Abortion rights foes say they're "pro woman": Why?

Question

According to the article below, last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a national ban on so-called partial birth abortion has encouraged abortion rights opponents to shift tactics. The anti-abortion rights movement has escalated a campaign for state laws that require women to be offered ultrasounds or information on fetal development, The New York Times reported. "We think of ourselves as very pro-woman," Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, told the Times. "We believe that when you help the woman, you help the baby." Pro-choice groups say they'd like a woman and her medical doctor to make health decisions, instead of legislators. http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20070522-17171900-bc-us-abortion.xml

Why do you think anti-choice groups think they're "pro-woman"?

Yes, pregnancy "resource" centers do provide information: inaccurate, biased, gross exaggerations of abortion risks; outright lies about the "risk" of breast cancer after an abortion (which is untrue according to the National Cancer Institute); lies that abortion leads to infertility, miscarriages, and pregnancy complications (all untrue, according to research evaluated by the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education); and lies that abortion results in PTSD (untrue, according to studies from the American Psychological Association). Here's an article titled "Investigators Catch Anti-Abortion Centers Lying to Women":
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3429

The "clinics" investigated are all federally funded by US taxpayers. We're paying for women to be lied to about the "risks" of abortion. I wonder if these "clinics" tell these women what the risks of pregnancy are?

Answer 1

I don't understand, either, but I'm sure they realize that lack of consideration for women's health is one of the reasons they're being attacked by the pro-choice camp and they're probably just revising their rhetorical strategy.

From what I've read, many anti-choice "pregnancy clinics" and religious "shelters" for pregnant women provide their patients with gross misinformation. (This is also one of my many problems with abstinence-only education: a report commissioned a few years ago by California Rep. Henry Waxman showed appalling inaccuracy in scientific information in these programs, which also resort to scare tactics and reinforcement of unequal gender roles.) A sociology professor at my university with whom I often chat had a pregnant graduate student go to several local religious pregnancy safe houses and pretend to be sort of uncertainly and unassuredly considering abortion. The health information (and information in general) she received from these places was total garbage, and she wrote her thesis on the poor state of these anti-abortion shelters in our area. So I suppose anti-choicers are pro-woman, as long as the women are misinformed women.

Answer 2

I don't know. The article was too brief and simplistic. The arguments have become too political. I agree that to a point it's a woman's medical decision but it's used too often as birth control in place of planning or adoption. Babies are people and it's time we start encouraging the other options. I'm not saying I'm against legal choice. I'm saying it's better to plan ahead and choose other options that take into consideration the lives of both the mother and child. I don't think either side does much of that.

Answer 3

Pro-lifers are pro-woman. Abortion and the abortion industry hurt women too. Abortionists might claim that they work to help women, but abortion clinic staff are looking for one thing: money. Greed is the reason that they sell the parts of the unborn children after pocketing the money from the mother. These clinics will say or do anything to convince a woman struggling with her decision to have an abortion. And they have no interest in making sure that their clients know their options. If an abortion is botched, the clinic has more interest in avoiding lawsuits and negative publicity than in caring for their bleeding patient.

Recently it's come to light that some clinics don't even try to stop statutory rape or incest. A young girl comes in with an older man, the clinic takes his money and performs the abortion, no questions are asked, and no phone calls are made to her parents or the authorities. Is this behavior really pro-woman? I think not. If you doubt this fact, just search YouTube for Planned Parenthood videos.

Not everyone, but many women, regret their decision to abort their children--that's why so many have joined the pro-life movement. These women have experienced the pain of abortion and are working to spare other women the pain that they themselves have known.

Thousands of pregnancy resource clinics help women by giving them pregnancy tests, food, diapers, money, counseling, health care referrals, even places to stay. Check out the resources available to pregnant women at NationalLifeCenter.com or 1-800--848-5683.

To recap, pro-lifers provide free resources to pregnant women. Abortion clinics staff act like used car salesmen selling abortions. They downplay the risks and typically show little interest in post-abortion counseling for those women who need it. I think it's clear that pro-lifers are much more concerned for women than the abortion industry.

