What could be more horrible than reading the pathetic justifications offered by "mothers" for their abortions?
An 18-year-old with braces on her teeth is on the operating table, her head on a plaid pillow, her feet up in stirrups, her arms strapped down at her sides. A pink blanket is draped over her stomach. She's 13 weeks pregnant, at the very end of the first trimester. She hasn't told her parents. ..."It was a lot easier than I thought it would be," she says. "I thought it would be horrible, but it wasn't. The procedure, that is."
She is not yet sure, she says, how she is doing emotionally. She feels guilty, sad and relieved, all in a jumble.
"There's things wrong with abortion," she says. "But I want to have a good life. And provide a good life for my child." To keep this baby now, she says, when she's single, broke and about to start college, "would be unfair." ...
A high school volleyball player says she doesn't want to give up her body for nine months. "I realize just from the first three months how it changes everything," she says.
Kim, a single mother of three, says she couldn't bear to give away a child and have to wonder every day if he were loved. Ending the pregnancy seemed easier, she says — as long as she doesn't let herself think about "what could have been." ...
Amanda, a 20-year-old administrative assistant, says it's not the obstacles that surprise her — it's how normal and unashamed she feels as she prepares to end her first pregnancy.
"It's an everyday occurrence," she says as she waits for her 2:30 p.m. abortion. "It's not like this is a rare thing."
Amanda hasn't told her ex-boyfriend that she's 15 weeks pregnant with his child. She hasn't told her parents, either, though she lives with them.
"I figured it was my responsibility," she says.
She regrets having to pay $750 for the abortion, but Amanda says she does not doubt her decision. "It's not like it's illegal. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong," she says.
"I've been praying a lot and that's been a real source of strength for me. I really believe God has a plan for us all. I have a choice, and that's part of my plan." ...
His first patient of the day, Sarah, 23, says it never occurred to her to use birth control, though she has been sexually active for six years. When she became pregnant this fall, Sarah, who works in real estate, was in the midst of planning her wedding. "I don't think my dress would have fit with a baby in there," she says.
The last patient of the day, a 32-year-old college student named Stephanie, has had four abortions in the last 12 years. She keeps forgetting to take her birth control pills. Abortion "is a bummer," she says, "but no big stress."
The perceptions of these women were formed in our modern environment of quick and easy abortions of convenience. The self-styled "abortionist" featured in this article claims to have killed more than 20,000 babies during his career, and takes pride in his lack of frustration with repeat customers like Stephanie -- but then why should he get frustrated when he's making $750 a head?
Three abortions before lunch and three more after: The appointment book is always full.
Never forget that abortion is an industry.
Everybody's blogging on this one. It's pretty irresistable: a puff-piece about a kindly, grandfatherly abortionist and his shallow, self-absorbed patients.
Perhaps the most shocking part of this is the attitude of the ex-mothers. I am against abortion in almost every circumstance but that opinion is easier in theory than when I am confronted by the laissez-faire reality of the circumstances that surely result in most abortions. In my humble opinion, abortion as convenience is the most horrific kind. These aren't simply good people in a difficult situation who deserve the right to control their own destinies. These are irresponsible people who, by their own lack of good choices should no longer have the right to make any choices. And most certainly not on the behalf of others. Like their unborn children.
>>Amanda says she does not doubt her decision. "It's not like it's illegal. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong," she says.>>
Wow. I don't know how many times liberals and libertarians have told me that making bad things legal would have no effect on whether people would view them as moral.
BB: Of course it has some effect. The issue, though, is how much and over what range of people.
Libertarians, with whom I very often agree, tend to argue that the government, via laws and bureaucracy, shouldn't protect the incessantly stupid (people who flippantly decide the merits of something based only upon whether it's legal or not) from their fate at the expense of the freedoms of the rest of us.. who are relative geniuses. In other words, why should people like Amanda dictate what choices the rest of us have?
I've always said.. and will continue to say.. that the best ways to reduce abortions are those that focus on education. Let's not forget, too, that abortions have been on the decline for many years. Why is that happening? Because society is working successfully on the problem without the government's interference.
"why should he get frustrated when he's making $750 a head?
Literally.
I think abortion is wrong! how would you feel if your arms and legs were broke off and then vacumed away and then the rest of you was slowly eaten away by acids, or if your home was invaded by a sharp knife and you were scraped into a trashcan to die?
Abortion is wrong.