Look at Who Would Be Aborted!

[lpetrich]

There's an anti-abortion argument that essentially goes "Look who would be aborted!" One version goes:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

If you said yes, that was Beethoven.

Never mind that it is factually incorrect about Ludwig van Beethoven, as other versions of this argument likely are about their famous subjects.

It has also been used against birth control, but it can also be used against alternative sex acts and celibacy. So if you are not trying to have as much procreative sex as you can, you are keeping someone very great from being born.


This argument can also be turned against anti-abortionists:

In the little town of Braunau am Inn, Austria, near the German border, a certain Klara Poelzl has discovered in the fall of 1888 that she is pregnant. She and her husband, a minor customs official named Alois Schicklgruber, decide that they don't want to have a child at that time, so she gets an abortion.

In another little town, Gori, in Asian Georgia, Russian Empire, a certain Ekaterina Geladze has discovered in the summer of 1878 that she is pregnant. But she and her husband Vissarion Dzhugashvili are very poor and not sure that they want a child. So she gets an abortion.

In yet another little town, Hope, Arkansas, USA, a certain Virginia Dell Cassidy has discovered in the beginning of 1946 that she is pregnant. But her husband, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., was perpetually on the road, and she was wondering what sort of father he would be. So she gets an abortion -- and her suspicions are confirmed three months later when he dies from a car accident.

Anti-abortionists would say that these women ought to have had their children, but given what they would eventually become, would they prefer that those children had never come into existence?

[DMB]

In any case, for every pregnancy that makes it to full term, rather a lot are aborted by God. But of course, that's considered OK, because God can do what he likes.

[Christina]

Someone plays the mental health card every time that I get into one of those debates as if that would change my mind about a woman's right to choose. Chances are that if I had been aborted I wouldn't have minded because I wouldn't exist in the first place.

[premjan]

As good as circumcision, you can't miss what you never had.

[Mediancat]

The oldest version of that I heard was from Paul Harvey, who gave the examples of Leonardo da Vinci and Adolf Hitler. given that, I'm not entirely sure what his point was.

Rob

[Anne]

What bugs the hell out of me is the fact that abortion is NOT modern--- in most of those historic cases (when was it made illegal in the US? 1933?) the woman had "had a choice"...

god, I love using that back at them. They think that abortion is modern. I actually got into a fight on the radio ( I have been the local pagan and pro-choice-er on the air) that historic abortions weren't abortions but infanticide. :rolleyes:

[Anne]

As good as circumcision, you can't miss what you never had.

My mom has a miserable marriage to my dad. She said that it was worth it, because she'd not have me and my brother otherwise...

I told her that she didn't have OTHER children because she stayed with the jerk, my dad. She hardly missed them.

[Brianna]

They didn't need abortions in the golden older days cause well... you just died a lot quicker.

Plus more women miscarried from stupid health practices.

[Brianna]

What bugs the hell out of me is the fact that abortion is NOT modern--- in most of those historic cases (when was it made illegal in the US? 1933?) the woman had "had a choice"...

god, I love using that back at them. They think that abortion is modern. I actually got into a fight on the radio ( I have been the local pagan and pro-choice-er on the air) that historic abortions weren't abortions but infanticide. :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade 1973.

Women who had money got it taken care of hush hush.
Women who didn't were arrested on their death beds.

Plus children that aren't wanted in the womb usually grow up to be criminals. They can sense their mothers hate.

[Garnet]

Please tell me that you were kidding about that last bit, Bri.

[Free in Freeport]

What bugs the hell out of me is the fact that abortion is NOT modern--- in most of those historic cases (when was it made illegal in the US? 1933?) the woman had "had a choice"...

god, I love using that back at them. They think that abortion is modern. I actually got into a fight on the radio ( I have been the local pagan and pro-choice-er on the air) that historic abortions weren't abortions but infanticide. :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade 1973.

Women who had money got it taken care of hush hush.
Women who didn't were arrested on their death beds.

Plus children that aren't wanted in the womb usually grow up to be criminals. They can sense their mothers hate.

You've lost me with that last paragraph. Plenty of unwanted pregnancies become wanted children...and plenty of unwanted children grow up with issues, but without becoming criminals. Nor is it logical to assume people resort to crime because the sense their mothers hated them.

None of what I said has bearing on the key issue here, which is choice, and which I support.

[Christina]

Plus children that aren't wanted in the womb usually grow up to be criminals. They can sense their mothers hate.

