Posted by
B. Bailey on Friday, October 06, 2006 10:59:01 AM
I thought Ms. Kort, of Ms. Magazine, deserved a little email from me. Doubt she read it, but you know. It's all about how shameful it is to applaud abortion the way her petition does. Abortion - whether or not it should be legal - should never be applauded as a good thing. It's a bad thing - it takes a life, it messes up the mother psychologically and physically, many times. It should be a last resort for those who would consider it. I suggested that Ms. Kort make a petition saying, "I regret having an abortion." I bet she'd get a lot more signatures! Maybe some other magazine out there, one without so much of an agenda, should do that. Suggestions, anyone? Here's the letter:
Ms. Kort,
If you really believed that women deserve the right to abortion and need such a procedure to be available - you would create a petition entitled "I regret having an abortion" and have people sign that. Wouldn't you get far fewer signatures, and wouldn't that say more? But no, I think you know and understand that you would get many more signatures than you have on your current petition, and I know that's true because most of those I know who have had abortions really regret having made that choice. Instead of freeing them, it enslaved them to guilt and remorse. That's why you have as few signatures as you have - and yes, you have very few compared to the 43 million plus abortions performed since Roe vs. Wade (not to mention those not counted, done in homes and alleys with hangers and what not).
Further, if you really cared about women, you would create an abstinence petition and encourage women to be very selective about their partners - this would not only reduce the need for abortions but also would reduce the risk of transmitting STDs, not to mention the devastating loss of self-esteem women encounter from being used as sperm trash cans by careless men. Is it too much to expect women to be responsible? Are we too weak or stupid to understand that we are worth something as women, that we don't HAVE to have sex to keep a guy, that we don't need a guy at all, that we would be better off building up ourselves and possibly preparing for the day when adding a partner and maybe children to our lives would better us, not bring us down?
Your petition signals not that you care for women and highly esteem their rights, but that you hold women in low regard, that you see them as incapable of taking the appropriate steps to prevent pregnancy in the first place. If your magazine would take a stand for responsibility and show women that they shouldn't settle for less, women out there (especially younger girls) would be much better off. The abortion petition creates only confusion to a world of women already battered and bruised by low self-esteem. Abortion says - go have sex, no big deal, there's no reason not to. STDs, babies - no big deal. And then what happens? A girl gets an STD and has to deal with that her whole life, or a girl gets pregnant and then has to decide for herself, when she can see a heartbeat at 9 weeks on an ultrasound - do I want to be a killer just so I can keep my boyfriend, my parents happy? Just so I can continue with my life status quo? Do I want to risk death and my future chances of having children because I made a stupid mistake?
Or maybe another good petition you could do would be - "I was going to have an abortion, but had my baby instead" or "I was going to have an abortion, but I let my baby be adopted." Surely those 43 million dead babies out there could have gone straight from the mother's arms into the arms of a loving couple unable to conceive - and wouldn't that be more worthwhile than abortion to most women who can't handle a child yet?
If you have continued reading this far, Ms. Kort, I would be surprised. But I hope you have, because you need to know that you are not helping women but hurting them, and the stand you are taking, no matter how silent most women are regarding it, is not supported by the lot of us out there who understand the consequences of sex and pregnancy. By and large, it is neither supported by women who have had abortions - because they, of all people, truly understand that sex is something that should be held for the right person at the right time - not for religious reasons, but for practical and realistic ones.
So I challenge you - if you really believe women out there agree with your stand but are silenced by whatever religious strongholds still exist - do a different petition, one that would really show the truth of the matter (rather than just your chosen side), and see which one gets more signatures.
[END]
Because really, they've gotten 5,000 signatures? Wow - out of 43 million abortions, only 5,000 women have come out of the woodwork to proclaim it? That says a lot.