Rabble

“

The Pro-Life Movement: Dangerous, Selfish, Lazy:

When a living, air-breathing human being actually comes into the world, being “pro-life” becomes infinitely harder. This requires you to actually care about people. The sort of care that takes a critical mind, patience, and self awareness. The sort of care that requires figuring out why things are the way they are so that you can work toward actually fixing them. The sort of care that takes compassion and an unending dedication to a better for life for all humans.

The sort of care that marching around, waving huge dead baby posters, and calling women murderers is completely and utterly devoid of.

— Laci Green.

To add on:

A sort of care that comparing abortion to rape and the Holocaust/any genocide or the extreme focus on sex-selective abortions or telling people to deal with the punishment of a pregnancy for having sex or calling them sluts is completely absent.

Anti-choicers don’t actually care about people. (via stfuprolife)

“ Instead, even as state legislators are finding new ways to interfere with a woman’s or couple’s decisions about baby-making, they are reducing the services upon which families depend. Arizona legislators have been particularly harsh. In 2009, Governor Brewer closed her state’s $1.6 billion budget gap partly by eliminating $155 million from the state’s Department of Economic Security—money that had gone toward early-education and therapy programs for the developmentally disabled. The following year, the legislature tried to ax the state’s $9 million Children’s Health Insurance Program for low-income families, KidsCare. In 2011, state Senator Andy Biggs, who in campaign literature advertises himself as a pro-life Republican, proposed eliminating Arizona’s Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, altogether. That would have saved the state $2 billion but cost it $7.5 billion in federal matching funds.

“There have been a lot of impassioned speeches from my Republican colleagues about the significance of a child’s life regardless of their disability, and about the value of human life,” says Arizona House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, a Phoenix Democrat. “But when they do a budget, it doesn’t include the concern for human life they talk about all the time.” The Children’s Health Insurance Program remains but with enrollment frozen as of January 2010. In 2008, KidsCare covered close to 65,000 children; now it serves 14,000. The waiting list for the program has grown to more than 100,000.

—

from “The Pro-Life Paradox” at The American Prospect

It’s only a “paradox” because they self-identify by the blatantly false moniker “pro-life.”

(again, h/t to SS)

[NB: More people than just cis women need and want access to abortion care]

(via keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)

By defunding therapy and education programs for kids with disabilities, you’re only creating more financial need down the line when they don’t develop the skills they need to be as independent as possible.

Just more proof that conservatives take the easiest, showiest “moral” stance possible by fetishizing the fetus while ripping away support systems for parents and children.

(via bebinn)

Oh, the hypocrisy!

thisgingersnapsback:

So I escorted at the clinic for the first time this morning—well, more shadowed and learned than anything, and was bombarded by the anti’s any time I strayed too far from Pam or Rita—and while I have plenty of interesting things to talk about, the one that weighs most heavily on my mind is the biggest display of anti-choice hypocrisy I have ever witnessed in my life.

Sure, we all know how little they actually value life, and we all hear the stories about “Once the fetus is out, they stop caring” and so on and so forth, but the truth of their blatant disregard for actual LIFE was shoved directly in my face. While my heart goes out to the people involved, I could not have asked for a better, clearer example of what anti’s really care about.

I’d been standing around, chatting with the two women there that morning, Rita and Pam. I stuck close to either one or the other all morning, because anytime I got too far away, it felt like the anti’s circled me like sharks—when I first got out of the car I was hassled, them thinking I was there for the procedure, so I said loud and clear and directly to the nearest woman wearing a vest, “I want to be an Escort.”

They still didn’t leave me alone of course, wondering why “a girl so young and impressionable would choose to help such a thing” and the like, and shoved multiple pamphlets my way, but I’m pretty proud of how I handled the situation. I was polite, despite quivering with rage, and only got somewhat abrasive when Ed decided to practically corner me, bludgeoning me with questions—which I think I handled well, or at least, Pam seemed impressed.

Anyway, the three of us were standing outside the clinic, when all the sudden there was a HUGE crash at the intersection of Second Street and Market. Four cars were involved. I gasped and grabbed Pam’s arm, and in seconds Rita and I were headed down to the corner, Rita with her phone out and already dialing 911. Pam remained behind to watch for potentials, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the wreck. Everyone but the woman in the Pontiac was out of their cars—two men were very pissed, one older man was practically limping, and the woman… wasn’t moving. I was horrified—I’d never witnessed a wreck before, so this was intense, and there were car parts everywhere—someone very easily could have died.

