Yup. From Susan B. Anthony List:
Debunking Planned Parenthood’s 3% abortion myth
GREAT little video, which explains the numbers succinctly.
A mythological statistic deserves a mythological picture. This is Zeus.
About that Slate article
There’s a Slate article, available here, saying that new evidence shows women are very sure about their abortion decisions.
A friend called me to tell me about it (well, actually, she called about something else but ended up mentioning this article.)
My very first reaction was this: “I bet they didn’t look long term.”
So here’s the study upon which the Slate article is based. All you need to know I will summarize here, see bold:
Eligible women at four family planning facilities in Utah completed baseline demographic surveys and scales before their abortion information visit and follow-up interviews 3 weeks later.
It is self-evident to me that three weeks later women could feel confident. When I talk about abortion and mention the long term, I’m not worried about weeks. I’m worried about years.
Example: If a woman gets pregnant in university and has an abortion, it might feel like you got rid of the “problem,” which is essentially an issue of how can she can possibly do life under these circumstances–with a baby? But say fast forward twenty years to a time when she desires to get pregnant but can’t. Would the abortion decision not come back to haunt her? My guess is yes.
A three week follow up so you can declare abortion to be consequence free is ridiculously unfair to women and girls.
So, Slate: Let me know when someone does a study assessing abortion regret after 30 years. Then (after checking methodology) I will pay close attention.
For pro-choicers to consider
This article is about miscarriage. My point in linking to it is to capture the sentiment of the mother, who was married, in a stable, loving relationship and yet, when she got pregnant, she felt fear that she only slowly overcame.
The whole problem with abortion (other than the disrespect for mothers, women and new life) is that a decision must be made very quickly.
So I wonder if convicted pro-choice people ever grapple with this angle. The idea that what appears to be a scary thing could morph into a good thing. This is so often the case. It’s true in moves to new cities, new jobs, marriage. Why not with the creation of new people?
None of it felt real. I nodded while we hugged, but I wondered if the test was wrong. We had been married six and a half years, and even though we had been talking about getting pregnant for a while, I wasn’t excited — I was terrified. Part of me still felt more like child than parent, made even smaller by this news. My heart knocked around in my chest, and I wondered if Zack could see the anxiety on my face. His joy made me more afraid, and more excited.
I use a free image site called Pixabay. I searched for images under the word “fear” and this came up. Perhaps it’s common to experience fear in pregnancy, fear that women overcome?
Vindication
There’s a lengthy article here, in the Toronto Star (clearly not the mouthpiece of the pro-life movement) about young women moving away from the Pill.
I have been talking for a long time about the negative side of the Pill, mostly from a women’s health and welfare angle. I have also critiqued the Pill because it distorts the relationship between the sexes and harms women’s chances of long term relationship happiness in something called marriage.
This is something that ideologues have loved to critique. I’m “anti-sex” or “religious” or this or that. I’m betting they won’t say that about the Toronto Star.
I have been on the birth control pill, and the sadness factor, or feeling distant from life, the world and myself is what I experienced. It wasn’t pleasant but at the time, so many moons ago, I had no way to understand what was happening or connect the dots. When I came off the Pill that feeling went away. And so, in hindsight, I realize my life had became more difficult, and coping strategies that I would have had naturally were taken away, thanks to the Pill messing with my hormones.
Anyway, you can read more, for yourself. But let this moment stand, and enjoy it: People opposed to the Pill had good reason, and the rest of the world is now catching up.
Some of the women say they became uncomfortable with putting synthetic hormones in their bodies. Many say the pill affected their emotional state.
A large-scale, longitudinal study published in September in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, part of the Journal of the American Medical Association network, suggests hormonal contraception could cause depression.
The study analyzed data from more than one million women aged 15 to 34, collected from Denmark’s National Prescription Register and Psychiatric Central Research Register over 14 years. The authors concluded women who took the birth control pill had a 23 per cent greater risk of depression than those who did not take the pill. Compared to non-users, the risk associated with progestin-only pills was 34 per cent greater.
Other methods of birth control carried a higher risk of depression, which may be linked to dosage, the study says: women using the progestin-releasing IUD faced a 40 per cent greater risk than non-users; the risk for vaginal ring users was 60 per cent greater. The birth control patch doubled the risk of depression.
