Abortion enabling Abuse

Here Today, it seems to me that a more authentic discussion might take place if the heading were changed to read "Abuse enabling Abortion". The cultured commodifying of life (ecological nature) by corporate consumerism, is a breach of divine Covenant that opens to all manner of misdirection and abuse of life. Ecological life is being mortally aborted by religious/ cultural disrespect for life. Where's the righteous indignation? It seems to me it is totally and pretentiously misplaced.

To Molly J, et.al.:
"So _in addition to_ prenatal care, teens need access to STD testing, Family planning and abortion services."

This is ONE way of thinking, based on attitudes--acquired from our past--whereby we may have been so discouraged by what we experienced, or saw others experience, that we opt to "prevent bad things from happening"--to protect the vulnerable. At least, this is doing "SOMETHING"--instead of "NOTHING..." Right?

That is ONE solution but not the best or only solution.

"PREVENTING bad things from happening" is full of pitfalls. For example, how much "preventing" is "enough?" We can justify many things by using the magic word, "preventing." Look at the wars we've become involved in--to prevent bad things from happening. Look at the laws we've created to prevent bad things from happening--like depriving people of various complexions, and women, from voting....

PREVENTING will backfire because it is based on a negative ambition. "Nothing POSITIVE can come from a NEGATIVE." Therefore, "Catch yourself CONTROLLING to PREVENT DISASTERS IN THE FUTURE." "Choose instead to live in the present and do what reality requires you to do, no more and no less."

We need to learn to set better examples. "If you take care of the present in a mature, appropriate way, your future will have fewer disasters than you would have the other way around." (All quotes are from "Managing Anger" by Mitchell Messer's latest edition at Amazon.com.)

Does setting a mature example mean that we abort a child--"to prevent bad things from happening?" Are we mind-readers? Which is worse, the abortion or the pregnancy? Which is better, teaching birth control or modeling self-respect?
Rudolf Dreikurs said, "Do we only do what is easy? Children do what is easy; grown-ups do what is difficult."

It seems to me that we grown-ups are avoiding 'doing what is difficult' in an unplanned pregnancy. We avoid. We want a quick solution. We want to "control this situation before it gets any worse." Etc. Well, that's running scared. That is NOT providing an example of using a situation like this "to GROW ON."

The more difficult work involves teaching young people about self-respect. In the book, "But He Told Me He Loved Me"--"A Handy Guide for Remaining Unpregnant" by Mitchell Messer, we can learn about the purposes of negative, self-destructive behavior and their pay-offs--whether young people believe this or not. It takes a lot of hard work to stay the course with young people "who tune out anything that might throw them off their self-destructive track."

One of the kernels of wisdom in this book is this: "...a very sad truth about the older generation--they are prejudiced against their own children. They don't trust their children to understand. They under-estimate their children's intelligence, and over-estimate their helplessness. It helps the adult to feel big and important..."

What a courageous, new world we can co-create with our young people if we show them the power of self-respect--once we earn it for ourselves.

I think this whole thread igniores a large part of the real issue of the Church's stance on abortion. Women, and even young girls, have the right to choose what to do when they are pregnant. The church has never acknowledged that women are capeable of anything. They only acknowledge Mary because they can't avoid it. But their whole stance on women is an updated version of keep 'em barefoot and pregnant.

The fact is, I am distressed by how often teenagers get pregnant and can't, for a myriad of reasons, tell their parents or guardians. I deplore the number of abortions. But each woman, and even each girl, has to make a choice. It is not my place, nor any man's place, to tell a teenager or woman what choice to make. Although it's obvious all of us could do a better job a making sure young girls know they can come to us, their parents, aunts, uncles, whatever, when they need help. We can support candidates who favor funding for social programs that help kids in need. Choices have to be evaulated in terms of impact on high risk populations, and teens are definitely a high risk population.

I expect what I've written is going to be very unpopular. Well, whoever said it was fun to be Catholic and a feminist?

Kate

In response to the issue of Planned Parenthood being caught telling minors to lie rather than reveal their abusers, I would like to point out that they were urging those who were already lying to lie further. These numerous incidents involved people posing as under age girls expressing worry that their adult boyfriends would be punished for having gotten them pregnant. It was nothing like the scenario presented by those hoping to defame Planned Parenthood, which claimed that, because the Planned Parenthood phone contact was sympathetic to the imposter and reassured her that Planned Parenthood would not reveal her boyfriend's identity, Planned Parenthood protects sexual predators.

I would like to address your question about at which point a child is considered worthy of life.

The teaching is that for want of any proof that it is otherwise, human life begins at conception. However, the intuitive understanding many people have is that human life is still only potential human life until it has begun to grow in the nurturing environment of the womb. At that point until late pregnancy, the new human life and the one in which it is growing are seen functioning as essentially one organism.

For most people, the issue of worthiness only comes into play when the human life in the womb has developed to the degree that it could be sustained outside the womb. Most people find the idea of an abortion at that point abhorrent and equivalent to infanticide. This feeling leads to speculation as to what prior point would be more tolerable. The answer is always that there is no definable point at which a life becomes worthy, which leads to the conclusion that there can be no compromise.