I'd ask you for stats or some kind of evidence for that claim but I don't think it could even be tested, never mind quantified with a word like "usually". Where did you get this idea from?

[Brianna]

Please tell me that you were kidding about that last bit, Bri.

I think there is a study out there some where that relates crimes rates to abortion rates. I heard about it second hand from a friend so I haven't actually laid eyes on it. Nope. I am not. Plus there is the obvious post-birth hate. A mother obvious isn't going to take care of a child and love it as much if she never wanted it to begin with. I am not talking in absolutes.

[Brianna]

Plus children that aren't wanted in the womb usually grow up to be criminals. They can sense their mothers hate.

I'd ask you for stats or some kind of evidence for that claim but I don't think it could even be tested, never mind quantified with a word like "usually". Where did you get this idea from?

Sometimes?

:dunno: Since when do I suit as you someone to talk in absolutes? The last time I check this was a philosophical discussion forum about morality. Not the laws of science.

[Christina]

There's no need to get cranky about it. When most people want to communicate that something is their opinion and not a fact they qualify it with something like "I think", "In my opinion", "I heard somewhere", etc. If you state it as an assertion that's how people will react to it, which is likely why all three of us did.

[Brianna]

What bugs the hell out of me is the fact that abortion is NOT modern--- in most of those historic cases (when was it made illegal in the US? 1933?) the woman had "had a choice"...

god, I love using that back at them. They think that abortion is modern. I actually got into a fight on the radio ( I have been the local pagan and pro-choice-er on the air) that historic abortions weren't abortions but infanticide. :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade 1973.

Women who had money got it taken care of hush hush.
Women who didn't were arrested on their death beds.

Plus children that aren't wanted in the womb usually grow up to be criminals. They can sense their mothers hate.

You've lost me with that last paragraph. Plenty of unwanted pregnancies become wanted children...and plenty of unwanted children grow up with issues, but without becoming criminals. Nor is it logical to assume people resort to crime because the sense their mothers hated them.

None of what I said has bearing on the key issue here, which is choice, and which I support.

Really? cause I was pretty damn sure that people who weren't raised by loving parents are more likely to have psychological issues, mental health issues, problems adapting to society standards, and possibly turn into criminals.

Or maybe they just turn into bitter old nags. :dunno:

[Brianna]

There's no need to get cranky about it. When most people want to communicate that something is their opinion and not a fact they qualify it with something like "I think", "In my opinion", "I heard somewhere", etc. If you state it as an assertion that's how people will react to it, which is likely why all three of us did.

Um, I wasn't being cranky.

[Free in Freeport]

Quite a leap from "having psychological issues" to turning into criminals.

[Ada]

In first chapter of "Freakonimics" book authors attempt to prove by statistical methods that making abortion legal caused drop in crime rate teens years later. It sounded quite convincing. Anyway the whole book was very interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect
Of-course it is far from saying that all kids born from unwanted pregnancies end-up with criminals.

:-) Ada

[Bright Life]

What bugs the hell out of me is the fact that abortion is NOT modern--- in most of those historic cases (when was it made illegal in the US? 1933?) the woman had "had a choice"...

god, I love using that back at them. They think that abortion is modern. I actually got into a fight on the radio ( I have been the local pagan and pro-choice-er on the air) that historic abortions weren't abortions but infanticide. :rolleyes:

IIRC, the Catholic Church did not declare abortion a sin until after the invention of the microscope, when they mistakenly took sperm for teeny, tiny babies.

Please tell me that you were kidding about that last bit, Bri.

I think there is a study out there some where that relates crimes rates to abortion rates. I heard about it second hand from a friend so I haven't actually laid eyes on it. Nope. I am not. Plus there is the obvious post-birth hate. A mother obvious isn't going to take care of a child and love it as much if she never wanted it to begin with. I am not talking in absolutes.

Also, aborted people rarely commit crimes.

[Anne]

What bugs the hell out of me is the fact that abortion is NOT modern--- in most of those historic cases (when was it made illegal in the US? 1933?) the woman had "had a choice"...

god, I love using that back at them. They think that abortion is modern. I actually got into a fight on the radio ( I have been the local pagan and pro-choice-er on the air) that historic abortions weren't abortions but infanticide. :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade 1973.

Women who had money got it taken care of hush hush.
Women who didn't were arrested on their death beds.

