After Mahayana made the last post, I started doubting that he got it right. Surely the 14 weeks meant before term and not 3 months, 2 weeks pregnant??? So I had him go back and check. The following is what he had read. The author is given credit, so I think this is OK to put this here.
Personally I have mixed feelings. I consider babies to be gifts from God and I also am a lifelong feminist (supporter of womens' rights). Anyway, judge for yourselves.
Quote:
OK women, it's time to wake up. With the signing into law of the ban on late term abortions, we are threatened for the first time in 30 years with the loss of our right to reproductive choice. I can hear many of you poo-pooing this idea - after all, the bill only says that late term abortions are illegal. Well, "late term" means anything after 14 weeks, according to the language of the law, but that isn't even the major problem, to my mind. The major problem is that we are regressing back to a time when women and their doctors were not allowed to make medical decisions simply because of someone else's morality. This law does not advance tolerance and humanity in this country - in fact, it does just the opposite. This law legalizes forced pregnancy.
Yes, that's right, I used the term forced pregnancy. What else can you call it when a woman - for whatever reason - does not decide until week 14 of her pregnancy that she needs to have that pregnancy terminated and the government steps in and says "Sorry, ma'am. You had that choice for 13 weeks, but now you have to haveto give birth to this baby." That is forced pregnancy.
And the worst part is the proverbial slippery slope. How long till someone gets the idea (as if they haven't already) that abortion at 12 weeks is immoral? What about 4 weeks? Some of us get erratic periods - we may not even know we're pregnant until this hypopthetical timeline has passed.
Supporters of the law say that it is never medically necessary to provide a woman with an abortion after the second trimester. Remember when your mother used to say "Never say never"? There was a good reson for that then, and there is a good reason to doubt it's truthfulness now. Besides the fact that health and even life threatening conditions can arise at any time during pregnancy, and some conditions effecting the viability of the fetus cannot even be diagnosed until major organs start to form which is, you guessed it - in the second trimester, there is always the possibility of unforseen circumstances. What if the mother is in a car accident, or shot? What if she is exposed to anthrax or another biological agent in her second trimester? You got it. The Bush administration says "Too bad. You cannot receive the medical procedure you need to survive." End of story.
Now, if you don't believe any modern U.S. administration would seriously consider taking away a woman's right to choose early term abortions, check out this link
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1105/p07s02-woaf.html
and you can read about how poor people in other countries are already suffering at the hands of these unfeeling patriarchs.
Wake up, women. Realize that the rights we take for granted can be taken away. We're not even fortunate enough to be on a slippery slope - we're dangling over the edge of a cliff, held up only by the slight margin of one Supreme Court Justice. Whether or not you believe abortion is moral, surely you must admit that giving away any right to control our own bodies is a mistake. If you oppose abortion, work to encourage the government to develop safe birth control. If you oppose birth control, work to change the hearts and minds of people having sex. But if you support the reelection of the most adamantly anti-abortion president in modern time, you will be supporting forced pregnancy, and it will be our daughter's who pay the price.
Faer Lee Balan
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