January 24, 2005

LaShawn

. . . has a roundup on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Right now I'm anti-abortion, but pro-choice. Don't expect that second part to last, however: not if I'm going to have to wait years to adopt a child because we are so determined to kill any that get conceived in any kind of irregular manner.

In my agency alone, there are at any given point 100 couples waiting for a baby: any baby. Learning disabilities are fine. Vision/hearing impaired is fine. Any race is usually fine.

But it still takes at least a year to get a baby, and often up to three.

Whether it's done through legislation, or through education, the rate at which we kill these kids has to come down. I'd frankly prefer to see it done voluntarily, rather than by legislative fiat. (Though of course Roe v. Wade gave us ill-reasoned judicial fiat.)

But now that we've brought the stigma of the pregnancy itself down to such manageable levels, and can provide young (and not-so-young) women with counseling, support, continuing education and first-rate prenatal care, why not allow them to do the right thing and make adoption plans for their babies? It's not easy, but neither is living with having had an abortion: you can trust me on this.

The pressure on girls to terminate pregnancies is simply overwhelming at times, and it usually comes most harshly from either her parents or the male who impregnated her.

And there's no good reason for it in most cases. Not any more.

UPDATE: Let's remember to keep the discussion civil.

BTW, Angle of Repose has some thoughts as well.

Posted by: Attila at 02:29 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 If you are interested in adopting a child, check out one of your local crisis pregnancy care centers. I don't know how many of them do it, but the one I volunteer for provides adoption services as well as counseling. Shoot me an email if you'd like any more information about it.

Posted by: Drew at January 24, 2005 01:25 PM (Ml8z/)

2 We're signed up with the local Catholic agency, which counsels pregnant girls/women in three counties. So we're actually casting a pretty wide net. The bottom line, though, is that there are more families waiting than there are available babies.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 24, 2005 01:34 PM (RjyQ5)

3 I'm very sorry but the idea of forcing women to have children so that you can get a child just plain makes me shudder. Btw, I was adopted.

Posted by: Kathy K at January 25, 2005 04:22 AM (DG7nG)

4 Forcing? I think I made the point that I'd really like to see the numbers of abortions in this country reduced voluntarily. But they should be reduced. We have the most liberal abortion policies in the Western world, and the sheer numbers of abortions going on are simply obscene. What I really like to see is genuine choice, rather than girls and women getting hustled into abortion because the culture pretends that the only two options are abortion vs. raising the child oneself when one is clearly too young (I was 19). And the boyfriend who hustled me into it was also an adoptee. He said he just couldn't stand the thought of a child of "his" out there in the world that he might not ever know. And here's the kicker:he also decided that I should do this drug-free, and not take the valium they usually gave women before the procedure. So I had a panic attack on the table right in the middle of it all. Yeah, it's my responsibility. And, yeah--I was weak at that age and should have made up my own mind. But let's not pretend that girls and women are not under pressure to have this done to them. They are.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 25, 2005 11:55 AM (RjyQ5)

5 You know, under Clinton, who support safe abortion, and comprehensive sex and birth control education, much as you probably hate him, abortions reduced year after year. Under Bush, who has launched the inane abstinence only push on sex education, started the assault on birth control, and launched massive assaults on safe abortion, abortion has gone up year after year.

Posted by: flaime at January 26, 2005 11:35 AM (mSPgv)

6 OK, I'm sure no one is reading these comments now, but I just have to let you know that those "studies" that flaime cite have been proven to be completly flawed and abortion has been dropping under Bush.

Posted by: Drew at January 31, 2005 04:58 PM (zEdFo)

7 How funny. I could have sworn that I responded to Flaime, asking him for links. I guess my response didn't show up due to some sort of bug. But the notion that Bush has something against birth control is laughable, and the assertion that he launched "massive assaults on safe abortion" can only stand if one counts partial-birth abortion, which truly is a barbarous practice unless the woman's health is in danger.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 31, 2005 11:49 PM (RjyQ5)

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