You can’t manage your work life if you can’t talk about it
Recently I ran the following twitter:
“I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.”
Why the uproar over this twitter?
Not only have bloggers written whole posts about the disgustingness of it, but 70 people unfollowed me, and people actually came to my blog and wrote complaints about the twitter on random, unrelated posts.
So, to all of you who think the twitter was outrageous, think about this:
Most miscarriages happen at work. Twenty-five percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Seventy-five percent of women who are of child-bearing age are working. Most miscarriages run their course over weeks. Even if you are someone who wanted the baby and are devastated by the loss, you’re not going to sit in bed for weeks. You are going to pick up your life and get back to it, which includes going back to work.
This means that there are thousands of miscarriages in progress, at work, on any given day. That we don’t acknowledge this is absurd. That it is such a common occurrence and no one thinks it’s okay to talk about is terrible for women.
Throughout history, the way women have gained control of the female experience is to talk about what is happening, and what it’s like. We see that women’s lives are more enjoyable, more full, and women are more able to summon resilience when women talk openly about their lives.
To all of you who said a miscarriage is gross: Are you unaware that the same blood you expel from a miscarriage is what you expel during menstruation? Are you aware that many people are having sex during menstruation and getting it on the sheets? Are you aware that many women actually like period sex? Wait. Here is a link I love, at askmen.com, telling men that women like it so much that men need to be aware of this preference.
To all of you who are aghast that I let myself get pregnant: having sex is playing with odds. There are no 100% sure methods of birth control. I am 42 years old. The likelihood of someone my age getting pregnant even with fertility treatment is less than 5%. The likelihood that a pregnancy in someone my age ends in a miscarriage is almost 75%. This means that even if I had done nothing for birth control it would have been as effective as a 25-year-old using a condom. So everyone who is complaining that I’m an idiot for getting pregnant should go buy a calculator.
To all of you who said I should not be happy about having a miscarriage: You are the ones short on empathy. Any woman who is pregnant but wishes she weren’t would of course be grateful when she has a miscarriage. Yes, there are many women who want the baby and have a miscarriage. I was one of them. I cried for days. I get it.
But if you have ever had an abortion, which I have, you would know that a miscarriage is preferable to an abortion. Even the Pope would agree with that.
And what is up with the fact that just one, single person commented about how Wisconsin has a three-week waiting period for abortions? It is absolutely outrageous how difficult it was going to be for me to get an abortion, and it’s outrageous that no one is outraged.
Wisconsin is one of twelve states that have 24-hour waiting periods. This puts a huge burden on an overworked system. These are also the states where there are few ways to get an abortion. For example, in Wisconsin, the only place to get abortion that is covered by insurance is at a Planned Parenthood clinic. There are 3 of them in all of Wisconsin. In Chicago, you can get an abortion at Planned Parenthood with less than 24 hours notice. In Wisconsin, there is a week and a half wait to get the first meeting and a week and half wait to get the abortion.
A digression: I’m linking to Planned Parenthood so everyone can make a donation. This organization is enabling women to have the right to abortion. Planned Parenthood seems to be the only effective, community-level force against states that are attempting to legislate the choice into oblivion.
To all of you who think this has nothing to do with work:
I think what really upsets people is the topic. We are not used to talking about the female experience, and especially not in the context of work. But so what? We can start now. The female experience is part of work. What we talk about when we talk about work defines how we integrate work into our lives. If work is going to support our lives, then we need to talk about how our lives interact with work. We need to be honest about the interaction if we hope to be honest about our work.
Again, Penelope, the issue is not your right to an abortion, or even to talk about a miscarriage.
Long before blogs and Twitter, women did this. Women have written many articles detailing the very complex feelings and emotions attached to both of those highly personal situations.
But you, as always, miss the point of some of the comments and criticisms. (And your defensive posture about all this only reinforces it.)
You seem to think that just because something happens to YOU, it needs to be shared. Your cavalier manner and your choice of Twitter seem to be the issue, not a possible abortion or the miscarriage. I’m pro-choice, but I’m appalled by your seeming callousness. (Those tears you cried? Sounds like relief to me, not regret or sadness. But then it’s hard to feel sympathy for you at times because well, I think you lie and exaggerate to get sympathy.)
I’ve had two close friends who had miscarriages while at work. Believe me, the last thing they ever wanted was for this to happen anywhere, let alone the workplace. Privacy is critical for most people (unlike you, who literally thrives on public revelation and who clearly needs to get a response, one way or the other to “validate” your existence and experience. Pretty sad, IMHO.)
Of course, they actually wanted those children.
You seem to want it all: A pat on the back for being “open” and sharing this experience. A pat on the back for “poor penelope had a miscarriage” and a pat on the back for being honest in that you wanted an abortion. A pat on the back for spouting some stats, that may or may not be accurate, to justify your personal belief that we can’t manage our work life if we can’t talk about it.
