The Infamous Abortion Rant

You know what? I’m not pro-abortion, and I don’t know anyone who is.

Abortion isn’t a recreational activity or a hobby. I don’t think there’s a single woman on earth who would ever say to a lover, “You know what? Knock me up. I haven’t had a good abortion in at least six months.”

I think abortion is a horrible procedure. So does everyone forced to resort to it. I’d love to make elective abortions — not done for the sake of preserving the health of the mother — a thing of the past. So would everyone.

I’d get rid of the bulk of abortions, if I could, with sex education from an early age and do away with the unconscionable prudery that keeps sex from being a valid topic of discussion between parents and teachers and children. I’d abolish rape — and date-rape too. I’d agitate for any publicly funded research to make contraception cheap and easy and 100% effective and available to anyone who isn’t ready to be a father or mother. (While I’m at it, I’d advocate busting ass to eradicate STDs the way we finally ditched polio and small pox.) Contraception should be the kind of thing you can do, for both genders, in those times when people are thinking clearly and not forced to try to think of it in the heat of the moment.

Oh, and I’d sure as hell get rid of that domestic abuse thing where sometimes women are beaten for getting pregnant.

I’d also love to pour some money into research to find ways to make embryos and first-trimester fetuses harvestable so they can be implanted in the wombs of people who can’t have their own babies — and I would include in that set MEN who are so all-fired convinced no single potential human life should be wasted, so they could take one for the team and carry a fetus to term themselves.

I’d also advocate for a bit more fairness and latitude for women who would have to leave work for a chunk of time to deal with all the peculiarities of giving birth and supporting and caring for a new infant. Now that every household has to have two earners busting hump full-time in order to support any children at all, that kind of help has to be available.

I’d also like to dump money into research to minimize all of those preventable chemical and environmental and genetic factors that would cause debilitating birth defects and decrease the quality of life of any potential child.

We could have been working on all of that stuff for the past sixty or seventy years if people had really been interested in eradicating the bulk of abortions, and frankly I find it horrifically hypocritical that the pro-life (except for, you know, the death penalty and wars and stuff) contingent hasn’t been voting to fund and support EVERY POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE to elective abortion possible.

Anyway, after all of that, the need for elective abortions would be fairly frickin’ minimal.

BUT EVEN SO I’d prefer the option for elective abortion remain easily available to anyone who wants it just in case any of the rest of the available alternatives can’t be stretched to fit the bill. Life is complex and you can’t count on some charitable person or organization to step in and help if you need it BECAUSE YOU BASTARDS JUST AREN’T CHARITABLE ENOUGH YET TO RULE OUT THIS PARTICULAR OPTION. You’ll help a family member, if you can, if you have the resources — if you don’t disown them or beat them or emotionally abuse them instead. Maybe you’ll even help a close friend or a church member. But you really haven’t shown that you’ll step in and help a complete stranger, someone from a different culture or race, and your screwed-up priorities on science and research and medicine and education has actively DISCOURAGED the development of viable alternatives.

If you really are as anti-abortion as you say you are, I heartily recommend you actively assist in the development of any and every alternative to abortion that could ever be possible. And then, after however long it takes for them to become available, you’ll see abortions dwindle down to nothing and fade away. Until then, you have no right to outlaw whatever procedure is necessary to prevent at least two lives from becoming a living hell.

I’m done.

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  1. A Matter of Life and Death
October 23, 2011 · by xalieri · Posted in Everything Else  
　　　　

Comments

5 Responses to “The Infamous Abortion Rant”

  1. Mare on October 24th, 2011 7:31 am

    THANK YOU for this! You spoke my mind. I read you over on LiveJournal and I just had to come over and tell you you’ve got it so right.

