March for Life 2015 Watch Thread

[Toothfairy]

I hate protests like this along with gay marriage. Why are we wasting time, energy and money on something that shouldn't concern others. Why are we wasting time fighting so hard for the unborn but not for the living. As a foster/adoptive parent I would like to see protest or rallys to improve our foster care system and to make sure aging out teens in foster care have the support and services they need. But nope it's all about an embryo and sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. I'm wo over it by now.

Cathy comments doesn't even make sense. Also adoption and abortion are two different things. I would honestly rather see a woman who knows she can't afford to raise a child to make the responsible choice to abort rather than the child suffer the consequences of their parents actions. I've seen my share of many unwanted abused children.

[gustava]

I hate protests like this along with gay marriage. Why are we wasting time, energy and money on something that shouldn't concern others. Why are we wasting time fighting so hard for the unborn but not for the living. As a foster/adoptive parent I would like to see protest or rallys to improve our foster care system and to make sure aging out teens in foster care have the support and services they need. But nope it's all about an embryo and sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. I'm wo over it by now.

Cathy comments doesn't even make sense. Also adoption and abortion are two different things. I would honestly rather see a woman who knows she can't afford to raise a child to make the responsible choice to abort rather than the child suffer the consequences of their parents actions. I've seen my share of many unwanted abused children.

Pro-lifers support conception to birth. Then you're on your own.

[Yoshimi]

She went into more detail on twitter:

Jessi Hunt â€@jessihunt

@cldilla @jillmdillard So your mother wanted to have an abortion, but didn't because it wasn't legal? That seems like an odd fact to share.

Cathy â€@cldilla

@jessihunt my birth mother whom I located when I was 27. She had put me up for adoption at birth and still didn't want to meet me even then.

brigitte â€@brigittev7

@cldilla @jillmdillard then that says a lot about your mother, not abortion laws.

Cathy â€@cldilla

@brigittev7 @jillmdillard She was my birth mother; I was adopted and raised by two parents who wanted me very much.

Cassandra Temple â€@Cassie_Temple

@cldilla @jillmdillard I feel sorry for your mother, she shouldn't have been forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy, nor should anyone else.

Cathy @cldilla

@Cassie_Temple @jillmdillard Ah, but my adopted parents wanted me very much!

Sounds like Cathy knew or heard directly that her birth mom originally wanted an abortion. Regardless of where I fall in the whole pro-choice/pro-life debate (I'm not touching THAT subject with a ten-foot pole!), my heart goes out to Cathy. I can understand WHY she would hold such strong feelings about this issue, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. No matter what, it's terrible to feel rejected or unloved by your own parent, even one who was never a part of your life growing up. Fortunately for Cathy, it sounds like she was adopted by two great parents who did love and care for her.

[whoviana]

These anti-choicers should walk for adoption, crisis shelters, orphanages etc and support those who were forced into being born against their mother's free will, or donate the cost of their picket signs and the gas money to mothers in crisis!

I am so fed up with these hypocrites! So fed up!

If it were up to them, they'd outlaw abortions, then they'd continue shaming and outcasting single mothers. Why don't they give a damn about the living, breathing children outside the womb that need a shelter, food, medical insurance, education and some sort of a future?

Their main target are the ones that they despise the most: young, single woman. They parade around with their godly lives, their oppressed women and their aging virgin child-women, condemning women that are in crisis, trying to rob them of their basic rights. They try to place them under a guilt trip spell, and when the kid is out, they can go and **** themselves.

These "pro life" marches need to be egged with rotten eggs already.

[Cleopatra7]

Cathy was adopted as an infant. I guess she assumes that if abortion had been legal, her bio-mom would have aborted her rather than giving birth and allowing her to be adopted by a family who wanted a baby. Of course, abortion IS legal today and many babies are still put up for adoption. So unless somebody told her she would have been aborted, but for the illegality of abortion, she's made up a story to suit her anti-choice mindset.

In the decades before Roe v. Wade, if a young white woman had an unexpected pregnancy, she had three choices: 1. marry the father and hope for the best 2. be shuttled off to an unwed mother's home and give birth to a baby that will be immediately taken away from you, while your family back home tells the neighbors that you're visiting relatives or working in another state 3. have a back-alley abortion and hope for the best. Rich white women always had the option of having a safe abortion, as it was easy for the wealthy and well-connected to find a sympathetic doctor or travel to another country where abortion was legal and then tell everyone that they had an appendectomy or the flu. It was middle and lower-class women who had limited choices when faced with an unexpected pregnancy.

