will fight to ensure that other women who do use it don’t feel ashamed. I’m just glad that here in the UK, it is a total non-issue (and also very grateful for the NHS).
Yep! And boy do I miss the NHS 😦
they are legal in santa fe new mexico…..
I shall not get into the fetus portion of this discussion, but the point here is that most visitors of planned parenthood go for medical care not abortions. Many go for their care throughout a pregnancy. It is not an abortion clinic, it is a healthcare clinic. Yes in most areas, some of them have the availability. Cost can be quite high in many areas, it isn’t free for anyone because of the fights against it. And they do not recommend or push it as best or first option to anyone. Again, that is beside the point. Why should anyone feel scared to go for basic medical care of any kind just because some group wants to protest one action performed at that clinic. The CHOICE usually involved in Planned Parenthood visits is can I afford an exam anywhere else? not a pregnancy test mind you, a standard, scheduled medical exam that all women need on a regular basis. I was proscribed birth control as a teen for my endometriosis (sp.) and due to financial position had to get them at PP. To be treated like a fiend for a basic medical need as a shy, quiet teen in a super religious house is absurd beyond belief but happened frequently.
Your final point seems quite important to me, as I can see how that would be totally emotionally scarring for a teenager, and also nerve-wracking even for adults such as Kat.
But the solution is not to tell people to sit down and shut up if they think human lives are being lost–whether they are right or wrong in that belief. We want people to speak up if they think human rights are being violated.
No, if we are serious as a society about women not being made into collateral damage in this debate, then we ought to separate Planned Parenthood’s healthcare services from its abortion services. Put the abortion clinic in a separate location, and label it clearly: Planned Parenthood Abortionist. Put the other healthcare services in a different location, and label it Planned Parenthood Women’s Healthcare, or something like that.
Of course it would cost money. The common good always does.
Except that aren’t Planned Parenthoods that ONLY do abortions. It’s a tiny part of their work, so it’s ridiculous to separate them out. And making women who would be going in MORE of a target for the gauntlet of misinformation, screaming, and abuse is hardly reducing the risk of women being collateral damage.
It’s actually putting them directly in the line of fire. So, uh, no.
Great–then all those Planned Parenthoods that don’t perform abortions will just have to change the name on their signs slightly, so that will lower the cost of this proposed change.
On a more serious note, how “tiny” the percentage of abortions at PP is absolutely irrelevant. A possible human rights issue outweighs everything else. Defending PP based on the percentage of abortions there is like arguing that if someone walks the dog, takes out the garbage, works all day, and then commits a rape, the rape doesn’t matter because it was such a small percentage of his day. And that is morally absurd.
No, it is Planned Parenthood that is putting women in the line of fire, by pretending that abortion is simply of a piece with other women’s healthcare services. Both pro-lifers and pro-choicers should be able to agree that abortion is different. What to do about it is the harder question.
You just compared a medical procedure capable of saving a woman’s life to rape.
The very fact that you have no idea how offensive that is both to women who have had abortions to save their lives AND to survivors of rape pretty much invalidates your entire argument.
Take your fake concern for women elsewhere.
No, look at it again. The point was not that abortion is rape. The point is that no one can argue that a preponderance of good activities in no way makes bad activities (how pro-lifers view abortion, rightly or wrongly) morally okay.
Are you willing to address the point above–a point quite relevant to Kat’s argument in her article–or would you prefer to continue making assumptions about my character?
Sorry for the double negative in that last comment. Here’s another try: A preponderance of good actions does not make it morally okay to do bad actions.
Your own argument sets abortion up as the moral equivalent of rape. It has to in order to evoke the reaction you are looking for. You needed something you believe is as bad in our minds as abortion is in yours.
Otherwise your arguments looks like this:
“Defending PP based on the percentage of abortions there is like arguing that if someone walks the dog, takes out the garbage, works all day, and then jaywalks, the jaywalking doesn’t matter because it was such a small percentage of his day.”
Doesn’t really work, does it? Why? Because most of us don’t really consider jaywalking a big deal. So, yeah, if he did all that, it really doesn’t matter all that much. Oh, one big difference here of course: jaywalking is illegal and abortion is not. So actually, jaywalking is more serious in this example.
Please continue with your mansplaining.
I don’t think I am “mansplaining” when I do my best to give reasons for my position.
Back to the discussion, though. We may have reached an elemental point of disagreement, in that I don’t think the other good stuff “makes up” for the jaywalking. I think the jaywalking is, in and of itself, legal or not, a minor moral issue–it just isn’t that bad. If the rape example is insensitive, then by all means substitute something else of comparable seriousness, like child abuse. I don’t think it is a good idea to embrace some sort of “teeter-totter” moral approach where good actions the rest of the day somehow make up for one bad ones, especially if the bad ones are–from the pro-life perspective–human rights violations. Why I think that is a bad idea is way too long for a comment.
I’m very aware that you don’t think abortion is a bad action or a human rights violation–and I’m not arguing with you here about that. My contention is just that it is unreasonable to expect pro-lifers to give up their protests (as long as they are peaceful) for the sake of the less controversial services PP performs. If human rights are being violated, then that has to trump considerations of discomfort and avoiding confrontation.
No man ever thinks he’s mansplaining. That’s part of why it’s an issue.
And you aren’t getting it. Comparing it to ANY serious crime or assault is going to be offensive to victims of that crime unless they ALREADY agree with you about abortion (and even then they may be offended–I know rape survivors.who think death would have been a blessing in comparison to their rapes). That’s why your comparison doesn’t work.
And no one is saying they have to give up their protests. Protesting isn’t the problem. Traumatizing women on their way into a clinic is. Your suggestions that we mark out PP clinics accomplishes nothing except making it easier for pro-lifers to traumatize women without them having to deal with the moral quandry that they may be hurting someone who is just getting a pap smear.
And there is ZERO reason for us to relieve them of that burden.
The problem is that allot of women dont really care that they are killing a baby, and they dont want any one telling them its not okay
Wrong.
There has been no scientific evidence proving that a fetus is not a human being.
We al know that human development begins at conception.
I like to believe that life begins at conception, because that seems to go hand-in-hand with the beginning of human development.
No one REALLY knows when life begins, and thus, when a fetus can be considered a human being.
So you cannot argue with the fact that abortion is RISKING murdering innocent babies. WHY would anyone in their right mind even CONSIDER taking such a risk??? (except incest, etc.) One word: Selfishness.
It must be nice to have such certainty about everything.
I don’t have certainty about everything. On this issue however, because it is so important to me, I have complete certainty of where I stand. I’ve considered practically EVERY possible scenario. There are always gray areas of course, as with any issue… that is inevitable. But yes, I am very sure of this. I would gladly welcome a day where someone discovered for sure when life began… then I could be even more certain in my convictions.
Please quit saying “life” begins at conception when you mean “human life or personhood”. Sperm are alive, so are eggs. From a biological standpoint they are part of the continuum of life The Buddhists have a point. Everything living is part of “life”. You are really arguing about when a possibility becomes a human person. We have no objective way to determine that so any dividing line is based on belief.
The reason there’s no evidence proving when a fetus is a human being is because “human being” is largely a philosophical construct, not a scientific one.
According to your logic, because there is no evidence proving that the Supreme Deity is not the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we should not take any chances and assume that she is.
Down on your knees before her noodly goodness!
The logic used in your argument is faulty. Indeed if a flying spaghetti monster is capable of creating the entirety of existence then there is nothing wrong with not assuming God is not manifested through such a creature. Burning bushes, talking mules, stormy mountains….It would not surprise me in the least if God did decide to manifest as the flying spaghetti monster. Believing this is not so definite as making a decision to take a life growing inside you, based on whether or not the developing entity can at a particular point in development be considered human life. The analogy just doesnt line up or give the decision the justice it is due.
You’re missing the point entirely, largely because you’re mistaking “Supreme Deity” for your “God.”
Let me make this simpler for you: Something is not true simply because there is no evidence that it’s not true.
Or in other words, pink unicorns are not proven to exist just because there’s no proof that they DON’T exist.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139: 13-16)
This is my conviction that life begins at conception, therefore, once conceived, a baby (or fetus if you prefer) is fully human and entitled to the same right as humans who are already born. They should have the right to life.
I have had 6 spontaneous miscarriges, each occurring between 8 and 10 weeks of pregnancy. I have actually seen what that mass of cells looks like. It most definitely is not a person.
The most rewarding, wonderful thing in my life has been giving birth to and raising my child. I wish everyone could experience that kind of joy. But I also know that it might not be a joyful experience for everyone, for a variey of reasons. It is not my place to tell someone what decision is right for them.
I am also a Christian. God tells me to care for and love others, not judge them.
Did you ever think that you were once two inches long and a half ounce…hard to believe huh. Good thing your mother chose life…huh….If your greatful for your life….would you want someone to advocate .for you, when you were thought to be so small, so insignifigant, to someone like yourself….if your mom didnt think it practical to allow you to live……to allow you, a small two inch, half pound, beating heart…..to live…..
It must be nice to know everything. Anyone born of my mother has not had an easy life. Would the world have suffered if I had not been born? No, but I did.
The Bible calls our hard lifes…Birth pains. When evil gets so fierce, that many loose the love in their hearts. If I knew everything I would have quite a bit of money and not much time for this kind of thing (debating on wordpress). I just know that as many times that I have wished to never have been born..I have also been grateful to be given a chance, just a small chance to make the world a better place. As I come closer to God, I get closer to reaching that goal. As i turn the other cheek, forgive, withold my anger and condemnation, offer love. I dont believe in war, dont believe in the death penalty, dont approve of animal cruelty, could care less if a person is gay (really, I just dont), and I believe everyone has the right to a chance to live. “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” You are an adult now and you can take your suffering and grow, and help others (far more than my arrogant attitude ever could, Im really not good at this sort of thing). Or you can be bitter and support the vicarious killing of yourself, as that small, two inch, five ounce creature, in other women. At least honestly..thats how I see it. Ive been everything from molested, born with aspergers syndrom, abusive relationship after another, homeless and alone a great deal of my adult life…. I have hurt, and through my hurt my love for the world and the innocents in it becomes an even greater sacrifice…yours can too….
Being so broken makes a person perfect for inviting God, with a heart willing to let go of the world, into their lives. God has changed my life so much in these last few months, I have never known a peace like this.
Anyway…Im ranting……
indeed you are
you lost me at “the Bible says”.
Same here, I don’t believe in God and the assumption that everyone does is so irritating.
How many babies have you adopted with your smug attitude? How many teenaged mothers do you support financially? If your answer is zero, then you should practice more and preach less.
Agreed.
Im no where near meeting the criteria for adoption. Dont assume that because I am well written, that my position in society would allow for such an opportunity. For all you know Im living out of a van and on foodstamps, which indeed was my situation only months ago. So when it comes to smug attitude and, assumptions, and the like you get to take the cake on this one sister, because I am raising my children in the struggle. I do my best not to be selfish as to their needs to the point I have them enrolled in every child development program I can get my hands on. I have also attained a degree while being a financially poor mother. I cannot say I did this on my own, because in the end God is the one who has helped me overcome so many obstacles. My three year old has started reading! He can tell you how many of something he wants, and understands the concept of time and using a clock. My two year old is not far behind he can say his whole alphabet, his whole name (which is a mouthful), and is starting to count and recognize letters. This after being completely homeless, living out of our van six months ago. I dont speak from a smug position, I speak from a soldiers position fighting the good fight, that in faith God Does Provide!
Funny how that old man isn’t standing outside frat houses handing out rosaries and talking to those poor, foolish young boys in desperate need of guidance about the consequences of unprotected sex, isn’t it? Boys will be boys, after all. Consequences are for girls.
Every time some man tells me that birth control and abortion just allows women to have all the sex they want without any consequences, I look them dead in the eye and say, “Yeah. Just like you do, huh?”
Yep.
Great point!
Excellent point! Women have been carrying this burden alone for way too long. If we don’t hold both male and female to the same standards, we will not see change. If men were the ones getting pregnant, this political issue wouldn’t even be on the table. Look how many birth controls methods are invented/created for women as compared to birth control for men. Truth is, when a pregnancy occurs, society views it as a “woman’s” issue. But how can that be. Unless she was artificially injected with sperm, then it is never just a woman’s issue. Men need to learn that sex is way more than just having an orgasm. That is only part of what sex was designed for. Mostly it was to create life. Any women out there who has experienced an unplanned pregnancy and then was abandoned by her sperm donor, and her family may very well see an abortion as her only option.
I am a product of an unplanned pregnancy in 1963. No legal abortions available. I was treated like an unwanted guest many times in my own home. I would have rather have been unwanted and unborn (returned to God) than feeling unwanted and rejected by my family and society (which by they way was no fought of mine, not my choice to live or die.)
Wish your story was heard more often – and that of others like you. There is now the awareness that it is better for children to be raised by divorced parents than in the toxic environment created by constantly fighting and hating parents. I wish there was greater awareness that it is better to be a wanted child than reluctantly raised by people who don’t have the finances or the nerves or the will (whatever) to do so. I believe your soul would have been returned to God indeed and then hopefully born to parents who wanted you badly and celebrated your birth as it should be.
Thank you for this. So many people who actually believe in God and in souls seem also to hold the belief that you only get one chance to be born (which is essentially the atheist’s point of view). Why do they believe that if a fetus is aborted that their God condemns that soul never to be born? I’m an agnostic and have always believed (even when I was a Christian) that the intended soul of a fetus that died either through abortion or miscarriage just ended up in another body…
Thanks Laura. I agree. We all come from and return to God. I wrote a piece today on my blog that you may like. It’s called UNWANTED. Check it out.
I did like it. And yes, far too many are not unwanted, but…unfeasible. And as we slowly destroy our social safety net, we are actually taking away the real choice of many women. They cannot keep children they might want to have because there’s simply not enough support. I’ve lived in France, the UK, and Germany, and I saw the way the whole culture works to help single mothers and parental pairs. The fact that we do not do the same is a national tragedy and a national shame.
That’s interesting. Maybe you can write a blog about this fact taking it one step further and we can keep building the awareness and exposing the truth. I’m not surprised about Germany. My great grandmother had her first child out of wedlock with my great grandfather in 1913 but they did end up getting married in 1915. This was common over there. Not as taboo as it is or was here. When I did my research on Birth Control, I found that most of them were invented by German men. Interesting…
We could. I don’t have my own blog though for a variety of reasons. Could guest blogs though.
Anytime you want to guest blog, contact me.
Cool, will do! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Wonderful post, Kat!! I am sending a donation to PP right now!
Awesome!
Anything that you do is your business. The old man making the assumption may not have known what you were doing. He may have been doing what he thinks is right. Sometimes in the midst of doing what we think is right, we can hurt other people in the process. You had and still have the chance to have coffee and change his perspective–just a bit 🙂 Also, the abortion issue is HIS conviction, remind him of that. The health issurance thing is sad, but I know the feeling all too well. You’re loveable, and God bless you and the choices you make in the future. He took care of you and the cancer situation, who knows what He can do if a baby situation came up. Lastly, if you don’t believe in God, then excuse ME and my ASSUMPTIONS 🙂
Pardon my confusion, but… ‘if a baby situation came up’? You mean, if the author were to ‘accidentally’ get pregnant? There are no ‘accidents’ with pregnancy. From what I understand, the author is on the Pill. All contraceptives have a 99% success rate. There is still a chance in that 1%. If you’re not planning on having children, and you want to be 100% sure… just DON’T HAVE SEX. I don’t unerstand why abstinence isn’t an option anymore. Now it’s seen as a form of ‘oppression’, rather than what it is: a responsible choice.
I have no problem with abstinence. In fact, it served me very well for many years. What I do have a problem with is people like you thinking that your interpretation of “science” is the only correct one. But you’re clearly not hear to take part in a conversation, or try to understand someone else’s point of view, you’re just here to spew the rhetoric you’ve been fed.
“People like me?” What kind of people are those? Sure, clearly, I’m not here to take part in conversation… even though I commented on several comments. Actually, I expected this post to be a typically aggresive pro-choice rant… but I was rather impressed. Unfortunately you’ve just ruined that by making assumptions about my character. I never told you that you were ‘spewing rhetoric’. That’s very rude. I haven’t been “fed” anything. I’ve researched and decided everything for myself over many years. I am well-researched and educated, thank you very much.
Your 99% statistic is incorrect. “People like me” in this case is people who make up their own statistics and expect the rest of us to take them seriously.
And are you REALLY suggesting that married couples who don;t want to have children for the first ten years of marriage not have sex for the first ten years?
100% correct. When is the babies choice taken into account?
When they are able to express that choice. Pretty simple, really.
What a mean irresponsible thing to say
No, factual. Until a baby can express a choice, we don’t know what that choice is, so we cannot take that choice into account. Otherwise you’re just assuming you know what the baby’s choice is, which is something you cannot know. As I said, pretty simple.
the baby has a potential to have a choice if its not killed first.
But there is simply no way we can know what that eventual choice would be at the time the decision is made, so really, it doesn’t matter.
And honestly, you still operate on the assumption that you know what that choice is when you cannot know.
Woogie67, did you read “onewomanschoice” post above? She would have rather been given back to God than born to the parents who did not make her feel welcome in her own home. And that would have been her 100% choice as the baby you speak of.
Or do you only read the posts that agree with you? Did you think you could burst into each home and make them feel differently so no child suffered her fate? Perhaps give them the money or stability they need to welcome an accidental child, pay for their marital counseling? I am guessing not….
I am constantly amazed that people think they can tell you to not have sex because of THEIR belief. I’m married and have 4 children. No-one gets to tell me I cannot have sex because they believe thus-and-such. When I was a single professional, with no kids it was the same. My body, my belief, my call. That is what Freedom is, getting to make your own decisions based on your situation and your beliefs.
Hearing so many people trying to tell women what to do or not to do with their bodies and in their life has made many of us very angry, sent donations to Planned Parenthood and other groups soaring and gotten politicians either elected or soundly defeated. The outrage generated by women not only refusing to bow down but to take action is fascinating. I am expecting women to gain back any ground lost and to move forward because of it.
I have not volunteered at Planned Parenthood, but I have stepped up my donations and added an ACLU membership and lots of hours sending emails to companies advertising on the shows that treat women the worst. I am proud to have helped take bring both Rush Limbaugh and Komen for the Cure some consequences for their actions.
“All contraceptives have a 99% success rate. ”
False.
denise! thanks to be here in the middle of this sad woman party!
But.. there a but… the pro-abortion woman here don’t really live. They live for a new dress, for a new car, for a new phone… when then they have all of them? what they do?
timebeing you live scared to dead… Francesco called it “sister dead” because it bring us to God…. so you will live every day with the fear to have a cancer or to die in a car accident…
ah yah…then, when they have all the toys as above… it is time for another toy… at that point they will loook for a child but… they will found out that they can not have it, for a reson or another… they want want want…. why are we here? why do we live? why there almost nobody that ask this question? many of you will answer again: for make money, to buy a new house, ecc… some others will answer (I hope) : to love. Yah… but what does it means love?
I hope that late or soon He will call you like He did with me, but you need to hear Him… be sure, He is alway there for you, ready for forgiveness
Thank you thank you thank you for posting this and for volunteering. You so perfectly described the feelings I’ve had each and every time I go to PP that it brought tears to my eyes. I remember in college, in small-town Indiana, feeling like I had a scarlet letter pinned to my shirt each time I walked into my local branch, and then hating myself for feeling that way, yet not being able to stop myself from feeling that way all the same. You are absolutely right – we have NOTHING to be ashamed of. Brava!
Yes! Scarlet letter feeling for sure! I’m glad (but also sad) to know I’m not the only one. It needs to change.
Great post, and hats off to you. Here in North Dakota our legislators made it nearly impossible for women to make any sort of choice this year, but the same group of people voted against funding milk for poor children in schools, and instead of giving money to add day care providers in our super stressed oil industry, they tried to vote for current providers to be able to add excessive openings, not thinking at all about how one provider could care for an excessive amount of children in an emergency. Of couse all done by older men, men who never really helped with the child care in their own homes. So sad. We need more young women to stand up and speak out and join the work.
Exactly. It always amazes me how people don’t see the connection between child care, education and a healthy economy.
If there was anything that made the pro-choice movement so powerful, is the hypocritical rantings of “pro-life in name only” who use religion and politics as a means of social power and oppression. Being pro life doesnt mean being an old white man, or woman, for that matter.
wolves in sheep clothing..conservatives….
It makes me sad that wanting to give unborn children a voice is synonymous with being unwilling to aid in the feeding and care of said children. See conservatives and liberals should switch positions, and the whole thing would make more sense.
A woman has an immense power to stifle the life that could originate from her body, even while its heart is beating, she has the power, in spite of “laws”. Because women are so dehumanized and abused, this power is seen as mundane, and in so doing the life that she carries, no longer so sacred.
Because women are not supported in their time of confusion and pain by those she can trust, and really who in this objectifying world can she trust, she is not able to recognize the power she wields. After all, who has empowered her in her role as mother, nurturer, and one who loves? These roles are naive, and tolerated at best in our society, loathful, burdensome, and dehumanizing at its worst.
The woman thought to be liberated and empowered, can not function as a woman to be considered as such, but instead, is thought to function like the irresponsible man. Without the “encumbrance” of titles like mother, nurturer, and one who loves.
No man can take in the seed of another man, and like fertile soil, provide within his body an environment that feeds, and nurtures that seed until it is able to survive in the world. Because men covet power so, when they cant have it, they negate there is any power in it. They dehumanize the woman and in so doing negate her power.
Then in their guilt they persecute the woman who seek to live up to men’s self proclaimed ideas of empowerment.
We are always stuck in the middle of a loose loose situation.
We need a new woman’s empowerment movement. A movement that empowers, uplifts, and celebrates what it means to be the one anointed with the life bearing gift. A movement that holds mothers in the highest esteem.
With this as the focus, the tides turn. Women embrace their power, And societies as a whole uplifts motherhood. Welfare mom becomes a title of endearment, because the government acknowledges that in MOST cases the mother is the best equipped to love and care for her child. Instead of trying to figure out how to get her kid into a cattle like institution so she can slave for a days wages, they understand the future of the world depends on the individual nurturing of every child; and resources are directed toward educating, counseling, and supporting mothers.
