@60 "Any pro-choice pledge MUST have #1 be 'If I do not want a child or otherwise feel unable to raise a child at this point in my life I pledge to use effective birth control during every sexual encounter.'"

That's just what I was thinking. If the Repubs really cared about stopping abortions they would welcome a gesture like this. I feel like it's the pro-choice crowd who really wants to decrease the number of abortions in a real way. I love that we're saving more babies than they are, and that those babies are healthier and precious and valued. The staunch Right must be shitting their pants.

10. abortion should remain an option after my night of regret, "Plan C."

Wow Jocelyn - way to not get the point of CHOICE. Booo. Bad liberal! Bad!

Your pledge appears to want to force women to follow your "left" agenda as much as the right wingers want to force women to follow their "right" agendas.

Both are an "I know what's best for your honey, don't trouble your pretty little head" approach that is offensive, demeaning and disrespects women's intelligence.

At least you give lip service to actual CHOICE at #8. Too little too late.

Booooooo.

@93 It has 160 signatures. That is not very many at all, really. And I honestly think it will do more harm than good in its current form. I would like to calmly request that you take it down, reword, and re-post. I am seriously considering making one myself, as per your instructions, but considering the visibility of your original petition, I would like you to consider taking the advice of the Savage Love crowd and replacing your original petition. Everyone makes mistakes, but I honestly feel like you are misrepresenting the pro-choice movement and position, in a way that will be detrimental to the cause.

Here's a new (crowd-sourced from the thread) pledge.

"The Pro-Choice Pledge:

1. If I become pregnant and I feel like an abortion is the best course of action, I will have an abortion.

2. I will respect any woman's right to a safe and legal abortion, even in circumstances where I would not have an abortion.

3. I will respect any woman's right to remain pregnant, even in circumstances where I would not remain pregnant.

4. If become pregnant and opt not to have an abortion, I will remember that my choice would have been meaningless without the right to choose and will continue to defend that right.

5. If I have the ability, I will donate to Planned Parenthood and/or other organizations that provide women with access to affordable contraception, with the full knowledge that such contraception will not in all cases be effective.

6. If I have the ability, I will donate to Planned Parenthood and/or other organizations that defend and facilitate a woman's right to choose."

Comments?

@93 It has 160 signatures. That is not very many at all, really. And I honestly think it will do more harm than good in its current form. I would like to calmly request that you take it down, reword, and re-post. I am seriously considering making one myself, as per your instructions, but considering the visibility of your original petition, I would like you to consider taking the advice of the Savage Love crowd and replacing your original petition. Everyone makes mistakes (Dan has made a few himself and we still love him), but I honestly feel like you are misrepresenting the pro-choice movement and position, in a way that will be detrimental to the cause.

Here's a new (crowd-sourced from the thread) pledge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Pro-Choice Pledge:

1. If I become pregnant and I feel like an abortion is the best course of action, I will have an abortion.

2. I will respect any woman's right to a safe and legal abortion, even in circumstances where I would not have an abortion.

3. I will respect any woman's right to remain pregnant, even in circumstances where I would not remain pregnant.

4. If become pregnant and opt not to have an abortion, I will remember that my choice would have been meaningless without the right to choose and will continue to defend that right.

5. If I have the ability, I will donate to Planned Parenthood and/or other organizations that provide women with access to affordable contraception, with the full knowledge that such contraception will not in all cases be effective.

6. If I have the ability, I will donate to Planned Parenthood and/or other organizations that defend and facilitate a woman's right to choose."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comments?

@53 Yes. Exactly.

@Jocelyn, all this makes me really uncomfortable. Especially the way you're disregarding all criticism by saying, "oh hey look, the religious right is doing a great job, b/c you all think this pledge is inappropriate" and in response to the Susan B. Anthony Co. questions you say to "just sign it anyway"? Really Jocelyn? I don't think this is the best way to go up against an effed up but powerful group of people claiming to be Pro-life as a guise for really being Anti-Women and Anti-Choice. Again, see @53.

@110 :)

I got confused about the post editing process and had some premature-posting going on....

I agree with @2. This pledge is no good. For options 1, 2, and 3, adoption is almost as good as abortion at allowing the woman to get on with her life.

I don't see the pledge as satire, but I can see the point of it. It's an attempt at goalpost-shifting, to counteract the extreme rightward pull of the crazies on the other side. The right wing is pretty good at this, tolerating their extreme crazies (and subtly encouraging them), which makes the people who say, "well, I don't want to kill gays, but marriage should only be between a man and a woman" or "well, maybe there should be exceptions for rape and incest, but only if you submit documentation, and every kid needs parental notification" seem reasonable. And they're not. They're actively working to oppress people. But put them next to Michelle Bachman, and they seem relatively sane, so the middle is swayed.

Or PETA. I hate PETA. But I also appreciate that PETA makes groups like the ASPCA completely mainstream, and so we have a lot of anti-cruelty to animals laws.

I have been lucky enough to never need an abortion. I'm glad. They look painful. But I think that anyone should be able to have an abortion if they feel they should. And yet I know a lot of people who, even though they are pro-choice, feel like they have to defer to the sensibilities of people who want to ban abortion (while also banning contraception and sex-ed and dismantling social safety nets). So I'm glad someone is trying to pull back the goalposts. I'll roll my eyes at some of them, but I'm glad that there are people actively working to make being pro-choice a moderate stance again.

woot woot! 115 for the win.

@Dan. What the FUCK were you thinking, endorsing this?

Ugh. I am pretty damn pro-choice -- I certainly haven't been "scared out of seeing abortion as a viable option" by prolifers, I've had one myself and have no regrets, in fact I'm still deeply thankful several years later and tell people so when the topic comes up -- and this pledge absolutely disgusts me. Like, makes me feel physically ill. There is no way I'd sign it. As @54 said, #s 1-3 are vile, and #8 is not having whatever softening effect you think it's having. Black and white pro-abortionism is no better than the black and white of anti-choicers and it deeply saddens me that someone who considers themselves pro-CHOICE could have even written something that reads so pushy and proscriptive.

