I was sixteen and in love for the first time.
After months of heated groping, my high school boyfriend and I wanted to go all the way. If there was anything I was sure about at sixteen, it was that I had no desire to be a high school mom. That meant birth control. That meant the most effective birth control I could imagine, something so effective it seemed made of unicorn tears and elf magic, forged in the fires of Mordor, and brought to me on the back of an armored Griffin who also happened to know a lot about prophylactics. That meant the Holy Hand Grenade: The Pill.
But getting my teenaged hands on The Pill felt like a fantastical quest of Tolkien-like proportions: Where? How? With what magical aid?
Growing up in a small, conservative, Texas town, my options for sex education were limited. I sure as hell couldn’t go to my family doctor who’d been bandaging my boo-boos since I was ten. And while I had fairly liberal parents, my mother’s moral messaging about premarital sex had always been quite clear: You only have sex with your husband. Anything else is a sin. There was no way I could ask her about any of this. Plus, I’d had to quit my afterschool job due to track and cheerleading duties. I had no money. Even if I could find birth control, how could I possibly afford it?
There was only one place I could turn to for help: Planned Parenthood.
On a summer Saturday, I lied to my mother about going to the movies with my best friend and drove instead to Planned Parenthood, which was located, ironically, next to our town’s only Catholic church. I was nervous about being seen. Slut-shaming has been a thing since the dawn of time, and I feel reasonably sure that some of the first cave drawings were the equivalent of “Yo, Cro-Magnon Woman is Easy, Y’all!” beside a sketch of roaming buffalo and a large, squirting penis. This is what it is to walk around female—to feel always that your body is not quite your own. That it belongs to a system that alternately wants to desire and objectify it, to harm it, and to blame and shame it for being so desirable and objectified that it thus causes the state of wanting to harm, blame, and shame it. Lather, rinse, repeat. After driving around the block several times, I finally pulled into the lot, parked my car behind the cover of a dumpster, and went in.
Here’s what happened: A very nice lady welcomed me and explained that, in order to obtain birth control without parental consent, I would need a proper sex education course. This was not a drive-through; this was an five hours’ worth of classes. Nervously, I said “okay,” and signed the consent form.
That afternoon, I sat with a handful of other young women as we watched films about our bodies and how those bodies worked. I’m pretty sure we saw a film on birth, too, and I’m pretty sure I equated it to “Alien,” my only frame of reference then, and thought, “Oh, HELL’S no. Not up for that yet.” A nurse gave a seminar about reproduction, pregnancy, preventing pregnancy, STDs, and the various methods of birth control available to us, listing the pros and cons of each. I was given a full gynecological exam to make sure I was healthy, and I was informed of what this exam entailed and why. The nurse was gentle, informative, and reassuring. Then, I sat with another nurse who explained how my birth control pills worked, stressing the importance of taking them every day, letting me know that it would take a full month and another menstrual cycle before they were fully “operational.” There, in the privacy of her office, I could ask all sorts of questions without shame, questions about birth control, my body, and sex. Again, without shame or judgment, I could have those questions answered knowledgeably. I didn’t have to rely on sketchy second-hand information from a teen friend of a friend whose cousin’s older sister swore that if you douched with vinegar right after sex, you couldn’t get pregnant. (Spoiler alert: That’s bananas. Also, your lady parts will smell like an Olive Garden salad. Just sayin’.)
When I left, with five months’ worth of birth control pills in a brown bag, I was relieved and empowered. I felt like an adult—like a woman driving her own body for the first time. The choice was mine and mine alone. I was responsible for my choice and my body, and I liked that very much. I had gone in like a young Frodo and left like Gandalf. Boo-ya, bitches.
In the end, the choice I made was not to have sex. I wasn’t ready yet. And, in a way, those hours spent in the company of those wise women at Planned Parenthood helped me to understand that I wasn’t ready. I remain grateful for the invaluable information Planned Parenthood provided me as a young woman in need of answers about something as fundamental as her own body.
Today, and all days, I stand with Planned Parenthood. I stand FOR women’s health—for the health of ALL women, especially low-income and young women. I stand FOR women being able to be educated about their bodies, and their sexual and reproductive choices, in private, without fear of being shamed or traumatized or physically assaulted outside a clinic. But I especially stand for the idea of women owning their bodies. Of not being denied the choices that fall to men by default.
I stand with Planned Parenthood because, once upon a time when I needed it very much, they stood by me.
Reblogged this on Further Annotations .
Great post,, follow me n reblog this on aku tc ya https://pabriktasjakartaa.wordpress.com/
Thank you Libba for that support. I think there is a lot of confusion and misinformation floating around about Planned Parenthood and what they do. I support Planned Parenthood and support the wonderful way that they help women with real problems with the guidance that is needed for each woman to manage her own body. I can’t help wondering how that could be a bad thing.
Great post, follow me n reblog this on aku tc yaa https://pabriktasjakartaa.wordpress.com/
Great post caroll. follow me n my this on aku tc ya https://konveksijakartass.wordpress.com/
Thanks, Libba. This was beautiful and true and Planned Parenthood is everything in the USA.
Libba, your piece was wonderful and took me back 41 years and my own experience as a young college student. I support Planned Parenthood now and have for many years. I’m glad they are helping other young women to understand their bodies and the world they are entering. Life is way to confusing and this organization can provide support as well as educate. It is an essential service.
I would have been terrified to even walk inside. Kudos to you for being such a responsible teenager at the time. It shouldn’t have to be a shame.
I was also surprised of you that is not afraid who else thinks?
Thanks libba
I love how you explain the double-edged sword of being a woman. Society tells us to care about how we look to the point where our self-value rests on what we look like, but if we look how society tells us, we are shamed for being “slutty” or “having no class.” Having place like those clinics for young women to go is so important in helping them understand themselves beyond what society tells them to be. Love your post!
I absolutely loved this!
You actually outlined a good paradigm for young woman. Your writing was amazing.
This sounds a lot like my experience with Planned Parenthood. I was 18, hopelessly in love, and desperately wanting to finish college sans baby. I was welcomed and made to feel like I mattered and that I had made the responsible choice of coming in. I received a full exam, a year’s supply of the Pill, and a dozen condoms. It is an empowering experience to take charge of your health and if I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t do it any differently. I hope that Planned Parenthood is around for many more generations for their shame-free education and health services.
‘This is what it is to walk around female—to feel always that your body is not quite your own.’ <- Such brilliant encapsulation.
And as a fellow gal who spent her early adolescent years in 'abstinence-only' Texas – good God, we survived!
Growing up in the buckle of the Bible Belt, slut-shaming was one of the ways that some girls (and boys, I suppose) differentiated themselves from other girls. Everything was bad and dirty, and I found myself at a very late teenaged year not knowing the very basics of reproduction and of sex. It’s not that my mother never tried to teach me, it was just something that I was too grossed out by and embarrassed by that I would refuse to have “that discussion” with her every time she tried. It was my own fault, but I grew up thinking that I’d get pregnant by thinking of kissing a boy (I remember that from fourth grade) and all sorts of ridiculous things about sex. Sex-ed in school was ridiculous, and everybody (including the teacher) was so embarrassed that it didn’t accomplish much of anything. Had Planned Parenthood been around and accessible, I think that maybe, just maybe, Mississippi would have a far better sexually educated (and protected) teenaged population.
Thank you so much for sharing. Fantastic read.
👍🏻
Right on, sister!
Its true…
You are really a courageous woman, I must say, and thanxx for sharing this..sex education is a must for all in this era..gr8 job.. 🙂
If you’d had the money and found a doctor to talk to you wouldn’t have had the sort of education that Planned Parenthood offered. Doing that short course allowed you to choose what was right for you. But then you sound like a level headed sort of a person. Even so, a sixteen year old is not a woman. And contraceptives, while quite good, are not infallible. What would a sixteen year old mum do?
All that matters is this Mary: A woman and child should not be considered the property of the father. This is about a woman’s control over her own womb at every stage of her life. You are either for or against controlling women.
Looks like your website is no longer available so,you get the,last word. I obviously misread what you were saying and would have liked to reread it.
I don’t know what website you mean Mary… if you tell me what you are looking for, I can try to help direct you.
I’m not sure what last word you are speaking of that I’m “getting”…
If you mean: “A woman and child should not be considered the property of the father” and that a woman’s right to choose is “my last word” then I stand by my words, yes, but without expecting complete agreement. I’m not trying to silence you. I’m just firm about equal rights and am clarifying what those are. We have to fight for our rights, no one gives them to us. But I’m not interested in “fighting” you. So I hope it didn’t come across that way.
Peace Mary.
I love this
Owned a car at sixteen… 😐
Thank you for writing this piece. It is so invaluable. In many societies these days, women are still not given the equal treatment that they deserve and especially with sex being a taboo topic in so many cultures. I stand by your opinion and for women to be at the forefront of their lives. For women to control their lives the way they want to.
I got pregnant as a freshman in college (unplanned, of course) in 1960, just as The Pill was about to be made available. But I don’t think I’d have taken The Pill, even if it had been available, because they were for adults, and I knew I was not an adult. I think I MIGHT have visited a Planned Parenthood site (if I’d known of their existence, which I didn’t) AFTER I knew I was pregnant, but only to find out how to lock the barn door while the horses ran off in the distance. My unwanted pregnancy was fairly well-received by all concerned, considering the time and culture, and very soon I was married and happily into child-rearing (and yes, I did go back and finish my degree a few years later).
Twenty years later, when my second child, a daughter, was 16 and not very well-supervised (we, her parents, were divorced and I was living 1,200 miles away), I paid for her to go to Planned Parenthood. I did NOT want her in the same situation, and this I felt was the only way I could help her in absentia. That action, she has said several times since, was the best one I could have taken for her well-being, even if I’d been living with her at the time. And from what else she has told me, her experience was similar to yours, Libba: helpful, informative, kind, supportive–and life-changing. She made it through those turbulent years successfully and became a mother only later when she was ready and waiting. YAY for Planned Parenthood!
Your telling of your story was wonderful–thank you so much for sharing.
oh yes! well said!
I drove with a friend for five hours just to get to the nearest planned parenthood. I went with her to get an abortion. I never regret going with her a single bit but staying with her in that hotel room while she went through the abortion destroyed me. There are other ways for people to get safe, shame free information about all the things they taught you. Organizations that are far less destructive.
Absolutely..like at home from their parents. But because their parents forget that they at one time were once that at age and had the same questions about sex. Now they won’t talk to their own children about it. Instead they project their uncomfortable attitudes (where do they come from?), shame and act like they have been at the foot of the Cross their whole lives and won’t talk about it. I call it “parental amnesia”, When parents forget they were once teenagers. Planned Parenthood does the job they won’t and without shame.
I agree, this is a devastating reality amongst the majority of our nations families. Unfortunately it’s probably not because the parents forget, rather it’s the product of their own experience with shame in their teenage sexual lives. It’s a visions cycle.
Maybe then we should be standing by parents, empowering them to stop this awful cycle and remove the shame all together, instead of standing by any organization at all.
Parents, moms, dads, lets link arms and raise our children to know that sex is a normal thing and NOTHINGNESS to be ashamed of!
This was a well written piece. I am glad that you found the help that you needed when you were younger. It is a pity that young women have to go to such lengths for something like birth control.
The word shame, very interesting with the effects of not having all of the Educational curve, is not up lifting to our young women. The help that Planned Parenthood Provides for opening a better understanding of the body of our young women is very good preventing protection against unwanted STDs or Life (Families)babies. Until they are ready. I just learned most of the early cell research . Brought some cures from disease , I am disturbed by some practices , maybe a little regulation towards a form of dignity we shall all see in the public arena. I do mean well for my opinion, and look forward to seeing my Granddaughter growing into a beautiful young woman with out shame. thanks for reading my thought have a Great day.
At the age of 16….hmmm I dnt even knw wat love is….
but it was interesting to read this….
Nice.. Pls see my blog also
It also helps the child too psychologically
Nicely written 🙂
Reblogged this on trublunan.
Awesome read, no doubt. I have this to say though. People respond to their passions differently. Some people have access to the education, or experienced people willing to teach their younger ones/inexperienced counterparts. Others don’t. I was born in the eighties of the previous century. I had quite a different experience in my teens which I shared once on my facebook. The girl I dated in secondary school (your equivalent of high school) and I knew no better than but to follow the dictates of our passion. Sex was a beautiful thing which we discovered together after months of climbing the bases. We knew about AIDS because of its high publicity back then. We didn’t know much about the other STDs. We loved each other. We were exclusive. We didn’t care about the rest (especially Planned Parenthood). When (shit hit the fan) she got pregnant and we weren’t yet undergraduates, she decided to abort the kid. I still am ashamed to say that I didn’t fight hard for the kid’s life. I was appalled by her choice. I’m even more appalled that I was so easily convinced… I wasn’t ready for parenthood either. A beautiful thing turned ugly, and the guilt drove us light years apart even till today. You did good! I swear you did good!
#JustSharing
It’s okay to be appalled by her choice or maybe you mean saddened… but you don’t need to be appalled about being “so easily convinced” as you don’t own her body and should have no say in what she does with it. She gets to decide to have sex and what birth control and after that what happens to her own body.
There doesn’t need to be any guilt or shame carried by either of you. Grieving is okay, but let the rest go. You don’t need to struggle with it anymore, you just need to make peace and let go.
Women’s rights are being threatened. You might be able at least to respect that she made her own choice and view that as fundamentally important to every human being.
Those who would make this a “moral” issue are doing so for political purposes in order to control women.
I’m sorry for your grief. peace to you.
I disagree that those who would make this a “moral” issue do so only for political purposes to control women. That would be identical to one saying that those that make this about a woman’s choice are doing so in order to control men. The above father is correct in stating his feelings of regret that he did not fight harder for HIS child. I completely agree with you that this is a feeling he needs to make peace with and let go, as does she. But, it was just as much his child as hers, despite whos body the child was in. And although she had a choice to take preventative measures to avoid that decision, he had that choice as well. After all, condoms were around far longer than the pill. Regardless, neither is 100% effective and they could have easily been in the same situation had they made different choices, other than total abstinence.
Whether you choice to abort, put up for adoption, or have a raise a child, you are a mother/father and whichever “choice” you make after the fact will remain with you forever. The existence of a child does not simply disappear with a false illusion of women’s choice.
Honestly, womens rights were threatened way back when God, creation, evolution, whatever, decided that women would be honored the responsibility to carry a child. Once conception happens a woman becomes a mother and a man becomes a father; it is impossible to stand up for the rights of one without stepping on the rights of another.
As for the whole planned parenthood and sexual education, I must agree that this post helped to see the good that has come from an organization that lately we have only read bad about.
Hello Rah Plotts…
No, it’s not identical. You never suffered a history of oppression where women were owned in marriage and legally raped. You have not had to endure a history of misogyny and patriarchal rule as perpetuated by the world’s religions. This is about controlling women. This is about rights to my own body.
The man we are discussing, has the right to express his feelings. He has no rights to make her birth his child. He displayed no responsibility before or after and has regrets. He has the right to support and compassion.
Your responsibility as a man is in choosing the right sexual partner who agrees with your views so if you ever have an unexpected pregnancy you both know what you’ll do in that situation.
Your responsibility does NOT include telling me what my womb is expected to do at any point in my life.
But I thank you for your endorsement of planned parenthood. It is a good post.
What an inspirational post. Thank you for sharing.
Such an honest and truthful post!
Reblogged this on Tabby Ren Elle and commented:
I am unapologetically pro-choice and this is a much needed article by an author I have just discovered, so I am re-blogging for my readers.
Thank you to Libba Bray…
Great post, follow me n reblog this on aku tc ya https://pabriktasjakartaa.wordpress.com/
All teenagers should be this smart , this is a great way of reaching out to teenagers and helping them to make better life choices.
Thank you for sharing. Love seeing support so personal for PP.
