OUR ENEMY DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER / PARENTHOOD BY PROXY

OUR ENEMY DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER / PARENTHOOD BY PROXY

Flipping through... Dr. Laura Schlessinger Parenthood By Proxy DON'T HAVE THEM IF YOU WON'T RAISE THEM C 2000 Cliff Street Books... 

Tripped across this one on the library shelves today and was intrigued by the DON'T HAVE THEM IF YOU WON'T RAISE THEM subtitle. And she's right that you don't get to resign from parenthood. Of course, anyone who listens to Dr. Laura's radio program, which is broadcast across the nation knows that she is ALSO AGAINST ABORTION, suggesting to anyone who cannot afford to raise a child that they should give that child up for adoption, and that she is AGAINST SINGLE PARENTHOOD as well. She frequently advises couples to stay together to raise a child, a kind of "You made a baby now you are stuck in an unhappy marriage attitude." BUT THEN AGAIN, I often think that her callers already know what she is going to say... REST ASSURED Dr. Laura IS THE NEVER MARRIED NO CHILDREN ENEMY. I've heard her tell people who have just gotten married to SHUN their still single friends. She doesn't really have any use for those of us who choose to remain unmarried and childless... She doesn't have any regard for us.

(First published October 14, 2008)

Note: She is no longer on the air!

ABORTION IS NASTY BUSINESS - SO IS CHILD BIRTH! BIOLOGY SHOULD NOT BE DESTINY : SISTER SPEAKS

It's funny, but when I was a teen, a teacher who was educating her students about debate had us pick a topic and take a side. It didn't have to be the side we were on, but a side.  My best friend in the class took pro-abortion and I went against. She was a genius and more sophisticated about women's liberation - feminism - at that point in our lives.She had the voice of authority while I simply said Abortion is wrong because it is wrong and it is gross.

Now, we are in the complete opposite corners.

She used to say she hated babies, but then maybe that was because after school she had to take care of her little sister who had come as a surprise in her parent's dying marriage.  She also made more money per hour taking care of children for a single mother who had to work than I did working as a cashier and seemed to be upset that the father of these children provided no support even though he had been married to the woman. As an adult, my old friend has been married and the mother of four for some time and rarely has a moment for our friendship. She's become a religious person and no doubt thinks women like me are sinners. You could say that she is no longer a feminist.

I remember as a teen going against abortion because it was and is nasty. At the time there was no abortion pill and young women in my high school seemed to be getting pregnant with ease also because they had no contraception and the young men were also as foolish.  Some had their babies and quit school, with some promise that they could go on living with parents who helped them. Some parents demanded the baby be born and be put up for adoption elsewhere or sent their daughter out of state to do the same. Some parents took their daughter to another state where she could get an abortion that was beyond the three month point.  One pitiful girl took herself to New York for the same reason, the waiting time about her having to earn the money to pay for it and to travel.  I can only think of how lonely and frightened she must have been.

My classmates were without parents who told them about sex or contraception and some of them seemed to use abortion instead of contraception. All of this scared the hell out of me and I was determined to avoid sex.

I saw pictures of aborted fetus including cut up ones in a pan.  Still grosses me out.  I could never ever work in nursing or any profession that requires gross. I could barely dissect a worm in biology class. I would not be able to eat meat if I had to hunt or slaughter. I admit it. 

What I was NOT well educated on was how dangerous, painful, life-threatening, and otherwise icky childbirth is. During the teenage debate my friend said "All surgeries are gross." She was right.

Nothing unites us with the animal mammal kingdom than the realities of childbirth. It's an experience I never wanted to have, an experience I feared, even if just about every woman I knew growing up had gone through it.  I wasn't sure I'd become an NM but I was sure I wasn't interested in having children.  This has been interpreted as my hating children but I do not hate children.  It's just that I'm not gooey about children.  I don't think they are all cute. I also think they deserve and need a whole lot more than most get.  (Although encounters with the spoiled brats leaves me thinking that some are demanding and unappreciative and too precious.)

I read on a blog recently a young mother complaining about how painful and damaged her nipples were from  breast-feeding and the frustration of having a baby who was not gaining weight despite all her trials of attempting to feed it.  Further she'd had a traumatic birth and was becoming an advocate for other women. She said the birth was so traumatic (she meant horrible) that it changed her consciousness. 

