You may not love him, but he definitely loves you and cares about your life and the lives of your offspring.
No, I’m not talking about any deity or anyone’s god, though Tea Party radicals suggest he’s the second coming — George W. being the first — but Rick Perry, long-time governor, wants female Texans to reconsider life.
At a pro-life rally denouncing the Roe v. Wade decision, Perry announced that he has put forth legislation that would require women seeking abortions to have a sonogram, among other procedures, with the aim of saving lives.
The announcement was met with cheer and applause, but in a crowd full of pro-lifers at a pro-life rally, what does one really expect?
It gets better. Perry has placed the legislation on fast-track emergency status, meaning that it will top the legislative agenda this session — and with a Republican majority in both houses, the legislation is poised to pass.
If this bill does exactly what Perry says it will do, or is remotely successful in that regard, then this is not only a victory for Perry and his supporters but also for all mankind.
Why? Well, any bill that saves a life, potentially 80,000 lives annually, is one that should be celebrated by all, regardless of your political affiliation or ideology.
The bill by design does not deny a woman any of the rights handed down by the Supreme Court in its decision in Roe v. Wade. Ironically, it gives women more options, alternatives and even support.
The legislation would allow women to see the sonogram, speak with counselors and even consider adoption before they commit to having an abortion — the act of killing a child.
We can either politicize this, while enjoying the freedoms of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and declare that our “civil rights and liberties” are at jeopardy by this legislation, or we can deal with its reality: do we value life? And if so, how best do we protect it? Perry has proposed a bipartisan solution.
The bottom line is simply this: since the decision to choose was granted in the Roe v. Wade case, about 50 million young American lives, not potential lives, but living, functioning organisms, have been lost to abortion.
Perry wants women to know that there are other options and a lot of support should a woman choose not to terminate her pregnancy.
We all can acknowledge that as human beings we make mistakes and that bad things happen to good people. We can also acknowledge that life is our single-most precious gift and that we value it with all our hearts.
We should endeavor to apply this knowledge when debating abortion and take out the politicking that is the promotion of civil liberties and rights over life.
The question is Shakespearean: to kill, or not to kill? Should women be allowed to kill or not to kill based on their interpretations of life?
When we begin to think of it in this way a natural conclusion will be drawn, and the lives of millions will be made secure.
This bill is terrible. It's the same schlock of victim blame that the whole anti-choice movement is about.
Abortion is not something that people like to do, or want to do, it is a hard decision made in desperate situations, and when it is less accessible, people end up getting abortions in unsafe ways, causing more death and bodily destruction than necessary.
This bill makes abortions less accessible to low income people, because it puts a requirement for an extra procedure, which low income people don't have access to.
This bill will make low income people suffer if it is passed, and it is a general attack on women's rights.
Handle: Poverty, Adoption, domestic violence, child abuse, starvation/hunger, childhood diseases and other pressing issues related to babies and young people before even talking about something like this.
This article is nothing more than Anti-abortion propaganda pretending to be a critical article, are you serious? As someone who has gone through an abortion, WOMEN ARE GIVEN CHOICES ALREADY.This bill only functions to add an economic burden and attempt to shame women, which is always part of the anti-abortion republicans' strategy. This article shows that you know very little about what abortion actually means. Guess what, women can already see the fetus if they want to, this is just forcing them to pay for it and wasting more time; we talk to counselors about options too. I'm not here to defend myself even though I sure could give you a long list of reasons why I made the best and moral decision. It's no secret that adoption agencies exist, are overcrowded and not a good place for someone to grow up. It's also no secret that Perry and others on the religious right could care less about REAL issues dealing with the welfare of living children and women. Perry isn't concerned about executing innocent, living, functioning, and suffering people, but he hates the idea of low-income women choosing not to turn that embryo into another wage slave or prisoner(aka laborer) of his. When our society no longer thinks that silence is consent and that women deserve to be raped, when women have access to safe and affordable birth control, when MEN are accountable to their partners and take pregnancy as serious as women do, when parents don't have to work their lives away to support a family, THEN a lot less women will be seeking abortions. Until then nothing will change the number of women who did not want to be pregnant, can not support a child, and do not think abandoning a living child, that will actually suffer, in the system is an acceptable alternative. How are single mothers supposed to raise children to be healthy and successful in this society? Working 40 or more hours a week, no time to cook, no help from the men that no one holds accountable, failed education system for their children. We have the highest rate of imprisonment in the world–what a great future. What about those of us who can't even support ourselves much less a child? Throwing 80, 000 kids into an adoption agency isn't helping them. What about the children that will suffer and die within a year from birth defects, do you really think it is cruel to avoid that? What if you knew you would be passing on a painful genetic disorder to a child you had no means to take care even if they were a healthy child? These are the hard choices women make before considering abortion, who are you to call them murderers? If you care about women and families change the system that puts sooo many women in these situations and less women will seek abortions.Making it illegal or hard to access does not change the number of women seeking them. And anyone who thinks women should die rather than have a life-saving abortion is just on a whole different plane of brainwashed. Neimon, I think it's safe to assume you will never be pregnant, have never had to deal with women's issues and will never have to make this decision, so why don't you stop demonizing women and show us and our decisions some respect. THIS BILL DOES NOT GIVE MORE OPTIONS, they are already there, it is only meant to limit access and try to shame the women.
