The "pro-life" movement is absolutely anything BUT "pro-life." This hypocritical and misleading nomenclature should be discontinued immediately. "Anti-choice" is also far too tame. This group of thugs, hiding behind declarations of piety about "the sanctity of life," needs to be labeled exactly as they ARE: Forced-birth slut-shamers, advocates of murder, hypocrites, pedophiles, enablers of rape and incest, and generally all-around lying slimebuckets.
The solution to reducing abortion is VERY SIMPLE: Improve access to contraception. That's it. And yet the forced-birth slut shamers rail against that and oppose it fiercely. Why? Because it allows sex without consequences. And they HATE that. Non-procreative sex, in their view, should be PUNISHED. Any woman--or girl--who has sex outside marriage, whether willingly or unwillingly (through rape or incest) who is unfortunate enough to become pregnant with an unwanted child, must be forced to carry that product of the act to show her shame to the world.
At the moment of that conception, in their view, she suddenly loses all claim to her own body. Her other roles in life--daughter, sister, mother, wife, friend, co-worker, aunt, niece, partner, granddaughter--all evaporate as she becomes a hostage to the clump of cells in her uterus. She is merely a vessel, a giant incubator for something too small to be seen by the naked eye.
And what of her life? What of her age, her financial situation, her plans for an education or career? What about the father? Many skip merrily away, denying paternity until forced to take a paternity test. If they can be found. The forced-birth slut shamers don't care, reasoning that any difficulties caused to education, career, or family life are simply deserved consequences.
Of course, married women carrying wanted babies can also need a medically necessary abortion to save their own lives. The forced-birth movement does not want any exception for this, even though married women carrying wanted children don't fall into the "slut" category. The recent case of Savita Halappanavar demonstrates the horrific reality of an anti-abortion stance. I remember my Catholic mother telling me once, "Don't give birth in a Catholic hospital. If anything happens, they will save the baby and let you die." And that was when I was in my early teens and many years away from having children. More than 30 years later, that hasn't changed.
When Sister Margaret McBride opted to actually save the life of a mother, she was fired and excommunicated. Apparently, she saved the wrong life. Even though an 11-week fetus could not possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, survive outside the womb. Even though the doctors thought there was a strong possibility that the young mother would have died from pulmonary hypertension. The lives of these young mothers meant, quite literally, NOTHING to the Catholic hierarchy.
So there are just two recent examples of how the Catholic Church, and by extension the whole forced-birth movement, are murderers, actually or potentially. Sister McBride's patient survived. Here's another truly vile example. This is nothing short of INSANITY. To claim that killing a doctor, a highly-educated HEALER, is "justifiable" because he or she is staying faithful to his or her oath, is truly in the realm of batshit crazy. And the despicable legislators who are pushing this crap are completely unfit for public office. What a disgrace. Homicide is a CRIME. There is no "self-defense" or "justification" involved in the killing of a doctor simply because YOU are a crazed fanatic.
And now on to rapists, who are apparently glorified by the forced-birth movement because, according to complete asshole and thankfully failed Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, rape babies are "gifts from God." Let us not forget, either, that dear old batshit-crazy St. Torum a/k/a Frothy, said the same thing. And Akin. And Paul Ryan, who co-authored the stinking Sanctity of Life Act, a/k/a Personhood. There are no exceptions for abortion in that bill, and I'm tired of the "forcible rape" crap. I'm glad he's not VP, but sorry he held on to his Congressional seat. What idiots voted for him?
Probably the same idiots who voted for these 30 pro-rape Republicans. Why am I labeling them, specifically, as "pro-rape"? Because they voted against this anti-rape amendment. Another example of the GOP supporting cronyism while showing their absolute and utter disregard for women, particularly rape victims. The bill did pass, 68-30. It should have been unanimous.
The forced-birthers care NOTHING about the emotional agony that someone forced to carry a child resulting from a CRIME against them might suffer. They don't care that someone who was not planning to have a child might not be emotionally or financially positioned for pregnancy. They don't care that if the victim was a married woman, her husband might leave her, and her life possibly fall to pieces. No, in the words of these disgusting, misogynistic gasbags, she should "make the best of it." This complete and utter disregard for women is truly despicable, and these creatures should be reviled. And their attitude is the prevalent one among both legislators and screeching forced-birthers.
Since these awful people are seeking a COMPLETE ban on abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest, or the life of the mother, one must therefore logically conclude that they are giving a tacit nod of acceptance to incestuous fathers, uncles, and brothers everywhere, who prey on and sometimes impregnate very young girls. After all, "life is a gift from God." I covered one horrific case in this diary, although the vile perpetrator was a stepfather and not a blood relative.
The pedophiles, of course, mostly reside in the Catholic Church, which is most vociferous in its ranting against abortion and contraception other than the rhythm method and withdrawal. Both those methods have exceedingly high failure rates, which explains why "roughly" 98% of Catholic women use birth control. I personally am a product of the rhythm method. My brothers were planned and spaced by my mother's use of reliable birth control.
And the liars. I hardly know where to start, there is so MUCH material. The biggest, most frequently screeched lie is that, "Abortion is murder!" Actually, it is NOT, under the LAW.
Forced-birthers frequently refer to pro-choicers as "pro-aborts." I would laugh, except that it's too annoying to be funny. NO ONE is "pro-abortion." "Pro-choice" means that you agree that every woman has the right to make her own choice about her pregnancy, her life and health, her future, and her finances. You agree that having a child--or not--is a personal and private decision that should be made by the woman, not a clueless politician or wacko religious group that does NOT have her best interests in mind. There should be no meddling in personal family and medical decisions by evilly craven asshats.
