NaNoWriMo planning
As November and NaNoWriMo approach, I find myself feeling more pressure to prepare for this novel so I can just begin to bang out words. It's seldom that I'm not thinking about the choices women face in when confronted with an unplanned pregnancy.
The thought of being faced with something like this is overwhelming. And, I must say that looking back over my life, I can't say that I made all the right decisions. I guess maybe luck or God were with me. I tend not to think about the situations where women turn to abortion as a life-saving means because I guess I still believe (naively I'm sure) that that ability is protected by law.
It has been amazing to me what I have found out through my research into this topic. I've read many stories of women who gave up children for adoption when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Before Roe v. Wade that was really the only choice. And it really wasn't a choice for black women. The emotional games that were played with women of those days were simply scary.
Another thing that has amazed me is the response of the human to limitations placed on them due to law or just social mores. For example, because there was no choice of abortion or adoption for black women, the culture became acceptant of single motherhood. Of course, this was also supported by our welfare system which penalized families that included men. And lets not forget slave life where an owner thought nothing of impregnating his female slaves or breeding them and then splitting families in sales. Not that black Americans saw single motherhood as acceptable, but that they had an appropriate response. They did not penalize the baby by calling it names as was often done in white society. The extended family supported the mothering of the child. There was less feeling that the pregnancy was the result of mistakes on the part of the mother and more on the understanding that we human beings have a biological imperative to reproduce and, you know what? Women get horny too. Expecting the woman to say no and allowing the man to be predator is a recipe for lots of illegitimacy.
In contrast, in white society, because pregnancy is socially ruining to a woman, easily denied by a man and socially ruining to a white family, we develop homes for pregnant women which become baby brokerage houses. Rich whites can spend lots of money to buy a baby who looks lots like them and due to the embarrassment of the birth mother, they can pass the baby off as their very own genetic offspring. Everybody wins except the birth mother but who cares about her, she's a slut who made bad choices. She doesn't matter.
Fast forward 30 years after Roe v. Wade. Now women hold the power to decide on their own future. Because the choice is so objectionable to many people, Americans start looking for other ways.
Many women have said that they would prefer to terminate a pregnancy over allowing their offspring to be adopted and to never know what happened to them. I know, this might be a very foreign attitude to many, but nevertheless, some women do feel that way.
For other women, the ability to raise a child in a healthy environment by themselves seems beyond their ability. Either they know they get into unhealthy relationships, or they feel that their economic status would put the child in jeopardy, or they are aware that they have untreated drug or alcohol problems that they are not yet willing to work on. These women may not be good candidates for adoption because of their risky lifestyle choices. So abortion seems the only alternative.
Now that abortion is a choice that many are taking, the only way to keep them from taking this choice is to come up with ways to support these women in a choice other than abortion. I need to look up some history on open adoption. I know it is fairly recent, but it would be interesting to see the dates as they relate to Roe v. Wade.
I have, however looked up some dates on some of the modern homes for pregnant women and the services they provide. Some were built shortly after Roe v. Wade.
Quoting Baptists for Life:
History
Baptists for Life, Inc. Was established in 1984 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in response to the horrors of abortion and the needs of women facing the temptation of abortion. Our first goal was the establishment of a pregnancy care center in Grand Rapids, now known as the Alpha WomenÃ’s Center. The Lord has enabled us to duplicate and multiply this ministry many times over in other cities, and now in other parts of the world.
Quoting Heartbeat International:
The roots of Heartbeat were established in Toledo, Ohio by the late Dr. John Hillabrand, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist, who brought together a group of "pioneer" pro-life pregnancy service providers. In 1971, the organization formally incorporated as Alternatives to Abortion. The name was soon changed to Alternatives to Abortion International (AAI). For more than 20 years, AAI operated with volunteer consultants and one part-time paid staff member, providing education, training, consultation, and support to affiliated centers on an as-requested basis.
