In response to yesterday’s post about the official Punjab shame practice for preventing the aborting female babies (an impact, certainly, on women’s “choice”), I received a number of interesting responses, including this, from Amba:
Contrary to what [other commenters argured], dowry is most prevalent among upper-caste Indians; gender relations among the lower-castes tend to be more egalitarian. The people who practice dowry tend to be well-educated, so the idea that educating girls will end the practice is a non-starter. Much of the time, you’ve got a girl with an MBA forking over a fat wad of cash, along with a ton of household appliances, so she can marry a dude who’s a doctor. Dowry and sex-selective abortion are not the province of the poor and the hungry; on the contrary, they’re the province of the well-heeled and comfortable.
This revelation cleaves even closer, then, to Linda Hirshman’s critique of educated women leaving the work force to become stay-at-home moms as somehow being traitors to the feminist revolution.
Well-educated women who choose to participate in the dowry system, we must assume, are either hopelessly culturally brainwashed by a tradition that is inherently wrongheaded (in that it reduces woment to “property”, by one materialist critique), or else it is a system that educated Indian women, whose cultural value is greatly increased by their numerical scarcity, actually believe in and support cognizantly.
If the former be the case, we are impugning the intelligence (or, at the very least, the self-awareness) of highly-educated, upper class Indian women; in the latter case, we are suggeting that these highly-educated, pro-choice women are, in fact, somehow to blame for increasing their cultural value and asserting their considered choice.
And choice, it still seems to me, is the operative variable here. In my original post, I posed the following question:
[…]how is choice  when it is influenced by the fear of financial hardship (a reason often cited by American feminists for the availability of abortion is that an unwanted child could put an undue financial strain on either the state or the mother herself, dooming both mother (father) and child to a life of poverty, which in turn can result in a spiral of bad schooling, a greater potential for criminality, etc.)â€â€any less worthy of protection in Punjab than it is in, say, Peoria?
Which is to ask, simply, is the right of women to choose universal?
Jill at Feministe, in a very thoughtful (though I believe, ultimately, mistaken) response to my question, writes:
It’s not. I don’t think that abortion should be banned because of the reason the woman is procuring it. I believe that women should be able to have an abortion for any reason at all, no matter how “shallow†or wrong someone else may judge it to be.
But here’s where I differ from many third-wave feminists who, like me, have grown up greatly valuing “choice†language: I don’t think that just because someone appears to be a freely-made choice that we can’t examine why that choice was made, or why particular choices are being made systemically. If a university-educted woman chooses to pose for Playboy’s college issue, she should have that choice  but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look at the underlying factors that encouraged her to do that. And it means that we can criticize those factors without criticizing her for doing the best she can in the situation she’s in.
The situation in Punjab offers a great example of this. It’s unfair, in my eyes, to go after the women having these abortions. Yes, they’re making a choice, but they’re doing so in reaction to a series of cultural issues that make them believe, as females themselves, that femaleness is inferior and that it’s a burden. We can attempt to rectify the deep-seated wrongs instead of attacking the women who are simply trying to negotiate their own lives in a thoroughly fucked-up world.
So back to Jeff’s question about whether choice influenced by financial hardship is any more valid in Peoria than in Punjab. My answer is that it’s equally valid everywhere  but that as feminists we are consistent in trying to battle the underlying issues that limit or remove choice. A woman in Peoria who has an abortion because she’s on welfare and Illinois regulations penalize welfare recipients for having additional children isn’t making an entirely free choice (I don’t know if that’s actually the law in Illinois, but it is in a lot of states). The woman in Punjab who has an abortion because her child is a girl and she already has a daughter and her family can only afford one dowry isn’t making an entirely free choice.
[My emphasis]
This critique works—and in fact I predicted it as the dominant American response to the Punjab situation—only if one can argue that, as Amba points out, the highly educated and wealthy women of Indian society (many of whom are educated in the west) truly are unwittingly devaluing femaleness—rather than, say, increasing its value by limiting its numbers.
