Untitled Document

title: pro-choice or pro-life?

Written by: brock on 1/23/98 at 2:40PM. so...which are you? i'm interested in knowing, for a myriad of reasons i will reveal after i hear some responce. please tell me why, as well.

Replies:

Reply from: colossal whore on 1/23/98 at 2:53PM. brock, im definately pro-choice. one reason i am is that there have been 2 important people in my life who have needed abortions and if it wouldnt have been available to them, there would have been dire consequences in their lives. one my cousin was experiencing difficulties with her pregnancy and she went in to the doctor after 6 weeks because she was so sick she hadnt been able to eat for the past 2 weeks....every time she tried it came back up. and even though she wanted the baby if they wouldnt have aborted it she would have died. and the other instance was with my friend, she was raped and got pregant from the asshole--so she didnt want the baby. i know this is a very touchy subject and ppl have very strong opinions about it, and i respect other viewpoints as well. but i believe when that choice is taken away from us, this leads to more devastation in women's lives. if you want to see a good film that gives several aspects and points on pro/con..watch 'if these walls could talk'. very intense and it makes you think. well thats it...xoxo tara

Reply from: brock on 1/23/98 at 2:58PM. well, i am prochoice..my mother and great-grandma (she's 101!) and i went to this thing that the voices for choice coalition sponsored on the anniversary of roe v. wade and only like 30 people showed up. and out of those 30, only 5 were under 35, and i was by far the youngest person there (i'm 18). i just wanted to know if the youth of today are apathetic or prolife or maybe it's just south dakota. to be honest, i don't understand the mindset of "prolife" people, but that's a different story.

Reply from: janeeta on 1/23/98 at 2:58PM. prochoice all the way for me. i have a problem with calling the anti-abortion side pro-life. if you consider the people who have been hurt in attacks on abortion clinics and the doctors who perform abortions, i would hope you would realize that they are not all that caring about human life. yuck. i prefer to call them anti-choice, or anti-abortion. (i admit that i just consciously made the decision to use these terms a couple of days ago... so i still slip now and then.) also, anyone remember the piece on the home alive compilation: i saw this shithead getting out of his car. i could tell immedieately because his tshirt said "as a former fetus, i oppose abortion." my first instinct was to yell out "as a fellow former abortion, i wish you had *been* an abortion" or it went something like that....i think that was by the body has a head.

Reply from: Leigh on 1/23/98 at 3:03PM. janeeta, yeah, i love that spoken word piece on "home alive". the other awesome one is "keep your mother off my sisters"! anyways, i am soooo strongly pro-choice. i don't mean to sound narrow-minded, but i honestly do not understand how a woman could be pro-life. does she not not want the right to control her own body?

Reply from: Mischief on 1/23/98 at 3:26PM. Pro-choice!!all the way!!I believe in for each their own,as'well as anti dictatorism...no bodys beliefs and opinions should over rule others!!xoxoSUMER

Reply from: KF on 1/23/98 at 3:31PM. totally pro-choice.. every woman has the right to decide for herself. All the way!! without anyone interfering and telling her she's fucked up. The Home Alive Compilation is great. I love both of those pieces mentioned. Bobby Miller is rad as hell.

Reply from: Mischief on 1/23/98 at 3:36PM. ps.It's pretty naive to think that if you make it illegal that people will stop having 'em.It's better to have them in a clean and sterile room than in some dirty back ally.But most prolifers think they deserve to die,or get sick if they brake that law(if it existed)...kinda controdicting huh? "i'm Pro life(pro microscopic fetis)...but we support a law that will initiate death."..hmmm? I was just watchin one of those church shows*for shits and giggles*,and This preacher was workin' up a sweat screaming about how people who support abortions,and have them "WIll be judged my The ALmighty HImself Under Murder 1!!"*hahaha*xoxoSUMER

Reply from: carl on 1/23/98 at 4:07PM. i am prophylactic.

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/23/98 at 6:01PM. I'm Pro-Life / Anti-Choice / Anti-Abortion, whatever you want to call it. Mischief, I really don't think most pro-lifers want women to die or get sick, and I know a lot of pro-lifers who would really oppose this statement. Brock, you asked to give an explanation.... it's really hard to get into it all, but I think its definitely wrong to have an abortion in nearly all cases. The best reference I can give for my beliefs towards abortion are probably Arguements For Life, and Oppressive Industry and Failed Pro-Choice Ethics. For clarification, if you recognize them, the authors are Hardline inviduals, and while I do have some very different opinions on some of the stances they take, these essays are excellent. Another rad place to check out is Feminists For Life. Maybe I'm being naive, but I would hope that at least the two "sides" to the abortion debate can at least agree that we should be trying to lower the number of abortion cases and educate people about abstinence and birth control. Or is the general feeling amongst pro-choice individuals that it really doesn't matter? Also, I'm wondering- am I the only Pro-Lifer to venture this board? I have a feeling there are others out there, but they're probably just scared to admit it they are in the face of traditional feminist idealogy.

Reply from: brock on 1/23/98 at 7:38PM. ok, i'm pissed...and i'm not taking this out on ben, at all...here goes: anti-choice people claim to be all concerned about fetuses...the deal is this..(a quote from a prochoice activist who lives around here..)"Regardless of what anti-choice people say, they are judging a woman's mental and decision-making capacities. They have no right to do that. They are not in her shoes, they are not under her circumstances. It is so easy to just yell from the sidewalk, 'don't kill your child' when you don't know the circumstances they are going home to." AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I THINK.

Reply from: brock on 1/23/98 at 7:43PM. ok. questions for ben (i am only singling you out because you are the only prolifer so far) 1. did you realize that tens of thousands of women die every year from illegal, unsafe abortion, even in this day and age? 2. do you really think that women will stop having abortions if they are made illegal? 3. what is your opinion on birth control in general? 4. do you support the more hardline anti choice activists? 5. do you find it strange that as a male, you are telling women what to do with their bodies? 6. do you really even attempt to understand the circumstances that lead women to abortion?

Reply from: Mike Saboo on 1/23/98 at 8:03PM. I'm ardently pro-choice. But to

Reply to Ben, the mainstream anti-choice groups are also those that try and reduce things like welfare, daycare and support programs for single mothers based on a similar misguided notion not of "protecting" women but on punishing those women who fail their moral tests. These same groups are also involved in boycotting any pharmaceutical firms that are investing in not just abortion drugs but new forms of birth control. But I do suggest that people follow Ben's hardline links, poking around those pages is a good indication of the hidden bigotries of even the "progressive" anti-choice groups. Doesn't it bother you that those Hardline groups are also talking about how "impure" and "against nature" homosexuals are? Or that their opposition to abortion mentions NOTHING about how to deal with unwanted pregnancies on a social level in terms of health care or education, but instead talks about how horrible it is to "succumb" to sexual pleasure? Once again, the anti-choice people stop caring about their precious zygotes after they leave the womb.

Reply from: Benny Boy Toy on 1/23/98 at 8:24PM. Brock - Not that I necessarily doubt yr statistics on how many women die from illegal abortions in the present day, but where did you pull them from? You point out the fact that women are dying from abortions... but what about the people that are being aborted? Why is it that the unborn children have no rights at the expense of "The Right to Choose"? It doesn't make sense. The fetus isn't part of a woman. When I was in my mother womb did she have 4 eyes, 20 toes, and a penis? Nooo.... because I'm a seperate person, developing inside her, independent of her as a person, yet still dependent on her from nutrients. No, I don't think the abortion industry will be irridicated if abortion is made illegal. Just because people have abortions regardless of if they're legal or not isn't much of an argument to legalize abortion. Rape is illegal and it still happens- should that be legal? Only with a combined effort by everyone to make responsible decisions about their lifestyle and with a massive educational program spread throughout the United States will this abortion industry collapse. I'm all down for birth control, although I've heard things about birth control actually killing the fetus, but I don't know if its true. I've also heard that the pill is bad for yr health, but, I don't really know if either of these are true. Assuming they are not generally true, birth control is a wonderful thing! And there's also forms of natural birth control, like measuring the level of something inside the vagina (something like that!) and keeping track and then you can figure out certain times of the month that are the safest to have sex. Abstinence is also kool. I'm thinking you asked this question cuz of all the stupid pro-life Catholics that I guess just assume everyone will stop having sex altogether to end unwanted pregnancy since they're "sinning" if they use birth control! Define "the more hardline anti choice activists" and I'll answer! I'd like you to be specific cuz I don't want people to be like "Ben supports the murder of pro-choicers!" or something. No, I don't find it strange as a male considering the majority of pro-lifers are female, easily! Most of the males I've met that are pro-life are because of religious reason, which I think right there just kinda kills yr argument, and the ones I'm met that are pro-choice tend to be that way because pro-choice allows for men to fuck, get an abortion, and it's no big deal i.e thwarting responsibility. Yes, Brock, I honestly think I do. I have friends who had abortions, one just very recently. Her reason- got pregnant, didn't want it. I realize this probably sounds incredibly shallow to you- but that's why nearly all abortions are performed. Cases of rape or incest are much more problematic and intricate, but morally, I still think its wrong to abort the child, but at the same time, I can understand why someone would do that. Abortion is just a sympton of a problem anyhow, not the root. The real problem is people in general. (not to sound nihilist, but it's true.) I await yr response and I hope we can continue talking without flaming each other! =)

Reply from: Benny Boy Toy on 1/23/98 at 8:39PM. Mike- Hardline's view point towards sexuality is not what I agree with. I've spoken to a lot of Hardline kids, we get along, they do not care that I'm attracted to other boiz, and if they have a problem with it than they can just deal with it on their own. And, to make things interesting, since you feel the need to point out Hardline's views towards queers, should I bring up the fact that one of Planned Parenthood's founders was an outspoken racist? I can give you all the details you need. Does this mean that all of you are racist bigots? Nooo... Also, here's another website many of you thought you'd never see. Check it out- The Pro-Life Alliance of Gays And Lesbians.

Reply from: amy on 1/23/98 at 8:41PM. alrighty. I'll tell ya. I'm pro-choice all the way!!!! I do however have a problem with people who think of it as a form of birth control but that's only because condoms and the such are cheaper. Why am I pro-baby killer:)??? The first time I ever encountered the matter was when I was in eighth grade. A friend of mine got pregnant and I thikn that she was far too young to raise that baby to begin with. And due to the circumstances, the baby probably would've been raised wrong. Her parents were racist and so were his. Its sad to think that abortion is the answer to racism in this case but nonetheless, the fetal groover met a better death than it would've in life. Besides, it makes me ill to see all those people out there with there pro-life bumper stickers proclaiming it. I mean are these the same people that go to the clinics on the weekends and fight against someone's individual rights? That's what it is ya know-AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT not something for the world to decide. I think that it should be legal and safe and clean!!!! Why make it difficult? Its already hard enough for a mother to make the choice, she doesn't need outside shit bringin her down man!!! And if she had that baby, are you gonna adopt it???? Are you gonna bitch about having to pay for her(welfare and dcfs)? I think not, you'd be like a lot of people out there saying cut the welfare program. I'm not heartless. I just think that its an individual choice. if you're so pro life does that mean you think Dr. Jack is in the wrong too?-Amy

Reply from: brock on 1/23/98 at 8:45PM. ok. here we go. 1. i get those statistics from the united nations. most of the women who died are from countries where abortion is illegal, however, thanks to those wonderful "parental consent" laws and denying access to abortion for women on Medicare, those numbers include american women. 2. i guess this is where prochoicers and prolifers will never see eye to eye...i believe strongly that a fetus is not a separate entity from the woman. it is clearly not a "person", as anti choicers believe. 3. rape and abortions are connected only in that women who are raped often find themselves pregnant. these women would be denied abortions if they are made illegal. that you would attempt to make a connection between rape and abortion is a little disgusting. 4. birth control is rad, but not foolproof. 75 to 80 percent of women seeking abortions were using some form of birth control when they concieved. would you force these women to bear children? 5. hardline anti choicers=people who block access to clinics, people who oppose abortion in cases of rape and incest... 6. no, actually, the stats concerning women beirng pro choice is the same as the whole population....60 percent pro choice, 40 prolife. 7. regardless of why abortions are performed...why would you force a woman to bear a child as a punishment for having sex? when you take an attitude like that, you are no different than the "stoopid prolife Catholics". forcing a woman to bear a child as a punishment is the ulitmate form of child abuse. 8. you can not begin to understand the myriad of reasons women have abortions. i have volunteered at an abortion clinic for over two years...and the stories i hear are amazing. i will NEVER judge any woman who chooses to abort. i suggest you go to a clinic sometime and find out the truth before you judge most women who have abortions to be irresponsible sluts who don't feel like raising children. that's all...for now.

