Posted on 02/01/2013 5:16:16 PM PST by Morgana
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 1, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Before abortion will ever come to an end, people must have a more accurate understanding of healthy sexuality, according to a leader in the pro-life movement.
“Instead of reminding people what they are doing when they have an abortion, we need to have have people think about what they are doing when they are having sex,” Helen Alvaré, a law professor at George Mason University, said as a featured panelist at the National Press Club during a symposium held by Americans United for Life last Thursday. Helen Alvaré. Helen Alvaré.
The pro-life movement is appropriately squeezing the “supply-side of abortion” through legislation focusing on ultrasounds and informed consent, as well as an expanding network of crisis pregnancy centers, said Alvare.
But what is being overlooked is “the demand-side of abortion” – the hook-up culture that often leads to unintended pregnancies too often aborted.
“Young women talking about what it's like out there in the market for sex, marriage, and mating will tell you they are not happy” with what Alvaré calls “the Unbearable Lightness of Sex.”
Planned Parenthood's murky view of sex – that it is a pitfall that can potentially lead to unwanted children whose existence will dash women's dreams forever – has distorted the procreative function and “taken all the fun out of sex.”
“We need to reconnect” physical intimacy with having children in people's minds, so they know that what they're doing "has meaning,” she said. “We need to reform our marriage laws as to entrance and exit – so we put marriage and children together.”
Statistics suggest solving marriage will, to a large extent, solve the abortion crisis. Some 85 percent of women who seek abortion are unmarried. Infidelity causes some married women to abort.
The present environment of strings-free sex benefits men, who feel no sense of responsibility toward the mother or child, and leaves isolated women alone to deal with single parenthood or the lingering guilt brought on through abortion, said Alvare.
“I think women would like to get married a little younger and have their children a little younger – so sue me,” she quipped.
A series of polls and a growing body of women's literature would back her up. Women are increasingly skittish about marrying late after a generation that is dealing with the reality of plunging fertility, which begins in the late 30s.
Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco recently found “that women did not have a clear understanding of the age at which fertility begins to decline," as they wrote after a recent poll, which they publicized in Human Reproduction.
Women in such liberal publications as Slate and The New Republic – both decidedly outside the pro-life camp – have noted the disappointment of women who learned too late the error of the feminist slogan, “you can have it all.”
Men, too, must man up to their responsibilities as fathers. “Of couse, we have to defeat the porn industry alongside that,” said Alvaré.
The daunting task of restoring a sense of healthy sexuality is all the more necessary because of the sexual revolution. There has been a massive increase in non-marital sex, illegitimacy, and abortions "since the widespread introduction of contraception, and there is no reason to believe this is going to end,” she said.
Such data convinced author Mary Eberstadt to write in her book Adam and Eve After the Pill that Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reiterated Catholic Church teaching against contraception, has been vindicated. In Humanae Vitae the pope had predicted an increase in abortions, as well as infidelity, the devaluing of women and a general lowering of moral standards, as a result of the embrace of contraception.
“If you were to ask which document of modern times was the most unwanted and reviled document it would have be Humanae Vitae,” Eberstadt told LifeSiteNews.com last year. “Yet this document contains more truth about the sexual revolution and the world it would usher in than any other document.”
While full conformity with the view of the Catholic Church on contraception is likely too far to go in one step, beginning a national discussion about the real meaning, and consequences, of sex plays an irreplaceable role in changing a culture that countenances a million abortions a year.
“This is a revolution I'm talking about, but a revolution is needed,” Alvaré said. “I think a lot of women are ready for it.”
I am not going to bother trying to decipher that person’s posts . The original and subsequent are too muddled, both logically and grammatically.
That's a classic liberal debating tactic: changing the subject. We were not discussing the efficacy of pro-life women, but their ethics. You said we would "sacrifice the baby" rather than give up a monopoly on evading parenthood, every time. I've tried to give you a chance to explain what you mean so that everyone on Free Republic doesn't draw the conclusion that you really believe that for political reasons we pro-life women are deliberately letting children die. So far you have failed to clarify this absolutely filthy accusation. Would you like to try again, with specific and clear examples?
I would also dispute that our efforts have had no effect. More and more Americans are coming to realize that abortion is wrong, that it kills a living person. But since you don't like the results of our efforts to write, speak, counsel, lobby, show sonograms, give hands-on help, and adopt, what would you propose? What are your no doubt wonderful solutions to the problem?
It's not changing the subject: it's demonstrating all these things you take such great pride in are for your own edification, not furthering the ostensible "cause."
We were not discussing the efficacy of pro-life women, but their ethics.
Oh really? How many years of unbroken failure does it take before one may safely deduce "another agenda?"
Oh sure, pro-life women would like abortion to go away, but only so long as "emotional soup-kitchens," are the only means. Binding themselves to a real sacrifice of their choices isn't even though of, let alone discussed.
I would also dispute that our efforts have had no effect.