Molly
I would be very upset if Planned Parenthood were defunded. I used them a few times for birth control and Plan B (once) before it was available without an Rx.
https://sundriesoflife.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/do-you-love-jewerly/
Access to birth control and proper sex education prevents STD’s and Teen pregnancy. I’m not from Texas, but I think the majority of the Nation understands that abstinence only education really doesn’t work. In fact it only delays sex by a matter of months. When Women are taught properly and empowered, they actually make better(and in formed) decisions on their own! As evidenced by your testimony. I’m against abortion, but all FOR birth control! Good blog post…
Great post libba.. follow me n my this on aku tc ya https://konveksijakartass.wordpress.com/
Great post and I agree with you 100%. I stand by Planned Parenthood because they should by me! ✊🏽
Stood*
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I did not read far into your post.
Send me the hard copy I am out of T.paper.
I was in the same boat you were. The very same. They were there for me when my mother wasn’t. However, I do believe they’re needs to be an investigation done on these allegations. Someone needs to get to the bottom of it. If they have been and were selling fetuses and receiving a profit and not claiming this, this is wrong. If they weren’t, then they have nothing to hide. In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. So, are they hiding any truths behind these videos??? I truly hope they are not true, but we will just have to wait and see.
Innocent in fact, but in the court of Public Opinion?
If those tapes were in fact true, then the court will decide ☺️
Julie, They aren’t selling baby parts. The video was a sham. This has been verified. But the larger point is this: A woman and child should not be considered the property of the father. This is about a woman’s control over her own womb at every stage. You are either for or against controlling women.
They’re not fake. They’ve been “edited”. And it’s not my intention to discredit you or your article. It was a very touching story. However, a man has every right in deciding on whether or not to abort HIS child. It doesn’t take 1 person to make a baby, no matter how hard you try or any way you spin it. That baby is equal parts his and hers.
Those tapes were invented not edited. There is a war on women and there is a moral agenda and you are helping perpetuate it.
It’s not my article, btw. I’m a reader too. And the real issue is about control. Who controls your body. You or everyone else.
It is nobodies business why a woman chooses abortion. Rape and incest are obvious reasons. We don’t need to know or understand her reasons. We need to understand a woman’s full rights as a human being. She should not be reduced to her womb. That should not be required to be a woman’s sole purpose or function.
He’s a sperm donor, it’s not HIS child.
A man doesn’t own the woman. He shouldn’t be able to force her to give birth, regardless.
He should take responsibility and choose his sexual partner wisely in advance of sex, so that they are on the same page if they have an unexpected pregnancy, and will need to decide how they would mutually handle that possibility, as Tabby wrote to a different reader in the thread.
And I know it takes two to make a baby, but never was there a time when there had to be a father to raise a kid. Men historically abandon the family.
Why is it so hard to turn around and look at this perception for the “man”? Us women have so much more rights today than we have in years past. But where are the men’s rights to their unborns? If we really want “equal” rights, then they need to be just that. Equal. Not just a woman’s. What you say is a complete contradiction to that of feminism.
Men are not sperm donors. Now, in some cases they are. But people like you make it extremely tough for the “real” men and it’s not fair. Cases should be on a case by case I feel. But if it weren’t for the woman not being under contraceptive, there should not be any reason to abort. And this is all coming from a pro-choice woman!!!! 😱 we as women have so much coming our way in today’s generation. People like you, who have their hand out, just can’t get enough unless they take over the world. And who is that going to help? Not women, just a tyrant.
No I don’t contradict feminism, Julie.
Many of the first feminists and all the suffragists seemed to see abortion as a way for men or rich people or white people to control poor women and black or latina women, or Native America women etc. And in past history this was sometimes true.
I don’t know what you mean when you say “people like me just have their hand out”… but I’m pretty sure you’re trying to be offensive to poor people. I donate to planned parenthood. Yes I have used them for pap-smears when I was younger and to get condoms. They educated me. I never did get pregnant. So see how that works?
I understand you want fathers to be responsible and have rights. But careful what you fight for, Julie. If you make it so women can’t have abortions legally, you can kiss the rest of your rights goodbye and just say “moo”.
🐄 😉
I’m not sure what that means… are you telling me to read something? Or are you telling me you’re pregnant?
In any case, have a good one Julie. No hard feelings. I would defend your right to choose and or have a baby as with no man or woman interfering. I would do so as a feminist.
Oh I saw your blog title and thought it was a comment above your emoji’s, Julie. sorry for that. I see now you’re just mooing. oh well…LOL. 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed it! You should follow me too and see how un-cow like I will become. 😉
As for the other, I will gladly protest or support whom or what I believe like you and every other American. That’s the beauty of this country. As you already know yourself 😘 good luck out there.
Well, I’m not really calling you a cow… I hope you know that. And I see where you have levels of understanding about why abortion should be legal. Chipping away at planned parenthood isn’t a good plan or a healthy one or a caring one.
I might check your blog out sometime… I’ll wait on the follow. I’m no sheep. Hee hee. 😉
Touche!
And I thought you were! It’s ok tho. And I agree with about PP. I’d really hate to see them go away, however (and not to continue this debate) these videos and their profit needs to be investigated. Over all the system has leaks in it. It’s worrisome. But I am just one voice here. Good luck! And I hope to see you one my page sometime!
Seriously Julie, it has been debunked. And the spin is heavy and intense and political. It has been investigated. The operation rescue people are factional not honest. But you must follow your own heart and mind and I respect that.
Glad you’re using your voice, and thanks for talking. Good luck you too!
This is exactly how I think!
I later saw that it wasn’t your article. I do apologize for that mistake. Lol
No worries, it happens. Peace Julie.
Right!
You really gotta be kidding when you say I’m a mere sperm donor and the resulting kid is not my child. That’s downright the most selfish sentence I ever read this year.
Unless you worked out the details of having a child with the woman you knocked up, before you did so, you’ve got no rights to what she does with her body. She is not required or obligated to be your milk cow nor your hand maiden nor your breeder.
I’m quite serious Camp fire writer. I’m not kidding. Don’t belittle me by assuming I would joke around.
You don’t own her. Pick the right partner and avoid this conflict altogether as well as stay out of other women’s business when it comes to their health, bodies, and choices in breeding.
In fact men are the selfish ones:
“Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”
Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
This however does not pertain to rape, incest cases. Those def are solely up to the woman.
Wow every teenager needs to read this. Sadly in India we do not have such support. And if you dare talk to a doctor you will not only be judged, your parents will know about it before you even leave her clinic.
This is so important for kids. To know is to prevent indeed.
Amazing post. Just started a blog for women and wold love you to contribute! Check it out! Athena Soul.
Head VS Heart | thepinkpages92
https://thepinkpages92.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/head-vs-heart/
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Wonderful post! While I have only visited Planned Parenthood for information I was having a hard time obtaining from my regular doctor, I fully support them for all that they do and for helping women everywhere to take control of their bodies and health.
Reblogged this on Mon site officiel / My official website.
thank you
Fantastic blog
Good luck to you
——————————–
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This is wonderful. You hit it on the head what they do. They empower us to make informative choices for ourselves.
I like how you explained about a woman’s body really is looked at. Wonderful job.
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Reblogged this on sakshamchopra3blog.
Great post!
Hey this is an awesome write… just loved your blog..
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Love,
Anshul
I ge some of your points: it sucks to be shamed and pigeon-holed by your neighbors. got that! It leaves me with this question: How do we build a similar excitement and anticipation about parenting as we do about exploring sex? It’s sad to me that most guys i work with between 20-30 view fatherhood as a burden and drag. It’s like a whole generation hasn’t seen anything about being a father they get excited about. That hurts!
Reblogged this on djreadh and commented:
Nice
Love the post. Thanks for sharing
Tnx too
I love your post. It’s great!
Very good post. Sometimes you think your ready, but your really not!
Well said.
Well articulated.
You aren’t fair? Nothing is lost! Being *DUSKY* is way more beautiful! | thepinkpages92
https://thepinkpages92.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/you-arent-fair-nothing-is-lost-being-dusky-is-beautiful-too-2/
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It was beautifull post
It’s such a great article, you said exactly what I’ve been thinking for so long: Women owning their bodies 💪🏻
Thanks for posting. I relate to the idea of feeling your body is not quite your own. I never liked clinics. In the UK it’s called “Family Planning” – different name but same euphemism.
I saw a shirt for $97. I borrowed $50 from mom and $50 from dad. I bought the shirt with $3 of change. I gave $1 to mom, $1 to dad, and kept $1 for myself. Now I owe my mom $49 and my dad $49. $49+ $49=$98+my $1=$99. Where did the other $1 go?
https://sunnyflyofficial.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/resolved-this/
Reblogged this on wtcbank.
Excellent story, told way better than I could have said it. If the link allows, I intend to repost on facebook due to the timeliness of this topic. Thank you for sharing your thoughts so eloquently.
Read my blooog
Great article! Do you think we could share this great piece of writing on our website, glopers.org? I think there are many women out there who would really appreciate a story like this! It would be a great honor!
This is amazing! Care to have a look at my new baby post? Soph x
Planned Parenthood to me is like Military Intelligence, the words don’t mix well together! Many children are born without a plan to both wed and unwed women. Many children are born when birth control is in fact being practiced. I often wonder could God or our Creator have something to do with it? I enjoyed this read very much and my 2 cents are not for or against Planned Parenthood but to shed light on another issue GREED! And to challenge your thinking. I don’t think any one agrees to the selling of human body parts. So how can an organization that brought value to your life do that? What would make them even think of such a thing? The betterment of humanity? Promotion of planned parenthood? Advancement of medical technology? The answer is horribly obvious. MONEY!
The tragedy lies in how this blatant act of greed tarnished what apparently is a very much needed organization. I must admit that abortion when the fetus has arms, legs, moves and breathes coupled with the selling of baby parts makes me question the value of Planned Parenthood, the organization, not the concept. How many murdered children and how many bucks for body parts does it take to justify sex education classes and birth control pills?
Please understand this is not a bash Planned Parenthood, the organization or the concept, reply but just my thoughts to challange any one who reads this to stop and look beyond their own experience. Think of the whole instead of just one piece. Think of the family of man instead of just one man.
To close, your parents were right (and your decision not “to do it” was to) and the old fashioned Biblical based sex with ONLY ONE if practiced would eliminate the entire issue!
TR,
A woman and child should not be considered the property of the father. This is about a woman’s control over her own womb at every stage of her life. You are either for or against controlling women.
Thank you for your feedback although I have no clue what your trying to say.
TR, God the Creator doesn’t want you explaining planned parenthood or birth control to people because you aren’t in a position of authority to do so. You do not need to fear birth control. You do not need to worry about the effectiveness of it. Nothing is 100% in life and that doesn’t mean we don’t do our best.
Respectfully, a woman’s body is none of your business. Your body is your business.
Does this help “clue” you in? Being in support of planned parenthood includes breast exams, pap-smears, Hep C tests, and tests for STDs… so it’s good to support women’s health. The birth-control and the abortions are to be left up to the individual women and their doctors. You and God the Creator can back off.
Does that help “clue” you in?
I sure hope so. So, you’re welcome for the feedback. And peace to you.
Have fun with the baseball cards. My Giants are officially out of the game, in terms of no world series for us, so I hope whoever you’re rooting for has better success.
I wanted to respond but not lightly because I’m not against birth control nor abortion and I love the female body, all of it. I have known cases where a baby was born in spite of birth cotrol. My 3rd son was conceived while my wife was on the pill and the Doctor freaked us out with all the problems he may be born with. We decided on taking our chances and not only is he normal, he’s very athletic, intelligent and a follower of Christ who is making a difference in the lives of many. Abortion was presented to us as an option and that I’m against. A woman or any human being is responsible first and foremost for themselves. They can believe,act and choose as they feel. It’s individual choice and it may not be a choice I would take or approve but it’s none of my business and I have absolutely no right to judge only help.
And I hope this helps
You’re not “helping” me with your hope. I know you’d prefer to control women’s bodies and are in pain that it is not possible.
You’re pretending to not judge. Christians can be so full of shit about themselves. You don’t judge you discern blah blah blah.
That you are NOT against abortion or birth control or individual choice is good. So just say it. In reality and for your own personal reasons, you are prochoice.
How is my favorite man hater today?
You’ll have to go ask a “man-hater” that question you fool.
This is a serious conversation TR.
Not a place for you to pick fights.
You have told me your fetishes, quite inappropriately. I understand you crave all women but must obey laws and this frustrates you.
we are both pro choice. We have different reasons for being so.
I realize you are attracted to me even in your professed repulsion to me as you continue to seek conflict, but You have a WIFE, you said…so go tend to her needs and desires now.
I don’t want you.
It was a joke. Nothing more. I’m sorry and there are a million blogs to move on to. You take care of yourself and I had no intention of fighting. Life’s to short. Have fun
TR this is the last time I am going to speak to you, but hear me:
No, you were not “joking”. You got caught up in your own bad behavior and now you are minimizing it.
Don’t tell me life is short.
YOU need to STOP being a part of RAPE CULTURE, where stupid men think they can laugh about women as their sex objects and fantasies and piece of meat to control.
We are your equal counter parts. In your case, we are superior.
Your wife deserves better.
You were more polite to David… who spoke up on my behalf because you respect men, not women.
So take your god the creator bullshit and go straight to hell.
If I see you being a dick on other blogs, prepare for some “negative” and not “fun” door prizes. Women are not your floor-mats.
Good friends are hard to find as you told Tabby, FOR YOU. because you don’t know how to be one.
by the way TR… you’re the one picking fights. Your intention to come at me and call it “a joking” needs to be corrected so you don’t keep fucking up.
We move on when you can pass the mustard. If you transgress…I will correct you.
This isn’t about “fun”.
This is about every woman’s rights over her own body and you need to get off of me. Capeche?
If a vote were taken and thank God one’s not. I would have to admit to being for controlling women but I have painfully learned that’s not possible. I do agree with you and hope you have a very Happy holiday season.
It’s painful to you that you can’t control women? Fuck man, get over yourself.
Hey TR, stop like buttoning Tabby and David and me. We don’t care if you are grateful, if you understood, if you learned anything, or if you approve. GO AWAY. DON’T be a dumb ass anymore. You made your sexist jokes. And we know you’re pro choice and christian and married. No do something that does not require our attention. Be constructive. If there is snow where you live, shovel the sidewalk for your mail-man or woman. Something that doesn’t require you to lust after women’s bodies and resent the laws preferable. And STOP bugging us. We don’t like you. We wish you peace and we wish you well. But we don’t like you.
TR, does your wife know you feel “If a vote were taken and thank God one’s not. I would have to admit to being for controlling women but I have painfully learned that’s not possible.”
Does she know how painful it is for you not to control women? Does your wife know that you hate women this much?
Does she know you tell other women on line: “I love the female body, all of it.”????
I noticed you called Katherine a man hater. To generalize this about her is where you are not reasoned.
Now we can take from your own words that you do in fact wish to control all women’s bodies and find pain in restraint.
Katherine is advocating not to control men… but to control her own body and choices. She’s not asking for a man’s permission. She’s not waiting around for your approval. A prochoice person fights for your right to have babies or not to. With no coercion. The details are private. It’s between the woman, her doctor, and if she is religious her god.
You’ve brought god heavily into this. You are insisting on a moral point of view.
Katherine is not saying how people should believe. She is not saying to control or hate men.
The man hater was a joke. I’m sorry the emotions around this are incredibly negative and I’ve agreeded with much she said. I’m sorry
Okay, thank you for not joking about this any longer, T.R.. We all appreciate it. Objectifying women isn’t funny and then telling them they are man-haters because you lost your way isn’t a good joke. The author Libba Bray used humor to discuss planned parenthood, but she’s a professional writer, and did so with an absolutely respectful and humane intention.