Tell it.
If you break up your writing into separate paragraphs, more people will read it.
awww was that too much for your little brain to handle? don't worry, i'll summarize for ya: she's right.
Cognitive dissonance has a way of being incoherent.
Basically she had an abortion and blames everyone except…well, you can probably guess.
"he hates the idea of low-income women choosing not to turn that embryo into another wage slave or prisoner(aka laborer) of his"
hate to be the one to break it to you, but if you're having an abortion, guess who's the wage slave/prisoner…
This legislation is not about Rick Perry "caring" about anyone. It is a sad joke that this is passed off as "emergency" legislation while at the same time, Rick Perry has the gall to try to pass off proposed 20% percent budget cuts across government services as essentially, no big thing.
The two most significant pieces of legislation I can remember Our Deity Perry presiding over involve telling teachers how to teach, and telling doctors how to speak to their patients. Neither of which doctors or teachers appreciated. These are distractions from the real issues.
Second of all: "The question is simple: to kill or not to kill?" Seriously? The question is not simple. To suggest so is insulting. Deciding to go through with a pregnancy is not easy. It is not easy when there are no legal guarantees your job will accommodate your pregnancy, especially for low income women. It is not easy to pay for a pregnancy. It is not easy to be pregnant, period, emotionally or physically. It affects all aspects of life.
Love how a bleeding heart can justify the killing of one life while crying out against another. It sounds like you worry that people actually have a conscious. That deep down they truly believe it is wrong, that it isn't just some lump or growth that is inside the body. Why is it a problem to have a ultra sound that can not only bring the real truth out but also if the case may be used to determine if there is a possibility of an unforeseen complication may arise from the procedure and allow the doctor to know how to proceed with the abortion while keeping the mother safe. But hey it is just a cell or growth within the mother and it is the right to remove such a growth if the person feels like it.
If you are really concerned about the issue then ask yourself this, why is it that with all the contraceptives available and easy to purchase in most cases, is this still a major issue? Personal responsibility has been thrown out the door. With the belief now imposed on many that it isn't their fault, they are not the responsible for the out come. If this attitude was changed then this would not be an issue.
The question is easy, do I kill it (i think that you prefer to think of it that way) and not suffer any hardships. Or do I not kill it let it ride full term suffer the hardships to have the birth of a human being. Simple.
The biggest argument is not the fact of the initial scan cost but that deep down on a very basic level people have a real conscious that this is not an it or thing or tumor growing inside but a real life form being created. And that would make them feel a guilt because it goes against human nature.
Contraceptives are not that easily available.
Birth control, the most effective contraception, is Very expensive without insurance (and can even be expensive with insurance).
There is more out there than just the pill, shots, rings or patches. There are other options that used together that are almost at the 99% effective. That can be bought in just about any store that sells personal care items. The fact that planned parenthood also subsides the purchase of birth control puts forth the fact that it is still an issue of not being personally responisible and that you can just correct it after the fact that you didn't take steps to prevent it.
and it's up to brave men like you to make sure those irresponsible sluts get punished, right?
drown yourself.