In this kind of a world, motherhood wouldn’t be a demotion in society, taken as a sacrifice for a “higher calling”. It would be a coveted promotion in to a elite group of women entitled to all honor and respect.
Both pro-life and pro-choice movements strip women of the dignity, honor, respect, they are entitled to as women. Furthermore both seek to negate her power to bring forth life. Pro-choice doesn’t even consider a “fetus” to be human inside a woman; the woman doesnt bring forth life because its only a “life” once its outside of the woman. Pro-life doesn’t acknowledge that it is within a woman’s power to bring to bear or take that life despite man’s law.
Your comments reminds me of two very scary things: the Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter (the Cross of Honor of the German Mother, which features a swastika and was awarded in Nazi Germany from 1939-1945) and the “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, which seems to describe the sort of world you want. As the daughter of a stay-at-home mom, I am very grateful that my mom made the choice to stay home with my brother and me so I am all for elevating the status of women who make that choice and giving them the respect and credit that they deserve but I don’t think being “liberated and empowered” is the antithesis to motherhood as you’re making it out to be. Also, it’s “lose, lose” not “loose, loose.” Read Margaret Atwood and then think about what you’re suggesting.
Ill take a look at it. I disagree about empowerment in this world being an antithesis to motherhood. Im a stay at home mom, there is no glory or recognition in it. In fact people have asked me why I am “making” my husband support us all by himself…Its like they are saying..”get a real job.”. On the other hand when I was working or going to school I was respected, people in my community looked up to me. to say the word business owner, inspires respect, to say motherhood…well…thats a different story the feelings are mixed for sure, but those in respect are in the minority
The Handmaid’s Tale: totally terrifying and maybe even foreseeable. Glad you brought that up!
Yes, that book was one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve ever read and Operation Spread The Word’s comments made me think of it again.
I’m not sure it isn’t right around the corner. Certainly female criminals have virtually no control of their own reproductive system and women are being jailed to force them to give birth. And women are being forced to give birth in horrific ways.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/01/14/new-study-reveals-impact-post-roe-v-wade-anti-abortion-measures-on-women/
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2009-10-22/news/pregnant-latina-says-she-was-forced-to-give-birth-to-her-baby-in-shackles-after-one-of-arpaio-s-deputies-racially-profiled-her/
http://syndicatednewsservices.com/2013/05/24/congressman-women-should-be-forced-to-give-birth-to-fetuses-with-no-brain-function/
My favorite line is about the old man offering support in the form of adoption. Very true.
I am going to go against the grain a bit here…this is where the freedom of speech rubber really meets the road. I get and agree that you are a woman of age who is going to seek legal drugs and healthcare…I stand up for your right to do so without shame or fear.
Abortion….instead of this pro choice -pro life political crap we spew at one another–I wish we would be pro scared-knocked up teenager or pro alone and overwhelmed woman….Abortion is a sad thing–it leaves behind a scar-pain. Instead of shouting talking points…lets really help women live in freedom-Freedom from shame, fear, pain, want….I don’t think a pamphlet or escort is the answer. I think we need to help women with needs. How we treat the least of us is telling. The way we look the other way at hurting people in need. The Government aint gonna solve this. Judgement will not. Anger will not……just saying. Let freedom ring!
Exactly. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. I have this debate with my conservative friends all the time and they say I’m copping out but as far as I know, no one is pro-abortion. And no one is suggesting that abortion is a wonderful thing, or a decision to be made lightly, or the solution to everything.
I will say it…abortion is a wonderful thing.
It gives women the chance to truly own their bodies. It provides for them the ability to move past the unwanted circumstances of rape, incest, lack of education, birth control failures and errors of judgment. Abortion prevents an accident from becoming a tragedy.
I have four children. I have had one abortion. I became pregnant in less than than a month after the birth of my first born. We were young and poor. I was still in grad school. IF abortion hadn’t been an option, my son would now be an orphan and my other kids would never have been born. I wanted to kill myself before taking that pregnancy to fruition.
When I tell people this they ask why i became pregnant, why I didn’t use birth control, why I didn’t have the child since I was already a mother. Even pro-choice people inspect my case, looking for the right validation , as though there are some abortions which are more acceptable than others. I refuse to discuss anything more than the fact I did not, and could not, have an other child at that time.
I am almost forty and I have an IUD. If somehow I became pregnant today, I would very likely abort. I have lupus. The children we have now receive the love, attention and resources they deserve but this would cease with another child since we are spread so thin. I would not regret my choice.
I can say this whole heartedly: knowing that I can abort if I chose takes away any ambivalence I may feel being a mother. I chose this. It was not thrust upon me. I made choices about when and if I was going to birth children and I stand by them. I have been married for 17 years this summer, I finished grad school, and have had a tumultuous and exciting life but I would not be here to write this comment without PP and their services. What they do is wonderful. They provide options, choices, freedom and compassion.
Roadlesstravelled, excellent and mature perspective.
This is fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to write it, and so well.
What a great post. Thank you for your honesty and for volunteering.
I dont like this post; I love it! Brava!
first – congratulations on freshly pressed! it was very well deserved. second – fabulous post! it’s amazing how we think we’ve made so much progress when it comes to certain topics – racism, equal rights, women’s rights, etc., but then we’re faced with the subtleties. those tiny things that suddenly make us realize there’s still much work to do before those social issues are truly addressed. it makes you think maybe gloria steinem isn’t so crazy after all – perhaps when she’s going on talking about those tiny things that they really do have impact and by little things i mean that subconscious feeling that you were describing. you were hiding when you didn’t really think you were. we’re still made to feel this way by various messages, whether they’re upfront or subtle. it’s a fine line between hypersensitive and logic/truth. you did a wonderful job of pointing out the subtleties and they do exist and as long as they do then there is still work to be done in terms of women’s rights.
Yes, we have a tendency to portray these issues as very black and white but there’s a lot of gray.
I trained as a clinic escort 20 years ago. I can’t believe we’re still fighting this battle.
Actually, no, I believe it.
I’m glad you’re standing up for your (and our) rights; I’m sorry you (and we) still have to do it.
I know, right? This is 2013!
The world has become such a sad place when supporting abortions is applauded. The fact is they are tiny human beings, and killing is killing… but by all means, celebrate your modern independence, your college job, and all those really important things. What’s a human anyway?
No one is applauding abortion. I’m sorry that you so obviously missed the point of this post.
Actually I was responding to the RoadLessTraveled’s post, and the people who thought it was a great post. I read your post, Kat, and I definitely think you should have had a cup of coffee with the old man and each discussed and shared your points-of-view respectfully. But you are no different from him… don’t kid yourself. EVERYONE on this board has an opinion. And A LOT of people misuse the word “judging”. God calls us to judge every day, otherwise we would be walking into walls, running through stop signs, eating carpet, and there would be complete anarchy and chaos. When Jesus said ‘not to judge’… He meant not to judge like a judge in the court system who makes the final judgment: whether someone is to be “condemned” (to pronounce “guilt” and “sentence punishment”) or to be “set free”. You surely didn’t expect everyone to agree with your post, or others’ comments, did you? I understand your position and needing to be able to get birth control. I don’t know why, however, you would have been ashamed, if you, yourself wasn’t a “baby killer”, as YOU put it? Bottom line: God is love. And he loves you. And he loves all his creation. And if people choose not to believe in Him, especially when they’ve been given the greatest gift God can give: a child, and an opportunity to get a glimpse of what it’s like to be Him: to be responsible for caring for and molding a human being and loving them unconditionally with LONGSUFFERING patience, that is their choice. We were given free will. But people who do believe in God are told not to sit by idly and watch HUMANS (whether they’re 1″ long, or 85 years old) be oppressed, but we are to help them and love them, and sometimes that means saying “No… please do not do this…” It doesn’t mean people should be shouting obscenities or accosting people who choose to have an abortion. That is wrong. (And while I stand by my earlier post, I do think it was wrong of me to approach the subject with sarcasm. That was definitely not cool, and I do apologize, sincerely.) And I DO think it would be a hard decision for me if I became pregnant out of incest… what would I do? I DO understand and have compassion for people in these circumstances. However, I don’t have compassion, nor should I, for people who use abortion as a means of birth control, or because having a child would be “inconvenient” to their ambitious endeavors. I will however, pray for them, for you, MYSELF, and everyone on this board, that we would all have a heart for God and to forgive us all our sins.
Thumping my head against a wall…
May you never have to walk in someone else’s uncomfortable, difficult shoes Kellyrandom.
May you never have to walk in mine. YOU don’t know me and don’t begin to know what I have been through in my life. I KNOW full well the uncomfortable, difficult shoes of life, more than you’ll ever know. That won’t stop me however from loving an innocent life or God.
More congratulations on being freshly pressed—a totally deserved honor. Your post left me in awe as to how accurately you expressed the issues and emotions concerning women’s health and reproductive rights. On the one hand it’s sad so many of your thoughts mirrored mine from the time I bought my first birth control pills some 35 years ago—sad in the sense that the way this country views women hasn’t changed in significant ways in all that time. In my more pessimistic moments I think no matter how many women serve in Congress, gain fame as CEOs or even (God willing!) be elected President, our reproductive systems and therefore our health will subjects of controversy, and thus sought to be rigidly controlled.
On the other hand, I read what you have to say and I take heart at your desire to claim your rights to your body and thus your future. Brava, Kat, for your courage and your talent for articulating what’s at stake, not only for yourself, but for all women.
Thank you, and thank you for your comment!
Well thought and Nicely written. True, it’s nobody’s business. It is my body and my decision.
It seems quite acceptable that those making us feel judged are worthy of judgement.
Sometimes the habit of being nice to people when your’e pissed pays off. I really enjoyed your post. I’m happy that you are volunteering for planned parenthood.
this is wonderful and i could not agree more. i look forward to reading more of your posts ) peace, beth
Wonderful post. You identify so much unwarranted fear and insecurity that women feel for taking care of their bodies. Why do we have to feel ashamed of such things? I especially like the comment about all feminine products being in disguise. Hello world! Surprise!! I am a woman!!! I don’t want to hide anymore either. Very inspirational. Thanks.
Good, I’m glad you liked it 🙂
@There is nothing wrong. What’s wrong is the hiding—that and the fact that women’s bodies have become grounds for political debates that have nothing to do with reproductive rights or “saving babies.”…>>> I couldn’t agree more…I’ll go one step further in saying this; IF this was a debate concerning men’s bodies..it would be a NON-issue. Guaranteed. And I’m not a man-hater( I love MEN, co-raised 3 heckified MEN, and was raised by an outstanding MAN) but what I try to be is a realist. I just call it like I see it; and have lived it. Very well said & awesome write. 2 thumbs UP. Gained a loyal follower…
Thanks!
There is a woman’s health clinic a block away from me. There are protesters along the sidewalk, usually glaring, looking threatening and praying. I was glad when the escorts began to show up. It made me feel safer dropping off my dry cleaning in the next building.
It’s nice your old man looked sad. I have never seen people look so full of hate as the abortion protesters seem. I don’t know how anyone can be so full of hate and claim to believe in God or to care about life. I want to tell them to go somewhere else, into someone else’s neightborhood and leave those of us with dry cleaning, a craving for hot wings, or a need for a pelvic exam alone. And maybe they can find some way to actually help others instead of standing around looking like they might kill someone with evil intentions.
It’s the group/mob mentality. Take away their compatriots and tell them to protest alone, and I doubt they’d even attempt to protest.
There’s a rather cheap, petty satisfaction contrived from ganging up on individuals and victimizing them. Sadly, some people enjoy this.
I’ve always been tempted to join a protest like that carrying a sign with an arrow and the words “This guy is a jerk!” I’ve never quite been brave enough to do it, but my right to an opinion is just as valid as theirs, right?
More name calling…
Wow!! Well written and an excellent insight 🙂
You made amazing points, and while I already thought of a lot of this, it’s totally true that I do not need to be ashamed of any of this! Great, thought provoking post, and I’m so glad you wrote it — I think I may love you a bit. 🙂 Cheers
Thanks, and I just read your post as well- great stuff!
I am Christian. I am 25 years old. I have had an abortion.
I was not raped. My parents would not have kicked me out, in fact my mother was lovingly helpful throughout the process. I don’t have drug problems. It’s simply this. I was 19 years old, had just finished my first year in college (meaning I had just finished racking up the first 20,000 of 80,000 dollars of debt) and I was single. I made a choice of practicality, not out of desperation or because I had no other option.
I don’t revel in it, because it shows that I was being irresponsible with my life decisions by getting in that situation in the first place. Had I got to Planned Parenthood before hand simply to pick up some pills, or had I done a million other things…who knows.
What I do know is that I cannot find a place in the bible, a single verse, that says “abortion is wrong”
I know places that tell me murder is wrong, sure. It’s all over. I’ve also seen places in the word that say that life is in the first breath. I.E. the very popular phrase “the breath of life.”
When I walked to the clinic I was accosted, and I do fully mean the word accosted, by no less than 5 people. They were not so kind as this elderly man. They were assumptive. “Let me teach you about God.” “You just don’t know all of the options available to you.” To which, in my anger and pain I could not even utter a response.
*gather your thoughts Elizabeth. What’s your point*
My point is, God is love. God is loving. God wants no more of us than to be loving to one another. I don’t try to convert people. In fact I am always happy to sit with my friends and learn about their beliefs. Do I believe that I’m right? Of course! That’s why I believe it. Still I feel like all I want to say is that what they are doing, in the name of God, is not the most loving thing they could do. I understand why they think it’s wrong. I don’t agree, but I understand. But if they’re claiming to be doing God’s work, than they should be handing out hugs and a box of chocolates instead of guilt pamphlets or judgement. Or they should give these people (me. I was “these people”) privacy. Because that is all I wanted. All I needed. Privacy to deal with this monumental change in my life.
Kat, thank you for becoming a volunteer. What a great idea. I think I’ll look into that myself. Thank you for handling that situation with politeness, and positivity. Even if love wasn’t on your mind, it’s clear that it is something planted firmly in your heart. So thank you.
Thank you for sharing your story! And I’m with you on the chocolate 🙂 It always amazes me how so many so-called Christians, whether they’re protesting abortion or gay marriage or whatever it may be, just accept what the Bible supposedly “tells” them without bothering to look it up and read it for themselves.
– “No thank you,” I tell him. And then, because I have an embarrassing habit of being polite to people even when they’re pissing me off, I add, “Have a nice afternoon.”
No need to feel embarrassed. I think that’s very admirable.
A very good post. In the beginning I was thinking; Come on girl! Be proud!! And then, you actually turned completely and I was totally proud and a bit embarrassed too, because I realized I was also judging, thinking that you had to do things as I hoped for. I admire your strength. Keep wearing it, and you and your baby will change a little bit of the world around you.
Well no baby yet, but thank you 🙂
I know :6
[…] I just read this post over at Firework in Stilettos and it got me thinking. Thinking about obnoxious people protesting outside Planned Parenthood when […]
You are amazing and courageous! This post was brilliant!
You are obviously a very strong and courageous woman. Excellent job in standing up for your beliefs, and thank you for this post!
Wonderful post, thank you so much for writing this! I had to leave a comment but honestly I’m at a loss for words!
[…] was going to be a comment on one of today’s freshly pressed posts, but then I thought I might as well post it […]
The fact that this topic is still so relevant is telling. The Pro-life rhetoric is semantically heavy: “kill babies.” I can’t believe their audacity. As if anyone was gladly willing to do such a thing. You’re right: the assumptions they make are infuriating, and incredibly hurtful, regardless of “good intentions.” You know what they say, “The road to hell was paved with good intentions,” and the irony is that these folk are straying FAR from the supposed path of righteousness-they are arrogant and unyielding in their convictions
“My audacity?” I’m pro life. But my ‘rhetoric’ is different from most; it cannot be proven scientifically yet that abortion kills babies. However, it also cannot yet be proven that it doesn’t. Therefore, no one can argue with this irrefutable fact: At this moment in time, abortion is RISKING murdering babies. That is undeniable. Why would you even RISK it??? (except in cases of incest, etc. the therapeutic abortions). That’s interesting that you say I am arrogant and hypocritical just because I am pro-life; I believe that would fall into stereotyping.
I should’ve specified that the pro-life people with a religious slant who feel the need to impose themselves onto others (as the man she mentioned in the post above did) are my subject here. It just seems to me that everyone should respect a woman’s decision on this highly sensitive issue, provided it is within reasonable, responsible bounds (as you mentioned, cases of rape, incest, or simply not being emotionally/financially prepared). It does not mean we do not respect the beautiful miracle of life, it just means we accept that particular woman’s inability to bear that burden at the time. Because however beautiful, it is a burden, and it must be taken very seriously. And that, to me, is being pro-choice.
I agree (for the most part, especially about the respect). I’ve never heard it put that way before. I’m still prof-life of course, but thank you for the very insightful point of view. It’s nice to be able to discuss such a sensitive issue without being harassed for once. (That’s how most women on the ‘other side’ treat me, no matter how respectfully I try to explain my beliefs. So thank you for NOT being one of them.)
As a loyal subscriber, earlier this week I read this post and loved it. At the time I decided this would be my weekly Saturday Reblog. Now I find you’ve been Freshly Pressed. Congratulations! And even though you’re all famous now, I’m still doing the reblog. 🙂
Reblogged this on Shouts from the Abyss.
Cool, thanks!
Powerful post.
I am also really interested by your feelings of shame and secrecy surrounding birth control.
While I think the shame and secrecy around abortion is sad and ultimately destructive to the issue (as in, if more people knew exactly how many of the women they consider “respectable” have them, it might be a different conversation), I understand it because people are very divided and judgey about it and being judged hurts.
Birth control though, is being responsible and preventing the abortions. There should be kudos involved, not shame. Using birth control has never made me feel anything but smart and in control of my life.
Well done on volunteering too. Way to put action behind words.
My observation is that our culture considers women having sex as shameful. We wouldn’t need birth control if we weren’t having sex. Remember Rush Limbaugh shaming Sandra Fluke for wanting birth control coverage?
Oh right. Slut shaming. I forgot about slut shaming. I think I need to stay off the internet for the rest of the day. It’s depressing me.
Rush Limbaugh, frankly, disgusts me. Slandering a young woman is merely one of his offenses, and he ought to be ashamed of himself.
Correction: He wasn’t shaming her for wanting coverage in general; he was opposing that ALL TAXPAYERS must pay for EVERY WOMAN’S sex lives. That’s not fair. My hemorrhagia aside (the only reason I use birth control), I would not use birth control because I am not sexually active. I wouldn’t want to have to pay for other women using birth control for promiscuity. If they want to live that kind of lifestyle, they can pay for it themselves. Now, when it comes to the MEDICAL aspects of birth control, like the one I mentioned regarding myself, I wouldn’t mind paying for that. But Dear Lord, why can’t people just KEEP THEIR PANTS ON? Sex is just too irresistable, I guess. Sad.
Well, I don’t want to pay for war either but as an American citizen, I have no choice in the matter. As for your hemorrhagia, I wonder where you’d be health-wise if the “promiscuous” women of the world hadn’t “required” the invention of birth control in the first place. Are you suggesting some sort of monitoring system for “medical” birth control vs. “functional” birth control? And where do you draw the line between responsible sex and promiscuity? One partner? Two partners? Three partners within a two year period?
No, no no. That would cost MORE money. Just get the government OUT of this. The government should NOT be subsidizing abortion, family planning services, or contraceptives, or abortifacients, etc… How about this radical idea? Every pays for it themselves if they want it. If they need it (or REALLY want it, I suppose) and don’t have the money for it, then they can get Medical Assistance, as I had to, unfortunately as I am unable to work currently. It’s impossible to ‘draw the line’ when it comes to gray areas, unfortunately. Personally, the only place for sex, I believe, is within the covenant of marriage, and that’s it. I’m old-fashioned like that.
If the government doesn’t subsidize birth control, then it ends up subsidizing birth AND often the product of that birth–both of which are far more expensive. This is why insurance companies are not fighting the new law requiring them to provide birth control coverage free of charge: because it actually helps their bottom line.
For someone who claims to be so well read and informed, you seem to be surprisingly unaware of the fact that it is, in fact and permanently, unlawful for any federal money to go to fund abortion services.
Time to hit the books, again! You need a refresher.
I, on the other hand, have no problem paying for it. So it all balances out, you see…
Just curious, who pays for men’s sex lives in the U.S? Are your taxpayers funding condoms or Viagra on health insurance? Men and women are going to have sex whether you like it or not, using contraception is being a responsible adult.
my suggestion to birth control , and you may not like it?
is “ABSTAIN”
I wasn’t asking for “suggestion to birth control” actually.
That is completely not the point of this article, at all.
This is the first time I’m reading anything from this blog and I’m not sure about giving references, but this is a very good article from a woman who DID abstain until marriage and her big time REGRET…http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/my-big-virginity-mistake
What a fantastic article. Thank you for sharing it.
I have a sister who at 52 is a virgin. She adopted children, never married, dated only casually and refused OB/GYN care due to our strict catholic upbringing. She is so miserable and unhappy. She is judgmental about sex, masturbation, birth control and sexuality, has traumatized her adopted children and even is so lonely.
Her entire life is grim, and its all because she bought into the line that a better servant of God is one who never marries and denies the urges of his body as put forth in Paul’s epistles.
The entire thing is heartbreaking. She is so very alone, so isolated from the world. She has no partner, not close friends and so much fear and shame in her heart.
I shared this article with her this morning. She sobbed as she read it. She finally admitted that she has wasted a life that could have been filled with love by filling it with fear.
\
Your link just helped two sister overcome a lifelong obstacle and helped a women come out of the fog of fear and guilt.
Thank you.
Wow. I am so glad you both found it helpful. It sounds, actually, like your sister is probably a very caring individual, just misguided. Here’s hoping for a more happy future for her– 52 is not too old to change!
Very nice artlicle!