Agreeing with what she said is a start. Respecting her as a human being with feelings means you won’t want to make casual jokes about women’s bodies to women or men. And when other men do it, you’ll say hey buddy, not cool. You’ll think of your own wife as your friend and not take who she is for granted.
peace
Thanks again
Okay TR, I understand we are being civil and this is good on a certain level. But manners don’t mean anything if you keep disturbing my friend Tabby. Please stop bothering Tabby now. We’ve all made it clear where we stand. You don’t need to flirt with women on a pro-choice blog. It’s important for you to go find something constructive to work on, as a “christian” man. Or you are betraying your faith and causing more bad feelings about christians in the world. You don’t owe me gratitude on this site. Since you don’t respect Katherine and Tabby and you can’t see how your behavior is inappropriate, or how your input wasn’t helpful to anyone including you, I want you to refrain from commenting to any of us again.
I’m too busy to coach you one on one kid, but good luck.
Huh?
Howdy T.R.
I am friend of Katherine’s…
And you being morally indignant is a bluff.
Slinging the “man-hater” phrase about a planned parenthood article begs to question do you understand the meaning of “backlash”?
You do know that people recently got murdered at a planned parenthood clinic right?
Here are some tunes to keep you honest:
https://youtu.be/PhW7FLo6peU
https://youtu.be/7mO3nseAIVc
It was all in jest, and to her, not you or planned Parenthood. Thank you for your information and God bless your courage for taking a stance. Rare in America today. Happy Holidays
TR, saying it was “all in jest” is a cop out.
You’re a christian asshole.
You’re not tempering me or fooling me. Watch your step.
Thank you and may 2016 be your best year ever! Until next year of course!
Yeah, give my best to your wife, and you can rot in hell, TR.
One more thing. Good friends are hard to come by.
Hey TR, stop like buttoning Tabby and David and me. We don’t care if you are grateful, if you understood, if you learned anything, or if you approve. GO AWAY. DON’T be a dumb ass anymore. You made your sexist jokes. And we know you’re pro choice and christian and married. No do something that does not require our attention. Be constructive. If there is snow where you live, shovel the sidewalk for your mail-man or woman. Something that doesn’t require you to lust after women’s bodies and resent the laws preferable. And STOP bugging us. We don’t like you. We wish you peace and we wish you well. But we don’t like you.
I asked you to stop and you did it again. You’re a troll and you don’t belong harassing me. Grow up now.
Reblogged this on cwa115's Blog.
Not at all. The pain was my pain. I got hurt thinking I could control women. Your post scream with pain. I wonder what your were like before you became so bitter?
A great story and worth sharing. Reblogging on atheavensgate.com
Reblogged this on At Heaven's Gate.
You’re such an amazing writer
Love this post!
Thank you for posting this!
Thank you so much for this!
YAASS! I love this. I relied on planned parenthood as a pregnant 22 year old with no money or resources! They really are great help when you have no clue what to do or who to talk to!
I wish you had gone into the real questions surrounding planned parenthood. Such as the illegality of altering abortions, performing late term abortions, and making a profit from selling baby parts. I also wish you would have discussed the idea of whether a baby is a baby or a fetus, whether it is alive, etc. Surely those questions ran through your head. I appreciate the fact that you had a nice person help you get through a difficult situation. But that’s largely irrelevant. The question is not how nice someone is or how helpful, but whether the organization they are a part of is breaking the law.
Skinbark,
A woman and child should not be considered the property of the father. This is about a woman’s control over her own womb at every stage of her life and there are no questions surrounding that. You are either for or against controlling women.
You’ve created a very convenient dichotomy. I wonder, however, whether their are other aspects of control and freedom you have not mentioned. For instance, is the child you speak of property? Is it, as you call it, a child when living in the womb? As you can see, there are indeed questions, not over the rights to a womb but the rights of who is living there.
I’m not speaking about children. I am telling you that it’s my womb and you have no say in the matter. Period. You don’t get to hold women hostage to their bodies. It’s none of your business if a woman gets an abortion. If you are a woman, it’s your business if you get one. That’s all.
Yes, you are speaking about children. You said “child.” If by hold women hostage to their bodies you mean hold responsibility for the child inside the womb, then of course. In this case you will have to look sympathetically toward my point of view. If I consider the life in the womb to be a separate entity as science would say then you surely can understand that I would seek to advocate for that life as much as I would advocate for any life. If, however, you do not see the life inside the womb as a separate entity with separated rights then of course I would whole hearted agree with you. It would be none of my business how a woman or man deals with their own spleen, appendix, or whatever. But since I see if as a life and am convicted as such can you not see how I would be in anguish over its death?
I’m not arguing with you skinbark. I understand your position.
What it comes down to is you want to control women. I get it. And you’re using abortion as the way to do it because it’s an easy way to guilt and shame women. You are making it political.
I see the pain and anguish of death in the wars man is perpetuating and in the shootings at schools. Yet men will not give up their guns. So hogwash on you all pretending to care about children.
I guess if you don’t trust my motivations then that would seriously hamper our conversation. But to be clear and for the future, when you assign your own motivations to my beliefs and passions, especially when they are negative and nefarious, you are in essence seeking to manipulate and control the argument into your favor, let alone making harsh generalizations and judgments. Are those not the very things you are purporting to be against?
Skinbark, I don’t need to trust you. You’ve been clear. You want to control women’s wombs.
I am speaking here with you so women and men understand clearly how not to argue with your political agenda and to stick to the facts. A woman’s body is her own. No man or another woman should be allowed to make a woman give birth. It’s not a woman’t duty.
No one likes abortion.
I am speaking here with you to show quite clearly how easy it is for someone to ignore the other side of the argument,to cast judgment, to imply harsh motivation, to infer a political agenda, and to generally shut out any and all argument which does not support a limited, unscientific viewpoint in which the actual issues are veiled behind talking points and straw man statements. Perhaps an easier way for you to have responded would be to say “you’re wrong and I don’t care what you think because you will always be wrong no matter what do long as you disagree with me.”
Nope. It’s not ignoring your opinion. I’ve heard it. And after a history of oppressive rule and governing by men in religion and whatnot, it’s you who doesn’t listen and are attempting to take me backwards.
I am the owner of my womb. Keep your hands off it and your thoughts to yourself, sir. Control your own penis. Be responsible for it.
Men choose if they want to be with their kids. They don’t have to be. They go to work, or to war, or just leave, or have affairs and they don’t have to take care of kids. They choose to.
A woman should be afforded the same control over her body and mobility. I’m not asking for your permission and I’m telling you. It’s not your business. A woman’s body is her own. There is no division between us. I support prevention and I think abortion is traumatic physically and emotionally and so should be considered seriously. I love babies too. We are only clarifying your rights over my body. That’s all.
You do realize women work, go to war, and and leave right? The bottom line is men and women both have responsibilities, especially when it comes to helpless young lives.
Oh hello again skinbark, really, you want to keep going with me? If so, don’t be patronizing. Women aren’t even getting equal pay yet. Don’t be foolish with me. I’m fully aware women are capable. Equity has not been achieved however and as you chip away at planned parent hood and long to control my womb, you are attempting to to keep it inequitable. You want to limit access and mobility and obstruct education by attacking planned parenthood.
You don’t help young lives by simply birthing them.
Congratulations on being able to speak in talking points. You’re right. I don’t need to keep talking to you. I can finish this conversation by talking to memes. Thank you for your thoughtful arguments and respectful discourse.
You’re speaking in the memes. I a woman fighting for her fucking life. You don’t understand at all what it’s like to be a woman, skinbark. But yeah, I have to go to work… so It’s a good time for us to part ways.
If you want to convince women not to have abortions, you need to get to know them and care about them… then they will have conversations and not feel your authoritarian political moral agenda and you might find out no one wants to have abortions. They are necessary sometimes.
And Skinbark, there is never a “convenient dichotomy” when I discuss abortion. There is either my rights as a woman and as an equal human being or my acceptance as being property of the state. Women are done being chattel.
Planned Parenthood does more to prevent the need for abortion than any other organization. No one wants an abortion. Planned Parenthood is an invaluable resource for preventing abortion. Everyone who supports Planned Parenthood would love to see an end to unplanned pregnancy, thus the name Planned Parenthood.
That’s entirely beside the point.
Unplanned pregnancy is the root cause of all the issues you are concerned about. Ending unplanned pregnancy is the only answer to this issue.
I love how you are telling me the root cause of all my issues. That’s amazing. So lets say I told you that the NRA is amazing at prevention of gun death through gun safety, awareness, and general education. Planned intelligent gun use, in other words. Then lets say some videos came out showing NRA members selling guns secretly under the radar. Well, you might say, that means they should go to jail. But, I say, look at all the good they do for prevention. That’s the bottom line. Gun safety! If we have gun safety that’s the answer to all your questions so we have to ignore those silly videos that are most likely highly and deceptively edited anyway.
I get it. But gun safety and gun violence are different. What are we going to do about gun violence?
We are going to let the NRA teach gun responsibility? But to be perfectly honest about gun violence I think a part of it would be revitalizing mental health and the criminal justice system. That’s an easy thing to say but a daunting task. You will probably disagree with this next part but I think we need to start letting cops have guns on campuses at the very least. There isn’t an easy answer
A similar question on your side would be, how do we prevent rape?
Same, keep praying for a peaceful world.
Well, peace is coming. Have you read the book of Revelation? A lot of worse stuff coming but with peace in the end for those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ. Until then I think we should live out peace daily as it has been given. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Thanks so much for your frank and socially responsible post.
Thank you for sharing this great story! 🙂 Have an amazing day!
A finely penned piece of prose, no sand between the words spoken from the heart.
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Great blog. Its really necessary to have the information about your body and awareness of the right time to do this especially for the young girls who are often ditched. Well written!
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Outstanding article! Love the references to LoTR! Completely agree with the alternately desire and objectify women’s bodies bit. People are all hypocrites (we all are, just some more than others).
You agree with TR about what, Brandon? Because I’m not appreciating the sexual harassment I’m receiving form him on line, or that you are helping that on a site about women’s reproductive rights.
Hey there I stand by planned Parenthood as well because I wasn’t smart and my first time was at 16 as well but I didn’t have birth control that first time. My parents were against it. So there was only one thing to do. Walk to planned Parenthood a mile down the road from school and get the morning after pill. I stand by them 100%.
This was very well-written. I stand with Planned Parenthood too. Not because of any experiences with them, but simply because I recognize their value. I’m glad they were able to give you the information and the birth control you needed (Even if you didn’t end up using it). Thank you for standing up/with them.
Great post
Good
Nicely put up article.sex education is a must….
Without my mum getting an abortion, I would never have been born. In fact, my mother might have died, leaving my father a widow and my brother an orphan and me unborn.
Pro-lifers would argue my mother should have scarified her own life for a child, that the doctors told her, would not have been able to live more than a couple of days after birth.
Abortion doesn’t kill, it saves.
You had some humorous elements in this piece that made it enjoyable to read. Question, you have probably been asked already, I haven’t been able to read all your comments – however, I’m sure you have been asked if you’re a fan of Lord of the Rings 🙂 ( so many references )
Great post 😊
I agree, young women often need that support to make decisions for themselves. What a great group that’s out there for us
Thank you for sharing your story. Everyone just wants to link abortion to planned parenthood and there is so much more they do.
Love your article and absolutely agree. I think most people, regardless of political leanings, wish teenagers would wait until they grew up to have sex. But like it or not, it’s gonna happen, and a lack of access to birth control isn’t going to stop it.
Believing proper sex education causes teenage pregnancy is like believing CPR classes cause heart attacks.
Hey Im from Merced and we have one here i get HIV tested often.
YES. I had a similar experience. No money and too afraid to ask my pediatrician or parents I went to Planned Parenthood. They gave me a gynecological exam and 5 months worth of pills that I hid in my room. I went back for my free pills until they weren’t allowed to distribute pills at the office anymore. THEN, they helped me fill out state paperwork so I could continue to get my pills at the pharmacy for free. They helped me with my paperwork for 5 years, when my parents health insurance finally let me get pills for free (and I told my parents because, Christ I was 22). Now I think about the other 17 y/o’s who could be shy and anxious just like me. Where will she get her first pack of pills? Great post, great support!
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Planned Parenthood makes a profit off abortions: FACT
Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthpod was a eugenicist: FACT
In 1926 Sanger spoke at a. meeting hosted by a Women’s branch of the Klu Klux Clan: FACT
Sanger said “birth control is more or less weeding out the unfit”:FACT
PP gives an award in honor of Margaret Sanger:FACT
The law PROHIBITS the trafficking of human fetal tissue: FACT
PP sells human. fetal tissue: FACT
PP endorses sadomasichism and BDM: FACT
PP performs late te abortions:FACat
Kelsey D. you’re actually providing a very narrow view and not a good factual one. So here ya go:
(apologies to the author Libba Bray for the length of these excerpts)
“Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”
Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
The following is an exclusive excerpt from the “Abortion” chapter of Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century. For complete information and resources, we recommend that you consult the chapter and the book in its entirety.
HISTORY OF ABORTION
Over several centuries and in different cultures, there is a rich history of women helping each other to abort. Until the late 1800s, women healers in Western Europe and the U.S. provided abortions and trained other women to do so, without legal prohibitions.
The State didn’t prohibit abortion until the 19th century, nor did the Church lead in this new repression. In 1803, Britain first passed antiabortion laws, which then became stricter throughout the century. The U.S. followed as individual states began to outlaw abortion. By 1880, most abortions were illegal in the U.S., except those “necessary to save the life of the woman.” But the tradition of women’s right to early abortion was rooted in U.S. society by then; abortionists continued to practice openly with public support, and juries refused to convict them.
Abortion became a crime and a sin for several reasons. A trend of humanitarian reform in the mid-19th century broadened liberal support for criminalization, because at that time abortion was a dangerous procedure done with crude methods, few antiseptics, and high mortality rates. But this alone cannot explain the attack on abortion. For instance, other risky surgical techniques were considered necessary for people’s health and welfare and were not prohibited. “Protecting” women from the dangers of abortion was actually meant to control them and restrict them to their traditional child-bearing role. Antiabortion legislation was part of an antifeminist backlash to the growing movements for suffrage, voluntary motherhood, and other women’s rights in the 19th century. *For more information, see Linda Gordon’s Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
At the same time, male doctors were tightening their control over the medical profession. Doctors considered midwives, who attended births and performed abortions as part of their regular practice, a threat to their own economic and social power. The medical establishment actively took up the antiabortion cause in the second half of the 19th century as part of its effort to eliminate midwives.
Finally, with the declining birth rate among whites in the late 1800s, the U.S. government and the eugenics movement warned against the danger of “race suicide” and urged white, native-born women to reproduce. Budding industrial capitalism relied on women to be unpaid household workers, low-paid menial workers, reproducers, and socializers of the next generation of workers. Without legal abortion, women found it more difficult to resist the limitations of these roles.
Then, as now, making abortion illegal neither eliminated the need for abortion nor prevented its practice. In the 1890s, doctors estimated that there were two million abortions a year in the U.S. (compared with one and a half million today). Women who are determined not to carry an unwanted pregnancy have always found some way to try to abort. All too often, they have resorted to dangerous, sometimes deadly methods, such as inserting knitting needles or coat hangers into the vagina and uterus, douching with dangerous solutions like lye, or swallowing strong drugs or chemicals. The coat hanger has become a symbol of the desperation of millions of women who have risked death to end a pregnancy. When these attempts harmed them, it was hard for women to obtain medical treatment; when these methods failed, women still had to find an abortionist.
Illegal Abortion
Many of us do not know what it was like to need an abortion before legalization. Women who could afford to pay skilled doctors or go to another country had the safest and easiest abortions. Most women found it difficult if not impossible to arrange and pay for abortions in medical settings.