Those who give dates and history, give dates right before or after 1973 and they clearly state that they were incorporated because women had the right to abort. Out of necessity, comes solution.
Additionally, I quote this pro-life blog that Rachel forwarded to me: http://haloscan.com/tb/realchoiceblog/112527657561385041.
In an entry titled Who is the Enemy, she quotes Ephesians and then goes into a Greek lexicon to interpret what is being said:
I find it fascinating that Paul chose this word here, a word that means not just those in authority or those with power, but free will itself. Although this idea is not, I would presume, the crux of the passage, I think we'd do well to remember that our own free will is often ready to trip us up. The very capacity for making choices which the abortion advocates hold up as the ultimate good seems here cast as a potential pitfall. This stands as a warning to all Christians no matter what side of the abortion battle they've stationed themselves on: just because we can does not mean we should. Having been given free will, and the power to make choices, we are given at every moment of our lives the capacity to rebel against God and set ourselves up as petty tyrants over our own lives and the lives of those around us.
Unfortunately, the author of RealChoice chooses to respond to the human downfalls of free will by condemning anyone who makes, in her view, the wrong choice. She chooses to fill her blog with stories of cut up fetuses in garages and the rare deaths by botched abortions. Scare tactics.
Luckily, there are other Christians out there who chose to take a different approach when wrestling with the problem of abortion. They choose to make a difference in the world by creating places where women can go to get real support and education to make it possible for them to follow the choice of their heart instead of the choice that is forced on them due to social and economic pressure. Luckily there were people who said, gee, women don't seem to do well with closed adoptions, and Why is it that no one is adopting African American babies? So now the adoption choice is more available to black Americans and the choice of open adoption is open to both birth mothers and adoptive parents. Someone said, why aren't the fathers being given responsibility in this? and now governments are forcing dead-beat fathers to pay a price for their mistakes just like women have had to for years.
It's not a perfect system. No way. There are still doctors out there who are more concerned with the money they can make than with the health of the mother. There are still dead-beat dads out there who think it's OK to have sex and then walk away from the consequences. The number one cause of death to a pregnant woman is still homicide. Again, Interesting. We still have states (MA for one) who don't allow open adoption. We still have a foster system that shuffles kids instead of placing them early with good homes. We still have pregnancy crisis centers that push their own point of view whether that be abortion, or adoption, or keeping an unplanned child.
So I guess I just wish we would stop making the fight about saving or killing fetuses and start talking about what the real problems are with the system. Solve these problems:
Why do women feel that they can't carry a pregnancy? Why should a pregnancy affect a woman's life so much that she feels the need to terminate? Is it possible for a pregnancy to be as little consequence socially, economically and physically as a cold?
Why do abortion clinics make mistakes in an abortion and end up killing the mother?
Why do women feel that they have made a mistake in having their baby adopted?
What kind of support systems do women really need to make the right decision *for them*?
How can we have a pregnancy crisis center that actually listens to the woman and helps her make the right choice for her that she can live with for the rest of her life?
What can we do to make this decision just as hard for the birth father as it is for the birth mother?
Because, in the end, making abortion legal doesn't make the decision easy for a woman. She will struggle with it. I'm sure many readers have encountered a woman who announces with bravado that she has had many abortions and doesn't see a problem with it. Dig deeper. There is much more to her than you see on the surface. The abortion may have been the right choice for her and because of that she is not going to wallow in feelings of regret. But that doesn't mean her decision was made lightly.
The only thing that banning abortion will do is rip out the fragile social structure we are beginning to build that includes support for women experiencing an unwanted pregnancy and responsibility on the part of the birth father. It will not end abortions in this country. It may make people like the author of RealChoice feel like they have accomplished something, like they have won the battle against the power. But they haven't. In many ways, they will have made things worse.
It's a future I really don't want to see.