Reply from: AlienShe on 1/23/98 at 9:24PM. Heh. Well! I guess I'm one of two pro-lifers here... DON'T HIT ME!!!! :) Heheh... I personally would never have an abortion. And if anyone ever came DIRECTLY TO ME asking advice on what to do in a suprise pregnancy situation, I'd try to dissuade them from abortion. The reasons are basically that I believe life begins at conception, my brother, sister, and I were all unplanned pregnancies, and that I know way too many really rad people who were adopted and I shudder to think that some of them never would have even made it into the world if their mothers had aborted... This is NOT to say however, that I think less of someone who has an abortion. And I would NEVER attend a pro-life rally, because I think people who try and tell others what to do with their lives without knowing the situation they're in are close-minded fucks and I don't want anything to do with them...and whether or not to abort is NEVER an easy decision...the xian right seems to think people just arbitrarily go out and fuck each other and then use abortion as a form of birth control, and I have NEVER known that to be the case... Hmmm. So I guess if there's such a thing as pro-life but not anti-choice, ummm...that'd be me... :)

Reply from: SaskiaTheSpy on 1/23/98 at 9:35PM. I am pro-choice all the way. i know for a fact that If i were to get pregnant at this point in my life, I would have an abortion. *** a question for all the other pro-choicers *** If you found out tomorrow that you were pregnant (or in the male case, had gotten someone pregnant), would you have an abortion?

Reply from: James Feagin on 1/23/98 at 9:42PM. Brock, all I can say is totally God bless your great grandma...101! She must be a special person to have lived that long! wow! I hope I make it that long! I'm not pro-choice or pro-life....I'm in another camp, a category I made for myself! pro-responsibility :) James

Reply from: lisa on 1/23/98 at 10:10PM. damnit i posted two long messages earlier and they've mysteriously disappeared, and now i'm too pissed to calmly retype them. i'll just say that it makes me REALLY, REALLY mad when ANYONE, and ESPECIALLY a boy, tries to dictate what is right or wrong for a woman to do with her own body. ugh!

Reply from: 5:17 on 1/23/98 at 10:25PM. Alien She, You're Pro-Choice, If you believe that someone has the right to choose it's that simple. And, everyone seems to be putting up facts about why women have abortions... but that is avoiding the central issue. Pro-life is about telling someone that their fetus is a baby (which it isn't) a baby outside of the womb, is a baby. If that women refuses to believe that, then you must respect that choice, the same way you respect peoples choice of sexual partners, religious beliefs, etc. I'm not going to put an answer to what I would do if I were pregnant, because it doesn't matter. But i have noticed one thing... most Pro-Lifer's are men (i used to be one myself--a pro-lifer that is.) and i think i know the reason. Men feel cheated out of childbearing and feel the need to have control over "their" sperm. It's controlling other peoples bodies, and it's wrong.

Reply from: InFEcTeDniPplE on 1/23/98 at 11:14PM. im one of those pro-genociders...dont get me wrong..im not specific towards a certain group...just the general human race...DIE EVERYONE hehEHhEHehhEHeheheh love, mr. nipple

Reply from: Mike Saboo on 1/24/98 at 7:01AM. Isn't there a slight difference between pointing out the current homophobic attitudes of the Hardline movement and the eugenic/racist philosophies of the founders of Planned Parenthood from roughly 100 years ago? The point I was trying to make is that almost all of the "pro-life" rhetoric is based not on concern for children but for a desire to punish women for being "immoral" and daring to fuck for pleasure rather than for the "right" reason of procreation. Which is why for every one Feminist for Life, there's a hundred Christian Coalition people who not only want abortion made illegal but want childcare for single mothers slashed, and in general want all the social safety nets for children and single parents eliminated since it's "anti-family". These are also the same groups who are activley trying to stop research on new forms of birth control, from RU468 on down, since they "prevent life" or some such gibberish. And for this "the fetus is a baby" line, there's a huge difference between a zygote and a third-trimester fetus. A clump of thirty six undifferentiated cells is not a human being, it's a potential one, but it hardly has the right to determine what a living, breathing woman does. Cancer cells have different genetic codes than their host, does that mean we should say that the cancer has MORE of a right to determine what their host does than the actual person? And even if you're somewhat insulting claim that most pro-choice men just want to fuck and "thwart responsibility" were true, on another level just because someone decides they don't want to fuck according to YOUR rules of what's "responsible" doesn't make their consentual actions evil.

Reply from: brock on 1/24/98 at 9:07AM. just a couple of things...actually, the founders of Planned Parenthood, who someone said were racists, were pro-life. hmmph. i don't get prolife gays and lesbians...they don't understand that the government telling women what to do with their bodies through restricting abortion and the government trying to tell gays who to sleep with...it's all the same thing.

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/24/98 at 12:16PM. brock, ben was right about one thing (that's all that i'll concede to at this time) and that is that the founder of PP -- Margaret Sanger -- was a eugenicist. her work has made life much easier for women today, and made some definate progress for us all, but her motivations were not the best. much like Virginia Woolf made progress for women writers (A Room of One's Own) but was only concerned with upper-middle class white women writers, Sanger was only concerned with the reproductive health of middle class white women... with others, she had a definite racist/classist imperative. that having been said, that doesn't mean that those fucked up values apply to the whole of the abortion rights movement. is there anyone here who considers themselves a RADICAL abortion rights supporter? i am. i agree with the philosophy of JANE, the collective of women in pre-Roe v Wade Chicago who learned how to perform abortions and did so whenever asked, with sliding scale fees. they helped mostly poor black women, and asked for donations to run their operation with, and they counseled and paid personal attention to each woman -- making sure to ask what she wanted. usually, the women who came to JANE had already made up their minds that they wanted abortions, and that's what they got; on the rare occassions where they were being pressured into having them, they received help in pre-natal care & got referrals to adoption services or people who would help them keep the child. like JANE, i want to learn how to perform abortions so that i'm not dependent upon the medical industry, so i don't have to face these anti-choice fascists... the only way we're going to maintain our rights to abortion is if we know how to do it ourselves, without regards to the law. i have a radical view on abortion in that sense, because i don't believe that Roe v Wade was a really good thing. it took too much of the decision making process out of the hands of women, and put it into the hands of congress. this is not something that should be in the hands of lawmakers AT ALL! Roe v Wade gave the right of decisionmaking to women's doctor's rather than solely the woman who had elected to have surgery; and i have a problem when the law says that my doctor has as much right to that decision over my body as i do. it should be ONLY mine. i want the repeal of all abortion laws. legally, it shouldn't be an exception to the rule that there is no surgery to be legislated by acts of congress -- other surgeries are not governed like that, why should abortion be any different? it's not the government's place to tell someone they can't have their tonsils taken out, and it shouldn't be their place to tell someone they can't (or they have to) have a zygote or fetus removed from her body. all surgeries are subject legalities, like safety procedures and whatnot, but they should not be legislated against on the whims of politicians on personal 'morality' issues. any legislation granting 'permission' to have an abortion under certain circumstances implies that the people who wrote that law also have the right to REVOKE that persmission -- and it's not their place to do that! so... radical view of abortion in a nutshell: women should know how to perform the procedure so we're not at the whims of moralizing (and demoralizing) doctors and politicians; all laws on abortion should be revoked; abortion on demand -- without exception; abortion without guilt. no one should have to justify their reasons for not wanting to bear a child.

Reply from: brock on 1/24/98 at 12:30PM. kate...i knew about margaret sanger...my point is that she did not believe in abortion...she thought it was too violent. so it doen'st really matter cos she was prolife anyway. i agree. i am radically pro choice. it is rad that you are taking the ideas of the jane collective and putting them into use. kudos!

Reply from: ashley on 1/24/98 at 1:21PM. i wrote something about this last night. "Roe vs. Wade 1973 1998 Not a Solution Then STILL A TRAGEDY TODAY." there was a huge poster in my religion room stating this and i sat down and i started thinking about how a middle-aged catholic high school religion teacher feels like she has the right to tell ME what i can do with MY body. its stupid and its sexist and its racist and its classist and its all the other negative -ists i can think of. then she had a schedule on the board about going "to pray the rosay outside the ABORTION MILL" she called it an abortion mill! what the fuck? the other night they shoowed some of protests in DC this week. i noticed almost all the pro-lifers (like, 75%) were men. and it makes me feel so sick inside that they feel like they can tell me what the fuck i can and cant do. and i wish they would just stop to think, i mean when they rush up to a girl and say "you cant kill your baby" and call her a murderer, i wish they would stop and think,, mayb ethis woman was raped,, or maybe not. maybe the condom broke, or maybe it didnt. thats not even whats important . 25 years is not that long ago kiddies. when my mom had my brother and sister abortion wasn't legal. isn't that weird? she didnt have the option of not having the kid, it was forced upon her. and thats pretty fucken sad. a good book i reccomend is I am Roe: my life, roe vs. wade, and freedom of choice. by norma mccorvey. she was jane roe in the original court case. i want to write her a letter. and i want to thank her promoting awareness about abortion, and helping to fight the anti-abortion law so women wouldnt have to go to some back alley so some guy can get his greasy hands up her cunt and pull out that fetus with a coat hanger, yknow? i saw a picture of a woman dead from a messed up home abortion once. it was horrible. and so may no more women shed blood because she didn;'t have a choice. and so women can continue their right to reproductive freedom a tragedy? the pro-life movement is a tragedy. i feel evil emenating from it. if i put my hands up to it id get burned for sure. its immoral. i believe in women. i believe in the power of choice. im going to be a prochoice activist one day. amen. PS me and my brother and sister were all accidents, but i dont see how this would effect my views on abortion. i should type out The Jane Roe Speech by norma mccorvey but its kind of long and i have a headache.

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/24/98 at 1:46PM. i would like to clarify that if one identifies as "prochoice" it does not neccasarily render them "pro abortion". i think abortion is a horrible, tragic and unfortunate act. but i have lived in reality most of my life and therefore can plainly see that it is absolutely vital to the survival and sanity of women that we have a choice. the sad fact is that if we criminalize abortion, more women are going to die and/or more children are going to be born to women and families who don't want them or cannot take care of them. in an ideal world, this would not be true, but alas, it just is. abortion is not the product of women being forced into desperate measures by some horrible society. it has been going on since the beginning of time. animals give themselves abortions, plants abort. its natural. many people do not understand it. namely, men, for the very reason that they could never undertsand the experience and responsiblity of having life growing inside of you. the worst mistake we can make is to question a woman's reasons for aborting her child, it is her choice. if we take that away from her, we are comprising every freedom she can hope to aquire. if we can't have say over our own uteruses, then i don't fuckin know what. ~mariah.

