Roe v Wade is on deck

[Jimmy Higgins]

While we all wait our turn for fucking...

Texas decides to just go for it with a twist. You can sue doctors/staff that perform an abortion! That is abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy, you know... maybe the time women might start to take notice of being pregnant.

Instead of having the government enforce the law, the bill turns the reins over to private citizens — who are newly empowered to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps someone get an abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. The person would not have to be connected to someone who had an abortion or to a provider to sue.

Talk about insidious! The interesting thing here (well there are a number of things), with this change in tact is standing and legality, as someone needs to be sued to counter in court... if a Trump or W judge is on the case. If not, maybe the judge provides an acceptance that there is standing. And that would likely be the issue SCOTUS decides on, with 6-3 saying 'no' they didn't have standing.

That said, I'm not certain how this can be remotely legal on its own basis. Letting people sue other people for performing a medical procedure on yet another party of people? How in the heck do they have legal standing, I mean in addition to Texas passing legislation saying they do? It is preposterous.

“It’s a very unique law and it’s a very clever law,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. “Planned Parenthood can’t go to court and sue Attorney General [Ken] Paxton like they usually would because he has no role in enforcing the statute. They have to basically sit and wait to be sued.”
Legal experts have been divided on the strategy, and abortion rights advocates have said they plan to fight regardless.

I ponder Texas being asked what other medical procedures a third party can sue over, and when the answer is none, why this procedure? It is just such an arbitrary and wild contorted abuse of legal procedure and protocol. It is like a 4 line logic argument proving god exists by cutesy use of word placement. Or more humorously, Professor Wermstrom in Futurama... Mayor: My hands are tied, he's got tenure.

 

[Jarhyn]

It should be judged. It should be discouraged.

A single woman raising a child can mean hardship for both.

What should not be judged is the decision to abort. Especially if it is done early.

So, I had a post explaining this that somehow seemed to vanish?. Essentially, I should have been aborted. One of the women I judge for not commiting to consideration with a somber heart whether to produce a human life is my own "mother", "the mother" as opposed to my mom.

No matter of life and death ought be treated without due consideration. If I woke up tomorrow and was somehow pregnant, I would throw away an actual literal miracle myself, if it was a miracle I didn't ask for. I would do this both on principle and on lack of preparation, and doing so could very well destroy me.

All I ask is that no human flippantly handle matters of life and death. If they cannot accomplish that, I will lose respect for them to the extent that flippancy continues to be held.

There are some here I respect here not-at-all specifically because of their flippancy over matters of life and death. It is something I expect of myself and so something I expect of others, to commit due diligence in consideration of matters of life and of death.

I would free all women everywhere from being so tethered to this existential millstone of responsibility that I am not myself today tied to. Or extend it to all, all the same. But I can not any more than I could free those who can get pregnant from the fear that they might become pregnant, or pregnant at the wrong time. The world is not fair here, and we can't at this time make it fair. It sucks, but that's how it is.

I'm not certain who you believe considers or has an abortion without considering, very, very seriously the matter, weighing it very carefully before making the decision. I'm certain that there are some who do but I haven't met them. And I've known a few women who have had abortions, some who were devoutly religious--Roman Catholic, as a matter of fact. The only one who regretted the decision to have an abortion was the one who was forced to by her then husband.

I am so sorry that you seem to feel that you should have been aborted (or, perhaps I read that wrongly). Women and girls become pregnant when sometimes, they are unable to care for the baby (and often themselves) and nonetheless, continue the pregnancy either by choice or by default or because termination wasn't available to them. Ideally, this would never happen, but it does. Ideally, when this happens, the pregnant girl or woman who continues the pregnancy will place the baby for adoption immediately, in order to ensure that the child has the best shot at a decent life. That doesn't always happen. Sometimes people are overly optimistic about what they can and cannot happen. There can be a lot of magical thinking. There can be a lot of pressure and shame directed towards those who would like to relinquish the child. And generally speaking, it requires some cooperation on the part of the father, which is not always forthcoming, even if he has no desire to raise the child or provide for it himself. Sometimes people make bad decisions.

In any case, I'm glad you are here and have someone to call mom.

I have been very and repeatedly clear on that front: I don't even assume such people exist in any significant numbers at all. Someone would have to be a sociopath to not think about it in some deep and serious way.

Which is my point. I can't respect sociopaths.