Sorry, P. You can’t have it all. It’s not all about you.
By the way, people do manage their lives including work, by talking about it. With friends, with family members, possibly with some coworkers. In private. And if they choose to write about it, it’s more than a sound byte or a tweet.
Your behavior, cavalier and callous and seemingly irresponsible, is the reason so many women who have thoughtfully led their lives and made reproductive choices end up being the objects of derision and ridicule by so many pro-lifers.
We remain pro life and pro choice. They are NOT mutually exclusive.
Grow up and take some responsibility for your choices and stop looking for validation elsewhere. You wouldn’t need it if you were actually secure in your own choices.
You need help and as long as you blog and have all these folks backing you up, and even those who are quite inappropriate in how they criticize, you’ll continue to justify your poor choices in life and work and compromise others and yourself by your inability to NOT discuss everything that happens to you with the excuse that it MUST be done.
You need the help of professionals. Sad that you don’t see that and don’t get it. Sad for those in your life, who I hope are helping you see how much you need help.
I am always amazed at the ignorance of people. This is Penelope’s life, no one else’s. And the amount of MEN that leave comments about this situation! Have any of you men ever been pregnant??? Hell NO! So in my opinion, your opinion means nothing! When you can get pregnant, then I will listen to your opinion. Get off your high horses and leave women alone that make these decisions. You don’t have a clue what you are talking about!!
I don’t understand why some people are using this forum to attack each other. PT wrote about her experience, and others should be allowed to write about their experiences. Sharing of experiences is what helps us to learn and grow from each other. I was upset about what I saw and heard on CNN because some of the statements made about what a miscarriage is like are not medically accurate and give a false impression of what some women experience. My husband is a physician, and I have a graduate degree. We are educated people and do not judge PT or anyone else for that matter. If we can learn from each other, then this discussion is worthwhile. I know multiple people (myself included) who have had multiple miscarriages, and we had varied experiences. Some have been very painful and required medical intervention, others have been similar to what PT described on CNN. If PT is going to share her experience with the world, she can share it. She just needs to also make it clear that this is her experience, and others may have a different experience. If we are going to discuss this and learn from each other, let's discuss it and not use this forum to insult people you don't know.
I would never wish any harm on any person, and I prayed for PT's physical and emotional healing. I simply wanted her to understand that some of the things she said were hurtful to other women.
Women, let's continue to learn from each other to grow as people. Let's lift each other up in times of struggle instead of beating each other down. God bless you all.
Unfortunately your tweet will give the Right-Lifers something to blast away at Abortion rights in this country. That in itself shows your ignorance. Pro-Life organizations will have to work tirelessly to undo the damage that you have done. I personally just donated money to Planned Parenthood in a effort to help them legally fight off the Right. And as of today will continue to donate money monthly to help make abortion more easily obtainable so that women can terminate as early into their pregnancies as possible.
I support you and Planned Parenthood 100%! I have never had a miscarriage or an abortion, but it is my body and my choice as to what I do and especially how I feel. Thanks for your story and your honesty!
Your blogs are crazy fodder – you talk about being Jew and eating pork and dating a pig farmer. You talk about multiple men in the span of 6 months…”maybe boyfriends”. Obviously you sleep around. Your references to the synogogue and making atonement – you treat religion as a joke. What do you take seriously, Penelope?
I wholeheartedly agree with Tracy’s comment.
I worked for NARAL once upon a time and donate to them and Planned Parenthood annually. Thank you for talking about this topic!
You just gained one Twitter follower! :)
Srsly, Folks, How many of you have come out of the woodwork just to paint Penelope with your morality? Does it make you feel good? Is there any frakkin’ way in your life that you could possibly keep your judgments to yourself? Can you even possibly consider, for a moment, thinking to yourself, “well, I don’t get it, but that’s her..” and just keep your negativity to yourself? Didn’t your mama teach you that if you couldn’t say anything useful or kind, to keep yer gob shut?
And for all of your 3rd graders out there who immediately jump to protesting because she started it… is there a law that says you have to respond?
Truly, if you don’t get it, there are other blogs you can wax poetic all day long about how every life is sacred, every sperm and egg a potential baby, the proper number of sex partners per your view, what constitutes murder, etc.
Mentioned upblog, but completely ignored, was a Guttmacher institute study which shows the overwhelming majority of abortions performed (77%) are on women of FAITH. Why don’t you go focus on saving their souls with your judgmentalism? Like that ever worked.
Catherine – don’t you think they are – Penelope is a woman of faith, or do you think there’s only Christians?
@Sara – sounds like some of the commenters don’t believe PT is a woman of faith. According to them.