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/24/98 at 2:26PM. ashley, don't bother with Norma McCorvey... she sold out to the christian right long ago, and has spent the last decade or so working to take away the very right you credit her for having given us. (another reason to be a radical!) mariah, if you acknowledge that even animals abort and that abortion is a totally natural phenomenon, how can you call it 'vile' and exhibit such disgust with it? i am what you would call pro-abortion. i'm pro-choice, but i'm not going to beat around the bush and say that i'm against abortion... if someone feels like she needs or wants an abortion, i want her to have an abortion, even if she's had 17 already... there should be no exceptions. abortion on demand, without apology. if that sounds sloganistic, so be it -- it should be a common slogan & belief. there's something inherently empowering about abortion because it gives women a chance to correct a life-altering mistake. whatever their reasons for that, they are entirely personal & valid no matter what. it's not mine or anyone else's places to question a woman's reasons for having an abortion -- it's her body, it's her life, and she should go about the procedure without regard to anyone else's moralistic bullshit no matter how many times she's needed it done or how far along she is. there's nothing wrong with having an abortion. nothing.

Reply from: dee on 1/24/98 at 2:40PM. if you dont lyek an abortion then dont have one but get yer morals off my body. abortion should always be a choice . . . but it should not be a form of byrth controll.

Reply from: cry on 1/24/98 at 6:32PM. first i want to say that i admire ben for stating his opinion even when he's the only one. i'm pro-choice. i hope that i never ever have to get an abortion but if it came to that kind of decision i'd like to think that it would be there for me and that it would be safe. one thing i think pro-lifers assume is that the women who have abortions don't even care about it. like it's no big deal. but it is. woman don't have abortions just because it's the easy thing to do. you can't anymore. as far as i know, most or all abortion clinics council the woman before they even make an appointment for the acual abortion. that's pretty much all i can say that hasn't already been said. and i don't want to repeat everything everyone else said so i'll just say i agree with them.

Reply from: vida on 1/25/98 at 1:24AM. i read yesterday that norma is trying to revoke the decision she made in court. it had a photo of her, crying, and it was explaining how she realised she was wrong! anyway, little militant pro-lifers gave a nice speech in my class... they were 2 catholic girls from my class and the entire time they talkes, they referred to the foetus as 'baby'. then they showed a video of an abortion and gave a running commentary- "look how the doctor is ripping the baby's head off and it's sayign no, no, and it's fighting and it's trying to get away". and everyone in the class was in awe, and when I was the only person to protest against the crap, i got kicked out and told to shut my stupid mouth up. ok, so that was a pretty irrelevant story!

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/25/98 at 1:35PM. pss.population control in a clean sterile manner..... I can't remember who said that most prolifers wouldn't support woman dying or suffering from a back alley or low town abortion...but i didn't mean to stereotype...sorry...i mean more so for the active dictating pro lifers since (Quoting N.A)"by taking away our freedom of choice their going to force many woman who don't wanna baire children in the back allys.And many of theis woman are going to die from theise back ally abortions..."..and i know many people say you made the choice to have sex therefore you have to take on the responsiablity of your repercussions...but the child feels the rath of the repercussions more so than the parents sometimes...what i fear ,and have witnessed is many children...some my friends...being resented,and neglected 'cause their parents didn't believe in adoption ,but they still kept them...but treat 'em like shit...not because the kid is bad,just 'cause their parents don't know no better,or just aren't capable of being suitable parents(whatever you consider suitable),and many of theise kids would much rather live on the streets & squat it ,or go tricks,and try their chances rather than to call Child Pertective Services,and began the governments child...it's just that we've got enough problems as it is,and i feel it's selfish(this is just my opinion so don't any of ya get your undies in a wod),and unfair(to the child) to bring a child into this world considering how it is today...things need to change before you bring new inocent bistandards into this mess of a world...okay the end;)*keep on thinkin for ya selves *hehe*xoxoSUMER

Reply from: WaRgasM gRRRL on 1/25/98 at 2:02PM. ROCK FOR CHOICE!!! I'm totally pro-choice allll the way! A woman has the right to decide what to do with her body. As for banning abortion...well that's the stupidest idea i ever heard. Okee, so abortion gets banned and then what happens?? Women get illegal abortions and die from infections etc. Abortions should be accessible to women of alll ages and incomes!! And here are just a few facts for you from the Rock For Choice album called Spirit Of '73 (all proceeds made from the album go to the Rock For Choice movement)... 1) before Roe, 10,000 women died each year in the US from illegal abortions 2) 200,000 women (1 every 3 minutes) worldwide die from botched abortions 3) 16,000 women have abortions each year as a result of rape or incest 4) 40,000 teenage girls drop out of school each year because of pregnancy 5) 26% of women who have abortions are teenagers YOU CAN GO QUIETLY OR YOU CAN ROCK FOR CHOICE xxViKKixx

Reply from: Fembot on 1/25/98 at 4:36PM. This is really fabulous - I'm really glad that there are so many young voices talking shit up about choice. Last week the SF Roe v Wade 25 Coalition put together a conference about Reproductive Rights and the energy was incredible. So this is what's up: How many of you know about "fake clinics"? These are clinics that advertise/target young women and tell them they can help. "Pregnant? Need Help? blah blah blah". These are clinics funded entirely by the ANTIs and they do provide only biased counseling (the only option is to have a baby), usually provide only a urine pregnancy test and an ultrasound so you can see your baby. Counseling without all the options is not counseling. So we are preparing to organize a campaign against fake clinics and I would love your opinions/help. I would like to put together a zine that describes fake clinics, and also provides information about REAL health care. I don't care if you are going to carry or abort - but get the facts and get real counseling. Not Catholic Church counseling for sure. Kate - self-help menstrual extraction is great but its not the answer for all situations. We will always need people to perform abortions well into the second trimester and that cannot be accomplished with a suction jar. Go to med school or work with national organizations to get mid-level practitioners (NPs or Med. Assistants) the right to perform abortions. The only thing I really want to say, and this may be a repeat of things already spoken: KEEP TALKING THIS SHIT UP! Talk about sex, birth control (or the lack thereof), abortion, fucked up abstinence-only campaigns against youth, how you feel about people deciding your fate who do not and will not walk in your shoes, about people who question your decision-making capabilities and offer you options that you don't want - like Depo-Provera. I swear this country thinks its young don't think about anything except music and video games and that is so far from the truth. Educate your peers, be a resource and support your right to live how you want to live. PEACE.

Reply from: nikki, back from the dead. on 1/25/98 at 7:30PM. wouldn't just hearing the term "anti choice" make you wonder where people dream up these things?

Reply from: xsarcasmx on 1/25/98 at 9:43PM. just a few thoughts here, so i'm not too redundant. fembot: yes, i'm all too familiar with the fake clinics. having lived in central illinois for almost 5 years now, i have definitely seen my share of them. "pregnant? not sure if you want to keep it? call 454-xian" (okay, so that number's a fake, but you get the idea.) i actually knew someone at my undergrad who called up one of those places and left when they tried to show her anti-abortion propaganda films. i spent 4 years living in an area with a population of 90,000-plus people, but if you'd wanted an abortion you would have had a 45-minute drive to the next county. *shrug* kate: i don't know if i'd agree with the roe v. wade law being repealed if it would mean re-criminalizing abortion. from what i've read and heard, there was so much secrecy attached to abortion, and to having any power over or knowledge of your reproductive system in general. i would not want to return to a time where the comstock law was in full effect. plus, with all the restrictions having been put on roe v. wade--eg parental notification laws, medicaid not paying for abortions, etc--it might as well not be legal, since it isn't always accessible, especially if you're a teen or poor. or if you're a poor teen, obviously. or did you mean scrapping roe v. wade and replacing it with abortion laws that are actually effective? i'd be behind that. abortion on demand and without apology, damn it. oh, and make sure all major medical insurance, hmo's, medicaid and the like would cover it as well. this last comment is addressed to whoever brought up norma mccorvey: i think it's incredibly ironic that she came out as so repentfully anti-choice seeing as she never even had an abortion. (the law passed too late for her.) granted, she did work at an abortion clinic for so long, but...*shrug yet again*.

Reply from: mariah on 1/25/98 at 11:04PM. kate cooties~ i didn't say abortion is "vile". i don't think it is some evil repulsive act. i was simply acknowledging the fact that it is sad. its not some over joyous thing *or* something that can be done without thought. that is what i was trying to illustrate. there is a sadness and regret to ending a potential life. it is not something women do for the hell of it. only a woman knows when that life should continue to grow or take a raincheck. i am in full agreement with you. i'm sorry if i misportrayed my point. this is it in a clearer statement: i am not thrilled about abortion itself. as in the process of sucking a fetus out of a woman's uterus with a plastic tube under flourescent lighting. however, i am permanently, unchangebly, forever completely without question 100% in belief that no one and for no reason under any circumstances should anyone question mine or any other woman's decision to abort her unborn fetus, especially our mysoginistic, patriarchal, classist, fucked up government. abortion is not a trip to the candy store. it is sad and in some cases unfortunate and in all cases, the absolute right of the mother's. but i'm hearing echos now, and i'm feeling repetative. so i will shut up. ~ mariah.

Reply from: fembot on 1/26/98 at 9:57AM. One last thing about Norma McCorvey. She had a pretty severe drug and alcohol problem up until recently. As with much recovery, you grant control over your addiction to a higher power - and Norma found her higher power within the fundamentalist Christian movement. I'm not sure if I want her clean or with Operation Rescue. Both using and hate campaigns against abortion providers are self-destructive.

Reply from: taylor k on 1/26/98 at 10:43AM. I'm vehemently pro-choice, but I can understand where pro-life people are coming from as long as they aren't shooting doctors or bombing clinics or harrassing people....Every woman has the right to decide what to do with her body, no one else should be able to tell her what to do....I understand that some people feel strongly that this is killing a human life or whatever, and even tho I think they're logic is fucked up I have to respect their opinion, even if I disagree with them. Pro-choice is really in my blood. My great-grandmother performed abortions way back in 1915 etc. and helped find the Denver, CO planned parenthood and my mom had a friend almost die from a botched abortion and has had an abortion herself.....a woman has the right to privacy and to take care of her body without government intereference etc. And countries where abortions are illegal have higher abortion rates than the US where abortion is legal, so what is everyone complaining about?

Reply from: fontanelle on 1/26/98 at 10:47AM. i felt the parasite inside me, and was filled with rage at god...what contract did i sign to become a baby maker? what providence made me into little more than an incubator for a mass of bloodcells? who on earth has the right to tell a man who has an infection not to take antibiotics on the basis of "respect for life"? who can tell a man not to have a ringworm removed from his ankle? i refuse to have a parasite feed from my blood and water...i refuse to have this PARASITE eating MY placenta in the name of life...i refuse to let any man use my body in such a degrading matter...i REFUSE to carry this baby to term...

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/26/98 at 12:26PM. fembot, you're reading specifics into what i said. i want women to commonly have the training, as was given JANE collective members, to perform abortions. that's different from menstrual extraction -- JANE members did know how to do ME, but they also learned dilation curretage and proper uses for catheters, and had knowledge of various other methods to abort safely well into the second trimester... although, like most abortion practitioners, they preferred to do the surgery as early as possible. i don't think that women should be limited in choosing ONLY doctors to perform this surgery, because it seems to me that for centuries, trained midwives were doing it, and obviously it has the potential to be safe if only the training is accessible. one does not need to be validated by westernized medicine with a slip of paper saying they've paid XXX amount of dollars for med school... practitioners need only be concerned for the health and well-being of women. i know some midwives who abort women, and they are my role models, not doctors who do it only for money and oftentimes treat their patients either coldly or outright callously. katia, i'm for the repeal of ALL abortion laws... that includes Roe v. Wade, and all the laws made to attempt to limit it. RvW was a defining judicial moment in setting the stage for politicians to legislate what rights women have over our own bodies, and that's the reason i'm in opposition to it. the radical stance on abortion rights wouldn't have these things 'recriminalized' as you fear, it would have these rights untouched by judicial hands. if the government makes laws saying you 'can' have an abortion, they've stuck themselves into a battle which isn't theirs, and they've turned my bodily RIGHT into a privilege that *they* have so graciously granted me... and by repealing all abortion laws, we would decriminalize those abortions which are now illegal and we'd be telling the government that this is not their decision to make.

