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posts about #abortionandworkingwomen more → 
Some People Underestimate The Economic Impact Of Abortion
New York, 7:19 PM
Mon Dec 14
51 posts in the last 24 hours
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Some People Underestimate The Economic Impact Of Abortion |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
06/18/09
My boyfriend has a daughter who he raises without any help financially or otherwise from the baby's mom. She lives about 8 hours away and only sees her on holidays and never makes an effort to visit her daughter, or send her birthday gifts or even random little reminders that shes loved.
Sorry, but I feel its just as sexist to focus on the female strife as it is to ignore the caring and loving single fathers out there.
06/19/09
06/18/09
So being a destitute grad student was of course one reason to abort, but I would have done it even if I was loaded. Being responsible for another person's well-being, even with financial means, is still a job that would prevent me from fulfilling my dreams and becoming a happy, whole person. I would have needed to devote time, attention, and heart to a person other than myself and I was already working my ass off just to excel in school.
I had an abortion not just because I wanted "a career" but because I wanted to study and learn and take advantage of my love of education. I wanted to use my brain in ways I couldn't do if I was distracted by another person's needs and wants.
In my choice, economics took a backseat to the desire to become the kind of person I wanted to become. But in my experience, even pro-choice people labeled that as "the selfish reason" even though they agreed it was my right to be selfish.
But I think, like other commenters have pointed out, this is a problem with semantics. I didn't do it just because I was too poor. I didn't do it because a successful career would be harder. I did it because I wanted to fulfill my potential and I don't think that's selfish at all.
I know I'm preaching to the choir; I just want to highlight that I truly wish we could abolish the word "selfish" from the argument as a whole. It's not just "my right to be selfish," its "my right to fulfill my potential." I think there's a difference. One is just about my needs, the other is about my potential to contribute to society.
06/18/09
'Selfish' is really relative - is it selfish for a man to spend 80 hours a week working while his wife and/or the nanny raises the kids? Well no, he's supporting them! It's downright noble!
06/18/09
Therein lies the proble, for some people. They think the greatest contribution a woman can make to society is via her (hopefully male) offspring.
06/17/09
06/17/09
Every time I think I can't possibly dislike the privileged class any more, someone like that comes along and shows me that yes, my hate can reach a little farther.
06/17/09
There's no maybe about it. The majority of women seeking abortions are ALREADY MOTHERS. They have one or more kids. They know the drill, from an emotional, physical and financial point of view. More often than not they are acting in the best interests of not only themselves, but actual living, breathing children.
06/17/09
06/17/09
What I do care about is that she seems to think she should tell everybody else what to think, and that her personal decisions and feelings should apply to everybody else in a similar situation.
06/17/09
06/17/09
Just because she has a right to her opinion, that does not mean we don't have the right to argue with it, and argue with it strongly. Especially since she's not just telling her story, she is broadcasting her thoughts on the matter as though they should hold true for every woman faced with an unplanned pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the anti-choice movement as a whole does not subscribe to the philosophy of quietly disagreeing with someone else's opinions. It's not "the end of it" when anti-choicers disagree with my opinions about what I should be able to do with my own damn body. No, the "end of it" for anti-choicers is to take away my agency.
She doesn't have to shut up, and neither do we.
06/17/09
What I can't get behind is those who believe that--on the basis of their own, personal experiences--that NO ONE should be able to have abortions. That's what gets my ire up. I have every right to my own circumstances, choices, feelings, and opinions as she does. If I should be in a situation in which the best choice for me would be to have an abortion, I want to have the freedom and ability to do so, legally and safely. That's all. There are many out there who would restrict that freedom if it were up to them, and I simply can't agree with that.
I can be tolerant of someone else's feelings and opinions while still disagreeing with them.
06/17/09
Perhaps less abortions would occur if women were not vilified for being pregnant?
06/17/09
Or something like that.
06/17/09
THAT is an abortion reduction plan. I'd have at least one right now if I felt it was possible financially. So would so many ladies I know.
06/17/09
Isn't there a better use for public money than funding a growing population that will only require more maintenance and resources as it ages? Particularly if many of these children are being born into less than ideal homes (young parents, unstable single parents, etc.) to people who may be having them in part because of the lack of financial responsibility.
My husband and I couldn't comfortably afford to have a child (maybe if he took a second job), but I don't think it's the state's responsibility to fund the venture.
06/17/09
Let me guess - you've never been to Sweden, have you? This isn't a 'We pay you X per child' incentive plan. It's the socialist nightmare... parental leave, free health care, and feminism everywhere.
