"We continue to insist that it's women who are the nurturing ones. Men are discouraged from showing compassion or learning how to take care of the young. In popular culture, masculinity is increasingly portrayed as a red-meat eating, woman-hating, Hummer-driving cartoon. Yet in spite of this, opponents of abortion insist that these same nurturing women should not be in the position of determining when to reproduce."

It's hard for me to see your logic in this statement. You seem to be saying that because our society insists women are the nurturers and men are discouraged from learning how to care for the young, it is absurd that women should not be the ones to determine when they should reproduce.

Do you believe that the portrayal of masculinity in pop culture that you describe is accurate? Do you believe that men really ARE incapable of being nurturing, compassionate parents? Or that women have a "natural" connection to their children that men don't have?

Also, do you see any distinction between choosing not to reproduce and choosing to terminate a pregnancy?

I am pro-choice.

TS

Here is the problem- most men aren't BEGGING you too keep the baby in an unplanned pregnancy. Most men aren't rushing you down the isle in an effort to "provide" for you and a child. There are plenty of what they call "dead beat daddy's" to go around.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, how nice if we all lived in a perfect world where we were shown great examples of how men and women should nurture one another. How wonderful it would be if we were all steered into college and given all sorts of options in life. The truth is we all don't have those advantages. Some women are able to make a decision that is right for them and no one should prevent that. I'm so grateful for the decision I made as a scared young women. I'm in my 40's now and STILL don't want children. I never for one minute regretted my choice.

BTW- Dr. Diana, you should rent the movie Vera Drake. It's excellent on this topic.

Ah, something we both agree on completely- what a pleasant change! Okay, okay- not completely...

The final right to decide on having a child or not should belong completely to the woman who is pregnant. Beyond that, we must also consider the rights of the couple (man) to become parents or not. What happens to the couple who is struggling to make ends meet and are then forced to raise an unwanted child? How does turning a struggling, yet potentially viable, partnership into one that is almost sure to collapse help society? Allowing people to become stable adults before they are forced to raise a child is what can break the current cycle of poverty, crime, and drug abuse. A child raised by stable parent(s) is much more likely to become a benefit to itself and society than one raised in a broken home by a parent that is barely able to take care of themselves.

Religion must be considered in this debate as well. Not just the religious notions that tend to place men above women, but the belief that life begins at conception and so abortion is to equivalent to murder. While closely tied to religious gender roles, it is also a separate and distinct issue that cannot be discounted- especially when discussing why women of all strips have such differing views on the matter.

On a more facetious note, I’m not sure why you seem surprised about the current government's stance on reproductive rights and the war. If women who were not ready for motherhood were allowed to have easy access to abortions, where would the generally undereducated and lower-income soldiers come from to do the dying? It’s the one area where they seem to planning for the future…

When I was pregnant with my daughters (twins), my pro-life sister asked me, "Are you pro-choice NOW?" as if being pregnant and wanting the child would somehow "wake me up" to how sinister pro-choice beliefs were.

After many, many pregnancy complications, I delivered two beautiful, healthy baby girls, a decision I will never regret.

But my body was a little bit broken. I'd had pre-eclampsia so bad they worried I would have a stroke. After three months, my edema had not reduced at all and I still had significant proteins in my urine. They worried my kidneys were shutting down. My thyroid *had* shut down, almost completely, due to three months of bedrest (among other complications).

Around this time, I missed a period, which I was to find out is very common post-partum. I did not know this at the time, and, despite my use of condoms during post-partum sex, was paranoid and terrified that I was pregnant again.

Picture it, people: a woman with two major internal organs on the fritz, recovering from labor, still pre-eclamptic at the beginning of the pregnancy, and, wait for it, TWO newborn infants to take care of. It wouldn't have been a pretty picture.

When I gave this situation to my (pro-life) mother, she said, "But exceptions can be made for a woman's life." I pointed out that I likely would have lived through the pregnancy, even if my kidneys would have become irreparably damanged and my endocrine system taxed beyond its ability to ever produce hormones again. I would have been alive, so that kind of exception would not have been made, in her pro-life utopia.