The pledges @15, @40, and @50 are much, much better. I would sign any and all of those proudly.
@58 hit the nail on the head - if you're offending this many die-hard pro-choicers on Slog of all places, you are doing something terribly, terribly wrong.

I pretty strongly identify with @98's opinion of your response to criticisms. If you're truly trying to be a positive force in the pro-choice movement, I hope you'll follow @107's suggestion.

@ 67 and everything venomlash said.

Jocelyn, your comment @51 shows you live in an insular echo chamber. You will form zero coalitions with this. You are alienating the "moderate" people who support choice that are absolutely necessary to a majority that would keep abortion above ground and safe. Your pledge is doing a disservice to your cause. How can you not see this?

@117 -- I would note that while Dan endorsed this pledge in this post, my criticisms at @98 were directed toward JOCELYN who wrote the pledge and has been defensively defending it in this thread (@93, etc). Dan hasn't -- that I've seen yet anyway -- responded to the points raised in this thread.

@Jocelyn: Regarding young motherhood in post #51, see this article at Scarleteen. In some circumstances, motherhood at younger ages is better for mother and child, and in some circumstances it's worse.

I'm going to apply the same ethical framework for sexual activity to reproduction: everyone has the right to NOT reproduce, but everyone does not have the right to reproduce (guaranteeing everyone the right to sexual activity would necessitate a violation of the right to not have sex in the case of persons with whom no one wanted to have sex - it would necessitate rape in some cases; similarly guaranteeing the right to procreate would result in forced procreation). Once we accept that everyone does not have an intrinsic right to reproduce, the discussion of the right to reproduce becomes a discussion of when we think people should have that right i.e. what are the appropriate conditions for reproduction. The most liberal view - the one overwhelmingly reflected here - is that reproduction should require (and only require) the desire of the woman who will be growing the fetus and giving birth to reproduce. I think, from an ideal philosophical standpoint, that this one criterion is woefully insufficient for two main reasons: 1) procreation is the single most selfish act one can undertake, as one is making the single most important decision in the life of the child, that of existence, without any ability for the child to object or consent (my view requires one to accept that existence is not necessarily preferable to non-existence in all circumstances, which is another debate, though perhaps one that should be had); and 2) procreating is an imposition on every other person to whom one is socially and economically linked, without taking their consent or objection into account. That said, I recognize that from a practical standpoint, legislation governing reproduction (or non-legal coercion; see biopolitics) is extremely problematic, as the biases of dominant social/cultural groups invariably result in sexist, racist, classist, anti-specific-religion, anti-specific-ethnicity, etc. policies. From a practical standpoint, at this point in time and in this culture, I think the least-problematic public policy is to allow women to govern their reproductive capacities as they see fit, but I flatly reject the arguments (which I'm seeing a lot here) that it's unethical to try to convince others to exercise far greater restraint with respect to/put much more though into procreation than most people currently do or to err on the side of non-procreation, a la item #2. I think it's highly unethical to NOT do so.

I don't think the pledge is all that great, but for rather different reasons than many people here.

@40: Abortion is in no way intrinsically traumatic; what might be traumatic are particular cultural constructions of the meaning surrounding abortion, and anti-abortion assholes (like you, apparently) are responsible for the most trauma-inducing cultural constructions. I agree that abortion should be a final option for when other methods of birth control fail, as it's more involved, more likely to cause complications (though these are still extremely rare), and more expensive than other options.

@106: "Choice" is only a good thing when it's as fully informed/though out as possible and doesn't allow for extensively negative results from one's actions to be visited on others (this is the Socialist perspective vs. the Classical Liberal/(actual) Libertarian perspective); reproduction is often not well-informed and can have terrible consequences for others, so I reject "reproductive choice" as an ideal; rather, it's simply the least-worst option for legal policy we have available right now.

Jocelyn: you made some mistakes. Now make the responsible choice that causes the least damage. Abort this awful, I'll-conceived pledge before it gets too far along. I know it's hard, but you know it's right.

**Ill-conceived.

@118 Here's how:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/s…

Click on any of the numbers under the ad and read the comments. I don't know why these people aren't commenting on Slog, but it's an interesting comparison between the reaction the pledge has gotten here and the reaction on the pledge itself. I think you just want it to be something it's not.

I know I shouldn't be commenting on here. I should just let this play out. But I'm honestly surprised by this response and am glued to the comments. It's a really interesting dialogue.

Ultimately, though, I think that there's something you're missing: pride events have normalized the most stereotypical of gay people, thereby slowly making life more comfortable for less noticeably gay people. I don't think it's crazy to assume that the same strategy can be applied to pro-choicers.

Look, if you don't like the pledge, don't sign it. There: pro-choice. What I'm trying to do, however, is get a group of people together who openly admit that they want and will exercise the option to have an abortion in more than just the most extreme of circumstances. If this is a vocal and sizable chunk of the population, then those who simply want the right to abort when health or psychological reasons make it detrimental not to will have an easier time with it.

And, with that, I'm out. Carry on with the "Jocelyn is a vapid cunt" party.

@96- Recommendations are just your opinion on what someone should do. It's called being forthright. What it certainly is NOT is controlling another's choices.

You know why this pledge really fucking sucks?
it basically says only rich older ladies should have children.
Is this eugenics to get rid of the 'poor class' again?
Fuck that. Why can't poor people have kids? I thought the US had a shrinking population problem. This and that I anon that he approved about how parents of kids with disabilities should be financially unsupported is bullshit. Capitalism fucking sucks.

@85- God doesn't exist. Now stop being an idiot and work out how to be a moral person without relying on fear of a judgment that will never come.

@127- The USA and the world do not have a shrinking population problem. (Some people think we have a shrinking white person population problem; they're racists.) Having babies young and poor makes it much harder to be anything but poor for the rest of your life. Delaying having a baby is one of the best ways to move yourself into the middle class.

