Posted on 11/05/2014 11:24:24 AM PST by wagglebee
I recently spoke at an amazing pro-life conference in Washington State. After my talk, I had a woman come up to me and tell me that I should really tone down my message. She said that she is sure that my message will offend people. She said that I should try to find “common language” with those who support abortion.
Okay, let’s explore that.
“Common language” sounds nice, but when you actually look at the differences behind that language, you see it just isn’t possible. Here are eight reasons why finding a "common language" with pro-aborts is impossible:
1. When I say, “I want women to have access to authentic female healthcare,” I mean that I want women to have access to healthcare that supports their natural femininity. I mean that I want women to have access to healthcare that doesn’t include the use of contraception and abortion.
Maybe it’s time to worry less about delivering watered down messages and speak truth in love without compromise.
When an abortion supporter says, “I want women to have access to authentic female healthcare,” they mean that they believe women should have easy (and free) access to pills that suppress their fertility. They mean that they believe that taking the lives of unborn children is part of healthcare.
2. When I say, “I want women to have control over their bodies,” I mean that I want women to know and embrace their fertility. I want women to value their bodies, not simply be seen as a sex object. I want women and men to understand the dignity of their sexuality. I want women to understand that the most beautiful thing a woman’s body does is to grow other human beings.
When an abortion supporter says, “I want women to have control over their bodies,” that is a rallying cry for abortion. They mean that women should be able to control and kill the separate human being in their body. They mean that they want women to hate their fertility, to see it as enslavement, and in response to that, to “fix” their unbroken fertility with pills and other invasive methods of birth control.
3. When I say, “I want women to be safe,” I mean that women deserve better than abortion. I mean that I want women to stay away from abortion because it is not safe for them. I want women to understand the physical and emotional consequences related to abortion.
When an abortion supporter says, “I want women to be safe,” they mean that they want women to have unlimited access to abortion services without any additional barriers…even if those barriers are there to protect women.
4. When I say, “I want women to choose what’s best for them,” I mean that I want women to make choices that don’t involving harming themselves or killing another human being. I want women to know that there are other choices besides abortion…choices they can live with and have no regret.
When an abortion supporter says, “I want women to choose what’s best for them,” they almost always mean abortion. Abortion supporters have attempted to normalize abortion in a way that makes it seem “okay” to take the life of another human being. They aren’t interested in a woman actually making a choice. They are interested in women having abortions.
5. When I say, “I want us to take care of children,” I mean that we should take care of all children…born and unborn. I mean that we should all stand up for those in our foster care systems. I mean that we should sacrifice our luxuries for children and their mothers.
When an abortion supporter says, “I want us to take care of children,” they mean that we should only care for those who are already born. And what they really mean is that it is only the pro-life movement’s responsibility to care for children in foster care. They mean that it’s only our responsibility to provide for women and their children. They mean that they are not willing to sacrifice their own luxuries, but we are to sacrifice ours.
6. When I say, “I stand for equal rights,” I mean equal rights for all persons…from the moment of conception until natural death. I mean that I believe in the equal human dignity of all persons, no matter the “contribution” they make to society.
When an abortion supporter says, “I stand for equal rights,” they mean that they only stand for the rights of those who are contributors to society. They are quick to marginalize the most vulnerable among us: the unborn, the elderly and the differently-abled.
7. When I say, “I am for choice,” I mean that I am for choices that don’t involve killing a human being. I mean that I support women making wise choices before they get pregnant. I am for women choosing to make adoption plans, choosing to be single parents, choosing to marry the father of their child and raising that child together, choosing to still pursue a career and education after having a child, choosing to ask their parents and support system for help when raising their child.
When an abortion supporter says, “I am for choice,” they really only mean the choice of abortion. Period.
8. When I say, “I want women to feel empowered,” I mean that I want women to embrace their bodies, their fertility and their children. I want women to know that they don’t have to choose between their baby and their education…that they don’t have to choose between their baby and a career…that they don’t have to choose between their baby and a man. I want women to know that there are hundreds of people who will support them in their decision to parent or place their child for adoption. I want them to know that abortion strips you of your power. I want them to know that empowerment does not come from pitting a woman against her child.