With one exception, the doctors whom I asked for an abortion treated me with contempt, their attitudes ranging from hostile to insulting. One said to me, “You tramps like to break the rules, but when you get caught you all come crawling for help in the same way.”
The secret world of illegal abortion was mostly frightening and expensive. Although there were skilled and dedicated laywomen and doctors who performed safe, illegal abortions, most illegal abortionists, doctors, and those who claimed to be doctors cared only about being well rewarded for their trouble. In the 1960s, abortionists often turned women away if they could not pay $1,000 or more in cash. Some male abortionists insisted on having sexual relations before the abortion.
Abortionists emphasized speed and their own protection. They often didn’t use anesthesia because it took too long for women to recover, and they wanted women out of the office as quickly as possible. Some abortionists were rough and sadistic. Almost no one took adequate precautions against hemorrhage or infection.
Typically, the abortionist would forbid the woman to contact him or her again. Often she wouldn’t know his or her real name. If a complication occurred, harassment by the law was a frightening possibility. The need for secrecy isolated women having abortions and those providing them.
In the 1950s, about a million illegal abortions a year were performed in the U.S., and over a thousand women died each year as a result. Women who were victims of botched or unsanitary abortions came in desperation to hospital emergency wards, where some died of widespread abdominal infections. Many women who recovered from such infections found themselves sterile or chronically and painfully ill. The enormous emotional stress often lasted a long time.
Poor women and women of color ran the greatest risks with illegal abortions. In 1969, 75% of the women who died from abortions (most of them illegal) were women of color. Of all legal abortions in that year, 90% were performed on white private patients.
The Push for Legal Abortion
In the 1960s, inspired by the civil rights and antiwar movements, women began to fight more actively for their rights. The fast-growing women’s movement took the taboo subject of abortion to the public. Rage, pain, and fear burst out in demonstrations and speakouts as women burdened by years of secrecy got up in front of strangers to talk about their illegal abortions. Women marched and rallied and lobbied for abortion on demand. Civil liberties groups and liberal clergy joined in these efforts to support women.
Reform came gradually. A few states liberalized abortion laws, allowing women abortions in certain circumstances (e.g., pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, being under 15 years of age) but leaving the decision up to doctors and hospitals. Costs were still high and few women actually benefited.
In 1970, New York State went further, with a law that allowed abortion on demand through the 24th week from the LMP if it was done in a medical facility by a doctor. A few other states passed similar laws. Women who could afford it flocked to the few places where abortions were legal. Feminist networks offered support, loans, and referrals and fought to keep prices down. But for every woman who managed to get to New York, many others with limited financial resources or mobility did not. Illegal abortion was still common. The fight continued; several cases before the Supreme Court urged the repeal of all restrictive state laws.
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the famous Roe v. Wade decision, stated that the “right of privacy…founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty…is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The Court held that through the end of the first trimester of pregnancy, only a pregnant woman and her doctor have the legal right to make the decision about an abortion. States can restrict second-trimester abortions only in the interest of the woman’s safety. Protection of a “viable fetus” (able to survive outside the womb) is allowed only during the third trimester. If a pregnant woman’s life or health is endangered, she cannot be forced to continue the pregnancy.
Abortion After Legalization
Though Roe v. Wade left a lot of power to doctors and to government, it was an important victory for women. Although the decision did not guarantee that women would be able to get abortions when they wanted to, legalization and the growing consciousness of women’s needs brought better, safer abortion services. For the women who had access to legal abortions, severe infections, fever, and hemorrhaging from illegal or self- induced abortions became a thing of the past. Women health care workers improved their abortion techniques. Some commercial clinics hired feminist abortion activists to do counseling. Local women’s groups set up public referral services, and women in some areas organized women-controlled nonprofit abortion facilities. These efforts turned out to be just the beginning of a longer struggle to preserve legal abortion and to make it accessible to all women.
Although legalization greatly lowered the cost of abortion, it still left millions of women in the U.S., especially women of color and young, rural women, and/or women with low incomes, without access to safe, affordable abortions. State regulations and funding have varied widely, and second-trimester abortions are costly. Even when federal Medicaid funds paid for abortions, fewer than 20% of all public county and city hospitals actually provided them. This meant that about 40% of U.S. women never benefited from liberalized abortion laws.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, feminist health centers around the country provided low-cost abortions that emphasized quality of care, and they maintained political involvement in the reproductive rights movement. Competition from other abortion providers, harassment by the IRS, and a profit- oriented economy made their survival difficult. By the early 1990s, only 20 to 30 of these centers remained.
Eroding Abortion Rights:
After Roe v. Wade
When the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, the antiabortion forces, led initially by the Catholic Church hierarchy, began a serious mobilization using a variety of political tactics including pastoral plans, political lobbying, campaigning, public relations, papal encyclicals, and picketing abortion clinics. The Church hierarchy does not truly represent the views of U.S. Catholics on this issue or the practice of Catholic women, who have abortions at a rate slightly higher than the national average for all women.
Other religious groups, like the Mormons and some representatives of Jewish orthodoxy, have traditionally opposed abortion. In the 1980s, rapidly growing fundamentalist Christian groups, which overlap with the New Right and “right- to-life” organizations, were among the most visible boosters of the antiabortion movement. These antiabortion groups talk as if all truly religious and moral people disapprove of abortion. This is not true now and never has been.
The long-range goal of the antiabortion movement is to outlaw abortion. Their short-range strategy has been to attack access to abortion, and they have had successes. The most vulnerable women–young women; women with low incomes, of whom a disproportionate number are women of color; all women who depend on the government for their health care–have borne the brunt of these attacks on abortion rights.
The antiabortion movement’s first victory, a major setback to abortion rights, came in July 1976, when Congress passed the Hyde Amendment banning Medicaid funding for abortion unless a woman’s life was in danger. Following the federal government, many states stopped funding “medically unnecessary” abortions. The result was immediate in terms of harm and discrimination against women living in poverty. In October 1977, Rosie Jimeaanez, a Texas woman, died from an illegal abortion in Mexico, after Texas stopped funding Medicaid abortions.
It is impossible to count the number of women who have been harmed by the Hyde Amendment, but before Hyde, one-third of all abortions were Medicaid funded: 294,000 women per year. (Another 133,000 Medicaid-eligible women who needed abortions were unable to gain access to public funding for the procedure.) Without state funding, many women with unwanted pregnancies are forced to have babies, be sterilized, or have abortions using money needed for food, rent, clothing, and other necessities.
Although a broad spectrum of groups fought against the Hyde Amendment, countering this attack on women who lack financial resources was not a priority of the pro-choice movement. There was no mass mobilization or public outcry. In the long run, this hurt the pro-choice movement, as the attack on Medicaid funding was the first victory in the antiabortion movement’s campaign to deny access to abortion for all women.
Young women’s rights have been a particular target of the antiabortion movement. About 40% of the one million teens who become pregnant annually choose abortion. Parental involvement laws, requiring that minors seeking abortions either notify their parents or receive parental consent, affect millions of young women. As of early 1997, 35 states have these laws; 23 states enforce them. In some states, a physician is required to notify at least one parent either in person, by phone, or in writing. Health care providers face loss of license and sometimes criminal penalties for failure to comply.
Antiabortion forces have also used illegal and increasingly violent tactics, including harassment, terrorism, violence, and murder. Since the early 1980s, clinics and providers have been targets of violence. Over 80% of all abortion providers have been picketed or seriously harassed. Doctors and other workers have been the object of death threats, and clinics have been subject to chemical attacks (for example, butyric acid), arson, bomb threats, invasions, and blockades. In the late 1980s, a group called Operation Rescue initiated a strategy of civil disobedience by blockading clinic entrances and getting arrested. There were thousands of arrests nationwide as clinics increasingly became political battlefields.
In the 1990s, antiabortionists increasingly turned to harassment of individual doctors and their families, picketing their homes, following them, and circulating “Wanted” posters. Over 200 clinics have been bombed. After 1992, the violence became deadly. The murder of two doctors and an escort at a clinic in Pensacola, Florida, was followed by the murder of two women receptionists at clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts. A health care provider spoke about the impact of the violence:
The fear of violence has become part of the lives of every abortion provider in the country. As doctors, we are being warned not to open big envelopes with no return addresses in case a mail bomb is enclosed. I know colleagues who have had their homes picketed and their children threatened. Some wear bullet-proof vests and have remote starters for their cars. Even going to work and facing the disapproving looks from co-workers–isolation and marginalization from colleagues is part of it.
The antiabortion movement continues to mount new campaigns on many fronts. Most recently, it has aggressively put out the idea that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. In January 1997, the results of a Danish study, the largest to date (involving one and a half million women), showed that there is no connection.s3 Unlike previous studies, this one did not rely on interviews and women’s reports but instead used data obtained from population registries about both abortion and breast cancer. Despite the lack of medical evidence and the fact that the scientific community does not recognize any link, the antiabortion movement continues to stir up fears about abortion and breast cancer.
Legal but Out of Reach for Many Women
We have learned that legalization is not enough to ensure that abortions will be available to all women who want and need them. In addition to a lack of facilities and trained providers, burdensome legal restrictions, including parental consent or notification laws for minors and mandatory waiting periods, create significant obstacles. A minor who has been refused consent by a parent may have to go through an intimidating and time-consuming judicial hearing. Mandatory waiting periods may require a woman to miss extra days of work because she must go to the clinic not once, but twice, to obtain an abortion. If travel is required, this can make the whole procedure unaffordable. In other words, for millions of women, youth, race, and economic circumstances together with the lack of accessible services–especially for later abortions–translate into daunting barriers, forcing some women to resort to unsafe and illegal abortions and self-abortions.
WEAKENING THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION FOR ABORTION
When in 1980 the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde Amendment, it began eroding the constitutional protection for abortion rights. Since then, there have been other severe blows. In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Court opened the door to new state restrictions on abortion. In Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), the Court upheld one of the strictest parental notification laws in the country.
These trends were further codified in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 decision upholding a highly restrictive Pennsylvania law that included mandatory waiting periods and mandatory biased counseling. Two frightening themes emerged in the Casey decision. First, the Court sanctioned the view that government may regulate the health care of pregnant women to protect fetal life from the moment of conception so long as it does not “unduly burden” access to an abortion. Second, the Court showed little concern for the severe impact of state restrictions on women with few financial resources.
In the aftermath of Casey, many states have passed similar restrictions, which have the effect of limiting access to abortion, especially for women with low incomes, teenage women, and women of color.
These infringements on abortion access have curtailed the abortion rights of millions of women. In the face of the unrelenting efforts of the antiabortion movement, those of us who believe that women should make their own reproductive decisions will have to become involved in the ongoing struggle to preserve and expand abortion rights.
REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM VS. POPULATION CONTROL
While most women’s health groups see the fight for abortion rights in the context of defending the rights of all women to make their own decisions about reproduction, not all advocates of abortion rights share this understanding. Some view legal abortion and contraception as tools of population control.
Advocates of population control blame overpopulation for a range of problems, from global poverty to ethnic conflict and environmental degradation. Historically, this type of thinking has led to a range of coercive fertility control policies that target Third World women. These include sterilization without a woman’s knowledge or consent; the use of economic incentives to “encourage” sterilization, a practice that undermines the very notion of reproductive choice; the distribution and sometimes coercive or unsafe use of contraceptive methods, often without appropriate information; the denial of abortion services; and sometimes coercive abortion. For example, HIV-positive women in the U.S. (who are overwhelmingly women of color) are often pressured to have abortions, though only 20 to 25% of their children will be HIV-positive and new treatments during pregnancy have reduced the likelihood even further.
Women with few economic resources, especially women of color in the U.S. and throughout the world, have been the primary targets of population control policies. For example, although abortion has become increasingly less accessible in the U.S., sterilization remains all too available for women of color. The federal government stopped funding abortions in 1977, but it continues to pay for sterilizations. During the 1970s, women’s health activists exposed various forms of sterilization abuse (see section on sterilization in chapter 13, Birth Control). Since the 1980s, advocates have fought against new policies that coerce women with low incomes into using Norplant, a long-term hormonal contraceptive.
In the Third World, in addition to the widespread unavailability of desired contraceptives, there is a long history of coercive fertility control, primarily funded and inspired by developed countries, especially the U.S. (see chapter 26, The Global Politics of Women and Health, for the international dimensions of population control).
The right to abortion is part of every woman’s right to control her reproductive choices and her own life. We must reject all efforts to coerce women’s reproductive decisions. The goals of reproductive rights activists must encompass the right to have children as well as the right not to.
ABORTION ACCESS IN THE U.S.
It is conservatively estimated that one in five Medicaid-eligible women who want an abortion cannot obtain one.
In the U.S., 84% of all counties have no abortion services; of rural counties, 95% have no services.
Nine in ten abortion providers are located in metropolitan areas.
Only 17 states fund abortions.
Only 12% of OB/GYN residency programs train in first-trimester abortions; only 7% in second-trimester abortions.
Abortion is the most common OB/GYN surgical procedure; yet, almost half of graduating OB/GYN residents have never performed a first-trimester abortion.
Thirty-nine states have parental involvement laws requiring minors to notify and/or obtain the consent of their parents in order to obtain an abortion.
Twenty-one states require state-directed counseling before a woman may obtain an abortion. (This is often called “informed consent”; some critics call it a “biased information requirement.”)
Many states require women seeking abortions to receive scripted lectures on fetal development, prenatal care, and adoption.
Twelve states currently enforce mandatory waiting periods following state- directed counseling; this can result in long delays and higher costs.
(Seven more states have delay laws which are enjoined–i.e., not enforced due to court action at the federal or state level.)
Note: for sources on these statistics, please consult the book’s notes at the end of this chapter.
ABORTION WORLDWIDE
Unsafe abortion is a major cause of death and health complications for women of child-bearing age. Whether or not an abortion is safe is determined in part by the legal status and restrictions, but also by medical practice, administrative requirements, the availability of trained practitioners, and facilities, funding, and public attitudes.
While it is difficult to get reliable data on illegal and unsafe abortion, several well-known organizations and researchers, including the World Health Organization, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and Family Health International, make the following estimates:
Worldwide, 20 million unsafe abortions are performed annually. This equals one unsafe abortion for every ten pregnancies and one unsafe abortion for every seven births.
Ninety percent of unsafe abortions are in developing countries.
One-third of all abortions worldwide are illegal. More than two-thirds of countries in the Southern Hemisphere have no access to safe, legal abortion.
Estimates of the number of women who die worldwide from unsafe abortions each year range from 70,000 to 200,000. This means that between 13 and 20% of all maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortion–in some areas of the world, half of all maternal deaths. Of these deaths, 99% are in the developing world, and most are preventable.
Half of all abortions take place outside the health care system.
One-third of women seeking care for abortion complications are under the age of 20.
About 40% of the world’s population has access to legal abortion (almost all in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and North America), although laws often require the consent of parents, state committees, or physicians.
Worldwide, 21% of women may obtain legal abortions for social or economic reasons.
Sixteen percent of women have access only when a woman’s health is at risk or in cases of rape, incest, or fetal defects.
Five percent have access only in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment.
Eighteen percent have access only for life endangerment.
Copyright © 1984, 1992, 1998 by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. All rights reserved. Published by Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
Katherine I assure you that my “narrow minded view”is supported by facts. And I assure you Planned Parenthood does in fact make a profit from abortions. Inf fact while testifying before the House Oversight And Government Reform Committee Cecile Richards, the CEO of Planned Parenthood admitted that abortions accounted for 86% of their non-government revenue. She said and I quote “federal money doesn’t go for abortions” and that “abortions were probably more expensive than other procedures we provide.” Now unless Miss Richards lied under oath then the fact of the mattet is that planned parenthood does make a profit off of abortions. None of what I have just stated is my opinipn but pure. FACT. If you do not believe me I suggest watching the hearing for yourself. I have my opinion though and you have yours and call me crazy but I do not believe either of us intend on changing our opinions anytime soon and that is fine with me.
