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Amanda,
Before I begin, I want to clarify something. I’m not “anti-choice.”
I am anti-abortion. That might sound like semantics, but I think it’s a
sign of the gulf between abortion-rights supporters and abortion foes.
“Anti-choice” has a connotation of “anti-woman,” that being against
abortion means you think women shouldn’t have control over their
bodies. I will defend until my dying day a woman’s right to choose
whether to have sex. I think the pill might have been the greatest
invention of the 20th century. I’m all for passing out condoms in high
schools. Adoption should be easy, and birth mothers should be able to
have open or closed adoptions. Women who choose to keep their children
and who need help should have access to financial assistance and other
support programs that will enable them to be productive and gain
employment and raise their children. I just can’t support abortion. And
frankly, I can’t think of many pro-lifers I know who feel differently.
Yes, there are some who think sex is strictly for marriage and
procreation. But you’re not going to make any headway with them. If the
pro-choice and pro-life sides are to have any hope of working together
to reduce the number of abortions, which should everyone’s goal, we
need to try to understand one another and stop what’s essentially
name-calling ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
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A post from DoubleX writer Amanda Marcotte:
I'm sorry, Rachael, but this story you linked about Abby Johnson's sudden conversion
from a Planned Parenthood director to an anti-choice fanatic has more
holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese after being used for target
practice. Johnson's story fits way too neatly into a bunch of easily
disproven anti-choice myths, the main one being that all it takes is
one glance at an ultrasound to cause someone to "realize" that hey!
abortion removes a fetus from your uterus. Pro-choicers already know
that. Johnson seems to be selling a story that's a tad too pat, too
close to what anti-choicers want to hear.
After all, your average person in the United States has
seen probably hundreds of sonograms in their lives, and most of them
show a fetus at gestational age well beyond the point that most women
get elective abortions. If you compare the ultrasound taken prior to an
elective abortion, the feeling is actually one of being underwhelmed,
because there's not much there compared to the ones we're used to
seeing. The anti-choice sentimental devices rely therefore on ignorance
more than illumination—their own mistaken understanding of what goes on
in an abortion clinic ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
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