Okay so my dh is pro life. He and I just had a row over this. I am pro choice (as are most women, I know anyway). He is so angry at me tonight over this that he walked out. Let me get something straight, I made it clear that this would NEVER be my choice. I also do believe that it isn't a good choice for anyone. I think moms that feel that this is there only choice should be counseled toward adoption. Honestly though when it comes down to it I feel that his opinion ( pro- life) jut isn't a realistic view or a fight worth investing in. What do you think?
I am pro life
I think it is a realistic view.
I don’t understand what you are asking. Are you asking if all of us on this board are pro-choice? Or are you asking if your husband is allowed to be pro-life? Or are you asking how to be married to someone that feels differently than you?
I just don’t get the question. If you are both die-hard on your feelings than this would just be something that you don’t talk about since it causes fights between the two of you (which is kind of ridiculous).
I agree it’s not a fight worth fighting since the two of you are not needing to make a choice. It sounds like your husband took your views very personally. I suggest that for some reason this is a really hot topic for him and I’d stear clear of it from now on unless he’s willing and able to tell you what this affected him in such a strong negative way. Still you might decide to not talk about it again. In my family agreeing to disagree works quite well.
I am completely fine with people who are pro-choice and pro-life. I just have a big problem with the constant lies that OBGYN’s and the abortion clinics tell to women and their families.I feel that the abortion industry has become so comfortable in perpetuating the lies to cover up what abortion really is. My deal with this is that if you are going to go and have an abortion, don’t you deserve to know exactly what you are getting into? Don’t you deserve to be treated with dignity and for the doctors to be trained properly in safer abortions? Don’t you think that they should regulate the offices and surgical suites for safety and for violations??? Don’t you think that women deserve to know what is inside them? The truth is that babies hearts are beating at 8 weeks they have perfectly formed little hands and feet. The abortion industry doesn’t want you to know that the fetus is alive, a pre-born baby and is able to do incredible things in the womb. I want the truth to be told.
If you or someone you know is going to have an abortion, you deserve to know the truth about you, your pregnancy and the risks involved. It is not ok with me that women are told these lies over and over again. I have no problem at all with someone having a safe, informed-consent abortion.
This is a conversation I have heard over and over again from being on both sides of the clinic. One that is pro-life and one that is pro-choice. I witnessed births and abortions. This is how you are taught to speak to the woman–to figure out if its a wanted pregnancy, you say its a baby. If its not wanted or the girl isn’t sure—you say “it” product of conception, blob of tissue etc. It can’t feel any pain. Its no big deal. Etc. You have to “SELL” the abortion.
For example :
OBGYN says : So…how do you feel about this pregnancy-was this planned?
Woman: I’m so excited, I can’t wait to have a baby! When does it look like a baby? Is it have any arms or legs yet? When can I see the heartbeat?
OBGYN: Your baby has tiny, perfectly formed arms, legs, and a beating heart at 8 weeks. Most people don’t know they are pregnant until after this time. Don’t worry, we will take good care of you and your baby.
OR
OBGYN: So…how do you feel about this pregnancy? Was this planned?
Woman: I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I want to continue or not.
OBGYN : Thats ok, there are other options.
Woman: What do you mean?
OBGYN : Well you can terminate the pregnancy, or give “IT” up for adoption, or parent.
Woman: Will it hurt? Is it a baby yet? What do I have to do?
OBGYN : No, you may feel a little cramping, like a period, but its fast, safe and it will be over soon. I will just have you lie back in the stirrups and I have a a machine that will help me get all of the tissue out. Its very safe and takes about 10 minutes. Its just a little bit of tissue, product of conception etc.
Do you see the difference? The woman wanted a baby–so the ob says congrats on having a baby.
The girl is thinking about abortion–so the ob sells the lie that its nothing–there isn’t a baby—just tissue. Both are 8 weeks. Both fetus’s have detectable hearttones etc.