But then I noticed, we were the only ones there. Some joggers were beside us, watching, but otherwise, we were alone. I turned around, and sure enough, not a single anti had moved to check the scene. Not a one seemed concerned in the SLIGHTEST that someone nearly DIED just FEET away from them. No one cried out, no one batted an eyelash—they simply continued shouting prayers at the doors and deaf ears, and I felt a rage building up inside of me.

It was proof, not that I needed any, but disgusting proof about what the anti’s really care about—controlling people’s bodies. They aren’t seeking to SAVE anyone, to SAVE any babies, they just want to stand around and tell people what to do with themselves, and when a crash which threatens the very thing which they are apparently so devoted to protect—LIFE—happens mere feet from them? They didn’t even take a second look.

I didn’t need an example of the hypocrisy and cold hatred these antis have for anyone but themselves, but honestly? I couldn’t have asked for a better, or more horrific one.*

(*Everyone appeared to be okay in the accident. The woman started moving around and the old man seemed okay, everyone just looked really shaken up. The accident could have been FAR worse than it was, but thankfully everyone made it out okay.)

I honestly have no words.

Love,

Rabble

bebinn:

etinsomnisveritas:

This idea that Pro-Lifers only care about the first nine months of a child life, and then dont want have anything to do with it, is complete nonsense. Pro-lifers are fighting against an evil that is accepted by society. Its a given that poverty and social injustice are bad things - but first of all we have to combat something that has been accepted by society as a natural thing. Once abortion has been abolished, then they put all their energy into irradiating child poverty - plenty of whom already do. Society thinks that it can divert attention from itself by pointing to the other evils in the world - a trap we must not fall into.

Yeah, working backwards sounds like a great idea. Instead of striving to eliminate the reasons people have for getting abortions, like poverty, abuse, and lack of education, let’s just force said people to continue unwanted, dangerous pregnancies. Then, maybe, if they’re lucky, you guys will help out. Makes total sense to me.

I want to know who decided abortion wasn’t a natural thing. The body can induce abortions in numerous species. This isn’t just a thing human beings do, either. Lots of different animals will terminate pregnancies by ingesting certain plants on purpose or their body will change hormone levels to induce an abortion.

Love,

Rabble

Methods of Illegal Abortion

bebinn:

I’ve written about the methods of legal abortion: procedures performed by licensed medical professionals in a clean, sterile environment, with clean, sterile tools. But what about illegal abortions?

Those who push for more restrictions on abortion access - really, those who push for abortion to be made illegal - seem unwilling to acknowledge the disastrous alternatives. Many who are anti-choice have no memories of what life was like before Roe v. Wade in 1973. We know abortion rates stay fairly steady, regardless of legality. How are these illegal abortions procured? What options are there for those without the money or connections to a discrete physician?

To answer these questions, I’ve compiled a list of methods of illegal, or “back-alley” abortions.

Waldo L. Fielding, M.D. wrote an article for the New York Times in 2008, describing what he saw while working as a gynecologist in New York City from 1948 to 1953.

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.

…

Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.

Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart.

The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.

A case report from 1911 describes a self-induced abortion using a knitting needle.

In the afternoon the day before her admission she had attempted to pass into the uterus a bone knitting needle…During the attempt the needle broke off short, leaving about half of it inside her body…During the next four days the temperature gradually rose, until on the fifth day after admission it was 102.2 F, and the pulse rate 100. On the evening of this day uterine hemorrhage occurred…and at 6:30 next morning the patient aborted, a fetus some 4 in. in length…The needle had just missed the right border of the rectum, the wall of the bowel being slightly torn superficially…

A case study from 1972 goes into greater detail about the use of a soap solution.

A case report from 1964 describes a woman’s attempt to self-abort with turpentine.

Believing herself to be pregnant she had, on the afternoon preceding admission, injected into her uterus the contents of a rectal syringe filled with turpentine and water. Immediately thereafter, she experienced a sharp burning sensation which “went all through me up to my chest.” This was followed by a convulsive seizure. Two hours later she began to have paroxysms of coughing productive of a bloody sputum.

A case history from 1961 describes two women’s attempts to self-abort with Lysol. One woman survived. The other did not.