And yes, I do actively believe I should have been aborted. "Do not take bad gambles"; "do not gamble with that which is not yours". I consider it a "bad gamble" to bear children you cannot even afford to feed and change.

It worked out for me, miraculously, in fact. But if I were standing next to her today, seeing her pregnant, I would STILL ask he r what the fuck she was doing keeping it, and tell her that she is making a bad decision to be a terrible mother.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I have been very and repeatedly clear on that front: I don't even assume such people exist in any significant numbers at all. Someone would have to be a sociopath to not think about it in some deep and serious way.

Which is my point. I can't respect sociopaths.

And yes, I do actively believe I should have been aborted. "Do not take bad gambles"; "do not gamble with that which is not yours". I consider it a "bad gamble" to bear children you cannot even afford to feed and change.

It worked out for me, miraculously, in fact. But if I were standing next to her today, seeing her pregnant, I would STILL ask he r what the fuck she was doing keeping it, and tell her that she is making a bad decision to be a terrible mother.

Whether my Sister should have had the two children she had is a question that really can't be answered. What I can say is that her position and suitability of being a mother had almost nothing to do with her decision to have the children verses the decisions she made (makes) while being a mother.

 

[Terrell]

I was pointing this out with the 3rd party types back in 2016. In the U.S. the president will either be a Democrat or a Republican for the foreseeable future. 3rd party votes only help the major party you're more likely to oppose, especially if you live in a swing state.

 

[southernhybrid]

I just want to mention a few things that I don't think have been discussed in this thread. Some of my comments are simply anecdotal based on my personal experiences.

First of all, if all men would always wear codoms when they have causal sex or sex that is outside of a long term relationship, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies. If birth control was affordable and readily available to all women, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies.

2. Abortions will happen whether they are legal or not. I remember reading about Margaret Sanger, who was an activist for birth control, including encouraging the development of the OCP. She was far from perfect, but I'm not interested in criticizing her negative side here. I read that she was very influenced by watching women line up for blocks "waiting for 50 cent abortions". That was at the turn of the 20th Century, when abortions were illegal but very common because women had no reliable birth control. During that time period, it was common for women to die during childbirth and it was also common for women to have many children. Even with a partner, it was very difficult to support 8 or 9 children, since this was most common among the lower socioeconomic classes. Making birth control available and abortion legal, simply made abortion safer and rare.

3. I worked in a maternity clinic as a public health nurse in the early 1980s. At that time, abortions were paid for by the federal government if the women were poor. The Republicans stopped that funding. All of my patients had the option of having an abortion, but only one out of about 100 chose that option. Only one chose to give up her baby for adoption. All of my other patients chose to have their babies, despite the fact that they were poor, usually very young and sometimes lacked a good support system. To be honest, I worried about some of these women and the babies they would soon be raising, but it was their choice to make, not mine. This included a 14 year old girl who had been raped by a friend of her family. She was already 8 months into her pregnancy when I met her. My heart went out to her, but I was very pleased that all of my former patients signed up for family planning after they had their babies. I don't know if such services are even available any longer in that particular health department as funding has been cut down drastically for public health over the last several decades.

4. Spontaneous abortions, aka miscarriages are far more common than medical abortions. Most of these happen early during the pregnancy, but sadly, some fetuses die during the later part of the pregnancy. I guess my point is that when nature causes an abortion, there is no judgment, but when a woman feels that is the best option for her, she is often judged very harshly by certain groups.

5. I had a coworker in the early 90s, who was in a horrible marriage to an abuser. She already had 3 children and became pregnant by this husband, shortly before she decided to leave him. She felt like having an abortion very early in the pregnancy was her best option. I am the only one she trusted with this information. She was met by protesters who screamed at her as she entered the clinic, and some of the other people on our team were nasty towards her, despite not even knowing if she had an abortion or had simply lost the fetus naturally. I'm just adding that as one example of what some women must face when they chose to have an abortion, as well as giving one example of why a woman might choose this option.

6. If abortion becomes illegal in most states, there will be more illegal abortions, and they will often be harmful to the woman. Those on the far right, especially the religious right want to control women. This seems obvious to me because these same people are often against helping poor children, supporting public access to family planning for all, etc. If they really cared about children, they would care about them throughout their childhood and not just when they were a fetus or a group of cells that hasn't even developed a brain.