I don’t want hate mail on this—just wanted to give my viewpoint like you asked.
As for the simple short version of my answer to your question: It it is a fight worth investing in. If one person’s life can be changed, its worth it.
I am not pushing for abortion to be changed. I am pushing for the safety of clinics and doctors’ offices, for the education and information given to the patient and for both sides of the issue to calm the hatred and look at the facts.
I think it is sad to terminate a pregnancy. But the woman should have the choice to do what she wants with her own body. BUT should the father of the unborn child have any say? She would basically be terminating his child. I am on the fence with this one for sure.
I think that there are many other options for women who do not want to care for a child nor do they want one. I do think that adoption is a good way to take care of it.
If a woman chooses to terminate her pregnancy I do think that she should be educated on how pregnancy occurs and offered free birth control so that she might not find her self in that position again. I know some women are going to become pregnant no matter what form of birth control they use. They must use abortion for their form of birth control I suppose.
All in all, I’d recommend that the woman consider many many many options before choosing to have an abortion. It is hard on their body and it does take a mental toll at some point.
I am in complete agreement with Laura’s answer.
i think you are more invested in being “right” than having a happy marriage.
let it go.
it’s also not a good question for a forum like this, since everyone already has their minds made up and all it will do is spark conflict. just like in your home.
pushing this subject suggests you’re just looking for drama. that’s what i think.
I think you’re asking for a fight on this board…
I could not marry a man with whom I was not in sync politically, morally, and who didn’t share my world view. I’m not saying we don’t disagree on things, but not on any of the major things that are important to us. And some political issues are important to us. I know people who disagree with their spouse 100% on these issues, but they choose not to discuss them or they aren’t that important to them.
I share your view on the issue – abortion would never be my personal choice in that situation, but it is also not my choice to make for anyone else. I resent when some people who are pro-life say that pro-choice people are “pro-abortion” - I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice. But that’s my personal view – I don’t expect the world to agree with me (although it would be hard if my husband didn’t).
But I don’t really know what you want women here to say – a lot of the women and men here DO disagree with you and me and ARE pro-life, despite your personal experience with “most women.” And I agree with Adansmama – you are more vested in being right than having a happy marriage. You sound young - not meant to insult, you just do (as I speak from my lofty 40s). If a relationship is to last, you must learn what hills are really worth dying on. My husband and I have molded each others’ world views over the past 25 years, no doubt. But I never stormed out on him or demanded those changes. You both need to become less emotionally charged – you didn’t storm out, but you engaged in the disagreement long enough for him to.
I agree with Adansmama – let go of the drama.
Did the two of you not have this conversation before marrying? I’m pro-choice and made it clear to any partner long before marriage was even on the table that if I became pregnant, I would be the one to decide whether to carry or terminate, regardless of his opinion on the subject, and that if that was a deal-breaker for him, then we needn’t waste any more of each other’s time.
LiisasG: “I didn’t know a mom could be pro-choice (after going through the miracle of birth) until I had a very interesting conversation on this site a few months ago. It sounded like many people who are pro-choice don’t want to be told what to do. I guess that is where we are in our society. I don’t have a problem with being told I can’t just kill my born children because they are costing me too much money, have a disease that will make my life difficult, make my husband upset, keep me from traveling, or keep me from doing what I want to do. So I don’t see the rationale of killing an unborn child.”
------I can tell you how a woman can be prochoice after having a child. I am more adamantly pro-choice AFTER having had my daughter than I was before. Three reasons. (1) When she was four I got pregnant. I was on birth control pills, but didn’t know about antibiotic interference. I was a full-time student, working at Wal-Mart, and my partner at the time had just lost his job, so my Wal-Mart paycheck was supporting three people. I was on medication that was a known teratogen (agent that causes birth defects) and without which I could not function. Having another baby would have meant taking food out of the mouth of the one I already had. Not happening. If I had had it, it would have had profound birth defects, IF it lived at all. I did not have the means to take care of a severely handicapped child, and I was not confident in the likelihood of such a child being adopted if it were placed. Not to mention that I did not want to sentence it to a short life of constant misery. I had an abortion and have no regrets about it.