Reblogged this on Jodie's Journey and commented:
I stay out of politics, mainly because I keep an open mind about things and tend to sway one way or another depending on what I learn. There are a few things I do have a strong stance on and this post expresses one of them. Unfortunately the world hasn’t changed much. The color of your skin and the junk in your shorts still seems to out weight character or competence, but if more people like Ms. Richter stand up than maybe, just maybe things will continue to more forward, instead of stall at the protest line.
Awesome, thanks!
Your Welcome. 🙂
Just how far were these people away from the clinic? Recently, San Francisco passed an ordinance expanding the buffer zone around clinics where abortions may be performed. Any attempt to pass similar legislation in Philadelphia would literally give clients more breathing room.
Hmmm… there’s a little courtyard that you have to pass through to get into the clinic and they were outside of that so most likely they were outside of the buffer zone too. It’s still ridiculous though.
“… we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all …” ~ Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, 1922, The Pivot of Civilization. Watch Maafa21 to learn more about her racist beliefs http://www.maafa21.com
And your point is?
People can have terrible views on one subject and accomplish something wonderful on another. And precisely what does the day-to-day work of 21st century Planned Parenthood have to do with a 90-year-old quote?
As to racist, you are aware that she was invited by African American leaders to help provide health care to women in the African American community and her work was praised by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, right? Years after she wrote about eugenics (which was a popular social view when she said it).
Perhaps you should educate yourself on the subject of race and Sanger, lest you make a fool of yourself the way that Herman Cain did.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2011/apr/08/herman-cain/cain-claims-planned-parenthood-founded-planned-gen/
Thank you! Margaret Sanger wasn’t perfect and you’ve got to consider her words in their historical context.
With all graciousness I doubt that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had the internet and could just Google Sanger to find out what she really thought. I doubt that there was open access to the kind of documents that exposed her for the racist she was. I guess it’s no big deal to you that “ While African-Americans make up 12% of the US population, they account for nearly 35% of all abortions performed. That means they accounted for nearly 423,500 of the 1.21 million abortions performed in 2008”(Vhttp://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/white-people-protest-black-pastor/)
Sanger had a great deal of charisma as did Hitler, who got his ideas from the eugenics movement in America. Lets go even further back into history to give some perspective. Im sure when there were little baby Jews being drowned in the Nile at the request of pharaoh there were Jews “encouraged” by the Egyptians to calm the people and tell them it was for their own good, and they probably believed such nonsense themselves.
Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, thought, and acted apon those thoughts; that African Americans were an “unfit race” that should not be encouraged to reproduce.
More children from the fit, less from the unfit—that is the chief aim of birth control.”
—Margaret Sanger, Birth Control Review, May 1919 (vol. III, no. 5); p.12.
“The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal.
We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,
and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs
to any of their more rebellious members.”
— Margaret Sanger, letter to Clarence Gamble, Dec. 10,1939. – Sanger manuscripts, Sophia
Smith Collection, Smith College. (Dec. 10 is the correct date of the letter. There is a different date
circulated, e.g. Oct. 19, 1939; but Dec. 10 is the correct date of Ms Sanger’s letter to Mr. Gamble.)
If you agree with her, then my argument falls on deaf ears and you need not read any further.
These ideas are still promoted under Planned Parenthood. Instead of better prenatal care, they encourage contraception, instead of improved education, they push sterilization.
One representative example is Des Moines, Iowa, where the overall state percentage of African Americans is 2.1%. Des Moines itself is 8.1% black. Within a one-mile radius of the abortion facility, the percentage of African Americans is 26.5%. Another case in point would be West Hartford, Connecticut, where the state percentage is 9.5%. West Hartford itself is lower, at 4.8%. Yet, within a five-mile radius of the abortion facility, the percentage of African American residents is 19.6%. A final example would be the city of Syracuse, New York, where the abortion facility’s three-mile radius shows a percentage of 25.8%, which is similar to the city percentage of 25.3%, but significantly higher than the state average of 15.9%.
I have to thank the author of this article. I didn’t know any of this before yesterday, I always thought that it was wrong to take a life. That woman brings forth life, and that life exists in her womb. I didn’t realize that part of it was an all out attack on African-Americans to “curb their population as a means to alleviate poverty” I woke up this morning more fully aware of a country that wants me DEAD, the sooner the better. They would kill my children and my childrens, children to do it, and they would not be sorry.
I would never think to protest planned parenthood before I read this article, now Im ready to make my own sign. “Don’t Support Legal Genocide”
This was an investigation done on Planned Parenthood. Complements of WND
The protesters are sending a letter to the major presidential candidates, Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee, Democratic and Republican senatorial campaign committees and the Congressional Black Caucus.
The investigation included a conversation between an actor wanting to make a donation and a woman identified as Autumn Kersey, vice president of marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho.
Actor: I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group, would that be possible?
Planned Parenthood: Absolutely.
Actor: Like the black community for example?
Planned Parenthood: Certainly.
Actor: The abortion – I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose?
Planned Parenthood: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that your gift be used to help an African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that the gift was earmarked for that purpose.
Actor: Great, because I really faced trouble with affirmative action, and I don’t want my kids to be disadvantaged against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name.
Planned Parenthood: Yes, absolutely.
Actor: And we don’t, you know we just think, the less black kids out there the better.
Planned Parenthood: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable.
Actor: Right. I want to protect my son, so he can get into college.
Planned Parenthood: All right. Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I’ve had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I’m excited, and want to make sure I don’t leave anything
(out.http://www.wnd.com/2008/04/62426/)
Oh, and of course there was no dissemination of information before the internet. No books or magazines that Sanger’s work was published in…
Assuming that MLK and other African American leaders didn’t know is a copout and factually inaccurate. Not only did they know, but they were, unlike you, probably aware of at least one other quote from her:
“What hangs over the South is that the Negro has been in servitude. The white southerner is slow to forget this. His attitude is the archaic in this age. Supremacist thinking belongs in the museum.
“The big answer, as I see it, is the education of the white man. The white man is the problem. It is the same as with the Nazis. We must change the white attitudes. That is where it lies.”
Or what she said about work with African Americans in the early 1940’s:
“a group notoriously underprivileged and handicapped to a large measure by a ‘caste’ system that operates as an added weight upon their efforts to get a fair share of the better things in life. To give them the means of helping themselves is perhaps the richest gift of all. We believe birth control knowledge brought to this group, is the most direct, constructive aid that can be given them to improve their immediate situation.”
This work was endorsed by WEB DuBois, who served on her advisory panel. Was he also unaware of what she was doing because he didn’t have the internet?
And back on the subject of MLK. Here’s what he wrote on being given the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award:
“There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist — a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions. At the turn of the century she went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law. Yet the years have justified her actions. She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions. Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. Negroes have no mere academic nor ordinary interest in family planning. They have a special and urgent concern.”
“For the Negro, therefore, intelligent guides of family planning are a profoundly important ingredient in his quest for security and a decent life. There are mountainous obstacles still separating Negroes from a normal existence. Yet one element in stabilizing his life would be an understanding of and easy access to the means to develop a family related in size to his community environment and to the income potential he can command.”
Coretta King herself said of PP when she accepted the award on her husband’s behalf:
“I am proud tonight to say a word in behalf of your mentor, and the person who symbolizes the ideas of this organization, Margaret Sanger. Because of her dedication, her deep convictions, and for her suffering for what she believed in, I would like to say that I am proud to be a woman tonight.”
And then there’s the letter MLK wrote to PP on learning of Sanger’s death:
“Dear Mr. Canfield:
Words are inadequate for me to say how honored I was to be the recipient of the Margaret Sanger Award. This award will remain among my most cherished possessions. While I cannot claim to be worthy of such a signal honor, I can assure you that I accept it with deep humility and sincere gratitude. Such a wonderful expression of support is of inestimable value for the continuance of my humble efforts.
Again let me say how much I regret that at the last minute urgent developments in the civil rights movement made it impossible for me to be in Washington to personally receive the award. My wife brought glowing echoes of the wonderful reception and impressiveness of the total occasion.
I am happy to be the recipient of the Margaret Sanger Award and I can assure you that this distinct honor will cause me to work even harder for a reign of justice and a rule of love all over our nation.
Sincerely yours,
Martin Luther King Jr.”
BTW, I love your Nazi comparison. You are obviously equally unaware that Hitler’s regimes burned Sanger’s books.
“Sanger never met Hitler, except in her unconscious (see below). And the reality is that despite the fact that Sanger’s anti-militarism and isolationism during the 1920s and 1930s at times obscured her abhorrence of the Nazis, she was deeply shocked and horrified by the evils and dangers of fascism, Hitler and the Nazi party. “All the news from Germany is sad & horrible,” she wrote in 1933, “and to me more dangerous than any other war going on any where because it has so many good people who applaud the atrocities & claim its right. The sudden antagonism in Germany against the Jews & the vitriolic hatred of them is spreading underground here & is far more dangerous than the aggressive policy of the Japanese in Manchuria.” (MS to Edith How-Martyn, May 21, 1933 [MSM C2:536].) She joined the American Council Against Nazi Propaganda and “gave money, my name and any influence I had with writers and others, to combat Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.” (“World War II and World Peace,” 1940? [MSM S72:269].) For Hitler the feeling was mutual; in 1933 the Nazis burned Sanger’s books along with those of Ellis, Freud, German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, and others. (Ellis to MS, Sept. 3, 1933 [LCM 3:385].)” http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/secure/newsletter/articles/sanger-hitler_equation.html
Accusing Margaret Sanger of racism and pursuit of racial genocide is simply not based in reality. In fact, it’s largely a product of reading the internet, where any yahoo can throw up outright lies and get other yahoos to believe they are true.
The Nazi’s burned her books for the same reason that her ideas were not made legal until adequate acceptance by the African -American community. Ever heard of…propaganda?
Im not so quick to accept the well published words of a person as proof of their racial neutrality. I can only go by what they have to offer, and the effects of that offering.
Neither Sangers ideas nor Planned Parenthood have done anything to alleviate the oppression of African-Americans in poor neighborhoods. What they have done is made sure their populations dont spill over too badly. You can say that Sangers was really a nice person, but all planned parenthood had DONE is fall into the schemes of Eugenic ideals that curb the populations of “undesirables” AAs make up 12% of the population. AAs receive 36% of all completed abortions.Those are facts approx 400,000 good, i mean dead, black folks….
You can look at what someone says, and you can applaud when they put on a show. but really what matters the most is what happens when the curtains are down. The effects of her “efforts” seem quite one sided.
In other words: you’ll condemn someone you want to condemn (of racism) based on one out of context quote, but will refuse to exonerate them when the overwhelming preponderance of evidence clearly indicates that they actually not only believed something very different but DEDICATED THEIR LIFE to that something different (helping the African American community).
You have clearly shown that your belief about abortion is like a religion: it is not based on science, logic, evidence or rationality, but simply on what you want to believe is true. In fact, even when you are shown to be factually wrong about something, you continue to insist that it’s true, even citing established liars to supposedly bolster your case.
There is no possible way that you’re going to convince anyone that your position is true because all you’re doing is stomping your feet like a child and saying “It is SO!” It didn’t work when you were four and it doesn’t work now.
Wow, now you’ve degraded my character.
Planned Parenthood is helping the African American Community DIE. explain the statistics if its not so!
African Americans make up 12% of the American Population and have 36% of ALL THE ABORTIONS IN THE US.
If im being a child about this, then miss mommy, please pat my childlike negro head and explain these numbers so I can tuck my happy little childlike negro butt in bed tonight and put all the “ugly stuff” behind me.
Oh, and on the question of whether PP has done any good in African American communities, I’ll take the word of actual African American leaders of the time who lived in those communities who said it did over your unsubstantiated claim. As will most people.
You said you have two graduate degrees yet your logic is flawed on the most basic of scales.
First in rebuttal I will demonstrate that the length of time it would take to asses the effects of such a program would span generations. One could not conclude in two small decades the long term impact that such “family planning” practices would have on the African -American community, and indeed all he had was Sangers “vision” which sounded well and good.
Next I will use aforementioned leaders of my personal ethnic heritage to demonstrate that their comments were indeed complementing the perceived (underline perceived) benefit of the “family planning” institution.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr (my comments in parenthesis)
For the Negro, therefore, intelligent guides of family planning are a profoundly important ingredient in his quest for security and a decent life. There are mountainous obstacles still separating Negroes from a normal existence. Yet one element in stabilizing his life would be an understanding of and easy access to the means to develop a family related in size to his community environment and to the income potential he can command. (The black cultures mortal enemy,white supremacy, does not agree with this in regard to their own families,but avidly support it for ours African-Americans, hence the burning of Sangers books)
This is not to suggest that the Negro will solve all his problems through Planned Parenthood. His problems are far more complex, encompassing economic security, education, freedom from discrimination (yea, that will be the day), decent housing and access to culture. (which has been limited at best, to those outside of urbanized areas, and stifled completely at its worst for those in urbanized areas)
Yet if family planning is sensible (here is the key, aprox 400,000 of 1.2 milion abortions a year are African-American…that’s non sensible) it can facilitate or at least not be an obstacle to the solution of the many profound problems that plague him. (He is speaking now of perceived consequences. None of these benefits had been realized in his time…nor mine for that matter).
For these reasons we are natural allies of those who seek to inject any form of planning in our society that enriches life and guarantees the right to exist in freedom and dignity (Here is the qualifier my friend. Planned Parenthood has not guaranteed any of the a fore mentioned benefits)
(We make up only 12% of the population. Even if every one of us was on welfare we could not bog down the system as much as “whites”. Look at the numbers its impossible.We live no more in dignity now than we did when people hated us out in the open. At least then, you knew who you could trust. Every black person is vying for the “token” position. You have no IDEA what its like to be black TODAY, and neither does Martain Luther King Jr. He held in full faith that white people would be able to overcome their ignorance as we grew to become more competent in mainstream American Society. That could not be farther from the truth. We are still hated, there are still very powerful people in high places that want us dead in support of survival of the fittest ideals, and will use whatever excuse they can to do so. My race is dying and all you have to say for yourself is “I read books about you so Im an expert on what its like to be black”
Im starting to think that you would rather hold onto your superficial beliefs than actually feel empathy for your “fellow mankind”. If you cant see there is a deeper issue here, then you just DONT WANT TO LOOK!
Our President isn’t even a product of Family planning. If his mother would have done what these writings suggest, we would not have him as our president. Im sure that would make quite a few people happy.
I’ve not degraded your character. I’ve described your debate style.
The reason African Americans represent the highest rate of abortions (36%) is because they also represent the highest rate of unintended pregnancy (69%). They also have one of the lowest rates of birth control use (47% of African American women don’t use any). http://blackdemographics.com/health-2/abortion/
“First in rebuttal I will demonstrate that the length of time it would take to asses the effects of such a program would span generations. One could not conclude in two small decades the long term impact that such “family planning” practices would have on the African -American community, and indeed all he had was Sangers “vision” which sounded well and good.”
Except you’re not rebutting anything because you in no way attempt to prove that it would take generations. That’s how you do this: you make a claim and then you provide proof. You have consistently failed to do this. And you’re off topic. The question is not whether they knew the outcome of family planning on the black community, but whether they knew Sanger’s intention. They knew Sanger personally. You do not. Their claim to know is better than yours. It’s patronizing to assume otherwise.
“(The black cultures mortal enemy,white supremacy, does not agree with this in regard to their own families,but avidly support it for ours African-Americans, hence the burning of Sangers books)”
Proof, please, that this is why they burned Sanger’s books. Not to mention, this literally makes no sense. Since you are arguing that Sanger wanted to kill blacks through family planning rather than help them (as MLK and others believed), white supremicists should have LOVED her.
“This is not to suggest that the Negro will solve all his problems through Planned Parenthood. His problems are far more complex, encompassing economic security, education, freedom from discrimination (yea, that will be the day), decent housing and access to culture. (which has been limited at best, to those outside of urbanized areas, and stifled completely at its worst for those in urbanized areas)”
And most PP clinics are outside of urban areas. So if non-urban areas are better than urban ones in terms of all of these things, and that’s where the PP clinics are concentrated, the correlation is PP = better lives.
“Yet if family planning is sensible (here is the key, aprox 400,000 of 1.2 milion abortions a year are African-American…that’s non sensible)”
So you’re saying that family planning is non-sensible? Or that African American women CHOOSING to abort their own pregnancies is non-sensible? Because if it’s the former, you obviously don’t understand the proven effect of family planning. And if it’s the latter, I have to ask: why are you blaming a woman who’s been dead almost a half century for what black women are choosing to do today? And since the former would reduce the latter, and family planning is the majority of what PP does, where’s the problem?
“My race is dying”
No, it’s not. African Americans have the second highest per capita birth behind Hispanics. They exceed Anglos. You’re out-breeding whites. Just a fact. http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2012/world-population-data-sheet/fact-sheet-us-population.aspx
And if you’re referring to the high percentage of abortions, again, that’s a choice black women are making for themselves. PP isn’t holding anyone down and making them do it. Your problem appears to be with the choice black women are making. Oh, and only 15% of PP’s patients are African American. Which is about the same as the population of African Americans in the country. If the goal is the extermination of blacks, that number would need to be a WHOLE lot higher.
But there is no coercion at PP. The simple truth is that PP will support your regardless of the choice you make. And they don’t do abortions on women who aren’t sure:
“And yet, little is mentioned of Planned Parenthood’s extensive counseling services, particuarly for women who are on the fence about their pregnancy. A close friend of mine visited the clinic for an abortion, at the urging of her mother. Her mother, a teen parent herself, told my friend she would be ruining her life if she moved forward with the pregnancy, and that she would be forced to move out if she chose to keep the child. My friend later told me she began to cry when the clinicians prepped her for the sonogram. The staffers asked if she was sure, and she said to them “I can never really be sure about something like this.” They sent her home.”
And if you choose to give birth, they support you:
“If it wasn’t for Planned Parenthood, I might not have had my baby. When I thought I was pregnant, it was the only place where I could go and see a doctor to find out for sure. They also provided me with my first gynecological exam. When I told them that I wasn’t comfortable with having an abortion, but I didn’t know what I was going to do, the nurse there gave me the best “You can do this!” pep speech I have ever received. She told me that if I really wanted to have this baby that I wasn’t as hopeless and clueless as I felt. She told me just what to do next to get pre-natal care. I left there with everything I needed to start my pregnancy off right. Thanks to them, I have my wonderful and precious daughter that I dote on every single day–as if you’ve missed all the bajillion blog posts I’ve written about how amazing I think she is.”
Both of the above stories are told by African American women.
(http://www.racialicious.com/2011/03/01/support-planned-parenthood/)
But to be honest, race isn’t really the deciding factor in whether a woman chooses abortion; economic status is. 42% of poor women choose to abort. African American women are disproportionately poor. But POVERTY is the real issue.
(http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/25/study-u-s-abortion-rate-drops-except-among-poorest-women/) The reason the abortion rate is highest for the poor is because the unintended pregnancy rate is also highest for them because they cannot afford consistent and effective birth control. And when women who cannot afford to have children do, they make their own poverty worse and harder to escape. And then they raise those children in that same poverty and perpetuate the cycle. This is what both Sanger and MLK understood. That’s why the number one mission of PP is “to provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual.” So poverty does not limit your ability to control your own reproduction and therefore the economic status of that family. Planned Parenthood is often the only way poor women can get birth control, reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
“Im starting to think that you would rather hold onto your superficial beliefs than actually feel empathy for your “fellow mankind””
Feel free to think that. But the truth is that my whole stance is based in empathy. I know what happens when you outlaw abortion: abortions are NOT reduced. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html?_r=0)
But deaths due to illegal abortions rise. 40% of those who have secret abortion experience complications. (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/12/4/gpr120402.html) Many will not go to the hospital because they fear prosecution. As a result, there is a good chance of sterilization or death. I don’t want to see that because I think women deserve better and because I imagine what it would be like to be so desperate to be drawn to that point. Women should not have to die when it’s totally avoidable.
I’m sure that you and I can agree that women dying is a bad thing. If making abortion illegal doesn’t save a single fetus (which it doesn’t), but more women die as a result of abortion bans, then isn’t the smart thing to reduce unwanted pregnancies (in which case abortions will decrease) in the first place? And since that’s one of the primary goals of Planned Parenthood, shouldn’t you be working to drive down the number of abortions they perform by supporting their work with family planning?
And did you read the tumblr of people describing how PP saved their lives? Regardless of what you think about abortion, the simple truth is that PP helps a lot of women who would have nowhere else to turn.
And as to your phone call? That’s the work of infamous hoaxster James O’Keefe III, a man with a proven track record of doctoring video (including entirely splicing in his side of a conversation–one that he shot separately and in which he was wearing a costume he never wore during the actual interview). He’s a criminal and a liar. Citing him as a reliable source substantially invalidates your position.
Since you are obviously unaware of this man’s track record, let me enlightening you:
The Legal Ramifications Catch Up to James O’Keefe III
http://shanawestlake.com/2013/03/08/the-legal-ramifications-catch-up-to-james-okeefe-iii/
Conservatives distance themselves from arrested activist
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/28/nation/la-na-acorn-okeefe28-2010jan28
James O’Keefe Pays $100K Settlement after Deceiving Public about ACORN
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/03/12019/james-o%E2%80%99keefe-pays-100k-settlement-after-deceiving-public-about-acorn-alec%E2%80%99s-help
James O’Keefe and friends plead guilty in Mary Landrieu office caper
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/05/james_okeefe_and_friends_plead.html
Thank you for setting the record straight on this!
Thank you for this post!
I live in a small-ish town without our own PP. There is a “Family Planning” clinic that gives out birth control, but doesn’t perform abortions. During lent, a couple of churches in the area got together to protest the clinic for 40 days. I had to drive past them everyday to get to work, and I really wanted to flip them all the bird, but they looked so intent that they were saving babies, that I couldn’t do anything but stare straight ahead. During the last week of their protest, a group of family planning supporters set up across the street from them and had a little protest-off. It was great.
Not trying to save babies. Simply praying for the women inside the clinic.
Well thats most of what my group does. Some groups are more violent and pushy.
Why do you need to be THERE praying? The Bible is pretty clear in its directive to pray in your closet.
Matthew 6:6
But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees from the hidden place will reward you.
Why would you pray for someone getting BC pills or a routine checkup?
