The Blood is the Life: 31-5-2011

[miss_s_b]

• It speaks!: on being a woman and an activist « Another angry woman
  Fabulous, fabulous article on benevolent sexism
  (tags: feminism)
• Abortion needs to be taught in our medical schools : Pharyngula
  Terrifying, terrifying story of the logical end point of letting people like Life and Nadine Dorries dictate your sexual health policy.
  (tags: feminism usa)
• The Daily Mash - Government sexual health adviser to be hatchet-faced old bag
  One of those satirical pieces that would be funnier if it wasn't so close to the truth.
  (tags: funny)
• Cameron, Clarke, Dorries, Willetts... The Tories keep screwing up on gender equality | Left Foot Forward
  Interesting (and in my view damning) post on the pattern of Tory behaviour on feminist issues.
  (tags: bloodytories feminism)
• I'm not holding my breath for this to actually happen with most of the men I know who sit on panels.
  (tags: feminism)

Comments

the abortion thing really scares me

[neohippie.livejournal.com]

The Repulicans have decided that since it might be hard to outright make abortion illegal again, they're just going to make it so hard for a woman to get one, that it might as well be. A bunch of states recently passed laws giving women waiting periods before she can have an abortion, making her sit through anti-abortion lectures before she has an abortion, and outlawing abortions later in pregnancy.

My state just passed one such law. Now, if you get an abortion in Texas, you have to watch a sonogram of your fetus and have a doctor try to talk you out of "killing this baby" before you go through with it.

What really scares me, as I am passing from the period in my life where there was no way in Hell I was going to have a baby, to "eh, maybe having one sometime in the next few years won't be too bad," are these bans on ALL late-term abortions. There was recently a case of a woman in a state that had such a ban, where she found out late in her pregnancy that her fetus had some kind of horrible birth defect incompatible with life. But since HER life wasn't in danger, she had to have the baby anyway, and watch it struggle to live for 15 minutes before it died.

But, you know, it was God's will that the baby only have a painful, 15 minute life, rather than being aborted as soon as they found out it wouldn't make it.

Re: the abortion thing really scares me

[neohippie.livejournal.com]

Bascially, I admit that if I got pregnant on purpose, and then found out the fetus had a serious defect, I would abort. Maybe even if the baby would live, but have "special needs", I still would. Medical care is so expensive in this country, it's hard enough affording to take care of a healthy kid.

Making it impossible for women to have abortions forces them to have babies they can't properly take care of. How in the heck is that the most compassionate choice?

(Sorry, this is an issue that really riles me up.)