What are your thoughts on this article?

[TheLittleLady]

Just saying, women would only be facing “unexpected” pregnancies if they engaged in fornication

Do you know that around 15 percent of abortions are procured by married women?

Can you point me to these orgs who provide housing, food, child care, medical care, all of the expenses faced? When your job denies paid time off for doctors visits and morning sickness, when they write you up three times then fire you, places that will cover your living expenses? Or when your parents, spouse, partner throw you out because you are pregnant?

 

[Jesuslover]

I acknowledge the fact that having a child is difficult and costly and can be a struggle, however there is never an excuse to abort a human life that was fashioned by God’s own hands and in His own image. And while no organization can totally cover all the expenses of having a child, there are organizations that provide some charitable financial support to struggling mothers, such as Let Them Live.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

the deviled eggs

Why not add in Angel Foods as well?

If only there was a support system that people could voluntarily enter into, that would allow people to work as a team, cut expenses in half from what they’d otherwise be if everyone was living solo, and increase their chances of life success…

I know you’re referring to marriage but what about arrangements like shared housing for single parents? I also found this. One of the resources is affordable housing for working families.

I understand you’re conservative (Conservative Republican), if you don’t mind me asking, how do you take in criticism that you don’t support whole life (people say you’re pro-birth or wonder how you could support Republicans who seem so bad, what would you to someone who gets affected by that, granted that person could do more and be better)? Same with you @JimG What would you say to people that has it get to them?

For example, Midori, I understand you live in Texas, I read this article about how bad the Foster Care System was and it seemed to show a story about a young woman who had a miserable experience in Foster Care (please pray for her) which ended up ruining her life and setting her up for a dark future. Isn’t it understandable to blame Republicans for that? What would you say to someone who sees Republicans as a major evil of society as over the top as it sounds like they’re the burden of the world (we could alleviate the struggles of poverty and work to end global poverty if it weren’t for those Republicans). Like Republicans are the problem?

Also I understand your husband works in CPS, with his and your knowledge, do you think CPS ought to change from Child Protective Services to Family Support Services or FSS instead? I heard they support families but also they can get hard on families like targeting low-income families (mistaking poverty for neglect or taking a hard handed approach like separating families for lack of supervision when the reality that mom couldn’t afford child care or enrolling families into (name removed by moderator)atient residential treatment though I guess that issue there is resources)? Instead of group homes, would it be better to create supportive housing for families and/or (name removed by moderator)atient residential treatment centers (with aftercare) for the whole family?

Speaking about group homes, why not instead create something like a residential community of foster or adoptive families like an apartment community or is the issue there cause (making a 1:1 ratio between houseparents and kids would be enormously expensive)?

 

[Jesuslover]

Isn’t it understandable to blame Republicans for that?

Why would you blame Republicans? The people who are at fault are the ones who fornicated and created the broken family situation in the first place. What can you expect as the effect of mortal sin, other than destitute poverty and suffering?

 

[midori]

Ah. The first thing should be, I come from a family that’s military on both sides, so I’ve had Personal Responsibility drummed into me for my entire life. If I make a mistake, the answer is to own up to it and accept the consequences, not try to pretend it never happened.

So if someone said, “Well, you’re just pro-birth, but you don’t care what happens to people after they’re born----!” the answer would be, “If someone’s brought life into the world, why shouldn’t they be responsible for caring for that life?” The life exists, and they have the obligation of being its #1 protector. Sure, there’s always going to be circumstances that don’t fit the usual stereotype— like, say, a woman with no family whose husband dies in a plane crash and she’s left behind with their five kids, or the pregnant woman who flees an abuser or the military widow left to raise a family as best she can— but with a third of all US children living with an unmarried parent, and with 5 million kids below the poverty line living with a single parent, I don’t think there’s been that many vehicular accidents.

Lots of people grow up in adversity of one sort or another. If you don’t, you’re very blessed. But if you do---- it would be silly to argue, “Well, your life is going to be too hard, so let’s just kill you so you never have to deal with it.” Who gets to make that decision, as to “your life is going to be hard, but manageable” vs “your circumstances are too much to overcome, so I’ll do you a favor”? My FB feed is full of friends who were recently chatting about how much they hated Thanksgiving/Christmas, because they grew up in difficult circumstances as a child. “I would wake up with all these strangers in my bed left over from my parents’ drunken/druggy parties” or “I was never good enough for my parents” and everything in between.