Thanks for this powerful and passionate post. Very well said!
Reblogged this on voicelesssoulsdotorg and commented:
This is something that many of women have had to go through at one time or another. It is sad to say that unfortunately we are thrown in many different categories when it comes to preventing our selves from becoming pregnant. All women are not the same, yes there are many who are irresponsible but
As a citizen in Ireland, you can’t escape from the “abortion debate”. This post made me realise though that once legislation is clarified (whatever side it ends up on) that the debate won’t end and probably never will.
It’s sad really. You’d think in this day and age it wouldn’t still be an issue.
[…] Do I Look Like a Baby Killer?. […]
This was just… really good.
http://plainlysophie.com
I don’t know you, but from this post, you ROCK!
I could add more, having been to PP myself when I was younger and helped someone through her ordeal – essentially as an escort. But this is your blog, your post. And you did it so very well. Your experience could be anyone’s experience. In fact, it is for so many, which is why we need to stand up for these services.
This was a fantastic article. KUDOS!!! I was so glad that you shared your story. I too, had similar encounters for years…even after having three children. I worked for NOW as a volunteer back in the 80s and am a strong supporter of planned parenthood. So strong, that I recently published a book about what life was like for women back in the 50s-60s before birth control and the decriminalization of abortion. It is a fictional account of a true story. Stop by and visit. I am in the process of getting a more professional cover image worked up, but you may like it.
Reblogged this on mybrandofgenius and commented:
Fantastic story! What a into journey to social progress!
You seem to be judging just as much as he was, assuming what he was thinking. You felt uncomfortable, at the presence of one individual and a three sentence conversation, where it does not seem anything was forced on you. I can see why you were ashamed. You’d think in this day and age it wouldn’t still be an issue.
I really like your blog…I am interested in activism, and this article really speaks to my past and present experience with Planned Parenthood. I have always used their services, except for one year (well two, if you count the one in which I carried my child). That other year, I went to, of all things, a Catholic clinic near my community college, mostly for convenience, and sliding scale charges, as I was beyond poor. They were the first to make me feel somehow “wrong” for seeking birth control, and for getting tested for HPV. The doctor or nurse-practitioner on duty was nice enough, but I could see the barely-veiled reproach in her eyes. She made judgments about my life-style, and asked kind of insulting questions about my sex-life. Even though I wanted to be respectful because she was a medical professional, I felt like telling her to mind her business! No one at PP had ever been as judgmental, or asked me so many irrelevant questions. It occurred to me later, that I was being judged more because of my socio-economic condition, rather than out of some misguided moralistic attitude. This did not make me feel better. I later returned to Planned Parenthood, feeling empowered. They are much bigger and corporate now, and you have to set appointments on a computer through some outlet in Phoenix (I live in Tucson). But I feel relatively safe there. My point is: You are right…it is nobody’s business why you go to Planned Parenthood (unless you want to share), and NO ONE should ever feel guilty, or ashamed, or “bad” about protecting their body, least of all women, who have much to protect. Going to Planned Parenthood is responsible, a basic right, and no matter what anyone believes, provides options to their patients…hence the moniker “PLANNED Parenthood.” So I applaud you in writing about such a personal experience, and telling it like it is. More women are standing up to societal judgment, which in this day and age, amazes me that we even need to.
I admire that you’ve gone out and made a post about this. It’s time that women’s bodies become less taboo, and less of a ground for political and religious debate and controversy. It is none of anyone’s business but one’s own, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s high time that old men in Congress stop trying to tell women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
Moving post, thanks for sharing your story. I agree there is a sense of secrecy for people going to Planned Parenthood… but the services offered there are valuable and very necessary. I wish that the protests had not come to your city. In 2013… women’s rights should no longer be something that have to be fought for.
Thanks again for sharing.
I wouldnt have grown up an only child if it wasnt for abortion. Im a woman. A mother, a poor mother who chose to have the babies that I wasnt ready to take care of. Maybe it should have been a woman who approached you, It makes me want to stand outside of a planned parenthood. So I could be a compassionate voice. The idea that its okay to kill a child as long as its inside of your body is…twisted, Its not fair to the baby, who cant speak for itself, it cant defend itself, it just wants a chance to breathe. Its not about taking away options for healthcare. Im not sorry that there are fanatics that just want to save a babies life. I wish planned parenthood would just stick to the planned part…then the old man would not have been on the sidewalk. The old man isnt protesting birth control, and definitly not healthcare. He is not protesting the word abortion. He is protesting this
If seeing this doesnt make you want to be fanatical….you should check your pulse…
Did you even comprehend what she wrote? She was going there for BC pills, NOT an abortion.Also, I looked at that picture and that is NOT what a 12 week abortion looks like, or even a 20 week abortion. It’s the same lies and doctored photos the radicals use to try and make their lies seem real;.If you believe this garbage fine, but please do not insult my intelligence by trying to make me believe it too.
Ive been pregnant, so yea the images are accurate, they correlate to developement photos doctors will show you to explain where you are at gestationally……….
The article was about how annoying the pro-life movement is. Well my aim in my response was to show the need for the movement. The man doesnt have a platform to explain his personal reason for why he is doing what he is doing. It really has nothing to do with healthcare. If PP as an organization stopped offering abortions, the man would no longer be there.
“The article was about how annoying the pro-life movement is.” WRONG.
Maybe annoying is the wrong word. Do pro-lifers make you feel dirty cause your going to planned parenthood? There has to be another solution outside of planned parenthood
http://img.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-defending-infanticide/2013/04/08/36e44294-a061-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html
This is a story about how the organization Planned Parenthood printed by the Washington Post. Hope this puts some light on the issue of “why outside of planned parenthood”
Just passed along your link to an old friend is who now an MD. He said to call you on it-said it reminded him of a baby doll with fake blood from a Halloween store. He said that if it were aborted it would be more “chopped up”.
And just for the record-he’s a staunch pro-life Catholic. He said there is no reason to share a fake picture, considering he saw what the real thing looked like when he worked in the ER. He said there are still plenty of homemade abortions going on and that they look nothing like that.
yea I think the point is just to show what the baby would look like. Its dramatized for sure, But really would it be any better to look at a real photo of a real baby that was chopped up?
But didn’t you try to pass it off as a real photo? Now that it’s been established that the photo isn’t real you seem to backpedal. What difference does it make, except to establish that people are using doctored photos. That doesn’t bode well for believability in an argument.
She’s not got a great track record thus far with reality.
I’m still reeling from her assertion that because a chapter in a book doesn’t mention African Americans, it is about African Americans….
Great post! I really enjoyed reading it. As far as that old man goes, why protest at Plan Parenthood? Why not use that energy to go to various schools and colleges to teach boys to be more responsible and respectful of women.
Yes! I agree.
Why do women feel so ashamed to go in there?
I would suggest, that on a deep level, they know and understand that something ISN’T RIGHT with that place. If it’s a place that aborts babies… I wouldn’t want to be there, even for birth control.
I’d like to quote you…
“…women’s bodies have become grounds for political debates that have nothing to do with reproductive rights or “saving babies.”
On the contrary; it has EVERYTHING to do with saving babies. I like to believe that life begins at conception since human DEVELOPMENT begins at conception…But no one can prove when life begins; the science isn’t there yet, and I imagine it won’t be there for quite a while.
Therefore it is IMPOSSIBLE to know whether abortion kills human beings or not.
That fact is IRREFUTABLE.
So, why even TAKE THE CHANCE? (except in cases of therapeutic abortions, a.k.a incest, etc.)
It is IMMORAL to take the chance. Deep down, everyone KNOWS this. THAT’S why there is shame in the clinic. Even if you don’t utilize abortive services… why would you want to be associated with those who DO risk murdering babies?
Just some food for thought.
There are other ways to receive birth control pills without going to Planned Parenthood;
I am not sexually active; I only use birth control for my irregular cycles and hemorrhagia. I receive them at my local pharmacy, prescribed by a gynecologist (sp?) in a local hospital in my area.
My point is, you don’t HAVE to go to Planned Parenthood for all your feminine needs. There are other options.
I have fantastic insurance-the type that is often referred to as “cadillac insurance”. I am in my late thirties and divorced. I am not active at this time. I am on birth control because of my irregular cycles, a problem that began after the birth of my only child. I have been informed by more than one specialist that it would be in my best interest to never have another child, due to life-threatening issues during my pregnancy, labor and very hurried delivery.
So, knowing I have fantastic insurance where do I go for my birth control and my physicals? That’s right-Planned Parenthood. Why? Because I can get in when I need to, instead of having to work around a busy clinic schedule. In my area, it can take a very long time to get an appointment for a pelvic and pap. And quite often the staff are rude when you come in because they are overworked or having a bad day or what-have-you. Also, I live in a smallish town and at the other clinic I know all of the nurses and attend church with one of the doctors. I don’t know if I could have a comfortable conversation or sit on a committee with any of them after knowing they know exactly how the plumbing works, as they say.
My local Planned Parenthood is staffed by friendly, intelligent people who seem to care about their job. I am able to get an appointment quickly and I know my wait won’t be anywhere near as long as it would be at any of the four local OB/GYN offices. The nurses don’t gossip about everyone we know, as they have at other practices in the area. Instead, they get down to business yet still treat me as a human being. The nurse practitioner at my local PP asks exactly what questions need to be asked without getting into too many details. She is very efficient when she works, explains everything that is happening during the physical, and then takes the time to address any concerns or to allow me to ask any questions. She is also more than willing to make referrals for whatever service is needed. The others across town only want to refer me to their friends for services, which could mean a wait of several months.
(And let’s face it-when you find a lump in your breast you want it examined right then and there. You don’t want to be told that it will be nine weeks before you can get an appointment with an OB/GYN and then another four-six weeks for the mammogram, which they will not refer you out-of-district to get because their buddy across town runs them. Just speaking from personal experience. There is nothing like wondering if you are going to die from breast cancer and leave a then four year old without a mother and having to worry about that for months.)
Planned Parenthood takes my insurance. They take nearly all insurance. When I leave the office that day they hand my a three month supply of birth control pills and I pay my insurance copay. They also encourage me to call my prescription insurance provider to set up mail delivery for the year, since after three months my insurance copay will increase without the delivery. They offer to have someone walk me to my car and then thank me for supporting PP.
I’ve never had an abortion. I don’t know if I would if the situation presented itself. What I do know is that I trust Planned Parenthood far more than any of my local providers with my health care. I also know that, as my daughter transitions into her teens I’d trust them with her care too. I’m not ashamed of it either. Whenever someone asks where to find a decent gyn I refer them to PP. I think they offer a valuable service in my community, along with many other communities across the nation.
Only 3% of what they do is abortions and most clinics don’t perform abortions AT ALL.
Your premise is based on misinformation. Your logic is fallacious.
“I like to believe”
Well, geez then let me plan my whole life on what you would like to believe, that sounds extremely reasonable!
“I am not sexually active; I only use birth control for my irregular cycles and hemorrhagia. I receive them at my local pharmacy, prescribed by a gynecologist (sp?) in a local hospital in my area.”
She’s a saint as well who only has sex for reproduction, that sounds swell, let me tell my husband we are going off the birth control will be having a baby every year or the sex stops all together. People like this irk me in the extreme, I don’t care what you do, I wish you and people like you would stay out of my vagina and I hate it when God Is brought into any argument. I don’t even believe in God, so that holds no saw with me.
Sometimes I wish I could have 20 abortions just for spite.
It’s people like you who give pro-choice people a bad rep. All you do is harass those who disagree with you. I never claimed to be a ‘saint’. I wasn’t implying that I’m somehow ‘better’ than pro-choice people. You’re assuming.
As for bringing God into the argument… I didn’t base my argument solely on my religious beliefs.
I believe my bottom line was the whole concept of the RISK of infant murder.
The fact that you wish such a thing shows a lot about your character. I would not wish to protest outside an abortion clinic 20 times, yelling profanities, holding signs, etc. just to bully the patients because I disagreed with them.
Do not act out of spite. Honestly… not intending to offensive here… but that’s really immature.
When you say:
“It is IMMORAL to take the chance.” and follow it by saying that you would not take the chance, you are both condemning those who would as moral and claiming moral superiority over them.
If you don’t like the way people react to your claiming moral superiority, then perhaps you shouldn’t make such a claim.
You’re also making a lot of claims that are purely subjective.
pardon me:
“you are both condemning those who would as immoral and claiming moral superiority over them.”
“You are both condemning those who would as more and…” That phrase makes no sense. I think you meant ‘immoral’? I’m not saying that those PEOPLE are morally inferior, I’m saying that such an ACTION is immoral. It’s impossible for a person to be ‘immoral’.
I am not claiming moral superiority. Did I say “I’m better than you because *I* would do THIS”? NO. You’re assuming again.
No, I’m not assuming. This is a simple logic problem:
Position A on a subject is immoral.
Therefore, anyone holding Position A are holding an immoral position.
I do not hold Position A.
Therefore, I am less immoral on this subject.
Of COURSE you didn’t come out and say “I’m better than you.” That would have been too direct. Nevertheless, that is, in fact, what your words logically meant.
That’s the way you chose to perceive it. I did NOT intend that at ALL. No matter WHAT I do, you people ALWAYS tell me that I’m arrogant and think that I’m better than you just because I disagree with you. I’m not arguing this further. I KNOW that I am no better than anyone else. Don’t believe me? Fine.
Perhaps if all pro-choice people who discuss this issue with you are giving you the same feedback (that you are positioning yourself as morally superior and/or arrogant), you might want to look at how you are communicating with them. Or is there some reason you believe your own conduct is unquestionable?
Yes, I have looked at that, and continue to do so, every time I engage in a discussion. I am as respectful as I know how to be without crossing my own values. No, I don’t believe my conduct is ‘unquestionable’. I question my conduct every minute of every day. (I would hope that others self-reflect similarly.)
Great. So in your self-reflection, consider the fact that you’re being actively told that the wording you’re using sets you up as morally superior. And either change your wording or expect people to continue to tell you this.
It’s not ‘my wording’. It’s how others choose to PERCEIVE my wording. I shouldn’t HAVE to add, “NO, before you ask, I DON’T think I am better than you because of this.” Anyone who assumes so is an ignorant fool. So that’s on them.
Sorry, no. I teach English composition. Your wording definitely set up a specific logic. If you want a different response, you’ll need to use different wording.
I’m sure you don’t look like a baby killer. But your convenient little pills justify your support an organization that kills hundreds of thousands of babies a year? Please ask Planned Parenthood if you could volunteer to escort the (pieces of) baby bodies out the back door. It might help you see what all the fuss is about. It’s not about your pity of weirdos who bravely stand up to cowardly bullies who slice up screaming babies. It’s about your ignorance. Please at least do some serious research of what abortion is from the baby’s point of view. There are a gazillion educational sites–all very unpleasant. I have many of them linked on mygreenvelvetlife.com. I hope I look like a baby lover because I am.
Oh man. Hundreds of thousands of babies (screaming, no less!) being sliced to pieces? This is a fantasy that you and your cohorts perpetuate endlessly to seriously mentally ill individuals who believe it. Poet granny, I respect your right to have an opinion which may differ from mine, but to perpetuate falsehoods and lies in downright ignorant.
The pro-choice movement isn’t about women’s rights……at all…no matter how naive you are to what they are doing. Its not about women’s rights at all. The services they provide are a perc to assure their continued existence to carry out their founders mission..
While African-Americans make up 12% of the US population, they account for nearly 35% of all abortions performed. That means they accounted for nearly 423,500 of the 1.21 million abortions performed in 2008”(Vhttp://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/white-people-protest-black-pastor/)
Sanger had a great deal of charisma as did Hitler, who got his ideas from the eugenics movement in America.
Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, thought, and acted apon those thoughts, that African Americans were an “unfit race” that should not be encouraged to reproduce.
More children from the fit, less from the unfit—that is the chief aim of birth control.”
—Margaret Sanger, Birth Control Review, May 1919 (vol. III, no. 5); p.12.
“The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal.
We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,
and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs
to any of their more rebellious members.”
— Margaret Sanger, letter to Clarence Gamble, Dec. 10,1939. – Sanger manuscripts, Sophia
Smith Collection, Smith College. (Dec. 10 is the correct date of the letter. There is a different date
circulated, e.g. Oct. 19, 1939; but Dec. 10 is the correct date of Ms Sanger’s letter to Mr. Gamble.)
If you agree with her, then my argument falls on deaf ears and you need not read any further.
These ideas are still promoted under Planned Parenthood. Instead of better prenatal care, they encourage contraception, instead of improved education, they push sterilization.
One representative example is Des Moines, Iowa, where the overall state percentage of African Americans is 2.1%. Des Moines itself is 8.1% black. Within a one-mile radius of the abortion facility, the percentage of African Americans is 26.5%. Another case in point would be West Hartford, Connecticut, where the state percentage is 9.5%. West Hartford itself is lower, at 4.8%. Yet, within a five-mile radius of the abortion facility, the percentage of African American residents is 19.6%. A final example would be the city of Syracuse, New York, where the abortion facility’s three-mile radius shows a percentage of 25.8%, which is similar to the city percentage of 25.3%, but significantly higher than the state average of 15.9%.
This was an investigation done on Planned Parenthood. Complements of WND
The protesters are sending a letter to the major presidential candidates, Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee, Democratic and Republican senatorial campaign committees and the Congressional Black Caucus.
The investigation included a conversation between an actor wanting to make a donation and a woman identified as Autumn Kersey, vice president of marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho.
Actor: I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group, would that be possible?
Planned Parenthood: Absolutely.
Actor: Like the black community for example?
Planned Parenthood: Certainly.
Actor: The abortion – I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose?
Planned Parenthood: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that your gift be used to help an African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that the gift was earmarked for that purpose.
Actor: Great, because I really faced trouble with affirmative action, and I don’t want my kids to be disadvantaged against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name.
Planned Parenthood: Yes, absolutely.
Actor: And we don’t, you know we just think, the less black kids out there the better.
Planned Parenthood: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable.
Actor: Right. I want to protect my son, so he can get into college.
Planned Parenthood: All right. Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I’ve had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I’m excited, and want to make sure I don’t leave anything
(out.http://www.wnd.com/2008/04/62426/)
Oh and one more thing. I had a miscarriage at three months witch is about twelve weeks. They did a D&C and the doctor explained the procedure to me. what is left of the baby ends up in pieces before it is sucked out of you. They stick like a baby blender inside you while your unconscious (no that’s not what they call It I just remember that’s what I equated it too), then suck the pieces out.
What you equated it to is irrelevant. That’s not an accurate description of the procedure.
A procedure that may have saved your life.
I also may have been left to miscarry on my own. We will never know will we? Thank you for questioning what the doctor told me. I have felt a great deal of shame surrounding my miscarriage ever since it happened. I never really verified if what the doctor told me was true. I did today…and there was information he was not forthcoming with, for whatever reason.
I was never informed I had the option of waiting to miscarry on my own. And that many women choose this instead and their body does what must be done. Dont I have a right to know all of my options? is it really fair to have someone shove down my throat what they think I should do without any other recourse? Or does that kind of logic only apply to those who wish to prevent a loss of life.
Its not a baby blender, its more like a…baby chopper, that scrapes the uterine wall, and cuts the baby up…Im still unhappy with myself that I let my no longer beating heart baby, to be torn from me with such indignity and lack of respect for the sanctity of life. Now that I know I could have done differently, Im even more unhappy with the decision I made.
I dont know if it would have saved my life, but I do know that I wasnt even able to give my child a proper burial because of the ideals pro-choicers push about when life begins. Those ideas infringed on the humane treatment of my baby in its death.
Except, even by YOUR definition, there was no baby. And as I pointed out: it MAY have saved your life. The simple fact is that it DOES saves lives on a fairly regular basis.
Would you rather have died?
I dont feel safe sharing my feelings with you on this topic.
I never said people shouldnt get DnCs. I merely stated that even though my baby was already dead inside me I felt horrible about the inhumane way in which his body was torn from me. Your not going to alleviate me of that guilt with anything you have to offer. Only God can, and only when I choose to give it to Him.
I’m sorry you feel guilty about a medical procedure that, according to the odds, was in your best interest.
However, your emotional experience is YOURS. Trying to universalize it is simply wrong. I’ve had an abortion. It was, then and now, one of the best decisions. It doesn’t mean I think it’s the choice everyone should make. And I’m certainly not trying to suggest that anyone who chooses differently is doing something wrong.
That would be me hurting someone whose position I cannot possibly understand. Even though I’ve been in a very similar position.
Let me say this a different way. Having a D and C procedure after a miscarriage is not wrong. My personal feelings are that I would have rather known my other options. I was never given the “choice” that your harping on about in your post.
I dont expect you are anyone else to share my gravity of conscience. I have found, as a matter of course, that most people are not as sensitive as I am. Should people be more conscious of how their actions affect others? OF COURSE! But until our society gets away from their isolationist ideology, most will continue to act on selfish ambition, which will always infringe on the rights of others.
Dehumanizing an unborn child fails to acknowledge the power a woman has to bring forth life. A woman does not bring forth a group of cells. I know that we women are not exactly upheld for this, but it is indeed true. Why should you deny yourself the empowerment you deserve?
“I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the woman’s body, and therefore ultimately her choice.” –Faye Wattleton, President of Planned Parenthood, Ms. Magazine, 1997
What’s your point with Wattleton’s quote? Of course abortion kills a fetus. No one is disputing that…
So if it is killing a fetus, that means that the fetus was alive. This is not the same as to say that the cells died, but the developing unborn child as an entity is killed. It seems that quite a bit of bitterness and hate would have to be involved to defend the argument of “choice” from this position; as it is not a humanitarian one.
No one is arguing that the fetus is dead. An abortion kills a fetus. There’s no confusion on this point whatsoever.
Sorry that your doctor acted unethically. But the fact that he did has nothing whatsoever to do with Planned Parenthood or abortions.
the underlying topic was choice. Of course I had a choice not to get the procedure. I was not made aware of any alternatives however. The Point is that a choice without other options is not a choice.
Again, your procedure was not done at PP, thus it has nothing to do with a discussion of PP.