So, it simply makes sense to give women the option to end an unplanned pregnancy legally and not to judge her decision. Why do we always seem to judge the women and not the men who impregnated these women? Why don't men always use condoms? When used correctly, they are very effective at preventing pregnancy and STIs. Why must the burden always be on the woman? I'm not judging the men here. Hopefully, they are more mature and responsible than a lot of men who I have known in the past.

And sure, there will always be a small percentage of women who regret the decision they made to have an abortion. We all have regrets over decisions we have made in the past. Sometimes it's difficult to know what is best decision when it comes to many things in life.

I'm way past childbearing age, so this SCOTUS decision doesn't impact me personally, but I do hope that younger women will have better access to birth control as well as access to abortion if and when that difficult decision must be made.

I don't want to argue about this. I'm just giving some personal opinions and sharing some experiences.

 

[Elixir]

4. Spontaneous abortions, aka miscarriages are far more common than medical abortions. Most of these happen early during the pregnancy, but sadly, some fetuses die during the later part of the pregnancy. I guess my point is that when nature causes an abortion, there is no judgment...

I'm sure you're aware of the 2019 attempt to "rectify" that situation:

Women could get up to 30 years in prison for having a miscarriage under Georgia's harsh new abortion law

It failed then but it's where we are headed if the Nazi Party re-takes the executive and legislative branches.

It cannot be foretold whether or not a prospective parent "should" have a particular baby. Nor can the outcome be judged in retrospect. My brother and his wife had a baby girl some 33 years ago. Should have been an ideal situation - they had the means to provide what was needed, a stable loving home and lots of support... but it sure didn't look good for a while. The girl developed MS early on (at around 12 yrs old). Then got throat cancer. A truly heartbreaking situation with a bleak prognosis.

Today that "girl" has put herself through law school by working as an ASL (American Sign Language, which she taught herself) medical interpreter, and now at her young age presides as an Administrative Law Judge serving a district court in a State Capitol. I love that young woman to bits.

 

[Toni]

I was not looking for any word.

I said what I meant. Every word was carefully chosen.

Mine, as well.

I'm frankly not able to think of anything more discouraging than the current state of affairs regarding reproductive choices allowed women and girls unless we start making women who get pregnant without the express written permission of some man wear a giant letter....I don't even know what letter that might be.

Thank god men bear no responsibility in any of this! Except, of course, to pass judgement on whether a woman is allowed to control her own body and under what circumstances and which hoops she must jump through to satisfy his conscience. Heavy lies the crown and all of that...

I feel no guilt for circumstances I had nothing to do with.

I think humans should be taught responsibility and held accountable for not being responsible long before they are sexually active.

So hopefully the young person has had some practice at behaving responsible for their own sake when the time comes.

It is not close to an exact science when you talk about humans though and the people that want to end an unwanted pregnancy should have the means.

And the people that want to keep the child should have some means to raise it without the child suffering hardship.

A national daycare system would help a lot.

It would help parents greatly and provide a lot of jobs.

A no brainer when all it would take is building less bombs.

I agree with most of what you've written but I think it falls way, way, way short. You wrote about responsibility, restraint. That's only part of the issue and imo, not the biggest part. For one thing, I think you are focussing on teenagers having abortions when in reality, they do not account for the majority of abortions nor do they have the most babies. In fact, except in two states, the rate of teenagers having babies has decreased or held steady: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR69-6-508.pdf

This paper is 20 years old but it still gives a good picture of what women seek abortions. It's not necessarily who you think it is: https://prochoice.org/wp-content/uploads/women_who_have_abortions.pdf

In fact, nearly 1 in 4 women will have an abortion by the time she's 45.

 

[Jarhyn]

I just want to mention a few things that I don't think have been discussed in this thread. Some of my comments are simply anecdotal based on my personal experiences.

First of all, if all men would always wear codoms when they have causal sex or sex that is outside of a long term relationship, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies. If birth control was affordable and readily available to all women, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies.

absolutely true. As should all instances of intentional removal of a condom, or continuation after condom failure be considered rapes.

2. Abortions will happen whether they are legal or not. I remember reading about Margaret Sanger, who was an activist for birth control, including encouraging the development of the OCP. She was far from perfect, but I'm not interested in criticizing her negative side here. I read that she was very influenced by watching women line up for blocks "waiting for 50 cent abortions". That was at the turn of the 20th Century, when abortions were illegal but very common because women had no reliable birth control. During that time period, it was common for women to die during childbirth and it was also common for women to have many children. Even with a partner, it was very difficult to support 8 or 9 children, since this was most common among the lower socioeconomic classes. Making birth control available and abortion legal, simply made abortion safer and rare.

absolutely. The easiest way to prevent abortions is to prevent pregnancies, and so too the easiest way to prevent bad things happening during abortions is to allow them to happen above board.