Jocelyn,
I don't think most of us would disagree that abortion is an option for less than extreme circumstances. What I disagree with is that you seem to think having a child is not an option. Your point of view is as messed up as the never have an abortion crowd. You're not pro choice. Or at least this petition is not.
So have an abortion, or don't have one. It's the pregnant woman's choice.

Jocelyn @125 - Even those whose don't agree with the petition appreciate your taking the time to respond here. So thanks for checking in and articulating your rationale.

You are very passionate re abortion rights. Most of this board is essentially on your "pro-choice team." Most think your petition does a complete disservice to the cause of maintaining reproductive choice. If you managed to enrage a bunch of left leaning sloggers, do you recognize this is probably not playing well in Peoria? If your blog post manages to turn more people away from the pro-choice position, does that matter to you?

Dan Savage has made this point with overt sexuality being displayed at Pride parades. If your goal is for mainstream acceptance of gays as non-threatening to mainstream society, you are hurting your cause by holding an event that is not appropriate for underage viewing. Or something like that.

If your point was to appear radical, then you have succeded. But @25 you said you wrote this towards the wishy-washy pro-choice crowd.

THIS UNDERMINES THE ENTIRE PRO-CHOICE CAUSE. I AM PRO-CHOICE BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT EVERY WOMAN HAS THE RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT HER OWN BODY AND I KNOW THAT HER CHOICES MAY BE DIFFERENT AT DIFFERENT POINTS IN HER LIFE AND MAY BE INFLUENCED BY HER PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES. IT WAS HUGELY IRRESPONSIBLE FOR A PRO-CHOICE PUBLICATION TO PRINT THIS. IT GIVES THE ANTI-CHOICE BIGOTS FODDER.

I love the fact that pro-life leader refers to her pledge as a "modest proposal." Makes me wonder what she plans to do with all those non-aborted babies....

@125 / Jocelyn:

Look, if you don't like the pledge, don't sign it. There: pro-choice. What I'm trying to do, however, is get a group of people together who openly admit that they want and will exercise the option to have an abortion in more than just the most extreme of circumstances.

Then howzabout adding some of the modest proposals I suggested waaay back @28/33?

#7a: If I get pregnant in winter, I will have an abortion so I can look cute in a two-piece come summer.

#7b: If I get pregnant by an ugly boy, I will have an abortion so that I don't bring ugly people into the world.

That would create an even more hard-core group of pro-abortionists, right?

The reason you don't, I'd wager, is that you see 7a and 7b as ill-conceived, ethically questionable, providing ammunition to the pro-lifers, or all of the above. Even though you are as pro-choice as they come, you couldn't support a petition that included 7a and 7b. What you fail to understand is that your list as-is evokes the same reaction in other people who are just as committed to keeping abortion legal.

#51, have I ever met someone who had a kid young and turned out to be a good mother? Yes - my mom. She had my brother just before she turned 16 and me right after she turned 19. She and my father have been happily married for 47 years.

And her mother had her at 16 and was as good a mother as she possibly could be.

So .... you're wrong. And while I am adamantly pro-choice, I would never sign your pledge for reasons already cited here.

#51, have I ever met someone who had a kid young and turned out to be a good mother? Yes - my mom. She had my brother just before she turned 16 and me right after she turned 19.

She is an incredible friend to me and an amazing mother who (along with my father, to whom she's been married for 47 years) is also a foster parent. They have cared for more than 20 babies over the past 18 years.

My mom's mother had her at 16 and was as good a mother as she possibly could be. They are very close.

So .... you're wrong. And while I am adamantly pro-choice, I would never sign your pledge for reasons already cited here.

Huge fail. And I am 100% pro-choice.

"What I'm trying to do, however, is get a group of people together who openly admit that they want and will exercise the option to have an abortion in more than just the most extreme of circumstances."

Right, and you're suggesting that the "proper" circumstances would include being a young and/or financially unstable parent. That's not pro-choice; that's just offensive. When you prize only the opinions of those who have signed your petition, you're letting your choir preach back to you. It would be wise to open your eyes to all of the committed pro-choice people on this thread who think your pledge is a disaster. I really hope that it doesn't simply become media fodder for the militant pro-lifers. They will love to quote your nonsense as further evidence that all pro-choicers are really pro-abortion, not to mention snobs who think young and poor people aren't good enough to have babies.

I don't know why I'm surprised that Slog is going negative on this, a lot of this negativity seems to be "this is yucky" or "abortion is only okay as the worst case scenario" - well, fuck you if you think abortion is only okay in theory. Fuck you if you're only pro-choice if the choices are stay pregnant or adoption. Fuck you if you think that being pro-choice means you get to judge women's choices. And a double fuck you if you think that being pro-choice is a judgement on your mother's choice to have you.

I don't fucking care if you like abortion or if you think this pledge is in "poor taste" - I only care that abortion is safe and legal and available to every woman who wants one. END OF DISCUSSION.

@144: Like the pro-lifers, you need to learn the difference between being OK with something and wanting that something to remain legal. This isn't a theocracy, and true liberals are not in the business of legislating morality. If you want abortion to remain "safe and legal and available to every woman who wants one," then schisming the pro-choice movement is probably not the best way to go. Nor is handing the pro-lifers a loaded gun in the field of public opinion and pointing it at our collective heads.

Also... metaphorically crossing your arms and stamping your feet? Has that ever convinced anybody?

@90: "They ruined their life potential."
@129: "Delaying having a baby is one of the best ways to move yourself into the middle class."

And isn't that just the most important thing in life? It is imperative that everyone be able to buy as much crap at the mall as they want. I'll see you one better: the best way to move up from being stuck in the pathetic middle class is not to waste your time and money on kids. Work your ass off and get rich. Then maybe think about kids. That's the only way to live a fulfilled life and not throw your potential as a woman away: be super fucking rich.

To everyone arguing here that women should wait until after college or a career to have kids because well, you know best what women need, fuck you. Some women (and some men) don't want to go to college or have fancy careers. They want to have kids and a simple life, and that's their choice to make. If they want to have an abortion instead, that's their choice to make, too. Don't belittle one choice if you demand the other not be criticized.

