👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Why is it not equally as trendy to support the other version of “reproductive choice”, the choice to give birth and become a mother? — yes. It’s wild to see the same people champion the abortion access narrative and also complain about the lack of support for mothers. It’s like, connect the dots.
What a great point. Resources are clearly being directed at a singular thing, the thing that the Democratic Party largely based their campaign on, right? It’s not like this is a small topic. Why the right to mother and to do so without extreme economic anxiety isn’t an equally compelling topic escapes me personally but makes sense when you look at what culture pushes as valuable (which as I get older is clear to me doesn’t reflect the opinion of most regular, normal people).
I love living in NM! I think there are some great supports for families here and also that state doesn't coerce you into carrying a pregnancy to term against your will.
Thank you, Emily, for your thoughtful views around abortion. I must admit, my own opposition to Planned Parenthood is because of their provision of "gender affirming care", which I view as deliberately causing harms to confused children and young adults. At some Planned Parenthood clinics, children as young as 12 can be "treated" with hormones with parental consent.
Interestingly, the same arguments are used to support both abortion and "gender affirming care", by as you say, "skirting the real problems" behind both of these things. I guess it's more cost effective to just let patients make their own diagnosis, rather than providing the support needed to help them really optimize their long-term health.
Now that I use NFP, I’ve come to believe that cycle tracking is essential for women and girls - whether sexually active or not. We should have this knowledge about ourselves - it’s enormously empowering and provides so much insight into our overall health. Of course, my ob-gyn is entirely dismissive of NFP, but she’s the same person who suggested while I was still in the backless gown receiving the news that I’d miscarried that my husband and I should really try egg donation if we wanted another child, so not someone with a lot of sensitivity.
(Unexpectedly, my gay male PCP is far more informed and supportive, so now I see him for my well woman care. Also, she was wrong, and I’m currently holding a sleeping 11 month old that I naturally conceived at 42, using NFP.)
This needed to be said and by a woman who's lived both sides of the argument. The radicals that infiltrated or started all these organizations like Planned Parenthood, their supporters and apologists learned early on that marrying the ideas of oppression and abuse, to child birth was a money maker and power sump. So long as it was always couched that way, then any opposition could be labeled as misogynist (until recently only reserved for the men opposing this) or brain washed women.
The radicals in the civil rights movement also understood this and did the same seeding with the ideas of reparations and affirmative action, in their target group.
I've always thought that if you peeled the political and softening veneer, from these issues/topics and required people to see the unvarnished and many times ugly truth of what they were choosing or supporting - from a detached mental and emotional distance - their choices would be much different. The radicals know this, which is why a human is shamefully reduced to a clump of cells or an inconvenience, and in opposition to women's health rights and "living your best and most liberated life."
If they were made to see the murder(s) they are sanctioning (in all their reality), they would reconsider not just the abortion, but the responsibility we all should shoulder beforehand, where the fun, self absorbed sexual recreation is concerned. We might stop and think that another life may hang in the balance, after our fun romps are done, if we are not diligent and careful. I'm not pointing a pious finger at anyone, as I've had more than my share of this irresponsible behavior.
The maddening part is if these same supporters and apologists of organizations and agendas like PP read a piece, about a woman or couple, who unexpectedly took in a stray that showed up at the door, the stray demolished the home and it was decided it was too much trouble, cost and problem to keep - and was tossing out or abandoned (not even killing it), there would be mayhem and stories for months.
However, no such consideration is given to human growing inside a mother.
The irony lies in the fact that much of the “oppression and abuse” can at least be equally caused by the avoidance of motherhood via coercive abortion. I don’t personally view matters of nature as oppressive, so the pain and sacrifice of birth and motherhood is just part and parcel of the reality of fertile female existence, and it comes with rewards that overshadow anything unpleasant about it.
I also write this in a manner that isn’t pointing that pious finger as well, and I hope it comes across that way! I think that engaging in that irresponsible behavior often is a result of simple ignorance (and passion as well, I get it, we all get it) which is why I think a lot of this discussion needs to start with children as a part of their education. The common version of sex Ed is just advertising for birth control and stresses consent to the point that it makes it clear that anything and everything is fine as long as consent is in place (and when teenage boys-and now girls-are being raised by violent porn, this can mean really devastating things get a “yes” due to the unfortunate normalization of BDSM and the like). It needs to be something else entirely, and parents need to not just acquiesce to whatever the public school is going to tell their kid about sex and reproduction.
One of the many reasons men have revered women throughout history, is the miracle, pain and sacrifice women endure - without which none of us would be here. Of course we (on both sides) have shamefully worked to destroy our collective respect, regard and admiration of the mother and by extension women.