That is, Jill’s critique redounds to a cultural critique of a practice that many Indians appear quite happy with. To argue that it must be changed, then, is to argue that this contentedness is delusional (which raises interesting ontological questions about “happiness” and “contentedness”).
Which leads me to Lauren’s argument, which, while I understand the impulse and thinking behind it, nevertheless strikes me as problematic:
I’m not interesting in calling Indian women who abort female fetuses “anti-feminist†or “feminist†in any way—this isn’t a political problem. In any case, I think Jill’s basic premise is correct. The shaming, while it produces immediate positive results, does not solve the issue of social class, be it gender-based or caste-based. The birth of girl children is still mired in shame and simply being female remains quite literally a burden.
The financial burden, as the story makes clear, is certainly apposite; but again, if we are to believe Amba, the burden is a willing burden, and one that is shouldered by the upper classes.
Which, I suspect, changes the metric from abortion by necessity (based on patriarchal cultural determinism) to abortion by choice and choice alone.
Continues Lauren:
I once read about a billboard (I have no idea of its accuracy) that read “It is better to pay 500 Rs. now than 50,000 Rs. later.†Meaning that if you get amniocentesis and abort a female fetus now, you’ll save much more in the long run. Fucked up, no? Beat that, Suze Ormond.
This is one of those cases that I think perfectly shows how feminism and cultural relativism cannot coexist—see also FGM and suttee.
I agree, as anyone who reads this site with any regularity will immediatlely recognize, that feminism and cultural relativism should not be allowed to exist when the effect is subjugation of women. But this doesn’t seem to be a case of relativism. Instead, it is precisely the opposite—a case of the universalism of choice, and one that is based on the educated decision of women to abort female children for purposes they find, cognizantly, to be appropriate. In this sense, their position is hardly different in kind from the choices made by women in the US to abort because they choose to go into the workforce, or do not care to take on the financial responsibilty or burden—both of which are offered by American feminists as legitimate reasons for making that personal choice.
Are we really to argue that educated Indian women are incapable of thinking for themselves? Because that, it seems to me, is a sign of cultural relativism.
Lauren concludes:
Still, while I’m not content to leave the situation as it currently stands, I’m not satisfied with letting the shame game, or presenting the shame game, as a good way to solve the real underlying issue. When we consider the generally low social value of women in, as Roxanne notes, the poor, the hungry, and the underclass of Indian society, you come up with a nasty intersection of conditions that provide rather tangible incentives for only giving birth to children that will “pay off†in the end.
Again, true—but only in those cases. But if the dowry culture really is an upper-class, educated phenomenon, then this critique fails, because its animating point—that there is an underlying and structurally forced coercion involved in the practice—is simply not available to the critic. And in fact, critics are forced to face the rather startling reality that the practice itself is a product of free choice—and is only being curtailed by the state stepping in and practicing “shame” to prevent choice.
Which brings me to a related story forwarded along this morning by attorney Don Quigley, “Pakistani Nurse Raped for Refusing to Perform Abortions”. From Life Site:
A young woman was raped by three men in retribution for refusing to perform illegal abortions in a rural community in the western Punjab last Wednesday.
Rubina Kousar, 26, worked as a nurse in the Mattrai health center. She refused to carry out abortions on two women, reported the Telegraph, despite six months of constant pressure from the women’s families.
“In the past our staff have been subjected to this type of victimization for refusing to carry out illegal abortions, but they have not raised their voices for fear of retribution,†said Riaz Hussein, of the Punjab Healthworkers’ Association.
Abortion is illegal in Pakistan after the fourth month of pregnancy, unless the woman’s life is in danger. Under the tribal system operating in isolated districts of the country, village leaders sometimes order gang rapes as a punishment against women for various social “transgressionsâ€Â.
“The family came and harassed me but I never imagined they would do this,” Miss Kousar said, weeping. “They have threatened my family with dire consequences if we do not settle this. But this is not the past when we can get pushed around. God will give me the courage to fight them.”
