pro life slogans

[2xx1xy1JD]

I actually don't really have a problem with pro-life workers who encourage women to choose life - IF they are truly leaving the ultimate choice in the pregnant woman's hands, AND they are offering a woman real and practical support should she choose to carry her pregnancy to term. So I don't think ALL crisis pregnancy centers are harmful, and I wish both sides of the issue could work together to find a common ground where unwanted pregnancies are reduced and pregnant women given support they need to continue a pregnancy. That probably ain't gonna happen though.

I agree.

If the goal is to reduce the number of abortions - especially the number of abortions occurring at later stages, and to provide encouragement to pregnant women who may to continue to term but are encountering difficulties, there are some simple but effective means to do so:

1. Oppose rape culture and emphasize the importance of consent. A woman who is forced or coerced into sex is not a woman who is able to have a full conversation about birth control and safe sex prior to the act, nor is she likely to be in a position where she wants to be pregnant by that man.

2. Eliminate the whole "only sluts plan to have sex but a good girl can be overtaken by events" mindset. Take notes from the campaign against drinking and driving: acknowledge that one action is likely to happen (such as drinking or having sex), and teach the importance of thinking though that action in advance and actively planning to do it in a safe way (by having a designated driver or using effective birth control). Make the conversation and planning seem like they are an integral part of the action.

3. Provide good comprehensive sex education early and often. Among other points, teach the "double Dutch" method of using TWO effective means of birth control, such as both a condom and the birth control pill. This dramatically reduces the odds of a birth control failure.

4. Provide access to contraception and information about it. Remove barriers to access (age, mobility, confidentiality concerns, location, economic issues) as much as possible. If a poor teenager with controlling parents can discreetly access a clinic attached to her high school, without having to pay for it and without her privacy being violated, she may actually use it.

5. Provide easy access to Plan B, and make sure people know about it.

6. Outlaw discrimination against pregnant women and protect their jobs.

7. Make sure that every pregnant woman has access to proper health care.

8. If a pregnant woman needs practical support, give it to her.

9. If a pregnant woman needs financial support, give it to her.

10. If a pregnant woman needs legal support and other assistance to deal with an abusive partner or even just a relationship breakdown, give it to her.

11. If a pregnant woman needs shelter, make sure she has it.

Yes, yes, I know. These things take money and effort. So what? It also takes money and effort to fight against Roe v. Wade, and it's a lot more effective.

[polecat]

From the comments thread here (http://sunshinemaryandthedragon.wordpre ... d-embryos/), you can see it's not just abortion these loons have an issue with but the whole idea of women using their reproductive bits for anything other than brood maring.

It doesn't help that the pro-life crowd so often misrepresents those pictures they use in their propaganda. They are often much-older babies or they do not represent what they claim to represent (they're a miscarriage or stillbirth, for example). And on that note, who exactly who truly respects the sanctity of life displays such pictures and glories in the death and gore of what they claim are sentient human beings?

[Stephanie66]

My favourite is "Pregnant? We will stand by you." Until, that is, the woman needs health care to birth the baby, subsidized housing for it to live in, subsidized daycare so she can go to work, food stamps so she can feed it, etc etc etc. So how do they stand by any pregnant women besides waving a sign in her face? Oh, I forgot, they will stand by her if she births a healthy white baby while they convince her to give the baby to a rich Christian family.

Which is why I can never affiliate with the pro-life movement. It makes no sense to love and support a woman while she is pregnant, then judge her for being a single parent. The hypocrisy burns.

[Stephanie66]

From the comments thread here (http://sunshinemaryandthedragon.wordpre ... d-embryos/), you can see it's not just abortion these loons have an issue with but the whole idea of women using their reproductive bits for anything other than brood maring.

It doesn't help that the pro-life crowd so often misrepresents those pictures they use in their propaganda. They are often much-older babies or they do not represent what they claim to represent (they're a miscarriage or stillbirth, for example). And on that note, who exactly who truly respects the sanctity of life displays such pictures and glories in the death and gore of what they claim are sentient human beings?

The little girl holding the sign about fucking a senator was pretty bad. I am not saying her rant wasn't crazy, but little girls should not hold signs about fucking adult men.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I've posted this article before, but after reading this shit I feel the need to post it again:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/29/opinion/f ... on-reality

This is what an intelligent response from someone who is genuine interested in reducing abortion rates looks like. Basic common sense, right?

[Minerva]

I actually don't really have a problem with pro-life workers who encourage women to choose life - IF they are truly leaving the ultimate choice in the pregnant woman's hands, AND they are offering a woman real and practical support should she choose to carry her pregnancy to term.