No you can not assure me of a thing Kelsey. I’m not trying to “change your opinion” on what you decide for your own body. I’m assuring you that are advocating for the legal rape of women. You are advocating for women’s bodies to become milk cows, handmaidens and breeders (property) of the state, of the man, and of the “yes-women” who get off on the power of the patriarchal structures that control women.
here’s that quote again:
“Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.
Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces: what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1997).
Abortion is not wrong. But it’s a wrong choice for you Kelsey.
Planned Parenthood isn’t a “for profit” organization and you are taking the quote both out of current context as well as leaving out the entire history of abortion. Read the history I provided you…
In terms of “the court hearing” (which one???), okay then give me the link to it and I’ll help you navigate the facts…
The majority of abortions are paid for by donations. PP can’t operate with no funding. People don’t get rich giving women abortions…
Lyric excerpt from Digable Planets: The fascists are some heavy dudes / They don’t really give a damn about life / They just don’t want a woman to control her body or have the right to choose / But baby that ain’t nothin / They just want a male finger on the button / Because if you say war they will send them to die by the score / Aborting mission should be your volition / But if souter and thomas have their way / You’ll be standing in line unable to get welfare while they’re out hunting and fishing / It has always been around it will always have a niche / But they’ll make it a privilege not a right / Accessible only to the rich / Pro-lifers should dig themselves / Cause life doesn’t stop after birth / And to a child born to the unprepared / It might even just get worse.
Digable Planets, La Femme Fétal.
I provided facts (from the book our bodies ourselves) next to your narrow mindedness, Kelsey, but to change your opinion would be on you.
I don’t recall saying anything about cows or rape…. How did you find out I’m a wizard and can magically turn women into cows?? I guess being pro life means I aced my transfiguration class at Hogwarts…that’s progressive logic 101 I guess. Oh and I think its way cool that you know how to read minds like how else would you be able to tell me what I’m an advocate for. I must digress that when I first read your snide comment towards me I was a titch bit peeved but after rereading it I actually find it quite humorous! Thanks for makimg me laugh. 😉
Oh and nice touch with the song lyrics you must be quite the hipster…
That’s what it boils down to Kelsey. If you advocate for the abolition of abortion and make access to legal abortions illegal, you take away the human rights of women to control their own bodies and reduce women to cattle (to property). And you condone legal rape. I am not a fan of Harry Potter so don’t be silly.
Mind reading isn’t what we are discussing or magic. Although your comprehension of property rights and human rights and history is limited so you are indeed misinterpreting things for yourself and others. What you are participating in is an agenda where republicans do not explain to their constituents what the laws are or how they work. There is absolutely no use of body parts. There are only 2 clinics that use fetal tissue by consent and request of the patients. Only 1% is funded by research approved by a bipartisan agreement during Reagan. The tissue is for stem cell research. It has benefitted polio vaccines, chicken pox and rubella vaccines, M.S., etc. and every U.S. citizen has benefitted from the research. Planned Parenthood wrote themselves of their own free will to the NIH to request if field research should be reviewed. Planned Parenthood has broken no laws. They do not use body parts. They are not federally funded. They are reimbursed through medicaid and you need to understand the difference to speak to the debate factually, and not as a tool of the war on women.
The man who produced the highly edited videos, has pleaded the fifth, and is already under investigation for breaking laws. He stole the identity of a Feminist Club member, created a fake company filed under a false tax emption, and he violated state and federal laws.
Planned Parenthood broke no laws, provided 20,000 pages of documents, have been transparent and answered questions repeatedly.
Not one page has been produced by the guy who made the videos. The evidence has not all been provided as the tapes are being restrained by a C.A. court. This is obstruction of health services for women. It’s political.
Kelsey D. I watched the five hour long hearing. The republicans who questioned Cecil, interrupted her, would not allow answers (in which the congressman will say “yield back”), they refused the facts after she stated them, they mischaracterized what the fetal tissue use is, they criminalized women for doing what is legal.
Don’t give me your 101 when you don’t understand how government works.
Who cares about snide. What we are talking about is correcting the facts and explaining how government works and what is and is not federal funding. And because you can not address the facts and offensively equate planned parenthood to the KKK you are resorting to magical speak and your real knowledge base which is a fantasy for kids with wizards in it.
Here is the hearing: https://youtu.be/gPDszR4195k
Planned Parenthood president testifies before Congress
You didn’t watch the five hour long hearing and if you did, you didn’t understand the facts.
I’m not a hipster. I’m in touch with real people and I’m fighting for your rights over your own body. That’s something you don’t even know to thank me for.
You do not have to believe in abortion. But a woman’s right over her own body is not something I am about to let you undermine due to willing ignorance.
You say we are not talking about magic but I was not talking about rape or turining women into cattle yet you saw fit to bring that up. And I can fight for my bodysrights on my own thanks. And for your information I am majoring in political science so believe me when I say I know a heck of a lot more regarding how the government works than most people. I do not condone legal rape nor have I ever. I do not recall once ever saying I did…crazy muggles. And for the record get a sense of sarcasm! Havea great life and please don’t waste your time writing another ridiculous rebuttal because I will not bother to read it. You are rude and resort to making things up about people to prove your point and therefore your arguments kinda suck! Just know that now is the time to stand and take a side and you are on the wrong side.
No Kelsey, You’re not fighting for your own body rights and you’re trying to take my rights to my own body away. I am willing to fight for your right to have a baby safely and choosing whatever health care provider you want for you. No one should force you to have an abortion when you believe in adoption.
And then there are the 2.7 million men and women who CHOOSE planned parenthood. Stop telling them what to do.
I didn’t say you were turning into a cow. I didn’t make up the magic talk or thinking, honey, so stop while you are ahead. Look up what the use of metaphor is. Look up the history of marriage globally and see how women were literally the “chattel” and property of men and how they’ve been legally raped in the name of religions. It’s insulting to think this is mere name calling, when we are speaking of the position women have been placed in and would be herded back to if the GOP agenda had it’s way.
My arguments are this: planned parenthood broke no laws.
The video tapes are edited doctored and the man who made and spread the laws has broken federal and state laws. He is an identity thief and he evade taxes. You’re backing a criminal. And you’re spreading lies.
I defend a woman’s right to choose. That means you get to breed and I don’t have to.
This is law. Not the private interests of your church.
This is not time for a sense of “sarcasm”. If you can’t be serious in the discussion, GO AWAY.
I haven’t made one thing up. You tell me where I’ve invented anything. I’ve vetted the hearing. You have not.
I forgive you. And I have decided to love and accept you as my sister in Christ and to harbor no ill feelings towards you, despite our obvious differences. I hope you can find peace and contentment in your life and I wish you the best.
I’m not your sister in christ Kelsey, but I understand that that means something to you spiritually and so I thank you for your best intentions. I don’t need your forgiveness. I have not done anything wrong. So stop bothering with your made up need to forgive me. I’m not apologizing to you and I don’t owe you any apology. I never harbored ill will towards you either. I want you to stay away from my womb and my right to choose and mind your own business. Certainly, peace and contentment for your life as well.
We have agreed to disagree about abortion. But you have spread lies and perpetuated myths and narrowed the facts regarding what Planned Parenthood does and does not do. That’s not okay. That’s not about disagreeing. That’s political and anti-woman and degrading to human rights.
That being said, thanks for leading me to the hearing. Although it was five hours long, I truly benefitted from the time learning for myself what was said and saw for myself how the GOP is manipulating and abusing and distorting the facts. I really appreciate you insisting I watch for myself. It debunked your argument(s) ironically and still supported your right to disagree.
Kelsey D., you’ve just picked out one time period in white women’s history and yes the history of our reproductive rights is riddled with the moral attitudes of their time and so there is hypocrisy and racism to be remembered. That’s why activists for women’s rights need to advocate for both the right to have babies and the right NOT to. Because it’s not the same for every woman. History is evolving and interconnected due to better understanding, health and greater rights for all and yet you present facts to fit your own opinion and chip away at women’s rights.
If you hang Planned parenthood out to dry on the premise of who Margret Sanger was in a tiny little vacuum (not just the larger history but in her own personal history) you have not shown the full person, but edited her into a “monster” for your own political purposes.
History is evolving??? History is definitley not evolving but it is being twisted, distorted, and rewrote to suit progressive agendas. Oh no there I go agaim saying crazy things…oh wait its ACTUALLY not crazy. In fact good Ole’ Michelle Obama gave a whole speech about it. And as for me presenting facts to suit some strange political view I have well I felt I should inform you that is not the case. After readiing this little gem of an article I realized something which is quite common in articles such as this…. it lacked a basis of fact and was bases entirley off of personal experience and opinion. I shared these facts because I believe people need to know the truth because in the end FACT will always trump opinion. You say I judged poor little Margy unfairly based off of the “tiny vacuum” she was in. If that is indeed the case then heck maybe Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy…I mean after all he was in “a tiny vacuum” too. Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood with a eugenicist philosophy and that philoshophy is still very much driving Planned Parenthood today. The majority of babies slaughtered by planned parenthood are not from upper class white families but from lowerclass black families. Sanger’s vision has been realized and on a grander scale than even she probably imagined and all the while people like you declare it a triumph for “women’s rights” You argue your point to me once more but it will make no difference because I know what side I am standing on in this historical period of time, I am om the side of life and I think you already know what side you have chosen to stand on.
You’re the one helping set it backwards, Kelsey and you’re a tool. I’ll defer to the facts as Katherine has presented them after vetting the five hour hearing.
You have no idea what you’re talking about when you speak about black lower class families, weirdo white girl.
You are in denial of the facts and not listening to black people who defend planned parenthood, and you’re distorting the facts as part of the war on women and 2.7 million people choose planned parenthood. They aren’t being forced. It is not federally funded. There is no profit made on abortion, body parts or planned parenthood services.
Sanger is not the person you need to be focused on. That’s just your odd fetish. Read the history provided by Katherine and see where the population control comes into play and how it also evolves into legitimate services and rights over a woman’s body… it’s been provided as a whole and not as a skewed version of facts, you NON listener. And watch the four hearings yourself, and or the five hour one you recommended but failed to vet… see how they silence women and defend their abuse and insults and shut down the conversation. Literally asking leading questions and then answering themselves and or not allowing her to respond. They would not allow answers because if they do, they are without facts and without legal grounds. They repeated the same wrong questions and accusations after being told the facts. You like them, don’t listen. That’s hate towards women. You’re helping the hate towards yourself, Kelsey.
You have pieces of history and nothing in full. And because you aren’t listening, You are in fact cattle.
I’m not arguing. I’m saying You’re a liar.
Jesus loves you. And I forgive you. Enjoy your life. And I am not cattle I am a human being. And here’s a little advice for you, stooping ao low that you use name calling to prove a point won’t get you very far in this world so maybe try not to name call in the future… And I really do forgive you.
Oh Kelsey D. Don’t preach your theocracy at me. I respect your rights to practice your religion but I do not want you to push those beliefs on me.
You are taking the use of the word “cattle” as an insult because you are willingly participating in the perpetuation of ignorance and allowing yourself to be a tool. It’s not name calling. It’s what you’re doing by advocating against your own rights and undermining your own choices for your body as a woman.
I fight for Freedom of religion and from it. Freedom to have a baby or to NOT to have one. Those are the rights we fight for as citizens to ensure the most amount or freedom and human rights for all. What you are working for is a setback for all women and aa backlash against women’s advancements. You are actively working against the poor as well. Forgive your own self and stop acting holier than tho. You’re a friggin’ kid.
I don’t need your silly forgiveness, Kelsey. I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t believe in your concepts of sin.
FACT–because at 15 or 16, you ARE “unfit.”
Those are nothing but FACTS. In my opinion I think abortipn is wrong and that a women makes her choice when she consents to have sex. Abortions are not done out of bravery they are done out of fear. Fear of not being able to have their dream career, fear of being inadequate, fear of weight gain or some other change to their body, fear of scrutiny from parents or peers, and fear of just not being ready. There is no other solution they say….but there id and its called adoption. But wait a minute silly me adoption isn’t something you can make a profit on so scral that idea and lets just keep making a profit off killing the unborn.
Kelsey D. Planned Parenthood doesn’t profit on abortion. But whatever, here are some tunes for you to help enlighten you…
https://youtu.be/WCgCu9zCOIQ
https://youtu.be/8V0cfqqRYSs
Yessss! I stand with Planned Parenthood as well! I stand by you! Your experience is so similar to mine. It’s absolutely true about the feeling of power over our own body when we make such decisions about birth control. Thanks for sharing!
It is a deeply troubling thing to know that Abortion advocates say the unborn child isn’t a human just as Hitler said Jersey were not human, and killed millions. Only Planned Parenthood has outdone Hitler.
Jews
seriously! Get real, you cannot make that comparison.
The parallel loss of the sanctity of life is quite the same. Late term abortion is 1st degree premeditated murder.
ACTUALLY, You advocate for the legal rape of women by the state, Christ Centered teacher. You just advocate for the control over women by using hate language and fetuses as tools. You hate women as evidenced by you calling them premeditated-murderers. That’s fucked up language used by Operation Rescue people and it’s violent language. That’s planting the seed which advocates violence against women. You would make abortions illegal and allow women to die. Because women will not stop seeking abortions if you make them illegal. The father should not own the woman and child.
“We are always told that violent anti-choicers are a mere fringe. Obviously, few anti-choicers commit murder or arson. But, as the Matthew Shepard case reminds us, extreme vocabulary creates a climate of moral permission for extreme acts. This is a movement whose main spokespeople, many of them mantled in clerical or political authority, regularly use words like ‘baby killers’, ‘murder’, ‘holocaust’, and ‘Nazis’, thus legitimizing just about anything. After all, the conspirators who tried to assassinate Hitler are heroes.”
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” column in The Nation (November 16, 1998), reprinted in 2001.
Planned Parenthood is not the same as Hitler and the Nazi’s and your harassment of women is the violence. Your extreme vocabulary is not to protect babies and in fact does not protect them. Your words are political to control women.
I think I’m the one sensing a little hatred. Your reading a lot of assumptions into what I wrote and hatred is not part of it. Truth is what it is. Nobody can defend that partial birth abortion is taking a viable life. Therefore a woman who plans such an abortion plans to kill.
Don’t be silly. I’m defending my human rights over my own body and you’re a liar. Those tapes were edited, doctored, and the man who made them has pleaded the fifth and not produced one page of evidence, compered to the transparency of 20,000 pages produced by planned parenthood. NO body parts were ever used. The fetal tissue that was used is 1% federal funded by a bipartisan agreement that was made under Ronald Reagan. That goes to stem cell research and is with consent and by request of the patient, no one is forced. It goes to polio vaccines, chicken pox vaccines and M.S. etc. and has nothing to do with profit or the selling of parts.
Saying a woman is a murderer for having an abortion is turning her into the object of your hate, criminalizing her legal behavior, subjecting her to a theocracy when we have freedom of and from religion by law, forcing her into motherhood which is rape, and perpetuating unsafe health for women. You’re a hater.
It’s not hate if it’s true. We all need to hear things we don’t want to hear when the truth hurts. Though shall not kill. We don’t break the commandments, rather, we break ourselves on them. If it is planned it is pre-meditated. It’s not hate to tell you this. It’s love. It’s for your own good. God is real. Life is His creation. Life, your life, is sacred. Don’t through it away. Recognize you are going the wrong way. Hate is already consuming you.
You’re pushing your own private religious theocracy and it’s bullshit. This is the USA and we have freedom of and from religion. Abortion is legal. You do not have the right to my body. You can not force me to breed and it is none of this is your business.
It’s not “premeditated murder”. Women are given information to make informed decisions for their own health and life circumstances (none of which are your business).
You’re harassing women and using violent language to guilt and shame them. You’re a hater. You are making women property of the church.