3. I worked in a maternity clinic as a public health nurse in the early 1980s. At that time, abortions were paid for by the federal government if the women were poor. The Republicans stopped that funding. All of my patients had the option of having an abortion, but only one out of about 100 chose that option. Only one chose to give up her baby for adoption. All of my other patients chose to have their babies, despite the fact that they were poor, usually very young and sometimes lacked a good support system. To be honest, I worried about some of these women and the babies they would soon be raising, but it was their choice to make, not mine. This included a 14 year old girl who had been raped by a friend of her family. She was already 8 months into her pregnancy when I met her. My heart went out to her, but I was very pleased that all of my former patients signed up for family planning after they had their babies. I don't know if such services are even available any longer in that particular health department as funding has been cut down drastically for public health over the last several decades.

that breaks my heart. I understand as a maternity clinic worker, it is explicitly not the employees' place to comment on the motivations, merely give them the facts of care and let them make the decision. I would not, were I in that position, make the kinds of statements I do now because it is a conflict of interest. I just sit here, and wherever else I exist online, admonishing those before the fact, outside of that role of influence, to make what I see as correct decisions.

4. Spontaneous abortions, aka miscarriages are far more common than medical abortions. Most of these happen early during the pregnancy, but sadly, some fetuses die during the later part of the pregnancy. I guess my point is that when nature causes an abortion, there is no judgment, but when a woman feels that is the best option for her, she is often judged very harshly by certain groups.

indeed. The only judgement I offer, as a result, is judgement over not having given it due consideration and taking the decision seriously. Well, that and when someone is already an absentee parent, and is already abusing children through neglect, and is putting yet another life into that situation. But that's rather the inverse so doesn't speak to your post.

5. I had a coworker in the early 90s, who was in a horrible marriage to an abuser. She already had 3 children and became pregnant by this husband, shortly before she decided to leave him. She felt like having an abortion very early in the pregnancy was her best option. I am the only one she trusted with this information. She was met by protesters who screamed at her as she entered the clinic, and some of the other people on our team were nasty towards her, despite not even knowing if she had an abortion or had simply lost the fetus naturally. I'm just adding that as one example of what some women must face when they chose to have an abortion, as well as giving one example of why a woman might choose this option.

I'm happy for her. Angry at your coworkers. If they were my employees, they would be fired.

6. If abortion becomes illegal in most states, there will be more illegal abortions, and they will often be harmful to the woman. Those on the far right, especially the religious right want to control women. This seems obvious to me because these same people are often against helping poor children, supporting public access to family planning for all, etc. If they really cared about children, they would care about them throughout their childhood and not just when they were a fetus or a group of cells that hasn't even developed a brain.

yep. Which is why if I hear someone ever utter that they are pro life, I will almost certainly tell them that they are merely pro-birth and anti-child.

So, it simply makes sense to give women the option to end an unplanned pregnancy legally and not to judge her decision. Why do we always seem to judge the women and not the men who impregnated these women? Why don't men always use condoms? When used correctly, they are very effective at preventing pregnancy and STIs. Why must the burden always be on the woman? I'm not judging the men here. Hopefully, they are more mature and responsible than a lot of men who I have known in the past.

And sure, there will always be a small percentage of women who regret the decision they made to have an abortion. We all have regrets over decisions we have made in the past. Sometimes it's difficult to know what is best decision when it comes to many things in life.

I'm way past childbearing age, so this SCOTUS decision doesn't impact me personally, but I do hope that younger women will have better access to birth control as well as access to abortion if and when that difficult decision must be made.

I don't want to argue about this. I'm just giving some personal opinions and sharing some experiences.

And I thank you for taking the time. It's a good post, and covers a lot of things that should honestly have been said many pages ago.

 

[Toni]

I don't even think that legislators are really pro birth. I'm certain that at least some have made certain that the pregnant female in their life, be she their girlfriend, daughter, niece, wife, mistress, whatever, has whatever medical procedures HE thinks she should have. The rules are for other people.

 

[thebeave]

I just want to mention a few things that I don't think have been discussed in this thread. Some of my comments are simply anecdotal based on my personal experiences.

First of all, if all men would always wear codoms when they have causal sex or sex that is outside of a long term relationship, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies. If birth control was affordable and readily available to all women, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies.