When an abortion supporter says, “I want women to feel empowered,” they mean that women are too weak to be moms and complete their education. They mean that you have to choose between being a mom and having a successful career. They mean that they actually have no idea what empowerment really is.
Abby, how can you possibly say these things? How can you possibly know what abortion supporters mean when they say these things??
Well, because I have said these things on both sides of this issue. I know the meaning behind these phrases as an abortion supporter, because I was one for eight years.
I speak on this issue because I get it. I get how people are blinded by language. And honestly, I get how people are blinded by our desire to “meet in the middle.” But when you look at the reality of abortion, there is no middle ground. You either support the killing of the unborn or you don’t. There is no grey area.
How do we convert people? How do we help them see that the meaning behind our language is totally different?
Well, we just speak charitable truth. We love people. And sometimes that truth and love offends. We have to be okay with that.
Maybe it’s time to worry less about delivering watered down messages and speak truth in love without compromise. Maybe we should worry less about offending those who are far away from the truth. Maybe we should worry more about being compassionate, loving and planting seeds of truth…even if it’s a hard truth.
I say it’s time to stop apologizing for delivering our message of truth. I will never be sorry for speaking the truth in love.
Regarding this post and #16: you’re a gem, Mrs. Don-o.
I’m saying that as a platform its a looser there were far more.issues at play than that. It’s not a campaign winner and conservatives shouldn’t be raising it at this time. You must convince and persuade people it is wrong. Put up hurdles. Wisdom shows outright bans don’t work and make small government advocates look like.large government advocates.
“I mean that I want women to have access to healthcare that doesn’t include the use of contraception and abortion”
I don’t think it could be any clearer. Lifesite, the author anyway, doesn’t want women to have access to contraception
“When I say, “I want women to have control over their bodies,” I mean that I want women to know and embrace their fertility.”
I want, I want. What about what women want? Or don’t want. Or can’t afford. Or can’t take care of?
To me the most responsible thing you can do is prevent a pregnancy you don’t want or need. Maybe a 45 y.o. woman with 4 kids should just “embrace her fertility”? Fine with me. If that’s what she wants.
“I want women to understand that the most beautiful thing a woman’s body does is to grow other human beings.”
To her. What about the women who don’t want “to grow other human beings”? Quit having sex? That train has already left the station. Actually it never got to the station.
No, there’s no mistake here. Ya’ll don’t want women to have access to contraception and have all the babies they possibly can. And that’s fine. At least “Abby” is honest. Many aren’t. Apparently.
So Mr. Foxwell. What part of her “language” do you think I’m confused about? Specifically.
1: Murder
2: Murder
3: Murder
4: Murder
5: Murder
6: Murder
7: Murder
8: Murder
It’s really quite simple.
Ma'am, that right there is just a splendid turn of phrase. Inspired. Genius.
You mean --- talk abut it in public? Lecture? Make videos? Put it in TV ads? Put out printed literature? Why, I've run into that before. That sounds like.... a political campaign!
That's what campaigning for a pro-life candidate or ballot item is all about. Political campaigns are the most intensive public forms of "convincing people" currently in play in the United States. That's why we do it.
" Wisdom shows outright bans don’t work." Absolutely non-factual . Wisdom --- that means, actual experience --- shows that ouyright bans work better than anything else. Where abortion has been banned except in all but the most exceptional cases --- as in the recent history of the Republic of Ireland, Poland, New Zealand --- abortion is comparatively rare. (
(Comparison: The UK has an age-standardized abortion rate was 15.9 per 1,000 resident women aged 15-44. By contrast, the Republic of Ireland rate is 4.5. And Ireland has a significantly LOWER rate of childbirth-related morbidity and mortality than the UK. Ireland has some of the best maternal health outcomes in the world.)
