In response to Barack Obama’s order last week easing restrictions on the use of federal family planning money overseas, Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., declared in a press release that Obama “will be remembered forever . . . as the Abortion President.” Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee thundered that the order reflected “Obama’s sweeping abortion agenda.”
Columnist Davis Merritt responded: “Such overheated language is neither accurate nor helpful. Neither Obama nor anyone else wants more abortions; everyone on all sides of the issue would like to reduce the need for them. But trying to stamp out abortion by legal force or moral persuasion rather than through education is in fact fruitless.”
Merritt argued that women’s health clinics in poor countries by necessity provide a range of education about such things as sexual and neonatal health, maternal nutrition, breast-feeding, contraception and AIDS prevention in addition to information about abortions. “Denying operating funds to such clinics cannot stem the tide of abortions; in fact, the opposite is likely true: that unintended pregnancies – and thus abortions – are reduced by the education those clinics provide.”
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58 Comments
Gag orders have no place in a medical practice.
Trying to keep people ignorant or making abortion illegal isn’t going to stop it. We need realistic solutions to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Until we successfully do that, the number of abortions..legal and illegal, will remain high.
Norplant ‘em in kidergarten.
“Trying to keep people ignorant or making abortion illegal isn’t going to stop it. We need realistic solutions to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Until we successfully do that, the number of abortions..legal and illegal, will remain high.”
Excellent post, Mary.
And the repukes want the contraceptive portion of the economic bill removed. Not only would it reduce the number of abortions, but it would save enormous amounts of money in medicaid now and in the future.
But the repukes dont want that, now do they?
Interesting move by the gop. They want something that will increase abortions, increase spending for health care for the low income, and put more strain on emergency rooms.
The party of fiscal and moral responsibility indeed.
How’s that “say one thing and do another” workin’ for y’all?
“They want something that will increase abortions” -kfg
bingo! Getting ready for the goddess Palin to run in 2012. Republicans want abortion to come back front and center because it’s been such a moneymaker for them in the past.
Repubs don’t want to get rid of abortion…they profit from it far more than Tiller, etc.
Nancy Pelosi wanted funding in the stimulus package that would provide money for states for reproductive health. The money would have went to contraception, maternal and infant health care. However the Republicans opposed it. Why oppose it? Because such spending would reduce the demand for abortion, and without more abortions the pro-abortion Republicans (like Tiahrt and Brownback) don’t have an issue to run on that appeals to the people. Can they seriously run on more pork barrel spending for the military and tax cuts for the rich?
Use birth control…condums, pills, shots, surgery…You don’t have to get pregnant in thisa day and age…especially in America.
Wouldn’t it have been great if Ann Dunham from Kansas had paid a little visit to an abortionist? After all she fit the criteria…single, a student and obviously a hard core liberal, it must have been an inconvenience. How is that situation different than anyone else? Who paid the bill for that one?
How many other presidents have been destroyed? Who had the cure for cancer or could have solved the energy crisis? Ahhh the inconvenience of pregnancy on the taxpayers…
Who fed Obama? Are we unhappy that we helped pay for his education with grants and loans? By the way that he is for abortion; even condeming babies born alive after abortion…he has no empathy for unborn children and there but for the grace of God goes he. Isn’t it strange?
Tellthetruth, thanks for admitting you are pro-abortion.
It isn’t strange to me.
Ann Dunham obviously made the decision that she could find the resources to bear and raise her child. I think she did a fine job! And, I’m glad society was there to help when it was needed. It does take a village (sometimes a community, state, nation…)!
TTT, it must be really scarey inside your head with that kind of imagination. I pity your family. If you have one.
“Republicans want abortion to come back front and center because it’s been such a moneymaker for them in the past.”
What? They need another issue besides gay marriage?
Must be desperate times…
Wouldn’t it have been great if Ann Dunham from Kansas had paid a little visit to an abortionist?
Lookee here, folks! A ‘puke who’s in favor of abortion. As long as we’re choosing who should’ve been aborted and who shouldn’t, I choose TellTheTruth.
“Lookee here, folks! A ‘puke who’s in favor of abortion. As long as we’re choosing who should’ve been aborted and who shouldn’t, I choose TellTheTruth.”