So if they're pro-choice, essentially. There is at least one pro-choice pregnancy support centre out there (it's somewhere in Canada, I can't remember where). Most CPCs are run by people who see nothing wrong with steering pregnant people towards "choosing life", though. There are places you can go for impartial counselling and support when you have an unplanned pregnancy. Sexual health clinics usually have counsellors, and some abortion clinics will let you make an appointment for counselling only. Problem is CPCs outnumber these places by a lot, and CPCs advertise exclusively for undecided pregnant people, so a lot of people get taken in.

ETA Never mind, I didn't read the "who encourage women to choose life" part of your comment. It's never ok to pressure someone to abort or carry a pregnancy to term. You're not pro-choice if you "encourage" someone to "choose life", you're just a coercive dick.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

"Miscarriages don't get a birthday either"

That's pretty bitchy.

You have to keep things in context - it's a retort to be used at someone else who has already "started it" by preaching tired anti-choice slogans out of the blue.

Meanwhile as for the original list it would make a good driving game, see who can spot all the signs on a trip through the rural Midwest. I checked off quite a few going through central-south-west Indiana on the 4th...

[2xx1xy1JD]

So if they're pro-choice, essentially. There is at least one pro-choice pregnancy support centre out there (it's somewhere in Canada, I can't remember where). Most CPCs are run by people who see nothing wrong with steering pregnant people towards "choosing life", though. There are places you can go for impartial counselling and support when you have an unplanned pregnancy. Sexual health clinics usually have counsellors, and some abortion clinics will let you make an appointment for counselling only. Problem is CPCs outnumber these places by a lot, and CPCs advertise exclusively for undecided pregnant people, so a lot of people get taken in.

ETA Never mind, I didn't read the "who encourage women to choose life" part of your comment. It's never ok to pressure someone to abort or carry a pregnancy to term. You're not pro-choice if you "encourage" someone to "choose life", you're just a coercive dick.

From what I've read and heard (since I have no direct experience with using them or hearing from others who have), the genuinely pro-life organizations that I've mentioned (Efrat and Just One Life) get referrals from the public social workers that deal with and process Israeli women seeking abortions. If the woman says that her reasons for wanting an abortion are primarily financial or practical, she's asked if she would like a referral to an agency that could provide her with assistance. They don't directly approach pregnant women, but just get these clients who are referred and have basically been pre-screened as reluctantly seeking abortion for financial/practical reasons but wanting to see if there is a way to avoid it. If they would develop a reputation for being coercive, they would stop getting the referrals.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

At the same time, any woman who suffers a miscarriage of a pregnancy that she had intended to carry to term wanted that fetus to have a birthday.

In my serious beliefs, I think that what makes it "a baby" or not, when it comes down to what most humans really think as judged by their behavior in their own lives, is that the mother (or the family more broadly) wants the child and has started to think of it as a baby, they have a mental concept of the baby to come.

That surely riles up a lot of the "it's a baby from conception, one rule no exception" types trying to set policy for everyone that way, but just reading around the honest reactions of people to various situations where a pregnancy is ended tragically (miscarriage, accident to the mother, possible even crimes) that seems to be the line. Assault cases where someone is forced to miscarry, often people consider it a death, in other cases where miscarriages happen sometimes even people are relieved, depending on circumstances, or sometimes are sad but not to the point of it being a death, sometimes they don't care or didn't know they were pregnant yet, it's a big variety, but not so much about anything specific to the embryo/fetus itself, it's about the mother and the family.

I can easily imagine people considering their own miscarriage a tragedy and a death while still being 100% okay with allowing abortion. People sometimes think this has to be a contradiction but I don't think it is.

[Minerva]

You have to keep things in context - it's a retort to be used at someone else who has already "started it" by preaching tired anti-choice slogans out of the blue.

If you were talking to an anti-abortion activist who was using the birthday slogan, that might be a good opportunity to point out how anti-choice slogans and imagery can be triggering for people who've had recent miscarriages. I don't think it's "bitchy" to point out that what's on their sign also applies to miscarriages if you're steering the conversation that way...

[dairyfreelife]

While I don't think that the original slogan was effective, the snark missed the mark as well.

The fact that there are so many steps between fertilization and birth, where so many things can go wrong or where it can become obviously that the pregnancy was never capable of being viable, is part of the reason that I don't, and can't, make the assumption that fertilized egg = baby.

At the same time, any woman who suffers a miscarriage of a pregnancy that she had intended to carry to term wanted that fetus to have a birthday. In fact, reaching what would have been the estimated due date was a particularly painful time for me [and by "painful", I mean "staring at the bellies of pregnant women while getting jealous, yelling at my mother that I didn't want to hear about the birth of her friend's grandchild, getting furious with the insurance agent's clerk who called to ask about adding the baby to the life insurance policy, bursting into tears in the middle of a wedding shower and spending at least an hour each day crying alone"]. Reminding someone of a painful loss is not a way to score points in a debate. It also doesn't make that much sense. I believe that it's wrong to murder a child, but the fact that children who die of natural causes or accidents don't get to live to see another birthday doesn't change that. If anything, it just emphasizes the grief.

