Pro-Life / Pro-Choice: Back to Reality Folks

Lots of folks are down in the trenches fighting the "good" fight.  Some siding with mum, some siding with dad and some siding with the unborn baby.  I've heard arguments up the yingyang about why abortion should be legal and why it should be illegal.  Yet very few ever get to the point and the point has nothing at all to do with the mum, the dad or the unborn.  The point happens way before all this hoopla starts.  It's all comes down to sex and sexual education.  That's it in a nutshell folks.  I know folks will still find something to argue about but at least the focus would shift to the real issue instead of fighting over what happens after.

I think we'd all agree that the majority of us fall somewhere in the middle of this fight over, well, concepts?  Fighting over "Is the baby a person or not" or "an individual's body" doesn't solve the problem.  It starts with prevention in order to preserve life.  All those involved.

You can't have a baby without sex.  Consensual or non consensual, sex has to occur before an egg is fertilised.  So no people, the egg is not a person.  Most pro-life religious groups advocate not only banning abortion but sex entirely.  Excuse me while I have a good laugh.  So, I have to get this straight in my head now.  A woman, or 9 year old post-pubescent girl, gets raped and we say "Shame on you! You had sex!  Accept the consequences of that action. We don't care if birth control would have prevented the baby, that's abortion too in God's eyes"

Now how exactly was that deduced?  I haven't the foggiest.  Birth control is taken in order to prevent fertilisation which creates the fetus everyone is currently fighting over.  No fertilisation = no fetus and therefore, no abortion.

I keep seeing people spout statistics about how very few abortions are done due to birth abnormalities, incest, rape or the mother's health.  That's true.  What everyone fails to point out is the reason for 95% of abortions.  I've got two words for ya.  Birth.  Control.

Most of the women who get abortions aren't teens, they are over the age of 25.  The majority of these women either don't want to have a baby right then or can't afford to have a baby.  So what happened to the condom?  The patch?  The Pill?  Well I'll explain it to you.  Sex ed classes in schools suck.  It really shouldn't be classified as a sex ed class but should be called what it is, an anatomy class.  All that stuff kids already had an idea about.  She's got a vagina and he's got a penis.  What is not taught is sexual education such as; birth control, the financial impact of children and effective parenting/communication.  As we can see from several media reports, that just drives some parents batty.  I don't see why it can't be a senior class for 17 yr olds who are past or at the age of sexual consent.

We've got a few million women who just know the basics of sexual health, birth control, the actual cost and psychological impact of having a child.  Think back to what you didn't learn in sex ed class beyond the anatomy lesson.  I know plenty of women who've never seen their vagina and are totally uncomfortable discussing anything remotely sexual.  If a woman gets pregnant the first one who's blamed is the father of the child.  If a woman gets an STD the person blamed is the man.  Most women don't find out about an STD or HIV/AIDS until they've gone for a pregnancy test.  Why is that?

Now ask yourself this question.  How many women do you know ever take an active role in their sexual health by asking their partner to wear a condom or see their ob-gyn for birth control?  It's not a man's total responsibility to make sure his female partner is protected at all times, women have to accept that responsibility also.  That's how you lower the abortion rates and quite possibly HIV/AIDS rates because the 2nd highest category of cases is high risk heterosexual contact which accounts for about 80% of female infection.

Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever happen as long as religion continues to play a role in sexual health.  Until that happens and until women take a more active role in prevention of unwanted pregnancies, STDs and HIV/AIDS.  Do not expect to see any changes.  Every pro-life/pro-chioce person who advocates against comprehensive sexual education is just as culpable in all the abortions they say they'd like to prevent.

Comments

[Tyni1]

You may have to clarify your statement because you lost me with the blog excerpt. My response was to point out that your comment was fine as a personal opinion until you tossed in the LGBT community. We were not discussing the LGBT community but Abortion.

As I said before, we're all human here. We all have differing opinions. To keep our statements as opinions instead of prejudice we don't single out one group. If you said Pro-Choice should support abortion as a choice I would not have taken issue. There are black, white, straight, gay, republican and democrat who are Pro-Choice. It would have covered everyone who supports abortion on one level or another.

To say the LGBT community, you singled out every single gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender person as a supporter of abortion which is not true. That was where your statement shifted from being an opinion to a prejudicial viewpoint. Prejudicial meaning you have a preconceived notion about a group you clearly do not know much about not in terms of being homicidal with hatred. lol

I know a few Pro-Lifers who would agree with me that sexual education will help which other Pro-lifers, and quite possibly a few Pro-Choice folks, disagree with due to their religion.