How in the world does anyone know what anything is like from an unborn fetus’ point of view? Am I the only one who thinks that’s crazy? Sure, you can speculate, but there is no way to KNOW.
Thank you!
Pain is a biological experience that has little to do with “point of view” and more to do with the science of developed neural cells
Actually, pain IS a matter of point of view. I have a low tolerance for pain. My mother, on the other hand, says childbrith doesn’t hurt and gets her teeth drilled without novocaine. We both have developed neural cells. But our point of view on what hurts is dramatically different.
Cutaneous sensory receptors appear in the perioral area of the human fetus in the 7th week of gestation; they spread to the rest of the face, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet by the 11th week, to the trunk and proximal parts of the arms and legs by the 15th week, and to all cutaneous and mucous surfaces by the 20th week.25,26 The spread of cutaneous receptors is preceded by the development of synapses between sensory fibers and interneurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, which first appear during the sixth week of gestation.27,28 Recent studies using electron microscopy and immunocytochemical methods show that the development of various types of cells in the dorsal horn (along with their laminar arrangement, synaptic interconnections, and specific neurotransmitter vesicles) begins before 13 to 14 weeks of gestation and is completed by 30 weeks.
More from the same source couldnt help myself…
Explaining the biology of it doesn’t refute the fact that even doctors cannot tell you what a fetus feels.
I thought you said you had degrees….when did anyone try to expound on the feelings of an unborn baby? The topic was the biological experience of pain, not the psychological idea of hurt. That is why I used an article that was able to distinguish the two in identifying that a fetus is biologically capable of feeling pain.
This whole part of the discussion came from your reply to the statement: “How in the world does anyone know what anything is like from an unborn fetus’ point of view?” The topic was NOT the biological experience of pain. It was specifically about what that experience is like from the fetal point of view (whether it actually hurts).
So if anyone got us off topic, it was clearly you.
Yes, fetus have nervous systems. So do plants. So do many lower life-forms. Nervous systems do not buy you anything.
I know you think that an unborn baby is somewhat on the level of being plant life, but I would warn you that eating it wouldn’t be a good idea….cause its not on the same level as a plant. Plants dont have a central nervous system connected to a central point of control, like a brain…..It would be more appropriate to compare it to a dog, or a cat. These mammals are largly unable to defend themselves. A dog cant say, ow that hurts, but you know it is in pain through its reaction to stimuli.
The original statement “abortion from the babies point of view” had less to do with feelings, which we are not scientifically quantifiable, and more to do with biological processes such as pain, which to a large extent is quantifiable and is also included in the category of the babies “experience”….
Actually I didn’t put it on the level of plant life. I just pointed out that according to YOUR critieria, a plant had just as much right to life as a fetus. I took your logic to its end point.
Because yes, plants do have nervous systems. They don’t work the same but they are there.
Let’s make this easier for you.
Fish also have nervous systems and cannot express themselves. Do you avoid eating fish?
Science can prove through the development of the particular axons (nervous cells) inherent to experiencing that sensation that babies at 12 weeks are able to feel pain.
Though we don’t remember being in the womb due to the normal neural stages of apoptosis, every one of us nevertheless was.
That being said we can acknowledge that were not dealing with a plant or alien species, and that we can in fact draw conclusions concerning the developed biological components of the prenatal child and how they function based on the thoroughly examined and studied biological components of the postpartum child and adult. .
Is it just me or would it be crazy to assume otherwise……This isnt about perspective, pain is a biological experience.
Oh something I also wanted to mention… when you keep mentioning the whole concept of ‘hiding’ taking care of our bodies…
WHY in the hell are men so TERRIFIED of anything related to feminine care? Why is it ‘inappropriate’ to talk about certain health conditions (like mine, hemorrhagia)? How is it any different than IBS, cancer, or Asperger’s?
And GOD FORBID if we mention our PERIOD. Why do men think it’s so disgusting? I mean, they seem to love vaginas pretty much. And that comes out of a vagina. It’s like men have a love-hate relationship with our female parts.
They’re GREAT for HIS pleasure, but when it’s not being used for that… especially if it’s going through its natural and healthy phase… then it’s GROSS!
Am I the only one seeing the hypocrisy here?
Wow Denise, for a moment there it sounded like we were agreeing on something. Maybe you’re coming to see the light 🙂
Lol seriously though. This BUGS the crap out of me. We can agree to disagree on contraceptives and abortion and yadda yadda yadda… but this one is just too… in your face. xD
Denisemariesurvivor, you have finally hit upon the WHOLE point of the original blog post. The reason you are bugged about it is exactly because a whole bunch of people have JUDGED that stuff your body does is gross, your comfort with your body have been JUDGED as shameful, your care-taking and willingness to appreciate your temple are JUDGED as frivolous and wasteful, and your natural functioning and your ownership of your body are JUDGED as his inconvenience. You should be appalled at the hypocrisy ladle and the self-hate soup you’ve been served. It’s a psychological system – still so ingrained in the human culture we often don’t recognize it – meant to control you and diminish your value in the eyes of others (men and women) AND most horribly in your own eyes.
Denisemariesurvivor, You may find it hard to believe, but dozens and dozens of people who have read your dialogues tonight, want you to know that they truly care for you and want that you are never manipulated by this system of WORTH-assigning again. And that when the future comes, you get to choose how your body will be treated by doctors, and men, and other women, governments, employers, and corporations who use that subliminal self-loathing to rob you of income, relationships and happiness.
If its something you have been looking for, I give you permission to cast off that deception and know yourself. I wish for you clear-mindedness and a sense of being loved.
I’ve never been in that position myself, but it always gets me that people think that having an abortion is easy. The easier option. There’s this prejudice that some people are just slutty or lazy and can’t be bothered to carry a baby to term – when for most women who have abortions, it’s something they think deeply about and is often a traumatic experience, and they make the decision because in the long run it is the best one for them to make. I would never judge someone who got an abortion, because I do not know their circumstances and I have not been in their shoes, and my reaction is more likely to be sympathy that they were forced to make that decision.
Exactly.
When I was a teen I walked into a clinic like this, I was lucky that I did not have to face anything like this or what I see on the mainland news. I love the point you mentioned about “having a cup of coffee with him”, this too would be my thought process. Someone can be rude or overly intrusive I will try to plan out in my head how can I help them.. Man it is truly interesting how the world goes round.
I really admire your bravery in joining the escorts. The simple fact is that women should not be afraid to go to a Family Planning clinic, whatever the reason.
It amazes me how many people completely missed the point of this article. Kat is standing up for her right to get free medical care at a planned parenthood clinic. It is important for women to get annual checkups for many reasons and the fact that so many people are trying to make women feel shame about going to a PP clinic for that is just ridiculous. Even if she was going to a clinic for another reason, the fact of the matter is that it is nobody’s business.
The subject of pro-choice vs pro-life comes down to this, if you don’t want to support a women’s right to chose, then don’t…but there is no reason to get in the face of those who are pro-choice. Did it ever occur to any of you that believe abstaining until marriage is the only solution that not all married couples want to have children? Is it wrong for them to use birth control when married because they either don’t want children or cannot afford them? What about women who shouldn’t have a child for health reasons? Do you really think it is better for a baby to be born addicted to crack to live for only a few hours than to let a women get an abortion? What about incest or rape? What about knowing for a fact that your child is going to be born with severe birth defects which will not allow the child to live any sort of normal life? What if the woman were to be diagnosed with cancer and the only way to treat it would be with chemo, is it ok then?
I have been with the same man for going on seven years. We very much want to have children, but we can barely afford to feed the two of us at the moment. It wouldn’t be fair to bring a child into this situation so we use preventative measures. There is nothing wrong with that. I started taking birth control to help regulate my cycle and make it less painful and I’m not ashamed of that, nor should anyone else be.
Wow. As an English woman who makes a simple free NHS doctors appointment for a checkup and free contraception, i am quite literally STUNNED by how it works over there 😦
Yep, its pretty sad. My British flatmates were *shocked* when I was living in London and told them that you have to pay for contraceptives in the US (unless you go to Planned Parenthood).
I remember one time going to a clinic years ago(80’s) to get my birth control pills, but when I found out what they did there my opinions changed and I stopped going. I didn’t have your experience– and there wasn’t any escorts.
I believe you are feeling emotionally accosted by someone who is only looking at the child who has no voice, by those who do. I know there are those who have taken sharing info too far to the point of death. I don’t condone that either.
I could possibly be one of those passing those brochures because I believe life starts at conception and to take it is horrific, no matter how it happened.
http://youtu.be/7y2KsU_dhwI . This is the 180 movie with an interesting perspective on abortion. I hope you would consider watching it.
Adoption is a very noble option.
(concerning Ovarian Cancer, we need more awareness and I am sorry to hear of your history, I had a very dear friend pass away 3 years ago due to this)
Adoption is a noble choice if there’s a parent waiting for said child. But that tends only to be true of white, healthy babies. Otherwise, bringing that child into a world that neither wants it nor is willing to care for it is morally irresponsible.
Exactly.
I find it sad to hear an excuse like that. Healthy white babies. What about all those Chinese babies, and Russian babies, etc…. etc…go on, keep making excuses, there is no justification for murder of an innocent baby. Exactly.
First, a Russian baby is likely to be white. But sometimes not healthy. And I’m not saying that babies of color should not be adopted. I’m saying they simply aren’t, often because the self-same people going on about the evils of abortion would never consider adopting a baby of color. So many of those babies would go unadopted, and end up stuck in a system that doesn’t care about them and sets them up for a life of failure.
Stating reality is not making an excuse. Saying that all these aborted fetuses could be put up for adoption is: it’s an excuse for not fully engaging in the simple reality that leads to many abortions. You want abortions to end? adopt a bunch of black and hispanic babies. Until then, you’re the one making excuses.
I would adopt an African American baby. I wanted to once, but a brother of the woman who got custody of the baby, it was her sister’s baby, pitched a fit about a white family adopting it, so she decided not to let it go to me. She had taken in several of her sister’s children. She had health issues. I wanted to help her and i wanted that baby. She was beautiful! I have adopted 3 children from foster care. I am pro-life. So here is one pro-life person who has adopted. This was several years ago that I came so close to getting that baby. Now, because I am not young anymore, 49, I am looking forward to grandchildren. But if faced with it, and God willing, I would still adopt a baby. I wouldn’t care what color it is.
That’s wonderful. I wish there were more people like you. Unfortunately, those willing to do so are very rare.
There is a bottom line, and that is the killing of an innocent child. Murder, mutilation, death – taking the safe way to call a child a fetus, that’s always the way for those who condone such a horrific act.
I hope someday when you least expect it, maybe while you’re standing in line at the check out or working on a paper, it’ll hit you and you’ll realize what all the “to do” is why I feel so strongly against abortion.
Hiding behind choices, fetuses, white babies versus black babies, those are not the bottom line. Selfishness, self centered-ness, a lack of consciousness and more is the problem. Our society as a whole is really good at playing the ostrich. Convenience. Opinions.
Even the healthy white babies don’t all get adopted. There aren’t enough people willing to have “progeny-not-their-own” running around their homes, as if genetic links mattered.
Last I heard, there was a waiting list…a LONG waiting list…
Yes, but if the people on that list have said they’ll only accept a healthy white baby…
The long waiting list is for healthy white babies with clean family histories. That means no drugs, no drinking, no list of diseases that might be passed down through the family.
A friend from high school works at a private adoption agency. She said that the parents quite often come in, thinking of it as a smorgasbord, telling the agency that they want a healthy male child who comes from parents with above average IQ scores and look like at least one of the adoptive parents. (example: prospective dad is 6’1″, blonde hair, blue eye. They will request someone with similar looks. And no, it’s not an exaggeration. )
If adoption is a noble option then why are there MILLIONS of unwanted children still in the system?
Thank you! I have taught in both Baltimore and in North Philly and have seen first hand what happens to kids who aren’t wanted. Kids who are born addicted to crack, who bounce in and out of different foster homes… adoption is a great option but it is FAR from perfect. Just watch “Wednesday’s Child” if you need proof.
My initial impression is that the parties on both sides of an issue, like this one, have a stigma to overcome. You have pro-life, which often has a religious slant, seen as inarticulate religious fanatics that only shout of you. Then, you have the other side, pro-choice, seen as baby-killers. My solution is to try and understand the opposing side, which seems like basic rhetoric to me. You don’t have to agree with the opposing side, but your disagreement should not turn into acidic polemic. Conversely, those on the opposing side should not see the disagreeing side as mere hecklers, but that was covered in the earlier comments.
For my part, I am a pro-life Sidewalk Counselor. We do try to offer other options via a bus on site that offers free pregnancy tests and confidential counseling. That’s what we tell people as they try to drive in, but we have to respect property lines, and of course, if the intended recipient waves us off, as they often do. Yes, there are other options, and that’s all Sidewalk Counselors try to convey. We do not engage in dialogue other than this. I am sincerely sorry that some so-called Christians think that shouting makes a good argument because it clearly does not. It does nothing to help the reputation of the Christians that wish to love as God loved.
So, as someone like myself drive to drive in? If I try to drive in you’ll present me with info?
When I go to PP I am there for a pelvic and a pap and a yearly prescription renewal. I have a child and have been advised to never have another, which is one of the many reasons for my prescription.
Honestly, I don’t want anyone trying to give me advice before I even enter a doctor’s office.I just want to go in, strip down, get it all done and then get back to work. I’m not in the mood to chitchat with people who have no business telling me, a woman nearing forty, what is good for me.
Ditto Becky, so many posters are avoiding the DIALOG about why women need to go to PP for their medical needs AND the FACT that the overwhelming majority of what PP does is provide HEALTHCARE to women.
They are also avoiding the dialog about why women still feel the need to make the decision– the fact that support is not there AFTER the baby is born. (and I mean for the years it takes to raise a child, not just right after—the “starter kits” some no-choice organizations give out are superficial and insulting to say the least, as if a nice layette will make all of the reasons someone made this tremendously difficult decision go away…)
The reason for this post was because of the inherent shame women feel about their sexual/medical issues, especially when economically challenged. This should NOT be happening in this day and age. I DO WANT MY TAXES TO PAY FOR HEALTHCARE, I would gladly pay OVER my fair share for this.
As for all of the rhetoric going back and forth about when conception/life/development begins, it is FUTILE…what WOULD be useful, is to take all of this energy and WALK the WALK so that the decision to terminate a pregnancy becomes less and less needed; because we have progressed as a compassionate, loving and holistic society where no child will go hungry, come home to an abusive/dysfunctional/psychotic household, and where education and compassion are an important part of their upbringing. AND that the medical advances are such that contraceptives are easier to use and are highly efficient. There are people who do not desire children and unless I missed something it is not against the law to think that way, but to expect MARRIED couples to abstain from having sex, is just plain ridiculous. As for adoption, last I looked, there were plenty of children still in foster care waiting to be adopted, but they are not what people are “shopping” for—so how are these babies/toddlers/teens being cared for?
Or we could all continue to rant and rave about “killing babies” and continue to avoid the toughest decision of all: DECIDING WHAT WE CAN DO, to help others avoid having to make this decision, by addressing the myriad of social issues surrounding this topic. It is not enough to just say, “no.”
Amen!
This is exactly right. My only hope of not falling daily into despondency due to the way most fellow human beings view these issues are people like you putting it out there into the universe. It’s nice to know there are others of us who exist and who have thought about these issues with compassion and love for others.
If planned parenthood wanted to be “helpful” and really “cared” about the issues facing the average poor woman, then they themselves could invest the billions they get for abortions into community building projects and programs. They only want to fund abortions and contraception. A pap here and there helps them get support too. If they were really about women’s issues then they would be more about educating communities, and less about killing them off. In this regard planned parenthood themselves could provide those “other options of support” since they are so well funded.
Of course PP focuses on women’s health and not community projects. What’s wrong with that. Are you condemning Habitat for Humanity because they don’t provide free healthcare?
PP does twice as many paps as abortions.
Ten times the number of STI tests.
One and a half the number of HIV tests
Seven times the reversible contraception procedures
Four times the dispensing of emergency contraception
Twice the breast cancer screenings
Three times the pregnancy tests
OH, and they do do community education: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-systems/community-health-education-outreach-programs-29210.htm
You know, you claim that MLK didn’t know what he was talking about because he didn’t have the internet. You have the internet at your fingertips and yet you continue to post things that are unarguably and factually wrong–things easily discovered through a simple Google search.
Why are you not availing yourself of this resource?
When is the last time you attempted to research a persons views without the aid of the internet. It was quite a popular exercise my aunt would have me do when I was younger.
I never said “he didnt know what he was talking about, because I would not use such simplistic phrasing in describing the complexity of the issue. The idea I intended to convey is that he was dupped, as was W E B DuBois.
As for their “outreach” My husband has a cousin who had several abortions due to their “outreach” and has suffered severe depression because of it.
Why dont they do “outreach” in schools with less than a 50% African -American population?
Im researching the census data. So Ill let you know about that.
Women’s Rights right? That’s what they stand for? Why not support the women who choose to bring children to term under distressed circumstances. They have abortion counseling, and contraceptive counseling..their is a piece missing…motherhood counseling. It all falls under Women’s Issues….
So those poor black men were duped but you know the truth? Even though they worked DIRECTLY with her but you only know what you’re reading on biased sites (we know they are biased because it’s never taken me more than 60 seconds to find an unbiased source that debunking your supposed “facts”). You are cleaning superior to them in sussing out the truth.
Um, if you’re looking for racism, I think you might be looking in the wrong direction.
BTW, Planned Parenthood does do offer pre-natal help:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/local-press-releases/planned-parenthood-starts-prenatal-care-second-site-22229.htm
And let’s see your proof that they only do outreach in school with 50+% African American populations.
That would be hard to believe considering the fact that the large majority (73%) of Planned Parenthood locations are in RURAL (and predominately white) communities.
And, less than 10% of all abortion clinics are in predominately African-American communities. 63% of communities served are predominately white.
So obviously, PP is trying to kill white rural babies. (eye roll) Although, one would think if that was their desire, they spend more than a tiny 3% of their time doing abortions.
Click to access Guttmacher-Advisory.pdf
I used PP for prenatal many years ago, until a local OB/GYN finally had an opening. I used them until I was almost six months into my pregnancy. We have so few local OB/GYNs and slots can be hard to get. (It was even worse over 13 years ago!) I was put on a waiting list until an opening appeared. (AKA someone finally had her baby.)
PP was a great benefit to me and my now teenage daughter while I was pregnant with her. They were helpful and they treated me well.
Oh, and to answer your question: I’ve got a couple of graduate degrees in things that are largely not on the internet–mostly in moldy old books in library and journal issues that haven’t been put online.
So pretty regularly.
There is absolutely no sense in arguing with someone who knows it all. So, I will not waste your time or mine trying to have a conversation. Instead I will spend my time supporting Planned Parenthood and fighting for all women to have access to all the health services they may need. I will also continue my support for all living/breathing infants who are now here to be born welcomed and wanted, and for those children who are in need of adoptive parents and are languishing in the foster care system, I will pray that people like you will open their hearts to actually caring for them, instead of worrying about unborn souls.
Is it just me or did you prove yourself a liar by wasting our time? I do take care of my children, I didnt adopt them out, I got off of drugs, I continued my education, I am currently going to, and have attended hours of counseling and therapy in both parenting and in my personal life.
According to eugenics Im “unfit” and should have been aborted. No doubt my mother would have, had she not been 32 when she finally decided to have one of her children.
I am grateful to be alive despite all the pain and suffering I have been through growing up, it would have been great to have siblings. Its not right that people like you support that it would have been okay for my very own mother to kill me before I even had the chance to fill my lungs with air for the first time.
My wonderful loving exuberant children you feel should not be here because I am not the eugenically preferred genetic predecessor of said children.
I pray that you come to support mothers who have to make tough decisions. That you would not be so arrogant as to think you are so much better then those who would rather take a chance their child might overcome the odds and do something great, than to kill that child and never know. Maybe you could support those mothers with little access to education and even less access to safe adequate employment and housing….all because they are poor.
I have a degree in Psychology, its simple. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. You meet those in the mother before the birth of that child and you take away such a great need for foster care.
No, your drug use later in life did not make you a candidate for abortion due to eugenics. That’s not how the theories around eugenics work. You continue to make wild, unsubstantiated claim after claim.
Do you do this with your clients as well? Just tell them things which you believe to be true without actually doing the research to find out what the actual truth is?
Maybe you should read the post again. I am the client…..I could waste time going into my life history but Ill spare you, just know that yes..I should have been aborted. I was born a coke baby..enough said.
I think Ive said this before, I only found out about the genocide of the African-American population a couple of days ago. The numbers
(should I repeat them…yes cause I cant get them out of my head) African -Americans make up 12% of the population yet we receive 36% of all the abortions performed in the US. I may have been rash in my choice of sources but I will maintain the quality of authorship in my selections from now on to insure the integrity of my argument.
My latest rebuttals have been sourced from scholarly peer reviewed Journals. I apologize that the previous use of questionable sources has convoluted the scope of my statistical discovery.
I assure you the sources of my most recent rebuttles were of the highest caliber featured in peer reviewed scholarly journals.
Perhaps if you posted links to all these peer-reviewed studies that support your claims…
books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=it1LHbLKVpkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA219&dq=%E2%80%94Margaret+Sanger,+%22Birth+Control+and+Racial+Betterment.%22+Birth+Control+Review,+February+1919,+%28vol.+III,+no.+2%29&ots=u_pDffn9O4&sig=nEgV0edM8A-SAcOn7uquLTZYSqc#v=onepage&q&f=false
And how does that book, which is largely unreadable in the format you present it, support your argument?
Direct quote from the book you cited:
When Sanger did specify the race she sought to improve, it was the hybrid race developing in America’s melting pot…” Page 117
I’ve read all of that chapter that’s available and African-Americans are even really discussed, especially in relation to Sanger. So what, again, is your point?
It would seem like African-Americans were “an elephant in the room” especially considering the Eugenics movement that was so popular during this time. Purposed omission?
I apologize that the book is not readable, however that complaint you must take to google to be reconcilled. The two points that this book is able to point out is first a timeline. It is clearly stated that before these “clinics” were made widely available, contraception was endorsed by African-American leaders. Neither of which would have supported abortion. Look up Alveda King for more info.
