Abortion and racism

And? I'm still not sure what your point is or how its relevant to the ACTUAL numbers I asked for in relation to class/race and abortion.

As for people 'willfully' using the term - so what? That doesn't change my statement that its a phrase invented by the media to sensationalize a few cases of fraud - along with its more prevalent precusor - the welfare mama. It projects an image of those in poverty as the 'undeserving poor' who take away from those of us who 'actually work' and free load. That's hardly an accurate image of those in poverty and as such this phrase and those like it should be avoided. In addition, an oppressed segment of society or individual will often pick up such language despite its detriment - that doesn't make it true, or right.

 

Rimbaud has answered the question for me in terms of that this is that the answer is personal responsibility. What Planned Parenthood and other groups teach is personal responsibility. You may not think it is personal responsibility but it is.

What they are saying is that if you have sex make sure to protect yourself. How is that irresponsible? Its the same message as saying if you drive wear your seatbelt. Now we could teach abstinence in driving, a lot of us live in places where with a few sacrifices we could do without cars yet we still drive.

The biggest problem that I have with the abstinence argument is that its never worked and goes against the essence of what we are as biological beings. When you considered even the Puritans had aldutery and pre-marital sex I don't see how you can ever hope for an abstinence only education program to work. Why not teach people to be responsible about sex? What's wrong with telling people they shouldn't engage in sex until marriage but given that we're biologically programmed to have sex at least use protection if you can't resist.

The other issue here is preventing STD's. Its easy enough to preach abstinence until marriage here but if you consider the amount of transmission of AIDS through inadequate medical sterilization or even by birth in Africa and Eastern Europe there is a real risk of getting the virus from unprotected sex with even a virgin you married there. Anyway given mortality due to war, environmental catastrophe, AIDS itself and all other things would you say that then the surviving spouses should never have sex again in marriage or not since they morally shouldn't use condoms and without condoms they will pass AIDS on to others?

Finally in a general response to your statement about planned parenthood and other "population control"programs directed at at poor people. The bigest problem I see is flat out hypocrasy among most of the "pro-life" crowd. Instead of attacking those programs why not work on reducing the causes that would lead to people considering abortion like poverty, availability of food and clean water and lack of health care? The problem with overpopulation isn't that there's too many minorities is that there are too many people living in situations that can't sustain that many people.

A good start would be to advocate debt relief among poorer nations overseas and universal health care here in America. What I see instead is an attempt to shut down abortion and contraception and no real consideration of the economic conditions that lead to the need for those. All I hear is morals morals and morals. Well morals are important but so is knowing if you have the money and quality of life to bring up a child.

If you want to limit abortions make it easier to bring up children.

 

rhester, with all due respect, and you deserve it for not making this into an emotional tirade, you seem to be all over the map here. You are against abortion. I get that. Sanger had some wacked philosophies at one time in her life, and I get that as well. Parents should teach their children to be responsible about sex. Heck, I even get that!

So, what's your point? It's already been pointed out that developed countries are seeing their populations either stablized, or declining, except for the exceptions, like the United States, where we have out of control immigration, which drives, in many ways, our population growth, imo.

There is nothing racist about trying to help poor countries keep their population growth under control. Those same countries ask for, and need, billions in aid. The aid has a limited impact if population growth "out grows" the benefit that aid provides. There is no grand racist conspiracy at work here. There are a number of incompetent and corrupt governments, who fail their people. Should we invade and occupy them all to insure their people get the sort of government they deserve? Don't we all deserve competent, democratic, and curruption free governments?

The sad truth is that our abilities are limited as far as helping the rest of the world. As it is, we don't do as much as we once did, and we are now up to our necks in Iraq, up to our necks in running record trade deficits, up to our necks running record budget deficits, up to our necks with a declining dollar and record oil prices. Heck, one could go on, but would our "necks" be able to handle even listing everything? I just don't see this racist conspiracy regarding birth control. I see a United States government out of control, and doing little about birth control worldwide. You should be pleased! About the birth control part.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

I don't know if the government can be responsible for its execution and implementation. Maybe they could subsidize parent schooling night courses and emphasize it for teen parents after the fact. Then again, the curricullum would be highly politicized and whittled down to inadequacy.