These days, medical technology has made it possible to support infants born very prematurely, and it sometimes becomes the case that medical care is intentionally withdrawn from these infants to allow them to expire. Is this decision made based on the worthiness of the particular individual? Is it morally different from someone aborting, in late pregnancy, a severely deformed child with no chance of survival, so as to be able to try again sooner or not be burdened with medical expenses? These questions are not entirely rhetorical, but I think they point to our being obliged to leave these decisions in the hands of those most affected by them, rather than insisting a certain course be followed based on principle.

In the case of someone who is pregnant through no fault of her own, having an abortion removes the consequences of the violation from her and from the guilty party. It would seem that the other innocent party is oblivious to its fate, and one would have to have insights about the afterlife to infer that there is any deprivation or suffering as a result. Allowing the option of abortion in these situtations gives the one innocent victim, rather than the guilty party, control, and does not necessarily lead to her choosing abortion.

Whenever someone brings the question of worthiness into the discussion of the morality of abortion, the implication is that those who favor keeping abortion legal are morally deficient and insensitive to the miraculous nature of life. Because we allow someone to abort for ignorant and selfish reasons in order to extend a certain empowerment to others, we are judged to be ignorant and selfish and in need of instruction. However, allowing the option is not the same as choosing the option or promoting the option. Making something legal that occurs anyway in order to make some things less tragic, is not the same as doing so because one believes it to be a good thing.

I see nothing wrong, however, with contradicting those who would promote abortion as a form of birth control or population control. In fact, I believe that is our obligation, as is never encouraging someone when she is considering abortion. I would support laws that would make it possible for someone who regrets her abortion to sue for pain and suffering those who might have urged her in that direction.

Here Today, I am a nurse and as far as I know, in _all_ states nurses (as well as doctors, social workers, dentists etc, etc) are mandated reporters. That means that if a patient discloses abuse to us, especially if they are a minor, we must report. This is probably not necessarily true internationally.

For those of us who have worked in the realm of Family Planning we recently have seen a disturbing trend to criminalize _any_ sexual activity between teens. You often hear terms likes statutory rape. I really don't know any one in Family Planning who likes to see sexual activity in young teens (ages 12-14); even when the situation is not necessarily abusive, it is still ill-advised. As teens age, you generally see improved decision making around sexual activity but again, no one would argue for the wisdom of teen sexual activity it is just that in our highly sexualized world, it does happen. But the ethical issues range from two teens having sex in a consensual way where both partners have fairly equivalent states (same age, same level of cognitive functioning) to situations where the age gap between partners means that one partner (often the male but not exclusively so) has more age, status and ability to abuse the situation, to situations of clear abuse where a young girl or boy is sexually involved with someone that is so much older or related to the young person (parent, uncle, teacher etc) that no one has much trouble saying that it is inappropriate. I can say having worked in this area that the most common scenario I see is sexual activity that may be ill-advised but it is probably not abusive or criminal nor should it be treated as such.

Complicating this is that young girls who are sexually abused (maybe even before pubescence) may be more prone to either acting out sexually or engaging in early intercourse.

Criminalzing teen sexual activity also results in making it more complicated and simply aversive for the teen to seek out and receive STD testing, Family Planning services and pre-natal care as well as therapeutic abortion.

When the church and perhaps even yourself tries to "boil down" these complex issues to bumper sticker ideas like "abortion is bad", "Planned Parenthood encourages abortion", "the most important victim in teen pregnancy is the embryo", much is ignored, over-looked, not considered.

Again, as a public health nurse, I do not find it that hard to be _in favor_ of doing all we can to create movements that support and promote chastity. It is a great first line of defense. However, as long as our teens live in our highly sexualized world AND some young women live in cultures and situations that promote treating women as sexual chattel, we had better recognize the need for availability to Family Planning, STD treatment, Pre-natal care and, yes, abortion services.

HT, you need to understand that some girls and boys do not come from your sexual thinking framework where they grew up in a sheltered and loving home so that they were not sexually targeted. They were not allowed to court and marry in a framework of commitment. Though I cannot claim extensive experience in working with sexually offended children or young teens, I have met enough of these folks to know that many of them _very young_ have something taken from them that cannot be given back. You can call it innocence or a sense of safety or a basic trust in the world as a safe place. Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times did a thought provoking article about girls in the sex trade in Cambodia and you might seek out his work in this area. Sex trafficking also occurs in America.

So as you consider the victimization of the embryo in abortion (which undeniably is a fact), I want you to understand that unplanned sexual activity, sexual trafficking, teen pregnancy, pregnancy in familes that are already overburdened with more children than they can feed, support or nurture often results in a situation of multiple victims.

Perhaps Solomon could tell us who the most important victim is here but all I see is more than one victims.

Even as a pro-choice Catholic, I feel there is an undeniable onus of the decision to abort. It is not ever a cost-free decision. Neither is carrying the baby to term and keeping it or adopting it out.

I favor chastity because it keeps people from walking treacherous paths where _none_ of the decisions are easy. However, the facts of pre-marital sex, sexual abuse and trafficking are not going to go away. Arguably, Birthright is a movement that has contributed to the cultural acceptability of out of wedlock pregnancy, but it represents a compassionate and correct intervention. But as a nurse and yes a Catholic I cannot say that I do not think the full range of other services should not be available: so _in addition to_ prenatal care, teens need access to STD testing, Family planning and abortion services.