Answer 4

It's called "informed consent." Medical ethics requires the treating physician to ensure, to the extent possible, that the patient or guardian understand all of the implications of the procedure, so that they make an informed medical decision.

From a medical ethics perspective, why would anyone want to prevent a patient from understanding what their medical procedure involved?

EDIT:

KA1227: To be clear, I am not arguing for or against the government requiring or prohibiting anything.

Discouraging women from understanding the facts of the procedure belies a *pro-abortion* position, not choice.

"Let's keep her in the dark. Whatever you do, don't let her have a sonogram. If she sees the baby, she might not go through with it."

Working to ensure that women remain ignorant is actively persuading them to have the abortion. And we wonder why there is so little regard for life.

EDIT:

KA1227

That quote was what those that object to women being given sonograms seem to be saying, to me. I should've used single quotes. Sorry. Got a little carried away there.

IMO to attempt to even discourage a woman (or any patient) from knowing any and all facts about a potential medical procedure is, wholly unethical and wrong.

I at times advise people on certain medical procedures. I *always* advise them to become experts on their particular medical condition and treatment options. I firmly believe that a person can become as expert in any one area as any doctor. This enables them to make astute choices that they will not later regret. So, my view is consistent with this.

Answer 5

The Supreme Court of The United States Of America has a history of changing it's mind every 40 or 50 years. Check Your calenders. Your Grand Children could be in luck..

Answer 6

Because a woman should not be forced into motherhood she does not want. She should not be force to carry a baby she never intended to have. It is pro woman to give her a choice whether or not to be a mother and care for a kid and person for the rest of her life.

Answer 7

They're not. They're just twisting words around to try to get around the fact that their criminalizing a woman's right to make choices about her own body. I don't see how being willing to throw women in prison for practicing their rights is in any way pro-woman. It's an inherent anti-woman platform.

Answer 8

I've always found that odd. If they were pro-woman, wouldn't they be fighting for universal prenatal care? Wouldn't they trust that women are smart enough to make their own decisions? The closet thing I can come up with is something I heard a fundamentalist Christian man say

"I think abortion is awfully sad. How could a man put someone he cares about into that position?"

Perhaps they see it as a sad consequence of our "love 'em and leave 'em" society, which, arguably, is somewhat anti-woman. Personally, I put "respecting other women's intelligence" higher than a sentimental need to protect them from unhappy events in life. If the world was such that no woman needed an abortion, sure we'd be better off. But that time has yet to come, and as far as I can tell, has never existed in the past, either.

EDIT Steve: Are you also in favor of telling the woman how much safer abortion is than childbirth? Or of telling her about the lifelong bouts of depression that sometimes occur in mothers choosing adoption instead?

Answer 9

Because of their genetic psychological traits. The anti-abortion
theocrats enjoy disrupting truth in their mind, and nothing disrupts
truth more than it's polar opposite. The sensation of disrupting truth
is a crude blind sensation. That desire can also be seen in the
facial expression and tone of voice of the theocrats.

Although I am entirely pro-choice, I support the idea of letting
women, or even forcing women, to look at the fetus via ultrasound,
just because more information is always better. If a woman doesn't
have the cool-headedness to go through with it, then that's her
problem.

The trait of disrupting truth is genetic. Therefore, pro-choice people
should make many offspring (PLANNED offspring), so as to spread
the genes of sanity.

By the way, did you know that the theocrats actually try to murder
women that have abortions, on a large scale? They do so by using
the power of suggestion. They state that abortion increases a
woman's risk of having a heart attack (which is untrue). However,
the power of suggestion CAN cause a heart attack. That is about
a million counts of felony attempted murder. Of course, the
theocrats desire to suppress that fact.

Answer 10

Anti-choicers (I refuse to say pro-lifers) think that abortion leads to unspeakable mental and physical trauma for women who get it. While there will understandably be some sadness, most women get better within a relatively brief amount of time. And, sure, some abortions are indeed botched. The way to avert this is to keep clinics for safe and legal abortion open.

However, this is pretty high-falutin' talk coming from people who largely favour the life of the fetus over the life of its mother. (Read: Angela Carder.)