Opinion

Sex-selective abortion: the irony of women’s rights

In its official policy positions, Planned Parenthood Action Fund proclaims, “Women must be able to access health care without fear of violence, harassment, or intimidation.”

It has been said that the exception proves the rule. In Planned Parenthood’s case, one major exception to the above rule has been clearly demonstrated in the recent Live Action investigation of sex-selective abortion. Namely, violence is acceptable as long as the female in question is a young, tiny female.

Live Action has just released a recording of a Planned Parenthood counselor assuring a pregnant woman that she can have an abortion up to twenty-three weeks of pregnancy. The reason for such a late abortion? The pregnant woman wants to wait until she knows if her unborn child is a boy or a girl. If it is a girl, she plans to abort – with the help, encouragement, and services of Planned Parenthood.

At twenty-three weeks, a normal baby is about a foot long and weighs around one pound. She has fingers, toes, ears, and eyebrows. Her heartbeat is regular, and she loves to suck her thumbs. She can kick and squirm. She can even hear the sound of her mother’s voice.

She can also feel pain.

If the woman undergoes a D&E abortion – a procedure used in the second trimester – that little girl’s body will literally be torn apart by forceps in the uterus, and her dismembered body will be removed piece by piece. The mother may certainly be given anesthesia, but the child will feel every bit of the procedure.

Late-term abortion is extremely painful to read or write about. But if it hurts this much to think about it, think how much it would hurt if it were actually happening to you. Think.

Planned Parenthood, think. Think hard. Your exception of tiny women hardly supports the rule you claim to follow. You do not protect women; you destroy them.

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  • Jollysmom

    I can’t come to terms with such heartlessness.  How can anyone think of themselves before their own innocent flesh and bood.  Such selfishness is leading this nation to hell.  Pray for these babies and pray that their parents make choices that carry morals.

  • http://www.facebook.com/alistair.young1 Alistair Young

    We should be clear that what Planned Parenthood calls “health care” often has little if anything to do with neither health nor care.
    Abortion cannot be classified as something in relation to health, since in principle, pregnancy is a natural, healthy, properly ordered part of life (one, without which, none of us would be here).
    It cannot be classified as care, since there is clearly nothing caring about burning, dismembering, decapitating or any other method of killing your own son or daughter in their most vulnerable stage of life.

    Similarly, this can be applied to contraception. It has nothing to do with health, since it intends to temporarily divorce you of your natural, healthy state of fertility – this is in actual fact creating a temporary disorder within you.
    It cannot be called “care”, since it is not caring to tell someone that such a thing is good for them, that it works 100% of the time, that it’s okay to be liberal with sex without respect for its consequences, and to divorce the natural function and purpose of the sexual act from sex.

    I think perhaps the global pro-life movement’s biggest failure right now is allowing the ignorant (or even dishonest) view that abortion and contraception are part of women’s “healthcare” to be pervaded in our cultures, and we need to put an end to this. Certainly, all women should have access to healthcare – but abortion and contraception can never fit into that category.

    • Anonyme

      “Pregnancy is a natural, healthy, properly ordered part of life.” So are disease and injury. If you believe in letting life take its natural course all the time, I hope you’re consistent in that and never go to the doctor, take medication, have never been vaccinated, etc. 
      Also, if we’re talking about hormonal birth control (the pill, Nuvaring, certain IUDs, etc.), then it is absolutely health care. I’ve been taking oral contraceptives for about six years now and am still a virgin, and I know several other women in the same situation. We take it because without it, our menstrual periods cause a great deal of pain due to endometriosis or other medical conditions. It’s not only cramps either, although those can be excruciating. Menstruation can also cause digestive upset, anemia, fever, chills, and mood swings. Yes, all of that is “natural”, but so are many other treatable but painful conditions. Does this mean we need to suffer needlessly, simply because you don’t like the idea of contraceptives? 

      Also I must know: do you think Viagra and other ED medications are “health care”? 

      • Sarah M

        Sorry, but while disease and injury might be a common and typical part of life they are in no way healthy or properly ordered by their very definitions.

      • http://www.facebook.com/alistair.young1 Alistair Young

        Incorrect. Disease and injury are not healthy, nor are they properly ordered. Why did you not think of that before you posted? Somehow you’ve managed to come across here as anti-pregnancy.
        My stance is not simply “letting life take it’s natural course all the time”. It is to promote and save life – abortion is fundamentally opposed to this.

        Taking pills used for contraceptive purposes for a legitimate health reason is precisely health care – you are correct. There is no argument there. There is a legitimate medical reason to take it to fix something that has gone wrong from the natural order of things.

        Viagra? Are we off topic or what? My first thought is that if the pills are being supplied to fix some disorder, then yes, they are medicine. If there is no disorder, then it cannot be called medication of healthcare.
        Do you see the logic, here? Healthcare, medication etc. is used to fix something that has gone wrong, while contraceptives are used to make wrong something which was already working.

        • Anonyme

          Illness and injury can be healthy in terms of overall population, which is what I mean by “properly ordered” as well. Without those limiting factors, animals (including humans) can grow weaker overall or simply overpopulate until they starve. I took your original meaning to be that you’re against contraception and abortion because they’re “unnatural”, and I was only pointing out that one can argue that most modern medicine is “unnatural”.

