In this episode I talk about the disappearance of common sense, rude texting, the movies Iron man 2 and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, some asshole power bombing a kid, and I steal from This American Life and talk about things that I used to believe in including God, having kids, and abortions being wrong. Click here to download this and older episodes and click here to subscribe through iTunes and even embed a player on your site. Enjoy!
2 comments:
It's funny what you say about changing your mind suddenly about the rights and wrongs of abortion suddenly, I pretty much had the same experience. I was educated by nuns (the vast majority of Irish state schools are run by the Catholic Church) and grew up with the idea that abortion is always the worst option, and an unthinkable crime, and a mortal sin. I wasn't really much bothered about the sin part, but I did feel that abortion was just plain wrong.
Then, I when I was about 15, a case of rape came to public attention. A 14 year old girl has been raped by the father of a friend. It seems she only told her family when she found out she was pregnant as a result of the rape. Her parents reported the rape to the police and, as abortion is illegal in Ireland, started making arrangements for an abortion in England. They asked the police if they should retain some of the foetal tissue in order to prove that the father of the child was the guy accused of the rape. The police sought legal advice and the upshot was, because of our constitutional protections for children (our constitution was written by a fanatical Catholic), a High Court order was taken out preventing the girl from travelling to the UK to get an abortion. Irish women's right to travel for an abortion and our right to access information on abortion was nullified by this ruling.
So naturally, a big civil rights row kicked off, and the upshot was that no, women's right to travel could not be restricted, and our right to information was also underlined. By this time of course, just like in Roe v Wade, the pregnant girl had given birth.
I heard about this case on the news, and of course I was horrified at the thought that this girl might be forced (as it turns out she was) to go full term with the pregnancy. We discussed it at school -in religion class of course- and I was suddenly shocked by my realisation that I had always accepted that abortion was unequivocally wrong. I realised I had never even approached the idea critically, I had just swallowed the anti-abortion line unthinkingly. The nuns modulated their hard line a little bit, never conceding that abortion might be the best of a shitty bunch of option, but seeing the depth of feeling in us teenage girls, most of whom felt utterly violated and outraged by the original High Court injunction, made them pull back a bit. But one of them read out a poem supposedly written by a baby about to be aborted.
See, this is how the Catholic Church controls us. Guilt. As if a woman who has made the horrible choice of getting an abortion needs more guilt. And I wonder about my classmates. Chances are at least one of them has had an abortion in the twenty years since that time. Just how much more trauma did she have to endure because of the guilt the nuns instilled in her about aborting her baby?
The right to choose is so important. And I don't think it should be used because a pregnancy is inconvenient, that's not an excuse in my eyes. But whatever, it's your body and your soul. A civilised society gives women the right to choose. But a truly civilised society wouldn't need it. :(
Rape should be a mortal sin as well but it seems that they are forgiven far more easily than someone who has an abortion. All of the perverts of the world and those who are involved in religion an be forgiven for raping and molesting children. Makes no damned sense to me.
Like you say, abortions should not be used like a contraceptive. The fact that the government has a say in the matter is so ridiculous to me. In America people have the right to stand in front of a clinic where someone has to get an abortion and flash posters showing them dead babies. Its fucking disgusting and shouldnt be allowed but they use the amendment to back their dumb ass behavior. I honestly dont think there are enough abortions.
The funny thing I have heard people say is "What if your mother had an abortion with you?" to which I reply "It wouldnt matter. I wouldnt be anywhere to be upset about it."
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