Ruth, thank you thank you for the link. It got me looking at the aod online and then found some local places similar to what you have described.
You bring up such a great point. And it refutes one of the issues I tried using, which after a little more research found doesn't hold much water...
Why should I tell another person to have a child when I don't have to raise them?
There is a lot of help out there for women. Further, I should know this anyway, here in MI while our welfare system is completely saturated (I live near Detroit) it's still there and I know A Lot of young women using it til they get back on their feet financially.
I think that the point you make by saying it is "our CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY" is not something I thought about quite like that.
Coupling that with what has been said about people adopting and Christians (Catholics?) or perhaps it was conservatives....oy, donating More to charity, the excuse that I had planned to whip out doesn't hold much water anymore.
you said:
From all the things I've read here that you have written, Olivia, I perceive you to be a very loving person and one who chooses to use her love to help other people. This is a very good thing.
thank you. that is a little too kind I think, but I do appreciate it.
In my search today after reading your post Ruth, I found a few interesting sites I thought that I would add:
afterabortion.info/index.htmlwww.awpc-mi.orgwww.bethany.org/Some of what is Really bothering me about the stories I've read in the last two days is that while abortion is a choice for women at present, too often these women, often just teenagers, have really no idea how this is going to affect their body and their mind and their spiritual connection to whatever God they worship.
In one story I read the other day, (this really really bothered me) a young woman describes what happened when she had her abortion. In this case she was given the abortion pill where she went back home....
Here is a link:
www.gargaro.com/choicetolife.htmlIt's the first story.
I think that I had this grand picture of a woman going in to have an abortion and being given all the facts and therefore really making an informed decision. I had No Clue, None, ZIP, zero, zed, that too often women are grossly misinformed or not informed at all as to what happens.
The "quaint" stories that are put out by the proponents of choice make it sound much different.
I have to say though, one of the things that my husband likes about me is I'm a researcher. In fact, my sisters are the exact same way. Can be good, can be bad
So, to me, it's a no brainer. If you're going to have a medical procedure done, you research the heck out of it before you even go in for pre op work.
But that's looking at things through my own rose colored glasses.
Something that had really gotten me thinking further this morning was reading an account of abortion on a pro choice site. There was a story about a Republican Christian married couple (yes it was this descriptive) who were expecting. They found out that the baby had a serious disease. It was fairly late in the term when they discovered this. They opted for an intact D and (?) C.
Well, as some of you may know (jeff) I have an older daughter with Down Syndrome. She's the light of our lives. Now, because of her, I have had the opportunity to talk with MANY women who have children with much worse problems then she.
The concept of life having worth, value has not been completely lost on me. At least I didn't think so.
The article that I read regarding this couple made me ask:
Well, just because that child would have been disabled does not make their life of less worth.
Also:
By perpetuating this thinking and Action, aren't we actually perpetuating the idea of life being "perfect"?
I.e. remember how not long ago in the news (or maybe it still is) the cloning? Playing God? The idea of creating "super babies", children who are just as perfect as we want them to be?
My own personal notion of why we have suffering is pretty simple:
Through suffering we learn compassion. By having children with disabilities in our midst, adults who are disabled, we learn to have true human compassion.
By perpetuating the line of thinking that if the child isn't "perfect" i.e. without a fault in the world (so to speak) we are promoting the devaluation of life period. And by doing this, we are losing compassion for others.