          And pregnancy isn’t always “healthy” for an individual, either. If I were constantly nauseated, swollen, and in pain, (among other things, see
          http://www.babycenter.com/0_10-icky-pregnancy-side-effects_10312447.bc ) I would hardly consider myself healthy. Of course, a few women don’t experience these side effects, and some willingly, even gladly, accept them because they want the baby, and that’s wonderful for them. I’m only anti-pregnancy if it’s a forced pregnancy.
          My point with the contraception is that people like you are so quick to rush to judgment and it sounds like you would simply like to stop their prescription altogether and condemn organizations that offer them, or at the very least not allow health insurance to pay for them. Doctors prescribe the same pills whether they’re meant to prevent pregnancy or treat dysmenorrhea (or, for many women, both). They also often prescribe them to married women who simply don’t want to get pregnant because they don’t have the financial means to raise a child yet or they already have one or more children and don’t have the time or money for another. Would you deny them birth control even though they certainly aren’t “being liberal with sex”, or simply tell them not to be intimate with their husbands?

          With the Viagra–I’m only addressing the fact that people seem to think that men are allowed to have as much sex as they want, while women are to be punished for having sex for any reason other than procreation. The prevailing attitude seems to be that Viagra is health care, while birth control is not. 

          I’m sorry for the very long post, but you’ve brought up many things that I wanted to address. Oh, and if you’re going to quote me directly, please refrain from adding unnecessary apostrophes. I’m a stickler for grammar and punctuation.

          • http://www.facebook.com/alistair.young1 Alistair Young

            You like grammar but not quotation marks? A direct quote requires quotation marks, while an indirect quote does not – is that not right?

            Injury and illness as healthy: What? If we define good health as, ‘in principle, the properly ordered physical and psychological state of being (of a human person)’, then nothing that you’ve said can be true. In fact, I cannot think of any definition that would justify your answer. You’ll also find that 
            http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/health?s=t has the definiton “free from disease or ailment”.If you go in the direction in which you think you’re going, you end up with social Darwinism. Are you sure you want to go that route?Overpopulation in humans, on a global scale at least (because it is a relative term) is actually a myth, so I don’t think we should waste any time discussing it, particularly since avoiding it would not justify murder (such as abortion).

            I would advise not to pick and choose from what I’ve said. I did say natural, but I also added healthy and properly ordered in order to provide a context for the meaning of the word.
            It’s true, one might call medicine ‘unnatural’, but only in the sense that it is artificial. In another sense, medicine is created in order to bring us back to our properly ordered, natural state of being.In any case, as I’ve said, it is not my belief that just because something is not natural, it is bad.Although there may be some adverse effects of pregnancy in some women, it does not follow that pregnancy is in principle (remember we are discussing in principle, not in particular circumstance) unhealthy. If it were, none of us would be here.

            As an aside, I do not even believe in the concept of a forced pregnancy. It seems a preposterous concept to me, since as I’ve said, pregnancy is a natural, healthy, properly ordered state of being, and thus one could not have a forced pregnancy any more than they could have a forced hunger.
            You see, while the circumstances by which they came to that particular state of being might be forced, the state is itself not forced.
            Furthermore, forcing something is an active action, while not allowing something (like disallowing abortion) can be passive.
            That’s not to say I’m not against rape! Everyone is. I’m just clearing up what I believe to be a false concept. I don’t think we should continue down this path, however, since it would be a derailment.

            Since I’ve already cleared up that I find it perfectly ethical to prescribe medicine for certain disorders, but unethical to temporarily render oneself disordered, I won’t go into it much further. I don’t think that the reasons for sex have any bearing on the issue, since sex has one objective biological purpose: to produce offspring. Thus, using someone else’s body for sexual pleasure with no intention to be open to the natural consequence of sex would be divorcing sex from its purpose, using another person, and thus unethical – even within married relationships.
            If you have trouble accepting this, know that I did too, a few years ago, but upon analysing the logic, I found that it is consistent.

            I think of men and women as equal in value, and that their actions are equal, too, in moral value. Again, if Viagra is used to treat a disorder to allow procreation to once again be possible, it is nothing like birth control, and thus permissible.

            I think at this point it is I who has to apologise for the long post!

          • Anonyme

            I’m not advocating social Darwinism; I was merely explaining the context in which I took your first post, which, apparently, wasn’t what you meant. I’m not really sure why you claim human overpopulation is a myth, though–there are already people dying every day from starvation or lack of access to fresh water. There are limited amounts of resources and physical space on this Earth. That’s not to say that I think we need to encourage abortion as a form of population control either, of course.

            I’m just going to have to plain disagree with you on the sex thing–I don’t see how it’s always “using someone” to have sex without the intention of reproduction if both parties are aware of this and agree to it. 

            Oh, and I was referring to the apostrophe in “it’s”, not quotation marks. “Its” without the apostrophe is the possessive of “it” and “it’s” with it is a contraction of “it is”. I’m a proofreader; I just can’t help but notice these things. Also, though, thanks for taking the time to explain your reasoning in a polite manner. I was genuinely curious about your thought process on some of these issues and while I don’t necessarily agree with them all, I appreciate your civility. :-)

          • http://www.facebook.com/alistair.young1 Alistair Young

            I don’t make that mistake often – we’re similar in that sense.

            It’s true that people die from lack of resources – but that problem is by no means related to overpopulation. Instead, it is related to the dissemination of resources. There is unequal access to food and water, which could be fixed by simply taking resources from countries with huge economic power, and donating it to those without. From the haves, to the have-nots. Countries like to USA have far too much food to even use it all.So it’s not that populations are too large to be sustained, it’s just that they haven’t the means to sustain themselves since stronger countries have taken more than their share of that with which they can sustain themselves.

            If both parties are aware and consent, I see no reason to say that they aren’t using each other!

            Oh and it isn’t necessarily the intention of reproduction, but an openness to it. That is, not attempting to divorce sex from its purpose.

            Yes, it was a good talk :)

          • lisa

            It’s refreshing to see civilized and logical debates in these comments sections. Thanks to the both of you!

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