Nature designed women to bear this trauma and all else until we die.  A very small percentage of women made it to ever go through a menopause. I had sympathy for young woman but I also hoped she would realize she is no 'natural mother' and make sure she had ended the possibility that she would put herself through this again.

The great number of women leaving their children orphaned; that was an initial reason why some contraception advocates were active a century ago.  Even spacing children so that a woman could potentially recover from a birth and feed her latest infant became controversial.  All of it - including death - were supposed to be 'natural' meaning fateful.  Biology was to be our destiny. I knew I didn't want it to be mine.

Though much of European history, women who were without a husband trying to have a child on their own or because they were widowed were almost forced to marry someone else quickly or become prostitutes or sometimes went to a "work house." In other cultures a man could have more than one wife, so long as he could afford them all.

Contraception, including sterilization and legal abortion changed that. If a person is willing to use these.  If a person is able to get health services.  If a person is able to get a legal abortion, which is the safer alternative to other methods.  If only...

What Anti-Abortion advocates do not care about is the MOTHER. Quite possibly the MOTHER OF OTHER CHILDREN ALREADY. Quite possibly someone who cannot have a relationship without being sexually active but who cannot herself or with a partner afford to raise a child. What about women who are abused but stay in relationships because they can't afford to raise their children alone?

Why is our government making CHILDBEARING regardless of a woman's self determination MANDITORY?  Aren't there already enough people on earth?

This is why I became PRO-CHOICE and still am.

C 2022 Never Married No Kids - BlogSpot

 

THE "IN LABOR" ABORTION CONTROVERSY

I'm Pro-Choice.
Pro-Choice means everyone gets to choose for themselves.
Being Pro-Choice isn't the same as being Pro-Abortion.
You can be Pro-Choice without ever wanting to have an Abortion yourself.
Being Pro-Choice means that you understand that other people have different values.

Since this blog is about NMNK - Never Married No Kids people, contraception and abortion is a fair topic.  Because if you're a sexual woman, there's always a chance that your contraception will fail, or that you will be raped some time when you are not using contraception.  And then you have the choice to have an abortion.

I met a young woman recently who was very responsible at 18, both on the pill, and using protection,
She was raped by a stranger and has PTSD.
If she got pregnant by rape and wanted an abortion, an early abortion, I could understand that.

Women should not be punished by pregnancy.

At the same time, I must admit to you, third term abortions are already legal in many places, so long as you can find a doctor willing and afford it.  I know someone who did this, at about 7 months.  She'd been having an affair.  She was close to 40.  The man she was having an affair with was blond.  She and her husband black haired.  I accepted her choice.  From what I was told later, her extremely expensive (wiped out their life savings) legal third term abortion was carried out without anesthetic in a high rise building office.  She got the doctor's name from a clinic that does only first term abortions.

Still, I must admit that the thought of aborting a viable fetus, a fetus that is called a baby once outside the body of the mother, that can live and breath on it's own and is not likely disabled in any way, is upsetting to me.  Because there have been all those months before to make a decision and do something about it.

In actuality I think few women ready to give birth would opt to have their fetus aborted.  And few doctors are willing to do so, especially not openly.

Listening to discussions on this issue over the weekend on radio stations that are conservatively biased, I must admit also that I think the law is a prescient for other changes that we as a society would not like.

For instance, what about the pressure put on someone without resources to have an abortion.  This pressure can be put on a woman by a governmental agency, such as a welfare agency social worker through disapproval.

Though it is my choice to be a NMNK person, I realize that most people do not idealize this option.

I've met the women who were shamed and embarrassed by abortion clinic personnel because they could not come up with the money for their abortion early on.  In fact, my friend who had her 3rd term abortion many years ago had no way to get the money for an earlier abortion.  The financing is what sometimes makes women wait.  I said that she used her and her husband's life savings to pay for the third term abortion.  She needed to get him on her side for this and he did.  He never spoke about it with her again.

She didn't tell him she was having an affair.
She said she had not suspected she was pregnant and thought she was going into menopause.
She said she was worn out from caring for their difficult child already and felt too old to do another 20 years of childcare.
She said she had been using cocaine and other illegal drugs.
All the doctor wanted to know, off hand, was why she waited.  She lied about the cocaine and other illegal drugs to him too.

Today there are so many contraception options.
Yet it is true that many women cannot take the pill or find certain methods difficult.
So unplanned pregnancies happen.  A lot.

If you're sexual, you MUST have communication and agreement on what happens if.