It looks like a bait and switch plan to me….
The other point I make is that contraceptives and the like were made legal for the purpose of targeting minority communities, and solving what was known as “the population issue”.
So the fact that African Americans are never mentioned in your source is PROOF that they were talking about African Americans (despite the fact that they actually call out the group they are talking about–the “feeble-minded” and the like).
Again, you REALLY don’t understand how this proof thing works.
“The other point I make is that contraceptives and the like were made legal for the purpose of targeting minority communities, and solving what was known as “the population issue”.”
And yet you provide zero proof of this.
Maybe you should read the post again. I am the client…..I could waste time going into my life history but Ill spare you, just know that yes..I should have been aborted. I was born a coke baby..enough said.
I think Ive said this before, I only found out about the genocide of the African-American population a couple of days ago. The numbers
(should I repeat them…yes cause I cant get them out of my head) African -Americans make up 12% of the population yet we receive 36% of all the abortions performed in the US. I may have been rash in my choice of sources but I will maintain the quality of authorship in my selections from now on to insure the integrity of my argument.
My latest rebuttals have been sourced from scholarly peer reviewed Journals. I apologize that the previous use of questionable sources has convoluted the scope of my statistical discovery.
I assure you the sources of my most recent rebuttles were of the highest caliber featured in peer reviewed scholarly journals.
The reason they receive 36% of the abortions is they also have the highest rate of unplanned pregnancies (69%). And no one is making them choose to have abortions. That’s why we’re pro-choice and not pro-abortion; because we don’t believe in telling people what to do. We leave it in their hands where it belongs.
Click to access DCR_SectionA.pdf
11. Source: Special Tabulations, commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, of
data from Finer, LB and Henshaw, SK (2006). Disparities in Rates of Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, 1994 and
2001.
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health,
38 (2):90-96
Your data is not from an unbiased source, it stems from a campaign that is pro “family planning” as a matter of fact it is a campaign. with the specific purpose of ending teen pregnancies…The challenge here is unbiased source!
These are “special tabulations”
try again
Oh and another thing, is anyone proactivly going in their classrooms and showing them the other options that are available to them as readily as they are offering the abortions??? There is a thin line between choice and force when coercion and deception through negation of information is involved.
There is another point that needs to be made as well. If a teen mom is bombarded with
-teen pregnancy is a problem=she is a problem
-Black people shouldnt have so many unplanned babies=her baby is not wanted by others
-She has nothing of value to offer her baby in her socioeconomic position/age
-she wont be able to support her bay
-killing the baby is a more humane choice than allowing it to live
What sort of “choice” is she going to make?
Is there an equal amount of available information letting her know
-It is a challenge but you can finish school and be a mom
-If you study hard you can earn scholarships that will assist you, and you can also get grants
-you will be rewarded for continueing your education while raising your child
-though many of the options you need are not available locally, there are support systems built up in other places that are there specifically to help you through your situation.
-If you put your mind to it, you can raise a happy healthy , successful child, dispite your challenges.
Do they go into the school, or have counselors approach them with this information with the same fervor they offer these other “choices”.
The answer is no..they do not. What you are still failing to address in your answer using a source biased to your view, is that a “choice” given with no other viable options, is not a CHOICE at all.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348649,00.html
Ill say this as well. If the problem is indeed unplanned pregnancy then according to this article family planning in the black community would be easier achieved if abortions were illegal
Could you provide proof that they are going into classrooms and talking to them about abortions?
Mostly, in my experience, they talk about not getting pregnant in the first place, not what their options are if they do. Having been a high school teacher, I know how ridiculously sensitive school administrations are about any kind of controversy, so I seriously doubt they’d let them talk about abortion at all. So I’d love to see evidence that they do.
It has happened to members of my own family. they dont talk about it in class they present themselves in that classroom as “advocates” and then when a situation arises the student just have to go down the hall to the “advocate” and everyone is more than ready to provide these “choices” based on their “facts” which are really no choice at all. As long as its done in a back room where no one of note can complain. Then when voices like mine speak out, they are easily explained away and silenced…Well I refuse to let you explain away what has happened before my very own eyes.
Here is an article published by fox news If planned parenthood didnt do anything wrong why are they apologizing
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348649,00.html
The psychological responses to abortion are far less serious than those experienced by women bringing their unwanted pregnancy to term and relinquishing the child for adoption (Sachdev, 1993).
While first-trimester abortion does not affect most women adversely, and nearly all women assimilate the abortion experience by six months to one year after the procedure (Sachdev, 1993), one study indicates that 95 percent of birth mothers report grief and loss after they have signed their consent to adoption, and two-thirds continued to experience these feelings five to 15 years after relinquishment (Sachdev, 1989).
Women who relinquish their child for adoption are at risk for long-term grief that can have physical, psychological, and relational repercussions. While this response is comparable to that of losing a child through death, the grieving response post-adoption is often more symptomatic and can be chronic in nature (Askren & Bloom, 1999).
Of pregnant women who considered other options before choosing abortion, none considered having a baby and giving it up for adoption. Nearly all of the women believed that relinquishing a baby would cause even greater emotional trauma than abortion. They believed they would develop a deep emotional attachment to the baby that would be extremely painful to sever (Sachdev, 1993).
I got this from the planned parenthood site…they are clearly PRO-ABORTION. I guess all the women I know fall into their 10 percent category…….Denying your feelings about something doesnt make it go away.
It just makes you appear “right”
Link to the Planned Parenthood site where you found this?
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/resources/research-papers/emotional-effects-induced-abortion-6137.htm
Yea…….
Talk about removing context…
First this is from a piece called “The Emotional Effects of Induced Abortion”
All of these quotes are not made in FAVOR of abortion. They are made as a REBUTTAL to lies told by pro-lifers about the so-called post-abortion trauma. That’s why the piece begins with this paragraph:
“Anti-family planning activists, however, circulate unfounded claims that a majority of the 29 percent of pregnant American women who choose to terminate their pregnancies (Henshaw & Van Vort, 1990) suffer severe and long-lasting emotional trauma as a result. They call this nonexistent phenomenon “post-abortion trauma” or “post-abortion syndrome.” They hope that terms like these will gain wide currency and credibility despite the fact that neither the American Psychological Association nor the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recognizes the existence of these phenomena.”
Everything after that is pointing out the hypocrisy of pro-lifers who MAKE UP this supposed trauma while ignoring the fact that research says that giving birth AND adoption are both MORE physically and emotionally traumatic for women.
In other words, pro-lifers TALK a good game about being concerned for women, but they aren’t really because they aren’t warning the women they bully into adoption that 95% of them will experience grief and loss and 66% will feel that same way 5-15 years after the fact.
In other words, the entire page you give as support of the idea that PP is “pro-abortion” is really just PP providing proof that your side lies about the risks of abortion while refusing to tell the truth about the risks of other choices. From the conclusion summing up the evidence:
“In 1989, a panel of experts assembled by the American Psychological Association concluded unanimously that legal abortion “does not create psychological hazards for most women undergoing the procedure.”
That’s not in any way saying that abortion is the way to go for everyone. That’s why PP presents ALL the options and will actually sometimes deny (temporarily) an abortion to someone who appears unsure or coerced: because they feel that it’s a CHOICE best left up to the woman. Not PP, not the boyfriend, and not the guy harrassing women outside the clinic.
Oh, and as to you knowing nothing but women who regret their abortions? Do you known what they have in common? YOU.
There is research that shows that “a negative personal and cultural opinion of abortion was the most significant predictor of postabortion anxiety” (Kishida, 2001). In other words, being made to believe that abortion is bad leads to feeling bad about having one. If you’re telling your friends the same things you’re saying here, you’re actually causing them harm that could be avoided.
The other thing that women who experience emotional pain after an abortion have in common is that they were emotionally unstable to begin with. Perhaps your friends have always needed psychiatric help. If so, I hope they get it from real professionals and not the quack abortion trauma counseling places that just make women feel worse.
One last note on your ten percent thing: funny that you didn’t quote that where everyone could see it:
“Up to 10 percent of women who have abortions experience depressive symptoms of a lingering nature (Adler, 1989). Similar symptoms occur in up to 10 percent of women after childbirth (Sachdev, 1993; Ziporyn, 1984; Zolese & Blacker, 1992).”
Best part: “Unless of course he’s there to offer his services as a foster parent for all of the babies he’s trying “rescue,” in which case it’s still none of his business but it wouldn’t be quite so hypocritical at least.”
AMEN!
To be fair, in my time I’ve known some pro-life folks who walked their talk by adopting.
They typically don’t demonstrate on sidewalks, though. They’re too busy being parents.
Good– that’s the way it should be. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them.
Amen. 🙂
Reblogged this on Unexpected Midlife Freedom! and commented:
This post is so very worthy of reading. Please give it the time it deserves!
Cool, thanks 🙂
And also, congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! 😀
I am a male. I will never know what it is like to get pregnant or have an abortion. Even so, I have tried to openly look at both sides of the issue. The rightness or wrongness of abortion is something I simply don’t know. But, in my humble opinion, the woman and her doctor are the only people who should decide what she does with her body. I do not feel like I or any other person has the right to tell her what to do. Assuming a woman is going into a clinic to have an abortion rather than picking up birth control, I can only imagine what a tough decision that must be for her. I don’t think standing outside a building yelling at her is going to help.
When I was campaigning for Claire McCaskill, a Progressive Pro-Choice Democrat from Missouri, last election against Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin. I got called a baby killer at least three times a week just for supporting her campaign. It made keeping volunteers difficult to say the least. Almost all of my volunteers were women by the end. Admittedly I was in the boothill of Missouri in an area that is overwhelmingly Republican. It’s so sad though. I also got at least one gay basher on the phone per week as well.
It made me mad at first, but then I just felt pity for them. They are so angry about things that don’t affect them at all. If it is such an outrage, then why aren’t they out there doing anything about it?
You cant say abortion doesnt effect men. Thats not fair to say. I have to many guy friends who admittedly had issues in their lives that would not have made them good fathers at the time. They planted their seed, and it germinated. Only the woman who wielded the power of life, decided that she would rather cast that power aside, at least for that time. One of them is my husband and an amazing father to our children, though it was possible only through God’s intervention. He was very aloof when he first found out I was with child.I found out aloof in mantalk, meant scared. This part of him/part of me/part of God was growing inside me and he was completely powerless to do anything directly concerning the babies well being. He had to learn that it was okay to care, that I wasnt going to take that away from him. I had to assure him that he could assist in the babies growth indirectly.
It may not be within a mans power to choose to bring to bear life, but the life, come to term or not, is still part of him, and will be mourned by him if it taken from him.
I volunteered locally on her campaign, but in a different part of the state.
I was damn proud to work for her and I work that baby killer label as a badge of honor.
Planned Parenthood in fact is in the business of abortions. It’s what they do, more than anything else, at taxpayer expense now thanks to that jerk Obama. Now regarding men that hang out at abortion clinics holding signs and trying to preach you out of entering the clinic for what ever your reason, I have an issue with them too. I have blogged about those self righteous, holier than tho types before, and have come to a conclusion why they are there. Those so called Christan’s that protest are almost always men. They are so damn pissed that women can now take control over their own bodies that they are willing to commit murder to stop them from having an abortion. They will bomb clinics, murder doctors and their aids all in the name of saving a baby. It has nothing to do with religion, or even about saving babies. It’s all about a man not wanting to lose control over his woman that wants to destroy his seed that he planted in his woman. Period. End of story. So don’t take any pitty or feel embarrassed to cuss out the next old man who gets in your way while you go about your business at Planned Parenthood. He does not care about you at all. Tell him to get the hell out of your way and if he doesn’t, you take your hand bag and beat the shit out of him until he moves out of your way. No one, especially a man, has the right to tell you how to live your life.
I want to correct my first statement, abortions are not what Planned Parenthood does more than anything else. However, they are the nation’s largest abortion provider performing 333,964 abortions, a record for the organization that received 45 percent of its revenues from taxpayer-funded government sources during the 2011–2012 fiscal year. According to analysis by the Susan B. Anthony List, Planned Parenthood has performed almost 1 million abortions in the past three years alone.
Saying that PP is in the business of abortions is like saying that 7-11 is in the business of motor oil. Sure, you can get motor oil at a 7-11, but that’s not the reason the vast majority of people go to 7-11 and if you’re there getting motor oil, it’s almost certainly an emergency.
Planned Parenthood was founded on the idea that they need to prevent the birth of African-American babies and probably poor white babies too, by any means necessary, even if they have to become a hub of women’s healthcare to do it. A more appropriate analogy would using seven-eleven would analogize selling gas to abortion. Many people that go to 7-11 dont even have cars. That doesn’t negate the fact that 7-11 is in business in order to sell gas.
Factually inaccurate. That’s not why Planned Parenthood was founded.
Oh, and 7-11 existed long before they could sell gas. According to your argument, they should not have existed before they did.
The reason the analogy works is that PP likely does abortions at about the same rate (3%) that 7-11 sells motor oil.
Oh, and with all your attacking of Planned Parenthood because you think all they do (based on the way you talk about it) is kill, this might be of interest:
http://plannedparenthoodsavedme.tumblr.com/
At no time did I express the idea that their “services” are limited to the killing of unborn children. I merely stated that their origins and legal justification for Planned Parenthood’s existence (courts and legislation were adamantly against birth control at the time with the fear only the responsible people they wanted procreating would use them) stemmed from the popular ideas of Eugenics which were popularly promoted in racist America at the time. Legislation only began supporting contraception and sterilization after prominent leaders in the African-American communities bought into it.
And you were factually incorrect about their origins.
Please post evidence that “Legislation only began supporting contraception and sterilization after prominent leaders in the African-American communities bought into it.”
From a non-biased source.
Have you ever heard of the Hyde Amendment? None of taxpayers money goes toward abortions unless they are the result of rape or incest. Plus, most PP facilities don’t do the actual abortion. They refer them to another facility.
J, I know in my hometown the PP did not offer abortions. But you are spot on about the men — their anger is about not being entitled to ownership and control.
Some of them are would be fathers dealing with the guilt that they feel for not respecting, honoring, empowering the would be mother of their would be child. I would not want to be a man, no matter what the law is the woman holds the power…the man is helpless.
Reblogged this on Barefoot and Political and commented:
Right on!
Cool, thanks 🙂
Thank you!
I love this!! The question isn’t whether or not abortion is wrong, the question is whether or not it’s anyone else’s business, and the answer is no.
not so. with power comes responsibility, A woman has the power to bring forth life, and a responsibility to human kind because of it.
well good thing there’s birth control so you can indeed be responsible
agreed
Lady, we appreciate the effort, but you have some serious self-examination and educaton to do.
*education
“Educaton?” Yes, I suppose I do. And their wasn’t a drop of self-examination in this post. None what so ever. Did you actually read it or just the title?
I typed that hastily and angrily, although I did read the whole thing. Upon my *own* self-examination, I was wrong to do so, especially without providing you with a reason for my snippiness. I worked for 12 years at an abortion clinic, where I saw nearly the gamut of human behavior with regards to this topic. The reason why your post upset me was the stance you seemed to be taking, of “Good girl” versus someone getting an abortion.
Thank you for your comment, Marguerite. The fallacy of my “Good girl” stance (and my natural inclination to juxtapose myself to someone getting an abortion) was pretty much the entire reason I wrote this post. I hope you understand that now.
Registered to volunteer when the next opportunity arises. Success.
In 2008, I was 17. My youngest brother was 10, and in fifth grade. He (and my mother, and assorted family on that end) lived in Texas, while I live in the SF Bay Area. We were both given mock elections at our respective schools, I as a senior in high school, him as a fifth grader.
Here in the bay area, it was unanimous in my class to have voted for Obama.
In Texas, he was the only one who did.
He was called a baby-killer by other 10 year olds in his class, and his teacher refused to stop them. He was incredibly upset and traumatized by this.
I should have offered to volunteer with PP then, given that it is association with groups like them that gets liberals called baby-killers. Thanks for the heads up, you got my head and heart working like they should have five years ago.
Wow- I can’t believe your brother’s teacher let his classmates get away with that. That’s ridiculous! But glad you’re going to volunteer!
Reblogged this on Life at U of T(ake my money and leave me alone) and commented:
I made my first trip to planned parenthood recently – and it will not be my last. The staff there we’re extremely friendly and supportive. I felt very welcome, and that I could be honest with myself. Most importantly though, I felt safe.
I am grateful that there isn’t as much taboo on the subject of sexual health in Canada (or, in Toronto at least). It is so important to be well informed, comfortable, and protected. I hope that one day many more people will be able to feel such security.
Reblogged this on Writing Reconsidered and commented:
Hello again! I know this post doesn’t appear, at first, to have much to do with writing or writers. However, it does have a great deal to do with what I’ve been writing about lately. As far as freelance goes, I’ve discovered that, to motivate myself, I need to not only find writing topics that grip me but publications that, as a whole, do likewise.
I’ve since found a beautiful marriage of rich, meaningful writing, research, and topics in various feminist publications. I have always fancied myself a feminist but the farther I get from the classroom the more I realize just how uninvolved I’ve been. Since recognizing this, I’ve begun writing a slew of articles on everything from childbirth to burlesque dancing to women’s health research. And this blog post by Kat Richter, in my mind, is a great reflection upon many serious and pressing feminist issues today and is a fine example of taking feminist action through writing.
Awesome!
I just read the re-blog on Katherine’s site and want to give both of you a pat on the back. I grew up in the bra-burning women’s lib days when Ms. Magazine was a new publication and the role of women at home and in the workplace was hotly debated at every level. We have come a long way, but the work must continue. I don’t think the abortion debate will ever cease; it’s up to those of us who believe in affordable health care to carry the banner in a compassionate, honest and intelligent manner. We are all, in the greatest sense of the word, pro life.
I didn’t see any comments here about women who had an abortion, but I had one about four years ago after being impregnated by a deadbeat father of three children (now four, he just won’t stop). It honestly was the best choice, I made FOR ME! I didn’t want to have a child at the time and I definitely didn’t want to join this man’s stable of baby momma’s. I was on birth control but I was so stressed out by my daughter’s illness that I had honestly forgotten to go and pick up my prescription. Judge me all you want, I could care less.
No judgement from me. None at all. You studied all the options and made your choice, which is exactly what pro choice is about. It’s about having choices and making the best for you and your situation.
By the way, I just want the pro-lifers responding here to understand that some of us on the pro-choice side, everytime we see people arguing that the rights of women to control their own reproduction should be taken away, we make a donation to Planned Parenthood. I’ll be making mine for this conversation tomorrow morning.
In other words, thank you, pro-lifers, for your role in supporting the work of Planned Parenthood. I’ll be making my donation in your name (or screenname, anyway).
What I’m about to say will almost certainly not be liked and not be popular. But I’m going to post it anyway. Because it needs to be said.
You speak of the old man’s hypocrisy (without even illustrating said hypocrisy), but you are guilty of the same. You say it’s none of his business and I agree. But he’s doing what he feels is right. And he’s basing that on what is no doubt limited and/or incorrect information about Planned Parenthood. But you are judging him based on your own limited and/or incorrect information about him.
A short back story on myself to provide some context. For years I was very anti-PP. Why? Because I was told that they primarily dealt in “covert abortions” or “anonymous abortions”; basically a way to hide having one. It wasn’t until about 8 years when I was dating a woman that was on BC that I discovered just how little I knew about them and just how much I had been taught was wrong. (fun fact: It wasn’t my parents that taught me the wrong info, nor was it a church) I was not aware that they not only dealt very little with abortions, but they provided loads of health services to both men and women that cannot afford regular doctors.
So in your judgement and negativity toward this man, did you stop to think that he may not know the services they provide? The services they rarely provide? you thought to talk to him, but you didn’t. Thus you left him to remain ignorant of the truth, just as he was ignorant of the truth of your visit there.
You shouldn’t be embarrassed to visit PP. I know many women that use BC that aren’t even sexually active simply because of the regularity that BC provides them with their cycles. They have been embarrassed to go to PP for the same reasons you stated. Some of them have come around and are no longer embarrassed and a couple of them have actually had the chance to enlighten protesters on the purpose of their visit and how PP provides an affordable service that the “Medical Industry” price gouges for; namely, health and BC services.
So next time you’re up there and you see that old man, instead of judging him based on your own ignorance of his ignorance, take him to that coffee shop. Explain to him what PP provides, and even though it’s not his business, explain why you choose PP over your doctor. If he still chooses to judge you, then walk away and have pity for him. But imagine if you educated him and then he turned around and educated his friends and family? Imagine what would happen if more people did that. Imagine how few protesters you’d see, how few the nation would see.
And best of all, you would be able to know inside that you’ve done the right thing and you’re not a hypocrite yourself.
Don’t you think that if you’re going to protest an organization, it is YOUR responsibility to determine whether and to what extent the organization you’re protesting is actually involved in the thing you’re protesting?
If you show up to protest, we should be able to safely assume you’ve done the five minutes of research necessary to confirm such things.
But in my experience…and it’s borne out by the way many of the prolifers on this page are reacting…knowing the good that Planned Parenthood does (though keep in mind that many of these people hate birth control as well) has zero impact on their desire to shut Planned Parenthood down.
That said, I’m glad that you were able to see the reality and change your view. Not many people can do that.
Hi, you can lay to your patents, to your boyfriend or also to your self but you can not l lay to Got. At the end of your days he will ask you: where are you? What have you done for me? Take a pills to kill children there is no differences with abortion. I m not so old, I m 40, with 5 children, 1 is an Angel because she had a tumor and she died at 16 months. If you can not afford babies there is a simple rule : no sex! I m not a reach man and I can afford 4! You are killing them and you know that. You are so proud to take decision of your body but did you ask to one of those children if he liked to be killed? I m crazy? We are crazy? For our 3rd child 4 different doctors diagnosed to my wife a Mola, it is a placenta tumor. They pushed her to abortion so they can cure the mother. We did not have doubts at all, let say my wife didn’t have doubs at all and went forward to have the baby. They were really hard months, Matilde born 8 months in order to have less risk for the mother. What then? That was a wrong diagnose! My wife was good and she did not chemotherapy! Got heard our prayers!