The UN has targeted Pakistan with aggressive population control measures over the past five years. In November 2000, the UNFPA threatened to withdraw US$250 million in health programs if the country refused to accept an additional $35 million in funding for birth control and abortion. Pakistan succumbed to pressure and agreed to make population control a “national priority†in the country.
Where this story intersects interestingly with yesterday’s story of shame control over female-fetus abortions (and even prenatal scans to determine sex) is, again, in the area of choice.
Specifically, what of the choice not to perform abortions under circumstances similar to those described in yesterday’s shame story? Here, the nurse has essentially taken the place of the civil service campaign and elected to uphold the state’s dictate on abortion. For this, the retribution by those asserting the righteousness of their choice is fierce and inhuman.
But what does this tell us, if anything, about the choice culture—particularly about the universality of choice. Should it not also pertain to those who are uncomfortable with the abortion procedure (whether personally and morally, or via fidelity to law)? And if so, how does this situation differ (other than in scale) from the demonization by certain feminists of doctors in the US who refuse to perform abortions?
****
update: Lauren sends along another interesting companion piece. Further comments from Echidne of the Snakes.
I don’t have time to get to all the issues in your post right now, but this one irritated me, so I’ll quickly address it: What demonization?
I’ve never heard a feminist argue that doctors should be required to perform abortions. Here’s what we argue: If you willingly accept a job, you should do it. If you’re a general practitioner, should you be required to perform abortions on any patient who asks for it? No, I don’t think so. If you’re a neurosurgeon, should you be required to perform abortions? Of course not. If you get a job in an abortion clinic as an abortion provider, should you be required to perform abortions? Yeah, you should.
Similarly, if you get a job as a pharmacist you should expect to fill prescriptions, even if you disagree with what the doctor has prescribed. If you work in a steakhouse you should serve customers the Porterhouse if they order it, even if you’re a vegetarian.
That’s all I’ve ever heard feminists argue.
Why such talk of absolutes? Can it be that they face pressures and enter into these things hesitantly?
Why do you have this weird supply and demand view? Is that the kind of valuation you’re talking about? I don’t think that’s the kind of valuation that feminists talk about. A person that wants to kill all (or lots) of women does not ‘value’ women by making them scarce. They devalue them by finding them worthy of elimination.
You really don’t see upper class society as possibly having stifling social mores that affect choice? Ever critique any parts of our society that you consider ‘elite’ ?
Other than in scale? How does calling a woman a bitch differ from raping her?
In the initiation of force…
<blockquote>Similarly, if you get a job as a pharmacist you should expect to fill prescriptions, even if you disagree with what the doctor has prescribed. If you work in a steakhouse you should serve customers the Porterhouse if they order it, even if you’re a vegetarian.</blockquote>
Exactly. Or expect to be fired.
It’s the company’s decision, not the employee’s.
Right. In the scale and method of the “protest”, which is what I was getting at. But the thinking behind it is the same in both the US and the Punjab instance of rape: luckily, however, our western liberal demonization doesn’t as a general rule result in physical violence against doctors who refuse to perform the procedure. We protest in other ways—by rhetorical force and the power of ideas. And when people like Eric Rudolph shoot doctors who do offer the procedure, they are rightly hunted down and treated as terrorists by the vast majority of clear-thinking Americans.
None of which changes that the impulse to demonize is the same in both instances where the doctor/nurse refuses to perform the procedure.
Maybe they value these refuseniks, by making them scarce. But are we sure the impulse is the same? Here we want to preserve choice for women. In the punjab, the same people who want women to have the abortions also want the abortionists to do their deed. That doens’t sound like the same impulse.
But to a doctor who accepts a job as a way to save lives (and let’s say we’re talking outside of “abortion clinics,” because in the Punjab analogue, this was akin to a village housecall)—and who believes that a fetus is a life—that doctor would be doing the job, according to a valid and contested belief system.
I have been torn on the pharmacy issue, but I have ultimately come down in that particular interest on the side of feminists against free-market critiques because of certain specifics of licensing. But abortion, though I am guardedly pro-choice—is an entirely different issue.
