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I’m gonna lay this one right out. I’m a pro-life supporter. Gasp! A feminist that’s a pro-life supporter?! This could cause a rip in the time/space continuum that might suck all of us out into 2049, right?
Wrong.
Being a feminist embodies so many different things. It can mean one thing to one woman and a completely opposite notion to another. It encompasses all variations of ideals, whether we are in agreement on all of them or not.
I’m not the type of pro-lifer that condemns others for their views or for their decisions; I don’t base my viewpoint on religion and I wouldn’t ever try to convince someone that they shouldn’t do what they feel is right for them. The old adage of “what’s good for the goose” being “good for the gander” doesn’t apply in all cases, and I think that this is most assuredly one of those circumstances.
Stories have been trickling out of the Mid-West over the past few weeks that girls, ranging from twelve (!) to eighteen years old are using a new form of “birth control.” Prostaglandins, which are drugs that are mainly used in livestock farming to maintain healthy female animal cycles, are being ingested by young women to effect abortions. These reports, though not yet officially confirmed, have been leaking out over the past few weeks through the Care Net Pregnancy Center of Green County in Monroe, Wisconsin. Care Net is one of many facilities in existence that is a Christian-based, anti-abortion counseling center for women who are teetering on the edge of continuing, or discontinuing life.
All three girls that admitted taking the drug to abort their pregnancy attended the same high school, located in Monroe, Wisconsin.
Some of the side effects that are possible by taking these cow abortifacients include excessive hemorrhaging, clotting problems and infection. Doesn’t seem like a really appetizing route to me. Especially when, in this particular case, these drugs are being used as a form of birth control. I’m a supporter of birth control. Some of you more straight-laced pro-lifers might say that birth control is just another form of abortion, but I disagree. There’s always a grey area, right? It simply depends on whose point of view you’re taking. I use birth control. It suffices for me well enough. I’ll even admit, I’ve taken the 72-hour pill. Once. And quite a few years ago. That’s probably even further up on the rung of distaste for the staunch pro-lifers out there. I’m an advocate of the various clinics that are in business nowadays, such as Planned Parenthood. Again, Sarah the walking, talking contradiction speaks contrary to many ideals of pro-life. What can I say.
I’m not condemning anyone for their beliefs; I’m also not condoning a lot of things that people with these different beliefs do. The differential in beliefs is what makes for an interesting topic of conversation, which is, I’m sure, why most of you are here. Maybe you disagree with most of what I’m saying. Maybe you agree with some of it. Maybe you find me extremely confusing, saying that I’m pro-life, but having admitted that I use birth control and have also used the 72-hour pill. This is all part of being a woman. These choices, these viewpoints; it’s all what makes us who we are, individually and collectively as a species.
These unwanted pregnancies around the world are becoming a pandemic. Women relying on these ridiculously horrible fashions of “birth control,” such as the prostaglandin method, partial-birth abortion and a few others that just depict utter disregard for civilized decision-making. In many cases, the side effects of these procedures (for the women, anyway) far outweigh the “benefits” of the original intention.
I guess all that I can say to sum up my stance on this issue is that I am such a supporter of pro-life that I am willing to do everything and anything in my own, personal power to prevent unwanted pregnancies (along the lines of birth control and education). To the obvious exception of abortion, of course.
Girls out there: there are ways. There are always ways. There are clinics that offer free advice, free protection, condoms, birth control — don’t take these things for granted. Would you rather spare yourself the “indecency” and fear of your parents finding out that you visited a Planned Parenthood clinic, or would you rather take your little problem to an abortion clinic seven or eight months down the road? As far as I’m concerned, that’s indecent.
You can find out more information about these inhuman methods of “birth-control” according to an article on the University of Hartford’s website. You can also find some extremely graphic photos of what a prostaglandin abortion actually looks like, if you’re into that sort of thing.
The drug reportedly triggers a forced, violent delivery, almost immediately. One of the “side-effects” of this particular form of abortion is “live birth.” As if live birth is a side effect.
As I said above: I’d never judge someone for the decisions that they made. What’s ideal for one is not always the best choice for another. But before making your decisions as to whether or not perpetuate the life that grows inside of you, especially in such new, violent ways, read an excerpt from the U of Hartford’s website below:
Sarah Brown’s mother had carried her to full term, 36 weeks, when she decided to abort her baby. That was on July 13, 1993. The abortionist stabbed Sarah in the brain three times with a needle filled with poison. But something went “wrong”; two days later she was born live in a Wichita, Kansas, hospital. Bill and Marykay Brown obtained temporary custody of the baby within 24 hours of her birth and adopted her 30 days later. “For the first few months she seemed to be progressing normally, although she was blind,” said Marykay Brown in a 1998 interview with National Right to Life News. “She had acute hearing, and was beginning to try to speak.” But at about six months Sarah suffered a stroke and never fully recovered. Mrs. Brown says Sarah never spoke or walked, but “she recognized us and learned to smile.”
Weigh your options. Either be an upstanding, responsible female and educate yourself, or allow someone you trust to educate you on safe sex practices. Take advantage of the information that’s out there, and the fact that there are people out there who will care about your particular situation and not judge you on your decisions, regardless of what they may be.
