January 22nd, 2008
Vote Pro - Choice - Blogging For Choice
On the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade I once again blog for choice. This year hoping to encourage you to vote pro-choice.
You’ve worked hard, saved a little money; enough to help your daughter attend the college of her choice. It’s possible she is the first potential college graduate in your family, maybe she’s third generation. Maybe she’s not graduating high school for another year and her plans are still not cemented in stone, but the future looks bright. None of this will matter much if she gets pregnant and has a child. Statistically she will be much less likely to complete those educational milestones. Not only that, but should she marry she is more likely to experience marital instability.
The male on the other hand, despite the increase in female high school and college graduation rates overall, in the case of unplanned fatherhood, is much more likely to return and complete his education. That is if he is even has to put his education on hold to begin with.
It is the female who, when stripped of her chance of completing her education, losing the degree of economic gain, personal satisfaction and success which follows, will forever live with the consequences of a choice she wasn’t allowed to make.
Vote for a candidate who knows that, someone who understands the right of a woman to choose is a basic human right.
Choose your candidate from among those who understand a decision like this should be left up to the individual who will incur the physical, emotional, psychological and socioeconomic affects of the situation. Choose a candidate who appreciates the consequences which correspond with taking away the right to choose can be dire, and such a choice, tough for sure, is best left in the hands of those who will suffer the repercussions.
Think about your daughter, paying with her future for one mistake with the pimpled faced boyfriend from down the road, or the sleazy math genius from her university. A broken condom or a missed birth control pill?
Vote pro choice for you daughters.
Choose a candidate who will run the country while letting your daughter, the one raised with your values, morals, and with reasoning skills of her own, run her life.
Choose a pro-choice candidate.
Candidates On The Issues: Abortion
Another crime is that most societies discriminate in this way against mothers - that they have less chance on the job market. Germany is especially extreme. My wife is highly qualified and has been searching for a long time, but none of that seems to matter. Sweden’s social system should be the model for the rest of the world.
Darn straight. Abortion and the right to choose is probably the only issue I’ve ever completely changed my mind on from when I was young to now. I’d rather allow everyone the option. I would never vote for a candidate who didn’t believe the same.
I’ll alway vote pro choice. I can’t see it can’t see it any other way, despite the cat fight last night.
I wrote an earnest personal thing. I posted another earnest thing as it’s more than just about Roe–though if I have to fight in the streets I will.
It’s about bringing this country back together and give it a sense of possiblitity and that includes abortions being legal
There’s only one candidate I see who can be able to do that
I’m afraid I’m not pro-choice. Abortion should be mandatory.
I sometimes get the urge to go to clinics and protest against the protesters. Today is one of those days.
Individuals like Ed Snell ought to be branded as domestic terrorists right up there with Eric Rudolph.
It never ceases to amaze me that the most virolent anti-choicers are the most ardent advocates of the death penalty.
People who are against choice are the same people who are against true freedom. They not only don’t like it when I suggest their stance is anti-freedom, they also get mad when I tell them that if they don’t like abortions, don’t have one.
meow.
I just posted mine.
We need pro-choice officials. The right for a woman to control her own life is critical.
Until this country starts treating every legal individual the same way, we will never be united. This is the 21st century for Christ’s sake, how is that women of all stripe are still treat like chattel? And who, for the majority, is it that passed Roe v Wade - men.
Women should have the right to choose to give birth or not, regardless. Women should have the right to terminate birth if they were raped, coerced, drugged, incompetent, insane.
Does anyone remember this case?
In 1970, attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed suit in a U.S. District Court in Texas on behalf of Norma L. McCorvey (”Jane Roe”). McCorvey claimed her pregnancy was the result of rape.[4][5] The defendant in the case was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, representing the State of Texas. (Did you get that? It was the DA that was the rapist!!!!)
Let’s skip ahead; An October 2007 Harris poll on Roe v. Wade, asked the following question:
“In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that states laws which made it illegal for a woman to have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy were unconstitutional, and that the decision on whether a woman should have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy should be left to the woman and her doctor to decide. In general, do you favor or oppose this part of the U.S. Supreme Court decision making abortions up to three months of pregnancy legal?
“In reply, 56 percent of respondents indicated favor while 40 percent indicated opposition. The Harris organization concluded from this poll that “56 percent now favors the U.S. Supreme Court decision”. Pro-life activists have disputed whether the Harris poll question is a valid measure of public opinion about Roe’s overall decision, because the question focuses only on the first three months of pregnancy”.