Plus children that aren't wanted in the womb usually grow up to be criminals. They can sense their mothers hate.

I was asking about when it became illegal, not legal. Apparently, the first laws went on the books in t he 1820's, but it wasn't illegal across the country until 1965.

NYS made it legal on demand in 1970.

[Cath B]

In Britain juniper (used in gin production) has a number of alternative old names including "Bastard Killer" relating to its alleged effectiveness as an abortifacient.

I don't know whether or not its use was socially acceptable. I'm guessing that would've varied from time to time and from place to place.

The wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniper) doesn't mention this but does say:-

Native Americans also used juniper berries as a female contraceptive. [2] The 17th Century herbalist physician Nicholas Culpeper recommended the ripened berries ... to speed childbirth.

[Anne]

There is a theory that Scarbourgh fair:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Washes the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

includes a recipe fro an abortificiant...

[Cath B]

Thanks for putting the words of that.

I'd never managed to pick up the Simon and Garfunkel subtext which I assumed they wrote themselves.

The main song is the pretty much the same as Martin Carthy's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Carthy)on his first album. Paul Simon learnt it from Carthy when he visited the UK and it is now by far the best known.

But there are many older versions and it has an ancient lineage being closely connected with The Elfin Knight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elfin_Knight) first written down in the seventeenth century.

Never come across the idea of a reference to abortificiant recipe and it seems unlikely given that there are many variations in the words of the repeated incantations.

[Cath B]

I've just had a thought!

Ergot can cause in abortions and this may have been more prevalent in grain, or at any rate more commonly eaten, when harvests were poor.

Thus there may have been many incidental abortions during times of shortage in areas where grain formed the major food source.

[Cath B]

And I've just found this on the wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot).

Since the middle ages, controlled doses of ergot were used to induce abortions and to stop maternal bleeding after childbirth.

So apparently not just incidental abortions.

[Cath B]

Since the middle ages, controlled doses of ergot were used to induce abortions and to stop maternal bleeding after childbirth.

Used by whom?

Doctors?
Midwives?
Self-medication?

And was its use approved, tolerated, ignored or forbidden by the church and state?

[Bright Life]

There is a theory that Scarbourgh fair:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Washes the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

includes a recipe fro an abortificiant...

Sounds like spices for spaghetti sauce. What am I missing?

[Christina]

It was common hippie practice to use black cohosh and pennroyal. I've seen women use it successfully but just as many ended up in the hospital for D&Cs from partial abortions. Personally I thought it was insane given that we have safe choices these days and IMO that's the whole point of Roe v. Wade. We're supposed to be past the days of scary herbal remedies and coat hangers.

[Cath B]

There is a coy reference to pennyroyal in Lark Rise to Candleford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lark_rise_to_candleford) (the book, not the disappointing TV series) where Flora Thompson, writing in the 1930s, comments on the 1880s village women using pennyroyal for "obvious purposes" or similar phraseology.

I wasn't sure whether the "obvious purposes" meant as a contraceptive, an abortificiant or something completely different.

[Christina]

I don't know much about it in any detail but I think that they both are used in varying doses to induce labor and as an abortificiant. I'm not sure if they were used as a contraceptive. Oddly enough, hippie women that really didn't want to get pregnant normally had no problems with using mainstream medicine for birth control. Everyone has their priorities ; )

[Cath B]

Just wikied pennyroyal and followed some links from there.

Very dangerous if someone overdoses

[Anne]

most medicines are.

;)

I believe tansy and pennyroyal are not to be grown by women wanting to be pregnant, because the oils can induce through the skin...

If there are different versions of the song with different herbs, then it's more likely along the way/at the start, it was. I believe that parsely and rosemary can be dangerous... but thyme is harmless.

I don't know my sage.

Christina, I think it may be a moral thing--- going to a doctor to abort is more... surgical than 'taking a chance' on the herbs...

[Christina]

If there was anything immoral about it I would think that the intention is what counts whether you're successful or end up in the hospital from serious complications and using modern medicine to save you from your own mistakes. I'm fine with anything that mentally competent adults want to do to themselves but I wouldn't use myself as a guinea pig when safe alternatives for abortion exist that minimize the chance of complications. I'm sure that when it was commonly used down through the ages women knew how much to take and what other factors should be considered. Other than experienced midwives I don't think that most of us do.

[Anne]

herbs are so risky any way... why risk it if there is an alternative?

But, still people look at it differently... Don't expect people to be as reasonable as you are.