C 2019 Never Married No Kids BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved

CHILDREN OUT OF WEDLOCK THE NEW NORMAL? THAT'S TERRIBLE!

I recently read two articles, one at NPR, which said the percentage of black children born out of wedlock in 2013 was 70%.  Another in The Atlantic, attempted to explain.  Written by Ta-Nehisi Coastes, a man, it was called "Understanding Out of Wedlock Births in Black America."  (Please understand that white children are also being born out of wedlock in unprecedented numbers and what I have to say here is not focused on just black people.)

THE ATLANTIC ARCHIVE

I carefully read the language of this second article, and the first issue I had with it was the apology that black women are CHOOSING NOT TO MARRY.  The Black women I've known through the years were not being asked to marry even when they got pregnant.  If a relationship was not a committed one with the potential to become marriage before the pregnancy occurred, then forget this idea of choice completely.  (And yes I know one white woman who told everyone that her sperm donor had asked her to marry him but that she had decided it wasn't a relationship to make a life out of and had said no.  It was a lie.  It turned out he was married.)

What the article should have said is WOMEN ARE CHOOSING TO HAVE SEX WITHOUT PROPER CONTRACEPTION or are unwilling to use it, or are unwilling to have abortions or have a baby and put it up for adoption IN RECORD NUMBERS.  It may now be a rite of passage into adulthood that a woman gets pregnant and becomes a single mom, which is often a struggling, stressed out, mom who can't give her children the things they need and is dependent on Social Services.

I know contraception is not perfect, in particular because people are not perfect. 

Believe it or not, I've always been Pro-Choice, but I couldn't tell someone they have to have an abortion. What worries me is that so many women are living life not by CHOOSING but by NOT CHOOSING.  Everything in life "just happens" to them, or is their fate, or is God's will.

I'm also willing to go anthropologist on this and say that maybe black American culture is basically matriarchal and there isn't much expected of men in the first place, that it's a culture where the women do the child begetting and birthing and raising without the idea that a man should be involved too.  But women, what has happened to your desire to, if you really want children, date with the idea that finding a husband first?  I'm sorry but some of you just lack self esteem and are letting men off easy as they betray you.  You also have more options for contraception than ever before in the history of this planet, but don't use it.  And if you're so religious that you don't believe in contraception or abortion, what are you doing having sex without being married first then?

When a woman has, through luck, inheritance, or (most often) hard and long work, becoming educated, establishing a career, and is making very good money, and she wants to have a child on her own, if she has several persons in her life committed to helping her parent, especially if she is getting older and may soon no longer be fertile, that is a CHOOSING.  There is maturity involved and rationality and I understand it.  Some of our famous actresses, such as say Sandra Bullock, who have millions in the bank, have adopted children because they are in the position to have a trust fund in place for their child so that if they die the child will still be supported.  That's not most people.  Elton John and his partner having children using a surrogate are not most people.  They are famous and rich.  They are not to be imitated.

Going out, partying, sleeping with whomever (maybe because you think a man is owed sex in exchange for taking you out), remaining unqualified to make decent money, being poor and without resources, and just going ahead with having a baby because you say "Well I want one"  or "Everyone else is doing it" is just not good enough.

How do I know?

Well, I meet these single mothers who regard men as not much more than sperm donors  (Why aren't men protesting?) and who are raising children with the help of their mothers (who really ought to be retiring to something other than childcare after having done their own child-raising bit) everywhere.  They are in my neighborhood working, rushing back and forth to drop their child off here, there, and everywhere, but especially Day Care, looking like they are about to drop, aged ten years in five.  Some of them are bitter.  Most of them are in ongoing arguments with the sperm donor daddy, begging him to spend some time with their child.  Children are supposed to have more than one role model in their lives, and someone admirable.

Maybe another person will come into these women's lives, love them truly - and their child, provide financial support, become a real husband or partner and a real co-parent, but when the rates of no dad births go all the way up to 70% tell me, where are the Good Guys?  Or are you just making a life with a man who is not the father to your child but the father to some other women's child?  I've even met (in passing) two men who had five children each, each child with a different woman. What a tangled web of a family tree and relationships that is! (One by the way was an ex gang member of Hispanic roots.  The other Black.  They were bragging.)

