Pro-Choice? Quit Crying About Your Miscarriage

Pro-Choice? Quit Crying About Your Miscarriage

Thursday, February 5, 2009

filed under: health logic

Editor's note: momlogic values the right of every woman to have -- and express -- their opinion, and this post is no exception. For those who have a strong reaction to the sentiments expressed below, we encourage you to make your voice heard in our community.

Guest blogger Gina: I respect women's right to choose, but I have little tolerance for pro-choicers who expect sympathy when they have a miscarriage.

These are women who put pro-choice buttons on their backpacks in college and ridiculed pro-lifers for being backward, repressive religious freaks who want to control the world's uteruses.

Ten years have passed and lo and behold, these women have grown up, gotten married, and now have the itch to have a baby of their own. Suddenly the monthly visitor that they were relieved to get when they were 20, now, at 32, plunges them into the depths of depression.

Like vegetarians who eat chicken but not beef, many pro-choice advocates want it both ways. It's a baby when they want it to be, it's a bundle of cells when they don't.

If you believe that pregnancy doesn't produce a baby until some magic number (13 weeks? 20 weeks? 40?), then you must also agree that it's ridiculous to break down in hysterics, set up a memorial website for your "angel," and seek out a grief counselor when you start bleeding in your first trimester. After all, you're simply talking about the loss of a conglomeration of microscopic cells, right?! That's hardly something to cry about.

Advocate all you want, but don't come crying to me when your hypocrisy hits you like a ton of bricks. If you are going to defend the right to abort babies, you don't have the right to be upset when yours dies.

306 comments so far | Post a comment now >>

Di, I realize that they were not his words, however I thought it was funnier when he said it due to the double entendre.

- Amy

Posted 02/04/09 02:27 PM

OMG! I seriously can’t believe what I am reading. A) Just because someone believes that it is not right to dictate what another woman wants to do with her body does not mean that she does not have empathy for the woman, the child involved nor the entire situation. People who are “pro-choice” are people who simply want to allow others to retain the right to do with their own body what they choose as they know the circumstances into which that child will be born — not me and certainly not you. (The whole “pro-life” and “pro-choice” terminology is wrong anyway. It was the right wing coaltions’s way of trying to sugar coat the fact that the argument is really “pro-choice” and “anti-choice”. Because, come on, no one is really “anti-life”!) B) I am someone who believes that a woman has a right to choose. I am also someone who has lost twins during a pregnancy and another single pregnancy. They devastated me and I feel their loss even to this day. In my mind they were my children and therein lies the difference. They were mine.

- suebrown2009

Posted 02/04/09 02:33 PM

“The point is this: Either it’s not a human life and it’s ok to kill it or it is a human life and it’s not ok to kill it.” By using the word “kill” is it obvious where you stand. But you do use the word “it”. Interesting. Listen - nothing in life is black and white. If it were, things wouldn’t be difficult or complex in general. We’d all pay our bills on time, find our soulmates, marry them, have 2.5 kids and live happily ever after. We know that even the most simple lives are complex - even if they live by the code of what we’re supposed to want. It is not a simple line to be drawn. That is why the pro-choice movement wants individuals to make the choice for themselves. For a woman, conceiving a child could be the best thing ever but she also has the right to support women in not believing the same thing. When she miscarries, she can mourn just as she can support others to not mourn. The experience is different things to different people which is why I wonder why on earth people see it as a black and white issue. No one supports the right to control a woman’s body against her will. No one wants to murder babies. The fact that the two are tied together and there’s no way to separate them makes it inherently complex.

- Kay

Posted 02/04/09 02:40 PM

The author either is a dimwit or hasn’t had a pregnancy loss. Not only is this article vile, its degusting! I abhor abortion, but consider myself pro-choice. I would be 8 months along right now, but I had a miscarriage at 25 weeks. My son was beautiful and my husband and I still grieve. So, to tell a woman that because she is “pro-choice”, she doesn’t deserve support after a pregnancy loss, is just assine and shows “Gina’s” lack of compassion. So to the cold bitter woman who wrote thsi drivel, I hope and pray that you NEVER have to bury a child or suffer a miscarriage. In the sad event you ever do, I hope you are treated better than you would treat others in the same situation. Shame on ML for even posting this!

- SesshoumarusGirl

Posted 02/04/09 02:43 PM

hey G- didn’t quite get the response you were looking for eh? free speech and ignorance are two seperate thing, and your blog post clearly displays the latter.

- Emily

Posted 02/04/09 02:48 PM

Amy - I finally get the double meaning. Doh.

- Di

Posted 02/04/09 02:54 PM

What the author doesn’t seem to realize is that most women who have abortions already have kids. Among those who don’t have kids already, most want them when the time is right. There aren’t 2 types of women in the world: those who have abortions and those who have babies; they’re the same! Such a false dichotomy: http://jfi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0192513X07305753v1

- Anon

Posted 02/04/09 03:12 PM

I think that the bottom line here, is no matter which side we as women choose to associate with, we have to admit that there are crazies at both extremes. Even though I associate with the pro-life side, I get that someone can feel like there is no other viable option. I can get the depths of emotion that goes into that decision. But it is just so permanent. That is what gets me, and it is not their body that they are eliminating, it is the body, the life, and the opportunities of that child. I know that there is no new thing under the sun, this is not new. We are not going to solve this here. But just like we would counsel someone that was going to take their own life when they are in despair, don’t do anything permanent, there is hope, why is the same not done with a person who finds themselves pregnant and in a bad situation? I won’t touch the aspect of for the mother’s life, rape and incest, because statistically those are such small numbers that it is really not even worth the argument. I guess my heart just says that when we make this a viable option as a form of birth control, we devalue life. We then start playing “god” saying my right to live is more valuable than your life. Again, even though there is nothing new under the sun, and these are not new situations, I still feel like it is a very slippery slope. And Di… .it took me years to get it, you are much smarter than I :)