I’m not going the wrong way. I’m not going YOUR way. You have no idea what way I have ever gone. You do not know if I have had an abortion or if I merely defend them. You don’t know if I believe in God or just defend religious freedom. You are hiding behind cultural veils and traditions when you don’t advance women’s rights over their own bodies. We can be trusted to make our own decisions for our own health. We don’t need you telling us what to do. You want to control women. You don’t care about women and children.
Hate has never consumed me. I fight for human rights. I am the love and the light, you imbecile.
“hate never consumed me… you imbecile”??? Funny, sounds like hate to me.
Yes, I’m calling you a person who is perpetuating lies and ignorance for your own private interests. That is an imbecile in my book. I can be harsh in my language and still be a loving human being as after all you’re comparing women who have abortions to nazis and baby killers. Your violent speech is far more offense and hateful and harmful to women’s lives than me calling you an imbecile. You took away the respect and dignity by using inflammatory propaganda. So bite me.
You went on the offensive with this post.
You are in attack mode, so whatever.
You’re just pretending to be about Jesus. Jesus isn’t judging me. You are, hater.
Great. I am from Uruguay. I dont speak english, however I enjoy very much your post. Congratulations.
Awesome,am from Kenya.I really enjoy your work.Keep up.I also stand up for planned parenthood
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This is a great post! While I do no agree with any of the things Planed Parenthood offers, I do think that your post is well written and has a very differ view then most people! Great job!
Great post!!! Kudos to you for knowing what you “do not” want in life. I was once in a similar situation, my mom only mentioned that boys and books don’t mix and my school didn’t offer any help for hormonal teens. Thankfully, I found Planned Parenthood in my freshman year of college! Today my friends and I are remembering the good times and choices that PP helped us to make some 30 years ago!
I had a similar experience at planned parenthood. To a teenager in love Planned Parenthood is a life saver. The thought of getting pregnant in high school seemed like a death sentence, end of life event but education and access to the pill leads to informed decision making.
Wonderful blog x
Great post!
I went as support with a friend to an abortion clinic in the late 80s in a country where it was still really frowned upon. It was a horrible and traumatic experience for her. If only Planned Parenthood was an option back then.
Planned parenthood is great.
Great story, love how sex education influenced your decision. Your experience shows the importance of a simple sex ed course.
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I too stand by planned parenthood. I know that some things they do or have done are very controversial but I can’t imagine our country without them. We already have way to many unwanted pregnancies that lead to abuse and death of babies. We don’t need to get in the way of women who want help to prevent the pregnancies but can’t afford it or can’t talk to anyone else about it. Our nation really needs to weigh the pros and cons of not having planned parenthood anymore before they take a huge step and get rid of it. Great story and thank you for sharing
Your third line implies that you are concerned about the death of babies and yet you support planned parenthood. So when do you think life begins? Are you aware that a child has a working heart at 18 days after conception? Do you think the organs they are harvesting and profiting from don’t belong to babies?
I don’t agree with people who throw their children away or beat them to death after they are here! That’s my biggest issue! I am aware of how a baby forms. I’m not going to get into arguments with people over this. I just hate to see the whole thing being taken away. Some things need to stop I agree with that who wouldn’t?
WOW i very like this post, please like my post. thanks
Wonderfully written!
Spot on, such a good read
I’m sorry you felt as though you had no where to turn to for answers and an honest conversation about sex. I also don’t discredit the fact that the representatives at planned parenthood were polite to you and treated you like an adult. I struggle however to see the logical connection between that and standing by them in light of the evidence that shows they harvest organs from young children. I’m not trying to be rude, but the way I see this post was “they were nice and talked openly with me about sex so I support them”. Your post does not address the atrocities they have been accused of…
Connor Neigenfind,
You’re just harassing women here.
“We are always told that violent anti-choicers are a mere fringe. Obviously, few anti-choicers commit murder or arson. But, as the Matthew Shepard case reminds us, extreme vocabulary creates a climate of moral permission for extreme acts. This is a movement whose main spokespeople, many of them mantled in clerical or political authority, regularly use words like ‘baby killers’, ‘murder’, ‘holocaust’, and ‘Nazis’, thus legitimizing just about anything. After all, the conspirators who tried to assassinate Hitler are heroes.”
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” column in The Nation (November 16, 1998), reprinted in 2001.
“Young women need to know that abortion rights and abortion access are not presents bestowed or retracted by powerful men (or women) — Presidents, Supreme Court justices, legislators, lobbyists — but freedoms won, as freedom always is, by people struggling on their own behalf.”
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” column in The Nation (May 1, 2000) reprinted in 2001.
“Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”
Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces: what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1997).
The woman and the child should not be considered the property of the father. A woman is not your milk cow, your handmaiden, or your breeder. A woman is a human being. She’s not your tool.
The big picture here, Planned parenthood, does lots more good than anything else. Now, it’s a risk of govt shut down, because of this…bullcrap! Again, womens rights, womens choices, being decided by men! i don’t know about you, but I know, i want all woman to be in control of their own lives and bodies.
I assume when you say planned parenthood does more good than “anything else” the “anything else” is abortion, from which they make the bulk of their money. They are masters at manipulating the statistics. Implicit in your response is the idea that they really are doing bad things or else you wouldn’t have said “anything else”. I’m simply trying to point out that instead of building straw man arguments about women’s bodies we need to address the issue at hand… Harvesting organs from unborn babies. If you are going to “stand with planned parenthood” you need to explain why you support that, because that is the issue for which they have come under immense pressure in recent days.
Badass read! In today’s world of guilt and shame about our sexual health, this is a wonderful little light to remind us why sexual educat
ion and furthuring your knowledge on things is so important!
This post is great and everyone that reads this comment go follow my page and read some I my posts. Some of them are long and some short hopefully you enjoy just like I enjoyed this passage we’ll article
What a superb post!
Wonderful and the story media seems to turn their backs on… but it is the story that millions of young ladies have experienced in one form or another. Sex is one of the most fundumental parts of being a human… lets be educated about it and careful so we do just have “planned children”….. thank you!! PP helped me so many times with just health checkups as I have not been wealthy in this life. They took are of me and I am grateful!
Yes, Carolyn Thompson, but for those women or girls who don’t “plan” or “prevent” let’s not erode and or take away their rights to choose or the rights over their own bodies.
“Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”
Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces: what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1997).
“Young women need to know that abortion rights and abortion access are not presents bestowed or retracted by powerful men (or women) — Presidents, Supreme Court justices, legislators, lobbyists — but freedoms won, as freedom always is, by people struggling on their own behalf.”
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” column in The Nation (May 1, 2000)reprinted in 2001.
I do understand that and agree, for birth can mean death for the mother. BUT education can prevent 90% of unwanted births and if Religions and Schools, Parents and Stick-up-their Butt-People keep denying Sex education, then we are plagued with this unwanted controversy. We ladies, are sovereign and in charge of our own body, that is a FACT.
As Jimi Hendricks sang ” ‘I’m the one that’s got to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.’
You bet education is preventing unwanted pregnancies and reducing abortions. It is the reproductive rights activists duty to fight for your right to have a baby or your right NOT to. Access to legal abortions is a health service. It’s not murder. Women should not be criminalized or demonized for having abortions.
I dig Jimi, so you go Carolyn. Thanks for your reply.
I am passionate about this as you are. In college I heard stories from two women who had abortions before there were clinics in Texas…. both had wire coat hangers shoved up to kill the fetus, one no longer can have children as they perforated her uterus. Both had Christian parents that were so ashamed they took their daughters to some back alley person to perform this old timey abortion. This is WHY women pushed so hard to get health services for their needs. Both of those women would have loved to keep the child. It was their parents living in closed Christian towns that made the choice for them. This whole abortion issue is more about needing soldiers for WARS. They do not want any limiting of babies so that when they turn 18 then can then fight and die for stupid wars. Christians are the biggest fans of wars and so this is the REAL push behind the emotional propaganda being spun out there today. Soldiers.
Well said Carolyn. I appreciate you telling me about those women. They deserved to be able to birth the babies they wanted and not be subjected to the shame and torture. As well as IF parents are going to be responsible for the decision making then they should provide access to safe abortions and stop being cruel to their daughters. It terrible the punished them in the way you described.
Thanks for your input and passion… it tells me all the more that We need Planned Parenthood and stories like Libba Bray’s, so honest and well written and reasoned.
Peace Carolyn.
Loved your post. Ultimately I’m just tired of people trying to push their opinions on our lives. As women we should choose what is best for us, how does one woman choosing birth control affect another woman…it doesn’t. If you don’t believe in abortion then don’t have one, just don’t tell me that I can’t have one too.
My personal experience with my local Planned Parenthood was less than helpful and full of angry front desk people. This was definitely a lovely story to hear. There isn’t much else to say in addition. This was uplifting and thank you for it.
I find you to be a very brave and responsible. Even when you were 16!
I have the same story! I think many women do…..
Education, education, and more education! Don’t leave home without it. Planned Parenthood has played an extremely valuable role in our society for generations.
Nice……… I am also very supportive of Planned parenthood
This is such an incredible post. I feel as though many people strictly associate Planned Parenthood with abortion. And although I have my own beliefs about that subject, I also believe women should have that information available, whether they decide to use it or not. People don’t realize that knowledge truly is power, and if women knew more about sex and their bodies rather than relying on what they hear from their friends or see on TV, it could make a difference. Amazing job on this post. Most definitely something I will share with everyone
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Reblogged this on Gh0stpupp3t's Realm and commented:
True.
Thank goodness I am not one of those conservative Christians who hears the words “planned parenthood” and screams “HEATHENS!!!” Because ultimately they do do good work, and your story is living proof of that. Their education opened your eyes and helped you see the bigger picture. As a result of that, you chose not to have sex. You weren’t ready. But if you had decided to have sex, even with the Pill, and still became pregnant afterward, and went back to Planned Parenthood to terminate, that is where I believe their good ends. I will say this once as a disclaimer that I am NOT talking about women who have been raped or abused because that is an entirely different situation but in the case of simply “I was young and had sex and got pregnant,” Planned Parenthood has no right to take action such as abortion. One reason I believe you chose not to have sex is because you (and other girls in your situation) weighed the consequences of such an action. Having sex means taking responsibilities for what might happen after. If you’re not ready for that, you’re not ready for sex. Planned Parenthood does a wonderful job of educating young people about sex and preventing pregnancy. It’s a shame that they also think they should be allowed to undo a pregnancy after the education fails.
OMG… blah blah blah… flea market writer. How about just train some fleas to walk on a miniature tight rope and have yourself a little circus. Your feelings on making abortion illegal equal this: “Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”
Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
and this:
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces: what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1997).
and young women don’t need what you’re spewing… they need to know this:
“Young women need to know that abortion rights and abortion access are not presents bestowed or retracted by powerful men (or women) — Presidents, Supreme Court justices, legislators, lobbyists — but freedoms won, as freedom always is, by people struggling on their own behalf.”
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” column in The Nation (May 1, 2000)reprinted in 2001.
The shame is your propagating more guilt and shame where it’s none of your business. That’s all.
Abortion is wrong on any level, and it doesn’t have anything to do with a woman’s rights to choose concerning her own body. It has to do with the human being growing inside her; whether perfect in every way, or misshapen, brain impaired, or anything else, unless that child is already dead in the womb. Yes, I said “child.” It is not “tissue,” or just a lump. It is a living human being, growing, with a right to live, just as much as the woman carrying it has a right to live. I’ve been on both sides of this argument, and from someone who has “been there and done that,” I can tell you that the emotional repercussions following an abortion are life-changing. I was totally for abortions. I found myself in a “situation,” and was terrified. I wasn’t ready to raise a child, especially to try and raise it alone. Even more, I was terrified of my father if he found out I was pregnant. So, I had an abortion early on in my pregnancy. Then I met and married a man, and became pregnant again. About that same time, I learned that he was taking dangerous drugs that could affect my baby, so I filed for a divorce and, you guessed it, I had another abortion. I was run through the process like so many other women waiting with me for this process; like cows that needed milking. Then I began to have emotional issues; breakdowns for no apparent reason that I could think of. I would cry at the drop of a hat, feel like I had no reason to live; consumed with guilt and depression and finally it dawned on me what my problem was. A living part of me was poisoned and burned to death by saline, and the other pulled from my body like one might pull an arm or leg from my body; only that extension of myself was attached within me, drawing life from me through an umbilical cord, and that extension had a beating heart. It was as much a part of me as my arms or legs or my own heart, and it had been pulled out and disposed of like so much garbage; in pieces. I realized what the depression was from now. It was grief. Grieving over a living human being that I had permitted to be murdered; that I had murdered. I will grieve over the loss of those two babies for the rest of my life. Those babies had every bit as much a right to live as do I. I had become a murderer, and the doctors who performed the abortions were accessories to it. I later learned that so many abortion clinics run women through these abortions, that they often don’t even take time to clean, let alone sterilize, their instruments before performing the next abortion. And when the woman leaves, as soon as she is able to stand and walk after the “procedure,” they could care less what happens to her. All they care about is that $500 or more that they get each time a women is herded through. Many women die as a result of these abortions, but that isn’t publicized, of course. That would look bad for the clinic. Their doctors are (or were not, at the time I had my abortions) even required to carry malpractice insurance, so the families of women who died, or could never become pregnant again as a result of the botched abortion, had no legal recourse, and the woman would not have sued anyway, because the whole purpose of the abortion was so that no one would know. There are other clinics, free clinics, which show the same or similar videos to young women such as the one Libba Bray watched, that offer alternatives to abortion, as well as birth control, and also offer other medical care and testing. Physicians take a sacred oath to “do no harm.” But abortion doctors are doing just the opposite. They are not only harming (murdering) a living child, they are harming the mother at the very least, emotionally, as well as possibly physically. Abortion, as I said before, is wrong. On any level. What if that child was designed to be the next great composer, or writer, or even President or other great leader. What if that child that was being created within that womb had been you?
Okay. I’ll say it again for those of you who are slow,
“Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”
Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
RAPE
You are advocating to make rape legal.
So no, “hate-me-love-me person”….
abortion is not wrong. It’s a wrong choice for you personally.
You are advocating for your own personal control over other women’s bodies. Nothing more.
Children are not “designed” or born to save us or be the next “great” anything, so get over your superman stories.
Try living up to your own expectations first and see if you can manage that.
Ms. Renelle: Abortion is absolutely and unequivocally wrong. I take it you are 1) an attorney or work in an attorney’s office, 2) a Democrat, and 3) atheist, agnostic or at the very least, not a Christian, or you would know that God’ law trumps man’s law every time. Have you ever had an abortion? Lost a child? The lifelong emotional trauma that results is equivalent to PTSD. I am not advocating for control over anyone’s body but the body of that unborn child who is not given a choice. Further, to abort a child to harvest its organs or members, or to destroy that child in the womb is far worse than rape; it is torture at the very least, and ultimately murder. If, by some slim chance you claim to be a Christian, you should know this. I am living up to my expectations; it is God’s Whom I desire to live up to, as it is He to Whom each of us will answer for what we have done while on this earth. Perhaps you should try managing that.
What I am is none of your business, actually. Neither is it important to try and turn me into your target for an enemy. Your desire to evangelize here is misdirected and unwelcome. Do not think for a second your have the ability to interpret the history of mankind’s gods for me.
I do not answer to a HE or a HIM in any form. So leave me alone. You can vote your way and I’ll vote mine. Big deal.
I am in no way trying to turn you into my enemy. I am trying to show you there is one true God, YAHWEH, and His Son, Yahshua, who want very much to love you and give you a peace that you have never known.
Of course you are trying to make enemies, “HATE ME IF YOU MUST”
Your silly name tag begs me to hate you.
Preaching about yahshua is like telling me the jolly green giant loves me. You may Go away now fool.