Birth control is not an abortifacient. Simple as that. If you can’t tell the difference between “preventing unwanted pregnancy” and “abortion” perhaps you should refrain from telling other people how to live their lives.
to me you can live as you want, when you die God will ask you : what have done? did give love without asking back nothing? did you help you brothers without asking back nothing? did you love the child that I sent you? what have you done with him? everybody has inside a piece of God , everybody knows really well what is good, what he has to do to go in the right direction, don’t you?
Reblogged this on gregfterrepro's Blog.
Enjoyed your article a lot! Props for you 🙂
Chiming in to add my own two cents, I sometimes actually find it funny because in my case having been screamed at, I have been absolutely wanting to say “I do know God, just the type that gets you searched and delayed at airports.”
I will be making sure to make a large donation whenever I get money 🙂
(WP ate my comment.)
I really enjoyed this article! Props to you 🙂
Chiming in my own two cents, whatever particular mostly Christian religious stuff is thrown at me for *that* reasoning, I have been absolutely wanting to say “I do know God, just the type that gets you searched and delayed at airports.”
Because, ugh, it’s an insulting assumption and it becomes very tiring.
Perhaps, the assumption isn’t about YOU. Perhaps there is no assumption at all. Just fact. The fact that they do, indeed, kill babies at Planed Parenthood. It has nothing to do with you at all except that by continuing to go there, you support their ability to perform abortions. There are ALWAYS other alternatives than PP. Most people either don’t know where to look or are too lazy to look for something else.
I will admit that I am pro-life, but I support things like Planned Parenthood (which we don’t have in Canada. We have the Health Unit and other services). While Pro-Life is MY choice, I understand that it’s not everyone’s and we should have safe and healthy options for everyone. I’m glad you’ve chosen not to hide things like birth control or pelvic exams. If we can’t talk about these things or be open about them, then we shouldn’t be having sex.
Exactly! I think you can be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time. Pro-life is YOUR choice but it doesn’t have to be every one’s.
Great post. I can’t stand the people who protest outside the clinics and how bad that must be for the poor women.
Your post is well-written and evokes an interesting feeling of peace despite the seeming tumultuous experience you describe.
I once did a research paper on the psychological effects of women who have had an abortion vrs. those who had given up a child for adoption. I was certain that the women who gave up their babies would have much better long-term success than those who had had an abortion. You know what? I was wrong.
There is little difference among women who have either had an abortion, had a baby out of wedlock and put it up for adoption, or had a baby out of wedlock and kept it. The long-term emotional, physiological, and psychological effects on these women was devastating when compared to married women who had a baby, or even those married women who had miscarried a baby, or had to have an abortion for medical reasons.
It’s extra-marital sex that damages women. Not abortion.
Does it damage men too? If so, how?
[…] Ho trovato per caso questo blog : https://fieldworkinstilettos.com/2013/05/29/do-i-look-like-a-baby-killer/ […]
I loved your even-tempered, honest approach to this subject matter. I always appreciate it, in fact, when people tackle taboo subjects with respect and not with emotional vomit.
Thank you for this post. I was having a crappy afternoon, but think that I might go volunteer for PP in my city, now, too. Great idea.
Really beautifully and peacefully stated. I applaud your courage 🙂
[…] Do I Look Like A Baby Killer?: Lets face it, we all look like baby killers. There is nothing easier to kill than a baby. […]
Thank you for an even-minded and thoughtful commentary on a difficult issue.
Bravo, girlfriend. I was once accosted by a kindly soul outside of a library who asked me to sign a petition to “stop them abortionists.” I glanced at his meek wife, waiting in the shadows for him, and replied, “Talk to me when you grow a uterus.” I still haven’t changed my mind about the politics of my right to choose.
I am a huge defender of PP. I will defend them whenever I get the opportunity. When I first came to the USA they cared for me without question and without money. They gave me excellent care and ensured my reproductive health was number one. Screenings, contraceptions and advice.
Thank you Planned Parenthood. You really made a difference in my life when I had no money and no health insurance. We need more organizations like you. You have a life time supporter in me.
I am now the proud mama of two happy, heathy boys.
Guess we’ll find out in the next life. ..
Guess we’ll find out in the next life about the personhood of babies. If they come to greet us on our death bed, we can say, “Sorry baby, my bad?” Nope. I wouldn’t risk it. You all are on your own on this. Bye.
Well, they’d be in heaven which is supposed to be the ultimate goal…
Which kinda make abortion sound like the best possible thing to do: send your child straight to heaven without the 70+ years of pain and sin the rest of us have to endure first instead.
Not my own belief, of course. Just saying that if you take the logic of many Christians to its logical end, that’s where you end up.
I have so much respect for you. I’m not saying I agree with abortions, but I do think woman may have a good reasons for getting one. They shouldn’t be harshly judged because I’m sure the decision was a hard one. If I was in that position, I don’t know what I’d do. And I hate seeing those protestors outside clinics like that. No one should go to those clinics only to be scrutinized.
I’m 24 years old and I have used planned parenthood to get the morning after pill. I have never been ashamed of going there for anything. The way I see it is I’m being a responsible adult. I practice safe sex, I get tested before starting a new sexual relationship, I get my annual exams. When I felt that the methods I was using might of failed, I stopped by and picked up the back up option available to me I have always believed it just goes with the regular up keep with my body and the life style I live. I support planned parenthood by donating money every month since I was a freshman in college. I have health insurance that my parents pay for and even though I rarely go to planned parenthood I like knowing that the money I give help women and girls stay healthy and have options available to them.
the truth is that I just chicken out and kept my opinion to myself. say whatever you like I am not about to ague here. lol
After reading this, I feel so lucky to be living in Toronto. Our Planned Parenthood location is in the cutest little neighbourhood in a comfy, quaint house. There are never protesters and it is literally walking distance from my university. When I read things like this, it reminds me of how not all countries have progressed as far as Canada has when it comes to accepting birth control options (be it the pill or abortion). And that’s a bit upsetting.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this… as a woman who has had two abortions, one of them just weeks after it became legal in New York State in 1970, I am constantly worried about whether the current generation will have the self-awareness and courage to keep abortion legal. But as you note, even birth control is something we are ashamed of – how much more so are we ashamed of abortion? Meanwhile, we have 7 billion people on earth too feed and care for…
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
Here in Spain you can get the birth control pill at any pharmacy at any time of day, it´s served me goo one day when my little friends slipped into my then crazy ex-girlfriend, so after two hours of riding in the car trying to find an open pharmacy it was about 1 a.m, she didn´t want too but I practically forced her but it cost me 15 dollars, so I had to pay not her, that pissed me off too. Now to my point, I have solved the dilemma for both sides. When there is a person brain dead the argument of euthanasia will ensue, but when the heart starts beeping and after…let´s say 4 hours they all agree that the dude or gal is DEAD. Now if they can all agree on that the DEAD when the heart is beeping then everyone can surely agree that when the heart starts beeping around 3 weeks in the mother´s womb,the you have a life person inside. I heard the argument but it´s not a human being since it depends on all the organisms or the woman to live. Which their making my argument in that same statement by using the word live or survive, I´ll let it pass and say “Yeah, I still remember when I was 3 months old and had to pick up the ladder to make myself some spaghettis.”
You asked you´re a baby killer, I guess not if you haven´t had an abortion, if you pass that time the 3 weeks time when the heart starts going beep, beep, then yes you just killed yourself a human being,you won,don´t have to deal with the headache of a lifetime. They are a pain in the ass, that´s why God created condoms and pills.(He really did nobody trust´s me, but he did.) Planned Parenthood is government subsidised, and they do have a reputation, factual one when you see all the cases around the U.S of being less than trustworthy plus a lot of woman over use it which is not good for their body.So I say to the old man in front of your clinic, “Come on oldie, stop with that sign…here I´ll give you this one” STOP WASTING MY MONEY ON GETTING RID OFF THE HEADACHE OF A LIFETIME.
You go Girl! (I’m not patronizing you, just using a cliche’d expression)Thanks for having the courage to stand up for something you feel is so important and to think of yourself as a role model and part of the solution.
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
I have a suggestion. STOP fucking until you are responsible enough to support a product of your actions. STOP using abortion as birth control.
So married couples who cannot support children should just not have sex? For years on end?
Are you ready to support a child EVERY time YOU have sex?
Reblogged this on Neybin's Sancturary.
Kat, I’m so proud of you!
If it’s not a human in the womb, then what it is it?
It’s not a human being. It’s a human fetus. Next question?
Reblogged this on napper70blog.
I have read many, not all, but many of the comments here. Planned Parenthood has helped me with many a health issue. You can choose to assume you know what those issues may or may not be, but they are mine an private, as ANY health should be, should I choose it to be. I like Kat do not have a job with amazing insurance. I am a very productive member of society, and even own my own business. I am married with a son. My husband had a great job once with health insurance, then he lost that job. We lost a lot of things in two years, insurance was one of them. We have not been able to get that insurance back, and it is very disheartening. I appreciate what Planned Parenthood does for reproductive health.
And for those of you who claim to know what women go through ,and how they come to that decision. I can assure you do not know! My mom worked at the call center for Planned Parenthood, and yes she scheduled appointments for all kinds of things. The book she could write with all of the stories she heard would be amazing. Just as much as there are old men warning to not “go in there”, there are husbands and boyfriends making their significant other make appointments for abortions they do not want to have. Or trying to make appointments for them (which they can not do). Young girls who were raped, and molested and have no one to turn to. Women, and girls who use abortion as a method of birth control, and Women and girls who just plain and simple do not want to have a child. Who am I, or any of us to judge? I will leave that to God, when it’s my time, and so should the rest of us. You know what they say about glass houses.
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
Thank you for writing this. I too don’t have a job that comes with health insurance so I cannot afford to visit an actual gynocologist. If I couldn’t go to Planned Parenthood, I would not be able to get my annual check up and birth control would not be an option (Pills start at 125 without insurance for me). I hate how people try to make Planned Parenthood look like they are evil or something….Most of what they do has NOTHING to do with abortion. Additionally, they offer relationship counseling. People who protest Planned Parenthood don’t know what the hell they are protesting. They think they are fighting an evil establishment that kills babies, but what they are really doing is trying to eliminate access to women’s health care for a large portion of the population.
Reblogged this on thewordpressghost and commented:
Friends,
Every now and then, Freshly Pressed deals with controversial issues. This time the took on the abortion debate through a back door – birth control.
Ironic.
You are just a hard working professor. Misunderstood by the old grandfatherly image. And your real grand parents.
Interesting.
But, then you move the narrative from abortion to making certain we understood clearly you are NOT a baby killer, those other women are.
Sometimes words are much more powerful than we realize. And they show what we really intend even before we let them out of our mouths.
Yes, you clearly wrote that you consider Philly’s planned parenthood a baby killer operation.
And wordpress agreed and made you freshly pressed.
Sad. Sad, but true.
Some people say the darndest of things. And they point right back at the truth of the matter.
After all these years of feminism, and hating the rich white men [did you read the last freshly pressed I re-blogged? really scary and sad that we poor white men are dying so that they can hate …. ]
After all these years of hating on the rich white man, and all of them went Democratic, we are still arguing not over the terminology of progressivism.
We are arguing over who among us are the most guilty, and the least guilty.
We know what is wrong, we are ashamed, but we justify our behavior because it is OUR behavior. And it is the group behavior which is bad.
ALL of those abortions add up to a problem. ALL of those single mothers are raising boys with a three fold greater risk of becoming abusers and criminals.
But, me? Me personally? My choices are good.
Sad, but true.
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
Wooow,you indeed had a day!!!
Thanks for the piece.
Well done, Kat … this is a very brave and balanced post. (I think I would have been tempted to rant 🙂 ) But then you will be brave and balanced, being a Quaker.
Reading some of the comments I am amazed at the vitriol in many of them from men … many of whom do not seem to have read your post properly.
Good luck with the escorting.
[…] a provocative title and discussion on abortion rights, Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? readers might have expected an angry and one-sided diatribe. Instead, Kat tried to understand the […]
Reblogged this on desireskye.
I get Good Friday off and learned my favorite food truck was going to be parked behind PP. Don’t often get their food because their truck is usually in the city and I work in the suburbs. When I got approached by someone from the huge anti-abortion crowd, I said “leave me alone, I came for a pastie.”
Haha! That’s awesome 🙂
Reblogged this on shastazoo's Blog and commented:
PROTESTORS?
I love your story. I didn’t even know they had escorts! Thank you for sharing. I’m reblogging this on reddit.
Great blog, Kat! Thank you for making me think about this. I can so agree with what you are saying… Although the health system is quite different here in Europe, I’m sure many women are facing the same or similar problems and inner struggles here. And on another note: nice to read something written by a Philadelphia Quaker… I have some precious memories of my meeting up with some of your community few years back… 🙂
Maybe you shouldn’t be supporting an organization which encourages and partakes in the murder of thousands of lives each year, especially “ethnics”.
So, did you get to choose which color baby your money helped kill, or did you leave it up to them?
Please figure out how to use the word “ethnic” properly or find a suitable alternative.
Something I found worth reading regarding this topic: http://withalliamgod.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/what-is-wrong-with-abortion-a-philosophical-case/
No Bible thumping. Just smart thinking.
[…] Do I Look Like a Baby Killer?. […]
Reblogged this on thedailywyatt and commented:
Well if that title didn’t get your attention, you are beyond hope.
I really like this young lady. She has more balls than me, or most anyone else I know.
On what might be the most bitterly argued subject of our time she has hoisted herself out of the trenches and stood tall in the no-mans-zone with a wonderfully honest, unvarnished, cry from the heart.
A story of personal growth and empowerment, it may leave you with a vaguely pleasant feeling of positivity, in which case I would not read the comments below it, for they will certainly cause you to despair of any possible resolution to this problem – ever.
read it:
Thank you so much! And I’m with you on the comments… sadly so many people missed the entire point.
What’s that old line? “Its hard to soar with the eagles, when you’re surrounded by turkeys.” Most people never get their head above the muck enough to even get a glimpse of the big picture.
I love that you told him to have a nice day. I have always involuntarily retreated into mindless politeness when shocked/traumatized/horrified, and I am just vain enough to believe that says something about a person.
You are doing good work.
[…] https://fieldworkinstilettos.com/2013/05/29/do-i-look-like-a-baby-killer/ […]
You are right. Why is it that I feel the need to discreetly take my birth control in a corner every day promptly at 1? F this noise! I take these pills because if i don’t I can’t show up at school. I’d be too busy loving my toilet. I missed day 2 of a new internship because I couldn’t leave the intern house. How’s that for making a good first impression? Luckily my boss came by to check on me and saw how bad I was. She was nice enough to bring me comforts like cans of ginger ale.
I don’t want that 12 times a year. So don’t you dare make me feel insecure and ashamed of taking control of my life! No man or woman should make you feel ashamed for choosing what is best for you whether it be birth control or an abortion. My womb is none of your business!
Ordinarily, I’d agree. A former girlfriend had an abortion of my son or daughter. We were teenagers caught up in the heat of our first love. We’d been together over 18months before we even went to defcon 3, and we’d managed to sleep together while caring for my dying mother. It seemed natural. But as our relationship developed, it was obvious, I was too young – too irresponsible – and not earning sufficient to care for a wife (or even a partner this was after all before not getting married was an option) and child.
Years later, my daughter was born at 30weeks and still a further 4weeks under-developed – the result I suspect of my wife’s smoking – it was HER body after all, and yet watching the 1.5kilo child struggle those first weeks in the SCBU unit in a plastic greenhouse, with orange filter to protect her eyes from the intense light needed to prevent jaundice and improve Vitamin-D production, I began to re-consider my hitherto whole-hearted support for abortion. I now believe we need to limit it – not by age, sex or income level, but to those first 20weeks. The exact pregnancy length is not the issue, it is a woman’s body, but it is also the man’s child, and any decision SHOULD, be a considered one, for both parents. A child made cannot be unmade, and increasingly with modern prevention methods should be avoidable. The vexed question of getting teenage girls through this critical time period (for them) is one that all of society has an interest in, and therefore your last sentence, I have to disagree with. WE are all invested in the future of any potential off-spring, and should act accordingly.
W.
I don’t really go to bars. But I remember one time, years back, when some friends of mine had a band. They were just starting out and got a gig at a small local bar. So I went into the bar just to hear the band (I ordered a coffee to drink).
Now if, outside the bar, there had been some volunteers for “Mothers Against Drunk Driving” and they wanted to hand me a pamphlet saying “Please don’t drink & drive”, should I have felt threatened or been offended? I was a young male who drove up on a motorcycle and was walking into a bar. I certainly fit the profile of the type of person they would want to hear their message. The MADD volunteer wouldn’t have any way to know that I was just going in to listen to the band. I would probably just smile politely, take their pamphlet and walk into the bar.
There’s a huge difference between going to a public, social outing (i.e. a bar) and a women’s health clinic that goes through a great deal of effort to ensure its clients’ safety and confidentiality. Not to mention that drinking and driving is NEVER a good choice for anyone.
I just want to say thank you. I think a lot of people forget that Planned Parenthood is not a baby aborting machine, churning stupid slutty women en masse through thier doors as some would like to make it out as. I was a very careful teenager who never wanted to get pregnant, held off having sex till I was 19 and used planned parenthood to get affordable contraception. I could not have imagined, going through a crowd of hateful people to get something I was still uneasy about obtaining. Sex was still taboo in my eyes.
What they forget is that if these kids don’t have access to it before they get pregnant, it will be inevitable that some will return to have an abortion I much rather see the 15 year old take the pill than nursing an infant. Blocking that access to birth control does not make the 15 year old stop having sex, it just makes her too embarrassed to go get protection and educated before it’s too late.
I don’t know if I would have walked past a crowd of people. Kudos for not just doing your thing but also helping others too.
Dear Honey, Whoever said that PP was like that? Nobody ever described it like that. Abortion is never an option. It causes cancer and infections. Ever hear why PP started? It was to wipe out Jews, Catholics, African Americans, and all those Margret Sanger (the founder of PP) considered “stupid” or “unclean”. We Pro lifers never Judge. Some pro life people do bad, and scare even other pro lifers. The prolife Organization, 40 days for life, can help. Look them up and contact them and receive healthy choices. Ever hear of Abby Johnson? Look her up too.
I’m praying for you.
You Pro lifers never judge? If you believe that… well, you know the rest.
Dear Kat, I should have been more specific. Yes, there have been some so-called “pro-lifers” harassing women, but the real ones just use prayer and kind words. Take that man for example. He was a real one. He didn’t yell harsh things to you or try to grab you. He simply pleaded. The 40 Days for Life campaign tries to put a stop to the bad kind of pro lifers as well. I meant that the real pro lifers, most of us, the ones who actually care and pray for all the women, never judge.
I am praying for you.
He judged her, pure and simple. He had no idea what she was doing but decided that she must be obtaining an abortion. He didn’t know otherwise nor did he care to find out or else he would have asked. He didn’t even know about the place he was protesting. He just assumed the that since it was a PP clinic they probably perform abortions while in fact very few do.
[…] Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? […]
This is wonderful! Before I had insurance, I got all of my services (exam and pills) at Planned Parenthood. They are an amazing organization! I have never been to a clinic that had protesters outside before. That has to be really scary and annoying!
crazykittylove.wordpress.com
The Man is trying to help you. Although some protesters will do bad, please don’t get a bad impression of all of us. We simply want to help. We are not scary, and we aren’t there to try to control you. Please don’t look to Planned Parenthood for help. Birth Control and abortion can cause cancer, infections, and worse. Instead of Birth Control, try NFP. The Pro-Life organization, 40 Days for Life, can give you better, healthier options then PP. They never judge people. They will not force you on anything. They will bring you peace. Please, don’t support Planned Parenthood. Ever heard of Abby Johnson? Pro life or not, look her up and learn more. Remember, I’m praying for all of you.
God loves you no matter what.
It shouldn’t be any of his business. I use PP for ease of appointment. I don’t have to plan out my appointment weeks in advance to refill my bc prescription.
Some of us have prescriptions for bc to prevent pregnancy, some have it for other reasons. I have one for other reasons. My original prescription didn’t come from PP-it came from my old OB/Gyn who has since retired. Without going into details that are none of your business I have been prescribed bc as a means of regulating my cycle and hopefully keeping me from going into premature menopause.
Did you know that a woman who enters menopause before the age of 45 is at an increased risk of stroke? It also puts you at an increased risk of heart disease, dementia, depression and osteoporosis.
I was 29 when my symptoms started.I was put on bc as an attempt to regulate my cycles. This year, 10 years later, I am about to start HRT.
The organization you’ve named cannot help me with what I need, nor do I want their help.What I want is to live a long, productive life without too much fuss. I want to be able to function enough to raise my child. Finally, I want to be left alone when I enter a building.
Did you ever stop to think that maybe I don’t want to deal with this? 29 was way too young to begin this journey. I wanted more children but that will never happen. And every time a protestor shows up in front of the PP building, trying to warn me about the dangers inside is a slap in my face. I’ve cried and prayed until I realized something one day: the Lord did not put you or anyone else into this world to humiliate me, yet some of you feel the need to do so every time I have an appointment.
I use the local PP to help stave off menopause. Others use it as an inexpensive way to plan on their future families. Others choose to use it to be sure they will never have children. And yet others actually use it for prenatal care. (Most forget that yes, prenatal services are offered at your local PP.) In the end, it doesn’t matter what it’s used for. What matters is that it you nor anyone else need be concerned with what I am doing.
I guess that, as a Christian, the Lord has directed me on a much different path. Instead of standing outside a clinic and harassing women I choose to spend my time volunteering at a local food pantry, assisting at the Head Start, occasionally delivering meals for Meals on Wheels, sorting and mending clothes for the free clothes closet, collecting supplies for the local homeless shelter and walking dogs at the animal shelter. Recently my child and I helped with a local Habitat for Humanity house.
I’d say that what I did with my time was probably a bit more productive, wouldn’t you?