And why is it that every time you hear of a Planned Parenthood Office, or like facility, wherein a worker or nurse or doctor gets blown up, shot, killed, that it’s no BFD to the police, to the government, to society at large?
Sauerkraut - I stopped on time in front of a PPH site wherein they were holding this ‘rally’ and you should have seen and heard these idiots. Filth poured from their mouths and I swear to god some of them looked like the had rabies. I shan’t relate what I actually did but a night in jail was well worth it. Got my picture in the paper, too!
I am pro-choice, I’ve always been pro-choice and will continue to be so.
No one should be able to tell a woman when and what to do with her body…
I am PRO-CHOICE and always will be…
It is something that I am passionate about…ironically, it is not something I think that I would chose for myself, but I believe that I SHOULD have the CHOICE…and so should any other woman…
inde: Indeed Sweden is exemplary in that regard.
How are you Inde?
mojo: The anti choice platform is frightening.
Jacob: I know what you mean on that, it was ugly, yet entertaining, though I object to political debates looking like judgment day on a reality show.
Pia: One for me as well though, I think that we’d be safe with any of the top three.
Doug: You are going to hell, hell I tell ya.
sk: It brings out the violent side of me but
Coyote:I’m glad you did one.
Morgan: You may speak on my podium any time.
Marv: To not have choice, it’s unbelievable. To have to go back to living in the time …well almost the time of dinofucking saurs.
Cooper, it’s so cute that you still believe in justice.
Cooper, I am always impressed with how direct, candid and on point your posts are.
This is a topic that gives me the shivers, but I’ll be damned if I’d rather be shivering because I have no choice, rather than over what my choice will be.
We cannot live in an age ever again where a woman’s body is governed by the State, it’s archaeic and will not be tolerated by most women. That ship has sailed.
Great post! (And thanks for the link love!)
All is well. I think I found your first comment at indeterminacy, happened upon it by accident:
Alice: In Wonderland or Not said…
Nice.
I’ve never been here before.
I think I shall return.
12:01 PM, June 15, 2005
That was sweet.
very strong ..valid points made Cooper !!!
here in Australia….we are lucky to have that freedom of choice and I appreciate that fact not just for my 16 year old daughter’s future…but also for my 18 year old son’s girlfriend’s future…..
It always comes back to women making choices for themselves and there shouldn’t be anyone stopping them….from making those choices…
Inde: ha, ha. And return I did, and will continue to do so.
laketrees: To have choice taken away is just plain way too Orwellian.
Super post.
There must be choice, in this case the choice belongs to the woman. Were the hell do we live anyway - I ficking Ran
Cooper - You’re too kind, don’t stop.
Doug - Would you rather her/us believe in injustice? Don’t take umbrage.
Now that I’ve gotten the niceties out of the way - Here’s more on Roe vs. Wade:
Thirty-five years ago this week, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe vs. Wade, asserting that abortion was protected by the right to privacy and guaranteed under the 14th amendment.
Thirty-five years later, the national debate rages on, “pro-choice” versus “pro-life,” each side entrenched in its position.
While we support the law and women’s right to choose, we don’t do so lightly. Abortion is a solemn act, and the fewer that occur the better.
According to the latest national estimate from the Guttmacher Institute, there were 1.2 million abortions in 2005, down from a peak of 1.6 million in 1990. The decrease is great, though it still represents more than 20 percent of all pregnancies.
Terminations are based largely on finances. The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level is more than four times higher than among women from middle-income and affluent households. Likewise, a disproportionately high number are black or Hispanic.
But women at higher income levels may be under-represented in the statistics, because they obtain unreported abortions through their private doctors. More than one-third of adult women are estimated to have had at least one.
Whether it’s economic hardship or inconvenience that leads women to abortion, it’s the least-desirable method of birth control. Clean and safe clinics are better than the back-alley procedures that determined women would resort to without Roe v. Wade.
But more-stringent efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies is the best course, measures such as the bill in Congress (HR 1074) that seeks to curb the demand for abortion.
The comprehensive legislation would make contraceptives more available, encourage new reproductive health initiatives, expand the adoption tax credit and increase the health care, nutrition and child care assistance available to new mothers with limited resources.
Ultimately, women deserve the right to choose. But the hope is that fewer will make that choice.
The first part that jumps out at me is that “more than one-third of adult women are estimated to have had at least one abortion” and that’s not even taking into consideration those women/girls that are not of adult age. The second part is “…or inconvenience that leads women to abortion…” what the fudge.
This is not reversing/changing/altering my stance on pro-choice. It’s just more information for you to absorb.