I do think it is better to be NM than in a bad marriage.  But I'm NMNK.  Through my life I've made countless CHOICES to not get pregnant including celibacy, not continuing relationships that weren't going well, and using contraception.  No contraception isn't perfect.  I've met women who got pregnant using just about every contraception there is, even an IUD.  One woman even claimed a third pregnancy after having her tubes tied. I've met married women who didn't want another child who got pregnant anyway.  Still, statistics like these are not all about broken rubbers, forgotten pills, and misplaced diaphragms.  These stats are much higher than contraceptive failure rates. Some women can even have a once in three year implant that will prevent pregnancy but if you read the ads it's mentioned THIS DOES NOT PREVENT STD's.

What does? 

Using rubbers so you don't get STD's is a must unless you are PLANNING TO HAVE A BABY!  What does using rubbers entail, besides being able to afford them?  A MAN WHO USES THEM!

When a woman has a child before she is "ready" and that means relationship-wise and financially too, she puts her own future in jeopardy.

OFF THE SOAP BOX NOW!

THINK!

Sister

IS POPULATION GROWTH MONTH - POPULATION INSTITUTE LINK

POPULATION INSTITUTE link here!  This has a lot of good information and it's scary but up on the right hand top of their page you can see the population of the world increasing, a woman giving birth every... well it appears to be every second...

Welcome to the Population Institute



The Population Institute is an international non-profit that educates policymakers and the public about population, and seeks to promote universal access to family planning information, education, and services. Through voluntary family planning, we strive to achieve a world population in balance with a healthy global environment and resource base.

ALL ABOUT ABORTION - THIS SITE DOES NOT MAKE YOU GUILT TRIP

Here's a link to a site that is clearly pro-abortion with lots of links that include testimonials.  Growing up in a time when most parents did not discuss contraception with their children I witnessed many of my classmates have babies and mostly give them up because they had no easy contraception options.  Then in my twenties I began to meet women who had abortions and I'll be honest, most of them WERE EMOTIONALLY UPSET about it at some point.  Still, unless you are really willing to go through a pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption, you must ask yourself if you are in a place in life where you can raise a child; do you have the wealth and the health? 

AND NO, LEAVING THE CHILD TO BE RAISED BY GRANDPARENTS ... THAT IS NOT FAIR TO THEM!

Sister

ABORTION RIGHTS : PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Want to know the latest about your right to abortion?  How about checking out this site by PLANNED PARENTHOOD ?

FIFTY YEARS OF THE CONTRACEPTION THE PILL

NOT "BIRTH CONTROL"  (How did it ever get that stupid name?)  but CONTRACEPTION... has never been more perfect than "the pill."  But it's still not perfect for everyone.  I've known women who got pregnant despite practicing every kind of contraception there is..

Link to this news story about the pill's 50th anniversary - this year!

NO CHILDREN MEANS CONTRACEPTION, ABORTION, CELIBACY, ADOPTION, OR LUCK

If you don't want children, then you usually don't have the luck to be naturally infertile. Instead, you have to use contraception, be willing to have an abortion - or be willing to bear a child and give it up for adoption.

You're always hearing about people who are "trying" to get pregnant. It's really no one's business, but couples today like to tell you anyway that they are or were "trying." Making love to each other seems to have turned into "trying!" (Yeesh!) But with the cost of raising children today, requiring two incomes almost always (this is not necessarily a feminist move), MORE PEOPLE ARE TRYING NOT TO GET PREGNANT THAN EVER!

BUT THE POINT OF THIS POST IS TO ASSURE YOU, that you CAN BE A NMNK having become a biological mother or father and given up the child for adoption. And we are NOT holding that against you!

ABORTION IN DEMAND as UNITED STATES ECONOMY COLLAPSES

Reading in the news lately, Planned Parenthood and other clinics that provide contraception and abortion health services are getting a huge number of calls as women who used to have private health insurance require exams and contraception or turn to abortion because they can't imagine being able to afford a child.

To me this news is also about the economic aspect of having children which takes maturity and sophistication to understand and accept. While the economic crisis continues to put pressure on us, many women (and men) are coming to grips with the fact that bearing and raising a child to maturity is expensive.

No, Sister here is not for any government enforcement of the use of contraception or abortion as they do in c Communist China! However, more people I talk to are are getting irate about the fact that they feel overtaxed to support and raise the children of people who have as many children as God sends them while they can't afford their own.

In truth, if the only people who had children were the ones who would be guaranteed to want them, love them, and be able to afford them the population of the earth would plummet.

Sister