Posts tagged abortion

oliviawaite:

katydidinoz:

General Plot Summary: Peppa is a voice talent at a recording company. Cameron is her boss. Peppa has recently come out of a bad spell - she lost a baby and her fiance, and she’s really working at moving forward and healing herself. Cameron’s got his own romantic history carnage, and he’s just interested in flings that don’t get mired in emotion. A chance meeting at a Christmas party, a bingle in a car park, and some match-making family members all lead to a burgeoning relationship, but the bottom line is Peppa wants very different things than Cameron, and she’s not willing to play the ‘fun’ card forever - or wait around indefinitely to see if Cameron ever gets over his fear of intimacy.

Characters: Peppa is the better drawn of the two, and her inner monologue will seem very familiar to many readers - the ‘sure I can have a fling with this super hot guy that I’m very attracted to without getting attached’ self-delusion that some *cough*me*cough* will have tried in the past. What works for Peppa is that she eventually gets over it, realises what’s happening and tries to extract herself. What doesn’t work for Peppa is her tender heart: when Cameron is a dick, instead of calling him on it, she recognises the inner pain that’s leading him to act this way. *snort* Calling him a dick might not have moved the story forward, but it would have made me as a reader feel better. Cameron is a pretty straightforward no-strings-attached rich guy. He does seem to move forward in the end, but his transition from distant and aloof to can’t-get-enough family guy doesn’t feel as authentic. I would have preferred if by the end of the story readers could see him making in-roads, as opposed to complete about-faces.

Bottom line: Carina Press is doing some good stuff with contemporary romances, so it’s worth checking out. One Perfect Night reads more like a category romance than a single title, so if you enjoy lush writing and quicker resolutions, this may be the story for you.

Long, involved thoughts only tangentially related to the book:One of the issues that comes up in OPN is an unexpected pregnancy. Now in the course of this book, it makes perfect sense for Peppa to keep the baby: it’s well-documented that she wants a family, and a previous pregnancy has diminished her chance of getting pregnant again, so a healthy pregnancy - no matter how it happens - is almost akin to a miracle. But it did bring in to rather sharp relief how unexpected pregnancies are handled in romances. Okay, caveat: I know there are romances out there who break the mould. This is not a ‘all romances ever written are the same’ argument. But I have read a heck load of romance novels, and I know what the trend is. So go ahead and argue if you like, but if your argument consists of, ‘I read this one book where the heroine totally gets an abortion!’ then you’re not really listening to what I’m saying here, and chances are I’m going to think you’re an idiot. Okay?

Right, so you’re single, you’ve just found out you’re pregnant, and the father, well, he’s kind of a douche, hence the reason you’re single. He’s commitment-phobic, or he’s addicted to his job, or he never wants children, or he’s a werewolf and you’re a vampire and two families both alike in dignity, etc. Bottom line is you have different values, and you’re not going to last in the long term.

You’ve got options. And based on your situation, beliefs, politics, and expectations, you’re going to make the decision that sits best with you. But the bottom line is, you’ve got options. But these options are so very rarely considered in the novels. And it’s to their detriment.

Romance novel advocates spend a lot of time arguing that the novels are feminist literature: celebrating the concerns, lives, and emotions of women. But to dismiss the options available to a woman about her own body and her own future is not feminist. It’s degrading. And as one of the few genres that consistently portray women in a realistic and heroic light, it’s diminishing. To have an intelligent, professional woman not at least spend a few minutes in rational, practical thought about her plans, ambitions, beliefs, and desires and how an unexpected pregnancy might affect them makes her an unintelligent heroine. To have a single, unemployed widow with twin five-year-old boys (as I read in a recent novel) not consider the financial, emotional, and physical ramifications of her unexpected pregnancy makes her irrational and irresponsible - and it’s hard to accept her as the heroine of the novel. 

The bottom line is that whatever the heroine chooses (and the whole point here is choice. Being pro-choice means accepting everyone’s decision as the one they chose as right for them), it’s really important to see the heroine making that choice. Because as readers, we know the hero is going to come back and it’s all going to work out all right. But there are people out there, outside of Romancelandia, who are going through this exact same thing. And if they turn to this genre that we love, they need to see that their experience is being reflected in a realistic way. They need to be able to read about strong, intelligent women going through a really tough situation, and acting in a way that reflects their strength and intelligence. If they chose to have the child, the reader can believe it will be okay, because the character has made the choice deliberately. If they are against abortion, they can consider adoption as a realistic alternative. Or they can consider terminating the pregnancy.

The genre needs to take these women that they’ve written, female characters that readers can believe in, can support, can understand, and can even aspire to emulate, and apply them in all situations. Especially about something as important and life-altering as having a child. 

I’m just going to go ahead and leave this here. Some great points are made in the latter part of this post.

seriouslyamerica:

tehsunshine:

nathanisamazing:

inherhipstheresrevolutions:

nathanisamazing:

depressingfacts:

You’re not pro-life, you’re just pro-70,000-deaths-a-year-from-unsafe-abortions.

You’re just pro-stripping-people-of-their-bodily-autonomy.

You’re just pro-flood-the-system-with-kids-who-won’t-get-adopted-and-who-we-can’t-afford-to-feed-or-provide-shelter-for.

You’re just pro-fuck-you-anybody-with-a-uterus. 

You’re just a fucking asshole is what I’m trying to say really.

Unfortunate that abortion is killing a human.

Moral consequences on your head be.

