Feminists for Life of Live Journal

Early Feminists & Today's Common Ground Movement
The prochoice site RhReality Check just started a regular feature on prochoice/prolife common ground. Today's entry is by a prolifer, about the lessons of early feminism for common ground today:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/commonground/2009/07/09/first-wave-feminism-a-resource-today%E2%80%99s-common-ground-movement

disappointing
i was very disappointed by the tone of this recent conversation, about someone challenging a friend not to have an abortion:
http://community.livejournal.com/feminists4life/273003.html

when prolifers heap contempt on women considering abortion and disrespect women's difficulties with pregnancy, we are not treating *both* the woman and child as sacred, equal lives. in fact we are driving women towards abortion and part of the blood is on our hands.

no one merits the name "prolife" unless he or she is willing to ask a pregnant woman: what do you need to have this child? and then makes damn sure she can get it, whatever it takes.

if you don't know where to begin with this process, then educate yourself thoroughly on pregnant and parenting women's needs and school yourself in where and how the great spectrum of needs might possibly be met.

if you want a woman to make the sacrifices of bearing a difficult pregnancy, then you have to be willing to make sacrifices and share the burdens with *her* as much as you can. in all possible humility, love, and service.

i am not speaking from a position of "mushy relativism" but my own experience with unplanned pregnancy, and bearing witness to many, many other women's. i have the stretch marks, scars, and child among other proofs to prove my commitment to prolife.

don't let your revulsion towards the practice of abortion become revulsion towards women who have their reasons for thinking about taking their children's lives--as much as abortion is not an answer, neither is abandoning pregnant women and their babies through disrespect for the difficulties they face.

"Because it's going to be hard on me"
A friend of mine (Who I will not name) has found out she has become pregnant. And in her posting, she said that this was the only case that she found abortion acceptable because she was going through school and didn't want her parents to care for a baby. And the worst part is, I was the only one that told her she should go through with the pregnancy regardless of what else she had going on and give the baby up for adoption. Everyone else was telling her they were behind what she chose, but failed to see what was really at stake. A child.

Does anyone else feel that way? That people being spinele-excuse me, 'supportive', takes more precedence over someone telling them they need to do what's right?

EDIT-I get flamed for it by her friends, saying it's not my decision. Apparently, they don't realize there's a human life at stake.

EDIT 2-Worse, she is yelling at me about not telling her what to do. Well, a real friend would not stand idly by when something important is going on. A real friend would let someone know they're being stupid and making a mistake. When she feels remorse about this, she is not getting any sympathy from me. I told her that she was making a mistake.

8 months pregnant - and in jail

Signatures are now being collected in support of the letter to the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev protesting the imprisonment and barbaric treatment of Elena Ermakova, a home midwife and the director of the Center for Parental Culture, Saint-Petersburg. Elena, 40, has five children (the three youngest are 2, 4 and 8 years old) and is in her ninth month of pregnancy.
She is charged with illigal medical practice (and yes, she is a M.D.). The paradox of the situation is that the Russian law does not forbid to give birth at home, but does not allow to provide women wishing to do so with adequate medical assistance, since a license to perform midwifery services cannot be obtained and and practising without a license is illegal.

The decision to imprison Dr. Ermakova was made by the court judge S.
Komaretskaya, St. Petersburg, Primorskiy district, on March 30, 2009 (case
1-123/09) based on Elena’s failure to attend court hearings on that day due to illness. A written statement from Elena saying that she was unwell and had to seek medical help was presented to the Judge by Elena’s husband and her attorney, but did not influence the court’s decision. A medical document from Elena’s obstetrician confirming Elena’s illness didn’t help, either. Elena was taken into custody right from the doctor’s office.

In prison, besides insufferable conditions, Elena was abused, both verbally and physically. She is in a very poor state, undernourished, suffering from cardiac pain and expressing suicidal thoughts. Prison doctors cannot be trusted here, for they are part of the system and the case strongly smells with politics. The justice system in Russia is corrupted as ever. The local Human Rights representative, Mr.Mikhailov, did not responded to a letter send by Elena’s husband and co-signed by 500 people who knew her personally.

We have less than one week left before we submit the letter.

Please sign and pass this information on to any potentially interested parties, be it organizations or private citizens.

For those who speak both English and Russian, you are more than welcome to sign twice. Please leave your name, the place of residence, professional occupation and any comments you may want to add.

