if I were a rhetorical question, I would look like this

[the_siobhan]

Is it possible for somebody who is pro-life and somebody who is pro-choice to be friends?

Is it simply a matter of difference of opinion? Or is it more than that? Is there an underlying difference in values that makes it impossible to be friends?

What do you think?


What I'm listening to right this second: Stromkern

Comments

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I was especially interested in your take on this, because I know you are pro-life, and you've said you've taken some flak for it.

There used to be a group back when I was in High School - Catholics for Life, I think? Their stance was that criminalizing wouldn't work so they lobbied for better access to birth control (!), programs to increase self-esteem in girls (so they wouldn't be having sex they didn't really want) better pre-natal care, more funding for day-care and more programs for new mothers, especially new mothers who want to be able to finish school. They believed that a lot of mothers would choose to keep their children if they knew that there was going to be real practical support in helping them care for them.


Incidentally, at 19 I fell pregnant by a violent drug addict when I lived alone in another country. The result of that pregnancy turned 16 yesterday.

Mine turns 25 soon. *wry smile*. It was definitely harder and more traumatic than having an abortion. I wouldn't force anybody else to go through it.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Wow - that group have got their heads on straight! They sound fabulous. What we truly need is 100% effective birt control, free access for all men and women to it (men should also be able to prevent unwanted births), and parents and schools to tel their kids about it.

I'd also like world peace, a cure for cancer and everyone to love their neighbour.

I know many women who have had abortions, and only one who seemed to think nothing of it, had had 3 and "I'd 'ave anover if 'e knocked me up again". Her I just wanted to shoot. Or sew her closed or something.

Abortion is never, I think, an easy choice. Even if it's the only choice you feel you have open, most find it very difficult. In the end, we are aware of what we do to our bodies and the lives inside them.

But none of the options are easy, especially if it's unplanned. Open or closed adoption, fostering, letting the child grow up with family, keeping the child... all are difficult.

That said, I would never go back and change my mind. I have had winters where we read books by candlelight under 3 covers because I had no money for blankets, given up my career in medicine because I couldn't afford to study, had no social life at university - and for me, certainly, I would never unmake that choice.

Now tell me to make a girl give up her dreams, her health and her social life, and it's unfeasibly cruel. It's just that by personal sentiment, abortion is crueller

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I know many women who have had abortions, and only one who seemed to think nothing of it, had had 3 and "I'd 'ave anover if 'e knocked me up again". Her I just wanted to shoot. Or sew her closed or something.

I knew somebody like that in University. She was 19 years old and had already had three abortions.

She came from a family of eleven kids, and the only time anybody got any attention was when they were in trouble. So her way of "getting in trouble" was getting knocked up over and over again.

Pretty sad story, but that didn't stop me from wanting to give her a smack.