@144: I believe what many of the commenters here find "yucky" is not abortion -- it's that someone else thinks THEIR opinion about OUR (hypothetical) abortion is the only correct one.

@147-

A: Fuck you.

B: Most poor people don't want to be poor. Most poor people don't want their kids to be poor.

C: I'm poor, my parents were poor most of my life (mom slipped into the middle class late in life thanks to a union job.) I have chosen my lifestyle. If I had a kid at 18 I certainly wouldn't have had as many choices. As it is I sometimes regret the things I can't do with my kid because I can't afford to take the time off work or the travel expenses. My sister works like a dog because she doesn't want her kids to suffer from the poverty we had as kids. That's her choice. She gets paid well because she got an education and delayed having kids until she was in her early thirties. That was her choice.

D: I want women to have choices.

E: Fuck you again.

F: I would recommend that a teenager not have a kid. I wouldn't make any laws against it. Am I not allowed to have an opinion or make a recommendation? Why?

G: And for a third time: fuck you.

@147: Also, I don't see why having your kids in the prime of your career-- at the time when most people are busting their butts to make VP/partner/whatever-- is seen as a universally better option than having your kids before your career. I get that "kids later" is how today's generation rolls, but women from prior generations generally had their kids in their late teens / early twenties, then went on to do great things afterwards. Women in many other countries still go that route.

Jocylyn, I'm yet another vehemently pro-choice young parent who needs to weigh in. There are a lot of commenters who have very eloquently described why your pledge is missing the target. I just want to say that I come away from your pledge, as well as your comments through this thread, feeling really judged. Which is bullshit. I got pregnant when I was 20. I'm happily married, in a stable financial situation, with a fulfilling job and two happy, healthy children that have had an exponentially positive effect on my life. I don't understand how you think you are helping a pro-choice movement by being dismissive towards those that hold the same political stance. Fuck you for judging me for the choices I've made.

<3 @ 144. hells yeah this.

@150- Because it means you've got a career. Having a kid takes a lot of time, money, and effort for at least a decade or so. You can coast a lot better at mid-career (and hell, maybe you'll end up never moving up from mid level) than you can at the beginning. It's a lot harder to start when you're already middle aged and you work experience is a bunch of part-time zero skill jobs. Especially if you don't have a support network of middle-class family members to fall back on.

"..but women from prior generations generally had their kids in their late teens / early twenties, then went on to do great things afterwards."

Define "great things."

The majority of women from prior generations worked as child-rearers and farm laborers for most of their lives. After the industrial revolution many women got to work in factories which were Dickensian nightmares and would fire an employee for getting pregnant. Of course during the fifties and sixties (middle-class) women were generally shut out of the labor market except in a few fields. It wasn't until the 70s that women were able to participate in the economic or political playing field with anything that even resembled equality to men, and women (especially the middle class ones) have generally been having children later and later ever since then.

How about this. We're all prochoice. You choose to have an abortion, cool good on you. I'll pat you on the back. You choose to judge me and my college girlfriend's choice to keep the baby, I tell you to fuck yourself.
Go fuck yourself.
Can we all agree on this?

#153, it's also very, very hard to have a baby when you're in the early stages of your career, which is right about the time people are having them nowadays, and probably around the time Jocelyn would start to think we don't necessarily have to abort. Having a baby when you're trying to make partner at your law firm? Get tenure? Finish your residency? In many cases I'd say it's easier to deal with the infant and toddler years before you're in that career situation.

I worked a lot less hard in highschool, college, and grad school than I did later on, and I was a lot better at foregoing sleep, too! Now, having made all the "smart" choices, I'm still having kids at 40, which makes it harder to conceive and more risky to bear the child. What I gained in financial stability, I'm losing in other ways, so I'd say it's a tossup. If I had a baby at 20, I would have partied a lot less in college, but I doubt my performance would have suffered, and I'd be enjoying a lot of benefits from that situation today.

One last time.

I think we can all agree that saying no woman under the age of 21 should ever be able to get an abortion is wrong, and takes away her choices.

Equally, therefore, saying no woman under the age of 21 should ever carry a pregnancy to full term TAKES AWAY HER CHOICES.

In either case, you have made slaves of women by taking away their bodily autonomy.

That is why I think this pledge is plain wrong.

Now, is it generally "better" for women to delay childbearing? Yes, in general. Does that mean any woman having a child under 21 is doomed to utter poverty and misery? Clearly not -- plenty of counter examples have already been given here.

In any case, the point that advocates of EITHER position have completely missed is that the choice is solely and only up to the pregnant woman. Not me, not you, not Jocelyn, not Rick Santorum. And *that* simple fact is why this pledge is wrong.

@107, I'd sign the modified pledge presented by historygirl.

@125 (Jocelyn) - "What I'm trying to do, however, is get a group of people together who openly admit that they want and will exercise the option to have an abortion in more than just the most extreme of circumstances. If this is a vocal and sizable chunk of the population, then those who simply want the right to abort when health or psychological reasons make it detrimental not to will have an easier time with it."

I'm starting to better understand what you were trying to do here, so thanks for sticking around to explain it. But I still think it was poorly executed. I can understand your desire to get women to sign on to a document that expressed that they would have an abortion in a range of cases that are not strictly the oft trotted-out "rape/incest/death" reasons given for safe and legal abortion. I get that. The problem is that you picked cases in which women already experience a tremendous amount of judgement around any decision to become or remain pregnant. To do what you set out to do, it might be better to have just gone father afield of the society-accepted (mandated by social judgement, in some cases) reasons for abortion and had the list read with items like this:
"If I find myself pregnant, at the age of 33, and I have no intention of becoming a mother and do not have the emotional resources to carry a baby to term and give it away, I will have an abortion."

The problem with the items with you selected is that they are already very much in currency culturally as times when women *should* have abortions - to the point that women who choose not to in those cases often experience judgement and a lack of social support (Because they *could* have chosen to have an abortion, so why should anyone socially/financially support their choice to remain pregnant.). In this way, your pledge actually appears to be picking on the vulnerable.