To Previous Poster Lizz:
Regardless of your satisfaction with your own life choices, and/or your opposition to the pro-life movement, you have just made yourself out to look like an idiot.
Yes, there are crazy pro-life people out there that think bombing abortion clinics are okay… I am not talking about them here… but you say that pro-lifer’s are the “scum of the earth”! Let me ask you this… If I as a mother, ran into the street, to save my 2 year old from being hit by a car, does that make me the “scum of the earth?” It’s important for pro-choicers to understand that pro-lifer’s are the way they are because they ACTUALLY BELIEVE that they are MURDERING if they have an abortion. So, please re-think your definition of “Scum of the earth”… because honestly doing what you can, peacefully, to save children from being murdered, because that is what you believe to be happening – is NOT scummy.
Haven’t you ever heard of the genocide committers in Darfur, or the Chinese government who tortures those who practice certain religions, or people who have sex with babies, or people who burn kittens alive? Those are the people I would consider “Scum of the Earth”
The problem with this logic is that you equate pro-choice with murder and believe that pulling your child away from a speeding car is the same as saving an unborn child. This makes everyone who is pro-choice a murderer and it’s hard to build a bridge when you are calling the other person a murderer of babies.
The second problem with this logic is that it is too narrow. If abortion is like pushing your kid in front of a truck, then why aren’t you throwing yourself in front of every abortion doctor everywhere? Because it’s legal? Man, if I saw someone killing babies, I really wouldn’t think about the legality of it.
Finally, if abortion is really murder, then what do you do with women who have abortions? According to your logic, these women are guilty of pre-meditated murder (murder one) – of a baby. Should these woman be killed too?
What about pregnancies due to rape or incest? Should a woman be forced to carry the baby to full term in these situations? “I’m sorry you were raped by a biker gang, but you will have to carry the baby full term.” or “your baby will have birth defects that will mean a short and very painful life – and lots and lots of expensive medical bills, by you have NO CHOICE in the matter because, well, if you kill the baby then it is murder one and we will have to kill you.”
Lady, learn to use a condom. Abortions are not birth control. As an educated woman, you should know that. Have your freakin tubes tied if you don’t want kids. Please stop getting pregnant and killing your babies because you’re too busy to raise them. Abortions should be reserved for emergent situation: if you cannot afford a baby, a baby conceived by rape or incest, if you have too many children already. You obviously are not wanting to be a mother, so create a permanent solution to your little problem.
For Catherine and all of you who have suggested that if we did not agree with PT we should go somewhere else and not comment.
This is typical for liberals, if we disagree with a liberal notion, then we are called names, talked to rudely or told to go away and keep quiet, in other words we don’t have 1st Amendment rights.
Penelope has a right to say anything that she wants, and since she has a comments section, we have the right to say anything that we want to. I have limited my comments to respectful disagreement without name calling or putting anyone down for their opinion. That is called civilized discourse. You people who shout people down, insult them and tell them to shut and call names reflect upon your selves and your lack of maturity, not the people that you insult.
For those people who disagree with PT there have been too many of you who have also expressed your opinion in a hateful and disrespectful manner.
People try to act like mature adults and have civil discourse that is a positive contribution to the discussion.
So how far are the Pro-Life parameters? Laudably we see that some pro-lifers also walk their talk and decry the death penalty.. but how many are anti-war?
Anyone here flipping PT shite about abortion, or for welcoming the miscarriage, please stand up and announce they are also anti-death penalty and anti-war. Cuz unless you do, you’re simply hypocrites.
BTW, BRAVO to those pro-lifers who also are anti-death penalty and anti-war. You are walking your talk, more good on you. We may not agree on abortion (I don’t believe it’s a life – you do), but I admire your consistency and respect you for it.
To Catherine RE Death Penalty——
I can understand why one might think that the term “Pro-life” actually means PRO-Life and group abortion, the death penalty, and war all into the same handbasket. However, speaking as a former “Pro-choicer” turned “Anti-Abortioner” I’d like to offer some insight to the “Pro-life/War-Supporter/Death Penalty-Supporter” point of view:
1) I am Pro-life because I believe that there is a creator of the universe, namely God, who creates humans. Because (this is just one of many of my reasons) conception is really a “miracle” (can not be reproduced in a lab with something other than a sperm and egg), and the fetus quickly resembles and grows into a human in one way or another (heartbeat, physique, etc…), and humans were made in the image of God, I believe it is immoral to “kill” an “innocent” human, due to issues of convenience.
2) I am NOT pro-war. However, I believe that it is morally just to defend ourselves, and to act a peacekeepers. I believe that in certain situations of gross injustice and immorality, anyone who recognizes the injustice and immorality has a duty to protect the innocent (i.e. Darfur), and if this leads to war with the offending party, so be it. I do not believe in attacking innocent civilians, nor do I believe in torture. I speak of the experience of having been a part of the U.S. military during the “wars” in Iraq & Afghanistan.