The second patient was a 26-year-old French Canadian woman, married, but separated from her husband. She was…3 1/2 months pregnant. She had used a vaginal douche of concentrated Lysol solution 25 hours before admission…On examination there was erythema of the thighs and vulva. Pieces of placental tissue were passed but the abortion remained incomplete. The day after admission renal shut-down became apparent…A full-blown picture of lower nephron nephrosis [acute renal failure] developed rapidly in this case…The patient’s condition deteriorated rapidly and she died on the sixth day in acute pulmonary edema [fluid in the lungs].

Those who got them done by others didn’t fare much better (PDF). (1964)

…this 21-year-old single girl…went to an abortionist who inserted a catheter and wire into her cervix. The wire was removed after four days when chills, fever, crampy lower abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting developed. Symptoms persisted until she came to the emergency ward with a temperature of 103 F (39.4 C) and a shaking chill…Her abdomen was rigid, with diffuse tenderness and absence of bowel sounds. There was tenderness, also, on pelvic and rectal palpation, the uterus was enlarged with necrotic [dead] tissue extruding from the cervix…She was discharged to her home after 17 days, only to return 10 days later with a temperature of 105 F (40.6 C)…Two days later…a laporotomy was done…and total hysterectomy [removal of the uterus]…She was…sterile at the age of 21.

…this 25-year-old married woman was given a soap-and-bleach douche by an abortionist. Following the douche, fever and chills developed with vaginal bleeding and crampy lower abdominal pain. On admission she had a temperature of 103 F (39.4 C), which rose to 106 F (41.4 C)…an emergency hysterectomy was done, following which she had a cardiac arrest. She was resuscitated, but arrested a second time and did not respond to resuscitation.

Some women attempted to induce miscarriage by drinking poisons such as aloe, ergot of rye, savin oil (derived from a juniper plant), teas made from tansy, pennyroyal, rue, and nightshade, high doses of vitamin C, and other natural “remedies.”

Dr. Garson Romalis, who survived two attempts on his life, gave a speech in 2008 in which he described what he saw in med school.

The first time I started to think about abortion was in 1960, when I was in second year medical school. I was assigned the case of a young woman who had died of a septic abortion. She had aborted herself using slippery elm bark…The young woman in our case developed an overwhelming infection. At autopsy she had multiple abscesses throughout her body, in her brain, lungs, liver and abdomen.

I have never forgotten that case.

…

I will never forget the 17-year-old girl lying on a stretcher with 6 feet of small bowel protruding from her vagina. She survived.

I will never forget the jaundiced woman in liver and kidney failure, in septic shock, with very severe anemia, whose life we were unable to save.

Some women were also told that they could induce miscarriage by undergoing physical stress, such as vigorous exercise, jumping off tables, bellyflopping onto a hard surface, receiving punches, kicks or other blows to their stomachs, or throwing themselves down the stairs.

None of these methods were guaranteed to work. Women would be left injured, ill, sterile, or dead.

Was that hard to read? It should be. That was the reality of pre-Roe America, and for some, it is still their reality. Those who can’t afford abortions, can’t get to clinics, or can’t tell anyone about their situation, turn to these methods, and worse. In countries where abortion is illegal, this is what people are offered.

Lysol, carbonic acid, coat hangers, stairs, and fists are not surgical instruments. Back alleys, kitchens, and motel rooms are not operating rooms.

Regardless of your opinion on abortion, this is what happens when abortion is no longer available. Keeping abortion legal is the only moral option.

feministblackboard:

A few weeks ago my mom stapled pages of a story in one of her women’s magazines together and handed it to me. She gave it to me pretty much with the tag lines “for your feminist blog” and “something new to consider.” Indeed it was; she knows me well.

The story is titled “I was forced to be pregnant.” With a title like that, reading it was actually not on the top of my to read list. I thought it was about women not exercising their right to choice. I was very, very wrong on that one.

Have you ever heard of Reproductive coercion? It is a term that was quite recently coined by the advocates against domestic violence to describe a certain type of abuse some women face. It occurs when a man pressures their partner to have kids and/or impregnates them against their will. Reproductive coercion comes in three different types:
1. Emotional pressure that turns into verbal and physical abuse.
2. Sabotaging birth control
3. Marital rape
Over 75% of women 19-49 who reported once experiencing domestic violence also endured some type of reproductive control by men. It’s all about control and domination over a woman’s body.