The Russian text of the letter is here:

http://community.livejournal.com/rodi_doma/242352.html

The English translation of the letter is here:

http://igorcharkovsky.livejournal.com/2446.html

Someone wants a compromise on abortion? Really?!
From beliefnet.com:

Safe, Legal, and Early

The author suggests a compromise on abortion where the pro-life side concedes more freedom for early abortions and the pro-choice side concedes more restriction for late abortions.

Of course it isn't ideal by any means, but if pro-choicers would actually agree to reasonable restrictions on later abortions, well, I think that would make me feel a little better at least. However, it's not really clear to me what specific issues the author thinks we should concede. Over the counter morning-after pill, perhaps? (I would have no problem with that, personally.) Government subsidies for low-income women up through X weeks? (I would find that one harder to accept.)

I've been told by friends who live in Europe that many countries there have an abortion policy that is similar to what this article describes--very free in the first trimester, very restricted later on; as a result, abortion politics are not as divisive as they are in the US. The question is, is that really a good thing, to come to an imperfect compromise that causes the debate to lose momentum?

I don't have a solid opinion on this; I'm just offering food for thought.

ETA: Based on some of the comments I'm getting here and at

prolife, I feel the need to add that I'm looking at this from the perspective that in my country (USA), abortions are currently virtually unlimited throughout pregnancy (at least in practice). So "conceding" legal access to abortions in the first trimester doesn't seem like a big concession to me, at least not in a practical sense, because they already have that. From an ideological perspective, of course, it's a huge concession, as many of you have pointed out. And if cooperating with pro-choicers means giving up the right to that ideological position, then I agree that it's not worth it. But from a practical perspective, I don't see anything specific in the article that pro-lifers would have to concede other than what we already don't have. That's why I'm speculating about what real concessions might actually be asked of us, like more liberal sex ed or government subsidies for abortion. Those are things the pro-choice side currently doesn't have, at least not as fully as they would like. And, unlike agreeing to the notion that a 7-week-old fetus need not be protected by law, some of those things might actually be worth conceding.

Joie

X-posted

Current Mood: contemplative

Am currently having a hard time reconciling my more or less liberal leanings with my pro-life agenda. I feel like I can't be fully at ease with anyone, because conservatives think my economic ideals and virulent stance on the acceptance of gay marriage is unacceptable, and I get treated like an idiot by any liberals I engage in political conversation with for being prolife.

Advice?

hrm...
WOWOWOW has an interview with Gloria Steinem, with a rather misleading subheading. As seen at http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/bigger-picture/articlewow.aspx?cp-documentid=19334939

wOw: Can women who aren't pro-choice be feminists?

Steinem: Absolutely, they can be anti-choice for themselves and do their best to persuade others; they just can't support laws or harassment or clinic bombings that take choice away from other women. Feminists have always gone to the same lengths to protect women from being pressured into abortions they don't want as to keep abortion safe and legal. The point is not what we choose but that we have the power to make a choice.

....I got nothin' at the moment...

Current Mood: cynical

Kathy Ireland quotage
(I got this from ALL.org's STOPP e-newsletter, but I'm adding the whole story that's about her & quoting her.)

Fox News carried a story on Monday recounting how Kathy Ireland reluctantly became a pro-lifer. Ireland recalls that, as she was in her final stages of becoming pro-life …

"My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science," Ireland told Tarts while promoting her insightful new book "Real Solutions for Busy Mom: Your Guide to Success and Sanity."

"What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there."

However Ireland admitted that she did everything she could to avoid becoming a believer in pro-life.

"I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time," Ireland argued. "I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue."

Ireland also asserted that she believes "no justification is adequate" (for an abortion) unless another the mother's life is in danger.

"In that instant, your intention is not to kill but to save the life of another. If we’re about to demolish a building we make absolute certain there are no human beings in there before we take a wrecking ball to it, but the unborn doesn’t have a voice so it's up to us to speak for them," she added passionately. "If I see someone abusing a child I am going to stand up against that, and that’s how I feel about abortion. Women are not given all the facts, they’re told it is a harmless procedure and now it has turned into such a political football."

The committed Christian and devoted mother even dedicated the chapter "Faith & Your Family" in her new book to her foundations in Christianity and believes that this is what’s missing from so many American families today.

"You have to figure out your own values and why you have them. People are going to try and push and pull at your convictions, so you have to have boundaries and put them in place," she said.