2. Abortions will happen whether they are legal or not. I remember reading about Margaret Sanger, who was an activist for birth control, including encouraging the development of the OCP. She was far from perfect, but I'm not interested in criticizing her negative side here. I read that she was very influenced by watching women line up for blocks "waiting for 50 cent abortions". That was at the turn of the 20th Century, when abortions were illegal but very common because women had no reliable birth control. During that time period, it was common for women to die during childbirth and it was also common for women to have many children. Even with a partner, it was very difficult to support 8 or 9 children, since this was most common among the lower socioeconomic classes. Making birth control available and abortion legal, simply made abortion safer and rare.

3. I worked in a maternity clinic as a public health nurse in the early 1980s. At that time, abortions were paid for by the federal government if the women were poor. The Republicans stopped that funding. All of my patients had the option of having an abortion, but only one out of about 100 chose that option. Only one chose to give up her baby for adoption. All of my other patients chose to have their babies, despite the fact that they were poor, usually very young and sometimes lacked a good support system. To be honest, I worried about some of these women and the babies they would soon be raising, but it was their choice to make, not mine. This included a 14 year old girl who had been raped by a friend of her family. She was already 8 months into her pregnancy when I met her. My heart went out to her, but I was very pleased that all of my former patients signed up for family planning after they had their babies. I don't know if such services are even available any longer in that particular health department as funding has been cut down drastically for public health over the last several decades.

4. Spontaneous abortions, aka miscarriages are far more common than medical abortions. Most of these happen early during the pregnancy, but sadly, some fetuses die during the later part of the pregnancy. I guess my point is that when nature causes an abortion, there is no judgment, but when a woman feels that is the best option for her, she is often judged very harshly by certain groups.

5. I had a coworker in the early 90s, who was in a horrible marriage to an abuser. She already had 3 children and became pregnant by this husband, shortly before she decided to leave him. She felt like having an abortion very early in the pregnancy was her best option. I am the only one she trusted with this information. She was met by protesters who screamed at her as she entered the clinic, and some of the other people on our team were nasty towards her, despite not even knowing if she had an abortion or had simply lost the fetus naturally. I'm just adding that as one example of what some women must face when they chose to have an abortion, as well as giving one example of why a woman might choose this option.

6. If abortion becomes illegal in most states, there will be more illegal abortions, and they will often be harmful to the woman. Those on the far right, especially the religious right want to control women. This seems obvious to me because these same people are often against helping poor children, supporting public access to family planning for all, etc. If they really cared about children, they would care about them throughout their childhood and not just when they were a fetus or a group of cells that hasn't even developed a brain.

So, it simply makes sense to give women the option to end an unplanned pregnancy legally and not to judge her decision. Why do we always seem to judge the women and not the men who impregnated these women? Why don't men always use condoms? When used correctly, they are very effective at preventing pregnancy and STIs. Why must the burden always be on the woman? I'm not judging the men here. Hopefully, they are more mature and responsible than a lot of men who I have known in the past.

And sure, there will always be a small percentage of women who regret the decision they made to have an abortion. We all have regrets over decisions we have made in the past. Sometimes it's difficult to know what is best decision when it comes to many things in life.

I'm way past childbearing age, so this SCOTUS decision doesn't impact me personally, but I do hope that younger women will have better access to birth control as well as access to abortion if and when that difficult decision must be made.

I don't want to argue about this. I'm just giving some personal opinions and sharing some experiences.

True. But women are the "gatekeepers" so to speak. Shouldn't they make it a requirement on the guy to have a condom on, especially considering that the life altering consequences of an unwanted pregnancy are mostly on them? You are kind of infantilizing women in a way, by seemingly absolving them of the responsibility of condom use. There was an old saying when I was a kid (its sorta racist now, I would assume) that seems apropro: "No tickee, no washee".

 

[Toni]

I just want to mention a few things that I don't think have been discussed in this thread. Some of my comments are simply anecdotal based on my personal experiences.

First of all, if all men would always wear codoms when they have causal sex or sex that is outside of a long term relationship, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies. If birth control was affordable and readily available to all women, there would be far fewer unplanned pregnancies.