I don’t mean to offend you, but what you say about us on the other side of the fence is wrong. We have no intention whatsoever to harass women. Some so-called “pro lifers”, though, are so desperate that they hurt the women. However, the 40 Days for Life campaign is putting a stop to the dangerous things that the other “pro-lifers” do. The people like that aren’t really pro life. The real ones pray for all those women, holding rosaries and trying to talk to them kindly rain or shine. Those are the real ones. They truly care about each of you. As for preventing pregnancy, Natural Family Planning is much healthier. I heard about a woman, Karina, who used bc to regulate her cycles. Read her story here—-> http://pretty-bones.blogspot.com/p/my-story-recovering-birth-control-addict.html
Willie, I am sorry we offend you. We want the exact opposite. Yes, what you are doing is certainly making your time useful. But we are too. We pray and we try to console women.
I think it would really help if you looked up Abby Johnson. She was a PP director.
I am praying for you ;).
I grew up in the anti-choice movement. I know exactly what the tactics are-I was raised with them. Shove untruthful flyers at women, yell and harass them, humiliate them, intimidate them-even follow them around. Heck, I once saw one of my grandparents get a license plate number and have someone at a local PD trace it, so they could mail an “anonymous” letter to “head of household”, offering their concern about seeing a woman with that address at a family planning clinic.
Please don’t pray for me. It’s the ultimate throwaway comment of a hypocrite. Never throw that out there unless someone makes a request of you to do so. I ask that instead you pray for the millions in our country and around the world who will go to bed hungry tonight, for those who no longer have homes. I ask that you pray for the safety of refugees around the world. I ask that you pray for an end to the AIDS epidemic in Africa, which has killed so many adults and left so many children orphans.
Far too many others need positive thoughts and heartfelt prayers to Our Lord. Don’t waste your condemnation on me.
Dear Willie, Yes, you are right. The harassing woman you talk about was true. There are still people who do those things. I resent the anonymous letter sending and all those who did and do what you said about harassing. But the movement I keep mentioning, 40 Days for Life puts a stop to the harassing. They report and thalk to those people who do that. That, along with abortion, is what they are stopping. Please, look them up. Even if you completley disagree. Yes, I know that not all PP clincs do abortions. But they do support them. I do not pray for you like that. I’m not praying that you will change. No, I would never do that. I just like praying for people. I pray that they will have a good day, and a good life. Nothing like, “Oh, please turn them into something better” or something like that. I pray that you are happy, and that everthing goes well for you. 40 Days for Life does not judge. They are the real pro-life movement. May the Lord bless you!
I was raised in the movement. My grandparents were pretty well-known in anti-choice movement back in the 80’s-they were even part of Operation Rescue at one time. I know exactly what the movement is about so quit kidding yourself.
The goal is to prevent abortions by any means necessary. This includes humiliation, if necessary. Yelling, calling women “baby killers”, getting license plates numbers to trace information-it’s part and parcel. Intimidation is a huge part of the anti-choice movement.
As to “natural” bc-don’t you think I tried other options? I did and they didn’t work. That’s another part of the movement that is extremely annoying-how many members seem to think that they are medical doctors and can prescribe treatment as a cure-all for every woman. Not everything works for every person and anecdotal evidence isn’t a replacement for hard facts.
Think about that for a bit.
Wille, I am NOT kidding you. http://pretty-bones.blogspot.com/p/my-story-recovering-birth-control-addict.html Did you look at this link? Abby Johnson was a PP director/worker for 8 years. She wrote a book: Unplanned.
Hey Willie, Yes, I knew you probably had tried other options. But please, here is the story of Karina, going/went through the same thing. http://pretty-bones.blogspot.com/p/my-story-recovering-birth-control-addict.html Just look at it. You don’t have to believe it or change your opinion. Just look.
I read it before answering the first time. I know all about natural family planning-it’s been around for a very long time and is known to be inefficient, at best. As to my situation, it’s never recommended. My problem is premature menopause and NFP is never used as an option. It doesn’t work. The woman in the article has an entirely different situation.
There is no one size fits all and with the way you are pushing this article it appears you believe there is. If I were to use this method it would probably throw me fully into menopause. Once again, not everything works for everyone.
BTW- I knew someone who used NFP. After three unplanned pregnancies she and her husband decided it was time to get Mirena.
Hey there! I’m sorry that didn’t help. Does this? http://pretty-bones.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-about-miserable-cycles.html
Have a nice day! 😉
You really have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? If you did, you wouldn’t continue to link me back to the same tired old stuff. I’m not going into details about my problem but I can absolutely tell you, without a doubt, that her NFP will not help my problems at all-unless you would like to hear about my death from a hemorrhage.
What you are doing is a great disservice to a number of women who might have something similar to my problem, a new diagnosis, and will begin to look around online, They’ll find your link and try it, only to find out it can make the problem even worse. I don’t have PMS or PMDD and I’ve stated that before. What I have is much more severe and your “prescription” could hurt instead of cure.
Honestly, you’re irritating the heck out of me. Unless you have an M.D. or D.O. behind your name please quit posting the same old crap website that only deals with a bit of PMS. I don’t think her case was even all that severe, considering I’ve known several women with PMS or PMDD that were much worse off than her. B vitamin isn’t a cure-all in these cases and that’s exactly what your website is promoting.
BTW-you do realize that nearly 25% of all women who use NFP will become pregnant within one year, don’t you? Doesn’t sound too great to me.
Just wanted to add: my faith has no problems with my use of birth control. I didn’t have to ask for consent because I’m able to make that decision for myself as an intelligent adult woman. So yes, I’m a Christian who uses birth control and not a single woman in my congregation would even bat an eye if my pack fell out of my purse during Sunday service. So why are you trying to push this unproven crap on me?
Hello there! I have read all of what you said. NFP is the right choice, and some couples must be careful if they don’t want a baby. I didn’t mean that NFP would be the answer to your problem, I meant to others who use BC as a way to prevent pregnancy. You are very good to have looked for other options besides BC for you, and I encourage you to look more, as there are more options!. Since you read the article I sent you (sorry I sent it so many times, that was accidental), I know you saw that she has problems because of BC, so I hope you now know there are other options, as I don’t want you to get hurt. As I am beginning to be very busy, this will be my last response. I want you to know that the pro life movement has changed, and the real pro life movement is 40 days for life. As you probsbly already know, it was started by the people who resented the harassing of women. I hope you get the chance to see their website. I also hope that you will have the chance to read Unplanned by Abby Johnson. Whenever I think of you, I pray that you will have a wonderful life, and I want you to truly know that, even from the moment I corresponded with you, I never judged you as a bad person. I know you are a great person with good intentions. Remember, whenever you are in darkness, there is hope. God loves you no matter what.
I care about you, Willie.
Sincerely,
A 13 year old girl 😉
You’re thirteen?
You telling me what to think about birth control is like my daughter telling me what to do. She’s only thirteen and I would be more than a bit upset if she told an adult what they should and shouldn’t do with their lives.
Honey, at the age of thirteen you should be out, hanging out with friends, not behind a key board talking to random anonymous adults. And instead of reading the questionable material you’re posting you should be preparing yourself for a classical education. You’re missing out on some classic material that will offer a far greater influence than what you’re reading. I recommend Upton Sinclair, for starters. I also recommend Harper Lee.
Just get off of this forum and find a life fit for a thirteen year old instead. You’re only young once and you’ll learn, years from now, that your opinions will change.
Hey Willie, yes, I thought about what you said. But the Pro life movement has changed since the 80’s. Yes, there are still some anti choice people like that. I don’t believe they have any sort of good intentions. The real ones I keep telling you, 40 days for Life are trying to stop that. Please, please look them up.
Have a good day!!
I believe abortion is a very personal choice. Thus, I do not believe any “authority” should be able to take that right away from any woman. Abortion deserves to be legalized all over the United States, as well as elsewhere. All you people who mourn for the loss of a baby…take a walk in another woman’s shoes…please. And I don’t just mean consider her viewpoint…I mean, understand her experiences and understand why she came to hold certain viewpoints. THEN blame her or tell her she’s doing something wrong…because that’s the Godly thing to do. <—yes, that is sarcasm. Jesus is a good role model…I wish people would follow his example a little better than simply preach whatever "rules" they've read in their Bibles. (Yes, I'm referring to Christians here). Long live Pope Francis, by the way! (That is not sarcasm). I'm looking for some liberal religion.
A question : it is easy to ask a woman if she wants or not doing the abortion but who ak the child that she has? I believe that woman need to have this choise but they need really to take in consideration what are doing and not use abortion as anticonzeptionall… I would suggest that before they take this decision, they have to look an ecography of the child, look that he can have already hands, feet, the hearth pulse,…. And maybe in that moment inside them ask the child the question : “do you want to comme here?”
[…] Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? Kat Richter talks about Planned Parenthood and what inspired her to become a clinic escort. […]
I enjoyed your post. Thoughtful. I once was young, poor, married, dealing with endrometriosis and needing the pill…and went to planned parenthood on a regular basis (In Australia). It was always interesting looking around the people who filled the waiting room and attempting not to judge them, hoping they weren’t judging me. At first made my husband go with me to “prove” something I think. The ladies inside were wonderful and considerate and I always got good care. (Eventually we got insurance then got pregnant and moved to a GP).
I don’t agree with abortion. I wonder if I was too nieve to understand that that was going o there too…it’s actually too long now to remember all those feelings. I am sure I prayed a lot while in there for my neighbors. I don’t think I have reflected on my own experience with it til now. Thanks for the post that made me stop and think for a minute–clinics are more than the negative connotations…and people like me have attended them too. Judgement not needed to walk through their doors…
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” Jeremiah 1:5
It is A CHILD not A CHOICE.
Adopt not abort
There are other options and people who care ❤ http://www.40daysforlife.com/
You are the reason I’m donating my entire paycheck to PP next week.
Luke 6:37
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
In the article you did not mention health conditions. I have a friend who had an abortion, she actually wanted the baby but if she carried it full term it was not only risking her life but the baby was going to be severely brain damaged. She already had two children whom she did not want to motherless nor did she want to bring a child into this world where they would never really live, just exist. She was heartbroken. She went to an abortion clinic and was greeted by a large group of people calling her a baby killer. She stated that it was bad enough for what she had to do but what those people said to her made it ten times worse. These people fail to realize that the decision to have an abortion even under healthy causes is not an easy decision for a woman. It stays with them for a life time, we are programmed to nurture not destroy, that’s a man thing maybe that is why they see it as such, who knows. No matter what it is our bodies and we are protected under the law. Our medical records and history is kept confidential under HIPPA that information is between you and your health care provider. In a way they are violating our rights for privacy! Maybe we should have a law that if men fail to pay child support they should be fixed! I bet you would see them saying the same things we are!
I’ve been a PP client before. And, no, I’ve never had an abortion. I’ve never been pregnant for that matter. I grew up Catholic, and it wasn’t until I was in high school that I became “Pro-Choice.” You see, I was born before Rowe vs. Wade, and it wasn’t until we covered that famous case in high school civics class that I finally realized how very close my siblings came to being motherless. My mother had to have life changing surgery when she was pregnant with me. I was in fact, the first child that the docs at the time knew that ever survived such surgery. And my siblings and I were still motherless for two years, as my mother battled infection after infection in the hospital for two entire years before she was able to come home. She of course did not have a choice, to give her three living children a mother, vs astronomical odds at delivering a child, much less a healthy child (I’ve never been called a “healthy” person in my entire life, and my care was a huge financial burden on my parents.) So to the protestors, I say that God is the only one that can pass judgement on anyone. Abortion is legal, and if you want that changed, then keep your protests on the capital steps, and quit harassing women that you have no idea what they are at the clinics for or what circumstances they are in.
You make very good points. Thanks for speaking up and sharing your voice.
Am Rose mark from Canada If you want to adopt a child you don’t need to stress your self,l was married for good 6years l don’t have a child and doctor told me that there is noting l can do about it,my friend now told me how she adopt a child through this St JOHN ORPHANAGE HOME is the best adoption center they can help you to adopt your child with out stress,if you are interesting in adopting a child just email them now on:stjoneorphanagehome@yahoo.com or call us on:+234 7067607073 for more information.
Reblogged this on Blissfully Single and commented:
Although I have never had to deal with this, I did use Planned Parenthood or annual pelvic exams for years, as I had no insurance and no way of getting health care. Fortunately for me, those years were years when pro-lifers weren’t doing everything in their power to end the ability for women to make their own choices regarding family-planning. I never once had to deal with this situation.
[…] most popular post (Do I Look Like a Baby Killer?) was an extremely difficult post to write but it got Freshly Pressed, went viral and is still […]
[…] of times she’s diverged from her usual subjects – to talk about the experience of encountering anti-abortion campaigners outside a women’s clinic and, drawing from her background in anthropology, to explain why […]
[…] (I wrote about another encounter several years ago in my first legitimately viral blog post, “Do I look like a baby killer?“) I usually just walk past them, keeping my head down, wishing I looked a bit more badass and […]
Very well said and extremely beautiful. I’ve been through the Planned Parenthood ordeal, the shame, the hiding. You explained this in such away that it gave it grace and dignity. I hope this goes to the far reaches of the web and as many women as possible read this. None of us are alone, we just need to reach out to know that. Thank you for this post.
Thank you 🙂 There have been quite a few comments coming in over the past few days so it looks like a lot of people are reading, which is always good to know when its an issue as important as this.
A strong piece of writing which reminded this Irish Catholic of something often told to us as kids don’t judge, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Nice article.
In fact, you have poked the bear; look at the cross-section of reactions. Planned parenthood is fine, what is wrong is when some women wait until they are 6-7 months and then decide to abort. Also, if the pregnancy is the result of rape; abortion is justfied.
It saddens me when crying or disembowelled babes are found in refuse bags though.
Brighten up, do not hide your frequenting the PP premises.
I don’t live in your country, but I think this subject will always be discussed with the same high volume all around the world. Your post is great and I agree with you in everything what you wrote.
I just read you post. Thank you for this. I remember escorting my friend into a clinic to have an abortion. This was about 30 years ago. There was a protesting pro life crowd out front and I’ll never forget the stares we received that day, I’m sure they we were wondering which one of us was going to do the evil deed.
I wish people realized that Planned Parenthood or other clinics do so much more for women’s health.
I love this so much!!! Go you
[…] Source: Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? […]
This is brilliant, i agree whole heartedly to everything! Thank you for this 🙂
Wow! You are such a strong person. I know that there are so many other comments on here and that you probably won’t read this, but you are amazingly brave for writing about this out in public. You have a voice and it is meant to be herd loud and strong. It is no ones else’s business to tell you what you do and don’t do with your body. You are so sweet and kind because you can forgive. Even if he said was wrong and rude. You where nice in return and that is AMAZING! We need more people like you in this world!
Yes, this post has generated quite a few comments but I do read them all. Thank you for your kind words 🙂
Aylan Kurdi…..who killed this baby ?
Reblogged this on compassionateatheismdotcom and commented:
This is an older post, but continues to be more and more relevant. On the surface, Kat Richter is brave, but the bottom line is, she is a woman. And women in our culture are still vilified as second class citizens. When the evangelical Christian coalition that is the Republican Party work to tear down Planned Parenthood–a vital structural support for women, then, to me, these Christians are diminishing 50% of the population. Throw the entire baby out with the bathwater. Love, worship only the virginal mother Mary who gives birth to the demi-god Jesus, but all of the others are whores, while men can put their penises anywhere they please with only resulting high-fives. We women must always deal with the consequences. How dare you call yourself Christian, but degrade the “fairer sex” in your life. We women are also very good at degrading ourselves; we have been socialized to hate our bodies, our minds, but are told to put out for the man as God commands. In Jesus’ name. How dare you. Kat embraced her fears of those who judged her, who claimed to be “Christians,” who make assumptions. Who butt into women’s lives when it is none of their business. Kat–YOU are courage; you are love; you are responsibility. You are reality in our world. I honor you today as the person who is compassionate at Planned Parenthood, not the protesters.
Reblogged this on elliemasonsite and commented:
I love this. Plus it’s interesting to hear about it from a Quaker’s perspective and I love how her religion doesn’t move her to be interfering or hypocritical. Much love 🙂
I don’t know the old man but I know many like him. I doubt he hates you either. In fact he has a lot of love for people entering PP and probably prays for them every day. I would also be willing to bet that he is well prepared to find a home for a child who was scheduled to be aborted. More than likely he would have loved an invitation for coffee. People who hang out at PP are there out of love, not hate. You have nothing to fear other than your own insecurities. It sounds like you are well on your way to overcoming the feelings that compelled you to write this post. From a practice standpoint nice job on the essay!
haha ppl that hang out at PP are there out of love is hilarious. Keep telling yourself that. It makes a way better tag line than the truth.
Let’s face it. There are nut jobs on both sides of the issue. The person described in the essay came across as kind and compassionate. The authors feelings on the day of her appointment obviously came from either a previous experience ( which was not fully described) or a preconceived notion about PP protesters. The author even takes responsibility for her feelings on the matter(kinda the point of her essay) and does something about her fear. I am pro life and anti Pp, but I will say good for the author for reflecting on her fears and choosing to do something about. That is the responsible thing to do.
I remember well the days before Roe vs. Wade. Single mothers were discriminated against by much of society. Abortions were illegal and difficult to obtain, and were many times performed by people with no medical training in very unsanitary conditions. For a young woman to become pregnant with no prospect of marriage meant a terrible choice – illegal, very unsafe abortion, or a life in the shadows. It is difficult to convey to today’s generations how bad conditions were for pregnant, unmarried women. We should never let the country slip back to those conditions. Abortion must remain legal and available, and education about viable options provided to those who need to make these very personal choices.
Such a well-written, inspiring story…sincerely wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing.
[…] Source: Do I Look Like a Baby Killer? […]
I really like this post. I personally am against abortions. That is my belief. However I do not believe in responding hatefully or disrespectfully to others for their choice. If asked I will stare my option and feel pretty passionately about my beliefs but I also believe in respecting other people’s beliefs. I just wish people would be more respectful and not shove their beliefs in other people’s faces.
Yes, this to me is the essence of being pro-choice. Being pro-choice is not the same thing as being pro-abortion.
Reblogged on https://top10casusuygulamalar.wordpress.com/
Awesome, thanks– the more people talking about this, the better.
Badass post. Thank you.
Fantastic article.
This is so amazing!!!! Women shouldn’t have to be afraid of taking care of themselves. No one should. We have as much right to our bodies as men do but somehow when a woman takes control of her sexual health she’s doing something dirty.
Exactly, the stigma drives me crazy.
Honestly one of the best posts I’ve ever read concerning this issue. Thank you for being wonderfully brave, inspiring, truthful, & courageous in regards to a topic that shouldn’t have ever been deemed a “political & societal issue”. The bodies of individuals-whether they be male or female-and what they choose do with them are not “issues” to be debated, decided upon, judged, or governed. Thank you for displaying empathy and benevolence in a situation where many would have reacted very different, myself included. You’re a true advocate for women of the millennial generation and I hope you continue to influence the lives of many through your work and writing.
Have a wonderful Friday!
Thank you for your kind words, Jessica– and for stopping by! I’m a little late in responding to this so Happy Monday 🙂
Does the abortion procedure not affect you? Do you not think about the little human life that the abortionist dismembers? What about her body? Yes, you feel fear and possibly guilt — and rightly so. You have a conscience and a moral light that you did not invent.
If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist. Without the Creator, there is neither equality nor unalienable rights. Without God, love is not a constant virtue.
I suppose you’re assuming that I’m an atheist here?
I hear you saying that your moral system is justified while lacking a point of reference. Therefore, you depict your morality as atheistic — without God as a point of reference.
However, equality and rights are objective and constant for all human life. For this, reconsider.
Well if that’s what you’re “hearing” you might want to get your ears checked 😉
I loved to read this , thank you !
I always enjoy reading comments – they throw a lot of lights and shadows on the article or story in question. One universally valid and objective truth – it is wrong to kill. You are not a baby killer, Kat. No one wants to be one though sometimes we become one or something even worse because we focus on OUR BODY or OUR HEALTH or OUR NAME or OUR JOB or OUR SELF … The list of OUR is endless. But that list will end here. What will not end is OUR LIFE, OUR SOUL and the SOUL of that baby or those babies which we killed or allowed to kill in the name of the other OURS.
Kat, I’ll like you to invite me for coffee and then we can talk more.
Actually the belief that it is wrong to kill is not a “universally valid and objective truth.” There are countless exceptions that differ from one sociocultural system to the next. At the start of each semester, I take my anthropology students through an exercise in which we try to determine if there are any “universals” upon which we can all agree and the universal “wrongness” of killing never even comes close to making the cut. And that’s within a class of 40 students from the same geographical region… so you may wish to re-think the basis of your argument. Especially where you claim that “our life” is not among the things that may be lost. To insinuate that women seeking abortions are selfish is absolutely incorrect.
Let us talk about hormones and periods. Pre-period a feeling of hormonal bloating and a hormonal high. At the start to the end of the period a feeling of being washed out and empty. I had miscarriage in week 6 or 8.
I wanted to be pregnant and I had a feeling of disappointment and a feeling of being hormonally washed out. The miscarriage happens naturally. Grief is used for a feeling of being disappointed or a feeling of being washed out. Most woman are in need of feeling like good people because they are good and they are intelligent. Most know that in heat of passion men and woman are not prepared for sex. These woman usually are not prepared. But neither are religious folks prepared to make a choice for others, because the human born deserves so much more than to be born when the conditions in the biosphere are not right.
Good points.
An old post but it is more relevant now. Don’t hide; move people and ladies to stop hiding. Great post
You certainly aren’t a baby killer! I agree with the hiding…WHY hide?? Women’s bodies have been grounds for political debates. It’s sickening! Women should have the say so about what to do with their bodies. Magnificent post!
[…] https://fieldworkinstilettos.com/2013/05/29/do-i-look-like-a-baby-killer/ […]
Great article, I will reblog it on http://top10telefoncasus.com/ if you don’t mind.
Sure go for it 🙂
[…] I like anti-choice protesters hanging around Planned Parenthood clinics? Absolutely not. In fact, my most viral blog post to date was on this subject. I disagree with their politics and I think it is especially tacky of them to take advantage of […]