3) I believe that a person who is found guilty of very heinous crimes, such as premeditated murder, rape of a child, torture, etc.. should be put to death because they have proven that they no longer value life and have purposely offended fellow humans to the highest degree on a moral level. HOWEVER, and that is a BIG however, as long as there is ANY chance that the person did not commit the crime, the death penalty should not be an option. I believe this because I have seen the movie “The Life of David Gale”. I won’t give a synopsis here because it would be a spoiler for those who have not seen the movie – but in a nutshell – the movie gives an excellent example in vivid detail of why the death penalty and the laws that allow it should be carefully reviewed.
In a nutshell, [I believe] babies are a gift from God and our bodies really aren’t our own if we have faith in that God, War is sometimes necessary, and the death penalty leaves too much room for error.
Thanks for reading my opinon, and I encourage everyone to continue the postings, WITH COURTESY and reason.
Reading your comments is exhausting, but I thought I would let you know that I am grateful for your openness regarding reproductive issues and rights. I think it’s strange that people are angry with you for not being more upset because it belittles other womens’ experiences; isn’t that exactly what people are doing to you? Belittling your experiences, of relief at the miscarriage and anger at the wait time to get an abortion? We don’t all have to feel the same for our feelings to be valid.
I hope you’re doing well, Penelope, and that you recover quickly.
I think you are very courageous to address these issues.
Well said, p.
I made a donation to Planned Parenthood
Penelope, I think some of your biggest contributions to the world may wind up being the discussions you’ve started, and the taboo topics you have blown wide open, particularly regarding women’s work lives and sexuality. I thank you for being braver and more honest than most of us (I’d never tweet that same thing for fear of how people would respond). I’m sorry you had to go through a miscarriage at work, and I think the three-week wait thing is appalling. I am a woman who can’t get pregnant and desperately wants to–as you can imagine, talking about infertility at work (even when it’s all you can think about) is welcomed as much as talking about miscarriage.
Annette,
As a biology professor I need to correct you. The sperm in the condom and the egg being shed in a women’s monthly menstruation are completely different than the fertilized egg. The egg and sperm have 23 chromosomes, they are not human in and of themseleves. However, once fertilization occurs, there are 46 chromosomes, a new life has been created. It is no longer a potential life, it is a human life. That is the biology. End of story.
Wow, I’m so sorry I read this. Maybe it’s good that you miscarried so that you wouldn’t have to murder another innocent child. Oh, there is 100% effective birth control; it’s called Abstinence.
Your bravery constantly amazes me. I greatly appreciate and value your blog post, to provide further context to the Tweet. You are *absolutely* correct about the need for these things to be discussed and shared; too many women go through major events thinking they’re alone or it’s not okay to raise the topic, when what they really need is to feel their family’s and friends’ support and non-judgmental love. What is kept hidden is made to seem shameful.
Without the context of the blog, though, the Tweet probably reads pretty glibly to many, regardless of their view on a woman’s right to choose.
My warmest and sincerest condolences on your loss. Keep keeping it real.
I really appreciate your honesty and transparency. Kudos and keep up the good work. I think one of the biggest problems with our society is that we spend so much of the time pussy-footing around what we want to say, pretneding we are someone else, covering up our real thoughts, opinions and emotions and generally being dishonest and fake. I have enjjoyed reading your post although I am anot GenY (I’m almost 39) and find your voice a breath of fresh air. So, thank you!
You are lost. I don’t know how you can find yourself in this life. Keep trying.
Penelope, we’re all different and aspire to different things. That’s why it’s great to live in America. I have a very successful career, but I’m also a wife and mom, which is my priority. The thing that I think upsets people is not that you had a miscarriagge at work, it’s that you tweeted about it as though it was no big deal. You didn’t remove yourself from your board meeting, you just sat there and tweeted about it while your son or daughter died. That’s what is so appalling to people. And you were glad. I understand that there was a time in your life when you wanted children, but like the other times you had an abortion, now you don’t. What I get from all of this is really sad. You can love money, but it will never make you happy. I hope you also understand that you can love your job as much as you can, but it will never love you back. Never. At the end, when you have to retire, it won’t be there for you. You won’t be able to talk to it on the phone, it won’t call to see how you are doing. It will never love you back….and this is coming from someone that has earned big money at a successful career.
I will begin by saying that I am not against abortion, I do believe that more women should talk openly about miscarriage so others will not feel so alone, and I believe that many women only have people at work to talk to. That is where my understanding in this ends though.