I don’t care how pro-choice you are. I don’t care what reasons some of you will use to justify a terminated pregnancy. It’s none of my business. To each his own and so on and so forth. That little excerpt above shows what it’s like as a first-hand account of a failed abortion. It doesn’t matter what your ideals are. That child was given the opportunity to live, despite the fact of how unwanted it was. If it’s you in that circumstance, use a little foresight. Be responsible from the get-go.
Perpetuate the humanity – and by humanity I mean treating all life (air-breathing and fluid-breathing, alike) equally and with a fair shot.
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The emergency pill isn’t an abortion pill, and I can’t see anything contradictory with being pro-life and using birth control.
There are some pretty hardcore pro-life Catholics out there (which I am not) that believe that birth control is a form of abortion. They also believe that the emergency pill is an even more “inhumane” form of abortion. Their only form of birth control is the called the “rhythm method”, which centers around avoiding sexual contact during the most fertile times of month. Thank God I’m not Catholic, because I’d probably be excommunicated.
Well the Catholic aspect brings a whole different spin to birth control, seeing as it’s mostly banned by the Pope.
Here’s what I think of the rhythm method:
“What do you call women who practice the rhythm method?”
“I dunno, what?”
” ‘Mommy.’ “
You’re a bit misinformed about the Catholic view point on acceptable family planning. The rhythm method is an antiquated and useless theory that was utilized until the 1970s. After that point, Natrual Family Planning (NFP) became the accepted norm. NFP is based on the science of the hormonal interplay in a woman’s natural cycles. It is specific to each individual woman that practices it, instead of a generalization on all women, like rhythm was.
In fact, the science behind NFP is now frequently used by fertility specialists and reproductive endocrinologists to help women struggling to concieve actually achieve a pregnancy. It is also becoming more widely used by non-Catholic monogamous couples under the name Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). As a Catholic, I use it to both achieve and avoid a pregnancy because I know what is happening with my cycle. However, I initially became interested in the practice not because of my faith, but because I began to question the hypocrisy in my life that I bought organic food and dairy (hormone free!) but I’d spent 10 years putting artificial hormones into my body intentionally via the pill. I educated myself to all the options and am now an NFP instructor (I teach and counsel approximately 30 couples per year).
I say all of this because I get tired of being dismissed as ignorant when people know my husband and I practice NFP. I’m a college-educated woman (I got my degree in Computer Science as a classmate of our dear Sasha). I have been married for 5 years and have never had an unplanned pregnancy. We have very serious reasons for planning pregnancies due to health complications. If I didn’t fully trust the science, I wouldn’t do it. But if you get informed, the science is there.
Women trust the science behind a pill, even if they don’t understand the science of how it works. I learned the science of how my cycles work and I’d rather act based on that knowledge than trust something foreign is working properly in my body when I have no way to know until it is too late.
If you would like a reputable, main-stream, non-Catholic introduction on NFP/FAM, check out this book, _Taking Charge of Your Fertility_ (http://tinyurl.com/dyxl9t).
Thanks for the info! I think it’s super-important to be fully educated on all aspects of birth-control, even if some methods seem more unconventional than others. The whole beauty of these different methods is that there are other options than what one person may be accustomed to, rather than having to rely on something that just doesn’t work for them. Good luck with everything!
I really appreciate the info you just presented. I’ve been on the pill on and off for the majority of the past 10 years, too. I was always irregular in my cycle, and went on to help with that. I was also diagnosed with PCOS, and was told the pill helps with some of the symptoms, but I know that the biggest treatment for that is really just to lose weight.
In addition, I have hypothyroidism, and take synthetic hormone for that as well.
I also buy primarily organic or hormone-free fruits, veggies, meat, and dairy. I have been thinking lately about how my two prescriptions probably are doing quite a bit to cancel out the care I’ve been taking in my diet.
I am absolutely going to check out that book. Thanks again!
well.. I am pretty damned pro-choice, but I feel that if you carry the baby to a point where it can exist by itself outside the womb, there is really no turning back (except maybe in extreme cases involving the woman’s health, of course). But of course, that is a very, very extreme case.
I’m more concerned about sexual education. If people took more precautions, there would obviously be less instances of this happening. And yes, Planned Parenthood will give you a bajillion FREE condoms (OOooOo look at all these different colors!!) and the pill. Anyone who wants to teach abstinence-only education is looking at so many unplanned pregnancies (can you hear me from up there, Palin?)
I’m surprised the examples cited in this article were teenage girls, who have precautions such as the pill available to them at no cost.
I would’ve been far less shocked to hear that the women resorting to this type of birth control were women in their twenties, being that birth control (other than condoms) is a financial impossibility to some of us without health insurance.
no. You get get free birth control (like the pill, etc) from Planned Parenthood in your 20s. I do. If you don’t make a lot of money, free. If you do… well…. tell them you don’t (no I wouldn’t feel bad about this at all)
Oh, at least that’s how California works. I guess other states could be different.
I live in England, here the pill is for free (at least for university students). I used it to stabilise my periods and now I am in a stable relationship and we don’t use a condom. However, if I ever got pregnant, I would have an abortion – don’t get me wrong, I am not considering it as a normal birth control system, and it scares me, but I am just too young to have a baby. And for the record, I’ll repeat – I do take the pill!
I’m right with you on this, Sarah!
[...] is that the pill is essentially a lower dose of the same chemicals that are used in mifepristone, the RU-486 abortion pill. There is the fear that if a woman has already become pregnant before she takes ellaOne, the pill [...]