(2) Pregnancy and birth aren’t wonderful experiences for everyone. My daughter’s birth nearly killed us both. My doctor had no idea why my labor went haywire, and couldn’t guarantee that it was a fluke. I couldn’t find a doctor who would tie my tubes. Doctors’ reasons for refusing included, “You’re young. You’ll change your mind.” and “You only have one child. She might want siblings when she’s older.” and worst of all, “You’re single. You might get married and your husband might want a baby.” I wasn’t willing to risk dying having another baby, and risk leaving my daughter without her mother. Nor was I willing at the age of 26, to resign myself to a life of celibacy.
(3) I have a daughter. I do not want her to ever feel forced to have a baby she doesn’t want simply because a condom broke or a pill didn’t get completely digested, nor do I want her to feel that she has no right to a satisfying sex life if she isn’t willing to become a parent.
I am pro-life, and I know many, many women who are pro-life. I think one of the reasons it may not seem “realistic” is that pro-life organizations focus so much energy (and publicity) on trying to convince people that abortion is wrong or that the unborn child really is a human being from the moment of conception that they forget to say, “We’re there for you.”
Those who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy do not need to be bashed over the heads with why having an abortion is wrong, they need to know there is hope. They need to know someone will be there for them if they choose to carry the baby to term.
Abortion seems the easy way out, but often times it is not. Many people who choose abortion can never make peace with their decision.
Being pro-life is not unrealistic at all. But it is a huge challenge. Adoption isn’t the easy way out either.
Once the pregnancy exists, there really isn’t an “easy way out.” It’s more doing the best you can with what you have.
But choosing life is not unrealistic.
I am a woman, a mother, a wife…
and I am Pro Life
I find it to be an easy, and realistic, decision.
i think you’re opening a huge can of worms.
i am virulently pro-choice.
and it’s a stretch that i’d have a partner this far apart from me on an issue this big. but if i did, i’d be in a place where we agreed to disagree (as i do with many things between my dearly beloved and me.)
some people can debate this issue calmly and without adrenaline and rancor. i’m not one of them.
if you think your partner is stupid, find another one. if you think he’s unrealistic but you love him anyway, let him be. if you think the fight’s not worth investing in, decline it.
khairete
suz
Did he walk out over your position of the issue, or the way you two fought about it? Did you respect each other positions, or did you put it down or be disrespectful to each other? I could be reading into this wrong, but it just doesn’t make sense to me that he would walk out over you being pro-choice. This can’t be the first time he heard that you were pro-choice. I think it has something to do with they way you two fought.
Just because you don’t think it’s a realistic view, he clearly does and you shouldn’t discount his opinion. My husband and I disagree on many issues, but we respect each other’s opinion on the issues and we never once have fought over them.
I am Pro-Life. It seems, with many posters, the only thing we can agree on is your clueless behavior. How does this sound to you?
“Honestly though, when it comes right down to it, I feel your opinion (pro-abortion) just isn’t a realistic view or a fight worth investing in.”
I.E. I feel like your position is full of crap. Nobody should have that view, certainly not to the point that they would walk out on a marriage because of the right for somebody out there to kill an unborn child, because it just not worth fighting about the miricle life force that gives joy and meaning to life, not to mention the reason you are here to argue such a point.
This is the kind of inflammatory abortion rhetoric that divides a nation. How do think it’s going to effect a divided marriage? This is the poison that politicians use to distract voters from crappy government long enough to get in office. You’ve swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. And now are dividing your own family with it. Wake up!
After SWH: I think to say abortion is murder but you don’t want to take away people’s choice to do that is cowardly. We take away people’s right to murder all the time. I think part of it is society’s convience. If the poor just murder themselves then, hey, that’s all good, right? Win, win.