What you have tapped into, without really realizing it, it the other side of reproductive un-choice. It has a long history and it runs deep. While white, middle-class women (I'm one of these, so this isn't really my story to tell, but I'm doing it to make a point) were fighting for the right to say 'no' to childbearing and child-rearing (i.e. access to contraception and abortion), poor, racialized, and indigenous women were fighting for the right to bear and rear children (i.e. fighting forced sterilizations, abortions, and/or child removals). The problem with your list is that it seemed to run uncomfortably close to a list of people who shouldn't become mothers, and babies that shouldn't be born. It appears that this was not your intention when writing the list, but that was how people reacted to it. (And your initial comments that young mothers were not good mothers did not help alleviate these concerns.)

The thing of it is that most of us, for example, are not under 21 (for example), so signing that we would have an abortion if we became pregnant under 21 has no personal meaning or resonance. It just seems like we are signing on to a prescription for the behavior of others (which the second point seems to make clear). I personally probably would have had an abortion if I had become pregnant before I was about 23 or 24. I was not personally equipped to be a mother at that time, and I know that I would also not have been able to give a baby up for adoption. If someone I knew who was under 21 confided in me that they were pregnant, I would also make sure they knew that they could have an abortion, that it was a choice I would support if my support mattered to them, but I would stop short of telling them they should have an abortion - it would be their choice.

So again, I get what you were trying to do, but I don't think it works. It appears to pick on women who are already vulnerable to judgment for choosing to remain pregnant.

@144 - Re: "Fuck you if you think that being pro-choice means you get to judge women's choices. And a double fuck you if you think that being pro-choice is a judgement on your mother's choice to have you."

None of the pro-choice/anti-pledge women who have been commenting here think that being "pro-choice means you get to judge other women's choices." I personally would be fine with women having abortions in any or all of the cases named. There appear to be two overlapping camps of pro-choice women who object to this pledge - the women who are pro-choice, anti-abortion who would not choose to have abortions themselves in some or all of these cases and who therefore don't want sign the pledge, and the women who are pro-choice and totally fine with abortion and who specifically have a problem with the pledge because of the was it appears to *judge women's choices*.

None of the pro-choice/anti-pledge women who have been commenting here "think that being pro-choice is a judgement on your mother's choice to have you." We know it doesn't. What does appear to constitute judgment of various people's mother's choices is Jocelyn's statement @51 - "...have you ever met someone who had a kid young, kept it, and turned out to be a good mother? I have not." That's was the bat taken to that particular wasp's nest.

#159, those are examples of professional careers that a young, poor mother presumably is shutting herself out of by having a baby instead of an abortion. The suggestion was that it's much harder to have the baby young, rather than waiting until your career has been launched later, and I think these examples show that's not necessarily the case. You can feel free to substitute any sort of career you like, but the above lent themselves to brief descriptions of the "difficult period" that often coincidides with childbearing years.

Why you choose to stereotype people who might want such careers in the way you do? No idea. I guess no young Latina mother should aspire to getting a medical degree? Or maybe that's where the abortion has to come in? Please.

@ 158 hit the nail on the head, thank you.

The assumptions some of you are making about me, rather than addressing the actual argument, are both amusing and false. Do what you need to feel good, I guess, in your own ignorance.

The abortion pledge suggests that young, poor women should get an abortion. Others have argued for the reasonableness of this position, given how difficult it is to have babies when you're young and poor, if you want to complete your education or have a successful career. My point is that it can be easier than assumed to have a baby under those circumstances, compared to waiting until you are actually finishing an education or launching a professional career. So if the question is, should you have a baby or abortion at 19, if you want to e.g. finish school and become a lawyer, I don't think abortion is the obvious answer that some might say it is.

Many factors hinder economic or educational success. If people want to argue about how hard it is to get through school and launch a successful career, great, but that's not the issue. The argument is that we should pledge to have an abortion under those circumstances, or strongly suggest that others who are either young or poor should have one. It's not easy to have a baby when you're in school, but it's also not easy to have one when you're a young medical resident or law associate. What, you don't think those are realistic career prospects for a young, poor, non-white woman? Why not? That's your problem, I'm afraid. Blaming that on me, the supposedly wealthy white feminist cunt, is not exactly solving your problem.

This thing is a fucking joke. It makes the pro-choice crowd sound exactly like the rampaging baby-killing monsters that the pro-life crowd paints them as. It sounds exactly as if you were suggesting abortion as a form of birth control.

I'm a guy, and a gay one at that, so I'm quite well aware that any opinions I have should be taken with a pillar of salt, but it seems to me that ending a pregnancy is not something that should be approached lightly or without deliberation or without a thorough consideration of the options. We are talking about a genetically unique organism here after all.

What's most appalling about the list is that the alternatives are not even considered or discussed. Given the number of couples (gay and straight) interested in adopting infants, for example, I'd like to see at least a thought given in that direction.

Jocelyn: Thank you! So good to hear someone else say this.

Yes, of course you shouldn't have a kid unless you're in a stable relationship and financially able to support a kid. That's just common sense. And yes, you should be judged if you decide to have a kid when you're not in a position to do so. Poor people should not have kids. They should get abortions. It's not fair to the kids.

I would also add:

1a) If I am not married (or as close to marriage as the law allows, in the case of same-sex relationships) and I get pregnant, I will have an abortion.

1b) If I have an unplanned pregnancy, I will have an abortion.

2a) If I know someone who is pregnant and not married (or as close to marriage as the law allows), I will strongly encourage her to have an abortion.

2b) If I know someone who has an unplanned pregnancy, I will have an abortion.

Let's not confuse what's best politically with what's right. This pledge is probably not great politically. On one hand, this could be used against the pro-choice movement, but on the other hand, it makes the mainstream pro-choice movement look more central and mainstream. It shifts the window of discourse.