Reply from: Jeni on 1/26/98 at 1:06PM. I'm Pro-Choice. I am Pro Choice for several reasons, but for me the most OBVIOUS is because it IS SO OBVIOUS, WOMAN SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEIR OWN FUCKING BODIES. Noone else, not the church, not a MAN, not a law, NOONE. It's MY BODY!!! I had an abortion when I was 17, (9 1/2 years ago). I got pregnant by someone I should have NEVER slept with, but I was 17, very confused about my sexuality, depressed, and just needing SOME SORT of love at the time, so I slept with a boy I didn't want to sleep with. I got pregnant, didn't know what the fok to do, wasn't living at home and was afraid to tell my mom, but fortunatly for me, it was the 80's, Free Clinics were still abundunt, and SAFE, and my mom is VERY LIBERAL and Pro-Choice. So I decided FOR ME, the best decision was to terminate my pregnancy. I didn't FEEL GOOD about it at all, in fact I still wonder what my baby would have been, boy or girl. It would be almost 10 now and seeing how my life is today, I think it was for my un-born childs BEST interest as well. I know that sounds weird, but I fought with myself for years about this, being a feminist, Queer, and Pro-Choice STILL does not make having an abortion EASY, but I thank God I had the CHOICE. I would not have been a good mother back then, I don't think even NOW at 26, I would be a good parent. I'm still trying to figure out who I am and where I'm going, so I have been in those shoes, and yes it is a HARD decision to make, prolly the hardest decision I've ever made, but I had the CHOICE and that my friends, is the whole point. To have the CHOICE.

Reply from: ashley on 1/26/98 at 2:09PM. about norma mccorvey--- iveheard too that she became a pro lifer, and has been for some time now. but the book she wrote was published in '95 and its very pro choice. so now im confused.

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/26/98 at 6:32PM. .............

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/26/98 at 7:14PM. Geezuz, where the hell do I start when I am arguing from the other side against every damn post here (except maybe partly to Alien She [which freaked me out to see her post considering that's my second name on the internet (along with 8,000 other people.]) Anyway... first to Brock. Thought I'd say this first off ya know to enhance my popularity here since I know my views are so popular with all you pro-choice ladeez & gentlemen. You asked what are my thoughts/views towards people who block abortion clinics and about people who oppose abortion even for cases of rape and incest. Well, I think regardless of how the woman was impregnated, the developing zygote, embryo, fetus, and all the while the developing human being (with a nifty little heart that begins to beat just around 35 days... wow, a legal sign of life -neat o - ) still deserves to carry on its life, without being burned to death or cut into pieces at the hands of an abortionists and a hurt mother. If I have to make a decision on the issue either way as to where I stand on it, than I must say I am against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. This is not a sentence said without a bit of uneasiness, as rape and incest make the situation much worse. However, a woman aborting only serves to help the rapist, the abortionist (or provider, whatever you fancy), and seeks to further "cover up" the tragedy that has happened to them. The child is not at fault, it does not deserve to die. Cut the rapist to pieces or burn him to death, leave the unborn out of it. There is always adoption, which is a helluvalot better choice than suffocating a person to death with poison inside the womb. And as far as people blocking abortion clinics, I can totally understand where the anger comes from, and although I can never see myself out there, I cannot at this time condemn them for fighting for what is right in the manner which they see as most effective. I don't really know much about abortion protests though as I have never been to one. I'm sure you'll have a few interesting horror stories to share to me about them. Response numbre dos to Brock; 7. Here are your words my friend... "Regardless of why abortions are performed...why would you force a woman to bear a child as a punishment for having sex?" Having sex and getting pregnant is a completely normal, natural result. I find it odd that one can see it as a punishment... other than cases of rape and incest (1-2% of the aborted are the result of this)... 2 people chose to have sex, there are results, and pregnancy is one of them. If you get pregnant, than you made the choice to have sex... how can this be seen as punishment? Maybe in some sort of masochistic view point it is.... I cannot understand how any can say the fetus is a parasite, or that between the mother and the human within that there is no seperate entity - that they are one in the same - so do you think pregnant mother has 4 arms, 4 legs, multiple sexual organs, 4 eyes....? Also, when DOES the baby have any rights? Are abortions a womans right up until the day of birth? What about a right after birth? What the hell is the difference anyway? And, if the unborn aren't human, just what are they? Aliens? Foreign cells? At what point do they become people who magically now aren't just a clump of cells? During birth? After birth? Or is it only when the birth certificate is signed and filed and the child becomes recognized by our legal system that it gains any rights? (after all, the sole reason abortion was legalized was because a bunch of white boiz decided the fetus wasn't actually a person, but, something else.... despite this no one has even been able to prove life starts any other time than conception, even when pro-choicers were given the chance to in court in 1980. ) Kate Cooties - I found your post interesting to read, radicalism is a nice virtue, although we stands on opposite ends of it concerning abortion. I read some of that JANE book. I about threw up before starting it when I opened the book up and read "Dedicated to our Children." From your point of view, you make good points about Roe vs. Wade, and the legal implications vs. personal rights / priviledges that it denies/gives. At least you aren't scared to say you are pro-abortion - at least your honest, and its obvious you have passion and have thought about your position. If I was pro-choice and pro-abortion, I would be you. Scary, huh? Has anyone here ever noticed the pattern of oppression? It is my choice to have an abortion. It is my right to own slaves. It is my choice to eat meat and my right to hunt.And my personal favorite as well as another current movement which uses those buzzwords only as much as the pro-choice movement does...the blood-ridden fur industry. "It is your RIGHT to choose to wear fur or not!"When people have something to hide, you can always use those 3 little pretty words to make it sound nice and revolutionary. Pro-choice takes the value of one group of persons and lowers them to fit the needs and desires of another. That in itself is completely contradictory to the supposed ethic of feminism which rests on equality...and why hasn't feminist been replaced with the word equalitist by now anyway? Now, if you've actually read this far I applaude you considering I think most female pro-choicers find it much easier to write me off as just "some man who wants to control womens bodies" rather than someone who genuinely believes in what he says and has come to these conclusions through much thought, debate and research. Goodnite, practice safe sex, & watch out for drugs in your drinks. P.S. Did anyone other than maybe Mike & Brock read those essays or check out any of the sites I posted? Here they are again- Arguments for Life, < href="http://www.oocities.org/RainForest/9552/choice.html"> Oppressive Industry and Failed Pro-Choice Ethics,Feminists For Life, Queers For Life....

Reply from: Miss Spike on 1/26/98 at 7:40PM. i know women have their different personal reasons fur aborting their babies (who ARE babies INSIDE & outside of a woman's body..a baby's heart beats a few weeks after conception...this is NOT a mass of tissue or muscle, he/she is a LIVING being). but, i'm with the pro-life minority. i do NOT push my pro-life opinions on people. i have friends who are pro choice & i respect that. i do not condemn women fur choosing to terminate their pregnancies. yet, i don't understand why murderers are brought to trial & sent to jail, while women are killing defenseless beings who have NO choice, & this is accepted. i suppose we, women, can't truly say whether we are pro-life or pro-choice until we are faced with an unwanted pregnancy. i'm sure glad angie's parents decided to keep her. she's the fuckin raddest girlie i know. :) xoxox

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/26/98 at 7:49PM. someone has to make the choice, but who? the fetus? or the woman? who decides WHO has the right? it's the woman's choice, and it should always be HER choice. in my not so humble fucking opinion.

Reply from: mariah on 1/27/98 at 0:51AM. dear ben, you are not a minority. i know many anti-choice people, including my sister, who i hold in very high regards. i respect your coherent and literate points of arguments about your opinion. i don't mean this as an insult to any anti-choicer, but most of the individuals i have encountered in this debate have been uneducated, racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, under intellectually developed, and extremely uniformed people. this is rather refreshing. one thing that makes me sick, is the assumption that every woman on earth finds pregnancy and motherhood endearing and delightful. so many people i know think it is unfair, even abusive to bring a child into a world like ours. half of the women i know never plan on having a child. most of them are sexually active with men. they use condoms, some use birth control pills, some don't because it increases their risk of getting breast cancer and a horde of other diseases, and, should they ever decide to have a baby, it could cause birth defects or interferences with breast feeding. i don't really appreciate the stigma of a woman who is willing to abort a fetus *with a heart and eyeballs and legs*, as someone who is indifferent to the signifigance of human life. i don't mean this as male-sexist slander in any way (ahh read the bikini kill post), but you, as a man, will never know what it is like to be pregnant. will never know what it is like to make a decision like that. will never know what it is like to live with the reprocusions of that decision, which could be grieving for the rest of your natural life, in the back of your mind, everytime you see a child, or being overjoyed and relieved everytime you see a child, or raising a child you can't afford to feed, or didn't want to raise, or wanted to raise, or gave away to someone you barely knew or someone in your family. also, ben, you will never know what it is like to know abortion is illegal and scorned in your community and dangerous and expensive. you will never know what it is like to die in a hotel room, half naked, surrounded with unsanitary and innappropriate surgical tools and the blood of your uterus and your unborn child. you will never know what it is like to hide your pregnancy because you know it very well may be beaten out of you anyways, and you will miscarry, because you have an abusive husband, or a protective father, or a good christian family and your mother is ashamed. you will never experience these things. it is not as simple as it appears in your world, ben. you know nothing, absolutely nothing, about the lifetime of events that could lead to a choice to do something that is painful and frightening and horrible and relieving and embarassing and, maybe, illegal and lethal. you are fully and completley entitled to your feelings and opinion on the matter. but, in my eye, you have no place or merit, under any circumstances, to question, scorn, or attempt to limit any woman's choice. for that, you do not have my respect. becuase it is not and never will be that simple. *m.

Reply from: Tracey on 1/27/98 at 2:11AM. okay... for right now all i'm sayin', 'cause i'm really tired, is that i am definetly pro-choice... i'll explain later... not that anyone really cares but i just thought i'd throw my two cents worth in... but i will be back later to throw another of my two cents worth in... tracey

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/27/98 at 7:32AM. bravo mariah! that was as eloquent as i wish i had been in my prior posts. ben, a lot of this isn't the rhetoric of "rights" as you imply -- it's simply a differing viewpoint on where life begins, and the right to self-determination. i don't believe that life begins until a being is sentient and has the ability to live (or shows that this ability will soon be forthcoming) on it's own. that does not mean without parental assistance, but it does mean outside of the mother's womb. while there is a developing mass of cells inside my body, it is MY property, a part of me that i can & will eliminate if i see fit whether it's a cancerous tumor, a fetus, or a tapeworm. there's a difference in choosing to remove a potential and/or parasitic life, and in actually taking a life that was not harming oneself -- such as your examples of fur & meat consumption. animals have a life in and of themselves, and i don't believe that humans have a place or any "right" to take their lives or exploit them for our privileges & selfish wants... this is because they are sentient beings, with an entitlement to the lives they already have. however, if a great big ol' cow decided it wanted to live inside my body, i wouldn't hesitate to kill it in self-defense; because this is *my* body, and i'm a sentient being also, with every right to self-determination. yes, the example is completely absurdist, as it should be. there is something completely absurd about implying that a woman doesn't have the right to determine what is going to be inside her body. the tapeworm philosophy: tapeworms enter a human body through the host's eating of animal flesh and then parasitically steal the nutrients of that host. fetus' do much the same: the host/mother takes part in what some consider to be a sinful act, and she is punished by having a parasite implant itself in her body and parasitically leach her nutrients (albeit, with MUCH more dire social consequences than if a tapeworm had done so). who would argue that one shouldn't have the right to expell a parasitic tapeworm from their body, once afflicted? and how is that any different from a woman choosing to abort a zygote or fetus which was doing the same? we have a right to not have our bodies invaded by parasitic life and potential life. until it's out of my body, it's just a load of cunt jello and it's mine to do with as i please. no parasite has a right to 'life' when that comes at my expense.