While it might be easy for Americans to picture 'welfare moms' or whatever, milking the system, Swedes have so many other amazing health care benefits that this doesn't seem like such a huge deal. And they're all paying (lots of) taxes for everyone's welfare, young and old. It's an investment in a generation and, in context, it works.
06/17/09
One of the many reasons it's so ironic how so many pro-lifers are against universal health care...
06/17/09
Scares me how much a creature of US governing ideologies I am. I can't even imagine a state with free universal healthcare. But it sure sounds good.
Thank you again.
06/18/09
06/17/09
For the record, a woman who is close to me had an abortion when she was young and went on to have three kids. She has no regrets at all about her abortion because, as she says, if she hadn't had it she wouldn't have the children she does have, and she loves them. Just another perspective.
06/17/09
06/17/09
My abortion was one of the saddest and most painful experiences of my life. I am really glad for those for whom it's easy; but it isn't for everyone, and it wasn't for me. I'm just as pro-choice now as I've ever been. If I felt I had to be so black-and-white about the experience or what it meant or how it felt in order to protect the validity of being pro-choice, that would... sort of totally invalidate the whole choice part, for me.
Ditto that no one can know, for sure, what will or won't happen in a life, a career, etc. We just make educated guesses, and do our best.
Trunk being out of control in seeing the boundaries of her own experience is different than her experience being essentially wrong or full of shit.
06/17/09
I'm sorry your abortion was a negative experience for you.
06/17/09
06/17/09
06/17/09
I am pro-choice. I worked in an abortion clinic, with the last doctor who was killed in Florida in 1994. Choice is important to me.
That being said, I am also a person waiting to adopt. I take issue with women who dismiss adoption as an option because they imagine having a baby and placing it with a family would be too hard. This day and age, birth mothers can have a say in who becomes their child's adoptive parents and they can even have an on-going relationship with her child and its family. It's hard still for many, I'm sure, but also incredibly loving and, I suspect, rewarding.
I think we (feminists, pro-choicers) owe it to women to reclaim this issue from anti-choices who have usurped the choice of adoption as a political statement.
06/17/09
06/17/09
06/17/09
Adoption is not easy, and it is fraught with power and privilege differentials that need to be majorly addressed in how we talk about adoption in this country.
Our social worker, who is herself adopted said there are two different decisions- first, whether to terminate or carry to term. Then, whether to parent or place the baby.
06/17/09
But at the same time, I'd hate for women to feel pressured to take this option because they were being made to feel that it was somehow morally "better" than abortion. I can not imagine taking a pregnancy to term that I hadn't planned, in part because it amounts to admitting to the world for 9 months that you had an unplanned pregnancy; there's no privacy in that choice and many women are in situations where they can give up their privacy.
06/17/09
I don't have an answer, though. I don't know if anti-clinic-harassment laws with more teeth would effect this change, or if some of the ridiculous and prohibitive state laws would have to be struck down first, or if perhaps we'd have the right to slap the hell out of people who approach us outside clinics. But anyway, you are right, and adoption should be reclaimed from people who don't see it as anything more than a platform plank.
06/17/09
06/17/09
I agree that I don't want any woman to be pressured to make the "morally right" decision (whatever that is). I would just love to see the dialog about adoption become more dynamic, and more positive. Some birth mother have GREAT experiences (see the USA Today article link in my response to @SunburnedCounsel).
We rarely hear from birth moms because of the shame that gets showered upon them (which...don't get me started). Even now, I have friends and family who say, "I could never give up a child..." In the adoption world, we learn to use phrases like "place a child" not "give up a child." Yesterday, I read a birth mom's testimony that she didn't give up her son, she gave its adoptive parents to him. Just that shift in phrasing puts the situation in a different light, I think.
06/17/09
In any case, I wish you happiness and health in your role as mother. I'm very happy for you :)
06/17/09
06/18/09
06/17/09
06/17/09
Fuck that noise. I got pregnant, I got an abortion, and I DON'T CARE. I rarely even think about it.
I am clearly evil and soulless.
06/17/09
Solution: Family Planning
The only way to minimize the harm (all kinds of harm)of unplanned pregnancy is to educate girls about birth control from an early age. The number of unplanned pregnancies that result from failed birth control is small enough to significantly reduce the number of abortions!
I recall hearing a man say (in a deep south drawl) "Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed." Made my blood run cold. "Protecting" young girls from information about birth control means exposing them to much too much pain.
06/17/09
06/17/09
"It doesn't matter whether you have kids now or later, because they will always make your career more difficult. There is no time in your life when you are so stable in your work that kids won't create an earthquake underneath that confidence."
Why does this writer present the "to abort or not to abort" question in terms of "do I want kids now or later"? It's sad that women who do not want children are excluded even from some discussions on abortion.
06/17/09