[Christina]

Yeah, twenty years of hippies and psychedelics and not an ounce of woo rubbed off on me. They weren't any more successful than the nuns were. I don't think that I'm capable of understanding or believing things that don't stand up to logic, but for the most part they enjoyed themselves in harmless ways. Disorganized quasi-religions aren't so bad.

[LoneWolf]

And if Beethoven were the product of rape, would that be argument for allowing rape?

[dancer_rnb]

If there are different versions of the song with different herbs, then it's more likely along the way/at the start, it was. I believe that parsely and rosemary can be dangerous... but thyme is harmless.

I don't know my sage.
..........


My sage advice is that the passage of thyme can be quite damaging.

[Sticky Beak]

You know what perplexes people who triumphantly sit back to watch your reaction at having aborted Beethoven?

"Yeah, so?"

I fail to see their point. "He was a musical genius!" Big deal. Someone else would have come along and been a genius instead. Or music would have taken a different turn. Either way, it doesn't really matter as the world would have chugged on perfectly merrily.

Otherwise just ask them to terminate healthy foetuses. "You could be brewing another Hitler or Stalin in there!"

[lpetrich]

Did any of you people find out who Klara Poelzl, Ekaterina Geladze, and Virginia Dell Cassidy had given birth to instead of aborted?

[Sticky Beak]

Hitler, Stalin and Clinton?

[lpetrich]

Sticky Beak, you are right. I selected these three cases because many anti-abortionists consider those three gentlemen to be big villains.

[Hevvin Machine]

You know what perplexes people who triumphantly sit back to watch your reaction at having aborted Beethoven?

"Yeah, so?"

I fail to see their point. "He was a musical genius!" Big deal. Someone else would have come along and been a genius instead. Or music would have taken a different turn. Either way, it doesn't really matter as the world would have chugged on perfectly merrily.

Otherwise just ask them to terminate healthy foetuses. "You could be brewing another Hitler or Stalin in there!" If they have the brains God gave a goose(I'm not saying that they do, but if...) their point is that aborting a preborn human costs us all the magic and productivity and beauty that is the human norm. Aborting Beethoven would have seriously cost the human race some musical genius. Pretending that he did not exist six months before birth is just stupid. Of course he did, and everybody knows it. He was not, at the time, a recognized musical genius. But the genius was there all the same.

The possibility that any given child will grow up to be an evil tyrant is also there, of course. If we could only abort babies with the clarity of hindsight, that would be completely different. But until that becomes a feasible method of deciding which humans will get their gestation period and which will not, it isn't really a plan, now is it?
Hev

[Cliché Guevara]

Sounds like spices for spaghetti sauce. What am I missing?

Pennyroyal, probably.


ETA: Isn't always the way: I read to a point, reply, and the very next post to the one I'm replying to has beaten me to it. Bugger.

[Cliché Guevara]

I don't know my sage.

I'm pretty sure Mexican Tripping Weed is related to sage.


....ooops, no, it's actually a mint genus (like pennyroyal). Salvia Divinorum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum).


Edit. Hmmm, looks like sage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sage) is a mint, too. Who knew mint was such fun and wicked shit? :cool:

[Christina]

Pretending that he did not exist six months before birth is just stupid. Of course he did, and everybody knows it.

No, everyone doesn't know it. It's simply your opinion and most people around here aren't stupid. I'm not speaking as a mod at all but I'd find your posts more interesting if they weren't laced with insults.

[sohy]

It was common hippie practice to use black cohosh and pennroyal. I've seen women use it successfully but just as many ended up in the hospital for D&Cs from partial abortions. Personally I thought it was insane given that we have safe choices these days and IMO that's the whole point of Roe v. Wade. We're supposed to be past the days of scary herbal remedies and coat hangers.

Since the Reagan era, the federal government has not subsidized the cost of abortion. Unless you live in a state that funds abortions, ( I've never lived in one of those ) this leaves poor women with very few choices when they have an unwanted pregnancy. That is probably one of the reasons that people are still using unsafe methods to abort.

I think people forget that abortion was very common back in the early 20th century. According to Margaret Sanger, there were always long lines for the 50 cent abortionist. That is what motivated her to push for the development of safe methods of birth control. Women in those times frequently died in childbirth, often after having given birth to 15 or more children. Rich women had more options then, as they do now.

[dancer_rnb]

You know what perplexes people who triumphantly sit back to watch your reaction at having aborted Beethoven?