Kinda like their friends in China. Republicans are both pro-abortion and anti-choice.
Hey cuz!
You keeping those Tiller incinerators stoked? I mean, it’s awful cold today, might need some fresh infant corpses on there to heat things up.
Abortion is murder. Why is it ok?
Abortion is murder. Why is it ok?
Why is war okay?
#
Predestined
Posted January 28, 2009 at 12:04 pm | Permalink
Abortion is murder. Why is it ok?
Why is war okay?
=====================
Why is mayonnaise on fries okay?
I like sugar on tomatoes. Is that okay?
mayonnaise on fries
That is good stuff right there buddy.
I like sugar on tomatoes. Is that okay?
NO
YES
Lol. Yes Ma’am.
If men could have aboritons, they’d be available at the drive-thru window at McDonald’s.
LOL back at ya, Sol. Just having a little fun. Gotta have some smiles each day, ya know.
And since I have your attention for a short moment, thanks for posting the link to the beautiful rendition of our National Anthem. It gave me chills.
I still like America the Beautiful better though. ;)
Gotta have some smiles each day, ya know.
True dat.
You know? I do too. Sends a better message if you ask me. Wouldn’t mind that being our national anthem.
And you’re welcome. Those girls are amazing.
Farm Gal,
“Trying to keep people ignorant or making abortion illegal isn’t going to stop it.”
Of course not, but it’s their traditional method for dealing with a problem. When I was growing up, the prevailing wisdom was that if kids didn’t know there was such a thing as sex, they couldn’t do it. It didn’t work of course, but they keep trying!
It’s always been my observation that knowlege produces fewer mistakes than ignorance, but then ignorance produces people who are more likely to follow the demagogues. No wonder the demagogues favor ignorance!
Mayo on fries? No wonder some of you have no taste whatsoever!
Why is self defense o.k.?
I know lots of people in Texas who eat mayo on fries. So does Paula Deen. WTF?
And I know Hank eats mayo on corn on the cob instead of butter. My first reaction to that was not good, but I know Hank has good taste in food, so it must be good.
Reminds me of a Justin Wilson joke. The difference in a gourmet and a gourmand?
A gourmet has good taste, but a gourmand is a p-i-g HOG!
heheheh. HAHAHAHAHAAHHAAH.
I think I’m both….
…and just ask Monkeyhawk. If you are eating heirloom tomatoes, the sugar is unnecessary :)
Paula Deen
That woman makes my skin crawl. Could her ‘accent’ be anymore forced and fake. Gives a bad name to southerners — but damn can that woman cook.
“SolDevVB” on Paula Deen –
“Could her ‘accent’ be anymore forced and fake.”
I remember seeing one of her commercials for Smithfield. Recipes on-line or something. I kept trying to google “Smithville,” ’cause that’s what it sounded like.
What kind of spokesperson can’t even pronounce the sponsor’s name?
“Trying to keep people ignorant or making killing other people illegal isn’t going to stop it. We need realistic solutions to reduce unwanted people being killed. Until we successfully do that, the number of killings..legal and illegal, will remain high” . . . .
Oh-Brother
Obamanation is furthering his worldwide Jihad against babies, neglecting to mention he is attempting to force taxpayer funding of coerced abortions and sterilizations in China, in order to inflate abortion mill profits, his favorite cash cow. He cares nothing about reducing abortions.
Parkay, when did Obama suggest that our taxpayer money will finance abortions in China? Did you take too much hillbilly heroin today?
Troyboy,
Gee, and all this time I thought it was the Chinese who were subsidizing us!
Sorry to disappoint but I am not pro-abortion. I was making the point that these aborted people could have been valuable to our society, as we see that President Obama is. Who are we to make a judgment on who is expendable? Does that mean that when social security runs out that the people over a certain age are expendable? Be careful with your judgments as it could impact you and your family. When we as a nation make the unborn without rights to life we are in effect deleting freedom from everyone.
What is wrong with using birth control to eliminate the problem of abortion. Too many times abortion is just a form of birth control. No one should be condemned to death because people are too lazy to use proper protection.