Nice comment there, very mature of you. I was pointing out that there are still options that both parties can use without needing a prescription. That it irresponsible for both parties not to use all available options.
excising a non-sentient lump of tissue is also a valid option, whether the anti-choice lobby likes it or not. hth
When is it consider sentient? How soon or late? Let us face fact that the average person requesting this probably was irresponsible (both parties) and didn't use even basic over the counter prevention.
look duder, nobody wants MORE abortions. one side wants them safe and legal, the other wants them illegal and thus unavailable to women insufficiently wealthy to have it done outside the US.
the only way to prevent more abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies through comprehensive sex education and awareness in public schools. any legislation designed to guilt pregnant women in crisis into having bringing an unwanted pregnancy to term is morally bankrupt, period.
to answer your question, i am not a doctor but i think it is safe to assume that an embryo is not self-aware.
Last time I check we do have sex ed in schools and when I sat through it, it wasn't just abstaining from sex. It was encouraged as the first choice because it was 100% grauntee that you would prvent pregnacies and STD's. Then came all the other opitions that were pushed that if you didn't abstain then you should use xyz methods and over the counter measures because then you raise it up higher for prevention.
But you know ya'll are right. We don't want irresponsible, stuipd poor people from producing.
lol abstinence is outdated garbage concocted by the religious right, sorry you had to find out like this.
until last year, states could not recieve federal funding for anything that wasn't abstinence-only, making less wealthy school districts less likely to offer such programs.
i literally could not understand the rest of your post. either you've been drinking or english is not your first language. or both, i guess.
"More than one in five adolescents (21% of females and 24% of males) received abstinence education without receiving instruction about birth control in 2002, compared with 8–9% in 1995."
(Lindberg LD, Changes in formal sex education: 1995–2002, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2006, 38(4):182–189)
Sorry that the device i was using was auto correcting me it should have read
"But you know ya'll are right. We don't want irresponsible, stupid poor people reproducing."
Missed the from part, not used to the touchscreen keyboards and auto fill.
In this day in age when we advertise condoms all the time and other over the counter options on TV, the public service announcements about aids as well as other diseases that they can not take a hint?
From what I can tell math and percentages were not your strong point, it is not an outdated idea. It is a simple logical mathematical idea, if you don't go and have sex then you have a 100% chance of not getting an STD or getting/becoming pregnant. Then using option a, b or c has X percent that you won't catch STD or get/make a pregnancy. I never purposed just one or the either but both should be shown.
And it was the other way for the federal funding. They had to teach at least both ways or no dough was given. That is how the state of Texas has done it for years.
"In this day in age when we advertise condoms all the time and other over the counter options on TV, the public service announcements about aids as well as other diseases that they can not take a hint?"
not when federally funded programs spread disinformation to gullible teenagers, claiming that condoms only work maybe half the time!
"From what I can tell math and percentages were not your strong point, it is not an outdated idea. It is a simple logical mathematical idea, if you don't go and have sex then you have a 100% chance of not getting an STD or getting/becoming pregnant."
lol hey broseph, how many people do you think actually stick with abstinence until marriage? and how do you explain higher rates of teen pregnancy in school districts which only offer abstinence-only education. please help me to understand how guilt-based sexual repression is totes effective.
"And it was the other way for the federal funding. They had to teach at least both ways or no dough was given. That is how the state of Texas has done it for years."
uh sorry no. federal funding was exclusively for abstinence-only education under bush. obama added $50M in sex-ed funding, after trying and failing to cut $250M for abstinence only. this is pretty basic stuff.
Do you have proof that said programs state that as a fact? I don't think you can back that claim up any bit buddy boy.
broseph? what is that supposed to mean?
I don't know but I doubt that any study would be very accurate in the matter. You know your right it is hard to use guilt in a society that has been molded to feel guiltless about almost any they do or act out.
First off which program of the 250 million are you referring to as there were several. And not all of them made the case that the people taking the grant could not teach about other methods.
lol you are the dumbest thing going
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/228677/n…
and
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/federalfunding…
Daddy issues are fine, but please, please keep them off the internet. Okey dokey, "broseph" ?
Women ALREADY are given sonograms, that isn't what's new and I'm not saying it's terrible. I doubt it dissuades very many women, especially first trimester(the vast majority) when it's just a clump of cells with no heartbeat, no ability to feel pain and no consciousness. It attempts to make women feel shameful–good luck with that, maybe it works for some people, I hope they change their minds for the right reasons. TX is adding a time limit for the sonogram, 24 hours before the procedure I believe, to force two office visits and thus more money, more time, more lost wages and if you live far away that can cause real problems. Women seeking abortions, contrary to what you may believe, are not ignorant or lacking emotion. We know what we are doing, we have made the best choice. Planned Parenthood counsels women and tells them their options, that's nothing new. I made the RESPONSIBLE choice in my well thought out opinion and many other women do the same. I didn't hurt anyone with my actions( despite what your misogynistic religion may tell you). Any woman who chooses an abortion after a certain amount of time has a good reason, I assure you. NO ONE would be pregnant that long and then just decide they didn't want a child, being pregnant is not fun. Abortions are not fun or easy either.