"Yeah, so?"

I fail to see their point. "He was a musical genius!" Big deal. Someone else would have come along and been a genius instead. Or music would have taken a different turn. Either way, it doesn't really matter as the world would have chugged on perfectly merrily.

Otherwise just ask them to terminate healthy foetuses. "You could be brewing another Hitler or Stalin in there!" If they have the brains God gave a goose(I'm not saying that they do, but if...) their point is that aborting a preborn human costs us all the magic and productivity and beauty that is the human norm. Aborting Beethoven would have seriously cost the human race some musical genius. Pretending that he did not exist six months before birth is just stupid. Of course he did, and everybody knows it. He was not, at the time, a recognized musical genius. But the genius was there all the same.

The possibility that any given child will grow up to be an evil tyrant is also there, of course. If we could only abort babies with the clarity of hindsight, that would be completely different. But until that becomes a feasible method of deciding which humans will get their gestation period and which will not, it isn't really a plan, now is it?
Hev

The same thing goes for any potential combination of egg and sperm. Therefore abstinence is just as much a problem. Or any other method of birth control.

[Ray Moscow]

As good as circumcision, you can't miss what you never had.

My mom has a miserable marriage to my dad. She said that it was worth it, because she'd not have me and my brother otherwise...

I told her that she didn't have OTHER children because she stayed with the jerk, my dad. She hardly missed them.

All existence is contingent. Heck, if our parents' hickuped before our conception, none of us would be here.

Buddhist Ray

[Ray Moscow]

Please tell me that you were kidding about that last bit, Bri.

I think there is a study out there some where that relates crimes rates to abortion rates. I heard about it second hand from a friend so I haven't actually laid eyes on it. Nope. I am not. Plus there is the obvious post-birth hate. A mother obvious isn't going to take care of a child and love it as much if she never wanted it to begin with. I am not talking in absolutes.

There's bound to be a strong correlation between parental neglect and criminality, but I think the idea that "most" unwanted children become criminal is way OTT.

I don't think I was much wanted, but I've managed to stay out of trouble and have even had a pretty happy and good life.

[hecaterin]

Some children who were initially unwanted are loved and well cared for after all. Some children who were maltreated grow up to be OK anyway. There's no such thing as a perfect correlation in social science. Or biology, for that matter. But, yes, Freakonomics is the book to read for the claim. It seems plausible.

[Cath B]

All existence is contingent. Heck, if our parents' hickuped before our conception, none of us would be here.

Buddhist Ray

Yes, I sometimes think about this kind of stuff.

For instance, I have sometimes thought it was a shame that my grandfather died two years before I was born - I would've liked to have met him and think he'd have liked to have met me.

But if he had lived my parents would never have had me - even if they'd had a child at the same time it would have been a different child.

[Febble]

What bugs the hell out of me is the fact that abortion is NOT modern--- in most of those historic cases (when was it made illegal in the US? 1933?) the woman had "had a choice"...

god, I love using that back at them. They think that abortion is modern. I actually got into a fight on the radio ( I have been the local pagan and pro-choice-er on the air) that historic abortions weren't abortions but infanticide. :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade 1973.

Women who had money got it taken care of hush hush.
Women who didn't were arrested on their death beds.

Plus children that aren't wanted in the womb usually grow up to be criminals. They can sense their mothers hate.

You've lost me with that last paragraph. Plenty of unwanted pregnancies become wanted children...and plenty of unwanted children grow up with issues, but without becoming criminals. Nor is it logical to assume people resort to crime because the sense their mothers hated them.

None of what I said has bearing on the key issue here, which is choice, and which I support.

Really? cause I was pretty damn sure that people who weren't raised by loving parents are more likely to have psychological issues, mental health issues, problems adapting to society standards, and possibly turn into criminals.

Or maybe they just turn into bitter old nags. :dunno:

Lots of children who weren't wanted as pregnancies end up loved as children. That's a rather key point, actually - a pregnancy isn't a child.

You can wish you weren't pregnant but nonetheless love your child, in the same way as terminating a pregnancy isn't the same as killing a child - or hating the child it would have become.

Likewise, plenty of parents want children, then don't love them.

And sure, many criminals had crap childhoods. That doesn't mean that a crap childhood makes you into a criminal. Some of the greatest people on earth were unloved children. And many of the worst criminals had loving parents.

We can only do what we can do, and hope it's for the best.