 

[midori]

I did a Google search to find out the name of an orphanage where someone in my circle of friends was raised. She was the offspring of a musician and a groupie, and was given up for adoption four days after she was born. It was some famous orphanage, where the kids were expensive to adopt, and she was talking about the paranoias of the man who raised her. Eventually, she grew up, moved on, and married someone in the theatre. My friend is a beautiful, talented musician/hatmaker/seamstress who moved off to the PNW. But the point is, she wasn’t defined by “I was raised by a Puritan zealot” or “I was abandoned by my mother” or “I never knew my father’s name”. She was a beautiful, talented, amazing person— and did, btw, manage to find both her bio-mom and her bio-dad.

I even found an article about her, which was interesting, because when she lived in Texas, her dad’s name was still a secret— I think she had recently found out, but she hadn’t been authorized to share it at that point. It was cool to read his perspectives, and the guilt he dealt with.

There’s a lot of armchair solutions that would work---- but human nature always gets in the way. Around here, meth and other drugs probably does more to destroy families than anything else I can think of. If people were clean, that would be one thing, but there are so many people whose families have been broken up by meth, more than “low education” or “low-paying jobs.” Poverty, you can deal with by giving people training and opportunity---- but with addiction, dependence upon the thing you’re addicted to is frequently far more powerful than love of your children.

So, yeah. I’d be quicker to blame drug addiction and a selfish lack of self-control and a disregard for how your choices affect others than I would be to blame Republicans.

 

[Dan_Defender]

73 percent of women who have had abortions indicated they did so because they couldn’t afford a baby.

But they could give the baby for adoption. Probably there are more childless couples wanting to adopt than there are abortions. St Teresa of Calcutta’s motto was ‘fight abortions with adoptions’.

 

[Jen95]

As another conservative, may I say that pro-life folks prioritize the not-killing of vulnerable people. The unborn, the disabled, the elderly.
How much the government subsidizes single motherhood is a policy decision – but non-killing comes first.
“That which the government subsidizes, it encourages”.

 

[midori]

Hanging out, doing a little reading and writing… police scanner comes on… someone’s son is overdosing on meth. Parents called it in.

Who does meth when their parents are at home?

There’s a woman who had been doing cocaine while pregnant, and her older children tested positive for it… she had no clue why. The father of the infant was in prison, and the fathers of the older children were in sundry and various other states.

Why is cocaine more important to her than her children’s health?

It’s easy to make sweeping generalizations about Society, but when you look at Individuals, it’s often pretty clear as to what needs to improve if they really wanted to fix their lives.

It’s important to protect the vulnerable. We recognize that we can’t live everyone’s lives for them, and we can’t magically turn everyone into the Cleaver family. But to at least get them to the point where they can be responsible for their own outcome, regardless of where they started… they deserve their chance at the life they’ve been given.

That’s just speaking through the human-being filter.

Looking at things through the Christian perspective— we know that one day we’ll be measured with our own measure; we know what we do to the least of his people, such we do to Jesus; charity covers a multitude of sins; and blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. We fail every day, even with our ordinary life choices… who needs something of that magnitude on their soul?

 

[blackforest]

The Guttmacher Institute is a arm of Planned Parenthood, and, to say the very least, unreliable on the subject of abortion.

It depends. When it comes to justifying the ethics of abortion or, above all, Planned Parenthood’s existence and funding, Guttmacher has an embedded conflict of interest in research and is therefore unreliable.

On matters of why women choose abortion, however, they have every incentive to get it right. For them, it’s marketing data. For us pro-lifers, it’s a laundry list of underlying problems that we need to help women solve.

 

[SusanneT]

The epidemic of married women having abortions is the result of the culture of contraception which leads all but ‘planned’ children to be regarded as a ‘mistake’ or a failure.

Married women should expect and be expected to become pregnant and be helped by all aspects of society to welcome children.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

be expected to become pregnant

Shouldn’t we be careful about phrasing it that like like we’re limiting women and when other people read this, they’ll think up the “barefoot and pregnant” I do agree on making more child and family friendly (pro child, pro family pro life) though.