Apologies to the ones who already gave flowers, if you don’t agree now!
I think that the govt has no right in telling me what I can and cannot do with my body. It is beyond their powers.
No one can/should breed like rabbits or like some bacteria colony until the collective waste and/or depleted resources kills the whole thing off.
Pro life is fine with the whole concept that someone somewhere will want that life and raise it but it gets kind of nebulous from there because there is way more life that needs looking after and not enough adoptive parents willing to do so.
Foster homes are filled to over flowing and plenty of kids age out in the system without ever being adopted.
So maybe your husband is saying he wants to adopt some kids?
Probably not.
It’s fine to say ‘that child should live’ but it falls flat when the next thought is ‘I’m not paying for it’.
There are 7 billion people on the planet and the number is rapidly going much higher.
At what point do we realize that ‘be fruitful and multiply’ is not so much a blessing as a curse when it’s carried out in the extreme?
If the people who conceived the life are not interested in raising it, I am totally fine with them aborting it.
I am pro life but this falls under my, “would I answer to god rule”. To me it is waste of time, energy, and resources to try to change the law. So I work with groups that try to make it a real choice. To me that is what I would answer to god for, allowing someone to be cornered into an abortion just because they had no other choice.
Whether there are women using it as birth control that I cannot reach or change, god isn’t going to hold me accountable for that.
Just my opinion but it seems like the extreme sides of this issue are so vested in wanting to be right they ignore the human side of it. On one side most of the time it isn’t a choice. You don’t have money, you are too young, you don’t want your parents to find out, you are about to lose your house, the baby has health issues…those aren’t choices! Then on the other side they want the law changed and don’t see that they could give women a real choice.
Work with women centers, work with groups trying to solve the causes of birth defects, get women out of poverty though education. That is energy better spent.
I think your reasoning is lame! “His opinion (pro life) just isn’t a realistic view of a fight worth investing in.”
Tell me, what is a better fight worth investing in? To me, the unprotected life/voice of the child that is going to be taken is a great reason to fight!
If everyone took on your attitude that “well we are a minority and it’s not a fight worth investing in” our country would still be in the middle ages.
Your husband is right to stand up for something he believes in, and not to back down just because it’s not worth the fight!!!
There are some things in a marriage that aren’t worth fighting over with your spouse. This is one of them. Basically you have just said for you, personally, you and your husband are on the same page as you would not opt for an abortion and he thinks getting one is wrong. Do you see how you all are on the same page?
Don’t bring the fight of the decisions of millions of other women into your home and marriage. For your marriage it just doesn’t matter. This is one of those topics no one EVER is going to change the other sides mind through fighting, chanting, picketing, reasoning, etc. So drop it. Agree to disagree. Done. go to him and tell him that things got heated. It is a polarizing issue and while you still believe how you do, you respect his right to have his own opinion and moving forward it is something you don’t really want to debate with him.
That is what I think.
It is not a simple answer of pro choice or pro life. There are so many more factors. 1. Men need to take more responsibility. If you do not want to get pregnant use protection. If men choose not to use protection man up and take responsibility for your actions. 2. Woman realize that many men are not going to man up and use protection or take responsibility so you darn well better do so. 3. In the end its about a life. I have met individuals who were adopted and have had horrific lives with the adopted parents. I have met indiviiduals who were adopted and happy with their life. While abortion would not be my choice who am I to make a decision for another female. If they are raped or it is life threatening. Maybe the child was not ment to be yet. 4. Media and society have destroyed it for teenages. Teenagers are not yet equiped to deal with pregnancy and an adult life. They are going to make mistakes and just do off the wall stuff. Teen boys are going to push and teen girls will give in. For society to fix this it will take both men and woman being responsible and teaching by example. Men teach their boys to man up use protection and wait. Woman to teach girls its ok to say no and wait and realize you need to use protection.