Many thoughts...so I needed to share them.
I have had it laid on my heart after many years of being Pro-Life for me and Pro-Choice for everyone else to just be Pro-Life. I have seen the devastation abortions can cause in a couple of my family members. The problem I am running into is trusting the government to handle this situation better then it has been...because it has done a piss poor job in my obinion so far. So, my question is....

Say abortion became illegal.

What then?

What would we as a society need to do so that women don't die of back alley botched abortions, babies aren't left in trash cans and teenage girls don't become mothers when they are still children?

Because those things are happening right now and abortion is legal.

Is it too late?

Have we let Pandora out of her box with no chance of closing it?

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: rain and birds

Speaker recommendations
I've just become president of Cambridge University Pro-life Soc. Any suggestions of speakers or events?

New Communit for Moms in School
I just started a new communityfor moms in school. Join community.livejournal.com/momsinschool/ if you are looking for advice/support along the way!

A professor who I have a tremendous amount of respect for recently joined a facebook group called "Religious Crusade for Reproductive Choice."

I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. She's very liberal and extremely active in NOW! and whatnot, but I'm pretty liberal myself and have been to a few NOW! meetings, and I'm still prolife. I guess I just assumed she was, too, because she does the Christianity thing and has a daughter who had a baby when she was just 18.

I can't really relate how upset I am about it. I don't know. It's frustrating to see someone I respect and consider a very intelligent person be so blatantly pro abortion.

Also, the info for that community is sort of...I don't know. It almost comes across as racist to me. It rambles on for ages about ensuring that impoverished and underprivileged "women of color" need to be given the right to choose. So...I guess black people are supposed to be having more abortions? WTF is that? What are you trying to say, exactly? I'm making a bigger issue out of that part than is necessary, I guess...I get what they're saying, if I look at it from their standpoint.

When the hell did adoption fly out the window as a valid option?

Also, I just realized today that I still bristle when a man tells me he's prolife. That's wrong, right? Just another thing for me to get past. I don't know; I think I look at this as a woman's issue and sort of think men should butt out :p Which is horrible. Blar.

Shiloh the "mermaid girl"
There's this thing on TLC right now called "Mermaid Girl," about this little girl named Shiloh who has a rare condition that basically makes her a human mermaid, minus the scales. The lower part of her body is fused together all the way down to her feet, which are really twisted. She has part of one kidney, one ovary, no other reproductive organs, and no rectum.* She's one of five kids who have been born with this condition and survived.

What's weird about this whole thing is that her mother is talking about how maybe it was "selfish" to not abort her because she suffers and is going to keep suffering, but on the whole Shiloh seems like she has a really positive attitude. Don't get me wrong, she seems frustrated and upset by her condition at times, but there are also clips of her singing songs, going places with her dad, and giggling as she uses a syringe as a squirt gun and gets one of her doctors with a jet of water. I don't know how you could have this little eight-year-old girl who is obviously able to enjoy life and wonder if you should have aborted her. Geez, I hope Shiloh never sees this documentary. And why would it be selfish to give your disabled child a chance at life? Shiloh's lived years longer than anyone ever expected her to, so even if Shiloh's mother thinks maybe Shiloh should have died, God or nature or Darwinism or whoever obviously thinks otherwise. Shiloh's not sitting around wondering if she should have been aborted, she's excited about having swimming lessons.

*The stupid narrator was like, "Because Shiloh was born with no rectum and no vagina, she is unable to go to the bathroom." No, because Shiloh was born with no rectum and no urethra she is unable to go to the bathroom. Just because guys pee out one of their reproductive organs doesn't mean we all do! God, I hate it when people can't be bothered to understand basic human anatomy.

Why I'm a Feminist Who is Pro-Life

Hi, everyone:-). I'm new here, and figured I would speak a little about why I am a Feminist who is pro-life. My name is Jessica by-the-way.

I'm a Feminist because I believe in putting to light women's issues, and equality. That also includes men's issues. I am also an animal-lover, and advocate for animal rights. To me all of this just goes together-all life is equal, and important in my eyes.

It seems that most Feminists, at least through media eyes, are abortion supporters. I feel that Feminists like those in this group should have a stronger voice. Feminism has always been viewed negatively by the mainstream media.

