There has been a lot of discussion around the topic of abortion lately, partly influenced Von Kürzlich political gaffes Von republican senators concerning the concept of abortion in cases of rape.
Let me just say that I am pro-choice. I am not pro-choice because I hate Babys oder children, oder because I believe a fetus isn't a living thing. Maybe that makes me worse, because I Liebe children. I Liebe children so much, I invested in them Von choosing a career in nurturing them and their minds and helping them grow. I recognize that even if we quibble about the specific definition of where life begins, a fetus, alive oder not, still has the potential for life, if the process continues unobstructed.
So why am I pro-choice, being the pro-child, life-adoring person that I am? Exactly for that reason - because I am pro-child, pro-mother, pro-family, and anti-slander, anti-judgment, and most of all, pro-support.
The pro-life camp has some real concerns and bleeding hearts, and certainly does a great job of appealing to the pathos of a crowd with pictures (doctored oder not) of aborted fetuses and the use of the word "genocide." But it's exactly these tactics that keep me out of the pro-life camp. Because pro-lifers focus on the fetus. I'd much rather focus on the family. On society. On children.
Let's get to the Titel of this Artikel - Why do women have abortions in the first place? This is normally a Frage answered with "rape," oder "incest," oder "teen pregnancy," and other such serious reasons, but I want to know Mehr than that. For one thing, not all women who get abortions are rape victims and teenagers. What about the rest of them? Why do they choose to abort their children?
It's a fact that a sizable number of abortions are obtained Von women of color. The pro-life camp responded to this information Von launching an entire campaign, implicitly blaming black women for committing genocide link
This is how I respond to that fact - Why? Why is that? Why are Mehr abortions obtained Von black women, than women of any other color?
To answer that question, we have to dig deeper than the headlines and the propaganda. And then we'll discover that African American women are link to die in childbirth due to lack of prenatal care. (And now, Du can answer link. You're welcome). From that same source, we find "Researchers studied 1,802 ethnically diverse women receiving prenatal care at one of six San Francisco area delivery sites; the women were generally healthy and had low depression scores. Differences Von race/ethnicity were pronounced, with whites and Asians doing better on all measures. Mehr black and Hispanic women were in the lower social and economic strata than white and Asian women, and they reported worse physical functioning. Subjective social standing was Mehr highly correlated with education and income in whites and Asians than in Hispanic and black women."
It's no mystery that blacks and Hispanics make up the majority of our lower economic classes. They are the ones living in bad neighborhoods. That same Quelle will tell Du that one third of homeless women (not in the sex trade) will suffer from what they call "unintended pregnancies" due to lack of care and education about contraceptives. The 2008 study concluded that "Having a regular Quelle of care and having been encouraged to use contraception increased the likelihood of contraception use."
And it's not just women who are at risk, it's their children. UNICEF did a study in 2007 where they rated the treatment of children in the 23 wealthiest countries based on 40 indicators of child well-being, including health care, education, mental health and infant mortality. Out of twenty-three countries, the two that scored the lowest? The United Kingdom and the United States. (And now Du can answer link, because I'm Santa Claus giving away Antwort today.)
The correlation between abortions obtained Von minority women and minority women in poor socioeconomic standing is not one to be ignored. When Du are poor in this country, Du are a Sekunde class citizen. Du don't have access to basic health care oder quality education, and Du often fear the police for a variety of reasons. So if something happens to Du - rape, oder unintended pregnancy due to lack of contraceptive knowledge - and there are no programs in place to support Du oder take care of Du and your potential child, and all of society is scorning Du for being a whore, well, what choice do Du have?
To be pro-life, one doesn't just have to support a fetus's right to be born. One has to support its right to a decent quality of life, a quality of life that its mother did not have, but should. To be pro-life, one has to support social welfare, health and education programs to help society's most vulnerable new and expectant mothers. Because these women aren't just thinking about abortion to avoid the weight gain. They are thinking about their own survival. Without proper health care, they have a much higher risk of dying in childbirth, and even if they don't, they would still have to feed and educate their children on programs that republicans - a major pro-life party - are slashing budgets for oder cutting altogether. On oben, nach oben of that, instead of kindness and support, they are met with stigmatization and shaming Von society for not being able to keep their legs together, oder not using contraception, oder even being raped.