This is not a matter of someone going through an emotional time needing sympathy. Do not quote stats, I read the article in the Madison paper and saw that you already had two abortions so you obviously knew you got pregnant easily. You are obviously an intelligent woman so you should have been able to figure out how to prevent pregnancy by now. The article also stated that you added more to the tweet because you felt just having a miscarriage was not interesting enough.
If you wanted attention by posting it, then congrats. You got it! If you wanted people to feel bad for you, congrats again. I do feel sorry for you. I am sorry that something horrible must have happened in your life for you to not see that this was not normal and stable behavior. If what you really wanted was to make people think that a wait time for an abortion was a bad thing, I am sorry but you did the opposite. You made it painfully clear why there should be a wait period in case people are unstable.
This must be a lonely time for you. I hope you have people to talk to.
I doubt that you will understand this now but killing two of your children will have a much greater impact on the world (and on you) than your career ever will.
Please have your tubes tied.
No one has the right to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do with her own body.
I need full control over my own reproductive health.
TRUST WOMEN
I don’t care what she does with her own body. It’s the body of her children which she intended to pay a doctor to kill that I’m concerned about, considering this woman’s life will go on regardless and the baby’s life IS BEING ENDED FOR. EVER.
You do have full control over your own reproductive health. Only problem is, once you’re pregnant, you’ve already managed to reproduce, so killing your kid isn’t covered in that “reproductive health” mantle, sorry.
I trust women. I trust myself, and I’m a woman. However, I find it nearly impossible to trust a mother who would pay to have her child killed. Just something about people who can hire a hitman to kill their kid that doesn’t sit right with me.
I am SHOCKED at your twitter…I am 42 years old and the mother of 3. The way your casually make this post is shocking! Have you no respect for the life of the child you were caring? Yes, a child! A child which was growing inside you and wanting to be born. You had a miscarriage and that is sad in itself….but i am glad this child is now with God and not being craddled in your arms as you were undeserving. We as a society no longer value life….what a tragedy.
Ummm okay I understand that abortion is a painful experience and so is miscarriage… Its not disgusting it is what happens… you can talk about it in the work place okay whatever… But it’s not the fact that you were going to abort it or miscarriage it… It was the way you worded it, be careful what you say, and when you had the interview for CNN you didn’t say whether you wanted the child or not, did you even care that you were carrying a child at all. It seems to me that you cared more about the trip to chicago you would have to make.
“I understand that abortion is a painful experience…”
yeah…for the baby you’re having killed and scraped out of you.
“But it’s not the fact that you were going to abort it…”
No, I’m pretty sure that’s it. See, for some reason, everyone hates abortion and basically thinks it’s wrong, but that it’s a necessary evil (it’s not). So, when a woman gets one (or in this case, starts the proceedings but ends up having it done for her by her own incompetent body which was probably made that way by two previous child-killings), she is supposed to AT LEAST ACT AS THOUGH it has impacted her in some way, since normal people tend to feel this way when it comes to the death of another human. Funny how everyone gets all up-in-arms once the pretenses are dropped…
Penelope,
As a young 20-something who this happened to (at work!) a few months ago, thank you for talking about it. It wasn’t until I started talking to other women that I discovered it’s far more common than I’d realised.
And, like you, I was grateful – it just wasn’t the right time.
Tina
Hi, I’ve had three miscarriages. One of which did occur at work. And unfortunately I had to carry on as if nothing were happening at all. It was tramatizing. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a woman who gets pregnant and doesn’t want the child being happy that she had a miscarriage. Miscarriages are most of the time an act of nature. I do have a problem with women who have unprotected sex, get pregnant and have an abortion. That is irresponsible.
Hi, I’ve had three miscarriages. One of which did occur at work. And unfortunately I had to carry on as if nothing were happening at all. It was tramatizing. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a woman who gets pregnant and doesn’t want the child being happy that she had a miscarriage. Miscarriages are most of the time an act of nature. I do have a problem with women who have unprotected sex, get pregnant and have an abortion. That is irresponsible.
While I did feel a little shiver reading your tweet, I agreed with most everything in your post, and I want to say Bravo for your brazen honesty.
As much as we “women” value honesty in all relationships, there are times when too much honesty can cause its own set of problems. Now I’m not advocating deliberately withholding information in your relationship, but depending on the timing and circumstance there are times when “complete” honesty may be overrated.
For example, Don’t Ask and Your Partner Won’t Have to Tell- There are certain “loaded questions” women should never ask in your relationship unless you are a glutton for punishment. Questions that fall into this category are ones like: “Am I prettier than your ex-girlfriend?” “Do you love me more than you loved her?” and the infamous “Does this make me look fat?” All these questions have only one “right answer” and even then, your partner will need to carefully craft an answer to avoid saying the wrong thing. Unless you are trying to deliberately assess your partner’s ability to tap dance around delicate issues, no good can come from asking these questions.