Turned out I wasn't pregnant. Thank all that is holy. But I tell you what, I was a luke-warm pro-choicer before, and, to answer my sister's question, it wasn't until AFTER I was pregnant that I became a radical, fire-breathing pro-choice advocate.

here's something else for you guys to complain about...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801506.html

I am a pro-lifer who has no religious convictions at all . I didn't need the fear of god or anything else to come to my decision, just a good sence of what is right and wrong.
You see we were all once a fetus. Is it beyond the realm of possibilities that when your mother first learned she was carrying you, she may have considered her options? What if she had decided to terminate? Would that have been OK?
You would not exist, if you have children they would not exist, and your (husband or wife) would be married to someone else. You would have been deprived of all your experiences and memories. In this day and age with terminations being so readily available and so many being carried out, if you make it to full term
you can consider yourself lucky. Lucky you had a mother that made the choice of life for you. Don't you think they all deserve the same basic human right, LIFE?
I'm all for contraception, prevention is certainly better than termination.
Did you know you can get an implant that is safe, 99.9% effective, and lasts for three years? Just think girls not even a show for three years, wouldn't that be great? I think too many people rely too heavily on the last option (abortion), I think if abortions weren't so readily available people would manage their reproductive system far better resulting in a fraction of the number of unwanted pregnancies.
World wide there are over 50 MILLION aborted pregnancies each year. In America 3,500 terminations carried out every day, that's over 1.3 million every year, 50% of all cases CLAIMED that birth control had been used, 48% admitted they took no precaution, and 2% had a medical reason. That's a stagering 98% could have been prevented had an effective birth control been used. Don't get me wrong, I suspect the percentages in Australia would be much the same.
Just a lot of unnessessary killing.
I am convinced that in the not too distant future, people will look back at many of the practices of today with disbelief and horror.

ausblog

Aus blog - being somewhat facetious myself here, but where do you draw the line? We were all once a sperm and an egg. If your parent's had used a contraceptive, you would not exist. I don't have an answer to the questions raised here, but most days I am glad my mother made the decision to keep me.

ausblog--if my father had used a rubber, I would not have been born either. I'm not sure your logic holds up here.

It's true a fertilized egg has the potential to become human, but I'm not sure how you could argue that it is a person.

I also question the logic of your assertion that making abortions illegal or more difficult to obtain would make people "manage their reproductive systems better."

Abortions are not readily available to everyone in many places, which is why we're still here talking about this, isn't it?

I do believe, however, that the number of abortions might decrease if sex education and birth control are made more readily available. Maybe that's the better way to go about bringing these numbers down.

I'm not sure I trust your percentages, and not just because I have no idea where your getting them from. When you throw out those numbers, you're talking about women and girls--actual people. There are way too many variables to consider in this situation to rely on percentages.

You are not considering their ages, their financial situations or the situation that led to their pregnancy. One of the women you are talking about may have been raped. One may have cheated on her husband, with the pastor at her church. One may not even know how the hell she got pregnant. She may be 55 and married. Or 14 and married to an abusive husband. Or twenty-seven, single and ready to party. She may be a prostitute. Or an athlete. Or an actress. A meth addict.

Whoever she is, though, I think it's highly unlikely that her decision was an easy one. Whoever she is, she is not enjoying herself at the abortion clinic. She does not liken the operation to liposuction or botox. I have never had an abortion, and yet I am sure of this. I am sure that the people who go through this need friends to help them with it, need support and love. Or at the very least they do not need some sick bastard shouting in their faces and telling them that they are bad. Goddamn!

Anyway, the point is you don't know, and you can't know all of the pieces that go into making a woman decide to have an abortion. You cannot imagine or predict the effect the decision will have on her. You don't know anything about the situation that these women you are talking about are in, and neither do I. And that's good because it's none of my goddamned business.

That's why I'm pro-choice.

TS

While I am glad I was born, if my particular sperm daddy had been swallowed or flushed or spermicided away or aborted after meeting my mommy egg I guess it wouldn't have mattered to me. I fully support the concept that it is an individual decision that should be made by the person carrying the fertilized egg. If the sperm provider feels slighted in the decision perhaps he should be more selective where he deposits his potential progeny. About the "two old white men" are you stereotyping here Dr. Diana? Paraders outside abortion clinics are repulsive to me, young, old, white, black, M or F. Passing the parade must be very traumatic to abortion patients.

I totally agree with Diana's "pro-choice" argument. Everyone should be given the right to do whatever they want, as long as they are happy and the decision does not hurt someone who is alive. In Hong Kong, where I am from, we do not have clinics for abortion. If pregnant womyn would like to have an abortion, they either go to a hospital which will make the issue a big one or go to China where they have illegal clinics. But the fact is that womyn are worth nothing here in China. Gender inequality somehow exists in the US, but it is even worse in China. Chinese womyn do not have choices, so the concept of being "pro-choice" needs to spread.