I've always thought that in order to sell the "C-Suite girl boss lie", they had to convince women that they were not already the CEO's of the most prestigious, successful and enduring company in the world - Civilization.
You're correct about sexual education being the responsibility of the parents, to ensure the rampant, deviant perversion is removed from the lessons and mix. This state school grooming and capture is the culmination of the 60's progressive, liberal agendas, to create a counter culture in the schools - and their go to tactic was, as it always has been, sexualization of the target group.
I've said many times, you re-engineer a society, by changing the norms as early as possible, in it's members. What you've seen over the last two generations is children (daycares and kindergartens) who've intentionally been given daily exposure to the abnormal, perverse and deviant, for years.
That in turn became their "norms", so that what you rightly observed comes to fruition on all levels..."(and when teenage boys-and now girls-are being raised by violent porn, this can mean really devastating things get a “yes” due to the unfortunate normalization of BDSM and the like)".
The regime (liberal/progressive governments at all levels) created mass demoralization campaigns, have worked well.
When the progressive use the catch phrase "it takes a village", they aren't talking about Andy Griffith and Mayberry - they're talking about a perverted and evil version of Mao's Red Guard - in that the regime or bureaucracy grooms, subverts and indoctrinates the children, in order to tear down the existing system, to erect their own.
My rants can become much too long winded. Please don't feel obligated to reply. Many times it's just me shouting into the void for everyone other than the OP's, who already get it.
Please spend your time creating your excellent pieces. I will not take it personally. 😉
This is eloquently put. Because my eyes are so wide open to the cultishness of abortion support, it’s hard so me to even imagine better from that side—but you did here.
What an incredibly passionate and comprehensive writing on this topic. You were able to shed light on topics my family have been discussing over the last few years. When I woke up to the fact that I grew up in abortion culture, I had a deep feeling of betrayal and that I had been tricked. Coercive culture that had me believe, as a young woman, that my freedom was in the hands of the male law makers that said yes or no about a violent act to a woman’s body. How could this possibly be the bottom line of a woman’s freedom in her body?? I too have had an abortion. It was a medical abortion because of an illness I had wouldn’t stabilize. I also, gave my baby up for adoption at the age of 19. I also lost a baby late term. I now have 2 beautiful children that are adults. I understand very much so the power of life that comes from a woman’s womb and the power of death that can come from it. Educating both young women and young men about this incredibly beautiful and devastating part of life is crucial. Why, so that we can live in the truth of it all as much as we can. So we do not suffer regrets and so we walk in integrity and love and understand that we are pure love. Disposing of life has repercussions that we don’t understand the full scope of. It wears on a woman’s physical body and her psyche and spiritually, whether she’s aware of it or not. It plays out in a variety of profound disconnections that we are seeing so rampant now. Thank you for the courage to write this and for having found such a depth of clarity.
Thank you Rachel, for both your kind words and for sharing your own experiences here, for they are many and they are so valuable to this conversation. I am sorry about your loss and for any pain you carry for those experiences still. I also take joy in the rest of your story, the grown children you raised and the precious lessons you are able to share as a result.
Thank you for acknowledging all this. Sometimes I feel the healing comes from others really hearing you and understanding and also from within. I really appreciate it!
Well, it can be done prior to implantation, so I think there is a difference, I personally don’t have moral qualms with preventing implantation. After implantation, I do think there are moral implications.
A beautifully written post. Thank you for sharing. I’m curious, could you direct to more information about menstrual extraction? Also, the book Natural Liberty might be of interest to women. Thank you for stating that choosing not to carry a child to term has soul/spiritual implications, be it currently legal or illegal.
My belief-women hold power over life and death, and can choose to bring souls into the world, or not, based on the circumstances… it never should have been a conversation in government. It is an overreach of power-way too much power, that I would never trust the gvt to hold.
Edit: though I am not sure I am conservative, I do understand and appreciate conservative values in the realm of family and government, and find it being used as a Bad word by those who haven’t taken the time to understand it deeply
Natural Liberty would be the resource I would have said! Hygieia by Jeannine Parvati Baker is a good resource on herbs for all of the spectrum of the childbearing years as well. I don’t know a whole lot about the practice and have only heard it discussed on podcasts here and there, often in the context of prevention of implantation which is why I chose to mention it here. I know it can also be used as a manner to end a pregnancy as well, and for this reason I wavered on whether or not to mention it in the essay but I think it is at least worth consideration, especially since as I said, I also know woman have always and will always make these choices and I do want them to be safe. If they can do so without oversight of various industries/government/etc, then I do think the information about it should be circulated.