But this pledge isn't intended as political strategy. It's an honest expression of a viewpoint that isn't really heard very often, and should be: the idea that abortion is a legitimate form of birth control. That not everyone who's pro-choice is anti-abortion, or wants to reduce the number of abortions, or thinks abortion is an unfortunate situation that's the best of bad choices.

I'm honestly surprised this is so controversial among pro-choice people.

@169: That's exactly the point. Abortion is, and should be, a legitimate form of birth control. That's the whole point of this pledge. It shouldn't be seen as something tragic or bad or something that should be avoided.

Heh, correcting #169:

2b) If I know someone who has an unplanned pregnancy, I will strongly encourage her to have an abortion.

BlackRose, I'm just wondering, how wealthy does one have to be to legitimately have kids, in your eyes, as opposed to an abortion? What if they're poor but have a reasonable expectation of good future job prospects? What if they have no career or education, but are relying on their spouse's career to fund the childrearing?

Why does a person have to be married to have kids?
And why does the pregnancy have to be planned?
Doubtless you realize that many people who are unmarried or who have a surprise pregnancy end up going on to raise wonderful, happy children. So why the insistence on both of those things?

Personally, I've had nothing but planned pregnancies in marriage, but I can tell you there is never an ideal time to have babies. The life-transformations and responsibilities that go along with kids are also very hard to imagine beforehand. You can work very hard to make conditions right, but nothing is perfect. I think if you love your children completely and treat them well, the rest is just gravy. There is no circumstance under which I'd recommend or insist on abortion, except the one in which the mother felt it was the right thing to do. My judgments about ideal conditions are worth shit.

@BlackRose

Have you had an abortion?

I know many women who have, including my sister, and for all of them it was heartrending. An abortion is, for many, many women who have them, a painful, gutwrenching thing to do.

The reason why your point of view is so controversial among the pro-choice crowd is because conception is not inconsequential. And the decision to end what has the potential to become a human being is not inconsequential either. That is not a blasé choice that's made off-the-cuff.

The reason I am pro-choice is because I believe that the mother, who has a stake in the world, is more important than the fetus, who doesn't. And I believe she should be the only arbiter of her own autonomy and personal decisions.

The reason why I am not pro-abortion is because I have respect for human life in all of its stages. Your stance seems to me to be the moral equivalent of pissing on a corpse as a joke. The indifference to human life that you indicate by saying "not everyone wants to reduce the number of abortions" is disturbing.

@177:

I don't have the equipment to have an abortion. So I can't speak from personal experience. But it is certainly true that many women find it personally gut-wrenching. And many don't. But although abortion can be painful for women who have one, abortion isn't something that's objectively terrible and sickening and wrong. The reason I found this pledge so meaningful is that I feel like the other side of it -- the women who don't feel like it's particularly painful and gut-wrenching -- doesn't get discussed for political reasons. Pro-choice people are so careful to say that abortion is a painful, difficult decision, and that no one does it lightly, and that it shouldn't be used as birth control, and this ignores the fact that not everyone feels that way.

I respect your friends and family who found abortion painful, and I'm sorry they didn't have an easy time with it. I disagree that that's some sort of universal experience or that it says something generally applicable about abortion.

I respect human life, but not in all of its stages. A fetus is not of any moral significance, though I grant that it has emotional significance for some. Same goes for a corpse, for that matter. Unlike an actual person, a fetus can't understand its surroundings, have feelings, think, empathize, participate in a community, tell stories, have conversations, or engage in human interaction, and these are the things that make human life worthy of value and respect and dignity. I'm not indifferent to the life of an actual person; I am indifferent to the life of a fetus. The two are so different that I don't understand how anyone could equate them, and to do so seems like pro-life rhetoric.

I'd like to increase availability of contraception. And contraception can certainly be easier and less troublesome than abortion, so if that decreases abortions, great. But I don't see why decreasing the number of abortions should be an end in itself.

@176:

Having kids means creating a new life. If you're going to do that, rather than adopt one of the many kids who needs a home, you damn well better make sure you can provide for them. If you're gonna bring them into this world, they deserve a lot more than a "reasonable expectation" that they'll be provided for. Deciding *not* to have an abortion is a huge choice. You don't have to bring someone into this world: it's done voluntarily (assuming access to abortion). There's no downside to never having existed, whereas there are a lot of potential downsides to being raised by a single parent, or a family that can't afford to provide for kids (statistically, having two parents significantly increases one's chances of success).

You asked how wealthy parents should be, so I'll refer you to the average cost of raising a kid: $222,360. (http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/…) There's a good argument that parents shouldn't have kids at all while there are kids needing to be adopted, but at the very least you should have that money available as disposable income.

As you say, there's never an ideal time to have kids, it's never perfect, and it's always harder than you think. So why burden kids with the additional problems of growing up in a household that can't provide for them?

Sorry, this pledge is stupid. Just because I support the legal right of women to choose whether or not to abort doesn't mean I would make that choice myself for every possible situation in which I might become unintentionally pregnant. Unplanned does not necessarily mean unwanted. This pledge is an insult to every woman who chose to raise a child over the objections of a clueless man who tried to pressure her into an abortion, which is just as wrong as the government trying to pressure a woman not to have one. Prochoice means SHE gets to choose. It does NOT mean pro-abortion!

@172 (Blackrose) wrote: "2b) If I know someone who has an unplanned pregnancy, I will strongly encourage her to have an abortion."

Why is it any of your business? The whole point of the pro-choice movement is to tell the government, "it's none of your fucking business." But you know what, it's not just the government who needs to butt out, so unless you're the one who is pregnant, it's none of your fucking business either. It's a personal decision, and you should have no say about it unless it's a friend who is specifically asking for your advice.

(To the people wondering if the man who got a woman pregnant should have a say...it would be polite to hear him out, and how much weight his opinion has may vary with the nature of their relationship, but he has no right to veto her decision, whatever it may be.)