Look at the government's effectiveness on the drug war. They promote the simple message of not doing it and exagerate all of its dangers into one. Drug abusers then find a rude awakening when they're addicted to a drug when a previous drug wasn't as controlling. It's like ad agencies encapsulate the wrong information to destroy their credibility. Ad campaigns and awareness programs can pull in billions annually. Maybe they're put out just for the sake of making money. The government needs to reevaluate how they want to promote these issues to teens.

A lot of issues are attached to the pride of teens. Isn't the feeling that you're ready or responsible enough a telling characteristic of a teen? Our society rewards risk taking. What delineates sex or drugs from other things? In fact, when the authority tells the young is something is bad, won't that drive them crazy to try it? Government sponsored awareness programs don't address any of those issues.

Most parents already have a hard time talking about sex to their children and vice versa. Sometimes kids can't be taught and the only way for them to learn is to experience it themselves, but if they can be taught, it's best if they know the entire truth in order to give them confidence and responsibility to make good decisions.

 

Not being a parent or a teacher I thankfully don't have to deal with that solution. That said as a sexually active adult I use condoms and take other precautions.

The question I have for you is since apparently you don't teach abstinence or encourage contraception what would you tell a horny 14 year old? Well you can have sex but take responsibility for the kid.

I'm all for responsibility but we have to consider human nature which is to have sex and if we aren't prepared to deal with that realistically we're going to have problems. Leaving aside abstinence even the Puritans (certainly responsible people) still had adultery and father children they didn't tend too. I'm not excusing it just saying that human nature is a hard thing and the best way to deal with it is through a multi pronged approach.

Anyway when it comes to condoms there are more issues than just pregnancy such as STD.

Also I believe lately the teen birth rate has been declining and if condoms and birth control are such a big failure why do European countries that teach them the most widely have low teen pregnancy rates?

As I said responsibility takes many forms and IMO to not teach teens and everyone else about birth control is irresponsible. Not just for pregnancy but also for fear of STD's. This isn't mutually exclusive with also teaching that if you get someone pregnant you should take responsibility.

 

Please don't flame me, I hardly ever post in the D&D, but I thought I'd bring what I know to the table.

It's not that Planned Parenthood and other such services are disproportionately targeting minorities as what I think you're trying to put out there...

The relationship between being a minority and/or in poverty and pregnancy/birthrates is very noticable.

Especially in 3rd world countries, women have as many babies as possible for 2 reasons: 1) high death rates of infants and 2) should a child survive infancy, the child has a good chance of growing up and becoming yet another helping hand around the homestead. Therefore a impoverished woman in a third world country will get pregnant 10 times, give birth to 7 children, but might only have 2 grow up to be adults. This doesn't change much just because a family immigrates to America. Poor/minority people still continue this trend because as you say, the kids are following in the parents footsteps. Instead of getting pregnant 10 times, maybe an immigrant woman in America might get pregnant 5 times, and have 4 children and have all four of them grow up to adulthood - but it's still the same concept.

Another noticable relationship with pregnancy/birth rates is education level - as a population (especially a population of females) becomes more educated, the pregnancy/birth rates decline.

The occurrences of high percentages of minority abortions comes from education - public schools, sex ed, phys ed, biology class, you name it... Now the first (and future) generation american children of immigrants are going to school and not only do they get a better education than their parents probably had, but they learn reasons why they shouldn't be teen parents. But like their parents, they still have sex at a young age. And like their parents, they're probably not going to be able to afford to buy the birth control pills or the condoms or whatever contraceptives needed. But unlike their parents, if these kids aren't ready for a child, they know that there are alternatives that their parents might not have had. And that's where planned parenthood comes in - it's the place to get these alternative services.

So yes, I'm sure that more poor/minority women go into planned parenthood to get some kind of service, be it a free bag of condoms or an abortion. But I'm also pretty darn sure that PP isn't actively seeking these women. They're the women who need it more than say, affluent white women do - hence you're probably not going to see many rich white girls in there compared to poor white girls or poor black/hispanic/other girls.

 

Meggoleggo I hope you have an asbestos suit on because I'm lighting my torch.

Just kidding.

For someone who doesn't post much on the D & D that was a great and very well informed posts and hit upon the issues that most of us (men) have missed here.

Post more often and as frequent D & D'er I'll promise not to flame you. Well at least try not to..