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/27/98 at 8:50AM. ok, i'm just wondering. i'm not at all apathetic. i feel there are situations that call for these political arguments, but what the fuck? how long has this argument been at the height of the public eye? and how long has it been since nothing has changed? no, i don't agree with 98% percent of what our government does. but this issue is completely and has completely been running circles around us. is there an end? can we respect both opinions and just accept that a woman can choose whether or not she has the right to gamble with the life inside of her? these are questions that can only be answered by the individual. and because our government has to, in some way, be regulating this practice, where we stand now an individual has the choice and legal right to do so.

Reply from: Jeni on 1/27/98 at 11:09AM. Ok, Brad, you have every right to have yr opinions, but I feel what I did was the best thing for me, and I still wonder about how my life would be had I kept my baby, almost 10 years later, but I was not ready to be a parent at 17, and even NOW I'm not ready........I dunno if I'll EVER have children, there are far to many things WRONG with this world, and children don't get to be children anymore. To many things to be worried about, enviornment, drugs, gangs, etc. Why would you want to bring an innocent child into that? I love kids, I have 2 nephews that I cherish, I'm a nanny to twin girls and have a god daughter. I have never thought what I did was WRONG, and noone can ever convice me different. That's my opinion as you have yr's and you or anyother Pro-Lifer CAN NEVER CHANGE MY OPINION. This is something I KNOW from EXPERIANCE, and I wouldn't change what I did 10 years ago.

Reply from: ashley on 1/27/98 at 1:36PM. against abortion? don't have one.

Reply from: carl on 1/27/98 at 1:37PM. pro-abstinence.

Reply from: Alien She on 1/27/98 at 2:52PM. I agree with Carl...Against having babies? Don't have sex.

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/27/98 at 3:22PM. Kate C00ties - The more you reveal your thoughts the more it scares me as I realize how completely absurd and fucked up the militant pro-choice arguments have become. You equate tapeworms with human life. You call children in the womb cunt jello. That is sickening. Have you ever seen pictures of the embryo, the zygote, and the fetus? Have you ever seen what the aborted being looks like? Thankfully, I have never met nor do I believe that the majority of pro-choicers would ever in a million years mimmick your words. You don't believe life begins until it is sentient, and has the ability to live at the present or soon, on its own. I'm really suprised you said this, considering children from the 2nd and the 3rd semester have survived without the aid of their mothers. By the 2nd and 3rd tremester very few would have the audicity or the ignorance to argue that the child does not feel pain. That boils down to this; the child can live without the aid of the mother come the 2nd and 3rd trimesters, and s/he responds to pain and pleasurable acts, and has intelligence as the synapses in the brain have formed and connected by know (thus making it capable to carry and transmits thoughts).... there is a rather large contradiction in your philosophy, Katie. You agree that animals are worthy of rights, yay. So do I. But you say if a cow decided to live inside your body, you would kill it. Fortunately, neither you nor the cow will ever find yourself in this situation (I hope), but a huge difference that seems to have slipped your mind is that if someone is pregnant they made the choice to have sex and pregnancy is the natural result. It is no coincidence that we as a species just happened to get lucky and somehow keep getting pregnant... sex results in reproduction of the species. That is why sex exists, the pleasure aspect is just to ensure survival of the species. A fetus has no say in whether or not its parents fuck, s/he shouldn't have to be punished for something the mother and father did. A damn cow is an external being rather than an internal being such as the developing child within the womb. A cow cannot make the decision to live inside your body, you cannot either. But if for some strange reason science was able to put a (non-human) animal in your body and have it grow just as a human in the womb does, and you took the steps for that to happen, than you have no right to destroy its life. And, as far as you saying you believe in the rights of animals.... look at all the underlying themes that speak up for the rights of non-humans. Every one of them can be applied to fetal rights as well. luvluvluvluv.... -=Ravenn=-

Reply from: jeromil on 1/27/98 at 3:29PM. SHe, cahl. der ya go. or let's have lot's of fake sex. or crazy paraphilias. like frotteurisms. i come up to you as a complete stranger and rub myself against you, until i make a mess in pants of course. then we can talk about abortions.

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/27/98 at 3:31PM. And oh yeah, people are now posting about abstinence... I am definitely fucking down for abstinence, especially for teenagers. Sex is natural and healthy and beautiful, existing for reproduction and shouldn't be abused. In my nearly 18 years of life, I have yet to partake in sexual intercourse. I'm not against people have sex without the intention to reproduce, but I think people should take all precautions such as combining condoms with birth control pills/shots, etc, and should think beforehand about what they would do if a pregnancy should occur. Are you willing to take responsibility and never abort if a pregnancy should occur? If you answer no, then I don't think you have any business having sex.

Reply from: jeromil on 1/27/98 at 3:37PM. ok, ben. i haven't had sex either. but if i choose to and my partner decides, with or without me to have an abortion than that's the fucking CHOICE that has been made. so i'll be waiting at my house for you to show up with a gun, because obviously what else are you going to do about it. go lobby at congress or something.

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/27/98 at 4:19PM. Jero - Silly boi... I do not promote violence. Stop assuming and communicate. I'm sorry to hear that you do not realize that the choice is made when one partakes in sex, not after. luvluvluv...

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/27/98 at 4:25PM. ben, it's not a baby if it's in my body -- it's a parasite. i highly suspect that your comment about sex being wonderful under it's "natural" circumstances, as a mode of procreation, isn't going to be appreciated here in this queer forum. i'd venture to say that most of us here don't have sex that fits those standards of yours. personally, i fuck for pleasure, not because i hope to get knocked up. also, for someone who's against harming 'life' whether it's being anti-abortion, or vegan or whatnot, i'm absolutely horrified that you'd contradict yourself so greatly as to suggest that women having sex should use birth control pills. they have been shown to cause cancer, cause sterility, hormonal imbalances which can result in a variety of ailments, including osteoporosis and other serious diseases. so, women should kill themselves if they're going to have sex? that's far more atrocious than any derogatory names i attach to zygotes. in addition to that, it greatly contradicts your stance against abortion, considering that birth control pills are abortifacients! they do not prevent fertilization, they prevent implantation, which is the equivalent to a non-surgical abortion. proving once again, pro-lifers are not generally as well read as they would like for us to believe.

Reply from: WaRgasM gRRRL on 1/27/98 at 4:29PM. Okee, I've been reading thru alll these posts and I was rilly rilly disturbed to see that Ben had said that he didn't even agree with abortion as a result of rape or incest...how the fuck can u say that? An innocent girl/woman is fuckin raped and they get pregnant and u think they DON'T have the right to abort that foetus?! She didn't choose to have sex she was FORCED to but still u think she doesn't have the right to abort should she become pregnant? You rilly think she'd want her child to have a rapist as a father? You said the kid could be put up for adoption...that's still 9 months of pregnancy...you'll never be pregnant, have u any idea what it's like? You think childbirth is easy? You think it's gonna help her having her rapists child? Man that is fucked.

Reply from: Miss Spike on 1/27/98 at 4:51PM. *hi-fives* fur miss angie & carl. hmmm..babies=parasites? kate, as a fetus, were YOU a parasite?

Reply from: Tracey on 1/27/98 at 4:52PM. okay... first let me admit that i haven't read all the replies to this post and for that i apologize... but here is my opinion... i am pro-choice... very... this does not mean i am pro abortion... i think abortion is a horrible thing that many women have to decide on and i for one am happy that i don't have to make that decision, but that does not mean that i don't fully support anyone who decides on getting one... a womens body is her own, she is not me, her descions are not mine, and i am not about to force any of my morals or expectations on anyone besides myself, it's not my place and it's not right... i fully support a women's right to choose, partially because i am a woman and partially because the right of choice should never be taken away from anyone... the pro-life movement talk about family values, "correct" morals as it were... but yet then they use scare tatics to shock people into beliving that abortion is wrong... they parade outside of public schools with poster sized signs of aborted fetuses for anyone to see, including children... what kind of morals is that? and on a purely personal note... my cousin had an abortion a few years ago... not her first... but in this certain instance she had become so frightened by images of pro-life activists on television and in the news that she felt like she couldn't talk to anyone in my family about what she had decided to do and on top of that she had to deal with those fucks outside of the clinic she went to shouting horrible things to her that she stopped breathing on the table during the abortion... they had to rush her to the emergency room... my cousin, someone who i love very much, my family, almost died because of pro-life fucks... this is the same shame, the same moral judgements that young queer kids fear too... and doesn't any of the pro-life organizations even think about the millions of women who died before abortions were made safe in this country? or do they care about it? do they want to go back to the days of back-street abortions? what about the thousands that still die around the world each year because of the restrictions of supposed morally just governments? before you think about taking a womens right to choose away from her think about what yer doing? think about what you do when you sit there and tell a women, who btw is already going through her own personal type of hell from the weight of this decision, that she is wrong for making her own decision about her body... if it wasn't for people who can't stop pushing their moral judgements an people my cousin would have come to someone in my family and talked to them... she would've gotten the support and love from us that she needed at the time, and we wouldn't have had to find out about it through a phone call from someone in the emergency room... just because you belive in certain morals, think that there should be a type of shame rapped around certain subjects, doesn't mean that you should have everyone else belive in and think the same things... and that is why i'm pro-choice, because i don't want to dictate to anyone how i think they should live, i don't want any other women out there to feel the type of pressure my cousin did... you take away a persons right to choose and you take away that person's right to think for themselves... i mean go on and be pro-life, that's your perogative, but don't take away someone else's right to choose something different... and doesn't anyone of the pro-life kids know that all of these pro-life organizations are directly connected to christian fundmentalist groups who'd also just love to see all queers offed or changed into good little christian boy's and girls? i'm gettin' way to upset over this... so i'll be back later... tracey

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/27/98 at 5:00PM. Katie- I would luv to learn as much as possible about the negative effects of birth control pills. I have also heard that 1 out of every 10 times, the effects are equivalent to abortion. However, the luv of my life, who is pro-choice by the way, has told me otherwise, and if an abortion is the result of birth control pills, it was thru faulty use. Either way, I want more info. And I have definitely heard about pills screwing up hormonal levels and whatnot, although you say these things invalidated my anti-abortion stance, recall the "herbal abortion" post about the best form of birth control and remember all those who said birth control is the best form. Assuming they were pro-choice just as every person on here seems to be with minor exceptions..they were pro-choice just like you, and said what I said about birth control pills. My comment about sex and procreation... it all just depends on what you define as sex ... some people consider only intercourse between a man and a woman sex, others consider oral sex or sodomy between gays and lesbians as sex, and then there's those who do not. Please point me in the direction of finding out more info about birth control pills. Realize, we do have a common ground. I don't want this message string to be about out arguing each other with snappy words and whatnot, but rather about communication. I still retain respect and love for people whom I disagree with, Katie. And that is an influence from the pro-life movement and my mother, a life-long pro-life woman, who's also doesn't eat meat such as ourselves. Anyway, you completely ignored everything in my post except for my comments about sex/birth control. I'm interested in hearing your comments, specifically about 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions in regards to a sentient being obtaining rights. And the fact that the basic tenents to basically any animal rights argument can be applied to fetal rights as well. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts actually, because I don't want to be debating with one individual exclusively. Luvluvluv...