@144, No, fuck YOU up your ass with a cactus for judging MY choice to keep my child while I was unmarried, over the objection of the bio-father who tried to pressure me into an abortion, and while I was still in college. I later finished college (and a few years of grad school) and have been married for 13 years to a man who has been a wonderful step-father to my 15-year-old son, and BTW we have plenty of money to raise him and the daughter we had together. So you see, not every unplanned pregnancy results in disaster. Realizing that truth does not do any damage to the principle that the government (and other people) should BUTT THE FUCK OUT!

Pro-choice means you respect the right of women to make their own choices, regardless of whether that choice is abortion, adoption or keeping the child. It does NOT mean you get to make a fucking list of instances in which women MUST get abortions in order to meet your twisted definition of "pro-choice". Again, fuck you.

Sorry, last comment. @107's pledge is lovely. That's one I would sign.
And I like family doc's comments @43.

@144, @184 pwned you.
and yeah, this pledge aint gonna get you what you want. it is just going to alienate a lot of reasonable people on both sides of the argument.

Oh goodness.

@ BlackRose 170, 171
You say "Let's not confuse what's best politically with what's right." But there is absolutely NOTHING RIGHT about your statement that "Poor people should not have kids." Middle-class people have been taking up this kind of idea since the 19th century. Seriously. I could write a tidy little essay here about how prevalent this kinds of ideas have been over the last 200 years, but that wouldn't make them any less wrong.

@ Corydon 169
I think you mean well, and I agree with you that the pledge as written is offensive on its face. I've tried to explain why in detail @125 and proposed a different pledge @108. However, I think you are wrong to suggest that the adoption option actually needs to be represented in the pledge. Women, I think, are well aware of this option. While I don't think anyone should dictate the terms upon which women should have an abortion, and I recognize that there are many women who would not make the decision lightly at any point in a pregnancy, I don't think we should assume that it would necessarily be a wracking or even particularly difficult decision for some women, some of the time. I don't think anybody make the decision thoughtlessly, but I am sure that for some women it would be a relatively easy decision to make early in an unwanted and unexpected pregnancy. And I don't we should suggest that it be harder, or be made harder. The situation in which it would become a difficult decision for any woman would be a variable and unique as that woman and her circumstances. I think the point is that we need to trust women to know what is best, and to take the time and thought with the decision that is exactly in proportion to her unique situation. That is why I suggested changing #7 of the above pledge to #1 of a new pledge - "If I become pregnant and I feel like an abortion is the best course of action, I will have an abortion." (@107/108)

The long and short of it is that if a woman does not want to be a mother, and does not want to be pregnant, and has no philosophical objections, an abortion (probably medical rather than surgical) early in the first trimester would almost certainly be less traumatic and medically safer than feeling a fetus quicken, carrying a child to term, delivering it, and letting it go to another family. I think giving a child up for adoption (even the open ones Dan so touchingly described in The Kid) takes a certain kind of internal strength that not all women posses. I certainly wouldn't. While it is heart-wrenching that many couples, gay and straight, want to raise children from infants but don't have the capacity to have biological children, I don't think it should be expected that any individual woman would factor these couples' desires into her plans. I am sure, however, that the existence of these families is a great comfort to any women who do decide to carry their pregnancies to term and give the babies up.

Sorry, Corydon @ 169 - I tried to explain why it was offensive at 158, not 125 - I was responding to 125. (Numbers are confusing me...)

@183- I'd say it's a friend's business to advocate the pro-abortion point of view because the Religious Right has saturated our society with anti-abortion rhetoric.

@184 & 186 - Fuck you and your poor reading comprehension.

BlackRose/180: The number you cite is not the cost of raising a child. That number is the average amount spent per year, x18, in a two-parent middle class family (i.e. making above 56k or so per year). So, again: how wealthy does one have to be to provide for a child adequately rather than being, in your view, morally compelled to have an abortion instead? Should everyone making minimum wage get an abortion? Should people making even higher amounts, if they live in expensive areas e.g. on the coasts, choose abortion? What if their extended family can provide some child care or cash--how would that change the abortion calculation?

I ask these questions because I doubt that it's easy to calculate the proper economic circumstances for having a baby, in the way you're demanding of people. "Reasonable prospects" of employment or improving finances are the best one can expect in most situations. Nobody is guaranteed a job into the future, or freedom from unexpected illnesses or disability that could affect ability to raise or pay for children. Your blanket demands that "poor people" shouldn't breed therefore don't make much sense, and are incredibly ill-defined, even if we decided to overlook how basically offensive the idea is.

If you want to argue that nobody should have kids while there are children awaiting adoption, that's fine, but that's a separate issue. You'd also have to make a case that it's relatively easy for all the people who want kids to find children they can adopt.

@183: It's my business because we live in a society where people's actions affect each other, and unwanted kids, single-parent kids, and kids without good parenting cause all sorts of social problems. (Yes, of course there are exceptions. Not every single kid who falls into one of those categories causes social problems, obviously.)

@187: My point was that people were criticizing this pledge for being politically unwise, when the whole point of the pledge was that the pro-choice movement has moved too far to the anti-abortion side for political reasons. See the pledge writer's comments at #25 and #125.

Hopefully the obvious idea that people should not have kids if they're not in a position to support them goes back well before the 19th century, since contraception has been around in various forms for thousands of years. I just don't see what's so wrong about saying that if you're going to have kids, you should have the resources to do it right. And rich people who can't or won't take the time to read to their kids and play with them every day shouldn't have kids either, for the same reason -- this isn't a class issue.

@191: No, look at the pdf that was linked to again, specifically pages iii, 1-4, and 20-22. The number only counts child-related expenses, not all expenses. But if you disagree with the methodology and think the amount should be different, that's ok. The precise number is not the point. The point is: before a couple decides to not have an abortion, they should look at their financial situation carefully, and if there's any doubt about their future financial ability to provide for a kid, don't have one. You're right that this is not an easy calculation to make, or an easy decision, and the future is always more unpredictable than you think, which is why you shouldn't have a kid if you're not sure you can provide for one. But when you get a mortgage or a loan, you and the bank need to make sure you'll have the future income needed to keep up with the payments, and no one should have a kid without taking at least as much care in their financial analysis.