You wanted to discuss liberal debate tactics? "No effect" is an absurd claim, and one I never made. So answer my charge, not what you wish I had charged.
Abortion is now buried on this culture like a tick. Saving a handful of babies through soup-kitchen tactics does nothing in the big picture but make the "savior" feel better about themselves.
More and more Americans are coming to realize that abortion is wrong, that it kills a living person.
And polls have shown those same people believe they should still have a right to abortion, anyway.
So much for changing hearts.....
What are your no doubt wonderful solutions to the problem?
Easy, fight fire with fire. Use the pro-choice argument against the pro-choice lobby.
Give the same "choice" to men.
These statements puzzle me too. Here’s my stab at deciphering them.
The first seems to accuse all women (whether pro-life, pro-choice, or undecided) of having a victim attitude. Since this discussion is on abortion, my guess is it is referring to the belief (which I would call a fact, but then I’m one of the accused) that only women go through labor/delivery, which can be painful, dangerous, & even fatal. So the solution would be for women to begin to believe that men can also go through labor/delivery, &/or that it is never painful, dangerous, or fatal.
The second seems to advocate men being able to force the mothers of their unborn children to have abortions if they do not want to be fathers. Men are already able to have vasectomy operations, so this was the only thing I could come up with.
Looking forward to being corrected because I am genuinely curious where this is going & these are not solutions I have ever heard of.
He’s vindictive and irrational. There is no logic here. Don’t waste time trying to figure out the thought processes of someone who is so devoid of reason that he has figured a way to insult and objectify all women, on both sides of the abortion battle.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
If you want to see “vindictive and irrational,” watch the female reaction to the concept of “paper abortions.”
But what is being overlooked is “the demand-side of abortion” – the hook-up culture that often leads to unintended pregnancies too often aborted.
“Young women talking about what it's like out there in the market for sex, marriage, and mating will tell you they are not happy” with what Alvaré calls “the Unbearable Lightness of Sex.”
Planned Parenthood's murky view of sex – that it is a pitfall that can potentially lead to unwanted children whose existence will dash women's dreams forever – has distorted the procreative function and “taken all the fun out of sex.”
“We need to reconnect” physical intimacy with having children in people's minds, so they know that what they're doing "has meaning,” she said. “We need to reform our marriage laws as to entrance and exit – so we put marriage and children together.”
Statistics suggest solving marriage will, to a large extent, solve the abortion crisis. Some 85 percent of women who seek abortion are unmarried. Infidelity causes some married women to abort.
The present environment of strings-free sex benefits men, who feel no sense of responsibility toward the mother or child, and leaves isolated women alone to deal with single parenthood or the lingering guilt brought on through abortion, said Alvare.
“I think women would like to get married a little younger and have their children a little younger – so sue me,” she quipped.
Excellent. More power to her.
This afternoon I was walking through a local shopping center and happened upon a Planned Parenthood clinic. I hadn't known until then that there was one there. I walked up to the door and noticed the dimmed lights and the frosted windows. It was trying hard to look sterile and inconspicuous.
My attention was diverted by a group of teenage boys moving past on their skateboards.
As I watched them go by, I wondered about what they had been taught in school about sex education, sexuality, and reproduction. Might some woman in their lives end up knocking on the doors of that dim little office with the frosted glass windows?
The connection between sex and reproduction needs to be firmly reestablished in the minds of men as well as women. Sex leads to new life, and that life must be valued, as those who give that life must be valued.
And women can get their tubes tied.... That solves nothing.
No, the idea is to embrace the whole "choice" mentality, arguments the pro choice crowd could hardly deny, but recognize it is fundamentally unjust to allow women their entire gestation period to decide whether or not to give birth, then cavalierly expect men to make that decision before there's even a pregnancy. Furthermore, it is unjust to require men to be financially obligated solely based on the decision she makes.
The answer is the "paper abortion" whereby a potential father could legally sign away all rights and responsibilities for the as yet unborn child.
If pro life women would get behind such an idea it would immediately garner the support of all the pro choice men, divide the pro choice camp, and ultimately lead to a return to a close approximation of the societal dynamic that made women protect their own chastity from the dawn of mankind.
“Paper abortions” will keep the “hookup culture” intact.
No more so than it was prior to easy abortion access.
The sad truth is "abortion" is a women's sin, and only women can stop it, but not without a return to the old socio-sexual dynamic.
This is why I hold pro life women in as much contempt as pro choice. They would sooner gouge your eyes out than give up their "parachute" of "male obligation." Meanwhile, they allow millions of abortions, and assuage their consciences for our debased society by advocating ever more "emotional soup kitchens" for the problem pregnancies all around us.
I think we need to take a step back, before Roe v. Wade in 1973, back to when oral contraceptives were made widely available, first to married women and then to unmarried women. The whole "contraceptive culture" in the early 1960s helped facilitate the "hookup culture" -- easy abortion access in 1973 just sped it along.
The sad truth is "abortion" is a women's sin, and only women can stop it, but not without a return to the old socio-sexual dynamic.