Marriage can be good for your health
Et voila. A compilation of solid, scientific research shows in different areas, a good marriage helps your health.
Here’s my op-ed about this topic in the Vancouver Province.
Still, the sad reality is that in failing to acknowledge, publicize and act on this research, we are failing to give all people, married or unmarried, the care they deserve.
Furthermore, for a culture where marriage is often denigrated, advertising the good marriage advantage offers hope for those who are considering marriage alongside the already married.
Molly’s Law
A long article about Molly’s Law:
Section 223 of the Criminal Code of Canada defines a human being as one who has “completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother,” whether or not it has breathed yet or had its umbilical cord severed.
A fetus is not legally considered a person until that point, though the code does state that a homicide is committed if a child dies, “after becoming a human being,” due to injury just before or during its birth.
“To only have Cassie’s life recognized in the charges is beyond logic for us,” Durham says.
Well, yes. But due to a pro-abortion mentality that pervades the law, we aren’t allowed to recognize any preborn child, because doing so would make those who abort reconsider that choice, because suddenly the cognitive dissonance we currently live in (I’m expecting a baby! I’m getting an abortion and there’s nothing there) would be shattered.
Jeff Durham, Molly’s dad, had a room and clothing prepared for his daughter who wasn’t yet born. Yet there is no charge for the murder of the child, just the mother, his ex-girlfriend.
Birth control pill raises depression risk
Study is out. Media report says:
Adolescent girls appeared to be at highest risk. Those taking combined pills were 80% more likely and those on progestin-only pills more than twice as likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than their peers who were not on the pill.
Would be interesting to unpack why and how that works. Is it simply a physiological response to taking hormones day in day out? BTW for women who believe there is no other effective means of birth control, now is my time to plug some more natural methods, like Creighton or NaproTech. I also remember in Germany, when I lived there, so many moons ago, a friend used basically the Clear Blue Fertility monitor or some deutsche equivalent. Because she didn’t want to be pumping her body full of hormones. Simple.
Assisted suicide: Nothing to see here
The author of this article is a physician who gets a thoroughly non-political view into how assisted suicide is being used: To do away with depressed or inconvenient people.
What surprised his wife was “how easy” it was for her depressed, self-isolated husband to be killed under the new regime. What seems obvious is that the whole nature of this death is not going to be reported to the Minister of Health or the Minister of Justice — there is no transparency to this system.
It’s important to chronicle all these stories so that when a government report says five years from now that everything is fine, we will know the truth.
On choice
True story: My friend was for a time supporting young women facing unplanned pregnancy by living with them in a home, cooking for them, offering counselling and support. One of the young pregnant women decides she wants an abortion and asks for help in getting one. She needed a drive to the clinic. My friend said no–no drive. But, she said, you can continue to live here after the abortion as before. Ie. we are still supporting you but you will not get my practical aid in getting to the clinic. The girl was annoyed, but she accepted it. The small inconvenience caused her to reconsider. The end result was telling her boyfriend and parents, having the baby, and now, two years post birth, she is very happy with her choice.
Is it possible that a drive to the clinic truly prevented her from having an abortion? It seems so. My friend was willing to support in every meaningful way (food, and a roof over her head) regardless. But now we can welcome a new person in Canada and it seems my friend’s principled refusal to be involved with the clinic in any way is at least partly the cause.
Why do I tell this story?
Because the Globe is reporting that there are cost barriers to getting the morning after pill; it won’t be covered by most provincial plans due to a decision the drug company made. Cue the voices of folks saying this is prohibitive–and denies women their choice.
I hope so, is all this pro-life woman can say, I hope so. In spite of what the pro-abortion ideologues say, it is fairly easy to get an abortion. And the barriers that are there are valuable as it causes someone in a crisis moment to slow down. The moment of a crisis is not the time to be making big decisions, I’ve always said. One needs to know where one stands before that. (And that, in part, anyway, is a reason to blog on the matter.) But if a barrier as simple as money or a drive to the clinic prevents an abortion, how intent was the woman on that choice in the first place?
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