Not to mention most of the tissue that was aborted could be working and paying into social security. We have eliminated about 40 plus million taxpayers. They could come in handy about now when the baby boomers are starting to retire.
“What is wrong with using birth control to eliminate the problem of abortion.”
—-
Nothing that I can find! Excellent plan.
Then, let’s help those women who find themselves pregnant in spite of whether they did or didn’t use birth control. Once they make their decision to have a baby, let’s not forget them and their child. Seems a dignified and loving plan to me.
It is about time someone posted a legitimate article on what exactly the global gag was about. It does NOT FUND abortions, as almost every newspaper article claimed. No, in fact, the funding was simply yanked from these clinics IF they ALSO provided abortion services or counseling on their own dime.
TTT,
Of course I advocate Birth control. I advocate it for everyone. I advocate that it should be paid for by all healthcare insurers, Medicare and Medicaid. I advocate explicit education in its use. I also recognize that sometimes it fails, and I don’t see its failure as an act of god. Therefore when it fails, I advocate backup plans, which includes abortion as a last ditch measure.
As for the “40 plus million taxpayers” you think so highly of, we already have 6.8 billion of us- you’d think that ought to be enough!
Jed,
As for the “40 plus million taxpayers” you think so highly of, we already have 6.8 billion of us- you’d think that ought to be enough!
Population Clocks
U.S. 305,704,249
World 6,756,910,850
02:17 GMT (EST+5) Jan 29, 2009
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
Do you think that America is responsible for the world population?
TTT,
“Too many times abortion is just a form of birth control. No one should be condemned to death because people are too lazy to use proper protection”
Of course abortion is a form of birth control, but to say in the next breath that women who have abortions are just lazy is absurd and highly insulting.
I spent some few years escorting women past the hordes of howling fundies at several clinics, and got to talk to quite a few women in the process. Sure, there were a very few that were too stupid or too lazy to use birth control, but to assume that any reasonable woman would rather spend $450 and be in extereme discomfort for several days than take a pill tells us a whole lot more about you than about women. I did see girls whose parents wouldn’t allow them to get birth control, and I saw women who didn’t think they needed it until they were raped, and I saw women who hadn’t been educated in how to use it, and I saw quite a few women who used it properly and it still failed. I saw others who had been trying to get pregnant and had to abort a wanted baby due to serious complications. I saw others who were quite happy to be pregnant until they or their husbands lost their jobs and insurance and could no longer afford the pregnancy. I saw one 9yr-old girl who had been raped by her sunday-school teacher (yes, he’s been arrested) and for whom carrying to term would have destroyed her health at the very least.
Your contention that these women aborted because they were lazy or that it was just convenient trivializes women in general, and reveals your mysogeny. I would bet that you have either never been married or were divorced for good reason, and all I can say is thank god! No woman deserves that!
TTT,
“Do you think that America is responsible for the world population?”
Isn’t that what this thread is about?
I am as ever happy to hit the hypocritical and dishonest in the face with a dead trout of truth.
Abortion is NEVER going to be illegal again. SO those who continue to devote their efforts in that direction are demonstrably a part of the problem and not the solution in the pro life arena.
The examples you give about 9 year old rape victims is probably fairly rare. Babies aborted because it was financially inconvenient…more likely. Teenagers have always fooled around…it was just handled by either adopting out the baby or there was a wedding and a lot of fast growing up.
It is an easy way out of a regrettable situation. Sort of like buyers remorse. There are some and I would say a substantial number who have two or more abortions. It is hard for me to feel sympathy for that kind of carelessnes.
I would venture to say that most people on the face of the earth are probably accidents. Ask your parents if you were planned. That doesn’t mean that the children born were not loved or esteemed by their parents.
This is a throw away society. A generation of people who have no empathy for humanity. I happen to believe that the lives of all are important. The horror stories that you are telling are not in the majority of abortions. The babies are merely aborted like dropping an unwanted puppy off at the pound.
There are a lot of people who can’t have children who would adopt and do adopt from foreign countries because we have so few babies available here.
“There are a lot of people who can’t have children who would adopt and do adopt from foreign countries because we have so few babies available here.” — who wouldn’t know the truth if it etc.