To say that you are critiquing a doctor for not doing his job when he refuses to take a life (if this is what he or she believes) is to again raise the Supreme Court (and so the state) to the level of taking away a choice—one that may be at odds with the Hippocratic oath.
I have no problem with doctors who perform the procedure. But I find the critique of those who don’t wish to—particularly the restaurant analogy offered above—rather cavalier.
And as a reminder, “the employer,” in this instance, is the “state”—which one could argue is forcing its employees to break an oath in pursuance of a specific procedure. Is it fair to place this question in the same ballpark as physician assisted suicide?
The situation in Punjab offers a great example of this. It’s unfair, in my eyes, to go after the women having these abortions. Yes, they’re making a choice, but they’re doing so in reaction to a series of cultural issues that make them believe, as females themselves, that femaleness is inferior and that it’s a burden. We can attempt to rectify the deep-seated wrongs instead of attacking the women who are simply trying to negotiate their own lives in a thoroughly fucked-up world.
False consciousness with a dress and lipstick is still an ugly old Marxian date.
I don’t know the ins and outs of how abortion clinics are funded and run. I definitely have a problem with state-run abortion clinics, both because it is a wealth-transfer scheme and because it violates freedom of conscience by forcing anti-abortionists to fund something which they find morally repugnant.
Still, if a doctor joins the staff of an abortion clinic, whether state-run or not, he can’t argue afterwards that he has a problem with performing abortions without being guilty of fraud. If we were talking about a clinic where abortions are not usually performed, then yes, he would have the right to say that it’s not in his job description.
<blockquote>Similarly, if you get a job as a pharmacist you should expect to fill prescriptions, even if you disagree with what the doctor has prescribed.</blockquote>
A pharmacist is under the same rules as a nurse in that they are patient advocates. In both cases, they can go against a doctors orders if they feel it can endanger the patient’s health. While they could just go along with the doctors orders, their licsense and liabilty status can be effected but their decisions to follow a order they feel is wrong.
For that reason, a pharmacist could say that the fetus is a patient within his patient, since giving some drugs to mothers who do want babies aren’t able to use some medications, and refuse to proscribe a drug for the effect it would have. In the case of a flu medicine it would be fine. In the case of a morning after pill it’s suddenly none of his business.
Likewise an abortion doctor works at an abortion clinic and has had paperwork signed protecting him from the legal ramifications of what he is going to do. Does a pharmacist have that legal back up if a patient gets a case of “revisionist capitalism” and decides to sue? Likewise, he hasn’t taken a job to perform abortions as a doctor in a clinic has. His moral imperitive is to help patients, not kill potential patients. Shouldn’t a clinic supply that?
I agree that a waiter in a steakhouse should bring me my steak even they are vegan, but they didn’t sign on to kill it for me.
A dowry should be considered the investment by the woman’s parents in the support and care of future grandchildren. It’s one way to ensure male parental involvement.
After all grandchildren are one quarter genetic material from each grandparent.
When I told my daughter-in-law that at the wedding she freaked!
WaPo offered the apt-titled Health Workers’ Choice Debated covering doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc, finding themselves in a moral quandry over things like abortion (surgical or chemical), physician-assisted suicide, etc.
I would offer that entering a profession does not give one’s clients a blank check on the services of the professional.
In CA we recently saw the AMA saying that a doctor who directly participates in a state execution by injection goes against AMA tenets.
Continuing with this same analogy. I have no doubt that the majority of liberals applauded the doctors in California last week that refused to participate in the capital punishment of a CONVICTED KILLER because said doctors were just following their own conscience. Would these same liberals (many of which no doubt are also feminists) also applaud a doctor that refused to perform an abortion of an INNOCENT because of his conscience?
Ardsgaine —
I have for purposes of this discussion excluded abortion clinic doctors, who would certainly know what they are getting themselves into.
And by “state” dictates, I was referring less to funding than I was the legality of the procedure itself, making it medically “mandated”—though it is at odds, under some readings, with the Hippocratic oath (as is physician assisted suicide).