I have a couple of JeAnne Parvati bakers books ash’s they are amazing. Conscious conception is a very interesting one. I will have to look for Hygieia, thank you!
I agree absolutely with this statement: "women hold power over life and death, and can choose to bring souls into the world, or not, based on the circumstances… it never should have been a conversation in government. It is an overreach of power-way too much power, that I would never trust the gvt to hold."! Well said
Thank you so much, as always, for your thoughtful and incisive writing!
I recently finished RJ Barker's excellent Tide Child trilogy--a fantasy series. One of the very compelling features of these books was that it featured a strongly matriarchal society, where the "scars of birth"--stretch marks, sagging breasts--were treated as marks of high honor, as much or more than the scars of physical battle.
Modern, donating-to-Planned-Parenthood society does see pregnancy and birth as battles, but they're battles against our own offspring--they can kill us, or at least kill our (immediate) prospects and cherished wishes and notions for our own future, so we should be able to defend ourselves against them. How much less insane would it be to see pregnancy and birth as battles we fight alongside our offspring, against entropy and civilizational collapse and the end of the species?
Women have needs in all ways, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially etc.. As you have pointed out very graciously. I really can not see how in certain areas of society they are just life affirming and that is supposed to be enough, when all they care about is the birth and not the needs of both mother and child. It's like abandonment from that point on. I agree whether there are laws governing woman's choice to have an abortion or not somewhere they will get an abortion if that's what they want irregardless. This is the way it is.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Why is it not equally as trendy to support the other version of “reproductive choice”, the choice to give birth and become a mother? — yes. It’s wild to see the same people champion the abortion access narrative and also complain about the lack of support for mothers. It’s like, connect the dots.
What a great point. Resources are clearly being directed at a singular thing, the thing that the Democratic Party largely based their campaign on, right? It’s not like this is a small topic. Why the right to mother and to do so without extreme economic anxiety isn’t an equally compelling topic escapes me personally but makes sense when you look at what culture pushes as valuable (which as I get older is clear to me doesn’t reflect the opinion of most regular, normal people).
I love living in NM! I think there are some great supports for families here and also that state doesn't coerce you into carrying a pregnancy to term against your will.
Thank you, Emily, for your thoughtful views around abortion. I must admit, my own opposition to Planned Parenthood is because of their provision of "gender affirming care", which I view as deliberately causing harms to confused children and young adults. At some Planned Parenthood clinics, children as young as 12 can be "treated" with hormones with parental consent.
Interestingly, the same arguments are used to support both abortion and "gender affirming care", by as you say, "skirting the real problems" behind both of these things. I guess it's more cost effective to just let patients make their own diagnosis, rather than providing the support needed to help them really optimize their long-term health.
I hold the same opposition (mentioned briefly in the piece, I wanted to keep going but realized that’s a whole entire other essay!)!
Now that I use NFP, I’ve come to believe that cycle tracking is essential for women and girls - whether sexually active or not. We should have this knowledge about ourselves - it’s enormously empowering and provides so much insight into our overall health. Of course, my ob-gyn is entirely dismissive of NFP, but she’s the same person who suggested while I was still in the backless gown receiving the news that I’d miscarried that my husband and I should really try egg donation if we wanted another child, so not someone with a lot of sensitivity.
(Unexpectedly, my gay male PCP is far more informed and supportive, so now I see him for my well woman care. Also, she was wrong, and I’m currently holding a sleeping 11 month old that I naturally conceived at 42, using NFP.)
It truly is essential! Congratulations on your baby and on such a beautiful testimonial for NFP ♥️ (also, sounds like your OB should be fired!)
Brilliant Emily!!
This needed to be said and by a woman who's lived both sides of the argument. The radicals that infiltrated or started all these organizations like Planned Parenthood, their supporters and apologists learned early on that marrying the ideas of oppression and abuse, to child birth was a money maker and power sump. So long as it was always couched that way, then any opposition could be labeled as misogynist (until recently only reserved for the men opposing this) or brain washed women.
The radicals in the civil rights movement also understood this and did the same seeding with the ideas of reparations and affirmative action, in their target group.
I've always thought that if you peeled the political and softening veneer, from these issues/topics and required people to see the unvarnished and many times ugly truth of what they were choosing or supporting - from a detached mental and emotional distance - their choices would be much different. The radicals know this, which is why a human is shamefully reduced to a clump of cells or an inconvenience, and in opposition to women's health rights and "living your best and most liberated life."