Women of other races also had the option of marriage or back alley abortion, but they generally didn't go to unwed mother's home, which were almost exclusively for whites. I was told by my mother that during the pre-Roe v. Wade years, it wasn't unusual for unwed black women to be shipped off to relatives in the Deep South, and the baby would be cared for by other relatives and told that their biological mother was really an aunt or a sister. After Roe v. Wade, many women who would have been forced to give birth and then have the baby adopted out had abortions instead, and there is also the fact that being a single mother was becoming a more acceptable thing. As bad as our foster care system tends to be in this country, the advent of Roe v. Wade and the proliferation of birth control means we don't have the overflowing orphanages that we once had nor the phenomenon of child beggars that one sees in countries where contraception is not legal or readily available. To be honest, much of the talk from pro-lifers about have adoption is always the best option strikes me as conservatives thinking that the only acceptable environment to raise children is a religious, two parent, opposite sex household and that they should have first dibs on adoptable infants.

[MamaJunebug]

I heard a disturbing claim from some conservatives who were congratulating themselves after the march; namely, that "Millenials are overwhelmingly pro-life because science has provided so much more info about gestation."

Is that true overall, does anyone know? I'm sure the young folk in these guys' orbits are anti-choice - how many ultra-conservative pastors know liberal kids or families? I just pray it isn't true for the general public.

[Georgiana]

And then we have our pro-lifers like Zsu who think birth control is evil, abortion is evil, social welfare programs are evil, and adoption is evil. Because if you don't immediately marry your crazy and possibly closeted street-preacher, you deserve to starve on the streets with your baby.

Just like Jesus would have wanted.

[whoviana]

And then we have our pro-lifers like Zsu who think birth control is evil, abortion is evil, social welfare programs are evil, and adoption is evil. Because if you don't immediately marry your crazy and possibly closeted street-preacher, you deserve to starve on the streets with your baby.

Just like Jesus would have wanted.

The bolded part, so much. She saw a batshit crazy street preacher on the street, and she kept going back for more, until she ended up being married to him in a small and raggady little house with eight kids, and if that thing in the video, the mason jar with the fabulous pink stork tea was jinger tea, then it's more than just speculation to say nr 9 is on it's way to that madhouse.

[jaynie]

I heard a disturbing claim from some conservatives who were congratulating themselves after the march; namely, that "Millenials are overwhelmingly pro-life because science has provided so much more info about gestation."

Is that true overall, does anyone know? I'm sure the young folk in these guys' orbits are anti-choice - how many ultra-conservative pastors know liberal kids or families? I just pray it isn't true for the general public.

I was curious about this too, so I googled. Gallup data from 2005-2009 shows that people 18-29 are more likely to think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances than adults 30-64, and that does appear to be an increasingly prevalent opinion. However, as of 2009, it was still only 23% that held that view, while 24% think it should be legal in all circumstances and 51% say legal under certain conditions (which is a pretty broad category, and the most popular for all cohorts).

Now, whether there has been a huge spike since then (with the millennials, who mostly would have been under 18 at the time), its hard to say. I still rather doubt its a majority, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an increase. Observationally, my suspicion is that millenials are probably more likely to be strongly divided - ie more of an all or nothing stance - because those who are pro choice will have had access to a LOT of arguments and data which would support absolute rather than partial legality, and because society (particularly American society) is becoming more strongly politically divided.

In terms of explaining the larger number of pro-life youth, in addition to indoctrination and lack of experience with the world, i would guess there is some of the same "logic" as anti-vaxxing. These people simply have no experience with the consequences of their proposed legislation. Whereas seniors (who are less likely to be 100% against abortion than previous generations) have often seen the consequences first hand.

As for the "reasoning" that increased understanding of gestation has led young adults to be more pro life, colour me skeptical. Most of what the antiabortion lobby pushes is, scientifically, garbage. And I fully expect things to be different in Canada (where I am from), so take this with the prescribed salt granules, but I know a lot of people who became MORE pro choice after learning about foetal development (mainly due to the inability of foetuses to feel pain at the stage most abortions occur at).

[ghost]

Derick Dillard just retweeted this gem from his mother Cathy:

" Derick Dillard retweeted

Cathy @cldilla · 6h 6 hours ago

If abortion had been legal when I was born, I wouldn't be here! Neither would Derick, Dan or Baby Dilly!"

So let me get this straight, Cathy Dillard: You are saying that if your parents wanted to abort you?? Did they tell you that?

Is she saying she wanted to abort Derick and Dan? :pink-shock:

[Cleopatra7]

I was curious about this too, so I googled. Gallup data from 2005-2009 shows that people 18-29 are more likely to think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances than adults 30-64, and that does appear to be an increasingly prevalent opinion. However, as of 2009, it was still only 23% that held that view, while 24% think it should be legal in all circumstances and 51% say legal under certain conditions (which is a pretty broad category, and the most popular for all cohorts).

Now, whether there has been a huge spike since then (with the millennials, who mostly would have been under 18 at the time), its hard to say. I still rather doubt its a majority, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an increase. Observationally, my suspicion is that millenials are probably more likely to be strongly divided - ie more of an all or nothing stance - because those who are pro choice will have had access to a LOT of arguments and data which would support absolute rather than partial legality, and because society (particularly American society) is becoming more strongly politically divided.