To the “Hatemeif youmust unloving unchristian person (who claims to be christian)” A few more points for you to consider: Abortion is NOT worse than rape. Abortion is NOT Murder. They have nothing to do with one another as Rape is a crime. You are accusing women who have abortions of being criminals like rapists. And that’s fucked in the head. Have you ever been raped? How would you know what being raped is like and then living with the after effects ? Have you ever ended up giving birth to a baby because you were raped?
Do you think the mothers in Brazil with the Zika virus babies who are giving birth to those retarded-handicapped, un-functioning, high-needs for life children with small heads should be reproduced for generations to come because you believe it’s God’s will or punishment? I mean, really…Cavemen had better sense than you christians about this stuff.
And stop lying to yourself, Planned Parenthood does not harvest and sell the organs like you’re saying. Those propaganda films you’re referring to were entirely debunked and those who made them finally brought to their own trials for criminal activity.
Now we can stop talking to one another and not give this author Libba Bray anymore traffic for her growing stats page, how about? Because she’s no longer engaged in this article or PP issue and is just using us for her writing as she sifts our material we so freely give her and for her book sales. I’m not in to that part of this blog.
AND You can go to church where your silly ideas of man-controlling women might be swallowed by your fellow space-ship travelers.
Tabbyrenelle , in answer to your questions, (1) Yes, I have been raped, though I did not become pregnant by that criminal act. (2) I have had more than one abortion; the first because I was terrified of my father and what he might do if he found out, and the second because my husband was taking strong drugs, and I didn’t know what affect it might have on my child. I have lived with the trauma of those incidents for longer than you have been alive, I would imagine. Yes, I said trauma. How I wish I could go back and change those years!!
Concerning my abortions, the doctors and nurses were running the women through like cattle; often not even changing their gloves between “surgeries,” and not taking the time to sterilize the instruments. Many women have died as a result of these doctors, as they could have cared less about their patient. All they were concerned about was the money they were raking in. And women DID AND DO DIE, if not from a botched abortion, then from infection caused by unsterile instruments, etc. And do you think these women’s boyfriends are going to report it? Of course not. They are happy just to be free of the responsibility. And if the abortion is botched and the woman lives, do you think SHE is going to report it? No. Because she didn’t want anyone to know she was pregnant in the first place. Further, are you aware that in many states, abortion “doctors” are not even required to carry malpractice insurance? Abortion is a very profitable business. And if they were to be required to have malpractice insurance they could be sued and lose all that money they make killing unborn children, and YES, it IS a crime of MURDER! That child has a beating heart, and if that baby’s mother were to be killed by a drunk driver, that driver would be prosecuted for not just one death, but two.
As for God HE IS REAL, and His Son gave up His OWN life, willingly, so that you could live. And whether you believe in Him or not, does not make Him any LESS real. In addition, the day is coming very soon, when you will see Him face to face, and fall on your knees before Him and acknowledge Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I wonder what your answer will be when you beg Him for mercy and He tells you to get away from Him because He never knew you. I will pray for you, Tabbyrenelle, that your eyes may be opened before it is too late. That He soften your heart and pierce it with His love, that you may accept that love that He so desperately wants to show you.
Hi “Hateme if you dare”. So, you certainly did not have to share your information about having abortions. That’s not required on line, you know? That’s personal and I’m glad you had access to abortion when you feared for the baby’s drug-effect retardation and when you needed it as protection from an overbearing father. You had abortions. I defend your privacy and your right to chose that. I don’t really want to know your details, but I feel strongly you did what was right for you at the time and no one should look back in guilt or shame. NOW You definitely have NO right to take that away from others or preach to other girls and women that they should not have abortions. Now you understand each case is personal; and that they are none of your business.
I will never be a christian, my frienemy, no offense, but your silly Him-He-His is patriarchal bullshit and as a woman if you tap into that, you’re just into your man-given-control over me and that’s about your ego, and not what’s right. You’re enjoying some kind of righteous power or really feeling the need to be forgiven and neither of those is my problem.
I would absolutely ABORT my child before I would ever leave it to be adopted and raised by a christian. Christians are (for the most part and yes there are exceptions) ignorant and ignorance is dangerous and useless. I do like people like Bill Moyers and he says he’s a christian. But he’s not anti-abortion or anti-woman like you are. He’s not evangelizing. Even Jesus said not to “follow” him. He never tried to convince anyone who wasn’t willing to give up every material thing to follow. It’s a personal choice to follow Jesus just like having an abortion.
I never had an abortion. You need to beg forgiveness on your knees from your man god. not me, bitch.
I have regretted every single day aborting those babies, Tabby. And I have asked for and received forgiveness from YAHWEH. It was forgiving myself which was the hardest. You are an angry, hurting person, from what or who, I don’t know. But as a Christian I am neither ignorant, dangerous nor useless. Yahshua, in fact, said “Follow me,” and “Go forth and do thou likewise, teaching all nations.” I do not claim ANY righteous power. I DO, however, claim the mercy and grace and love of a Savior who gave His life for me, the worst of all sinners, that I might have eternal life. I will not further “dignify” this comment.
You are advocating for the legal rape of women by the state if you take any woman’s right or access to abortion away from her. Your regrets are not my regrets. I do not believe in your god.
You have been harmed by the patriarchy before and after your pregnancy. By your father, your sex partners, and the religious men you are being conditioned to hate yourself and stop advocating for your own body and mind and spirit. By making you feel guilt and shame rather than forgiveness for being human. Be gentle with yourself, sister-woman. Take no shame in your past, just keep keeping on and make adjustments. No one deserves to be punished for having an abortion.
I am not being dignified or undignified by you, sweetie. You have no power over me. You need not to preach so much. You need to listen more. And more to your own heart than to mine.
Evangelicals are irresponsible people and so teaching all nations how to hate themselves in order to assimilate is really an empire point of view and I’m not into kingdoms.
But thanks for sharing your story. I’ve learned you are in a lot of pain and I hope that you feel better. Peace to you.
One last comment: If a girl and boy, or man and woman want to play house, they should be prepared for the responsibilities that come with it. If they don’t want to become pregnant, they should keep their legs closed and their clothes on.
I have know idea what you’re talking about “Hate me if you must and Dare” and this sentence of yours proves you need to go to school and learn before speaking.
I am by no means advocating rape or incest. I am merely stating that ALL humans have a right to life. And that beating heart within a woman’s womb is life, no matter how it came about, and has a right to life, as much as does the one who carries it. There is a movie I would like to suggest you watch which you can get on “pay per view” by the name of “Room,” where a woman was abducted as a child, kept in a garden shed and raped and bore a child to her attacker. It is based on a true story, and you may find it informative. Just because a person is raped does not give that woman the right to kill her unborn child. That child may very well be the very one to grow up and help someone going through a similar situation.
No thank you on the movie. Yes, you are advocating the legal rape of women by the state by denying access to abortion to women. That’s the bottom line. Rape is a crime and can not be compared to abortion. It is not the same. Your misinformation will harm women and not stop abortions.
btw, If a “boy and a girl become pregnant” it’s none of your business “Hateme if you must…”
legs closed and and clothes on do not stop rape… rape is rape.
And you are ALL FOR RAPE IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!!!!!!!!!
If you want to stay un-preggers keep you’re own legs closed and fight for your right to birth-control and or abortion.
And then you can just shut the fuck up.
You’re a sham when it comes to jesus, and women.
I will not dignify your comment that I am “all for rape in the name of Jesus.” I am not for rape at all; it is evil, and evil things happen in this world. However, abortion is also evil, and two wrongs do not make something right. I know from personal experience, which is WHY I disagree with abortion. I know only too well how it affects the women in so many ways. I pray that your eyes will be opened to the truth, and that your heart will be softened, and that the Holy Spirit will plant a seed of Love in your heart, rather than hatred, vengeance, spite and vitriol.
You are defending raping in the name of jesus, yes. No dignity in that. I don’t need to be “dignified” but you need to stop pushing Jesus on me. I’m not telling you to believe in abortion. I’m telling you you have the rights to your own body and choices and privacy. Religion should be private not pushy. You are vulgar and offense pushing jesus on me. I’d like the poor bastard if you people would just shut the fuck up. But nooooo you need to get all proud. So no thank you. You could not “dignify” me if you wanted to… as you don’t know what dignity is yet. But all the same best of luck on your path. Be gentle to yourself. Lay off your guilt and shame of your own soul. You are grieving and this requires self love and finding those who support you and do not argue with you. I am not your right support system.
be well.
Tabby Ren Elle, I am not trying to push Christ on you. I have merely stated the fact that one day you will face Him. Whether or not you believe in Him is irrelevant. He IS. I have not been vulgar toward you, and if I have offended you, that was not my intent. My intent was to present “the other side” from what you believe, based on what I have been through, and what I believe and know to be true through experience. I am by no means defending rape, in any form, much less in the name of Yahshua. I have been there, too. As for my pain, I have lived through it, and it is only by Yahshua’s mercy and love and forgiveness that I am even alive today. You, on the other hand, are a very angry individual, who will one day see the truth in what I have said. I am not a prideful individual at all. I am merely trying to offer another view based upon my own experience; one which reflects the pain that most women who go through abortions will one day experience for themselves, and regret. If I can help them to see that there is a better way; a way in which they may avoid the pain, guilt, anguish, and sorrow that eventually comes from having an abortion, then I have done what I set out to do with this blog. I pray that one day you will find Yahshua and accept Him and the love He has for you, and that you will allow Him to remove the anger and hardness of heart that you currently hold within, and replace it with His genuine, unconditional love.
Anger is healthy. It leads to action. Jesus was a rebel and anger wasn’t lost on him. So don’t get high and mighty little girl.
It’s time for you to stop using me to deal with your personal problems. Jesus would want you to stop flogging yourself about the abortions you had and understand that he’s gonna carry your whole tragic sin thing. You don’t need to regret and feel terrible and go around bossing everyone else around. You don’t gotta worry or fret. You just say, this or something better lord and you go about your own business. You only need to go get with your OWN private relationship to jesus and allow that so called “grace” to carry the burden for you. Then you can go do something productive like loving the people in your life and stop bothering me.
I don’t require organized religion and I don’t have to wake up to your way. I don’t need to believe in your ways. It’s not for you to make happen or decide. You’re a big turn off, truth be told. And you’re boring… I can’t stand these kinds of shallow discussions, where you are entirely one sided and ignorant.
Now go away and let me do my own work.
I don’t feel like schooling you anymore. We are officially done, “hate me if you dare person” Stop daring me to hate you or love you.
Just go be you and love yourself, hon.
I don’t require organized religion either, Tabby. But I do require Yahshua. I don’t love him because I need Him. I need Him because I love Him, and because I know beyond a shadow of doubt that He loves me. I know this discussion may seem shallow and insignificant to you, but I assure you, to know Yahshua; REALLY know Him, is to love Him. You are correct in that you don’t have to believe the way I believe; but you do need Yahshua, whether you believe or not. I am not trying to “make” anything happen. I am merely stating facts that you will one day realize. Whether you choose to accept those facts or not is your choice. And your choice will determine your final destination. I really wish I COULD choose for you; for then my heart would not ache, knowing where you would spend eternity.
So, Tabby, you “just go be you,” but please allow Yahshua to love you, and take the time you have left to really get to know Him. Time is very short.
You’re a hater and a woman who has allowed men to rule your pussy for far too long so that you hate yourself and you shame yourself and you guilt yourself and you throw yourself away pretending to be strong with the rhetoric that has harmed your personal will. The only power you “receive” through your yashua is in “trying” to control other women. You are defending RAPE by the state. You are in fact helping men rape women and you by being anti abortion and you need to leave me alone now or I will think of you as nothing more than a gang banger. So get the fuck off me.
I mean it pro-rape girl. Stop minimizing rape. Stop empowering rapists. Your Yashua is a rapist. You’re an enabler.
Go do the real work. That means, you have no domain over me. You have rights to YOUR body I defend. You have NO rights over mine.
I never had an abortion. YOU DID. You’re trying to save yourself (not me) by using me. Now stop it.
Stop it gangbanger!
For you to be so terribly angry, Tabby, I must have really hit a nerve in you. That’s good. One day, perhaps, someone will be able to reach that hard heart of yours. I am not using you; merely stating facts; facts which you don’t like hearing even though they are true. You will be in my prayers.
The only fact is you have been brainwashed by religion and men and are using me to work out your own feelings about the abortions you had.
Your abortion has nothing to do with me. Your religious mission has nothing to do with me. You’re being selfish trying to force a belief system you have been brainwashed in to be a recruiter for. You came to religion because of weakness and shame and the religion preyed on your vulnerability.
You do feel terribly angry. You’re passive aggressive about it and calling it love in the form of Christ as refuse to leave me alone. Your religion preaches hate against women’s rights, against birth-control, and LGBTQ rights… you’re a hater. Not me.
I’m telling you about those religious men who made you feel shame and guilt before and after your sexual experiences so that you hate your own self. You are now telling me to hate myself too and to allow those same evil men to control my body and my choices for me.
I am angry at those men and women who perpetuate this abuse against women and advocate rape by the state and so I support planned parenthood and not church collection baskets. Planned parenthood never let me down. Churches always did. I don’t live with regret and shame and guilt after my decisions. I learn from the past, let go and move on.
You are projecting your own feelings onto others by evangelizing and not listening to the feelings of others.
I am prochoice and nothing you can say or do will change that.
I would like you to leave me alone. You have ignored my request. Pray if you must, but you don’t need to tell me about it. That goes without saying with your “kind” and to say you are doing it is redundant.
Now if you don’t mind, I need to go spend time with my girlfriend. She’s getting pissed at you for flirting with me so often.
1. I would not dare flirt with you. I am married and have no desire to flirt with anyone.
2. You have every right to choose to be pro-choice. It is guaranteed you by the Constitution of the United States of America. It is MORALLY wrong, and an abomination to YAHWEH, and those who commit, cause, or participate in an abortion, unless they come to know Yahshua Ha Maschiach, and ask forgiveness and repent of said action, will be doomed to spend eternity in Hell.
3. Churches will always let you down. Yahshua the Messiah will not. He is a gentleman and will never force you to accept the love He has to offer. Nor will He stop your choice to live eternity in Hell by choosing to reject Him. It is, after all, YOUR choice.
4. “Your” body is not your own. It was created by the Master of the Universe, and He knew you before you were born; while you were still in your mother’s womb. Your mother chose to allow you to live, so she must be one of “my kind,” too.
5. If you don’t like my comments, then don’t reply and don’t read them. This is, after all, MY page, and MY choice as to what I write.
6. Tell your “girlfriend” she needn’t worry about me. I have no desire to be with a woman.
7. I choose LIFE and have that right, also granted to me by the Constitution; but even more, by YAHWEH; the only TRUE and LIVING God.
you want me and you know it. That’s why you’re coming after me all the time. You want me so bad you are actually trying to convert me to your religion. You really should tap Christian Mingle tho, for online dating with your own creed. I don’t suck christian pussy. Too much douche.
You are crude, and offensive with your language. It is not I that wants you, but Yahshua, and He wants you because He loves you so much He died and rose again for you. Your language reflects your lack of intelligence or at the very least, your lack of vocabulary. It is apparent you want nothing to do with Him, and have chosen to doom yourself to an eternity in Hell. I pray one day your eyes are opened before it is too late and you accept the genuine love He has to offer. Please do not contact me again, as I have given you over to your own devices, and can only pray for you.
lol you bigot. You’re advocating rape by the state and you call me crude. You want ownership of my body and you call me crude. You’re a dumb fuck.
You are crude, and offensive with your language. It is not I that wants you, but Yahshua, and He wants you because He loves you so much He died and rose again for you. Your language reflects your lack of intelligence or at the very least, your lack of vocabulary. It is apparent you want nothing to do with Him, and have chosen to doom yourself to an eternity in Hell. I pray one day your eyes are opened before it is too late and you accept the genuine love He has to offer. Please do not contact me again, as I have given you over to your own devices, and can only pray for you.