 

The reason people aren't making this idea central is because, even if it is true (I don't know, though some of the posts on here imply that it may not be), it shouldn't impact free thought. Whether or not abortion was initially racist, or whether or not it currently is, it is still just an idea. The act itself has to be instigated by the person

 

i'm not arguing the point either way.

but jay, he's saying decisions are being made to go out into the inner cities and target those who live there for their services. that they're plopping down clinics in areas highly-populated by the same peole Sanger allegedly said we'd be better off without...or at least i think that's what he's saying. that, plus the hint of a racist past, raises eyebrows. i'm not saying it is that...i'm saying it can raise the inference of that.

 

Rhester;

I've spent way too much time on Clutchfans this morning so am not going to be able to answer all of your issues right away.

Damn you Clutch for making such an addictive website!

While I am not a parent now I've been spending time helping my relatives bring up their children and am learning all the time. That said from what I've seen with my relatives and with my friends bringing up their kids has if anything reinforced my belief that teens need to be taught a multi-pronged approach to sexuality that includes both a strong dose of responsibility in regards to parenting, when to have sex and birth control.

We tell kids all sorts of things but unfortunately they don't always follow them. In regards to something like sex I still think it is irresponsible to just hope that they will abstain from pre-marital sex or behave responsibly with the consequences. Condoms maybe a crutch for poor teaching but given the consequences in regards to unplanned pregnancies and STD's its strikes me as foolish to rely on good teaching as much as using seatbelts is a crutch for poor driving.

You mentioned earlier that you didn't bring up abstinence and it was only me talking abstinence.

I certainly find what you're doing admirable and your record commendable. That said historically abstinence and responsibility have a poor track record since in even the morally strictest societies there have still been pre-marital sex, adultery and unwanted children.

If I remember correctly I believe most Western European countries also have low abortion rates compared to the US also.

Contraception is the issue because most of what Planned Parenthood and UN population control programs advocate and provides is contraception. Abortion is a very small part of those programs.

Well I've never had an accidental baby and if I did I would probably want to raise it but in that situation I wouldn't be the sole decision maker. I've stated in other threads my reservations about abortion and where I would set limits but at the same time it takes two to make a baby and I would defer to the wishes of the other party.

On a societal level I'm uncomfortable with the idea of legally making a major life decision for most people. Especially since I'm not a woman. People make decisions all the time that I myself don't agree with but I can never know what went into making that decision. Its hard enough making my own major life decisions let alone mandating that for others.

Meggoleggo has answered this far better than I could.

That might be reality to you but I think as these debates show reality is subjective. I firmly believe that life doesn't begin until consciousness and I don't believe a fertilized embryo undifferentiated embryo is conscious but that's a debate for other threads.

Leaving that for now I don't think anyone is advocating we have more abortions here. I think the solution is to reduce the causes, both personal and social, for having abortions. Teaching responsible approaches to sexuality is one but so is providing the economic and social supports that will help young, less educated and poorer people to bring up children. As I've said repeatedly until I see ardent "pro-lifers" especially politicians push for those I will say they are not only short sighted but hypocritical.

The choice to have an abortion isn't merely a failure of morals but is often a failure to have a society that fully supports bringing up children.

 

Fine, just as long as we acknowledge that the United States of America was founded by a bunch of virulent, racist, white -supremacist, elitist human-traffickers in order to practice their brand of human exploitation unmolested from Continental attitudes.

I don't think if someone does so, they are compromising thier pro-US position.

 

So?

There's a McDonalds's right a mile from my house. McDonald's certainly target my demographic. Eating McDonals will kill me. I don't eat McDonald's.

I guess non-minority woman should be complaining also...apparently they have to drive real far to get an abortion if that is their choice.

 

That was a kickass post Sishir. I am amazed you managed such a logical post considering that, after reading this thread, I have no idea what the heck rhester is really trying to get at other than he is adamantly opposed to abortion and planned parenthood for a variety of convoluted reasons.

 

I would support most of that. The ten years thing is a little much, but I definitely think policies that make raising a child right, especially in the early years, are the right thing to do, regardless of whether they break some libertarian ideal of what government should do.

I think the free day care thing should be retroactive, too, like that one set of tax cuts they did. I'll expect my check from the government for about $8,000 that I have spent on daycare in the five years or so that I have been a single dad.

 

tough job!! can't even imagine raising my boys without my wife. kudos to you for being strong enough to do it!