today in English class my professor started talking about abortion and all the guys in class started having a debate on whether girls should be allowed to get an abortion or not and no girls were talking so i got mad and yelled “NO VAGINA NO FUCKING OPINION” and everything got really quiet and the professor just said “discussion closed, next topic”
“A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. The human embryos that are destroyed in stem-cell research do not have brains, or even neurons. Consequently, there is no reason to believe they can suffer their destruction in any way at all. It is worth remembered, in this context, that when a person's brain has died, we currently deem it acceptable to harvest his organs (provided he has donated them for this purpose) and bury him in the ground. If it is acceptable to treat a person whose brain has died as something less than a human being, it should be acceptable to treat a blastocyst as such. If you are concerned about suffering in this universe, killing a fly should present you with greater moral difficulties than killing a human blastocyst.”
— Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian NationI thought I'd share my personal story
stfueverything.tumblr.comthisisafakeemail submitted:
Back in October, I got pregnant.
I’m 16, and it was the worst thing that happened to me.
I used a condom, it broke. My boyfriend bought Plan B for me (because I was too young to buy it on my own at the time). Plan B failed as well.
For the first few weeks, I just knew. I knew I was pregnant, without even a test. I remember looking in the mirror one day, I thought I looked extremely beautiful - glowing, for lack of a better word. After a few seconds, I froze. I had watched enough movies to know that ‘glowing’ in many cases meant pregnancy. I ran to my room and hid until I actually had to go to school.
But after that I was in denial, extreme denial. I thought “no, this couldn’t possibly happen to me.”
After about five weeks, I decided to go to a pregnancy center in my town (not planned parenthood, this one was privately owned). I didn’t know it at the time, but they were an extremely religious organization who tried their hardest to stop abortions.
I went in there, took the test.
Of course, it came up positive.
I was terrified, I broke down sobbing. The woman I had been talking to made no move to try and comfort me. Instead she bombarded me with questions, asking if I was going to keep the baby. If I had any religion that would influence me to keep it. Things like that.
I couldn’t answer for a while, but I wanted to scream at her.
Eventually I said “I don’t see anything wrong with abortion.”
She fought back. But you could give it up for adoption! It’s actually not that hard to care for a child! Killing it would be wrong!
I had no energy to reply, to argue. All of my peace of mind was gone, destroyed.
I couldn’t tell her that I wanted to be a Dental Hygenist, that raising a kid when I was 16 would destroy that dream for me. I couldn’t tell her that having a child with how petite I was would severly damage my body. I couldn’t tell her that I wouldn’t be able to give the life that my child deserves because I am so young…because I have depression. I couldn’t say that to carry a child for nine months, and then give it up would destroy me on the inside.
I could only sit there and cry. I cried about how this happened to me. How I’d have to tell my mom. How I have to deal with the consequence of my action.
She asked me if anyone was pressuring me into getting an abortion.
She said my boyfriend was going to leave me no matter what my decision was.
I left.
I wiped my face with my sleeve and stormed out.
I never felt so sad, so defeated. Empty.
My mom asked me later that day what was wrong, and I told her. I had lost the ability to care what she thought.
She took me to Planned Parenthood to set up an abortion.
And I am so grateful for all of the love and support I got from the people who worked there. How they made me feel unashamed and like a person. I am ever grateful for the brave women in the waiting room who comforted me, who comforted each other, who complained about the idiotic pro-life protestors who were just outside trying to influence us to keep the children who couldn’t have a good life if we kept them.
And I’ll forever love the Doctor who gave me the abortion. The Doctor who I fear for the life of because of how hated doctors who preform abortions are by so many extremests. He was the kindest man, the absolute best.
And so when I hear stories about Planned Parenthood loosing funding, I’m afraid. Because I know they’ll be replaced by places like that pregnancy center I went to. I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I did there. Regardless of the abortion bit of Planned Parenthood, I’m afraid for those women who ARE pregnant and can’t aford the prenatal care they need.
And I know, that as soon as I’m old enough. I’ll not only write letters to my congressmen…but I’ll stand up to them. Go to every single event I can to protest the cutting of Planned Parenthood’s funding. Hell, I don’t care if I end up crying in front of every single one of those men who opose abortions. I do not want anyone to go through what I went through. No one deserves that.