P. S. You know He exists, and you are angry because somewhere deep in your sin-sickened soul, you know I am right. You are either so full of sin that you simply have had your soul possessed by Satan and his minions, or you know I am right, and you just cannot bring yourself to accept it because you would no longer want to do the things you do. God bless you. I give you over to Him.
read Elaine Pagels and discover the creation of satan. satan is a construction and in parable form that you are taking way too literally. satan represents a series of wards. it’s not an entity. it’s a helpful ward so you don’t meet a worse design.
i don’t believe in sin. that’s also a construct. people are human and they make mistakes they can learn from. sin is something used politically to guilt and shame and control you. you have opted for that ideology and I have opted out.
don’t question my moral compass just because I cuss at you and tell you that you’re stalking me and coming on to me. which you are. you want to suck pussy and ended up in a lousy marriage after being controlled by a mean father and you’ve had abortions which have nothing to do with me.
I’m defending women and prochoice and freedom over my own womb.
You’re a home schooled religious bigot who wants me to give up my body to man power. to a man god I do not acknowledge in any way.
You want me to convert to your cult.
you want me to submit to you.
I will not, so go away and realize you’re a dumb ass. you’re asking to be humiliated. stop doing that to yourself. It is not in service to me or to you or any one on this blog that you keep trying with me. I will always talk you down. Because you are an idiot.
Further, your body is not your own. It is YAHWEH’s creation.
my body is my own so stop advocating that your god rapes me bitch.
You say your body is your own. Who created it? I know, you say your mom & dad. Who created them, and those before them, and those before them to the beginning of humanity, Tabby. They did not just happen. They were created. By a Supreme Being, YAHWEH. You were not a product of the “big bang theory,” and you didn’t evolve from a monkey. You were created, and YAHWEH knew you before you were born, while you were in your mother’s womb, and He knows you now. And He loves you, as a father or mother loves their child, only far, far more. Even though you are homosexual, He loves you so much that His own son chose to come to earth and die a physical death to save you and give you eternal life. No one else has, or will ever do that for you. Satan is a real being. He is one of the angels, (was at one time the highest of the angels), but was cast from Heaven because of His pride. I am not a bigot, Tabby. I love all people through Yahshua the Christ, because He first loved me, even in the state I was in at the time. I was unworthy to be called His child; but His death on the cross of his own choice, taking my sins upon himself, willingly, made me worthy to be called His child. Satan’s actual name was Lucifer, and he is not a big red man with horns and a forked tail. He is a beautiful angel, whom many would fall down and worship if one could actually see him. But he is a liar and deceiver, and only comes to steal, kill and destroy. And you are allowing him to do just that. You are being violated not by me, and not by YAHWEH or Yahshua, but by Satan.
LEAVE ME ALONE ASSHOLE!
I have no idea who Libba Bray is, or what her blog says. I created my own space, and you are the only one who has said anything. I have deleted my post because of you and your vitriolic diatribe. Not everyone thinks the way you do, Tabby, so get over yourself. Furthermore, it was I who asked that you leave ME alone, and stop commenting on MY space first. You need help. You think because you are in the LGBT group you can keep the majority of us (who don’t think like you, by the way) from standing up for what is right and true and good, and Godly. Well you can’t. The majority still has a voice, too. And we don’t have to cow-tow to evil people like you. You are a very unhappy, unfulfilled, evil person who has nothing better to do than bash those who disagree with your thinking, and do it in as ugly a way as you can. You can say all you like to me, about me. You can curse me, hate me; heck: you can even kill me. But you will never steal the joy I have in Yashua Ha Maschiach, which is a much happier place than you find yourself.
Libba Bray is the pen name of the woman who wrote the planned parenthood post and the only blog you and I have ever spoken on. I didn’t come to your blog ever. I asked you to leave me alone countless times and have our correspondence to prove it. And you came at me about Yahweh and told me about your abortions. You’re INSANE. So GO AWAY FREAK.
FYI dumb ass: https://libbabray.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/why-i-stand-by-planned-parenthood/
this is where we are commenting.
Now go fuck yourself.
I never read the ‘Planned Parenthood” post until you just gave me the link. I had written my own post, and you are the only one who has commented. So YOU commented on MY post and I responded. Therefore, stop commenting on MY post and leave ME alone. Your lifestyle is an abomination and you will be held accountable one day by Yahweh, whether YOU believe in Him or not.
That’s the site you are talking to me on so you need to get your head checked. I am not on your turf. I left a comment with someone else and you started replying so I presume your on your husbands feed.
The link to libba bray has you in her comment section so how do you explain that?
You’re not okay mentally or emotionally and I realize you are incapable of having an adult conversation. So I’m sorry I was mean to you. I don’t intend to bully mentally handicapped people. So I take my leave of you now. May Yahhha wehhahha continue to bless you and keep you from breeding stupid children such as you.
Oh and if it’s any consolation “Dare me hater bigot girl” I think the author a.k.a. Libba Bray is more of an idiot than you are for allowing you to go on and on and on, on her blog to just crap it up with religious rhetoric that a man fed you and which she won’t herslef engage in because you are beneath her… she wrote that essentially in her post, you know. And your asshole sermon that oppresses women using the “father tongue” grants you power over other women so you use it because you have no power of your own to muster and you’re brainwashed. You are undermining her original post, women and yourself… if anyone has to endure you by bothering to read. You’re a bigot who advocates rape. and Libba Bray is an asshole for not stopping this dumb ass futile thread between us. She should be moderating and saying okay you two we all know how you feel. thanks for commenting. you can stop now. and we should respect that. you should stop talking to me and respect that I don’t want this to go on.
But if you come at me like a little harlot for yahweh, I’ll be more than crude. And Libba Bray can fuck herself too. Pray for your own soul. I’m happily gonna cuss you up and down. With or without satan.
My body is too my own. It’s NOT yours. I don’t acknowledge your yahweh. I do not recognize your religion as valid. I see you as a marching moron. Save yourself, dare-mae-hater-girl. If hell was real, I prefer to go there and not where you and your people are going. I don’t want to spend my afterlife with you sheep. I think that sounds like the real hell. You invented a problem for yourself. I’m not your problem.
I am not a child so stop parenting me with your moral agenda.
you are flirting with me. I’m catnip to a christian because you need to do your repenting by taking it out on other people and calling it witnessing. You are welcome to go witness to someone who wants to hear your messages. I am not interested in you. I don’t believe in your marriage. I believe in your bondage and I see you as a man’s cow. Wife is a dirty word in a man’s religion because you will never be HIS equal. You are a child be your choice and refuse to grow up by allowing men to decide your mind for you and to control your body.
And yeah, it’s my constitutional right to have abortions… but I never had an abortion… YOU did. so how about judging your own self and get the fuck off me.
Don’t think of weapons. Don’t retort. don’t feel insulted. just go away and stop trolling me. Stop flirting with me. Go serve your husband like a good little domestic. really… go do your fucking duty.
God isn’t giving you points for trying to dry hump on my leg.
I do not hate you Tabby. I love you through the Lord Yahshua Ha Maschiach. It is your sin I detest. Not you.
is hate me if you dare love me if you must your wife? She has no “reply” button and is speaking to Tabby. Did you send you’re devoted wife after Tabby? I apologize if I am mistaken. I am looking to speak to Hate me if you must love me if you dare, to tell her that her message has been heard and she now needs to leave Tabby alone. She needs to stop advocating for the legal rape of women now. When you go against abortion you advocate for control over women and for legal rape. So if you are related to this hate me if you must love me if you dare person, please tell your wife to STOP now. Her repenting is falling on deaf ears with our tribe who is actually concerned with the whole human race and not HIS ownership of it. If you do not leave Tabby alone now, you are a rape-culture troll. If you do not know the person hate me if you must love me if you dare, again, I am sorry for this interruption. I do not want a dialogue religious or otherwise. So do not respond by way or preaching.
My friend Tabby is being harmed. I need this to stop and am looking for ways to stop the bullies.
Bullies want to kill people.
Hate me if you must love me if you dare has become a bully because she had abortions and feels guilt. This is not our problem. We wish you all well on your path and want to set clear boundaries. Respect for your religion does not mean we subscribe.
Reblogged this on Kania-Info .
Great writing and well said..I am new at blogging so if you will read my blog and tell me what you think please.
Good!
In college I walked into a free clinic with my girlfriend. Because the clinic in a Catholic Church required girls to bring boyfriends along to prove they were having sex. Later I was the stand-in boyfriend for girls whose real boyfriends were afraid of been seen the clinic. I never thought of being afraid.
Thank you for sharing this personal story. I truly wish I had knowledge that I could access to this information, and access to it in general when I was a teenager. It’s amazing how many young women are denied comprehensive sexual education about our own bodies. Planned Parenthood is an amazing organization that only helps women, not hinders. If only everyone could understand this. People who have never felt scared, unsure, or confused about their own bodies would never understand the importance of organizations like Planned Parenthood, and the value a comprehensive sexual education has for young women.
Thank you for your story!
The House Republicans, as part of their on going attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, recently grilled to the bone, Ms. Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a wonderful, non-profit, health organization, a gift to women from the two women who founded it. It would have been good if the investigation committee were told about the great work of Planned Parenthood by some of the women who were helped by the Federation over the years.
Hola! me encanto como termino tu historia, fue lo mejor que pudiste haber hecho y estoy de acuerdo con tu mama sobre que eso se debe hacer después del matrimonio, es muy lindo que compartas lo que te sucedió y así se den cuenta mas chavas de que no estamos preparadas tan jóvenes para tener relaciones ya que muchas no buscan algún centro sino en internet. Es muy importante que se de la educación sexual a los jóvenes para que tomen conciencia y así evitar que muchas niñas queden embarazadas así como la transmisión de enfermedades sexuales.
Cada persona es dueño de su cuerpo y es necesario que no las obliguen a hacer cosas con el y que uno tenga educación necesaria para poder cuidarlo.
So inspiring to young teens, like me. If you don’t mind giving me a follow: https://lonelyheartsclub880.wordpress.com/
Hey, that was a good little read! Planned Parenthood is definitely important. I live in Utah and our sexual education is to just shove abstinence down our throats therefore we don’t get the need information on contraceptives. That’s where Planned Parenthood steps and helps educate and protect young people. I also feel that women need to have the right to be in control of their own bodies, and politics should keep its ugly head out of it; unless of course it’s to actually get some laws passed to educate them on it. Also if any of you don’t mind, feel free to give me a follow! My blog is still very new so there’s only a few posts. But I make sure to put new content up every day! https://rossj781.wordpress.com/
Sorry, my comment had a few errors. *therefore,… *don’t get the infomation…. There, that fixed the major ones!
Well said. It’s mans World where a woman’s body is either a sexual object designed to look the ‘perfect’ way by men or it’s to be used as an incubator when society deems you the right age to reproduce. Lord forbid you have children too young or too old. Girls need to be taught to love and respect their bodies. The pressure to look and act a certain wAy is intense. Perhaps if there were more strong women teaching others to be in control of their own bodies things would be on more of an even keel. Then again the last thing men need is women in control. The fact that women face these barriers to birth control says it all really.
Yep. I can definitely relate to this just like so many other people. PP was there when I needed birth control and condoms as a teen. They were there when my HS boyfriend cheated on me and I needed an STD check. They were there for me in college when I forgot to take my birth control pills and needed Plan B. And they were there when I got a nasty yeast infection that just wouldn’t go away. The doctor even called me a few days after my appointment just to see how I was doing. Amazing organization. Thanks for sharing your story!
Without PP my two daughters could have been teen mothers. Is this what we want for our children? The hypocrisy of men in regards to women is astounding.
http://www.birdilimhayat.com
Wonderful post… May all teens read this and get wiser… Kudos
That is fine and dandy that PP gives out birth control. What about the women who DO walk in the facility pregnant? Did you know that Based on Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report, an unborn baby dies every 96 seconds inside a Planned Parenthood clinic? What about the fact that According to their latest annual report (2013-2014), Planned Parenthood reports that their affiliates performed 327,166 abortions – that’s more than 30% of the estimated 1.058 million abortions performed annually in the United States. And let’s not even get into the facts on selling babies – YES BABIES- body parts . To make my point a little more understandable here is a scenario : a man gives a little girl a piece of candy ( how sweet ) but then goes and kills 20 children in a daycare. Not good… Right ? Well that’s the same concept . The lives lost and illegal acts committed are much greater than the few packs of birth control given out. We have crisis centers that do a far greater job on educating . Crisis centers have amazing women who will support you if an unplanned pregnancy occurs. They provide items like diapers, clothing, wipes, maternity clothes
and other essentials. These women also help you find an adoption agency if a woman does not want to keep her child. These compassionate women are open and guide you every step of your pregnancy. The world needs more pregnancy crisis centers today !
Hey youniquejacqueline, did you know that you are a troll? Are you aware that you’ve neglected to read the comments where we have already debunked your christian agenda?
Planned parenthood protects this: “The right to abortion is part of every woman’s right to control her reproductive choices and her own life. We must reject all efforts to coerce women’s reproductive decisions. The goals of reproductive rights activists must encompass the right to have children as well as the right not to.”
You are advocating for the legal RAPE of women:
“Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.” ~Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please (1988).
This is your real agenda:
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces: what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
~Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (1997).
Here is the truth: “in society as a whole the patriarchal mythology of what “a woman” does persists almost unexamined, and shapes the lives of women. “What are you going to do when you get out of school?” “Oh, well, just like any other woman, I guess I want a home and family” – and that’s fine, but what is this home and family just like other women’s? Dad at work, mom home, two kids eating apple pie? This family, which our media and now our government declare to be normal and impose as normative, this nuclear family now accounts for seven percent of the arrangements women live in in America. Ninety-three percent of women don’t live that way. They don’t do that. Many wouldn’t if you gave it to them with bells on. Those who want that, who believe it’s their one true destiny – what’s their chance of achieving it? They’re on the road to Heartbreak House. But the only alternative offered by the patriarchal mythology is that of the Failed Woman – the old maid, the barren woman, the castrating bitch, the frigid wife, the lezzie, the libber, the Unfeminine, so beloved of misogynists both male and female.” (~Ursula K. Le Guin https://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/leguin/ address at the 1986 Bryn Mawr College Commencement. It was first published in a collection of essays, Dancing At The Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places, New York: Harper & Row, 1989 (147-160).
Here is how you are using language label and dehumanize women to justify your extreme acts against women and turn yourself in to a hero:
“We are always told that violent anti-choicers are a mere fringe. Obviously, few anti-choicers commit murder or arson. But, as the Matthew Shepard case reminds us, extreme vocabulary creates a climate of moral permission for extreme acts. This is a movement whose main spokespeople, many of them mantled in clerical or political authority, regularly use words like ‘baby killers’, ‘murder’, ‘holocaust’, and ‘Nazis’, thus legitimizing just about anything. After all, the conspirators who tried to assassinate Hitler are heroes.
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” column in The Nation (November 16, 1998), reprinted in 2001.
Here’s what women need to know and that I will be telling them to counter your hate speech aginst women.
Young women need to know that abortion rights and abortion access are not presents bestowed or retracted by powerful men (or women) — Presidents, Supreme Court justices, legislators, lobbyists — but freedoms won, as freedom always is, by people struggling on their own behalf.
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” column in The Nation (May 1, 2000)reprinted in 2001.
You have the right not to have an abortion. I will defend your right NOT to, but leave my womb alone.
i disagree, i was left in an orphanage as a child, i never got adopted .it was hell bouncing around from foster to foster, the abuse and indignities i suffered i wish on nobody . i outgrew the system and managed to make a life for myself , so dont ASSume adoption is so darn perfect , i honestly would have rather been aborted than to have been traumatized the way i. was .
Reblogged this on missmovingin and commented:
planned