On blaming us: Contraceptive methods fail FREQUENTLY(mine did). Men pressure women into unsafe situations, frequently. Men rape women and violate their consent, frequently. Many women submit to their boyfriends, husbands or rapists because that is what is ingrained into us by society–to be submissive to men. Until patriarchy is destroyed this dynamic will continue to play itself out. Until capitalism is destroyed the working class will continue to be exploited and thus women will not be able to support children. THAT is simple.
On human nature: Our whole society goes against nature, until situations change abortion will still be sought.
It was not an easy/ simple decision, but I do not regret it at all. STOP calling women names and worry about living, breathing, suffering children and supporting women instead. Rape hurts people. War and occupation hurt people–and kill a lot of living, breathing children. Imprisonment hurts families. Fetuses don't suffer–but children who aren't cared for, are abused, or are sold into human trafficking do suffer– get your priorities straight and worry about the people living and suffering on this earth.
I couldn't agree with you more.
You should write a guest editorial to the Cougar. I think it would be a great improvement.
"get your priorities straight and worry about the people living and suffering on this earth. "
Ugh. Sounds like you're trying to tell everyone else what to do. Pot, kettle, black?
I never understood why one person's opinion should affect what a woman chooses to do which her body. Neimon, when you can answer that question, we can have an open discussion. And sadly, there are more than enough dead beat dads to scare women (esp unmarried) into having abortions. You might as well blame women for being the gender that has to populate the earth.
Right on Frida, Right on Bren.
Here's the argument. A fetus is not a human being, so it's OK to kill one: http://www.abortionaccess.info/fetusperson.htm
"ok to kill one" — "killing" is the act of ending a life…may want to re-structure that sentence…
…Um ok brainless, i wasnt going to use name-calling, but amyone who at this point in time is dumb [or evil] enough to 'still' condone legally murdering innocent human beings by virtue of his or her particular "stage" of his or her "life" (i.e. older person,child,partial born, or yes the term used to describe "us" at another stage of "our" lives or 'fetus') –
well your contentions warrant your level of honorintegrity-
…
judging by your analogy of why it is perfectly ok to "legally" murder an innocent boy or girl baby in the womb-
then you would have to be equally fine with
"chosing" to do the same to anyone of our
innocent African American brothers & sisters also-
simply due to the identically same "legislative scheme" that dehumanized all of our innocent "human" african american brothers & sisters-
simply in order to allow anyone greedy or selfish or Godless enough to think that they could do whatever they wanted to one of our innocent African American brothers & sisters simply because they mite "choose" to do so-
However since of course they "ALSO" are equally entitled to life & they "ALSO" are humanlivingAmericans etc-
you couldnt slaughter them (legalize & keep legal "SLAVERY" in America as you are attempting to do with "this" current & much worse Hollocast" befalling America)
UNLESS some of our our esteemed politicians suceeded in "Legislatively dehumanizingdisenfranchizing" our smallest,most innocent & deserving brothers & sisters in the womb-
exactly as theyyou did with all of our innocent African American brothers & sisters
in order to legalize & keep Slavery Legal…
*God help America* to correct this murderous mistake sooner rather than later*
“since… Roe v. Wade… about 50 million young American lives, not potential lives, but living, functioning organisms, have been lost to abortion.”- Regardless of Roe v. Wade, many of these “potential lives” would not have come into being anyway.
Although some people hate to admit it, women have never been content to be passive slaves to their biology. The only thing Roe v. Wade did was grant a SAFE way for women to excercise autonomy over their bodies. Modern abortion is not a bane of modern society, it is a progression of a medical procedure which in the past (and in the present, in places where they are inaccessible) could be outright dangerous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion#Prehistory_to_5th_century
The idea that this sonogram provision will be just the “light” that women need is patronizing and absurd.
It does insult the intelligence of women and the expertise of their doctors. It will force unneccessary and probably unwanted expenses either on individual women or to already cash strapped taxpayers.
hey where's all the small-government psuedo-libertarians to shout down this piece of genuinely invasive legislation?
step right up