Reply from: michelle.nd on 1/27/98 at 5:05PM. i tried posting yesterday, but my computer crashed, so her i am. i'll start by saying that i am pro-choice. what i could say has already been said, so i will just comment... i disagree with three things said. 1. ben-- i think that abortion should ALWAYS be an option, but especially for women who have been raped. you mention adoption, but why should a woman be forced to carry and be physically reminded of the rape day after day for 9 months. why should she have to pay for the medical expenses for a pregnancy that is the result of violence? (I would guess that physical and emotional stress would go with both pregnancy and abortion-- i've experienced neither.) if i was raped and impregnated, i would most likely be in extreme emotional hell. when and *if* i have a baby, i want the pregnancy to be something important, joyful, and wanted. i think you also mentioned something about the abortion just helping the rapist (i don't remember exactly.) if i recall correctly, then you are assuming that just because a woman chooses to abort, she won't take action. i don't see these things as especially interrelated. 2. carl-- i totally DO NOT believe that the sole purpose of sex is procreation... yikes. especially with the exploding population. not everyone wishes to procreate (doesn't huggy bear have something to say about this?!) and there is much more to sex than babies. at that rate the average family size would grow considerably, or the number of times people had sex would diminish... i don't see that happening! not saying that you inferred it would! i just disagree. 3. kate-- i usually agree with much of what you have to offer, however i really was uneasy when i read the phrase "cunt jello." (the word cunt doesn't offend me!) although i haven't studied much on pregnancy, i would think that the distinction between baby and zygote would have to occur sometime before the baby is out of the womb. i know it depends on perception. i was a preemie some 22 years ago. so technically, when i was actually in the hospital, i should have been in the womb, and in your perception, still nothing. also, if i hypothetically put myself in the shoes of a 8 1/2 month pregnant woman, i don't think i would perceive my kicking-lump-of-something to be lifeless. you would? if you do, i don't think any differently of you, i was just wondering. also, this has nothing to with disagreeing, it is a comment from your previous post. i also think that self-health care is important. we need to know our bodies. i try to find alternative or natural medicines when i can instead of just accepting whatever drugs prescribe. never the less, i have just learned how important screenings (such as the pap smear) are. unless a person is trained in gyn., then it is important to do the screenings. i have to go in for surgery in two weeks because my biopsy showed that i have precancerous cells. here is something i want to know. this summer when i was living in denver with my best friend, she was taking a women's studies class and would read me passages from her books that she thought were interesting. one was that (obvoiusly) the roman catholic church is against abortions because they/it perceives the zygote/whatever to be a human. HOWEVER, the rcc won't baptize stillborn children because they say that stillborns don't have a soul. is this true? and if it is, isn't it contradictory? i stay as far away as i can from catholicism (theory) so i don't know if it is still the stance. can someone tell me? this may be a poorly written post. i apologize. i have been pretty scattered lately with all this cervical stuff. anyways, i think that abortion should always be a woman's right. besides that, if they are made illegal, they will still go on. i'd rather see then being offered legally and safely...

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/27/98 at 5:09PM. spike, "babies=parasites?" No. zygotes and fetuses equal parasites. it fits all the definitions of parasite: "one who lives at another's expense without making any useful return; plant or animal that lives on or in another organism." do zygotes and fetuses fit these definitions? HELL YES!. was i also a parasite as a fetus? yes, i was. and so were you, and so was everyone else here. some women want to host a parasite for the goal of having children, then i support them in that, but i will not stand by for anyone to tell a woman that she has to. tracey, i really feel for you and your cousin. two of my best friends in high school ended up having illegal, dangerous, abortions because of catholic families and restrictive laws against minors obtaining abortions. either of them could have died, and it outrages me that women are systematically attacked in this way. it's disgusting. these girls did nothing wrong, yet they almost lost their lives for it. and i'm so proud today, because one of them works in our city's only abortion clinic, helping other young women avoid the situation that she was placed into.

Reply from: lisa on 1/27/98 at 5:31PM. i posted about this several days ago and i think it somehow disappeared, but i want to say it. my best friend got pregnant a year and a half ago. when she went to her (anti-choice) doctor she was told that she was too far along to get an abortion, which was a LIE. she was only 17 and could not deal with having a baby, so she went home and swallowed four bottles of sleeping pills. she would've died but her boyfriend found her having convulsions on the bathroom floor and got her to the hospital in time. i almost lost one of the most important people in my life because her right to choose was taken away. xo lisa

Reply from: 5:17 on 1/27/98 at 6:09PM. here's the part of this message string which helps me understand ben, a little bit... "Has anyone here ever noticed the pattern of oppression? It is my choice to have an abortion. It is my right to own slaves. It is my choice to eat meat and my right to hunt.And my personal favorite as well as another current movement which uses those buzzwords only as much as the pro-choice movement does...the blood-ridden fur industry. 'It is your RIGHT to choose to wear fur or not!'When people have something to hide, you can always use those 3 little pretty words to make it sound nice and revolutionary. "Pro-choice takes the value of one group of persons and lowers them to fit the needs and desires of another. That in itself is completely contradictory to the supposed ethic of feminism which rests on equality...and why hasn't feminist been replaced with the word equalitist by now anyway?" NO ONE RESPONDED TO THIS!! Kate, I understand. i was a lot like you early on in my days of "radical" activism (which is totally cool and, i wish there were more people like you to inform, teach, etc. because you are SO passionate about so many important things) ben, i understand you. I came to feminism, through vegetarianism, and to truly understand a pattern of oppression, it is difficult to get the proper perspective through books like "Animal liberation" etc. which are all written by privlidged white males (like myself) who didn't fully understand what they wrote (some were written 25 years ago, and their opinions have changed, if you read there more current works), but anyways... I think you are misusing the words "choice" and "rights" by placing them side by side you almost equate them to one another, and i hope that was not your intent. "It is my choice to have an abortion" makes it sound so simplistic. "It is my right to own slaves," "it is my choice to eat meat" "and it is your RIGHT to wear fur or not" What you are ignoring is the fact that the choice of whether or not to have an abortion, involves not a single individual, because you are extending the "right to life" to that of the fetus. The problem with this, is that you extend the "rights" to a "being" that lives inside another being. This causes the whole problem within the pro-life movement. THEY IGNORE THE WOMAN AROUND THE FETUS. Is her life, and choices, less important than the fetus'? This idea is in confict. If their lives and choices are equally important, you CANNOT violate their body because you think you are "right." Also, you are probably saving a child whose very existance, will destroy countless other species just by existing (just by the food it consumes, fossil fuels, etc, etc.). The whole Pro Life option has too many flaws. There are plenty of other species "to save" if you want to be a hero, but this post has gone on too long. Besides, i hate seeing someone, who is so into "life" oppressing, someone elses. Pro-choice is not about taking the values of "one group" and lowering these values. It upholds them, it allows woman, who already, live and breathe to decide whether the fetus inside them is "alive" or a "parasite." And who said the idea of "feminism" is based on equality at all? I'm not sure there are too many women, who would be pleased to be equated to a gender who built HIStory around oppression, violence and power.

Reply from: Mike Saboo on 1/27/98 at 6:10PM. Since when does anyone have the right to say what's natural when it comes to sex? I've heard the same rhetoric of "sex is supposed to be for..." used to demonize everything from abortion and birth control to queer sex, porn, and consentual s/m. Sorry, unless you're Yaweh or Zoroaster, you have NO ability to define what sex is "supposed" to be for. Yes, it can result in pregnancy but that can be an intentional result or an accidental mishap. I don't tell people that accidentally break their arms while bicycling that they were supposed to be walking since that's the natural way for humans to move about, so why tell women who accidentally get pregnant that they shouldn't have access to a medical procedure they choose because they did what they weren't "supposed" to be doing? And yes, I've seen pictures of zygotes, fetuses, and babies. And unlike the anti choice folks, I know they AREN'T interchangable phrases. A zygote is 12 to 36 undifferentiated cells, with no brain, nerves, heart, blood or anything that even remotely defines sentience. It's hardly more advanced than, say, the average cancerous tumor or intestinal parasite. While the semantics of when cunt jello (yo Kate) becomes a cuddly little baby are fascinating, until EVERY single woman around the world has unlimited free access to non-judgemental holistic birth contol and pregnancy termination options it should have as much relevance and implications upon the real world as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. To swipe a slogan, abortion is health care and health care is a right .

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/27/98 at 9:08PM. people need to read and re-read and re-read

Replys nefore they respond, so they know what the fuck tey're tlking about.

Reply from: mariah on 1/27/98 at 9:30PM. ben, i understand your good intentions, your "love and respect", and your willingness to communicate. i think i am safe in assuming that, if by some odd chance, you were to have sex when you weren't really planning on having a child, and the "natural consequence" occured, as in, your girlfriend was impregnated, you would be right there with money and support. i truly believe you would. but, the grim reality remains, ben. almost every girl i know who has been accidentaly impregnated, aborted for the partial reason of non-support from the fetus's male contributor. the statistics of goverment regulated fiscal child support are appauling, from the male end. i myself, like so many others i know, fell victim to a child support ducking father, with only the best intentions. what frustrates me about your argument, no....i'm sorry, what fucking enrages me about the entirety of what i see of the anti-choice movement, is that it reaks of dogma. ben, just because you really really really think what you believe is the absolute truth, that sure don't make it so. i know that the same goes for every single one of my opinions and beliefs as well. YOU HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO THE MANY STATEMENTS MADE HERE ABOUT A) THE DEATHS OF THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF WOMEN OVER TIME AS A RESULT OF THE CRIMINALIZATION OF ABORTION; B) YOUR OWN COMPLETE LACK OF FEMALE EXPERIENCE. these are important factors, my friend. maybe, in an ideal world, an abortion would only happen naturally and as often as it does now. that doesn't mean that i wish there would be less abortions, it means that you live in good-intentions/flowerylovereality world. a woman who is faced with an unwanted pregnancy, and those who support whatever choice she may make, live in the real live world of every fucking day. the truth is that, should a woman choose to get help through an adoption agency, chances are, she will have to deal with religious and moral dogma, thus, spiritual isolation, throughout her maternal experience, which is abusive and fucked up. pregnancy is a medical condition, and the choice to think of it as any more than that, is entirely up to each individual human being for themselves. you cannot define the existance of a soul for the rest of the world. you can believe whatever you want. but, you know, god knows, i know, you very well may be way fucking off the mark with your beliefs, and if you try to force your beliefs on the legals system, which governs men and women alike, then you may be contributing to the deaths and detriments of thousands of women. think about it.~m.

Reply from: Dave Negation on 1/28/98 at 5:17AM. I find it hard to believe that there are folk spouting anti-choice rhetoric on this board, although I do at least appreciate that they're honest about their opinions (though that doen't make it alright). In Ireland, where I live, abortion continues to be illegal due more than in part to the influence of the Catholic Church here (although this has decreased greatly over the last decade). Women are allowed travel overseas to Britain for an abortion but this is a "concession" only recently granted & has created a situation where it is easier for the wealthy to have an abortion than working class women. Ultimately, anti-choice policies are about a patriarchal society enforcing its laws & morality on the body of women & maintaining the family unit, a base of such oppression, at any cost. The term "pro-life" to describe anti-abortionists is not accurate - if such people cared about life they would realise that the potential human life that is a fetus is less precious than that of the real lives of women who are victims of backstreet abortions. There is a concrete difference between the two. By the same token, although I'm a vegan there is no way that I'm gonna argue that the life of a rat is of the same value as that of a human. There is no equivilance - something Ben & his hardline buddies tend to overlook. One simply tries to work toward the minimum amount of suffering possible, and an abortion can minimise suffering in many difficult circumstances. Sorry if this isn't so articulate but fuck am I pissed off. Free abortion on demand & without apology!

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/28/98 at 1:31PM. to the top, baby.