Well, first of all, I’m a classical liberal, not a leftist, which means I don’t have a problem with capital punishment. I also don’t have a problem with a doctor who refuses to do a particular job because it goes against his conscience. I don’t want to force people to do things against their will, I just don’t think they should get to keep their job if they refuse to do the work. If carrying out executions is part of his duties, then the doctor should either carry them out, or quit. What in the heck was he doing in that job, if he didn’t believe in it?
<blockquote>Similarly, if you get a job as a pharmacist you should expect to fill prescriptions, even if you disagree with what the doctor has prescribed. If you work in a steakhouse you should serve customers the Porterhouse if they order it, even if you’re a vegetarian. </blockquote>.
In Illinois every pharmacy must dispense all prescriptions, period. That makes Jill’s example off target in Illinois’ case (I believe it is the same way in most of the other states that have the requirement as I’m sure Jill well knows). Allow me to rewrite to make it on target for the reality of the situation.
.<blockquote>If you decide to buy or open a pharmacy you should expect to fill prescriptions, even if you disagree with what the doctor has prescribed or have deep seated beliefs opposing the medication. You should also expect that edict to be enforced (eventually) at the point of a gun. If you buy or open a restaurant you should expect to serve whatever a customer wants even dairy or animal products even if you are a vegitarian or vegan. </blockquote>
Aw man. I love this line.
Hmmm.
Perhaps the solution to many of the cultural problems in some 3rd world countries is to give the women living there an AK-47, 2000 rounds of ammunition and teach them how to shoot the bastards right in the balls.
But that’s the NRA “Shoot the bastards” viewpoint.
The problem with Pharmacists is that it has never been a moral problem before. Now it is.
I know my brother-in-law refused to perform abortions in med school. They allowed those with problems of conscience to pass, but how much longer will that happen though? And if not, will one have to choose between being a Doctor or a Catholic for example?
Now, for example, I know to tell my children not to be pharmacists. I don’t want them to have to deal with this morally if they will be forced to in order to be a pharmacist.
I just feel sorry for those who went into the profession with no idea that this would come about and now have to live with the consequences of being fired for their moral beliefs.
It isn’t fair, but then..life isn’t fair.
Jeff,
What does “guardedly pro-choice” mean exactly?
I’ve never heard a feminist argue that doctors should be required to perform abortions.
Actually, back in the 1990s, there was an activist med student, with some backing, on the University of Michigan campus arguing exactly that, that all ob/gyn trainees should be required, no matter their views, to learn all about abortion and how to do it, arguing that it was simply another form of “health care.”
It means I’m reluctantly pro-choice (that’s the libertarian side of me) but will readily back any number of restrictions, from late-term abortion to parental notification, provided the legislation is written carefully.
And I believe our goal as a society should be to make abortion a true last resort.
<i>In Illinois every pharmacy must dispense all prescriptions, period.</i>
That seems to me a bad law. Pharmacists shouldn’t be simply pill distributors, and the way our prescription system is set up, they are often the last defense against physician error or prescription abuse and doctor shopping.
What about the person with 10 different prescriptions for oxycontin? Or someone known to be on anti-depressants getting several prescriptions of sleeping pills? Or a pregnant woman getting accutane? Slightly o/t to this discussion, maybe.
SEXIST UTERUS CONTROLLER
Do you all remember this? How does this ban fit into the current discussion:
The “global gag” rule, as it has become known, was imposed by President George Bush in 2001. It requires any organisation applying for US funds to sign an undertaking not to counsel women on abortion – other than advising against it – or provide abortion services.
As I recall, there was a lot of uproar, some from feminists, about the need for the US to fund international abortion services.
So the state should force a pharmacist, who is morally opposed to abortion, to dispense an abortion drug? How enlightened. I mean he’s just a Catholic, so screw him and his beliefs. Too bad about that college education he can no longer use. Got in the way of feminist orthodoxy.
Did it hurt straining to draw a distinction between forcing a doctor to perform an abortion and forcing a pharmacist to dispense an abortifacient? Quite a feat of mental gymnastics to me.