Next up in the pantheon of despicable lies is the federally-funded "crisis pregnancy centers." These forced-birth slut-shaming centers have elevated lies to an absolutely mind-boggling level. I read the training manual for these centers, and was both outraged and enraged. They encourage deception to any possible degree to prevent someone getting an abortion. From the US Senate Committee investigation report: False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource Centers, 2006, prepared for Rep. Waxman:
During the investigation, 20 of the 23 centers (87%) provided false or misleading information about the health effects of abortion. Often these federally funded centers grossly misrepresented the medical risks of abortion, telling the callers that having an abortion could increase the risk of breast cancer, result in sterility, and lead to suicide and “post-abortion stress disorder.”
I don't know how to link to a .pdf, but
here is the resource page that contains the link, among others for further reading.
Some examples from the training manual, taken from this site
"If the client asks how long it takes to do the test, tell her we offer the results in 30 minutes, you will have the results by that time. (You have not told her how long it takes you to run the test, but how long it will be before she has the results of the test.)" [Editor's note: In reality, a pregnancy test takes two to five minutes. During the 30-minute period, the centers show the client a deceptive and misleading video about the dangers of abortion.]
And, to further prove their slut-shaming, anti-contraception stance:
"Never counsel for contraception or refer to agencies making contraceptives available. Fornication is still a sin no matter what the circumstances."
and this lovely act of outright deception:
"Do not indicate you are pro-life. If she is seeking an abortion and indicates she won't come in because she knows we are pro-life, assure her we can still help her by giving her all the information on abortion."
I would love to know why this report never came to the attention of the public. It needs to, particularly since the GOP and forced-birthers are so loudly howling for the de-funding of Planned Parenthood. Which, as I hardly need to remind everyone, provides ACTUAL HEALTHCARE to both women and men. And, in some states such as Nebraska,
adoption services. We need to be loudly howling for the de-funding of these terrible places, often deliberately situated right near Planned Parenthood offices. I do not want
MY taxpayer dollars funding these places, which offer NO help to confused pregnant women, but exist only to push the agenda of the religious "right." At taxpayer expense. We DO have a "separation of Church and State." I also saw an application for a CPC. Only Christians are eligible for employment. I don't remember where I saw that illegal, discriminatory statement, but
here is the CareNet "mission statement and vision," in case you had any doubt. Oooh.
HuffPo covered it.
Another lie is that supporting the forced-birth movement is all about saving "the teensiest boys and girls" and "unborn women." This article says it better than I ever could, chronicling one woman's journey from a place of deception and darkness into the light of truth. I wish every forced-birther would read it.
Not content with merely trying to end abortion and turn the US into Romania, the forced-birthers are mounting a campaign of lies against birth control. I read this today. More organized, though, is this highly selective and biased website. I would like to state, for the record, that I took birth control pills for more than 20 years, as did most of my friends. The site highlights a few tragic deaths, true, but fails to mention anywhere the much-higher maternal mortality rate, or the risks of pregnancy. I cannot think of a single drug that does not have side effects, or some degree of risk to some people. This site has one purpose, and one purpose only: to frighten girls and women away from what is generally a safe and effective means of preventing unwanted pregnancy. Since the Pill is prescription-only, one would expect the prescribing doctor to be aware of any contraindications in the patient's medical history. I am disgusted that these people are exploiting the deaths of several women to send a deceptive message.
Another lie is that abortion is against God's law/will/whatever, and that the Bible prohibits it. No, actually, it doesn't. Our laws are dictated by our Constitution, not the Bible. This is why all attempts to pass Personhood on a Federal level must fail. We must maintain the separation of Church and State, as intended by the Founding Fathers.
Total bans on abortion simply don't work. Countries with liberal access to abortion have a lower rate of abortions. Since it is impossible to believe that organizations such as Americans United for Life are unaware of that fact, one must conclude that they are deliberately misleading their sheeple.
It should be obvious to all that forced-birthers do not give a damn about actual living, breathing children. The GOP has attempted to or actually cut programs that help children and families: Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, S-Chip, public education funding...I am so thankful Romney was defeated. I have asked several proudly self-proclaimed forced-birthers if they were willing to have unwanted babies dumped on their own doorsteps, to love and care for them until age 18. The answers: "No, uh, the babies can be left at a fire station/hospital/church." And those were from the people who didn't immediately block me.
Nor do they care about women. If a woman said to a forced-birther, "I am a daughter, a sister, a mother, and a wife. I am a niece, and an aunt. I am a friend. This is a clump of cells. Which has more value?" You just know their answer. They will not acknowledge that after birth, babies need to be loved, fed, housed, clothed, and educated. LOVE is the most important need of all. Wanted children are loved and happy children. Loved, happy children grow up to be loving parents, if they choose to become parents.
I'm sick and tired of people whining, "Well, she can give the baby up for adoption." There are hundreds of thousands of children waiting to be adopted in the US, far more than there are parents wishing to adopt. Foster children are sometimes subjected to abuse and murdered. So, too, are the children of single mothers, usually at the hand of boyfriends. There are a few cases every year, each one a terrible tragedy.
In conclusion, the pro-choice movement is really the one that supports life, in all its many facets.