Here's my take. Good for you Diana for supporting that woman in what I'm sure was a tough situation. Good for her for making a tough but probably very sensible decision. I'm a student midwife. I'll spend my professional life helping women have babies. But if we somehow end up in a bizarre parallel universe where women cannot obtain safe, legal abortion. I will learn how and I will perform safe, illegal abortions. I'll go to jail for that particular right if need be. It's something I feel that strongly about.

"I think if abortions weren't so readily available people would manage their reproductive system far better"

Aus blog, I think that's a very problematic thing to say. First of all, most of the groups who are most rabidly anti-choice are also against all forms of sex education and birth control apart from abstinence, which does little to address the practical realities of sex. Secondly, it's entirely possible to becomes pregnant in spite of taking precautions. Condoms can break, and hormonal birth control can have a whole host of side effects that make it not feasible. For example, my doctor refused to even consider giving me the year-long shot of birth control because of my depression, and for the same reason I haven't yet found a pill I can use.

Thankfully I've still never had to go through an unwanted pregnancy, but I'd have no second thoughts about what to do if that happens before I'm able and willing to raise a child.

I agree that abortion shouldn't be equated with birth control; but wouldn't it be far better to focus on sex education and making contraceptives available than to punish the women in these situations by eliminating their choice in the matter?

At the point of conception is when life began for you. This was the start of your existance. Your own personal big bang. Three weeks after conception heart started to beat. First brain waves recorded at six weeks after conception. Seen sucking thumb at seven weeks after conception.
Have you checked out (abortionclinnicdays)- the reality show?

Ausblog wrote: >
Are you not struck by the absurdity of this question? this is one of those 'Duh!'moments -- if Diana or I or you were aborted some three or more years before any of us entered into language and culture and the conception of what it is to be alive in a world of other living creatures - then the answer to your question is f*** yes, it's ok.

Have you checked out (abortionclinnicdays)-the reality show.

you had your medication lizzy

Aus blog, this is a tough issue. There are few other situations in our life where we humans are forced to come to rather immediate terms with our religious/spritual/humanist beliefs (such as "when does life begin"). At this point in time, there is no answer to this question given to us, irrefutably, by science. I know people have a variety of opinions about which they are quite passionate. What we know, though, is that removed from the womb environment, a fertilized egg either continues dividing endlessly, but never moving beyond the dividing stage, or it dies. Period. That is hardly "life" by any standard. Are you a vegetarian? Because we routinely eat animals capable of far, far, far more than cellular division.

Ah, some argue, but that dividing bunch of cells has the potential to become a human being. But now we have a slippery slope. Because potential isn't the same thing as 'right now, existing'. And if we start arguing potential, what happens to humans with little potential - for example, fetuses with known brain disorders before birth? Do we tell the parents, "This child has no potential to become a human in the meaningful sense, so you can't have it"? Of course not. Nor should we tell them the opposite. (Unless you're willing to get back into the sentience debate, in which case I refer you to the cow, born able to walk, feed itself, understand herd social order, and, of course, be eaten by us, all of which said brain disordered child will never be capable of doing (in at least one of those examples, that's a little relieving)).

All this to say, you might believe fervently one thing, but we as humans don't KNOW when life begins. Without that knowledge, it is foolish, arrogant and, I would argue, morally reprehensible to tell someone else how to feel about it.

With abortion as with pregnancy, women are put a situation of weighing. Does the benefits of carrying this child to term outweigh the risk? Those benefits might be social, emotional, spiritual. The risks are all of those, and also financial, quality of life, and life itself. Because even here in America, pregnancy and childbirth is a dangerous business, one in which people do die (both mother and baby).

And perhaps some of the women who get abortions believe that the cells they are terminating from their body is a life. These I feel for most, because they are weighing life against life, a burden I'd wish on no one. And for them, who believe this, and still come to the conclusion that the abortion is a good, morale, and least risky (for their health, etc.) choice...well, I would never want to burden them or their doctors further.

It is not the purpose of the state to legalize morality, nor would few care to live in any society that took that idea to it's natural conclusion (reference the Taliban, if you will).

I still stand by my personal decision never to have an abortion. But I will not force that decision on others, and, having had a vasectomy, will never feel slighted if anyone else decides to have an abortion.

I look forward to a day when women can terminate their pregnancies and not kill the unborn child within them. We are not there yet, and I don't see anyone working to get there. If there were a way to remove a foetus from one person and implant it in another or help it come to full term in an "incubator", then I could see denying abortions. Until such time, we can not tell someone they must go through with something that will destroy them just because we think they should.