This is right up there with forcing Catholic Charities to subsidize birth control. We’ve got the power. Submit, or die, right?
When the jihadis take over, there will be more important things for you all to worry about. Like the shade of your burqua, or getting a male relative to escort you to the mall…
In IL the “all pharmacists must hand it out” rule is just that – a rule slipped in behind the IL legislature’s back by our Governor. The legislature is muttering about knocking that out – but since they (both houses) are majority Dem, they probably wouldn’t touch anything that might be perceived as “anti-choice”…Man, sometimes I hang my head in shame at the politicians my State spews out.
The issue is that any global family planning resource that takes American funds cannot perform or mention abortions other than to advise against them. This means that any resource that performs – or even gives referrals for – abortion cannot get American dollars. For that matter, any resource that gets American funds is strongly encouraged to endorse abstinence alone. Screw the African AIDS pandemic, praise Jesus.
I understand the issue in this case, I was wondering about global right to choose and the US Taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for it (we don’t pay for it in the US, right?)
Anyway, I don’t think abortion does much to help stop the AIDS pandemic. Certainly the issues can be separated.
It isn’t a position I agree with, btw. Although I don’t think we are under any obligation to use our US tax dollars on foreign aid in any way other than the way we want to. (we being the US gov’t)
I tried to get a prescription for antidepressants and sleeping pills filled at a local pharmacy, and the pharmacist refused to fill it because he felt that my doctor had prescribed too much. Even after speaking with my doctor he decided to refuse.
So I took my prescription across the street and got it filled without protest.
Frankly, I don’t mind that the pharmacist refused. He was probably looking out for his own anatomy more than for mine, but it’s nice to know they’re at least thinking about what they’re doing.
I’m also thinking the idea of US aid going to clinics that abort female fetuses at such alarming rates is an interesting one. Does it make it more palatable that the US is refusing to fund clinics that counsel abortion?
Big E,
You can rewrite what Jill said if you like, but don’t attribute that position to her, since it wasn’t part of her argument and the one doesn’t necessarily imply the other. Jill isn’t the Illinois government.
Also, I note that some of you are under the impression that the pharmacists were refusing to dispense the morning after pill. No, it was birth control. Can I get a show of hands from all the people who think birth control is murder?
Completely lacking here is any consideration for the rights of the drug stores where the pharmacists work. This is not a matter for the state to decide, nor the APA. The people who own the store have the right to set the policy on what pills they will dispense. A pharmacist who refuses to comply with that policy needs to go work somewhere else.
TW: month… joke deferred.
Screw the African AIDS pandemic, praise Jesus.
Let’s not mention that GW has been unfailingly and spectaculary proactive and generous with funds to Africa to vanquish AIDS.
Doesn’t go with the RacistSexistPatriarchalNeoConXtianZionist meme.
Ardsgaine- I don’t have my hands raised, but some believe the pill is similar to abortion because (it is argued) it may keep a fertilized egg from implanting. Furthermore, birth control in general is against some religions.
I have to think about your assertion that it is up to the store to decide, rather than the state or the individual.
If we see it as a pharmacists’ right to practice religion- that makes it harder to say it is up to the store. The state might intervene if a muslim pharmacist was fired for praying during working hours. If we see it as a patient’s right issue, we would perhaps want the state to protect the patient. If we see it as a best practices issue, encompassing more than just birth control, we might see it APA guidelines to be appropriate.
So I’m going to think about it. I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat.
(ps. personally, I’d be livid if someone had ever refused to fill my bc prescription)
Let me see if I’ve got this properly twisted:
A woman’s freedom to choose that into which she has been forced</b> must be protected, even if it means the selective extermination of <i>females. Better this than societal pressure which causes them to feel ashamed for killing a child because it’s female.
I think I’ve sprained something.
Hmmmm.
Yeah it’s a bit of a headache.
On the one hand we’re supposed to applaud Western women who abort children on a regular basis as modern women who stand up for their rights of self-determination.
On the other hand we’re supposed to decry the outlandish, primitive and backwards Indian approach to childbearing that reduces infant girls to a statistic.