Thank you for sharing your story and being so brave in the face of the CPC staff member. Thank you for not being afraid of doing what’s right for you.
Pro-life congressman bullied his mistress into getting an abortion
current.comThe Huffington Post has obtained the transcript of a 2000 phone call made by pro-life Congressman Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, in which he pressured his former mistress to have an abortion.
In the call DesJarlais asks his lover to terminate a pregnancy.
“You told me you’d have an abortion, and now we’re getting too far along without one,” he tells the woman who he met when she was a patient of his.
They also discuss whether he will accompany her to the clinic for the aforementioned procedure.
“You told me you would have time to go with me and everything,” she says.
“I said, if I could, I would, didn’t I? And I will try,” he replies. “If I can [find] time, you’re saying you still will?”
Why I am pro-choice
Here are some reasons why I am pro-choice:
- Laws against abortion do not stop abortion; they simply make it less safe. The number of women who get abortions does not change when it goes from being legal to illegal, or vice versa. The only thing that changes is more women die.
- If people want to stop abortion, they should turn to methods that do work. These include comprehensive sex education and safe, affordable contraceptives. Unfortunately, as illogical as it sounds, the people who are most against abortion are also often most against these preventative measures. If they truly wanted to reduce the number of abortions that occur, they would embrace these methods.
- The politicians “pro-lifers” so ardently support are only after one thing: self-interest. The majority of them are not “pro-life” because they agree with you; they are because they know you will continue to vote for them—and they know that making women remain pregnant not only takes away their power, but it also keeps them busy, in line, controlled, as well as a baking factory for their failing economy.
- Religious ideology is no foundation for any law. Freedom of religion is guaranteed to any citizen in the Australia; so why would the beliefs and values of one religion mandate actual laws for all citizens? It would be unfair, unjust and immoral.
- Reproductive restrictions do not end with abortion. Many people also argue that contraception itself is wrong—another mainly-religious philosophy—and will deny women the protection they need based on this belief. There are legislative acts that allow actual pharmacists to deny women their birth control because of their beliefs; does this not violate the Hippocratic Oath, especially if thousands of women are on birth control because their very lives depend on it.
- Most people who are against abortion will never even become pregnant. If a law would never, in any circumstance, apply to a man, a man creating that law is preposterous. It is akin to men creating laws that ban women from voting, owning property, or showing skin in public—only much more deadly.
- Women who are raped or victims of incest should not be forced to carry out a pregnancy. Odds are that 1 in 3 women will be victims of sexual violence in her lifetime. Does this mean that 33% of all women should be forced to carry out a pregnancy from this violation?
- Reproductive choice can be the only thing that stands between a woman and poverty. There is a reason that the 1 billion poorest people on the planet are female. In sub-Saharan Africa and west Asia, women typically have five to six children, which leaves them powerless to provide for not only their own families, but themselves.
- Reproductive choice can be the only thing that stands between a woman and DEATH. Women who face deadly consequences of a pregnancy deserve to choose to live. Teen girls, whose bodies are not yet ready for childbirth, are five times more likely to die. Not only do 70,000 girls ages 15-19 die each year from pregnancy and childbirth, but the babies that do survive have a 60% higher chance of dying as well.
- Doctors, not governments, should always be the people to make medical recommendations and opinions. Would you allow the government to tell you if you could have a kidney transplant or a blood transfusion? Of course not. The fact that we even consider, let alone allow, governments to regulate a medical procedure is both illogical and foolish.
Want fewer abortions? Give away birth control
current.com
If you want to lower the abortion rate, there is a simple and extremely effective way to do it without changing the law. You can see it in our number of the day: 61 percent.
That’s approximately how far the abortion rate fell among a group of women in St. Louis when birth control was simply given away for free. The drop in the teen birth rate was even more impressive: 81 percent.
This came out of a study by Washington University in which 9,000 women — many of whom were poor or uninsured — were offered a choice of contraceptives at no cost. Most ended up getting IUDs or other implants, which are the most effective options and are also usually quite expensive.
But the drop in unwanted pregnancies more than made up for the expense. That’s good news for all of us, because we may soon see similar results across the entire country.
The president’s Affordable Care Act now gives access to contraception without co-pays. So never mind trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. If you’re anti-abortion, stand up for Obamacare.