2. Abortions will happen whether they are legal or not. I remember reading about Margaret Sanger, who was an activist for birth control, including encouraging the development of the OCP. She was far from perfect, but I'm not interested in criticizing her negative side here. I read that she was very influenced by watching women line up for blocks "waiting for 50 cent abortions". That was at the turn of the 20th Century, when abortions were illegal but very common because women had no reliable birth control. During that time period, it was common for women to die during childbirth and it was also common for women to have many children. Even with a partner, it was very difficult to support 8 or 9 children, since this was most common among the lower socioeconomic classes. Making birth control available and abortion legal, simply made abortion safer and rare.

3. I worked in a maternity clinic as a public health nurse in the early 1980s. At that time, abortions were paid for by the federal government if the women were poor. The Republicans stopped that funding. All of my patients had the option of having an abortion, but only one out of about 100 chose that option. Only one chose to give up her baby for adoption. All of my other patients chose to have their babies, despite the fact that they were poor, usually very young and sometimes lacked a good support system. To be honest, I worried about some of these women and the babies they would soon be raising, but it was their choice to make, not mine. This included a 14 year old girl who had been raped by a friend of her family. She was already 8 months into her pregnancy when I met her. My heart went out to her, but I was very pleased that all of my former patients signed up for family planning after they had their babies. I don't know if such services are even available any longer in that particular health department as funding has been cut down drastically for public health over the last several decades.

4. Spontaneous abortions, aka miscarriages are far more common than medical abortions. Most of these happen early during the pregnancy, but sadly, some fetuses die during the later part of the pregnancy. I guess my point is that when nature causes an abortion, there is no judgment, but when a woman feels that is the best option for her, she is often judged very harshly by certain groups.

5. I had a coworker in the early 90s, who was in a horrible marriage to an abuser. She already had 3 children and became pregnant by this husband, shortly before she decided to leave him. She felt like having an abortion very early in the pregnancy was her best option. I am the only one she trusted with this information. She was met by protesters who screamed at her as she entered the clinic, and some of the other people on our team were nasty towards her, despite not even knowing if she had an abortion or had simply lost the fetus naturally. I'm just adding that as one example of what some women must face when they chose to have an abortion, as well as giving one example of why a woman might choose this option.

6. If abortion becomes illegal in most states, there will be more illegal abortions, and they will often be harmful to the woman. Those on the far right, especially the religious right want to control women. This seems obvious to me because these same people are often against helping poor children, supporting public access to family planning for all, etc. If they really cared about children, they would care about them throughout their childhood and not just when they were a fetus or a group of cells that hasn't even developed a brain.

So, it simply makes sense to give women the option to end an unplanned pregnancy legally and not to judge her decision. Why do we always seem to judge the women and not the men who impregnated these women? Why don't men always use condoms? When used correctly, they are very effective at preventing pregnancy and STIs. Why must the burden always be on the woman? I'm not judging the men here. Hopefully, they are more mature and responsible than a lot of men who I have known in the past.

And sure, there will always be a small percentage of women who regret the decision they made to have an abortion. We all have regrets over decisions we have made in the past. Sometimes it's difficult to know what is best decision when it comes to many things in life.

I'm way past childbearing age, so this SCOTUS decision doesn't impact me personally, but I do hope that younger women will have better access to birth control as well as access to abortion if and when that difficult decision must be made.

I don't want to argue about this. I'm just giving some personal opinions and sharing some experiences.

True. But women are the "gatekeepers" so to speak. Shouldn't they make it a requirement on the guy to have a condom on, especially considering that the life altering consequences of an unwanted pregnancy are mostly on them? You are kind of infantilizing women in a way, by seemingly absolving them of the responsibility of condom use. There was an old saying when I was a kid (its sorta racist now, I would assume) that seems apropro: "No tickee, no washee".

Nope.

YOU are infantalizing MEN by absolving them of any responsibility for birth control unless they are 'forced' to do so.

While I agree with sohy about men using condoms, I also do not think that condoms should be the only form of birth control used. Condoms, when used properly and every single time is only 98%--meaning that over the course of a year, two pregnancies would likely happen out of every 100 couples using condoms only as birth control. That's the ideal situation. In reality, condom failure is somewhere between 3% and 14% because people aren't perfect and sometimes condoms break or come off.

 

[TomC]

You know what? Fuck you and everyone on this message board. Fuck all yall.

Yeah.
I get it.

I'm not likely to post an honest opinion in this thread either. It's not worth the trouble.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

You know what? Fuck you and everyone on this message board. Fuck all yall.

Yeah.
I get it.