Okay men, be 100% open and 100% honest! Tell your wife she is “no longer prettier” than your ex-girlfriend, you “loved the ex-girlfriend more” than you have ever loved her, and “yes” she is too fat!
Send all your co-workers, during next board meeting the “honest” text message, “My Wife’s Too Fat to Turn Me On!” Be sure and include your wife and her friends from the bridge-club on the text!
If she over reacts to your text, be calm and review with her your “honesty, logic and reasoning”. As clear evidence, remind her she was a size Zero, and now is wears a size made for elephants! Suggest a vacation together after she completes the upcoming years of liposuction. She will understand your logic.
Yeah 100% Honesty! Yeah Brazen Honesty! Yeah Brutal Honesty!
Yes, I am “Brazen” with a size zero to back it up!
mary, thanks for posting your IQ! It makes your rant make more sense.
“Yes, I am “Brazen” with a size zero to back it up!”
What does that even mean?
It means “I don’t have a response to the valid questions you posted so I will question your intelligence instead.” Dee, perhaps you should use an etch-a-sketch instead of a computer, I think it will give you answers that you will “like” better than those based in reality.
Careful reader Will,
The above commenter, based on her use of quote marks, was clearly refering to the original commenter when she asked, “what does this even mean”. And her confusion is mirrored in my brief one-liner.
To clarify, since you lack a sense of satire, I think that Mary’s “size zero” rant did not actually make any sense. The points in the argument that kind of made sense were not parallel, and so did not make sense as an argument. But much of her writing was actually unintelligible- you understood what side of the debate she was on based on her tone, but her words almost seemed to be written by someone whose first language is not English and has trouble finding the English words to reflect a particular concept.
But I was feeling like satire at the time, so I just summed all of that up by asking Mary, in a one-liner, to think about how unintelligent her argument came across- maybe this will inspire her to try again.
There are some good points in this post – why does it take three weeks to have an abortion in Wisconsin? – and some idiocy. This lady has had two abortions already and was set to have a third? What is she, Russian (a country where, like in much of the former ‘Eastern Bloc’, abortion has been a form of birth control)?
In general, I would agree with one of her main points – that something like miscarriage should be more out in the open, and women who feel the need to talk about it should not feel somehow shamed. It isn’t and they can’t, as I have seen with my own wife and her miscarriage. But that aside, this lady needs to learn a thing or two during one of her visits to Planned Parenthood – for example, how to use a condom, the pill or an IUD. Three unplanned pregnancies – what is this, research for your blog?
Your Tweet to me seems rather blase. I agree that miscarriage happens too often to not talk about. Trust me I know, my one and only pregnancy (which was definitely wanted) ended in a miscarrage. I’m also pro-choice, women need to fight to keep that right or there will be a lot of women putting themselves in grave danger to terminate a pregnancy. I don’t discagree with your blog post, but your Tweet got me annoyed. Miscarriage and abortion should not be tossed around is if to say hang nail or canker sore. Both are serious and can have life threatening effects.
But, you are right, more people should discuss their experiences about miscarriage. It will help those who are going through it to understand that they are not alone
If you no longer wish to have children, may I suggest a tubal ligation?
I think people were just a little shocked at the cold/harsh/honest tone of the tweet. While I agree that a dialogue aimed at educating people about miscarriages is needed, some people may just have such strong emotions due to a past miscarriage which prevents them from seeing your side of the story.
On a related note….I am running a marathon to raise money for a organization that helps women who have had a pregnancy loss. Also, it is a way for me to heal after experiencing my own miscarriage earlier this year. Want to donate??? Anyone?
“And an unwanted child is quite a bit more than an “inconvenience”. It is a physical demand on your body, a demand of your time for many years, a demand on your finances, a demand on your emotions.
I think that killing people in unnecessary wars is immoral but I am forced to pay for it with my taxes. There are quite a few circumstances where killing is permitted by law, we don’t all agree with them but abortion is legal, if I have to accept war they should have to accept abortion.”
THIS.
You see, even if I’m against abortion, I have to recognize merit in being this consecuential. Not being apologetic that you’re willing to kill a human being, just because raising one demands responsability. Cold as it may be, it’s something that takes courage to stick to. Now excuse me while I smother my toddler for being just too darn loud at midnight.
I don’t know, the smother-your-toddler-for-midnight-noise comment shows that you went right back to the assumption that pro-choice arguments are rooted in issues of privileging personal convenience over life.
But this commenter went out of her way to illustrate that the issue is far from a matter of mere convenience. Reflect on that.
Really —
the street goes two ways people. If you think she’s callous — DON’T READ HER BLOG!
Penelope, you a brave and were faced with a difficult situation. We should not assume that you did not mourn the “life” that was potentially lost. It’s not like you went and made the decision to have an abortion on a whim. No one can say what you feel but YOU.