If they were made to see the murder(s) they are sanctioning (in all their reality), they would reconsider not just the abortion, but the responsibility we all should shoulder beforehand, where the fun, self absorbed sexual recreation is concerned. We might stop and think that another life may hang in the balance, after our fun romps are done, if we are not diligent and careful. I'm not pointing a pious finger at anyone, as I've had more than my share of this irresponsible behavior.
The maddening part is if these same supporters and apologists of organizations and agendas like PP read a piece, about a woman or couple, who unexpectedly took in a stray that showed up at the door, the stray demolished the home and it was decided it was too much trouble, cost and problem to keep - and was tossing out or abandoned (not even killing it), there would be mayhem and stories for months.
However, no such consideration is given to human growing inside a mother.
Thanks for the great work as always!!
The irony lies in the fact that much of the “oppression and abuse” can at least be equally caused by the avoidance of motherhood via coercive abortion. I don’t personally view matters of nature as oppressive, so the pain and sacrifice of birth and motherhood is just part and parcel of the reality of fertile female existence, and it comes with rewards that overshadow anything unpleasant about it.
I also write this in a manner that isn’t pointing that pious finger as well, and I hope it comes across that way! I think that engaging in that irresponsible behavior often is a result of simple ignorance (and passion as well, I get it, we all get it) which is why I think a lot of this discussion needs to start with children as a part of their education. The common version of sex Ed is just advertising for birth control and stresses consent to the point that it makes it clear that anything and everything is fine as long as consent is in place (and when teenage boys-and now girls-are being raised by violent porn, this can mean really devastating things get a “yes” due to the unfortunate normalization of BDSM and the like). It needs to be something else entirely, and parents need to not just acquiesce to whatever the public school is going to tell their kid about sex and reproduction.
Amen on all counts.
One of the many reasons men have revered women throughout history, is the miracle, pain and sacrifice women endure - without which none of us would be here. Of course we (on both sides) have shamefully worked to destroy our collective respect, regard and admiration of the mother and by extension women.
I've always thought that in order to sell the "C-Suite girl boss lie", they had to convince women that they were not already the CEO's of the most prestigious, successful and enduring company in the world - Civilization.
You're correct about sexual education being the responsibility of the parents, to ensure the rampant, deviant perversion is removed from the lessons and mix. This state school grooming and capture is the culmination of the 60's progressive, liberal agendas, to create a counter culture in the schools - and their go to tactic was, as it always has been, sexualization of the target group.
I've said many times, you re-engineer a society, by changing the norms as early as possible, in it's members. What you've seen over the last two generations is children (daycares and kindergartens) who've intentionally been given daily exposure to the abnormal, perverse and deviant, for years.
That in turn became their "norms", so that what you rightly observed comes to fruition on all levels..."(and when teenage boys-and now girls-are being raised by violent porn, this can mean really devastating things get a “yes” due to the unfortunate normalization of BDSM and the like)".
The regime (liberal/progressive governments at all levels) created mass demoralization campaigns, have worked well.
When the progressive use the catch phrase "it takes a village", they aren't talking about Andy Griffith and Mayberry - they're talking about a perverted and evil version of Mao's Red Guard - in that the regime or bureaucracy grooms, subverts and indoctrinates the children, in order to tear down the existing system, to erect their own.
Keep up the great work Emily!!
I’m running out of steam on my ability to write thoughtful replies but I truly appreciate these thoughts and wholeheartedly agree. Thank you!
My rants can become much too long winded. Please don't feel obligated to reply. Many times it's just me shouting into the void for everyone other than the OP's, who already get it.
Please spend your time creating your excellent pieces. I will not take it personally. 😉
Well I truly enjoy your rants, keep them coming! 👏😊
Well-put as always, Emily. Thank you for being a continuous voice for real compassion and nuance. Happy New Year!
Thank you for reading and for your kind words! Happy New Year to you as well!
This is eloquently put. Because my eyes are so wide open to the cultishness of abortion support, it’s hard so me to even imagine better from that side—but you did here.