It's hard enough to provide for yourself on minimum wage (see "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich) so I doubt that anyone making minimum wage would have the resources to give kids as much as they deserve.

Adoption is a separate but related issue: it's currently very difficult and expensive to adopt, and I'm all for trying to fix that as well.

@Soupytwist - the problem with your post is that you lumped all of us that are reacting negatively to this pledge and that consider this pledge to be "yucky" in with those who "only agree with abortion in theory." That is seriously not fair.
On the contrary, I've been sitting here for a year seriously considering getting an abortion in the event that my fetus would test positive for a serious, debilitating, genetically inherited disease. If I get pregnant, I have a one in four chance of marching off to a Planned Parenthood for an abortion. This is not a "worst case scenario" and it also would put me high up on the hate-list of many anti-choicers. I also would totally support any 21-year old's right to choose abortion for whatever danged reason she pleases. But not if she is forced to by the agenda of others.
The problem with this pledge is it makes all pro-choicers sound like fanatics or extremists who want to force their opinion on others. It is this Fanaticism that makes the stand of the rabid anti-choicers to be abhorrent.. We will only win the fight and maintain our rights by presenting an argument full of reason and choice.
This pledge can be (and seems to have been already) rewritten to get all your and Jocelyn's good points across without the forcefulness and fanaticism.
Oh - I almost forgot! Fuck you too!

@ 192 (BlackRose)

The ideas underlying your statement that "Poor people should not have kids" found their first legal expression (as far as I know) in England in the New Poor Law of 1834 (you can read about it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Law_Am…). The ideas popularized by this law (less eligibility, for example) eventually came to influence much policy and law in the US, but were not fully entertained until after the closing of the West.

Believe it or not, but the idea that "Poor people should not have kids" really didn't exist before the 19th century, but not for the reason you might think. In order for it to exist, it needs to be accepted that there is a set of people - "the poor" - who do not and will never possess the means of supporting children. In early modern Europe (c. 1500-1800), people would have agreed with the statement that "people should not have kids *until they are* a position to support them." Peasant farmers did in fact delay childbearing and marriage, often in that order, until they could support children (about age 25 for women and 27 for men). However, this poverty-motivated delay was a matter of life-course, rather than a permanent halt to reproduction. The idea that there was a large segment of the population who might never be able to support children without outside assistance did not arise until the dislocations of the Industrial Revolution had begun. Before that, even the poorest of the poor usually had some means of feeding their children off the land.

Protestations about "the American Dream" notwithstanding, the society in which we now live is more unequal than (for example) Medieval society. (I would refer anyone interested to Neil Brooks and Linda McQuiag's book, The Trouble with Billionaires - which is a bit broad but completely fascinating.) There are certainly people who are so poor that they wouldn't be able to support their children without some form of outside assistance, but this situation is the result of long-standing structural developments in our society, rather than any personal moral failure (as neo-cons and the Poor Law Commissioners before them would have had it). To suggest that people in this situation forfeit their right bear and rear children is inhumane in my book. Of course, there are many people who agree with you - but I think they are wrong, and you are wrong. If it were up to me, we would live in a society in which any adult person *would* be able to support children.

[As a side note, it is the common currency of the ideas expressed by BlackRose that caused me to be seriously P.O.'d by Dan's post a while back entitled "Poor People Shouldn't Have Kids" or something along that line. Dan didn't mean it, he was making a point through the use of satire, but he did so by stepping on people who are already placed at a disadvantage in our society. It wasn't cool, but I was too lazy to say anything about it at the time.]

(I answered this comment with reference to European (especially British) history, because I am most familiar with that scholarship in reference to this question - but I don't want anyone to get the idea that I think it represents all history and all people.)

@194 - FUCK YOU FOR BEING AN APOLOGIST ABOUT REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE.

I hope you guys are still checking this comment thread, because http://blog.spreadingsantorum.com/2011/0…

196 you are totally whacko.

Jocelyn - hey I went and read the new one. Didn't comment there..have too many web IDs already so I am commenting here. Potentially much to Soupytwist's dismay, I like the new pledge. Only comment is that #5 is a little vague. I wonder if everyone would "get it." In fact, I wonder if I get it.
But other than that, love it. Sorry if it makes you feel like you are an apologist, or are pandering to wimps like me. But on the bright side, this is a pledge that a greater number of people would support. More is better. Thanks for taking input.

I'm largely OK with the new version of the pledge, and would probably sign it. A couple nits:

1. The third point appears to be missing the word "I": "If become pregnant and opt not to have an abortion..."

2. I understand what you're trying to do with point 5, but I would limit it to the abortion issue. E.g., "I refuse to let a abortion issue, no matter how important to me, define the way I vote." I can think of single issues that would define how I vote. For instance, were I able to vote in 1860, their abolitionist stance would force me to vote exclusively for the Republicans rather than the pro-slavery Democrats.

Ah, how times have changed.

@onion - I'm "whacko" for thinking abortion is okay? Whatever. I don't think women should have to justify having an abortion and I don't think women are special in anyway for the reproductive choices that they make. I think that the compulsive need some people have to explain their pro-choice stance down to the minutiae is pathetic. Either you're pro-choice or you're not. That's where the discussion should begin and end.

@195 (historygirl):

If you'd like, I'll adopt your rephrasing: "People should not have kids *until they are* a position to support them." That's all I meant. I wasn't making any statements about class mobility, or why there are poor, or whether or not there is a set of people who will never be able to support kids.

I also think we should live in a society where any adult would have the resources to support children. However, I disagree that having kids is a "right." Creating a new human being is a social action that affects all other human beings who exist, not a right that anyone who is able should be allowed to freely exercise. Society should be able to control and regulate the population size, for the same reason that society should be able to regulate pollution or medical care. Having an abortion is an individual right, because it's a woman controlling her own body. Creating a new human being is not, because it involves another person.

(By the way, thank you for the information and references! Interesting stuff.)