Is personhood *really* the issue we should be worrying about here when it comes to pregnancy termination? It is human nature to consistently value certain lives above others. (Someone mentioned that most of us eat intelligent animals routinely.) We value animal lives above those of plants/monera/etc., but we value certain animal lives above others, and we value human lives above all. Where we all differ is in how to assign value to human lives. Some of us believe that some criminals have lost their right to a valuable life; others believe that people we've never met in other nations whom we politically oppose have valueless lives. Would you rather let your best friend or a stranger die? Which life has more value, an embryo or a person with a degenerative illness?

We're all responsible for much pain and many deaths, as we are complicit in the suffering of others.

If someone is pro-life, I always ask him/her: what are you doing to make the world safer for women to give birth to children out of unplanned pregnancies? Adopted any children lately? Maybe stopped promoting a world in which it's still somehow "shameful" to be a young single mother because extramarital sex is so immoral? Reform healthcare or welfare or the foster care system?

When the world starts giving a shit about women and children, then abortion will be necessary far less often.

It's a truly barbarick world we live in.
Hardly a civilisation......

UPDATE - At this point in time there are 1.3 million couples in America looking to adopt...(thats scary)...

JSP - Good point, and I think my whole point was that personhood ISN'T the issue. It absolutely cannot be, since we can't say anything intelligent about the personhood of a fertilized egg. In my opinion, the issue of abortion is, in a roundabout circular way, the absurdity of the debate itself. Since we don't know anything about personhood of the cells, and we can't know the risks (social, emotional, physical, financial) associated with every single pregnancy in advance, and, oh by the way it's not the state's role to legislate our beliefs anyway, claiming that abortion is "wrong" is misguided at best, arrogant to the point of downright stupidity at worst. My comment about women who have beliefs (for personal or religious reasons) about the personhood of their fetus, and still believe they should have an abortion is just, Wow, that must be tough for them. Let's be compassionate and kind and not make it worse.

Ausblog - it is unfortunate you chose to not engage in any debate. (Spewing facts that do not speak to any point other than your own is not a debate.) I think here too is a problem with how abortion is talked about in America - i.e., it isn't. The people who are most vehemently opposed to abortion are the same ones unwilling to converse intelligently about it. I'm not in any way calling these people stupid; just saying it's a shame they're not engaging and using any intelligence in discourse.

I see abortion as the "mcdonalds" fix to a larger problem. I believe it leaves more scars than it fixes, quick now the pregnancy is terminated the problem is gone - but it isn't. Some things have had a more significant effect on an un planned pregnancy - better wages for women, better and easily accessable birth control, programs that support and encourage young single moms, it is a small begining. I could not abort a child because I believe the fetus IS a child. But my stance is not so much against abortion as it is for supporting programs and initiatives that will help women choose to carry their babies by eliminating the problems preventing them. I know this is idealistic and does not address every abortion issue but it is the best I CAN do!
Kim,
single mom of 5 children.

At the point of conception is when life began for you. This was the start of your existance. Your own personal big bang. Three weeks after conception heart started to beat. First brain waves recorded at six weeks after conception. Seen sucking thumb at seven weeks after conception.

Diana, I love how you changed the article. I remember that when I read it the first few times this relative was homeless - now she's not. It doesn't matter that you changed a few words here and there - the point is that you dragged her to a clinic to kill her baby instead of reaching out to a homeless person - RELATIVE! - in need BEFORE they got in trouble. Yes, Diana - you are wonderful - you kill babies and you ignore family members in trouble until you can make a political point by dragging them to kill their babies - you are my hero Diana. USC would be better off without a psycho like you "teaching" at their school.

Hadn't meant to delete the homeless part, Mary, as she was indeed homeless at that point, but am happy to report that currently she is in fact back living at home. These are choices she makes, including the choice to have an abortion. Far from "dragging" her, I responded to a request for help. I'd do it again in a second.

Diana, I apologize for sounding so angry. I don't want to see abortions banned, but I do wish they would explain to women exactly what's going on at the time of termination. I have worked with too many women that regret their abortions and wish that they were better informed - they find out too late and that makes me really sad. I hope you can accept my apology :) I'm really not that bad.

Mary, it takes courage and character to apologize for something we've done or said and I commmend you for doing so.

As to how to "help" her, don't forget there's drug addiction involved. I will help her in any way that promotes her well being. But I won't "help" her be a drug addict. That's not helping, that's helping to kill her. So the choices that have led her to homelessness cannot be "helped" by my "rescuing" her. She knows when she wants real help in getting clean, I am here for her 100%.

And yes, abortions can be emotionally devastating. But only one of mine was, and I still don't regret doing it. I just regret that my culture did not tell me that I was going to need to grieve the baby that I could not welcome. I found that out the hard way.