As for domestic American abortion, I’m frankly not in favor of it. I’m not all that keen on outlawing abortion on a national level either. One of my more wierd beliefs is that everyone should be allowed to go to Hell in their own way if that’s their choice.
The real solution to this problem I think involves two steps.
1. Reduce the question of legalised abortion to a state level. Let the states approach this in their own individual manner. Those states that allow abortion can then provide it to people who desire it.
2. Vastly improve the ability for childless individuals and couples to connect to women who are dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.
There are movements, organizations and groups out there but the pro-abortion lobby has done quite a bit to block these sorts of efforts. I think it’s almost criminal that there are people desperate for a child to love facing an empty home while others who are desperate for a solution to their personal crisis are facing the unknown alone.
Perhaps I’m behind the times and this sort of thing goes on all the time. If this is the case then I’m certainly curious as to why so many people have to go to China to adopt. But if this isn’t being done on a wide-ranging basis, then I would prefer to see it implemented before anything else.
You’ve got a problem and you need to see someone about it.
Perhaps I’m behind the times and this sort of thing goes on all the time. If this is the case then I’m certainly curious as to why so many people have to go to China to adopt. But if this isn’t being done on a wide-ranging basis, then I would prefer to see it implemented before anything else.
It is a supply/demand imbalance, to put it baldly, due to several factors including the elevation of abortion to a sacrament by
the eugenicsabortionindustryadvocates, the obsessive insistence of the social work profession that children always thrive best when cared for by blood relatives and that parental rights should only be permanently severed, for all practical purposes, by the death of the child from abuse, and sharply increased rates of infertility among both males and females in the United States over the last 40 years.But for those factors, however, and my wife and I wouldn’t have brought home our precious 3-year-old son from Guatemala just over 2 years ago. And wouldn’t be returning for a daughter, hopefully before the end of the year. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
You’ve got a problem and you need to see someone about it.
Indeed, poor Ed has an irrational empathy for an highly aggressive carcinoma that afflicts sexually active women of child-bearing age. Would that he seek the help you so obviously do not need, Actus. Won’t you pray for him? Or would that be too empathetic for your tastes?
I don’t pray. Secularism and all, you know.
Hmmmm.
@ actus
You should look at the statistics of just how many abortions women have in Europe and Russia. I’ll try to dig up a couple references later on since I don’t have time now.
But 12+ abortions for a 35 year old woman isn’t uncommon. Which is frankly amazing to me.
I don’t pray. Secularism and all, you know.
But at least you don’t lack empathy.
Right?
Well, considering that emergency contraception isn’t an abortifacient, and is instead the exact same thing as birth control pills (just in a higher dose), no, it wasn’t much of a feat at all. We aren’t talk about RU-486, “the abortion pill,” here.
I think there’s a big difference between wanting to do something reasonably religious while working (i.e., use one of your 15 minute breaks for prayer) and refusing to perform part of your job because of your religious beliefs. Birth control pills have been dispensed by pharmacists for years—you’d have a hard time arguing that this is a new medical development that suddently troubles some people with established careers. They knew they would have to fill BC when they accepted their jobs as pharmacists. I don’t see why they should be able to refuse to work and not get fired.
I wonder if anyone here would similarly stand up for the rights of Christian Scientists to get jobs as pharmacists, and then refuse to fill prescriptions for anything “unnatural”? Or for the rights of Shaker pharmacists to refuse to fill Viagra prescriptions, because sex is wrong?
And it’s not always as easy as “just go somewhere else.” I live in a big city, so I can do that. But women in rural areas don’t always have that option. And part of the problem is that some of these pharmacists refuse to transfer the prescription, so she can’t go elsewhere.
We all have our religious beliefs, and that’s perfectly valid. But don’t go get a job at a liquor store if you think drinking is evil and you’re going to refuse to sell alcohol. Don’t get a job at an abortion clinic if you don’t want to perform abortions. Don’t get a job as a pharmacist if you don’t want to fill prescriptions.