Take this overcoat of shame, it never did belong to me

[fellmama]

Alaskan teens may abort without parental consent.

What interests me about this is the opposite side of the coin, which I don't think many pro-choicers are aware of and many anti-abortionists would like to pretend doesn't happen. I read somewhere on Feministing the other day an interview with an abortion clinic worker. She noted sadly that she's occasionally had to call state services to collect a minor abandoned by her parents at the clinic . . . when she refused to abort.

The ugly side of parental consent is parental mandate.

Comments

[superquail.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of ugly sides to the abortion issue. I looked on Feministing to try to find the article you talked about and I was not successful. Do you remember what it was called?

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

http://feministing.com/archives/007048.html#more
Heaven knows how I found it!

[superquail.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I am glad that you did find it. It was a good read and it gave a much-needed perspective on the reproductive rights issue.

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

Abortion _is_ an ugly issue. I make no secret of my pro-life stance, but it comes as some relief, reading the article, that a worker at an abortion clinic will provide equal support for a girl making the choice to continue her pregnancy as for one who wants to end it. And we 'anti-abortionists' certainly don't pretend that such abandonment doesn't happen--one of the key arguments that is often put forward in pro-life literature is that an undue percentage of women who get abortions have been pressured into it by parents, the father, or whoever. (Hence our resentment of the inaccurate label 'anti-choice...') I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but since taking statistics I don't trust numbers from _anyone_ anymore, so it's kinda moot. *shrugs* Just my 2 cents. Very interesting article.

[superquail.livejournal.com]

Mary sent me an interesting article about international adoption the other day, and it talked about how American adoptions have dropped off. One of the things that apparently happened in the pre-legal-abortion era was that women who were inconveniently pregnant would be sent to convents or other discreet locations to give birth and then the children would be given for adoption. Later, a lot of these women talked about how they were strong-armed into surrendering their children and that this experience was quite traumatic.

Today, most American women who give up their children for adoption choose the "open adoption" system in which they can have contact with their child later on.

It seems that when it comes to reproductive decisions, everyone wants to have a say, but at the end, it really has to be the mother's choice no matter what happens.

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

Of course it has to be the mother's choice. Again, the 'anti-choice' label is inaccurate and irritating. The thing about the pro-life group is that we don't see that there's any real difference between a reluctant mother aborting her kid or tossing it in a dumpster right after birth. I read an article once that mocked pro-life protesters for failing to suggest an appropriate punishment for a mother who gets a theoretically-illegal abortion. No-one wanted to say that she should do jail time, because it didn't sound PC I suppose. But that's really what it comes down to. You can choose to suffocate your two-year-old because he's being loud and annoying and because having a kid has ruined your life, but that doesn't make it right. And if that doesn't make sense to you, think about all the pro-choice folks who adamantly declare "well _I_ would _never_ get an abortion, but I still think..."

I've definitely heard about the women who were strong-armed into discrete births and forced adoptions. I suppose that's better than a dangerous and possibly fatal illegal abortion, of which I've also heard stories... but still not good. Interesting, though, that it's another case of the mother wanting to keep the child and not being allowed to.

Another Catholic no-no, of course, is artificial birth control... but when it comes to this whole mess, I'd so much rather see people successfully preventing 'inconvenient' pregnancies than messing with the termination of a life. Gotta pick your battles, I suppose. :-)

[superquail.livejournal.com]

I hope you do not think I was attacking you, as that wasn't what I meant.

To be honest, I really don't like the way the whole abortion debate in the U.S. is couched. It feels to me that everyone ends up focusing on the wrong things. In my opinion the real problem isn't whether abortion is legal or not, the question is "Why are there women who are becoming pregnant when they don't want to be?" If there were no unwanted pregnancies, there would be no abortions.

How to prevent unwanted pregnancies is a much different question from how to prevent abortions, and I think it is a far harder one to answer. Empowering both men and women to only have sex when they:

a. want to
b. are mature enough to handle any and all possible consequences
c. sober

would be a good start.

But empowering people to have control over their own destinies has far-reaching effects that may not be what people want.

[parksdh.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Who wants to have sex only when sober?

[superquail.livejournal.com]

It is true that if sex was limited to the sober, there would be a lot of ugly people out there who would never get laid. A lot of assholes and bitches, too, I suspect. Yet somehow, I'm ok with that.

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I know you weren't attacking me. :-) This is one of many things I miss about Whitman--intelligent, respectful debate. I've stopped going to 3 or 4 discussion groups because people took things too personally. It makes it hard to carry on a conversation--or to learn anything from the one person who did any research--when an opinion hurts someone's feelings and you have to spend the rest of the evening comforting said person... Oy.

I like your list of conditions under which to have sex--it covers most of the rules of most religions (and secular laws too) in a nutshell. Well, except maybe the 'sober' bit. :-) I'm not sure that 'empowering' is the best possible word, though... it seems to me that it means that if given the option, all people would follow those guidelines, when many clearly ignore the last two guidelines and only go with the first. Of course, there are also those who ignore the first guideline, but at least that's explicitly illegal...

[superquail.livejournal.com]

There are only laws protecting people from having sex with someone else who doesn't want to. If you are consenting to sex even though you don't really want to, I don't think there are too many laws that can help you. That's what I mean by "empowerment" - know yourself, know your limits, know what you want.

Most people don't start a tryst thinking "I want to get pregnant" and then a condom breaks, or no condom was ever used, and there you go.

If people know their own convictions and have the courage to uphold them, I think we would see more happy sex.

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

I can agree with that. :-)