Why not return the old socio-sexual dynamic, which encouraged marriage and early childbearing in marriage?
They would sooner gouge your eyes out than give up their "parachute" of "male obligation."
I think some of these women might have been given a false choice: if they hadn't been pushed out of the airplane, they wouldn't have needed that "parachute" to begin with. Maybe all they really wanted was a safe trip from gate to gate.
9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
12 Then the man said, l“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
The bright line of distinction between contraception and abortion is universally recognized, save for Catholics. Conflating the two is a favorite tactic of the left because it works for their purposes.
Why not return the old socio- sexual dynamic, which encouraged marriage and early childbearing in marriage?
Because that model has already been rejected by society-at-large. "Going back" has never been an option. We can only attempt to institute a countervailing innovation that *inadvertently* provides a close approximation.
Maybe all they really wanted was a safe trip from gate to gate.
Precisely, excepting the fact that no one pushed them out of the airplane: they jumped.
The "wanting to be safe" is what keeps them from making the bold move that would short-circuit the practical effects of pro-choice ideology and tactics.
Please explain.
The "wanting to be safe" is what keeps them from making the bold move that would short-circuit the practical effects of pro-choice ideology and tactics.
Every woman wants to be safe. And the boldest move of all for a woman would be for her to outright refuse sex outside of a married relationship.
16Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
cf.
7If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
Try to eliminate both contraception AND abortion, and you will get neither. The pool of voters that use contraception, but view abortion negatively is vast.
And the boldest move of all for a woman would be for her to outright refuse sex outside of a married relationship.
How's that plan been working out for the past forty years?
Thanks for the explanation on the men’s rights part of your solution. Care to elaborate on the “women need to stop thinking they are victims” part?
2 problems I see with this solution:
[1] Those who are pro-life are already accused of only being concerned about the baby before birth. I’ve had people tell me if I haven’t personally adopted a baby, I have no right to be pro-life. [My response - if I’m not willing to personally stand at the border with a weapon, have I no right to be pro-border security?] This stance of promoting a man’s right to sign away his responsibilities for an unborn child only gives them more ammunition to accuse us of only caring about the unborn babies.
[2] I don’t think the pro-choice crowd would have as much objection to your solution as you think - certainly not enough to abandon their support of abortion rights. Liberals are quite capable of advocating contradictory opinions at the same time: abortion? it’s my body! TSA groping or Mengelecare? your body is the government’s! They would just transfer the baby-daddy’s responsibilities to the government, which furthers the liberal goal of having as many people dependent on government as possible.
Great point. The "paper abortion" is a salve to the conscience of a man who would prefer not to be consciously aware of the link between sex and reproduction, and would rather the government take his children.
It bears repeating: a woman's ability to become pregnant and bear a child as the result of sexual activity is NOT a bug -- it's a FEATURE.
Sure. Even though pregnancy rates were much lower before easy abortion, women on both sides consistently frame the problem as what to do *with* crisis pregnancies: not *preventing* crisis pregnancies!
In what I can only think of as some sort of "projection," the emphasis is always on preserving the woman's "security" rather than bearing the responsibilities of "liberty." So it would seem both sides functionally "approve" the status quo, vis a vis promiscuity, they just disagree on what to do with resultant crisis pregnancy.
The universality of this mindset is reflected in the "soup kitchen" remedies that are invariably advocated by the pro life side, rather than calling for women to bear the responsibility forced on them from biology. Unfortunately, each "success" of such remedy only results in further taxing of the resources the pro life movement can bring to bear against abortion.
Furthermore, pro life women are notorious for conflating pregnancy and abortion with respect to the man's responsibility. Men are guilty of creating a crisis pregnancy, a guilt shared by women. They are NOT guilty of getting abortions: only women can do that.
This stance of promoting a man’s right to sign away his responsibilities for an unborn child only gives them more ammunition to accuse us of only caring about the unborn babies.
How?
To the contrary, the only ammunition it gives is an accusation of not caring about women, something they should be doing for themselves.
If women are functionally put back in the same jeopardy they were in before easy abortion, their willingness to engage in risky sex will go back to where it was before easy abortion.
I don’t think the pro-choice crowd would have as much objection to your solution as you think - certainly not enough to abandon their support of abortion rights.
That's the beauty of the solution: you're not touching their abortion rights. By giving the same right to men, you are taking away the "heads I win, tails you lose" dynamic that promotes flagrant promiscuity.
The only real objection I can see is the possibility that women with crisis pregnancies will just get more abortions, rather than just saying "no." I believe that is a hollow argument on par with Concealed Carry Permits promoting a "Wild West" mentality. They both trade on the idea that "other people" are stupid, and shouldn't be permitted to be responsible for their own actions.
Granted, having a crisis pregnancy in the first place does show a lack of judgement, but a woman considering risky behavior is going to look at a potential partner much differently if she knows she may well be the only one that has to deal with the consequences.
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