I found this link on an internet discussion about what kind of women have abortions. It is very informative:
When anti-abortion advocates seek abortion for themselves or a loved one....
When anti-abortion advocates seek abortion for themselves or a loved one....
The underage girls being taken in by their mothers breaks my heart. It's not a real choice when the grandparent makes it, and besides I wonder how much cruel, backwards mind-f'ing goes on in private before and after. "You did something evil, and now your sin is forcing me to sin by condoning your further sin to preserve the Testimony of God." (Because of course the Testimony can't come from God Himself, He depends on us to make it known by not letting our kids have pre-marital sex.) I just know some of those girls are made to believe that their "sin" of sexual intercourse has resulted in all sorts of other sins by people who claim to have no choice. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteExactly! No pro-choice person is in favor of coercion of any kind.
ReplyDeleteI remember back when all I read was "pro-life" sources, there was an article in the Florida paper. A teenage girl in an east coast abortion clinic was brought in by her mother. The intake medical assistant took the girl to a room by herself, as medical ethics require. She asked the girl is she was there by her own free will or if she was being coerced. (They always ask this! It's required by medical ethics that you get the patient alone and ask them. I didn't know that before I took a class in Medical Legal and Ethics.)
The teenager said she did not want to be there, but that her mother had a gun and threatened to kill her if she did not have an abortion. The medical assistand alerted the police, who came and arrested the mother.
The mother did have a loaded gun in her purse when police arrived!!
Now I was amazed at this story because of all the lies I had heard from the pro-life movement, including:
Lie #1) that abortion clinics don't exist to provide a medically necessary service, they only exist for profit
Lie #2) medical professionals who work in abortion clinics lie to patients and coerce them into having abortions whether they need/want them or not
Lie #3) pro-choice is just a phrase, really if a person is not "pro-life" they are pro-ABORTION. They love abortions and performing abortions and having abortions and selling abortions and promoting abortions.
Once I started reading pro-choice web sites, I discovered that these are lies. Pro-choice people believe a woman should have the right to make decisions for her own life. The very best literature out there to help a pregnant teen choose what's best for her is put out by a pro-choice organization. It's a worksheet to help her indentify her own feelings about pregnancy, abortion, adoption, single-parenting. It helps her identify resources that can be useful to her not matter what decision she makes concerning her body and her future.
I was surprised. I was expecting slanted material that subtly or overtly pushed the teen to abort. After all, that's what the pro-life literature does! But no, this was so even-handed and truly helpful. I wish I had bookmarked it at the time, because I'm having trouble finding it right now.
I did find these just-the-facts links, but not the worksheet I was looking for:
http://womensissues.about.com/od/teenpregnancy/a/TeenAbortReasons.htm
http://womensissues.about.com/od/teenpregnancy/Teenage_Pregnancy_including_Birth_Motherhood_and_Teenage_Abortion.htm
http://womensissues.about.com/od/reproductiverights/a/AbortionArgumen.htm
http://www.pamf.org/teen/sex/pregnancy/abortion.html
DeleteThis is not the worksheet I found previously, but it is every bit as balanced, if not as detailed:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/info-for-teens/pregnancy/im-pregnant-now-what-33830.asp