100 amazing years of Planned Parenthood in 4 minutes: THESE DOORS STAY OPEN

Oh, I’m sure enough for the both of us. :wink:

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This is what I don’t get about the Christian right… surely they’re aware that there are 7 billion people on the planet, and I know for a fact that they believe we only started with two. How do they not understand that sex is something we, as a species, do with great frequency? Most of these people who go on and on about abstinence are grown-up-ass adults who are adulterers (according to the Bible). How do these people not get that this is an instinct hardwired into our DNA?

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I can almost respect those who think taxation is theft. People like that one that seem to think taxation is slavery, on the other hand, …

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It’s about controlling some people’s sexuality, not all people’s sexuality. Men are not to be held responsible for their sexual nature, but women are (for ours and men’s). There is a pro-sex line of thinking in some religious groups, but it’s about channeling sexuality into marriage and making it the bedrock of the relationship. I think the assumption there is that monogamy is our natural state (but not everyone works that way, I think).

But not understanding one’s sexuality and being ignorant of basic biology is dangerous.

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They’re trying to put themselves between you and your desire, so as to collect a toll. They more than get it, they gain their entire advantage from it.

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And it ignores the fact that adoption can be traumatic for the birth mother, too. It’s not an easy answer, even when it’s the right one.

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Ignorance does seem to be the defining feature of the opposition. Your comment did inspire me to look into the ratio of crisis pregnancy counseling centers vs. planned parenthood clinics for my state. An abysmal 44/12.

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And I’m sure the PP clinics are probably clustered in urban areas, where they’d do as much or more good in rural areas.

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Serial monogamy is barely monogamy, it’s unbiblical, and it’s absolutely the social norm. I think we really need to push their anti-sex rhetoric back down their throats.

“I’m sorry, but have you ever had sex out of wedlock? How many wives and girlfriends have you had?” When you consider how concerned these people get with other people’s sex lives, I see no reason not to take an extremely aggressive and interrogative style of questioning regarding their own likely hypocrisy. If they aren’t going to express any shame about dragging people’s sex lives into the political sphere, I have no shame dragging theirs through the mud they’ve so gleefully slung.

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I don’t disagree at all. I’m just attempting to get to the heart of their rhetoric, rather than make excuses for them. I completely agree that they are disingenuous at the very least, if not outright deceitful and hurtful.

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The heart of their rhetoric is the same as any dogmatic interloper; basically, you should be afraid/ashamed. This is roughly the same as a protection racket but with variance in the passive to actual aggression in their application, at least superficially. Fucking authoritarians.

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This film could have used a little more nuance. Margaret Sanger was actually opposed to abortion herself; she saw it as the taking of life. She saw birth control in part as a way to prevent abortions and infanticide. Sanger had left Planned Parenthood long before they started offering abortions.

She also realized that illegal abortions were dangerous and killed women. Her hope was that the need for abortions would end with easy access to birth control. At least some of her work was motivated by her seeing the effects of illegal abortions.

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Absolutely, which is why I think the film should have focused more on birth control and that idea. It shifted pretty rapidly towards abortion access and didn’t make that important point that access to birth control is the best way to prevent abortions and infanticide.

Another interesting fact: Sanger’s own mother had gone through 18 pregnancies, with ten going full-term.

People die when abortions are illegal or hard to obtain. That’s a fact that can’t be denied, because when ever abortions are banned, women die. The best means of preventing abortions is indeed easy access to birth control and comprehensive sex ed, you won’t get an argument from me on that. However, it’s hard to know what Sanger would advocate for today with regards to abortions, because she was not alive during an era of safe, legal access to abortions.

ETA - also, in her own words, FWIW:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=232534.xml

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