Trackback URL for this entry:http://haloscan.com/tb/realchoiceblog/112527657561385041
The thought of being faced with something like this is overwhelming. And, I must say that looking back over my life, I can't say that I made all the right decisions. I guess maybe luck or God were with me. I tend not to think about the situations where women turn to abortion as a life-saving means because I guess I still believe (naively I'm sure) that that ability is protected by law.
It has been amazing to me what I have found out through my research into this topic. I've read many stories of women who gave up children for adoption when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Before Roe v. Wade that was really the only choice. And it really wasn't a choice for black women. The emotional games that were played with women of those days were simply scary.
Another thing that has amazed me is the response of the human to limitations placed on them due to law or just social mores. For example, because there was no choice of abortion or adoption for black women, the culture became acceptant of single motherhood. Of course, this was also supported by our welfare system which penalized families that included men. And lets not forget slave life where an owner thought nothing of impregnating his female slaves or breeding them and then splitting families in sales. Not that black Americans saw single motherhood as acceptable, but that they had an appropriate response. They did not penalize the baby by calling it names as was often done in white society. The extended family supported the mothering of the child. There was less feeling that the pregnancy was the result of mistakes on the part of the mother and more on the understanding that we human beings have a biological imperative to reproduce and, you know what? Women get horny too. Expecting the woman to say no and allowing the man to be predator is a recipe for lots of illegitimacy.
In contrast, in white society, because pregnancy is socially ruining to a woman, easily denied by a man and socially ruining to a white family, we develop homes for pregnant women which become baby brokerage houses. Rich whites can spend lots of money to buy a baby who looks lots like them and due to the embarrassment of the birth mother, they can pass the baby off as their very own genetic offspring. Everybody wins except the birth mother but who cares about her, she's a slut who made bad choices. She doesn't matter.
Fast forward 30 years after Roe v. Wade. Now women hold the power to decide on their own future. Because the choice is so objectionable to many people, Americans start looking for other ways.
Many women have said that they would prefer to terminate a pregnancy over allowing their offspring to be adopted and to never know what happened to them. I know, this might be a very foreign attitude to many, but nevertheless, some women do feel that way.
For other women, the ability to raise a child in a healthy environment by themselves seems beyond their ability. Either they know they get into unhealthy relationships, or they feel that their economic status would put the child in jeopardy, or they are aware that they have untreated drug or alcohol problems that they are not yet willing to work on. These women may not be good candidates for adoption because of their risky lifestyle choices. So abortion seems the only alternative.
Now that abortion is a choice that many are taking, the only way to keep them from taking this choice is to come up with ways to support these women in a choice other than abortion. I need to look up some history on open adoption. I know it is fairly recent, but it would be interesting to see the dates as they relate to Roe v. Wade.
I have, however looked up some dates on some of the modern homes for pregnant women and the services they provide. Some were built shortly after Roe v. Wade.
Quoting Baptists for Life:
History
Baptists for Life, Inc. Was established in 1984 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in response to the horrors of abortion and the needs of women facing the temptation of abortion. Our first goal was the establishment of a pregnancy care center in Grand Rapids, now known as the Alpha WomenÃ’s Center. The Lord has enabled us to duplicate and multiply this ministry many times over in other cities, and now in other parts of the world.
Quoting Heartbeat International:
The roots of Heartbeat were established in Toledo, Ohio by the late Dr. John Hillabrand, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist, who brought together a group of "pioneer" pro-life pregnancy service providers. In 1971, the organization formally incorporated as Alternatives to Abortion. The name was soon changed to Alternatives to Abortion International (AAI). For more than 20 years, AAI operated with volunteer consultants and one part-time paid staff member, providing education, training, consultation, and support to affiliated centers on an as-requested basis.
Those who give dates and history, give dates right before or after 1973 and they clearly state that they were incorporated because women had the right to abort. Out of necessity, comes solution.
Additionally, I quote this pro-life blog that Rachel forwarded to me: http://haloscan.com/tb/realchoiceblog/112527657561385041.