So consider this. If Du are in a situation where Du are a minority woman who is poor, potentially homeless, and without any healthcare, and Du got pregnant, what would Du do? What would happen to your baby? Even adoption is a long and painful procedure, and not even one guaranteed to pay off - especially as minority children aren't as wanted as white children. Why? Because adopting couples are usually middle to upper class - aka, white - and they normally (and understandably) want a child that looks like them.
But you're not poor, you're not homeless. Du have access to a computer and an internet connection, possibly on a regular basis considering Du belong to this website. Du have access to information about contraceptives, and enough free time to spend Lesen an Artikel about this. Maybe you're pro-life, maybe you're pro-choice. Either way, I'm sure we all want the same thing - healthy babies, healthy mothers, and fewer abortions.
So how do we do that? What can we do to help women choose to give birth to their potential children without shaming them oder blaming them for their situation? We don't lecture at them about "God's gift" of life (thanks, Mourdock). We don't tell them they were meant to have this baby, oder that they will be a baby killer if they get an abortion, oder that they shouldn't have been a slut. These are all the wrong ways to go about it. They are judgmental, insensitive, and frankly ignorant of these women's situations.
Yes, that's right. While homeless women may be ignorant about contraceptives, middle and upper class men and women are ignorant about women in poverty. They don't understand because they don't know. Ignorance is a disease that can affect anyone, of any economic status, race oder position. But we fight that with information.
If Du want to prevent abortions, and encourage women to "choose life," don't outlaw it. Don't protest outside of clinics. Don't defund Planned Parenthood. Expand it. Support them. Be kind, and lend a listening ear. There, but for the grace of God, sits Du after all, in that chair in the abortion clinic's waiting room. Du aren't better than them. And they are lost. So fund Planned Parenthood so that it can expand to our neediest neighborhoods. Support free clinics and reproductive health education centers like Planned Parenthood. Support education at its most basic level - elementary. Make sure every child regardless of socioeconomic status gets a quality education and a shot at college. Support our police force, to be Mehr compassionate towards victims, and Mehr vigilant towards violence. Create safer neighborhoods. Support homeless shelters. Support free health programs for infants. Support Essen stamps and free lunches at schools. Support social workers, teachers, and public health workers.
If Du want to prevent women from getting abortions, create a world that's worthy of bringing a child into in the first place.
Thank you. That's all.
01/30/2015 EDIT: Two years later, I have edited for some grammar mistakes that annoyed me, and also to add bolds for emphasis and the TL;DR crowd.
Let me just say that I am pro-choice. I am not pro-choice because I hate Babys oder children, oder because I believe a fetus isn't a living thing. Maybe that makes me worse, because I Liebe children. I Liebe children so much, I invested in them Von choosing a career in nurturing them and their minds and helping them grow. I recognize that even if we quibble about the specific definition of where life begins, a fetus, alive oder not, still has the potential for life, if the process continues unobstructed.
So why am I pro-choice, being the pro-child, life-adoring person that I am? Exactly for that reason - because I am pro-child, pro-mother, pro-family, and anti-slander, anti-judgment, and most of all, pro-support.
The pro-life camp has some real concerns and bleeding hearts, and certainly does a great job of appealing to the pathos of a crowd with pictures (doctored oder not) of aborted fetuses and the use of the word "genocide." But it's exactly these tactics that keep me out of the pro-life camp. Because pro-lifers focus on the fetus. I'd much rather focus on the family. On society. On children.
Let's get to the Titel of this Artikel - Why do women have abortions in the first place? This is normally a Frage answered with "rape," oder "incest," oder "teen pregnancy," and other such serious reasons, but I want to know Mehr than that. For one thing, not all women who get abortions are rape victims and teenagers. What about the rest of them? Why do they choose to abort their children?
It's a fact that a sizable number of abortions are obtained Von women of color. The pro-life camp responded to this information Von launching an entire campaign, implicitly blaming black women for committing genocide link
This is how I respond to that fact - Why? Why is that? Why are Mehr abortions obtained Von black women, than women of any other color?
To answer that question, we have to dig deeper than the headlines and the propaganda. And then we'll discover that African American women are link to die in childbirth due to lack of prenatal care. (And now, Du can answer link. You're welcome). From that same source, we find "Researchers studied 1,802 ethnically diverse women receiving prenatal care at one of six San Francisco area delivery sites; the women were generally healthy and had low depression scores. Differences Von race/ethnicity were pronounced, with whites and Asians doing better on all measures. Mehr black and Hispanic women were in the lower social and economic strata than white and Asian women, and they reported worse physical functioning. Subjective social standing was Mehr highly correlated with education and income in whites and Asians than in Hispanic and black women."