Though some Feminists would judge my "true" Feminism by the fact I am pro-life, feeling as though I am against women's rights: it is just not the case. To me ALL are equal, and because of that belief, it would just be impossible for me to sit there, and condone abortion. Not to mention that I am a vegan who tries to follow a path of non-violence. Mahatama Gandhi is one of my main inspirations.

To me Feminism was about women saying they're not inferior...so now some of us see ourselves as superior? I am not no better or more deserving of life than a fetus. This feeling of being superior over a fetus seems anti-feminist to me, actually:-|

So add up my view on equality for all life, and my stance on non-violence...you see why I have to support the Pro-Life movement:-).

~Jessica

Current Mood: tired

INTRO
Hi,

Just a quick introduction as I've joined. I also noticed that my little brother is on here, which I didn't know *waves*

I'm mid-thirties, and have been prolife since as long as I can remember - before I knew what abortion was, I knew how babies developed, so it really came as a shock in early teens when I learned that some people think it's OK to kill them. It hadn't occured til then...

I'm also very strongly against any kind of discrimination; for this community, that is specifically that I feel I am a feminist because I object to discrimination on grounds of sex/gender, but it carries across everything. That means that I do disagree with some flavours of feminism. (I don't like the Zero Tolerance campaign, for example, because I think that we should oppose domestic violence against *people*, and I really don't like sexism in custody cases.)

I get irritated when people think that I'm pro-life just because of my religion. I'm catholic, but don't agree with everything that the church says. On abortion, I was against it for a couple of years before I was told that the curch was also against it - and then my thoughts were "Of course the church agrees with me! I'm right!" (I was a teenager at the time, so a little arrogant :-) )

I'm also a socialist, and find that a lot of people assume that I can't be pro-life and socialist. That annoys me too!

I don't tend to go around getting annoyed though as a genearl rule, don't worry :-)

Just a couple semi-abstract wonderings...
If someone is pro-choice and believes that a fetus is just a wad of cells with no worth, how do they regard miscarriages? Just hard because of the mother's loss of a dream of a child, rather than the child itself being lost? Or is it somehow different based on the fact that the mother wanted it?

I'm also curious as to whether any of you can think of something unrelated to abortion that is morally okay, as long as it's done before a certain point. Is there anything that is truly morally okay, but only if you do it in time? What is the point that makes it not okay, or is it a fuzzy line, as when that argument is applied to abortion?

Edited to try and make my questions clearer.

Current Mood: annoyed

Conscience rule
Conscience rule might get overturned.

God, do I hope not. I don't want to have an OB/GYN who does abortions. I figured when I got pregnant someday I'd just go to a Catholic hospital and not have to think about it. Ugh, I already hate pelvic exams, so this'll be just another reason why I won't want to come within fifty feet of one...

Thanks a lot, Obama. How in hell am I supposed to trust a doctor to look out for my baby's best interests if this happens? I'll go in for an ultrasound and all I'll be thinking is, "Why should you care about this baby when you might have killed one the same age yesterday?"

Red Envelope

Have you guys heard about the Red Envelope thingy? The idea is:

Here is what I would like you to do:
Get a red envelope. You can buy them at Kinkos or at party supply stores. On the front, address it to:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500-0001

On the back, write the following message:
This envelope represents one child who died in an abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.

Put a stamp on it, drop it in the mail, and send it. Then tell everyone you know about this website and encourage them to do the same. Time is running out. It is our hope that 50 million red envelopes, one for every child who died before having a chance to live, will be sent to Obama. Maybe it will change the heart of the President.

Red Envelope Project - http://www.redenvelopeproject.org
Send a Red Envelope - http://SendARedEnvelope.org
Red Envelopes for Life - http://RedEnvelopesForLife.org

This was posted over in

prolife, and I thought it was a wonderful piece. Some of the comments are a little repetitive at the end, and as someone who considers herself a non-religiously motivated pro-lifer, there is more mention of the "Creator" than I personally care about, but it's a really great article.

(To clarify: I have no problem either with religion or with people having religious reasons for being pro-life, but my personal belief on the situation isn't tied to any spiritual leanings).

Oh, I didn't ask permission of the poster to re-post, but I'm assuming it'll be okay. If that user happens to be around and would like credit for originally sharing the article, I'll be happy to give it...just forgot your username >.

Doctor Investigated in Botched Abortion

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29037216/

Ugh. This happened in 2006 around the same time I was also 23 weeks pregnant. I have no words.

Current Mood: angry

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