On a related note, I apparently accidentally deleted the "homeless" part when I went back to add the fact that she was sobbing over having to kill the baby she could not handle having. It is not my intent to misrepresent the seriousness of abortion and so I wanted to make sure to note that she had despair over the situation, if not the choice itself. So far from editing to make myself look better, I was actually relaying the reality that the need for her to abort the fetus was one of the things she sobbed about as I held her.

I agree with you that no one needs to enter into this lightly or misinformed in any way. So there's a need for more, not less, open and unashamed discussion of this topic as well as the need for open access to the surgery when it's apparent that it's the right thing to do. I bow to women's wisdom on this matter. Yes, we can and should be charged with something as terrible as deciding the fate of our own fetus. Yes we should.

Regardless of my beliefs on controversial issues like abortion, I try very hard to respect the rights of each individual to control his or her life. We all need to mind our own business a lot more than we do. It's fine to have opinions about what other people do, but it's not fine to judge them or try to bully them into coming around to your point of view. (At some point, you have to agree to disagree and just live your own life.)

Abortion is a very difficult issue, but a lot of people raise somewhat extraneous issues and just muddy the waters.

For example, I don't think the presence (or absence) of adoption-related alternatives really has anything to do with the core right-or-wrong question.

Saying that you have to allow abortion in cases of rape or incest makes some sense -- from a legalistic perspective, someone who has sex voluntarily may be charged with responsiblity for the foreseeable consequences of his or her actions, while someone who is coerced into an action is not responsible -- but that doesn't help us decide the non-rape, non-incest cases.

On the other hand, I don't understand why requiring parental notification for minors is such a horrible idea -- there are definitely two sides to the issue, but we usually presume that children shouldn't make serious decisions for themselves -- that their parents are better equipped to act in their best interest.

I also don't understand why this is fundamentally a feminist issue, or why it's sexist to oppose abortion. I don't think my position has anything to do with my being a male. (It probably has a lot to do with me being a parent.) Likewise, Diana's position may have more to do with her mother's experience than the fact that she is female, or a radical feminist.

To me, there's an inherent dilemma here. Women shouldn't be legally forced to remain pregnant and deliver babies -- fetuses are too much part of a women's body to treat them as something totally separate. But unborn children are living organisms who will someday become persons like any of us, and I believe that aborting them is at least somewhat akin to killing a human being. (Maybe it's like euthanasia -- killing in the literal sense of the word, but not always morally objectionable because it has arguably positive aspects.)

So how do you "break the tie"? I think you have to leave it to the woman rather than leave it in the hands of the state or the father or someone else.

Having said that, I find it objectionable -- as a father -- that so many argue that fathers should have nothing to say about the fate of the unborn child.

But the dilemma is that if the mother wants an abortion and the father doesn't, someone has to break the deadlock -- and I can't really justify a position that a father's wishes should override the mother's -- so I think the mother gets to decide.

It's a very unsatisfactory situation, but I don't have a better way of handling it.

Gary, I agree with almost everything that you said, but I can't help but cringe when a baby is referred to as a fetus. I realize that some women don't think of it as a baby in their womb but millions of women, upon learning that they have conceived, consider it a baby. I just don't understand how it can be a baby when you want it and a fetus when you don't. If it has a heart beat and it sucks its thumb, it must be a baby - that's just common sense isn't it?

Mary, I personally agree with you on this one -- whether I use the term "fetus" or some other term doesn't matter much to me. (I don't think that fact necessarily settles the debate, but it means a lot to me in how I view the issues.)

I have identical twin daughters, and the quesiton of which one is older often comes up. Because they were caesarean babies, it's really meaningless which one was pulled out first -- but one is officially a minute older than the other one. That seems crazy to me -- my answer is always that they are obviously exactly the same age.

One reason i don't proselytize much on this issue is that I can imagine shooting my mouth off in front of a woman who has decided (for whatever reason) to have an abortion -- she may regret the decision terribly, or she may not, but either way it was probably a fairly intense emotional experience, and it's not my place to tell her she shouldn't have done it. How presumptuous that would be of me.

It's like being pro-war when you know neither you nor anyone you care about will ever have to go fight and expose himself to danger.

Gary, As a woman I do hate it when men jump in to this debate. Even my husbands opinion pisses me off, even though we are on the same side. I take a step back though and I realize that he honestly believes, with his whole heart that abortion kills an innocent life. I believe that most pro-life people are not out to restrict the rights of women, but they honestly believe that babies are being killed. This is where we need to come together. I care about women and babies- and I will be there for women who decide to terminate. I just hope that someday in the near future women realize that abortion is NOT the best alterative.