- Amy

Posted 02/04/09 03:30 PM

I logged onto this website for the first time. I thought Momlogic sounded like a perfect place to get advice and hear fun mom stories. Boy was I was wrong. This article is full of hate and ignorance. The last thing women, especially mothers, need is other women passing judgment and being cruel to each other. I won’t be visiting again.

- Anonymous

Posted 02/04/09 03:43 PM

Amy- The ‘abortion as birth control’ thing is as just a statistical insignificance as your rape, incest, etc. example. That said, I want to see abortion as something ‘safe, legal, and rare,’ to quote former President Clinton. The trick is for both sides to come to common ground on how to achieve that goal. In my mind, that means comprehensive sex education (none of this abstinence-only stuff!), accessible, affordable birth control, financial and emotional support for women who are pregnant and new moms, affordable pre- and post-natal care for low income families, accessibility to education to encourage people to rise out of poverty, the list goes on. Yes, all of that requires money, time, and to a certain extent taxes and government intervention. But I think we all are worth it.

- Di

Posted 02/04/09 03:49 PM

This is horrible. IS this some sort of red herring? BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

- ioana

Posted 02/04/09 04:22 PM

My God- I’m a pro-lifer and not even this cold hearted. Shame on the writer for being so ruthless. What skeleton is in your closet? I’ll say a prayer for you.

- MArie

Posted 02/04/09 06:10 PM

Although I see the irony of an article with such flawed logic appearing on a site called momLOGIC, I do not join with those who say it shouldn’t have been posted. This site has no obligation to pre-sensor articles to only reflect popular points of view. I DO however think that if you are going to post something so obviously controversial the author should be identified as something more than “Guest blogger Gina.” Anyone who writes something like this should have the spine to take full credit for it. Otherwise it just seemed like a stunt article designed to rile people up.

- Anonymous

Posted 02/04/09 06:31 PM

I have a friend who’s a pro-life fanatic. She and the like believe all pro-choicers, whether you’ve had an abortion or not, are murderers. Hence this scathing blog. The blogger is intimating the miscarriage victim deserves no sympathy because all pro-choicers are pro-murder. Of course, the blogger like my friend can’t see such black and white thinking is insane. The real world operates on a much grander scale, and sadly, that includes the fact that not all babies can be born into a pastel blanky and lullabies existence. So many factors have to be considered on whether a fetus should be carried to term I could write for hours and there still wouldn’t be enough room. However I will write that until I see fanatic Pro-lifers line up to financialy support all the unwanted children born in this county until the age of eighteen, and take a more preventative role in reducing unwanted pregnancies in the first place such as promoting condom and birth control use, I will continue to find it difficult to take anything thay say seriously.

- Non Partison Anon

Posted 02/04/09 06:43 PM

My aunt and uncle had a very hard time getting pregnant…when my sister became pregnant at 20 she breifly considered giving the baby to my aunt and uncle. Eventually they became pregnant and had a baby of their own. I then see on my aunt’s facebook profile all these groups for pro choice, pro woman, etc. I just think that for someone who had so much trouble having a baby would value life a little bit more.

- Leigh Anne

Posted 02/04/09 07:28 PM

wow i almost don’t know what to say. there is a huge gap in the logic here and the writer comes off as angry, bitter and misinformed. oh and apparently heartless.

- kristin

Posted 02/04/09 07:56 PM

I’m the mother of two beautiful children. I’m 20 weeks pregnant with my third. I’ve had two miscarriages. I had an abortion 13 years ago. I’m pro-choice and always will be. You have no idea what you’re talking about until you’ve been there.

- Mother of 6

Posted 02/04/09 08:31 PM

I don’t understand the point of this article. Gina is apparently having a bad case of writer’s block and had to come up with something, anything, for exposure. Gina knew while writing this article that it would anger most people and that is why her last name is conveniently omitted. Gina is a not only a piss-poor excuse for an author, but a coward as well. As the mother of two, I find it sad when any woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy unless her life is in danger or if it is determined that the unborn child had such serious problems that they would have a poor quality of life or little chance of survival. I considered my daughters to be tiny humans, not fetuses, from the moment I knew I was pregnant. However, if one of my daughters was pregnant and decided to terminate the pregnancy, I would stand beside her and support her. I may not agree, but I will support her. To state that a woman who takes a pro-choice stance is not entitled to grief after a miscarriage is asinine. Hopefully, Mom Logic didn’t pay a dime for Gina’s words.

- ame i.

Posted 02/04/09 08:34 PM

for someone who has such a voice for pro-life they are surely fast to judge another. aside from that how can you bathe in the sorrow of someone in this situation and feel justified. HYPOCRITE

- none

Posted 02/04/09 11:32 PM

Wow Gina, you deserve a standing ovation for this. Fantastic, very well put. I agree with you 100 percent! One of the BEST articles I’ve heard by far!

- Jan

Posted 02/04/09 11:37 PM