In an entry titled Who is the Enemy, she quotes Ephesians and then goes into a Greek lexicon to interpret what is being said:
I find it fascinating that Paul chose this word here, a word that means not just those in authority or those with power, but free will itself. Although this idea is not, I would presume, the crux of the passage, I think we'd do well to remember that our own free will is often ready to trip us up. The very capacity for making choices which the abortion advocates hold up as the ultimate good seems here cast as a potential pitfall. This stands as a warning to all Christians no matter what side of the abortion battle they've stationed themselves on: just because we can does not mean we should. Having been given free will, and the power to make choices, we are given at every moment of our lives the capacity to rebel against God and set ourselves up as petty tyrants over our own lives and the lives of those around us.
Unfortunately, the author of RealChoice chooses to respond to the human downfalls of free will by condemning anyone who makes, in her view, the wrong choice. She chooses to fill her blog with stories of cut up fetuses in garages and the rare deaths by botched abortions. Scare tactics.
Luckily, there are other Christians out there who chose to take a different approach when wrestling with the problem of abortion. They choose to make a difference in the world by creating places where women can go to get real support and education to make it possible for them to follow the choice of their heart instead of the choice that is forced on them due to social and economic pressure. Luckily there were people who said, gee, women don't seem to do well with closed adoptions, and Why is it that no one is adopting African American babies? So now the adoption choice is more available to black Americans and the choice of open adoption is open to both birth mothers and adoptive parents. Someone said, why aren't the fathers being given responsibility in this? and now governments are forcing dead-beat fathers to pay a price for their mistakes just like women have had to for years.
It's not a perfect system. No way. There are still doctors out there who are more concerned with the money they can make than with the health of the mother. There are still dead-beat dads out there who think it's OK to have sex and then walk away from the consequences. The number one cause of death to a pregnant woman is still homicide. Again, Interesting. We still have states (MA for one) who don't allow open adoption. We still have a foster system that shuffles kids instead of placing them early with good homes. We still have pregnancy crisis centers that push their own point of view whether that be abortion, or adoption, or keeping an unplanned child.
So I guess I just wish we would stop making the fight about saving or killing fetuses and start talking about what the real problems are with the system. Solve these problems:
Why do women feel that they can't carry a pregnancy? Why should a pregnancy affect a woman's life so much that she feels the need to terminate? Is it possible for a pregnancy to be as little consequence socially, economically and physically as a cold?
Why do abortion clinics make mistakes in an abortion and end up killing the mother?
Why do women feel that they have made a mistake in having their baby adopted?
What kind of support systems do women really need to make the right decision *for them*?
How can we have a pregnancy crisis center that actually listens to the woman and helps her make the right choice for her that she can live with for the rest of her life?
What can we do to make this decision just as hard for the birth father as it is for the birth mother?
Because, in the end, making abortion legal doesn't make the decision easy for a woman. She will struggle with it. I'm sure many readers have encountered a woman who announces with bravado that she has had many abortions and doesn't see a problem with it. Dig deeper. There is much more to her than you see on the surface. The abortion may have been the right choice for her and because of that she is not going to wallow in feelings of regret. But that doesn't mean her decision was made lightly.
The only thing that banning abortion will do is rip out the fragile social structure we are beginning to build that includes support for women experiencing an unwanted pregnancy and responsibility on the part of the birth father. It will not end abortions in this country. It may make people like the author of RealChoice feel like they have accomplished something, like they have won the battle against the power. But they haven't. In many ways, they will have made things worse.
It's a future I really don't want to see.
Trackback URL for this entry:http://haloscan.com/tb/realchoiceblog/112527657561385041
posted by dsimom @ 1:57 PM
1 Comments:
At 7:34 PM,
Anonymous said…
Really interesting, thought-provoking stuff. I can't wait to read your nanowrimo novel :).
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