In terms of explaining the larger number of pro-life youth, in addition to indoctrination and lack of experience with the world, i would guess there is some of the same "logic" as anti-vaxxing. These people simply have no experience with the consequences of their proposed legislation. Whereas seniors (who are less likely to be 100% against abortion than previous generations) have often seen the consequences first hand.

As for the "reasoning" that increased understanding of gestation has led young adults to be more pro life, colour me skeptical. Most of what the antiabortion lobby pushes is, scientifically, garbage. And I fully expect things to be different in Canada (where I am from), so take this with the prescribed salt granules, but I know a lot of people who became MORE pro choice after learning about foetal development (mainly due to the inability of foetuses to feel pain at the stage most abortions occur at).

I'm extremely pessimistic about the future of legalized abortion in this country. The trend is for it to be "safe, legal, and unavailable" as a result of a combination of onerous legislation that has closed many abortion clinics and anti-abortion violence that has scared off younger doctors from taking over from older abortion providers. There also seems to be a noticeable "enthusiasm gap" between the left and the right on this issue. From what I can tell, you don't see people on the left indoctrinating their children on the importance of legal abortion in the same way that fundies do on the importance of "saving babies." Part of this could be because pro-choicers would find it to be age inappropriate to discuss abortion in graphic detail with young children, but the right has raised up a generation whose main purpose in life is to make abortion illegal. To be clear, I don't doubt that there are committed pro-choice activists out there, many of them young people, but the devastating legislation that has almost wiped out legal abortion in red states suggests that we're being majorly outgunned and outspent.

[GolightlyGrrl]

I think it's time to post this article:

"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion"

http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

[thoughtful]

Reading the descriptions of this event, it sounds like the marchers are in a party mood. Some parties commemorate an event, some have games, cake, dancing or booze -- the theme of this one is self-righteousness.

[crazyforkate]

We are so far removed from the era of illegal abortion (and really unreliable birth control, for that matter - just talk to anyone about the pre-Pill days) that most of us Millennials can't even imagine it. I think that's a huge part of it. If you don't know anyone who "had to get married" and wound up in a bad situation, or someone who got sick from an illegal abortion, or a health care worker who is jaded from seeing hundreds of women suffer, it's not as real to you. It is one thing to have the choice and refuse it, and quite another to KNOW that the option isn't there for you.

[whoviana]

I'm horrified at marches like this, like the anti-gay marches and the anti-abortion marches, they always make me feel like humanity is not moving forwardly or upwardly, there are huge forces out there that try to enslave people, rob them of civil rights that thousands and thousands of people gave their lives for.

Every time I see these people I lose faith in humanity. It's horrible, these ideas should have been swept out at least a hundred years ago. And then you see young people, teens, young adults picketing to have basic human rights withdrawn. We still have a bleak outlook on the future and I doubt humanity will ever rise above being a self-righteous, intolerant race lacking any empathy towards people whose shoes they never tried to walk in.

[Mama Mia]

I'm not surprised that overall younger people are more anti-abortion in general. I think by "science and gestation" they mean the constant stream of ultrasounds on Facebook. If you're seeing your pregnant friends photos of fetuses far under the limit for abortion legality - with the sex already known and name picked out---- it makes it much more real for people.

But I am really, really surprised about being against abortion in ANY circumstance. It probably is what the previous poster said -- that as a society in general people have become much more all or nothing in their views.

[Becket70]

We are so far removed from the era of illegal abortion (and really unreliable birth control, for that matter - just talk to anyone about the pre-Pill days) that most of us Millennials can't even imagine it. I think that's a huge part of it. If you don't know anyone who "had to get married" and wound up in a bad situation, or someone who got sick from an illegal abortion, or a health care worker who is jaded from seeing hundreds of women suffer, it's not as real to you. It is one thing to have the choice and refuse it, and quite another to KNOW that the option isn't there for you.

I am older than most of you...I do remember the days before abortion was legal. I will always carry the image of one particular woman because she was the first dead person I saw. I was working at our local hospital during the summer as an aide (you didn't need much training in those days) and they brought a woman in her late 20s to the unit (no ICU back then) who had undergone a back-alley abortion. They stopped the bleeding in the ER but when she was on our unit she had developed an infection which overwhelmed her body and she was dead within 24 hours. She was a beautiful woman who left a husband and two sons behind. I don't know why she had the abortion and I don't care. All I know is that she died unnecessarily at a very young age. I think the worst part is that fundamentalists view this as proper punishment for her sins. The way things are going, it looks like we are headed back to the 60's and before, including vice squads hunting abortion providers. But abortions will still happen, they will just be illegal, so what will they have accomplished?