Posted on 10/04/2006 5:33:24 PM PDT by MotleyGirl70
NEW YORK -- As the abortion debate rages, Ms. magazine is releasing its fall issue next week with a cover story titled ''We Had Abortions'' that lists names of thousands of women who signed a petition making that declaration.
The publication coincides with what the abortion-rights movement considers a watershed moment.
Abortion access in many states is being curtailed, activists are uncertain about the stance of the U.S. Supreme Court, and South Dakotans vote Nov. 7 on whether to ban virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
''All this seems very dire,'' said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Ms.-publishing Feminist Majority Foundation. ''We have to get away from what the politicians are saying and get women's lives back in the picture.''
Even before the issue reaches newsstands Oct. 10, anti-abortion activists have been decrying it. Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, wrote in a commentary that when she saw a Ms. announcement of the project, "the evil practically jumped right off the page."
Ms. executive editor Katherine Spillar said more than 5,000 women have signed the petition so far -- heeding its appeal to declare they are unashamed of the choice they made. The magazine itself had room for only 1,016 names, she said Tuesday, but all of them will be viewable online as Ms. encourages other women to continue adding their signatures.
Ms. says it will send the petition to Congress, the White House and state legislators.
The signatories include Ms. founder Gloria Steinem, comedian Carol Leifer, and actresses Kathy Najimy and Amy Brenneman, but most are not famous names.
Tyffine Jones, 27, of Jackson, Miss., said she had no hesitation about signing -- although she lives in a state where restrictions on abortion are tough and all but one abortion clinic has been closed.
Jones said she got an abortion 10 years ago -- enduring harassment from protesters when she entered the clinic -- in order to finish high school. She went on to become the first member of her family to graduate from college, and hopes at some point to attend law school.
"I wanted to do something bigger with myself -- I didn't want to be stopped by anything," she said in a telephone interview.
Another signatory, Debbie Findling of San Francisco, described her difficult decision last year to have an abortion after tests showed that she would bear a son with Down syndrome.
"I felt it was my right to make the decision, but having that right doesn't make the decision any easier," she said. "It was the hardest decision I've ever made."
Findling, 42, is married, with a 5-year-old daughter, and has been trying to get pregnant again while pursuing her career as a philanthropic foundation executive.
She says too many of her allies in the abortion-rights movement tend to minimize, at least publicly, the psychological impact of abortion.
"It's emotionally devastating," she said in a phone interview. "I don't regret my decision -- but I regret having been put in the position to have to make that choice. It's something I'll live with for the rest of my life."
Findling strongly supports the Ms. petition, and believes women who have had abortions need to be more open about their decisions. She has written an essay about her own experience, and plans to include it in an anthology she hopes to publish next year.
Ms. mounted this kind of petition drive when it was first published. Its debut issue in 1972 included a manifesto signed by 53 women -- many of them well-known -- declaring that they had undergone abortions despite state laws outlawing the procedure.
The next year, the Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion rights nationwide. Some abortion-rights activists are concerned that Roe could be overturned, either by the current court or if President Bush has the opportunity to appoint one more justice.
Smeal said Ms. staffers called the women who signed the petition to verify their information and be sure they were willing to have their names in print.
"The women thanked us for doing this," Smeal said. "They wanted to tell their stories."
Correlation or Causation?
Excellent and sad point. I'm sure if these women saw your comments before they entered the abortion clinics, there would have been some changed minds. It is truly sad that feminists have latched onto this as an empowerment. I'm sure they could get millions of Chinese women to sign- maybe even "force" them to sign....
Go, go, go, Mrs. Don-o! You da man! (Well, you know what I mean ....)
One thing for sure, there would be a few million more paying into Social Security and doing the jobs "that no one else" wants to do. Definitely not the reason to not have an abortion but it is the truth.
Amy Brenneman had an abortion?
I thought I read she had had a miscarriage a few years back, but I'd never heard about this before.
The main reason I do not support the American Cancer drives is because they will not acknowledge that there is a connection between those who have an abortion and those who get breast cancer. It's proven and they will not acknowledge it.
I want you on my side in an argument. (Actually, it appears you already are.) You made two excellent points. Well said.
Is someone who performs an evil act evil, even if he has been brainwashed to believe that what he is doing is right? I'm not sure.
RUSH DID SAY IT! So go bugger off.
When you have your tonsils out they give you lots of ice cream. Yeah, it's the ice cream. < /sarcasm>
I get really tired of seeing this particular piece of misleading information posted on FR over and over and over again. The "not foolproof" test for Down Syndrome is NOT a test that anyone is ever encouraged to use to make a decision whether to abort. It is a preliminary test to see if there is enough likelihood of Down Syndrome to warrant further testing, which is as certain as anything can ever get.
The stories of women who tested "positive" for Down Syndrome and then went on to have perfectly normal babies are NOT stories of women who had the chromosomal testing that definitively establishes whether or not the fetus has Down Syndrome. They are NOT women who were told that their fetus had Down Syndrome. They are women who had the "triple screen" test and were told they MIGHT be carrying a Down Syndrome fetus, and were offered further testing if they wanted to find out for sure one way or the other.
I do not believe I said anything to the contrary.
I agree with you, abortion IS murder. My husbands sister had an abortion, needless to say, we have nothing to do with her. In our eyes, she isn't worth our time after we found that out.
The reason, her husband didn't want kids, he gave her an ultimatum, me or a baby!!! Sick!!
No pregnant woman is being OFFERED the opportunity to end her pregnancy based on the non-foolproof screening test, so no women are "choosing" not to end their pregnancies on that basis. Some women choose not to do further testing to find out of they are actually carrying a Down Syndrome fetus, but that's hardly the same as choosing not to end the pregnancy. Some women DO have the further testing, DO confirm that they are carrying a Down Syndrome fetus, and still choose to continue the pregnancy.
I don't see any indication that she is trying for a "perfect" child. There's a big difference between "not perfect" and "no possibility of ever being self-sufficient". Give that she has a 5-year-old daughter already, her decisions may be based on concern about saddling this daughter with responsibility for both aging parents and a physically-mentally disabled adult sibling at the same time -- not about herself.
I have a cyberacquaintance who is trying to have a second baby, and will not consider having a Down Syndrome baby (she wouldn't be having an abortion either, as she's doing IVF and would have chromosome testing before any embryo was transferred into her). But when she was trying for the first child (also IVF), she chose not to do any embryo screening, because she and her husband had decided that they would be happy to have a Down Syndrome baby. Their different thinking re the second baby is not based on selfishness, but on concern for their existing child.
Your value system may be very different, but I don't think it's fair to assume that everyone who chooses not to continue a Down Syndrome pregnancy is just a selfish jerk who's insisting on a "perfect" child as some sort of status accessory.
Don't these people realize that there's thousands upon thousands of families out there like my own who would love to adopt a healthy child?
We went to Russia, and are tens of thousands of dollars in debt, to get our new son. His legal father completely disavowed him, but I got to spend a first Father's Day for both of us with him in Russia while waiting to complete the adoption.
"Jones said she got an abortion 10 years ago -- enduring harassment from protesters when she entered the clinic -- in order to finish high school. She went on to become the first member of her family to graduate from college, and hopes at some point to attend law school."
Well, that makes the murder worth it, now, does it not? Because it is all about Me, Me, and...Me.
I'm thinking that she got it on with a shemale.
Probably both.
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