Someone forwarded me this Glamour article about women who have abortions. I sent it round to the PWPL team to see if someone had time to post about it—where it quickly became an internal email exchange about losing weight while you sleep. (Apparently some among us have always wanted to gain weight, while others (the majority) would gladly hand over extra pounds–while sleeping, or otherwise.)
Ok, fine. So I’ll post about the article.
My first thought: This is Glamour. A mish mash of articles on how to have better sex, “Valentine’s Dos and Donts” and yes, how to lose weight overnight mean I have a hard time taking their abortion article seriously. This is in depth—for Glamour. Is this a bit like saying you are a really serious swimmer—for a kangaroo?
My second thought: While they rely on rhetoric, they don’t actually use the usual euphemisms as much as I thought they would. The story opens on a scared, cold woman, her feet up in stirrups, her uterus being vacuumed out. Empowering? Or degrading, classified as empowering? Any woman who has had a pap smear knows this is uncomfortable stuff. So they open on an uncomfortable scene, and then make little effort to change that image.
The first woman they interview says this: “My boyfriend and I had been together for only one month and I got pregnant the first time we had unprotected sex. I didn’t even consider the possibility of keeping the child.” Those are stark words in print and anyone with even the haziest notions on personal responsibility should balk at what she’s just said. (This interview points to my suspicion that only the very most ardent supporter of “abortion rights” –ie. not “your average woman” would even volunteer to speak on the record for this article. I guess this based on the troubles—the phone call after phone call after phone call painstakingly placed when I was a reporter trying to get someone to comment on the record for issues far less controversial.)
This certainly is a bad article—they are still trapped in “abortion is a right, and it is empowering” land—even if they give no proof for that, no back stories on how the women’s lives improved. They actually fall back on the standard Don’t Think Too Much About This rhetoric of abortion supporters. They are trying to normalize abortion–but it’s an uphill battle, at best. Which always leaves me wondering–how is it that pro-lifers are on the losing side? I’ll know we’re winning when they open with the exact same lede–and move on to describe how many different and truly empowering options that woman could have chosen–how in a different time they actually thought this marked “progress” but we can see more clearly now–thank goodness.
Which leaves me with only one question–I just woke up, and I weigh the same thing as yesterday (I just popped on the scale to check). If there’s a way to lose weight in my sleep, I would dearly love to know.
by 
I would love it if someone with a wide audience, would actually challenge the safety of first trimester abortions. Apparently, contrary to the Nuremburg code of medical ethics, aspiration abortion has never been tested on animals. Now, the code does not carry the force of law, but it is invoked all the time with regards to medical ethics.
If a woman has a vacuum with 29 times the strength of a household vacuum inserted into her uterus, surely someone somewhere should be concerned about the safety of that procedure?
This part of the article really irks me:
“In a perfect world, no woman would ever need to end a pregnancy. ”
When do women *need* to end pregnancies in this imperfect world, outside of their lives being in danger? (which is rare)
““I’ve seen every type of woman in my office, from Catholics to Muslims to mothers with three kids,” says Dr. Oyer. “I’ve even treated someone I recognized—because I’d seen her before, protesting right outside my clinic.””
This part made my stomach churn. How could this have happened?
As for losing weight in your sleep, I’d like to know how to do that too. hehe
😉 For losing weight in your sleep I highly recommend cosleeping with your nursing infant. I’ve done pre and post-feed weigh-ins and I know that his weight can go up half a pound and mine go down half a pound in the 15 minutes it takes him to eat. If he eats 4 times a night while I sleep through the nursing sessions that would be about 2 lbs, right? Of course I then wake up starving and go eat a double breakfast….