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/28/98 at 1:49PM. 5:17 - hey. was it you awhile back from the herbal abortions post who said you wanted to mail me something related to abortion and AR? cuz I'm pretty sure I emailed whoever it was that posted it my mailing addy and I haven't gotten anything yet! If it was you, please try and mail it soon. When I was in 9nth grade I can recall debating in a classroom structure about abortion. I took the abortion side, the pro-choice side, basically because I didn't think it mattered because people are going to have abortions anyway. However, I ended up arguing the whole time who the pro-choice kids bceause I still though it was wrong, but was in a pessimistic mood. At the time I had already been introduced to the idea of animal rights, and thought it to be a worthy cause. I went on and off being vegetarian throughout the year. In 8th grade I began to identify myself with what is generally considerd feminist ideals, mostly thru listening to bands such as Bikini Kill. I really do not recall which I was introduced to first- AR or feminism, but you could definitely say my views towards AR, human rights/pro-life tie in. So, even though you didn't explicitly ask or state it, but my anti-abortion and AR views definitely strengthen and compliment each other. I know a lot of people who are pro-choice and vegan, with the exception of the people I've met on here, all of them agree that abortion sucks and is murder, but should not be governmentally regulated / or is simply still a woman's choice. I find that degree of pro-choice much much different than they brand I see pumping out of this message string, which regards human life as completely expendable and nothing to be honored. "What you are ignoring is the fact that the choice of whether or not to have an abortion, involves not a single individual, because you are extending the "right to life" to that of the fetus. The problem with this, is that you extend the "rights" to a "being" that lives inside another being. " You basically said something I say all the time. Abortion involves not just one person, but actually 3 - the mother, father, and the unborn child. Yes, the unborn being lives inside the mother. I don't understand your point. She and a boi obviously took steps for that to happen, therefore they should take responsibility. It is not the unborn childs fault that the mother and father had sex and created him or her, and therefore s/he should not be exterminated for the convenience of the parents. I really don't think abortion rights uphold anything for women. The pro-choice movement is spoon-feeding lies to women that a glob of cells happens to magically change into a human being, a baby, while moving thru the birth canal. Anyhow, I am more interested in speaking to Mariah about her posts than further debating the ethics of abortion, pro-life, and pro-choice. But of course, I will if it entails. Mariah - Look, it crushes me to think that women are dying around the world while having abortions performed on them, illegally or legally. One of the newer and progressive attitudes from the pro-life movement is "Love Them Both", meaning the mother and her unborn child. I agree that many abortions are done at the hands of women who do not have the capability nor the emotional maturity to handle being a mother, and definitely a contributing factor is the absence of the father. Men who get women pregnant and blatantly leave them, well, are jerks. No way around it. The conditions that drive mothers and fathers to choose abortion must be eliminated if we are ever to see a world where abortion is the thing of the past. It scares me though, in reading the word of Kate Cooties and even yourself, that you don't really want the number of abortions to go down. Maybe I'm too optimistic, too positive... but I thought that was one thing pro lifers and pro-choicers could at least agree on is eliminated the conditions that cause abortion and therefore lowering the number of abortions. It frustrates me that the stereotype of pro-life is a bunch of welfare slashers that think birth control is evil (that is, non-abortion birth control methods such as condoms or whatever (i'm hesitant to say anything positive about the pill upon hearing Kate's words on them - please expand your knowledge on the pill, anyone) , and are against things like day-care and want women in the kitchen. There are more and more pro-lifers that completely destroy this stereotype everyday. I find it extremely frustrating that the majority of what the media focuses on in the pro-life movement is the religious offshoot to it. I do not what their religious views to represent me. Pro-Life is the sanctioning of all life, we believe life starts at conception and deserves rights from their on. Women and men are the pro-life movement, christians, wiccans, athiests, etc.... I truly truly wish I wasn't the minority within the pro-life movement with my grrl-positive, queer-positive views, but, as time goes on, I think me being the minority will slowly change. I am willing to work with anyone about helping eliminate the reality that promotes abortion, the conditions that drive women to abort. As far as being a male, what do you want me to say? Yes, I'm a boi, I'm not going to apologize for it. A pro-life boi in fact. From what I've seen and heard and taken in, there seem to be more pro-life women, and even if there aren't, abortion is way more than just a gender issue. Would you find it easier to accept my words if I was a female? I've met a number of pro-life women, and I am definitely not the extreme here. The Army of God's most active member who went up and down the United States vandalizing abortion clinics and trying to bomb them was a woman. So I say to you again, it goes beyond gender politics. Oh! Oh! I have a really kool thing I want you to read! It was written by a group that consists of both pro choicers and lifers who want to work together because they've realized we do have some common ground. Please read it and give more you feed back. CLICK HERE. Please read this and give me some feedback. Another radical, non-traditional pro-life site is Left Out. I bet Alien She and Miss Spike could find some things they like here. Luv....

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/28/98 at 2:18PM. ben, none of us on here have said that we don't want the number of abortions to go down, including myself. that's a rather misleading statement. i want the number of abortions to stay consistent to the number of women who need or want abortions. if fewer women want abortions next year than have this year, then i would like for there to be fewer abortions. if more women want abortions than have had them this year, then i want the number performed to increase accordingly. EVERYONE who wants an abortion should be able to have one. as for your points that those of us on chainsaw (and i assume you are mostly pointing that finger at me) don't value human life... that's a load of crap. i don't believe that life begins until sometime very near birth, and i don't believe that a fetus' life becomes equal to a woman's life & well-being until it becomes a baby -- after birth. to equate this with not valuing human life at all is purposefully warping the information you have to make pro-choice people sound like monsters. i am a human rights activist as well as an animal rights activist; i do value all life. but i do not share your view of when life begins -- that does not equate to me not valuing human life. as for "human" lives (the humans in question being developing fetuses) being worth more than animals' lives... i think that's a very speciesist value judgement to make. why should humans be considered more valuable than animals? because we're humans and we should value Our Own above all else? sounds kinda like a fraternity pledge to me... i don't buy that. let alone considering fetuses more valuable than already living, sentient animals. a living rat is worth more than a fetus, because that rat has a life in and of itself. a fetus is only a potential life. i wouldn't argue for the 'life' of a fetal rat over and above that of a living human, and i won't support the argument the other way around either.

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/28/98 at 4:15PM. Katie- I have noticed an unwillingness in a few pro choicers to look at the unborn in a scientifical manner. It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception. This is not said on a whim, this is not something without much evidence... it is a scientifical, exact, and logical. In 1981 when the abortion debate was given a chance to share to the world their sides of the story, NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON COULD DISPUTE THAT LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION, even though the pro-choice industry had a prime chance to do so in front of the world. Why do you think they did not? Because it is impossible to prove a person's life begins at any other time other than conception. Yes, I was predominately talking to you when I said you do not seem to value human life. And where in the world are you drawing this from that I think unborn children are more valuable than animals? Really, I have absolutely no clue how you came to this conclusion. And, for the 2nd -3rd time, I am requesting that you share any information you have on birth control pills. And, you still never said a word about my post concerning your contradictory stance on sentient, independent human life and 2nd - 3rd trimester abortions. Why?

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/28/98 at 4:44PM. "The problem with this, is that you extend the "rights" to a "being" that lives inside another being." i think you misunderstood my point. i DO NOT believe that a fetus is a "being" (that's why i put it in quotation marks, the term is not definite). As for sending you the essay, I'm in the middle of converting the scans to text, so I will e-mail you it. As far as science "factually proving" that life begins at conception, i'd have to disagree, life began far before that in both the woman and the mans bodies. What you are offended about is the destruction of the ONE sperm who joined with the ONE egg. So you are choosing the time when a "baby" exists. If you feel comfortable with your choice, fine. But that is simply what you believe. I've never said whether I am for or against abortions, because I truly believe it is a womans right. Before birth the fetus is the SOLE PROPERTY of the woman, not the mans. And if she chooses to have an abortion the day before birth, then I believe the man should stay out of it! (Even if she was anti-abortion up to that day) "I am willing to work with anyone about helping eliminate the reality that promotes abortion, the conditions that drive women to abort." please, do this instead. It's much more helpful. Oh and Kate, your last post was right on.

Reply from: Mike Saboo on 1/28/98 at 4:51PM. Ben, it's not a scientific fact that life begins at conception. A fertilized egg is the potential for life but it has none of the characteristics of a child. No brain, no bones, no nerves, no blood, nothing that could make it sentient, feel pain, or be anything more than, yes you guessed it, a clump of cells aka cunt jello. To apply the tenets of animal rights (i.e. the infliction of pain) to something that has less capacity to think or feel pain than the average stalk of broccoli makes no sense at all. And the solution to second and third trimester abortions isn't imposing some quasi-theological "pro-life" ideology on the women who have them, but more research into birth control, pregnancy testing and "morning after" abortifacients, all of which the mainstream anti-choice groups are viciously opposed to. "Abortion involves not just one person, but actually 3 - the mother, father, and the unborn child" Since when does the father have fuck-all right to determine if an abortion takes place? Unless the zygote gets implanted into his urethra and gestates there for nine months, he has NO right to determine what medical prodcedures a woman goes through unless SHE values his opinion enough to ask, regardless of if he's the source of the sperm that knocked her up. If I smoked some cigarettes that gave you cancer via second-hand smoke, should you have to ask my permission to have the tumors removed from your lungs? Okay, so if a just-fertilized cell has as many rights as a fully developed sentient human woman based just on its genetic potential, does that mean that my sperm cells should be given as many rights as I have since to say otherwise would be oppressing potential life simply for its genetic incompleteness? Is it murder when I masturbate? Is menstruation genocide?

Reply from: lisa on 1/28/98 at 5:14PM. ben, her name is KATE, not katie. K-A-T-E. there's no i in there.

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/28/98 at 5:39PM. mister saboo, i love it when you talk that way! i'd abort your little zygotes any day... *wink* lisa, thank you. someone has obviously neglected the other posts on this board. time for that arbitrarily chosen new moniker... any suggestions for bennie's new name? ben, how could i trust the judgements of science of someone who doesn't even recognize that "scientifical" isn't a real word? there is NO proof of when life begins. it's all a cycle which humans of different religious and philosophical persuasions ascribe meaning and importance to according to the doctrines they believe in. as mike said, life could "begin" with the formation of gonads. certainly, ejaculation and menstruation are both *potential* life. a fertilized egg is potential life. and as i said, with birth control pills (abortifacients) a fertilized egg is expelled from the womb, rather than being implanted -- is that murder? nyet. still, others consider "life" to begin at quickening. and others, like me, at birth & first breath. there is NO universally agreed upon "start" of life. similarly to your claim that us pro-choicers refuse to "look at the unborn in a scientifical manner," i've rarely met an anti abortionist whose ideals did not come from a dogmatic stance. besides that, those who do cite "science" commonly cite the (shallow) research of scientists who share their dogmatic views -- the christian coalition and other conservative groups often participate in the funding of science, as does big business... all of them do this in order to gain the power that comes with manipulating research results, and skewing statistics. in the words of Samuel Clemens: "There are three types of lies. Lies, Damn lies, and statistics." #1, your philosophy is empirical rather than rational. it makes all the difference in the world. #2, science is malleable and manipulable. there is no absolute truth in manmade studies. on birth control pills, you've said you learned about these from your girlfriend and she told you that a woman would have to overdose on them to achieve an abortive result. she's wrong. don't take someone's word as gospel just cuz you like 'em. if you read anything on birth control pills you would know that they are abortifacients. the definition of that is that they are birth control methods which do not prevent fertilization. they prevent implantation. IUDs and depo-provera also fit this definition... anything other than barrier methods and spermicidal products are abortifacients. you're a big boy. do some reading. on second and third trimester abortions, i do not consider a fetus, of any gestational state, "life." i've said this already. it is only potential life. and the life of an adult woman -- "adult" in this case meaning any female who's reached sexual maturity -- is ALWAYS more important than that potential life.

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/28/98 at 6:07PM. why dont katie cooties and mikey saboo just fuck each other already and get it over with?

Reply from: k-a-t-e cooties on 1/28/98 at 6:20PM. anonymous viewer, and why don't you have the nerve to sign your real name? mike and i have already been fucking up a storm... in fact, i've got 6 of our aborted zygotes in a jar sitting on my computer desk. well, the spare parts, anyway. and while you're at it, why don't you [and Bennie] check out the "bad ass spelling" thread?

Reply from: lisa on 1/28/98 at 6:41PM. haha kate you rock my socks! i think we should call ben *benji* from now on. isn't that that dog's name?