As for finding it hard to believe that there are pro-life lgbt's please visit this website: http://www.plagal.org/

[WTR]

Against the LGBT community??? Not.at.all! Wow, as a heterosexual guy whose political, social and moral views would be considered, in almost all cases, "against" the LGBT community, I was trying to say the opposite: LIFE itself, *is* THE ultimate human value issue, and that those of us (people who typically are on opposite sides of the fence on almost everything else) who could agree on that idea, could work together on supporting adoption as a choice. Now, to be frank, the idea of a LBGTHCCFAC existing....The Lesbian Bi-Sexual Gay Trans-gender Heterosexual Christian Coalition For Adoption Choice...is pretty hard to believe. But I would point to your guest blog on Gay and Lesbian adoption: link http://ouradopt.com/adoption-blog/mar-2009/guestblogger/guest-blog-breaking-down-stereotype-gay-and-lesbian-parents-raise

Here's the opening paragraph:

Julia asked me to write a blog addressing an all-to-familiar stereotype that children of gay and lesbian parents grow up to be gay or lesbian. When I look at my myriad of friends, specifically those who are gay or lesbian, and there have been many in my 40 years, I have never met any who were raised by gay or lesbian parents. I am not suggesting that they do not exist; they just do not exist in my world. On the other hand, I have met a few heterosexual friends who had one or two gay and/or lesbian parents. Yet, when I look at all of the gay and lesbian people I have met, I see one stark contrast to the stereotype. Heterosexual parents raised them all. Rhetorically, I asked myself, if this is the case, why does this stereotype exist? After all, the American Psychological Association’s website lists the medical professional associations that have “come out” in support of gay and lesbian parenting.

These associations include:

* American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
* American Academy of Family Physicians
* American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers
* American Academy of Pediatrics
* American Anthropological Association
* American Bar Association
* American Medical Association
* American Psychiatric Association
* American Psychoanalytic Association
* American Psychological Association
* Child Welfare League of America
* National Association of Social Workers
* North American Council on Adoptable Children

[Tyni1]

I was fine with your comment until you involved the LGBT community. What does the LGBT community have to do with Pro-Life/Pro-Choice? We are all individuals with individual choices and beliefs. All of us, as in the entire Human community. The LGBT community is not a hive with hive mentality, each person thinks for themselves. They don't automatically agree with someone because they carry a rainbow flag. Hence the Log Cabin Republicans as a good example.

Just as there are plenty of straight folks who are on opposing sides of this conflict, so are members of the LGBT community. There are plenty of LGBT parents & singles who may or may not agree with Pro-Life or Pro-Choice stances.

Your comment went from being an opinion to an uninformed statement against one group with that sentence. I just wanted to point that out to you.

[WTR]

Interesting, very interesting. You hit on what is the key - the TIME LINE of choice. First, I believe that it's self evident that *Life* begins at conception. EVERYTHING ELSE is a stage of growth. Religion aside, abortion is a self-defining act. You don't "abort" something that does not grow. I don't think it's OK to step on caterpillars because they're not butterflies yet. I used to call myself pro-life, now I call myself pro-choice. The choice I support is life. (Ah yeah, I think it morally wimpy to hide behind "choice", and not defend which choice you prefer to support). My take: every pro-lifer who does not support giving a mother "pro-life choices" at EVERY POINT in the timeline, is just as culpable in all the abortions they say they'd like to prevent. BEFORE Conception: The only 100% fail safe method of not getting pregnant is abstinence. Duh! Even Christians don't believe immaculate conception happened more than once. DURING Conception: Tiny Voice pretty much said it all in terms of responsibility and birth control, as men (unless they move the parts around and call themselves a "man") just don't get pregnant! AFTER Conception: This is a sore point for me. For those who call themselves Pro-Life OR Pro-Choice, why are you not focusing efforts on genuinely providing a life choice? Adoption, Legal Help, Housing, Blankets, Medical Care, Pampers, Milk, Babysitters, Education continuation assistance...??? A combination of making better moral choices, taking personal responsibility, and real life social help would go a long way towards giving a woman (who isn't practicing abortion-as-birth-control) a real choice. Since it's simply not a biological possibility for them to "have" children, why doesn't the LGBT community "come out" in support of adoption? I say this only in the support of the idea that LIFE ITSELF, is inherently of greater value than quality of life, gayness of life, straightness of life, moral correctness of life, equality of life ...etc etc etc. I myself have three children, who I'm happy to say, spent Fathers Day with me.