  2. xalieri on October 24th, 2011 7:42 am

    Lord J, Esq, left the following comment here: http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,7769.1020.html

    “What an ugly post. It completely misses the point of why abortion should be fully legal and accessible. It’s not a ‘horrible procedure,’ any more than having a dentist drill into your tooth to fix a cavity is a horrible procedure. It’s a procedure with a very specific objective in mind, and if you need or want that objective for yourself–specifically, if you want to not be pregnant and eventually give birth to a child for which you will be responsible–then abortion is the only ethical choice. It’s also the only ethical choice in a variety of other scenarios too numerous to list concisely here. Yet the author of that disgusting piece says ‘I’d get rid of the bulk of abortions, if I could…’

    “That’s the kind of thinking that ruins the lives of adults and children alike, and it gives fodder to the Jesus freaks on the right who want to fully outlaw abortion. How absolutely despicable. But what I really hate is how many ‘pro-choice’ people take that view. The conservatives have dominated this issue so thoroughly that many people who stand for choice don’t really. I don’t share company with people who exult in that kind of ignorance.”

    It deserves an answer. And I’ll start by answering the “horrible procedure” part.

    I know women who have had abortions. Haven’t had one myself, of course, because I’m not qualified. Some of them have called it “uncomfortable” and not much worse than that. Some have had painful experiences at the hands of people who just can’t be perfect every time, or due to anatomical difficulties peculiar to themselves, or from the fact that not every pair of hands doing the process can jump right into it being an expert. Also, I’ve personally held the hand of someone waiting for the effects of RU-486 to take effect. It didn’t look like fun. It looked like a short uncomfortable illness. But that’s still not the part I’m talking about.

    The horrible part, for most, is the choice itself. It’s an unfriendly world out there to women who admit to have faced this choice, regardless of which way they’ve chosen. When it’s all over, you end up with a secret, and a stigma, and it’s by no means the fault of the women that this is the case. It’s the “moral” atmosphere of abuse and oppression waiting to come down on those it discovers to have participated in an abortion procedure. I have another friend who does stints escorting women past anti-abortion protesters, and that’s a tangible slice of that atmosphere. The choice to make that walk is the horrible part.

    And for the second part, I invite you to finally notice I never really address my own specific views, and yet here you are making assumptions and jumping down my throat when we’re supposedly on the same side. I’m so pro-choice I’m pro-choices that don’t even exist yet but ought to, and for that, for suggesting choices that could help mothers that would prefer an alternative to abortion if there was one that was feasible, you act like that’s in some kind of unnatural competition with the choice you demand stays available. MORE CHOICES IS BETTER. And I’m pointing out the hypocrisy of the people who are anti-abortion who basically make it so there IS no other choice — even when their religion demands that they provide them — ones that currently exist — out of compassion.

    And possibly the wording was too clever, because in my case of things that should be eliminated before elective abortion is outlawed, I’ve included a suite of problems that will never go away.

    I suggest that you can’t see beyond your own ax that you’re grinding. Any conservative that sees these words as fuel for anything other than the chance to recant hypocrisy and provide other options if it means so much to them is as blind as you here. And for the same reasons. This topic is such a hot-button that even rational people find themselves crippled by their waves of hatred for the other side.

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  3. xalieri on October 24th, 2011 8:08 am

    Mare — I’m not sure why the last update of my cross-posting plugin disabled comments on posts over there, but I’ve gone back to re-enable them. Providing a discussion forum wherever possible is part of why I do these things.

    Thanks for making the trip over here, and thanks for the kind words!

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  4. Rebecca Sherman on October 24th, 2011 6:09 pm

    Quite well and thoroughly ranted, sir. I applaud your consistent bravery and eloquence in speaking your mind.

  5. xalieri on November 8th, 2011 7:22 am

    Thank you.

    I know I don’t and can’t speak for everyone and when I speak, there are still going to be little corners that don’t fit. Words are inexact tools at best. You build a mosaic from whatever shards are lying around and people say it’s not photographic. You change scale and use a zillion more tiles to produce something that is, and then they say that realism produces confusing outlines, and it’s too complex, but also it’s static and lacks dimension….

    In the end, in the very end, God save us all from people who would rather win their favorite argument than make the world a better place.

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