Unless they are also considering "ProChoice and Proud", with the revenues designated to be used to counsel and assist the mothers who want to parent their own child, but are so desperate due to a temporary situation, like the loss of a job, a devastating family illness or some other temporary situation, that they are forced to consider adoption as an option, this is a total injustice. With 40 couples for every baby available, adoption hardly needs promotion. And, it is coercive by nature to encourage a woman to surrender her own flesh and blood.
With a less than 1% mortality rate for mothers who abort during the first trimester, but a mortality rate that has increased in the past 8 years by over 40%, they are hardly equally risky. And, maternal mortality rates are on the RISE in the US, not on the decline, as in other first world nations.
Perhaps it would be better to use the money raised from these plates to launch an awareness campaign to really convince people to Choose Life. How about encouraging them to have their children when they are still fertile instead of putting everything else ahead of their biological clock. Since we know that 85% of women who adopt are infertile, if they had not put off childbirth until their eggs aged out, they would actually have been "choosing life" instead of education, career, cars, homes, travel, wardrobe, parties, lavish lifestyle until they had raised their families. Instead, women (and men) have been convinced that they should put off childbearing until ALL those things are in order, and then, by the time they get around to "Choose Life", their eggs have aged out and it is too late, so they have to choose someone else's life, and coerce them into surrendering, with ploys like the unenforceable Open Adoption, that often close as soon as the ink is dry on the adoption finalization.
I noticed that John Carona, the sponsor of this bill, is a father of 5, grandfather of 3 (so far, he coyly states on his Senate page) and listed on the Gladney website as an Honor Roll Donor. One has to wonder what he owes to Gladney.
Here are my comments on the article in the Statesman....
"I am strongly opposed to this bill. Adoption is NOT an alternative to abortion, but an alternative to raising the infant that one had already decided months before NOT to abort! Adoption damages the mothers, with lifelong grief and since up to 40% of surrendering mothers suffer secondary infertility, it dooms them to the loss of their only child. The consequences for children is equally dire, with adoptees representing roughly 2% of the total population that figure should carry over into all other areas, but adoptees are over-represented in EVERY area of dysfunction, including prison, therapy, group homes, alcoholics, sometimes by up to 40%!
Unless there is going to be equal funding for women who only consider adoption because of desperation, the vast majority, to help them over the temporary hurdles to parenting, this is unjust, unfair, unequal and inherently coercive. Again, I urge you to vote NO on this bill!
11 comments:
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The whole thing about these MM-pandering leggies slipping in these license plates and flaunting their disregard of the separation of church and state is heinous. I am not surprised that TX is doing it. FL did it several years ago. It hurts my heart for our daughters and granddaughters. Great blog and great response, Sandy.
How about encouraging them to have their children when they are still fertile instead of putting everything else ahead of their biological clock.
It's not the religious conservatives who are pushing the delay of childbearing.
disregard of the separation of church and state is heinous.
The goal of the founders was to prevent the establishment of a state church. If you can explain how endorsing the slogan "Choose Life" establishes an official religion, I'm all ears.
Also, from the comments section:
I am strongly opposed to this bill. Adoption is NOT an alternative to abortion, but an alternative to raising the infant that one had already decided months before NOT to abort!
In most cases, a woman's decision to abort is informed less by health questions than by her life circumstances, and whether she believes she can raise a child. So that statement isn't wholly accurate. Adoption is not an alternative to abortion if a woman has decided to abort based on health concerns, but it is a potential alternative to abortion if a woman's decision to abort is primarily driven by lifestyle concerns.
www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf
Only 12 percent of women who obtain abortions cite concerns about their health as a reason for getting an abortion; 13 percent cite concerns about the health of the fetus.