I remember the children of single mothers before abortion became legal — they were called orphans, and they lived in places called orphanages.
TTT,
First, teenagers comprise a minority of the women who come to the clinics. Most are married and already have children.
Second, anyone who considers the cost of raising a child to be a “financial inconvenience” either has no children or isn’t paying his child support.
Third, while some of those teenagers of yore did put kids up for adoption or got married by shotgun, most got abortions. I was around back then, and saw a lot of it! There were considerably more abortions performed back before Roe v. Wade than there are now, thanks mostly to the pill.
Forth, adopting from abroad is simply easier (and cheaper) than going through all the hoops that are required here to hopefully prevent child abuse. Besides, there are tens of thousands of kids right now who will age out of our fostercare system without ever having known a loving family. When all those have been adopted maybe we can talk about adoption as a viable alternative to abortion. Put up or shut up!
TTT,
Actually, I did ask, and I was planned. My parents broke the law to plan it by having relatives in Missouri mail them condoms, which were illegal to even possess at that time in Kansas.
There were considerably more abortions performed back before Roe v. Wade than there are now, thanks mostly to the pill.
Where’s the proof?
Besides, there are tens of thousands of kids right now who will age out of our fostercare system without ever having known a loving family. When all those have been adopted maybe we can talk about adoption as a viable alternative to abortion.
Here’s an alternate plan…have the baby and sell them to the state. This is a real money maker for Kansas already.
http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/2000/5_May/mayds4.htm
TTT,
“Where’s the proof?”
This should give you a clue; we currently have one doctor performing abortions in Wichita. One! Before RvW, there were four chiropractors here with full-time abortion practices at $25 per, not to mention the physicians who did “prophylactic D&C’s” and the nurses who did them part-time, and a few back-alley butchers for those who couldn’t afford the $25. And this doesn’t even take into account the DIY girls with coathangers! The Pill changed a lot!
That is not proof that the numbers were higher than we have had since RvW. That is hearsay. It was not like that in the 50’s and 60’s….
TTT,
Hearsay? Hey I was there. I was in high school in the 1950’s, and college in the ’60’s. I kept my eyes open. I knew abortionists. I saw the women in their offices. I knew women who died and nearly died because abortion was illegal. Where were you?
I was there…and abortion was not all that common. I don’t know who you hung out with but…there were more hurry up weddings than anything else. If people don’t want to bring home something with arms and legs they need to use birth control responsibly. His and hers birth control if possible. That may not keep them from bringing home something else, but it is a start.
Well, there were certainly enough abortions in Wichita from 1949-73 to support at least four fulltime abortionists plus a number of part-timers.
And yes, people do need to use birth control responsibly, you’ll get no argument there except from the churches. But do remember that the pill wasn’t invented until 1960, and many doctors wouldn’t prescribe it at all and almost none would prescribe it to unmarried women for years after that. Condoms were illegal in Kansas until 1948, and hard for teenagers to get, and even harder to find out how to use properly until well into ’70’s, thanks to the churches. While I’m quite sure nobody back then told you about their abortion, I’m also sure that you knew women who had them.
There were plenty of abortions in the 40s and 50s, referred at the time as as “menstrual extraction.” It’s is a simple suction technique used to remove the menstrual blood from the uterus on the first day of menstruation. It can remove a fertilized egg from the uterus. It has been used by women who wish to shorten the duration of their bleeding; female athletes, travelers, honeymooners.
Monk,
Yes, that was a variation on what was known at the time as a “prophylactic dilation and curettage,” which was simply an abortion renamed so that a doctor could perform it without reference to the pregnancy, and the woman could deny that she had had an abortion. This was done by reputable MD’s who would have gone to jail had they preformed an “abortion.” There was a whole list of quite ephemeral “female problems” that could be called on when needed to “require” the procedure. It had one major advantage over an illegal abortion performed by someone other than an MD in that if complications such as a perforated uterus arose, as they did from time to time, the patient could be treated in the ER without having to call the police. That little change of terminology saved the lives of a lot of women who might otherwise have delayed treatment for fear of arrest until it was too late.