I'm not likely to post an honest opinion in this thread either. It's not worth the trouble.
Tom

Is there some irony in being unwilling to be judged for your opinion when your opinion is that you have a right to judge others?

 

[Toni]

It’s hard to post in any thread about abortion. It’s hard to post anything that might possibly be personal in this sort of thread—even harder than posting about sexual assault when you’ve been a victim. I’ve done that. But the truth is that I’ve deleted several posts in this thread alone because it’s really difficult to open yourself to potential personal criticism. And—I’ve never had an abortion. But there was a time, a long time ago, when, if I had been pregnant, the only options that I saw were abortion or suicide. Which sounds dramatic but it was the truth. Fortunately I was not pregnant and did not have to jump through all of the hoops logistically, monetarily or deal with any of those emotions. I was not in shape for that. I’ve had a number of friends who disclosed that they had an abortion and I helped a friend obtain one. She was devoutly Catholic and attended mass daily. Her abusive boyfriend wanted her to marry him which would have given him complete control over her. Instead, she had an abortion and took control again over her life. She still went to mass daily and while she regretted the necessity of the abortion, she also felt she had no other acceptable choice. In her circumstance, I would have felt the same.

It is really easy to judge women for getting pregnant when pregnancy isn’t a great idea. It’s easy to judge women who have abortions. Or who continue with the pregnancy and struggle to raise the child. Who pursue child support from the father who would prefer to forget he ever knew her. It’s easy to judge the woman who gives her child up for adoption. It’s easy to judge women who make the wrong calculations and end up in a situation they did not know how to deal with.

It’s easy to judge women. So much easier than accepting them. Supporting them. Respecting them.

Armchair quarterbacking is really easy.

Why do men find it so difficult to wear a condom? To accept responsibility in preventing a pregnancy or for supporting a woman’s choice to have an abortion or a baby?

 

[TomC]

You know what? Fuck you and everyone on this message board. Fuck all yall.

Yeah.
I get it.

I'm not likely to post an honest opinion in this thread either. It's not worth the trouble.
Tom

Is there some irony in being unwilling to be judged for your opinion when your opinion is that you have a right to judge others?

That's why.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You know what? Fuck you and everyone on this message board. Fuck all yall.

Yeah.
I get it.

I'm not likely to post an honest opinion in this thread either. It's not worth the trouble.
Tom

Just worth it enough to post passive-aggressively about it then I see.

 

[Gun Nut]

You know what? Fuck you and everyone on this message board. Fuck all yall.

Only if you agree to abortion as a form of contraception.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was not looking for any word.

I said what I meant. Every word was carefully chosen.

Mine, as well.

I'm frankly not able to think of anything more discouraging than the current state of affairs regarding reproductive choices allowed women and girls unless we start making women who get pregnant without the express written permission of some man wear a giant letter....I don't even know what letter that might be.

Thank god men bear no responsibility in any of this! Except, of course, to pass judgement on whether a woman is allowed to control her own body and under what circumstances and which hoops she must jump through to satisfy his conscience. Heavy lies the crown and all of that...

I feel no guilt for circumstances I had nothing to do with.

I think humans should be taught responsibility and held accountable for not being responsible long before they are sexually active.

So hopefully the young person has had some practice at behaving responsible for their own sake when the time comes.

Certainly possible to, as Trump would say, choke regarding protection when having sex, however, even married couples have unplanned pregnancies! So the argument about responsibility is unnecessary chatter. The woman is pregnant, accident or not, used protection or not, whether they were lied to about sex by the adults around them or not.

A national daycare system would help a lot.

It would help parents greatly and provide a lot of jobs.

A no brainer when all it would take is building less bombs.

While a national daycare center is a bad idea, daycare support would be a great idea. And also, having a child is a lot more than merely issues of going to school or being able to work while having a baby or child.

 

[Gun Nut]

Why do men find it so difficult to wear a condom?

They reduce sensation by an extremely large degree... so much so that masturbation feels better, to many. If men could simply take a pill to render themselves infertile, like women can trivially do, then that would be in the water like floride. Want to have a baby... you got to start drinking bottled water for a little while.

 

[Jarhyn]

Why do men find it so difficult to wear a condom?

They reduce sensation by an extremely large degree... so much so that masturbation feels better, to many. If men could simply take a pill to render themselves infertile, like women can trivially do, then that would be in the water like floride. Want to have a baby... you got to start drinking bottled water for a little while.

That would only end up be true if men could also get pregnant.

And it is not trivial for women