Hold onto your pound cakes, everybody!

“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.

Fun fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.

See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon. 

Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy. 

To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died. 

You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies. 

reblogging for commentary 

But, assuming the mother wasn’t raped, the choice to HAVE a baby and risk sacrificing their “bodily autonomy” is a choice that the mother made. YOu don’t have to have sex with someone. Cases of rape aside, it isn’t ethical to say abortion is justified. The unborn baby has rights, too. 

First point: Bodily autonomy can be preserved, even if another life is dependent on it. See again the example about the blood donation. 

And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.

Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.

If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other. 

When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.

When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence.” 

And that is gross. 

^ THIS. This is this this THIS THIS THIS. THIS!!!!!

This is probably the strongest and well worded/supported argument for abortion that I have ever read.

I’m not in the least for abortion.

I am for the right to be able to make a choice. Because I don’t know the story behind every unexpected pregnancy.

Abortion should a possible alternative to giving birth to and raising a child. However. I don’t think it should be chosen without any thought given to other choices like having the child adopted. Many women unable to get pregnant or carry to term would welcome that unwanted little one with open arms.

Of course no woman should have her hand forced. And nor should a father who would be expected to help take care of a baby, were he or she to be born.

BUT. You can’t talk about abortion without accepting the reality of what it involves. The rather gory ending of a life before it’s had a chance to properly begin.

Nor should the possible mental health implications for the woman be ignored.

I’ve miscarried twice as well as given birth successfully twice.

Both miscarriages were before the twelfth week. But the mental anguish was awful.

You can’t tell me that a woman’s body doesn’t think that abortion is just the same as her miscarrying. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.

Pregnancy is an amazing feat of biology that a woman’s body is designed for.

But don’t discount the ‘spiritual’ aspect. That feeling a pregnant woman gets when she realises that this is no longer just about her.

Call it mumbo jumbo if you want. But it doesn’t change the fact that pregnancy is a time of huge responsibility.

OK. You may not have asked for this responsibility. But that happens throughout life anyway.

You have free will. In the end it’s your choice to make. I’m casting no judgement.

But make the choice armed with the full facts. Abortion isn’t as simple as having a tooth out.

Pregnancy and childbirth are not what my body were “designed for.” Good grief. They are things my body is capable of. There is a defference. First of all, it’s incredibly insulting to women who cannot become pregnant or carry a pegnancy to term for whatever reason to suggest that their bodies are incapable of their purpose, and therefore effectively useless. My body was designed to carry me throughout my life. It was designed to be the bipedal corporal collection of tissues that houses my brain and allows that brain to effect its impulses upon my environment. Here are some things it can do: sleep a lot, run a 10k, deadlift more than it’s own weight, carry a term pregnancy and give birth (hypothetically! Never tried it!). The notion that just becaue my body CAN do something, that is what it’s FOR is absurd.

Finally, you are correct that abortion is, as a biological process, similar to miscarriage. In fact, physicians would be unable to differentiate a spontaneous miscarriage from a medication-induced abortion. However, the suggestion that the resulting psychosomatic effects are the same is incorrect. A scientific consensus has formed that abortion patients do not experience negative emotions parallel to that of miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy or other obstetric trauma. People freely chosing abortion by and large do not experience “anguish.”

I AM for abortion. The statement that you are “not for abortion” IS a vaule judgement upon people who have them. I don’t know why this is a hard statement. I believe that the lives of people with uteruses are their own. I believe that their bodies and their reproductive capabilities are their absolute moral property, and their bodily autonomy is unequivocal. I believe that fetuses have moral value, but that moral value never trumps the rights of the person upon whose body they are reliant. I do not believe that people who become pregnant have a moral obligation to give birth. This is a basic set of bioethical principles that would easily follow from mainstream bioethics if, as a previous comment said, we were not so pathologically obsessed with policing the consensual sexual activity of adult women and treating their human impulse towards sex for pleasure alone as a deviance that is punishable by pregnancy and childbirth.

It’s just what I meant. The female body is designed with a womb, ovaries and breasts. It’s designed to be ‘able’ to give life.

I’m well aware, thank you very much, that motherhood is not the be all and end all of womanhood. It’s not our 'purpose’.

There are indeed women unable to bear children despite the presence of a womb and ovaries. And there are women who do not even want to bear children. Both these women lead full lives. I said nothing at all about them being 'effectively useless’.

You can choose to see judgement in my words if you want. That’s up to you. I know there isn’t any intended.

I’m not completely against abortion. Nowhere have I stated otherwise.

I just see it as something not to be done without careful thought.

And I’m very sorry that you see sex for pleasure as 'deviance’. (That was your word, not mine. I mentioned nothing about sex for pleasure being wrong. I think pleasure is a huge part of sex. Or else why would we be able to get the urge all year round and not simply at 'fertile’ times?)

Nor did I mention that giving birth when you fall pregnant is a 'moral obligation’. I spoke only of the responsibility.for the growing life inside a woman’s body.

You think a woman has the right to decide what happens to that growing life? Well then, she also has the responsibility to make the best decision she can. And not only for herself, but for that life as well.

I don’t claim to be any judge of what the 'best’ decision is in any case. That remains the responsibility of the woman in question. Rights never come without responsibility. That’s just how it is.

You see pregnancy and childbirth as 'punishments’?

Pregnancy and childbirth can both be very tricky. And in less fortunate parts of the world than our own, they can still be dangerous.

But that’s nature for you. None of those dangers are man made.

In times past, even with the mess, the pain and the potential dangers, pregnancy and childbirth were revered. (Have you watched The Red Tent on Netflix? It’s amazing. And it illustrates what I’m saying far better than I can.).

I’m all in favour of becoming a parent being something that we have a measure of control over. Because yes. For all the joys, it can be hard work, especially emotionally.