In the USA, the abortion rate shot up with the introduction of legal abortion in 1973. Lie Dynamics, which has analyzed the statistics by various factors --- age, income, marital status, level of education, race, religion, etc. etc. ---- has shown that the single most significant factor in increasing the abortion rate is: zip code. If there is an abortion clinic in your zip code or within a 10-mile radius, that increases the abortion rate more than any other factor. Both abortion, and out-of-wedlock births decline the farther you are from an abortion clinic.
Interesting, eh?
In other words, the demand for abortion is what economists call "elastic." If abortion is not easily, readily available, most women won't risk an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
The availability of legal, cheap, convenient abortion has a huge, and hugely destructive impact on behavior.
It's that "impact on behavior" thing that contraception and legal-abortion advocates don't take into account.
You are confused about the fact that the abortion industry demands that healthcare for women is defined by contraception and abortion.
The article does not say that women should not have access to contraception, only that healthcare for women should not be defined exclusively as contraception and abortion.
You remind me of an atheist reading the Bible with a jaundiced eye. You are reading into her words what you want to read. In so doing you make her case perfectly. There is no middle ground between abortion and prolife.
You may claim to be against abortion but your words do not reflect it.
Say what you want, trying to push preaching at people as some do opens up the doors for Obama and his types. God will show the right person how to accomlish it.
"Embrace your fertility" may mean respecting it enough that you don't try to impair it by intentional chemical or surgical maiming. Have intercourse in your fertile phase if you want to become pregnancy. Have intercourse in your infertile phases, if you don't.
Realistically, MOST married sex happens at naturally infertile times. Normally, there's only one week a month (average) when a woman is fertile. If you add up:
You've got known, foreseen, infertile sex most of the time, just because of the periodic nature for fertility. Rough calculation: a woman of 70 who's been married 50 years and had 3 kids,
That's respecting your natural design.
You could call it "embracing your fertility."
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By golly it does! What a novel idea.
That's what campaigning for a pro-life candidate or ballot item is all about. Political campaigns are the most intensive public forms of "convincing people" currently in play in the United States. That's why we do it.
***********************
It's not easy, but pro-lifers are a persistent bunch.
Excellent post, Mrs. Don-o, and not just the above, but all of it. With you and wagglebee here on Free Republic, I have learned so much about this issue and many others. Thank you!
Excellent post.
Actually, there is no common ground. There is no half dead and half alive. A person is dead or they are alive.
Cut and dried.
The whole female population will be chemically spayed while you're still pondering about whether it's politically correct to talk about contraception in public.
Then the inevitable result, a whole host of antibiotic-resistance sexual infection including cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea, and it'll be curtains for what was once America. Infection, sterility, collapse of birthrate, self-extinction.
As the Muslims say, smiling: Inshallah.
“I want women to have access to healthcare that doesn’t include the use of contraception and abortion.”
So women don’t have access to healthcare that doesn’t include contraception and abortion? Really? Then what’s up with all the prenatal care and Obstetricians and all? I mean, Hospitals have maternity wards and everything.
Reading her statement the way you interpret it doesn’t make any sense.
So then tell me. Abby and Lifesite believe in using contraception or not? Based on what Mrs. Don-o tells me I would say no. Anything other than Rhythm anyway.
I ask because when the pro-choice people say the Anti-abortionists want to “take away your contraception” I thought they were just making it up as a way to scare women.
It's like a guy writing about modern communication and talking about getting the best deals on typewriter ribbons.
As a legislative GOAL? No, Abby Johnson and LifeSiteNews are not about banning contraception. But that's not even relevant to the present discussion. Our position is urgently defensive, because the real push is coming from the other side: to universalize contraception, run it right down to the middle-school girls along with the Gardasil, and require Louis Foxwell, yourself, and me to surrender our daughters and our dollars to get it done, in mandatory fashion, at the point of a gun.
That's the real-time, politically relevant, contraceptive issue. That's what "mandatory" is ultimately all about.
Excellent.
Not Rhythm huh? Well what would you call it then? I got a great explanation up thread and it still works exactly how I remembered. Huh...
So the Government is going to mandate contraception?
Well, I’m against it. O.K.?
Really?
Do you know how to google?
There is only one reason. They want to kill babies. We don't agree.
There is no way to meet in the middle.
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