That's my point. Saying everyone deserves a birthday is wrong. If someone loses a fetus via miscarriage, that fetus won't get a birthday and doesn't that make it harsh to hear that everyone deserves a birthday? It assumes that even women who keep pregnancies will get a baby at the end and that just doesn't happen. And saying that slogan is hurtful. I wrote a simple response back and didn't emphasize because it ignores that every egg that is fertilized will become a healthy newborn infant in a few months and that sadly doesn't always happen regardless of how wanted the fetus was. It's a cruel slogan.

[Minerva]

From what I've read and heard (since I have no direct experience with using them or hearing from others who have), the genuinely pro-life organizations that I've mentioned (Efrat and Just One Life) get referrals from the public social workers that deal with and process Israeli women seeking abortions. If the woman says that her reasons for wanting an abortion are primarily financial or practical, she's asked if she would like a referral to an agency that could provide her with assistance. They don't directly approach pregnant women, but just get these clients who are referred and have basically been pre-screened as reluctantly seeking abortion for financial/practical reasons but wanting to see if there is a way to avoid it. If they would develop a reputation for being coercive, they would stop getting the referrals.

It'd be great if more places had a system that funnels resources to people who want to keep their pregnancies. I really like the sound of a this program, because the only women who are exposed to the pro-life groups are women who want to keep their pregnancies, which I imagine maximizes support and minimizes guilt. Plus the pro-life groups are indirectly affiliated with the government, so they have to behave. It sounds really great!

One of the reasons pro-choicers in my area hesitate to work with anti-abortion groups to make something like this happen is that we see CPCs promise more assistance than they can actually afford to give. To them, it's about saving as many "babies" as they can, whereas people like me would like to see pregnant folks given a realistic idea of the help they can expect and be left to make a decision based on that. Plus, CPCs would save fetuses far more efficiently if took the time/money they put into guilting people out of having abortions and poured it into making new parents' lives easier. A lot of social conservatives wouldn't go for this, however, because they feel that if they aren't actively speaking out against something, they're complicit in it.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Absolutely. For any genuinely pro-life group to have credibility, a counsellor would need to know that a client won't be harassed in any way or given false information or false promises. The counsellor should be able to say, "there is a group that will provide the following services, including possible monthly stipends of $x/month for X period of time."

[Mama Mia]

Absolutely. For any genuinely pro-life group to have credibility, a counsellor would need to know that a client won't be harassed in any way or given false information or false promises. The counsellor should be able to say, "there is a group that will provide the following services, including possible monthly stipends of $x/month for X period of time."

I know our local crises pregnancy center makes lots of referrals to various social service and financial supports. They are one of the more active referring sources to the non profit I worked for. I believe they also provide things like clothing, cribs, etc. .We also have a local maternity home where mothers can stay during their pregnancy and a few months after the baby is born, while being hooked up with services. Not enough openings for all of the struggling pregnant women in our community, of course, but the local services do seem to be geared more to concrete help than scare tactics. Which is interesting since I live in an area where abortion is very easily accessible and often public ally funded. It's also an area where being a single parent is very accepted. Maybe pro-life groups have to actually be pro-life, not just pro-birth, if they are operating in places where fear and harassment aren't as viable an option?

[2xx1xy1JD]

I know our local crises pregnancy center makes lots of referrals to various social service and financial supports. They are one of the more active referring sources to the non profit I worked for. I believe they also provide things like clothing, cribs, etc. .We also have a local maternity home where mothers can stay during their pregnancy and a few months after the baby is born, while being hooked up with services. Not enough openings for all of the struggling pregnant women in our community, of course, but the local services do seem to be geared more to concrete help than scare tactics. Which is interesting since I live in an area where abortion is very easily accessible and often public ally funded. It's also an area where being a single parent is very accepted. Maybe pro-life groups have to actually be pro-life, not just pro-birth, if they are operating in places where fear and harassment aren't as viable an option?

There are a few places here (like Rosalie Hall, Massey Centre and Rose of Sharon) geared to teens that don't deal with abortion in any way, but do provide a fairly comprehensive range of services to pregnant teens including some residential programs. Some were originally started a religious homes for pregnant teens where the focus was on secrecy and abortion, but they are now focused on helping these young women parent. You also don't have to threaten to abort in order to access the services. They have helped some clients of mine.