Thank you Martha ♥️
What an incredibly passionate and comprehensive writing on this topic. You were able to shed light on topics my family have been discussing over the last few years. When I woke up to the fact that I grew up in abortion culture, I had a deep feeling of betrayal and that I had been tricked. Coercive culture that had me believe, as a young woman, that my freedom was in the hands of the male law makers that said yes or no about a violent act to a woman’s body. How could this possibly be the bottom line of a woman’s freedom in her body?? I too have had an abortion. It was a medical abortion because of an illness I had wouldn’t stabilize. I also, gave my baby up for adoption at the age of 19. I also lost a baby late term. I now have 2 beautiful children that are adults. I understand very much so the power of life that comes from a woman’s womb and the power of death that can come from it. Educating both young women and young men about this incredibly beautiful and devastating part of life is crucial. Why, so that we can live in the truth of it all as much as we can. So we do not suffer regrets and so we walk in integrity and love and understand that we are pure love. Disposing of life has repercussions that we don’t understand the full scope of. It wears on a woman’s physical body and her psyche and spiritually, whether she’s aware of it or not. It plays out in a variety of profound disconnections that we are seeing so rampant now. Thank you for the courage to write this and for having found such a depth of clarity.
Thank you Rachel, for both your kind words and for sharing your own experiences here, for they are many and they are so valuable to this conversation. I am sorry about your loss and for any pain you carry for those experiences still. I also take joy in the rest of your story, the grown children you raised and the precious lessons you are able to share as a result.
Thank you for acknowledging all this. Sometimes I feel the healing comes from others really hearing you and understanding and also from within. I really appreciate it!
Beautifully and persuasively written.
Thank you Chris!!
Thought provoking and resonate. Thank you for sharing. I pass your work on to friends, I hope it reaches far ❤️
Oh gosh Sara thank you! I truly appreciate that and that made my day!
What moral line do you draw between menstrual extraction and abortion.
Well, it can be done prior to implantation, so I think there is a difference, I personally don’t have moral qualms with preventing implantation. After implantation, I do think there are moral implications.
A beautifully written post. Thank you for sharing. I’m curious, could you direct to more information about menstrual extraction? Also, the book Natural Liberty might be of interest to women. Thank you for stating that choosing not to carry a child to term has soul/spiritual implications, be it currently legal or illegal.
My belief-women hold power over life and death, and can choose to bring souls into the world, or not, based on the circumstances… it never should have been a conversation in government. It is an overreach of power-way too much power, that I would never trust the gvt to hold.
Edit: though I am not sure I am conservative, I do understand and appreciate conservative values in the realm of family and government, and find it being used as a Bad word by those who haven’t taken the time to understand it deeply
Natural Liberty would be the resource I would have said! Hygieia by Jeannine Parvati Baker is a good resource on herbs for all of the spectrum of the childbearing years as well. I don’t know a whole lot about the practice and have only heard it discussed on podcasts here and there, often in the context of prevention of implantation which is why I chose to mention it here. I know it can also be used as a manner to end a pregnancy as well, and for this reason I wavered on whether or not to mention it in the essay but I think it is at least worth consideration, especially since as I said, I also know woman have always and will always make these choices and I do want them to be safe. If they can do so without oversight of various industries/government/etc, then I do think the information about it should be circulated.
I have a couple of JeAnne Parvati bakers books ash’s they are amazing. Conscious conception is a very interesting one. I will have to look for Hygieia, thank you!
I believe it is out of print and can be a tad pricey but it is a great resource to have!
I agree absolutely with this statement: "women hold power over life and death, and can choose to bring souls into the world, or not, based on the circumstances… it never should have been a conversation in government. It is an overreach of power-way too much power, that I would never trust the gvt to hold."! Well said
Thank you so much, as always, for your thoughtful and incisive writing!
I recently finished RJ Barker's excellent Tide Child trilogy--a fantasy series. One of the very compelling features of these books was that it featured a strongly matriarchal society, where the "scars of birth"--stretch marks, sagging breasts--were treated as marks of high honor, as much or more than the scars of physical battle.
Modern, donating-to-Planned-Parenthood society does see pregnancy and birth as battles, but they're battles against our own offspring--they can kill us, or at least kill our (immediate) prospects and cherished wishes and notions for our own future, so we should be able to defend ourselves against them. How much less insane would it be to see pregnancy and birth as battles we fight alongside our offspring, against entropy and civilizational collapse and the end of the species?
The question about abortion is: Why is it beneficial? Not: Who gets to decide?
Women have needs in all ways, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially etc.. As you have pointed out very graciously. I really can not see how in certain areas of society they are just life affirming and that is supposed to be enough, when all they care about is the birth and not the needs of both mother and child. It's like abandonment from that point on. I agree whether there are laws governing woman's choice to have an abortion or not somewhere they will get an abortion if that's what they want irregardless. This is the way it is.
Real support of women would nourish, heal, educate, empower and protect full blooded, to the bone, women in all stages of her life.
•In cases where implantation is possible, women need to know what natural options they have to prevent it
... This doesn't work because life begins at conception
Maybe…it’s still a far safer option to women