And it’s not something I wish on the unwilling..

Though I wholeheartedly wish it for the willing but unable.

I am in favour of safe, legal abortion being available. Because not every situation can be clearly foreseen.

And for all I know there are times when there’s going to be no easy answer. And abortion may well be the least harmful one.

But done lightly, easily. Almost like another form of contraception?

Judge me all you want. But I’ll never agree with that.

So abortion isn't wrong and you're not judging, but people need to think REALLY HARD and make sure they're ~responsible~ about it? I'm failing to see how that's a non-judgemental approach. Seems like you do actually have a paradigm for good vs bad abortions, and that paradigm is almost invariably aligned with moral judgements about sex and femininity.

“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.

Fun fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.

See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon. 

Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy. 

To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died. 

You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies. 

reblogging for commentary 

But, assuming the mother wasn’t raped, the choice to HAVE a baby and risk sacrificing their “bodily autonomy” is a choice that the mother made. YOu don’t have to have sex with someone. Cases of rape aside, it isn’t ethical to say abortion is justified. The unborn baby has rights, too. 

First point: Bodily autonomy can be preserved, even if another life is dependent on it. See again the example about the blood donation. 

And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.

Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.

If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other. 

When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.

When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence.” 

And that is gross. 

^ THIS. This is this this THIS THIS THIS. THIS!!!!!

This is probably the strongest and well worded/supported argument for abortion that I have ever read.

I’m not in the least for abortion.

I am for the right to be able to make a choice. Because I don’t know the story behind every unexpected pregnancy.

Abortion should a possible alternative to giving birth to and raising a child. However. I don’t think it should be chosen without any thought given to other choices like having the child adopted. Many women unable to get pregnant or carry to term would welcome that unwanted little one with open arms.

Of course no woman should have her hand forced. And nor should a father who would be expected to help take care of a baby, were he or she to be born.

BUT. You can’t talk about abortion without accepting the reality of what it involves. The rather gory ending of a life before it’s had a chance to properly begin.

Nor should the possible mental health implications for the woman be ignored.

I’ve miscarried twice as well as given birth successfully twice.

Both miscarriages were before the twelfth week. But the mental anguish was awful.

You can’t tell me that a woman’s body doesn’t think that abortion is just the same as her miscarrying. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone.

Pregnancy is an amazing feat of biology that a woman’s body is designed for.

But don’t discount the ‘spiritual’ aspect. That feeling a pregnant woman gets when she realises that this is no longer just about her.

Call it mumbo jumbo if you want. But it doesn’t change the fact that pregnancy is a time of huge responsibility.

OK. You may not have asked for this responsibility. But that happens throughout life anyway.

You have free will. In the end it’s your choice to make. I’m casting no judgement.

But make the choice armed with the full facts. Abortion isn’t as simple as having a tooth out.

Pregnancy and childbirth are not what my body were "designed for." Good grief. They are things my body is capable of. There is a defference. First of all, it's incredibly insulting to women who cannot become pregnant or carry a pegnancy to term for whatever reason to suggest that their bodies are incapable of their purpose, and therefore effectively useless. My body was designed to carry me throughout my life. It was designed to be the bipedal corporal collection of tissues that houses my brain and allows that brain to effect its impulses upon my environment. Here are some things it can do: sleep a lot, run a 10k, deadlift more than it's own weight, carry a term pregnancy and give birth (hypothetically! Never tried it!). The notion that just becaue my body CAN do something, that is what it's FOR is absurd.

Finally, you are correct that abortion is, as a biological process, similar to miscarriage. In fact, physicians would be unable to differentiate a spontaneous miscarriage from a medication-induced abortion. However, the suggestion that the resulting psychosomatic effects are the same is incorrect. A scientific consensus has formed that abortion patients do not experience negative emotions parallel to that of miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy or other obstetric trauma. People freely chosing abortion by and large do not experience "anguish."

I AM for abortion. The statement that you are "not for abortion" IS a vaule judgement upon people who have them. I don't know why this is a hard statement. I believe that the lives of people with uteruses are their own. I believe that their bodies and their reproductive capabilities are their absolute moral property, and their bodily autonomy is unequivocal. I believe that fetuses have moral value, but that moral value never trumps the rights of the person upon whose body they are reliant. I do not believe that people who become pregnant have a moral obligation to give birth. This is a basic set of bioethical principles that would easily follow from mainstream bioethics if, as a previous comment said, we were not so pathologically obsessed with policing the consensual sexual activity of adult women and treating their human impulse towards sex for pleasure alone as a deviance that is punishable by pregnancy and childbirth.

b99 without context part 1

When your hair is wavy/curly sometimes there is a fine line between “messy romantic waves” and “evil witch who lives in the woods.”

We could go to City Hall. — Jake, do you really want to get married in the same place people go to get restraining orders?

This is what a real, qualified OBGYN will tell you about what women feel when they get an abortion

Dr. Willie Parker, who is trained as a gynecologist and OBGYN, is a hero for the pro-choice movement because he’s honest about the undiscussed aspects of getting (or not getting) an abortion. Watch how he gives a consultation.

That last statement about regret is so important, because so many people don’t understand what it is or what causes it. Anti-choicers exploit this by manipulating pregnant people and creating doubt, which only increases the likelihood of regret, no matter what decision the pregnant person makes. You know what is best for you, even if it takes some time to figure it out.

More posts on Dr. Willie Parker

Lolz remember when Dr. Parker did a book event where I live, on my birthday, right after I finished his memoir, but I was out of town? Aka the worst case of bad timing ever?

put! cheddar! in!! a!! tux!!! at!!! the!!!! peraltiago!!!!!! wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“I need you to release me.”

@uptownhags