Lucille,
I don't think that any of us have any misconceptions about who is pushing the Choose Life plates in Texas, Florida or any of the other states where they are being used. It is the Religious Right, in their mindless efforts to overturn abortion rights for women. And, since many of the agencies and homes are religious affiliated, your separation argument is meaningless. Those lines were crossed with the Thousand Points of Light of Bush, Sr. These plates are simply more interference by the state in women's health issues. And, it further blurs the lines between business and government. It is a tacit acknowledgment that the government has a stake in the business of adoption, a multi billion dollar a year industry which is largely unregulated.
I am not sure why you mentioned the health issues in a decision to abort or continue a pregnancy. It is a woman's right to choose abortion if she wishes. Further, the fact remains that maternal mortality rates are rising and that early abortion is almost foolproof. And, if only ONE woman chooses to abort rather than continue a potentitally life-threatening pregnancy for another woman, it is still valid.
Last, the fact that a woman's desperation seems a legitimate reason to take her child says something. You seem to be a-okay with taking a desperate woman's child if a woman's health is not a consideration.
It is the Religious Right
That's a vague term that avoids specifying whom you're talking about.
their mindless efforts to overturn abortion rights for women
Opposition to abortion is not automatically "mindless." It's a position many people have come to through thinking about the issue.
your separation argument is meaningless.
If you are claiming the "Choose Life" plates do indeed establish a religion, an official church, please tell me which one that is.
These plates are simply more interference by the state in women's health issues.
How so?
I am not sure why you mentioned the health issues in a decision to abort or continue a pregnancy.
Then read my comment again. I believe I explained myself.
You seem to be a-okay with taking a desperate woman's child if a woman's health is not a consideration.
While women should have help to keep their children, I do believe that adoption is preferable to abortion, for the simple reason that I think being alive is better than being dead.
Separation of church and state does not, nor does it ever mean, that people with religious convictions have no right attempt to bring their ideals into the political process.
Lucille,
The religious right, the christian fundamentalists who are so very concerned with unborn babies and interfering with end of life decisions by family members. A great many of them are affiliated with groups such as Heritage Foundation, LDS, Bethany, and count among their leaders some of the Televangelists and Evangelical Christians.
Yes, what you said about the separation of church and state is true, however, it also means that if churches and religions want to keep their nonprofit status and continue to be tax exempt,they had better be careful about how they attempt to influence legislators to vote. They are, with things like this, walking a very fine line.
I disagree with what you said about children being better adopted than aborted. My son and other adoptees I know, have said repeatedly that they would have preferred to have been aborted than to have to spend their entire lives being other, strange, and not fitting in or feeling like and outsider and wondering all the time about their beginnings. At the time when an abortion would be done, the fetus is a mass of tissue, and not a human. If you are so opposed to abortion, miscarriage, occurring in @1/3 of pregnancies, is nature's way of dealing with a problem pregnancy, and also called a spontaneous abortion.
This blog is not about whether or not abortions are right. They are legal, they are still, at this point a decision to be made between a woman, her physician and her conscience. I will not argue this with you. What I will argue is wheter or not I, who is adamantly opposed to these plates and the biased and one-sided fund raising by the government to support what is the opinion of a small but vocal minority.
I am truly confused as to why anyone with a brain is not aware that the "moral majority" or the Christian religious right wing is not behind this insanity. First and foremost, the division of church and state is and will always be the goals of the founders of this nation. The immigrants of Europe came to the US for reasons of religious persecution... When a state or states puts up slogans that are part of a religious or group of religions propaganda, it defeats the very reason for which this nation was formed.
Also, it is terribly obvious that this is about upping the number of adoptions, considering the major proponent of the bill is a Gladney donor.
While I strive, at this point, to remain objective, I have to wonder at the ignorance that is posted in the guise of intelligence....
Thank you, Lori. Well said!
@Sandy, not a problem. I am just dumbfounded at the total inability of posters that push their religious viewpoint on others to have an original thought or idea.... and the willful ignorance that is being pushed into the forefront. I can't believe that women are still this stupid.
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