Reply from: Mikey Saboo on 1/28/98 at 6:55PM. why dont katie cooties and mikey saboo just fuck each other already and get it over with? Where do I begin? First, I've already been fucking up a storm with the charming ms. KATE cooties, I dunno who this mysterious "katie" yer referring to is, but it'd be kinda odd to have a threesome with two women with the same last name, doncha think? Second, if yer that jealous, Anon, maybe you can bribe kate with enough Elvis tchotchkes that she'll let you watch. And third, although we're hardly going to be posting much whilst we're in the same area code, our mutual stances on abortion aren't some pose we use to get into eachothers pants. I'd be just as much of a longwinded pro-choice wiseass if I didn't know kate, and I'm sure she'd still be a posting machine even if she never met me. So nyah, go back to reading the crush posts or something.

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/28/98 at 8:03PM. I'm glad to see we're moving into the mode where we argue about things that have nothing to do with the issue, such as grammar and puncuation and spelling. 3y3 n0rma||y m|sp3|| jvs7 4b0u7 3v3ryth|ng 0n purp0s3 4nyh0\/\/, s0 b3 h4ppy \/\/|th \/\/h4t y4 g07.. i'm too tired and annoyed with some of you to respond right now, but have no fear, in my quest for wasting as much time as I can on the computer I will be back. Whoever it was that said something back to me about eliminating the conditions that entail women to have abortion in the first place..... I agree, a much more productive cause than two sets of people who at this point aren't really going to change each other minds. luvluvluvluv.... p.s. C'mon... you all can come up w/ better names than Benji to try and piss me off with. Yr smart Katie, you'll think of something I'm sure. Goodnite...

Reply from: xsarcasmx on 1/28/98 at 8:46PM. to the infamous anonymous poster (the "uniposter"--hee hee): you must be jealous that neither kate nor mike want to engage in illicit sexual congress with you. (they can't. they both want me. [standard disclaimer: i'm cracking a joke. do not take it seriously.]) otherwise, why would you care if they flirted? it isn't as if that's anything new on this message board... and to kate: i bet the uniposter did read your spelling thread and felt the need to be extra obnoxious. katie cooties...what a truly abysmal name. though i kind of like mikey saboo. it makes me think of cereal. katia. who couldn't resist

Replying to this, but is probably fading back into the woodwork again. http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~kroberto

Reply from: An anonymous viewer on 1/29/98 at 8:07AM. .

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/29/98 at 8:21AM. katia, i'm going to refrain from the all-too-obvious "he'll eat anything" comment here. oops... i missed another goal, didn't i? Benji, i don't know why i would expect any significant amount of maturity from you [which would exclude the antagonistic name change. mine, after all, was in retaliation for your repeated obstinance in learning my name.] after all, i remember your insulting, patronizing and outright boring posts that you littered the chainsaw message board with under the name "raven." anyone else recall these? there were also quite a few chainsaw message board regulars complaining about your rude behavior on the chat (i'll admit, i can't say what you did because i haven't been there, but the allegations were dyke-baiting, verbal abuse and similar offenses). it strikes me as quite odd that you can come here and expect respect from the rest of us now.

Reply from: Tracey on 1/29/98 at 10:15AM. to anon... who posted about kate cooties, notice i can spell it right, and mike saboo just fucking... well... i thought for one that it was obvious that they were... here i'll use a quote... "fucking up a storm..." i mean... don't you remember the new years eve post... i do... in any case... obviously your attempt at making them feel badly because of... what?... has not proven to be effective, tho i don't see your reasoning in all of this, in your quest to piss them off... 'cause they've been doin' it so why would it bother them if you said that they ought to... duh... anyway... why is it that this post has gone from a friendly debate to a truly low blow type of fight... ben... i have to agree with lisa and kate... notice there is no i... it's really annoying the way you've disregarded the spelling of her name, it's disrespectful, i mean... god knows kate and i don't agree on everything, in this instance we do, but we've both always given each other the mutal respect of spelling each other's names right... you can't even do that... what the hell ben? anyway... kate... maybe you should just call him something like... beanie baby ben or something just as insulting... 'cause i think you've given him the benifit of the doubt and chances to correct his mis-spelling of your name... anyway... as usual with this post... i am strictly pro-choice... i agree with kate and mike saboo, which is not in revelations as a sign of the apocolypse btw, all the way on this one... and ben... or bennie... or beanie... or whatever... the whole idea of life starts at conception... how is it that you know? are you inside when the egg meets up with the sperm? do you witness this often? i think that arguing when/where exactly life begins is like trying to argue which came first the chicken or the egg type deal... some would state that their life didn't start until after college... really... i mean ben you can't argue with variables... there are just too many... now i respect the fact that you wanna be a pro-life supporter... that's fine for you... but let's not get off track... when you decide that because you are in support of the pro-life arguement that i or any other woman need to refrain from having an abortion because of your moral standard then it becomes a problem... you are now infringing upon my rights and pushing your beliefs on me... be pro-life, i don't really care whether or not you are, but don't you ever try to take away my right to choose for myself, and don't you ever try to push your morals on me or my body... 'cause it's not your place... and you don't ever think that it is... just so we don't get confused here... my body is mine, your body is your's... and never the two shall meet... the same goes for decision's about our bodies... got it? tracey

Reply from: kate cooties on 1/29/98 at 10:32AM. Tracey, that's interesting what you brought up about life not beginning until after college. actually, my mom's AARP propaganda information says Life Begins at 50!

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 1/29/98 at 3:56PM. ARghh.... KATE- I am not the same person who came on here awhile back under the name of "Raven"!!! Whoever that guy was sure must have been as ass considering everytime I go in the chainsaw chat room someone asks me if I'm him. I'm not. You can ask Brock cuz I'm sure he remembers me talking to him on chat and explaining to other people as well that I am not that Raven. I've never talked to the other person who uses a variant of my name, (I add an extra "n". Ravenn comes from my zine by the way). I don't know who the hell he is, but dernit, it aint I. And as far as mispelling yr name, my apologies Kate. xoxox

Reply from: esk on 1/29/98 at 4:31PM. ok, i have no desire to get embroiled in this discussion, but i've been trying to follow it in lynx and i just gotta turn off the italics...

Reply from: mariah again on 1/29/98 at 10:05PM. okay ben, kate, whomever, please turn off your high school brain and stop insulting each other like rivaling syblings. its fucking annoying and very self defeating: i can't listen to what you're saying if you have to throw a b-a--a--d name after all of it....get over yourselves. we're not talking about chainsaw world. we're discussing abortion. v e r y d i f f e r e n t. ben: first of all, please, have some integrity about the cliche'd name tags you're putting on your politics: "my queer-positive, *GRRRL positive views". what???? for one, you blatantly defined "sex" (as you see it) soley as a form of reproduction for our supposedly more superior and valuable race. *i don't see us as more valuable, in or out of the womb, since we are responsible for fucking things up. *i'm just all confused now, because i actually thought that all those times i was making love to my girlfriend it would be gramatically and *scientifically* correct to call it SEX. *you said "it goes way beyond gender politics" and that made me shudder. you have illustrated time and time again that you are either very uninformed about or very blind to the intersections of oppression. the very fact that you oppose a woman's choice to abort, is oppressive, for alot of reasons. one is, it is and always should be a choice for someone, whether you like it or not. secondly, you are a straight male. that is not how i view you in entirety. i can see that you are a very loving, respectful, well-meaning and articulate individual. i dont see myself as a pro-choice poverty stricken dyke, i am a lover of olives and i like to eat toothpaste, i play the piano and i like to glue garbage together. but i digress. my point is that, although our little "stats" are not my sole source of defining people, i have an understanding of how that effects what they think, do, get away with, act upon, and how all those things effect other people. you asked me if it would be easier to hear your words if you were a girl. no, i would still disagree with you, respect your opinion, but find it to be oppressive and fucked up, becuase it differs greatly from what i understand as the truth, i'm sure you feel the same way about my opinion. but the very fact that you oppose abortion and express it with such rhetoric, from your seat as a straight male, deletes much merit from your perspective because you and i exist in a structure of dynamics that effect us in ways that i don't think you understand. it would be different for me to discuss this with you, were you female. not easier, not better, not simpler. just very different. it doesn't go beyond gender politics, it is gender politics. and queer politics, which you seem to feel you are informed about and supportive of, though i have seen just the opposite here. it is class politics, race politics, it is so much more than you are letting yourself see. you have an ausome sentimentality for the human fetus. that is wonderful if it means something to you. i don't want to discuss my emotional connection to the human fetus, because i understand that it does not now, nor should it *EVER* interfere with anyone else's interpretation of *when life begins or what it means or how valuable it is or what to call it* or whathaveyou. it doesn't matter what i think. or what you think. apply it to your life, apply it to how you live and what you do, but please for your own fucking integrity, don't spend your time trying to convince everyone else that they are wrong because they don't interpret life the same way that you do. that is naive and insulting. it is one sided and dogmatic. it is very bad karma. stop thinking about "those prochoicers" as some huge blob. or "prolifers" (as you call yourself) as a big anonymous clump. one group of people cannot morph into some makeshift "truth" and define things for 5 billion people who share a planet. it just blows my mind that anyone could be so egocentric. understand that you don't understand. becuase it is obvious to me that you do not. *m.

Reply from: Dave Negation on 1/31/98 at 2:27PM. I would have to say that I disagree with Kate Cooties statement that there is an overall equivilance between the lives of humans and those of smaller creatures. It is not speciest to say that there are differences. Ultimately, if one is to make a moral judgement, it has to be on the basis of minimising suffering in all circumstances. To take the example of rats, but you can replace that with other creatures if you wish... Yes, rats suffer. Yes, human suffer too. But it is presumptious to say that rats suffer in the same way that humans do - human suffering in similar circumstances would be greater due to widespread effects on a greater community, a more concious recognition of pain etc... Your argument, Kate, is not only presumptious but borderline speciest in itself as it is inscribing traits of human animals on non-human ones & therefore suggesting that one's compassion should be based on similarities between the human race & the rest of the animal kingdom. I don't mean to personalise the argument but it is not only out of selfishness that I would, if neccessary, kill a non-human animal to survive. I admit, however, that my pro-choice comments could have been misread. This debate has been really interesting as I've discovered on how superficially similar people (pro-choice, vegan etc.) can be completely divergent in their philosophical bases... Not that that means there shouldn't be unity in action. I would advise all to read ANIMAL LIBERATION by Peter Singer for a sound philisophical base to underlie animal rights activity (even if he is a bit of a liberal). Ironically, some friend told me that Singer is anti-choice, though I haven't confirmed this...

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 2/1/98 at 3:15PM. Mariah - if you had read all my posts, you would have known I'm not straight. I'm bisexual. From an evolutionary standpoint, I think sex came into being for reproduction. I do not think there is anything wrong with queer sex, nor do I think one form is superior to the other. Although, maybe queer sex would be best for the human race cuz that way we might die out as a species from a lack of reproduction.... This entire string of messages has gone no where. I really hate to say it but I cannot believe how many pro-choice stereotypes I have seen in here fit the mold. Some of these posts have been extremely upsetting to read. I don't think I'll come back to this message string and post. No point to it, really. Hoping one day no one will suffer, in the womb or out.... -=Ben Ravenn=-

Reply from: Ben Ravenn on 2/1/98 at 3:18PM. And oh yeah, one more thing- Mariak and Kate both made comments that imply I'm anti-animal rights or believe in human superiority. I really don't know where this came from, but I'm vegan. Animal rights is my middle name.... *hehehe*

Reply from: A WOMAN on 2/1/98 at 5:54PM. I am pro-choice, although I was more sympathetic after I had my abortion. I was a loud angry voice screaming that it was MY choice, but ignorant to the reality. It is and I think should always be a womans choice BUT to feel the rip of flesh come out of you in less than 5 minutes, can change you. I will always be a loud voice, but now I have small voice in my heart. xoxo

Reply from: A WOMAN on 2/1/98 at 5:55PM. I am pro-choice, although I was more sympathetic after I had my abortion. I was a loud angry voice screaming that it was MY choice, but ignorant to the reality. It is and I think should always be a womans choice BUT to feel the rip of flesh come out of you in less than 5 minutes, can change you. I will always be a loud voice, but now I have small voice in my heart. xoxo

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