If this woman doesn’t want children, why has she been pregnant 3 (that we know of) times? Use a fucking condom and don’t put us through your b.s. Her blog is so ridiculous it almost sounds fake….
I don’t believe in sin, I’m an atheist. However, I do believe there are such things in this world as absolute wrong and absolute right, and I’d have to say that paying a doctor to kill one’s child is most definitely an absolute wrong. What exactly is so great about the children you allowed to live that kept you from killing them as you did the ones you “terminated” through abortion? Why should such arbitrary lines which separate “it’s ok to kill THIS one of your offspring, but not the others who are only slightly older” be allowed to be drawn?
YOUR body and YOUR circumstances have nothing to do with the innate humanity of the life all women carry inside them when pregnant. And don’t tell me “you can’t ever possibly hope to understand a pregnant woman in a bad situation!” because I’ve been a pregnant woman in a bad situation: single, pregnant, with people who would kick me out of the only place I had to call home if they found out I was pregnant, and a boyfriend pressuring me to kill our child. Oh well. THOSE circumstances had and have no effect whatsoever on the FACT that my daughter was and is another human being who had and has every right to live (under good circumstances and bad) just as I do.
very well said!
Choosing Abortion Because a Baby Is “Inconvenient”
Something to think about the next time you hear someone say that women who seek abortions are selfishly taking life in order to avoid an inconvenience
But what of the concern for, as a ninth grader expressed it, “someone who is often forgotten, the little life who doesn’t even have a chance to live.”
No one, neither the patient receiving an abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at anytime, unaware that they are ending a life. We just don’t believe that a developing embryo or fetus, whose mother cannot or will not accept it, has the same moral claims on us, claims to autonomy and justice, that an adolescent or adult woman has. I have never seen an abortion decision entered into lightly by anyone involved. The decision to have an abortion is most often made in the time of the first great personal moral crisis that ever faces a girl, a woman, her family and the people who love them. It is only those who stand outside and condemn the women and families who are faced with these dilemmas who take lightly the decisions made in these straits and trivialize the circumstances in which they are made.
Moral dilemmas are always about difficult problems. Decisions between right and wrong are not moral dilemmas; decisions between right and wrong should be no-brainers and should never be difficult.
It is in deciding between what we consider morally near-equal alternatives that we are forced to make agonizing appraisals. The decision between competing evils or competing goods – these are the judgments that may burn in your mind and live forever in your memory, that fry your soul. And it matters not whether one believes elective abortion a good or an evil, for every abortion decision is made between self-perceived competing goods or competing evils, not between obvious good and self-evident evil.
As a human, I know we have memories that live forever in our mind and souls. Do these memories help to create some of the issues?
Taking a life is taking a life no matter how philosophically u try to deny it… if u dont wish to take the risk of becoming pregnant dont create it, a baby dosent come by itself it´s a precious gift and even if u dont see it like that u are still responsable for ur accions like it or not… do u think it´s right to get rid of the outcoming of a moment of pleassure/lust/ignorance?? and whats even more important as humans is it up to us to decide who shall live or die?! think about that for a moment.
Annabel captures the thought process of pro abortion advocates. She and they believe that they are superior to the unborn baby, that the unborn baby should not have the same rights to life as the mother. Then by rights you have to do away with all manslaughter charges regarding unborn babies.
The very same arguments made about an unborn baby could equally be made about say Downs Syndrome babies. Why not kill an unwanted Down’s Syndrome baby? The arguments are the same.
I say again that whites believed that they were superior to blacks justifying the Dred Scott decision deciding that it was okay to kill blacks. Hitler thought the the German race was superior to the Jews and had them declared “untermensch” (sub-human) and fathers in old testament and New Testament times killed their own children until they were 13 because before that time that they did not have the same legal status as an adult.
You are still killing an innocent baby
JOhn,
The Dred Scott decision had nothing to do with killing blacks. It was about segregated schooling, and the court ruled AGAINST Dred Scott. It was decades later that segregation was finally outlawed.
Mr. John Wilder,
The quandary of civics, is that law and ethics don’t correspond 100 percent of the time.
In the final analysis, regardless of what the state decrees, the women has sovereignty over the unborn, like or not, as a matter of positioning. Extending the sovereignty of the state up her womb is quit difficult to achieve. And when the state does, it does it with a rather blunt instrument. The decision then becomes based upon something written by someone remote from the circumstances.
For better or worse, nature in its wisdom, endowed women with sovereignty over the unborn. That means coercive means to inhibit abortion are bound to be ‘inefficable’.
That leaves only persuasion as the only ‘efficable’ means to restrict the number of abortions. The nations with the lowest abortion rates are those with largely free and largely available abortion procedures: Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. They use preemptive policies against the root causes of abortion and persuasion.