The first story in the magazine is about a woman who got married around 36 years of age. After a few months of dating her boyfriend talked excitedly about having children. After he proposed he began calling her “The Babymaker.” She then confided with him that one of her fallopian tubes was blocked. He in return insisted she see a fertility doctor. She recounts, “I had finally met a great guy who was eager to start a family with me. What woman wouldn’t fall for that?” Soon after her honeymoon he persisted on in an obsessive manner, but his efforts had to be temporarily halted as she had to get emergency back surgery. Alas, 6 months into recovery he was back to pressuring her again. She was in much pain at the time due to her back, but she agreed to In Vitro Fertilization. She then became pregnant, but soon miscarried. In response, her husband grabbed her by the neck, choking her. He apologized, blaming his outburst on his grief and had her sign up for another round of IVF. And then a third round. She tried to put him off with the excuse that she needed to weigh more before she could take treatments, her husband forced her to get on the scale often and filled the fridge with fattening foods. “It hurt that all I was good for was getting pregnant.” She recounts. At the end, he screamed at her, threatening to replace her with a maid if she couldn’t get pregnant and she told him she no longer wanted to have his child. He destroyed bedroom furniture, pushed her down the stairs and threatened her with a gun. She fled to a domestic violence shelter.

The second story was about a woman who faced marital rape. This woman was 40, had a then boyfriend and two children from a previous marriage. After telling her boyfriend she did not want any more children, her boyfriend refused to wear a condom and began to rape her. She then became pregnant with her third child. Birth control was never an option for her because she couldn’t hide pills anywhere for he went through all of her belongings. Three months after giving birth, he raped her again, impregnating her with twins. She lost the twins in a physical fight with him, but soon became pregnant again. During her recovery she begged her obstetrician to remove her ovaries and devise a lie to tell him; that she had cancer. After a decade of sexual abuse and violence she was able to get a job that kept her out of the house and often times traveling.

One in four callers to the National Domestic Abuse hotline said that their partners had tried to force them to become pregnant. Why? As one woman stated, “Its like he wants to own me from the inside out.” Having a baby is the perfect tie that binds. These type of abusers want to create a circumstance in which their partner is dependent on him.

WHAT’S THAT HAVE TO DO WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD?

Many voters never consider how defunding these clinics could hurt victims of domestic violence who turn to them for counseling as well as pregnancy prevention. Abused women will turn to health care providers long before they will turn to domestic abuse hotlines and organizations. Many women in abusive relationships rely on life saving, affordable care programs such as Title X. It is critical that such places are open and operation when women and children need them so desperately.

bebinn:

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

@monicaisliberal:

Here is senator Wendy Davis’ front door!

Again, no one was hurt.

Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis is an ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood, and spoke at a rally 10 days ago about her experiences relying on Planned Parenthood for her health care.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

(Source: keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)

marylikesbagels:

Everyone who believes in abortion should watch this video.

It’s only 30 seconds anyways.

I’m embarrassed for you.

Calling it a baby is not biologically accurate. Don’t act like the anti-choice side doesn’t use manipulative language. Calling it a baby is not only inaccurate, it’s manipulative and you fucking know it.

People who get abortions don’t go around throwing themselves baby showers or nesting up their nurseries. This whole “ad” is an exercise in “spot the manipulation”, ESPECIALLY with all of the visibly pregnant women in it. Most people aren’t even showing when the majority of abortions are performed.

Love,

Rabble

(Source: youtube.com)

bebinn:

bebinn:

propaganda-for-life:

unfriendlyatheist:

mailboxy:

[Image: a rosary with blue glass beads with fake fetuses in them, with red cross beads throughout. There is a gold cross at the end. End description.]

fetus rosary.

[Image: photo of Vladimir Putin with his eyes widened and his lips frowning in shock. End description.]

That reaction pic is perfect. XDDDD

Only $9.95 for a one-decade rosary or a bracelet!

$24.95 for a five-decade rosary!

I don’t know what either of those mean! Fetus rosaries!

Love,

Rabble

(Source: bittenkittens)

“ This film is a perverse attempt to make a case against abortion in America through the cynical abuse of the memory of those killed in the Holocaust. It is, quite frankly, one of the most offensive and outrageous abuses of the memory of the Holocaust we have seen in years. Not only does the film try to assert a moral equivalency between the Holocaust and abortion, but it also brings Jews and Jewish history into the discussion and then calls on its viewers to repent and accept Jesus as their savior.

— Holocaust survivor, and ADL Director, Abraham H. Foxman on the film “180” (via thecakesokay)