Abortion doesn’t kill A human. It kills human cells forming to create a potential human being.

You’re A human until you are a human being i.e born, autonomously living and completely separate from someone elses body - a fetus is living inside someone’s womb, they are not separate.

Hi.

I study Biology at the University of Melbourne.

There is no way to morally or legally rationalise the point at which something becomes an organism. It’s pretty black-and-white.

The instant a the two haploid gametes of a diploid organism fuse together, you have a new diploid organism.

Ergo, you are killing a member of Homo sapiens.

You just have to justify killing (or murdering, depending on your point of view) a human that isn’t yet fully formed, cognitional or sentient.

Also, since you’re not even one of my followers, you should really just stop being argumentative and piss off.

Regards,

Nathan.

Hey, Nathan

I really love completing patterns, so as long as we’re sharing credentials that don’t really matter in the discussion of reproductive rights, I’d like to share that I am a Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Biology triple major with a concentration in Genetics at Ball State University. (It’s cool, you can laugh at my school name. I won’t get mad).

I’m four credits away from my chemistry degrees (second semester physical chemistry), and six credits away from my biology degree (botany and methods of ecology), so I’m pretty qualified to speak about issues of genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and eukaryotic development. But I’m actually not going to get too deep into the subjects I know extremely well because it’s just not necessary at this point.

First off, you said “The instant a the two haploid gametes of a diploid organism fuse together, you have a new diploid organism.” This technically is not true. There are a myriad of steps that take place during fertilization, and most of them occur after the sperm has attached to the oocyte. First and foremost, the oocyte must undergo meiosis II. At the “moment of conception,” as anti-choicers love to wax poetic about, the oocyte has 46 chromosomes and is entirely incapable of developing into the progeny.

While the oocyte busies itself with its second meiotic division, the sperm’s cellular body must degenerate. The tail, mitochondria, and most of its cellular components are digested, leaving only the sperm’s genomic DNA in a pronucleus. The pronuclei of both the ovum and sperm then undergo very rapid DNA replication (while still separate!) in order to prepare for mitosis as a zygote.

Eventually, the pronucleic membranes dissolve, allowing a mitotic spindle to develop. The spindle simultaneously combines maternal and paternal chromosomes while completing the first mitotic division of the new progeny. This is the first point at which the genomic DNA of both the male and female parent meet, and therefore this is the first point at which a progeny exists with an original complement of 46 chromosomes.

Anyway, that’s the only science I wanted to get into. My real point follows ahead.

Yes, the above zygote with 46 combined chromosomes is a member of Homo sapiens sapiens. To suggest otherwise would be silly- it’s certainly not Oxytricha or Stylonychia (primarily because both of those are far more complex than a human zygote). However, the argument at hand is whether or not that two-celled human is or is not a person with all of the rights and responsibilities of a developed and born human.

It is logically impossible to argue that two people with equal rights can occupy the same body. With two people (the zygote and the pregnant person, by your argument) sharing one body, the rights of both cannot be equally preserved. Either the pregnant person retains the right they ordinarily hold to make choices about their body or the zygote overrides that right.

So let’s talk about rights. A really touchy subject in medical ethics today is organ and tissue donation. Many laypeople think that donation compatibility, whether live or cadaver, is purely a function of ABO blood group. Unfortunately, this is not the case. There are multiple factors to compatibility, most of them genetically determined, and these factors are often so limiting that a person in need of a transplant is only compatible with one family member (if that).

Fortunately, some of our most commonly needed organs can be given by a live donor. More than half of all organ donations are given by live donors and include kidney, lung, skin, and liver tissues. These donations are almost always life-saving for the recipient.

So say your sister needs a kidney. She has been on dialysis for quite some time and her systems are failing. Without a new kidney, she will not survive the month. National databases have been scoured, your entire family and social circle has been tested, and you are the only compatible match. Are you morally obligated to give her your kidney? She will certainly die without it, but organ donation kind of sucks. I mean, it normally goes okay with minimal complications, but it’s painful and inconvenient and expensive and you will need to take time off work. Should there be a law dictating that you must give that kidney in order to save her life?

Most individuals I have spoken to say “no.” One went so far to say “giving her the kidney would be morally laudable but not morally imperative.” So let’s bring it back to abortion. 99.8% of abortions (and 100% of “elective” abortions) take place before 21 weeks gestation. The medical community has established that premature infants have virtually little chance of survival outside the uterus until approximately 24 weeks gestation, so all elective abortions are performed before fetal viability.

Embryos and fetuses prior to 24 weeks gestation cannot survive without using a pregnant person’s body as a host. An abortion serves to stop the donation of the host body to the progeny. Think about your answer to your sister’s kidney dilemma and answer: should a pregnant person be obligated to donate their body to a parasitic organism that will die without it?

At this point many anti-choicers respond with “well, she chose to have sex. You didn’t make your sister exist,” and this is completely true. So let’s change the scenario: your mother is the only match for your sister’s kidney, and it is absolutely her fault that your sister exists and is alive today. It may even be her fault (genetically or environmentally) that your sister needs a new kidney! Should she be legally obligated to give her body to save your sister?

So, to get back to your original statement, “abortion is murder,” I must ask: if you or your mother said no to your sister and she dies, are you a murderer?

If not, neither are people who get abortions.

Best wishes,

Erin.

(We are still doing the passive-aggressive letter bit, right?)

I… I think I love you.

Extra props for using Homo sapiens sapiens.

(via turnabout)