That means the current debate is really about control, not about abortion per se.
Total elimination of abortion by statute won’t eliminate abortion, just move it to the black market for supply – the inherent problem that occurs with all supply side policies.
To reduce abortions to an absolute minimume it would be best to address its root causes in society and the economy then apply persuasion.
The old saying, if your only tool is a hammer, all problem look like a nail. That’s true for all those people who are steeped in authoritarian politics. But some times, in some situations a tweezers works better than a hammer. That’s ‘efficable’.
In the meantime we are able to respect the sovereignty of the women’s body and her choices regarding it.
The real slippery slope, the one authoritarians are angling for, is that we use abortion as a means to eliminate a persons individual sovereignty, and use that precedent as a means to attack liberalism (in the classic sense – call it libertarianisticism) tenents of democracy and freedom of thought.
Conservatives in the Catholic church regret the loss of power they used to have before democracy: the ability to confer legitimacy upon the heads of state. Democracy gave the job of determining legitimacy to the people. That leaves religious elites with no real coercive power, other than moral authority and persuasion. It they were satisfied with that, they would use that, and only that in their assault on abortion. But the real issue for them isn’t abortion, its liberalism, and abortion is just a convenient means to create their own slippery slope back to authoritarian ruling structures.
Christie
@Annabel above- very well stated points here.
I also want to add that part of the problem is continued view that a woman’s body is public domain and not her own. We claim to abhor evidence of this viewpoint when we see it in other countries, but many are blind to the fact that we still struggle with that issue here.
To illustrate how this point relates to the choice/life debate, consider this:
The government looks at a statistic about loss of life due to kidney failure, and concludes, “This is terrible. People should not be dying when there are so many other people walking around with two healthy kidneys, and they onnly need one. We need to establish a policy of testing every person’s kidney type and match characteristics at birth and link this information to their SSN. Then, when a hospital has a patient who cannot find a match or donor, we will obligate an American citizen to donate a kidney. Because we are not going to let one citizen die simply for the “convenience” of another citizen having two healthy kidneys.”
No one would agree to such a policy! We don’t ask people to sacrifice their own perfect health (mental or otherwise) to keep another person living. If one wants to make that sacrifice, that is wonderful and we accept it. But we do not demonize someone for saying, sorry, no, I am not willing to donate one of my kidneys even though I am a match.
And the reason we don’t do this is because we respect a person’s sovereign right to their own bodies. Abortion is NOT like smothering a toddler, because once a baby is viable outside the borrowed womb, then and only then does the baby claim sovereign rights to his/ her own body and life.
If we respected women’s rights over their own bodies, there would really be no debate about this issue.
Some good people view every sperm is sacred. Some good people reject this and believe that sacred life starts at the moment of conception. Some good people reject this and believe that when a fetus can live outside the body of the mother, even if it’s still inside the mother – that’s when life begins. Others believe that life starts with the first breath.
To muddy the waters, some believe masturbation and birth control are sins. Some, and I think I caught the whiff of this upblog, believe that women who miscarry, or spontaneously abort, are in fact murdering their fetuses because they are sinful or immoral. Is this fun to post on someone else’s blog?
Oh, and let’s not forget that a sin’s a sin, whether we find it in abortion, unmarried sex, working on Sundays, sassing your parents, or eating shellfish. For the atheists out there let’s substitute “sin” for immorality, just for argument. Why do some humans think public shame or peer-pressuring is the way to force compliance to their beliefs? Reminder: We don’t live in a Theocracy, nor do we have to bend to your personal control games.
I, for one, am a mother, a pro-choice advocate, and an atheist. I would never publicly judge her negatively (or you) for choosing to abort, for being glad for a miscarriage, or for carry it to term. That’s not my job. Is it yours? If I was shocked by her decision to the point of publicly insulting her, I would do myself a favor and find the door, because sticking around and judging her negatively for her legal decision or personal attitude would be akin to self-delusion that you control another’s life or attitudes, and poo-flinging after the fact.
It doesn’t matter what she does, or thinks, or believes in. You can’t control these things, only your own behavior. However, some people do love a good witch-burning or public stoning of a woman for being “immoral” or “shocking”, don’t they?
right on Catherine
Miscarriages happen. It’s probably good that women be more public with them. If Ms. Trunk wants to share details about her miscarriage, her desire for an abortion, or whatever else, that’s her choice. Maybe I wouldn’t do the same, but I don’t see the need to make a big thing about it. Maybe I just feel this way because every day I get bombarded with a whole lot of unsolicited religious propaganda in the form of email forwards and facebook posts from people I barely know. And so, Religious Folks, if I have to put up with you sharing about your ghost stories, then you have to tolerate the nice lady sharing about her miscarriage and hypothetical abortion. It’s only fair.