Happy Thanksgiving, how was the food?

 

[TheLittleLady]

Do you realize that the vast majority of Christian denominations teach that abortion is an option that is between a woman and her doctor? I grew up in the largest megachurch in the area, we were taught that the fetus could be aborted up until the lungs were able to take in air.

Jewish tradition allows for abortion.

Secular folks may believe that the fetus is not a person so there is no human life to abort.

Be careful judging these women, they do not gleefully schedule to kill a child, they feel that ending the pregnancy is their only choice.

https://www.letthemlive.org/cause/crisis-pregnancy-fund/

As you see, they have provided temporary help for 20 women this year. Thing is, once the possibility of abortion is past, the funding goes away. These women still need support.

 

[annem]

On matters of why women choose abortion, however, they have every incentive to get it right. For them, it’s marketing data. For us pro-lifers, it’s a laundry list of underlying problems that we need to help women solve.

Beg your pardon, but I disagree. They WANT to promote the idea that it is poverty, just sad, sad poverty that drags women into abortion. There are few things that leftists want more than to promote the idea that poverty causes most problems, and therefore, if only the Socialist/leftists were given free reign, why, paradise would result, and everyone would be happy and well off.

Which is a contemptible lie.

At any rate, they also certainly want to promote the idea that poverty causes abortion to garner support for those who commit abortion. Saying, ‘This is a really inconvenient time for me’ just is not going to garner as much support.

As far as having to have an abortion because of poverty, I would like to point out the obvious: in almost every city in America there are places that take pregnant women in, and will train them in jobs, and support them in an apartment and with college experience for up to two years after the baby is born. So poverty as an issue - no.

 

[blackforest]

Beg your pardon, but I disagree. They WANT to promote the idea that it is poverty, just sad, sad poverty that drags women into abortion.

They survey women. If the women respond with poverty, that’s the response. If you think these women are misled into believing they can’t have babies, it’s certainly OK to assist them in finding financial solutions to unplanned pregnancies. But it’s ultimately the women you’re calling liars, not Planned Parenthood. And I’m not willing to go that far. They’re scared out of their minds, not just responding with some sinister Socialist Agenda.

Saying, ‘This is a really inconvenient time for me’ just is not going to garner as much support.

Have you done CPC work? “Inconvenient” is a nice word for masking vulnerability to something more severe, such as threatening financial situation or coercive boyfriend.

 

[Jen95]

Coercive boyfriend.
Have you ever heard priests, pastors, bishops etc say “hey, young ladies, don’t be intimate with your boyfriend outside marriage, or you’re putting yourself and your potential future children in jeopardy”.
I would LOVE to hear the USCCB send that message!!!

 

[TheLittleLady]

in almost every city in America there are places that take pregnant women in, and will train them in jobs, and support them in an apartment and with college experience for up to two years after the baby is born. So poverty as an issue - no.

WOW! To do this for millions of women, these orgs must do very little advertising.

Source for unintended pregnancy numbers Declines in Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, 2008-2011 - PubMed

Every day I work with women who are homeless and jobless because of pregnancy. Would you please link me to the webpage(s) where I can find a list of these places? I’ve been doing this work for 12 years and I can promise you, there is not such a program in my State, nor in neighboring states.

Thank you in advance for this resource!

 

[TheLittleLady]

You mean like this?

http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/love-and-sexuality/index.cfm

 

[JoeShlabotnik]

I think most issues in life are extremely complicated, but there are many who try to make them seem simple.
Just say no. Those in the throng of addiction have much trouble just saying no.
Women facing unexpected pregnancies. Have the baby, but you are on your own in trying to financially meet the needs of that child. There is a right to life. But also, a right to a good life. We must do more to help these women and their children.
Now before, I am attacked by those on this forum who want to chastise women for getting pregnant, please let me say that I seek a solution to help those women who face unexpected pregnancies a way to have the child and not to worry about how they will afford having the child. This is the best way to cut down on abortion.

 

[TryingtoGainFaith]

It was Satan who gives the illusion to woman to rule the family, (instead of being ruled by husband) that necessitate all the thoughts of affordable housing, living etc in their immature minds. Together as a (married) family all these can be done easily, and a loved/trusted husband would go to any extent to take care of his family. And with God’s grace it does work.