If you run into trouble doing what's expected, people sympathize with you, while if you try something else and flop everyone says, You see?

Katha Pollitt

Categorized in : People Trying Running

Since 'Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights' came out, I've done a fair amount of public speaking, and the two statistics that always make the audience sit up are that nearly one in three women will have had at least one abortion by menopause and 61 percent of women who have abortions are already mothers.

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In our culture, the shame about accidental pregnancy is inextricable from the shame about having had sex. That disapproval of sex is one reason our record with contraception is so poor. If you're not supposed to be sexual, you don't plan for sex. You cross your fingers and hope for the best.

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We have an idea that the man should help pay for the child. But we don't have a law that says a man has to support any woman he gets pregnant. Why is that? Because she doesn't have the baby yet. But if we're going to say it's a human being, then he should be supporting her during pregnancy.

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Here is the dirty little secret about anti-abortion violence: It... by Katha Pollitt

Here is the dirty little secret about anti-abortion violence: It works.

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Women have to control their fertility for 30 years. Thirty years is a long time not to make mistakes.

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Coming out was crucial to changing attitudes about gays and lesbians: will people feel differently about abortion if they know their mother, their aunt, or their friend had one?

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Abortion opponents say women seek abortions in haste and confusion. Pro-choicers reply: Abortion is the most difficult, agonizing decision a woman ever makes.

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I think the meaning of abortion is what the woman says it is: For a woman who wants a child but can't have this one, it can be sad; for a woman who doesn't want a baby, it can feel like a huge relief, like having your whole life given back to you.

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A potential person is not a person, any more than an acorn is an oak tree. I don't think women should have to give birth just because a sperm met an egg.

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Sure, men like a challenge - but so do women. And nobody likes to be challenged all the time. I know plenty of long-standing happy couples who slept together right away, spent hours yakking on the phone, split checks down the middle, and lived together for years before the wedding.

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Planned Parenthood is a pretty popular organization. Way more popular than Congress! It claims that one in five women have received care from one of its clinics. And this care, despite what abortion opponents say, is excellent and not easily replaceable by 'community health centers.' Texas tried it, and thousands of women went without care.

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Opposition to abortion was one of the ways the Christian right was brought into the Republican Party by conservatives hoping to move the party further right. Now, of course, the tail is wagging the dog.

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There is a huge reservoir of support for abortion rights from ordinary women. I hear all the time from women who had abortions and say it made possible the good life they went on to have. Social shaming silences too many.

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I think there are a very few pro-lifers who would say that a zygote in a petri dish is the equivalent of you or me; it's just younger. If you can say that without laughing, maybe you are a true pro-lifer. But I think most people are able or willing to make distinctions that show they maybe don't quite believe that.

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We do not have the idea that all children are valuable parts of society. We only have the idea that our own children are.

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