It's no mystery that blacks and Hispanics make up the majority of our lower economic classes. They are the ones living in bad neighborhoods. That same Quelle will tell Du that one third of homeless women (not in the sex trade) will suffer from what they call "unintended pregnancies" due to lack of care and education about contraceptives. The 2008 study concluded that "Having a regular Quelle of care and having been encouraged to use contraception increased the likelihood of contraception use."
And it's not just women who are at risk, it's their children. UNICEF did a study in 2007 where they rated the treatment of children in the 23 wealthiest countries based on 40 indicators of child well-being, including health care, education, mental health and infant mortality. Out of twenty-three countries, the two that scored the lowest? The United Kingdom and the United States. (And now Du can answer link, because I'm Santa Claus giving away Antwort today.)
The correlation between abortions obtained Von minority women and minority women in poor socioeconomic standing is not one to be ignored. When Du are poor in this country, Du are a Sekunde class citizen. Du don't have access to basic health care oder quality education, and Du often fear the police for a variety of reasons. So if something happens to Du - rape, oder unintended pregnancy due to lack of contraceptive knowledge - and there are no programs in place to support Du oder take care of Du and your potential child, and all of society is scorning Du for being a whore, well, what choice do Du have?
To be pro-life, one doesn't just have to support a fetus's right to be born. One has to support its right to a decent quality of life, a quality of life that its mother did not have, but should. To be pro-life, one has to support social welfare, health and education programs to help society's most vulnerable new and expectant mothers. Because these women aren't just thinking about abortion to avoid the weight gain. They are thinking about their own survival. Without proper health care, they have a much higher risk of dying in childbirth, and even if they don't, they would still have to feed and educate their children on programs that republicans - a major pro-life party - are slashing budgets for oder cutting altogether. On oben, nach oben of that, instead of kindness and support, they are met with stigmatization and shaming Von society for not being able to keep their legs together, oder not using contraception, oder even being raped.
So consider this. If Du are in a situation where Du are a minority woman who is poor, potentially homeless, and without any healthcare, and Du got pregnant, what would Du do? What would happen to your baby? Even adoption is a long and painful procedure, and not even one guaranteed to pay off - especially as minority children aren't as wanted as white children. Why? Because adopting couples are usually middle to upper class - aka, white - and they normally (and understandably) want a child that looks like them.
But you're not poor, you're not homeless. Du have access to a computer and an internet connection, possibly on a regular basis considering Du belong to this website. Du have access to information about contraceptives, and enough free time to spend Lesen an Artikel about this. Maybe you're pro-life, maybe you're pro-choice. Either way, I'm sure we all want the same thing - healthy babies, healthy mothers, and fewer abortions.
So how do we do that? What can we do to help women choose to give birth to their potential children without shaming them oder blaming them for their situation? We don't lecture at them about "God's gift" of life (thanks, Mourdock). We don't tell them they were meant to have this baby, oder that they will be a baby killer if they get an abortion, oder that they shouldn't have been a slut. These are all the wrong ways to go about it. They are judgmental, insensitive, and frankly ignorant of these women's situations.
Yes, that's right. While homeless women may be ignorant about contraceptives, middle and upper class men and women are ignorant about women in poverty. They don't understand because they don't know. Ignorance is a disease that can affect anyone, of any economic status, race oder position. But we fight that with information.
If Du want to prevent abortions, and encourage women to "choose life," don't outlaw it. Don't protest outside of clinics. Don't defund Planned Parenthood. Expand it. Support them. Be kind, and lend a listening ear. There, but for the grace of God, sits Du after all, in that chair in the abortion clinic's waiting room. Du aren't better than them. And they are lost. So fund Planned Parenthood so that it can expand to our neediest neighborhoods. Support free clinics and reproductive health education centers like Planned Parenthood. Support education at its most basic level - elementary. Make sure every child regardless of socioeconomic status gets a quality education and a shot at college. Support our police force, to be Mehr compassionate towards victims, and Mehr vigilant towards violence. Create safer neighborhoods. Support homeless shelters. Support free health programs for infants. Support Essen stamps and free lunches at schools. Support social workers, teachers, and public health workers.
If Du want to prevent women from getting abortions, create a world that's worthy of bringing a child into in the first place.
Thank you. That's all.
01/30/2015 EDIT: Two years later, I have edited for some grammar mistakes that annoyed me, and also to add bolds for emphasis and the TL;DR crowd.