The Morning After Pill: "Isn't that like, killing?"

[truthbetold]

Gah. People are so stupid it astounds me.
My friend Christine is about 6 months pregnant (at NINETEEN YEARS OLD) and an avid Christian. Yes, the irony is not lost on me.
So she was telling me about her situation, and how she had been on birth control, hadn't been taking it regularly and had sex without a condom. She told me one night she knew she was going to get pregnant, so I asked her why she hadn't taken the morning after pill. At $20 and available at any Planned Parenthood, it seems like a better alternative for someone who doesn't even like kids.
She looked at me like I had made a pact with the devil. "Isn't that like, killing?" she asked in horror.
That's when I knew the Christian fundies had brainwashed her. So I spent the next fifteen minutes explaining to her how the morning after pill is the exact opposite of an abortion, because it prevents conception from occuring in the first place.
I just wonder where the hell she or anyone else gets the idea that the morning after pill is an abortion. You can't kill something that doesn't exist. I thought it was common knowledge that conception takes up to 72 hours to happen. And who says we don't need sexual education in schools...
Where is this misinformation coming from?

[AuntPatsy]

1. Shaking my head here.

[salvorhardin]

2. Well, technically, to some people

It is abortion. "Every sperm is sacred" ya know. Preventing conception from taking place is thwarting cod's will!

I know, I know... it infuriates me too.

[KarenInMA]

3. I thought fundies were against premarital sex AND condoms?

[hedgehog]

15. I've encountered the same thinking myself.

Apparently premarital sex is a minor sin if it just "happens". Using contraception would imply that at least one of the participants planned to have sex.

[FreedomAngel82]

23. And the difference with that is???

Nothing. You both still did the act. You both still have personal responsibility.

[China_cat]

35. Not in the fundamental mind.

The only one with 'personal' responsiblity is the female.

[Oerdin]

39. How true.

Just 25 years ago the state of Texas still made it illegal for a single mom to sue the father for child support. In the mind of christian right wing extremists she's a dirty little whore and neither her nor her bastard child deserved child support from the father.

They only changed the law when the Democratically controlled Congress forced them to.

[FreedomAngel82]

22. You're supposed to be

You also have freewill. If you decide to have unprotected sex with someone and be as foolish as that young girl you're bound to have consequences. This is why there should be both abstience AND proper sex ed taught. A lot of the fundies believe if they inforce abstience on people that teens won't have sex. This girl is an obvious example of that. I still remember on Laura Flanders show earlier this year she had a guest on who was from Texas and was involved in the school program when Bush was governor. She said he started the whole abstience thing there and a lot of her classmates came to her for information on birth control, condoms and the like. They still had sex. I'm sure their parents probably didn't know either. This is why I think parents need to have more of a relationship with their children. Be open to them about sex and encourage them to use protection. Abstience is good, because anything could go wrong, but you shouldn't remain ignorant either.

[hedgehog]

30. I teach my children both

I teach them that sex is too important to trivialize but also that they aren't supposed to be having children they can't take care of. I tell my boys the same thing I tell my girls. I also remind them that several of the adopted children in my father's extended family were actually cousins. My great grandparents and grandparents made certain that the family's children were taken care of regardless of the irresponsibility of certain members.

[Elidor]

4. It's coming from the reactionary right wing

Even my SO, who has a master's degree in education was under the impression that it was a DIY abortion until I set her straight.

The wingers and their churches tell these lies all the time, because they disapprove of birth control.

[TomClash]

5. Where is this misinformation coming from?

The Fundie Jesus.

[hedgehog]

6. I know the morning after pill prevents implantation

but I'm not certain if it prevents fertilization of the egg. I would speculate that one group considers the first to be conception and another group considers the second to be. I never heard that it takes 72 hours for sperm to meet egg.

[mcscajun]

36. It's not that it *takes* 72 hours for sperm to *meet* egg...

...it's that sperm can live for 72 hours or so Awaiting the egg...so that's the conception window of opportunity, so to speak.

[lynch03]

7. How ignorant of her

She deserves to deal with the burden of having a baby.

[silverweb]

17. Poor kid!

I sincerely hope she's planning putting this child up for adoption to a couple who wants him or her.

The baby deserves to have a mother with at least a few functioning brain cells -- to say nothing of parents who actually like kids and want this one.

[Beaverhausen]

19. Yeah- great to know someone so smart will be a parent

you are kidding, right?

[BlueEyedSon]

8. It doesn't PREVENT conception. It prevents implantation

(or whatever the medical term is) of the fertilized egg/blastocyst.

[ironman202]

9. life begins before conception...i love it...

Life begins at the boner! At the sparkle in Daddy's eye!

By their logic, every woman who has ever had sex and not gotten pregnant is a murderer. Fertilized eggs fail to adhere to the uterine wall all the time...

The depths of their idiocy have yet to be fully plumbed.

[BlueEyedSon]

11. I say that life begins EVEN BEFORE THE SEX ACT that may

result in that life being created. So, don't hold back from sex, everyone.... that would be tantamount to MURDER!

[KarenInMA]

14. You just became my favorite poster......

:*

[BlueEyedSon]

21. Seriously, I am not kidding. You don't want to go to hell do you???

:rofl:

[KarenInMA]

29. No I don't. Therefore, we must have sex..

(kidding mods- please don't lounge me!)

[friesianrider]

31. We need to protect sperm.

I mean shit, can't sperm be considered the most primative form of life? Maybe we should outlaw masturbation...men, just think of all the babies you kill every time you do it!

If stem cells are snowflake babies, perhaps sperm should be considered...what, fish babies? :puke: These fundies are complete whackjobs.

[BlueEyedSon]

32. Oh, precious tadpoles!

[hedgehog]

37. Hey, I'll grant that there are fundies who think pregnancy is God's

punishment for having sex. That plus their need to control women make their opinions suspect. On the other hand, there are a lot of people like me who think abortion is wrong but still support a woman's right to choose. Pro-life & pro-choice. I understand that an unfertilized egg and a sperm cell each are short lived cells with only half the chromosomes of the rest of the body. I submit that a fertilized egg represents something new.At the very least, it has a complete and completely new complement of chromosomes. People disagree on how much development has to take place before that fertilized egg can be considered a person. Can't we at least maintain a level of respect for each other's opinions?

[femrap]

20. In an essay by Doctorow...he speaks of

'aborted life.' The only 'aborted lives' we are seeing today are the ones in Iraq. And in a way those family members who are left to mourn these fallen soldiers have their lives aborted in a way...their lives will never be the same.

[FreedomAngel82]

25. Exactly

If they can't be potential converties they don't care.

[Canuckistanian]

24. Menstruation is murder!

So that's why periods are considered evil and menstruating women "unclean".

[madfloridian]

10. I have a post up about this very topic today.

About the Democrats for Life and the DLC/Third Way.
They do NOT believe in this pill...many of our Democrats oppose it and they do not plan to make info available on it. Think Casey, the PA guy Schumer wants....think Roemer.

The post is pretty recent....I got told off about my views and haven't had time to refute yet.

Perhaps this is a shining example of what our Democratic Party is planning on.

[madfloridian]

12. Here is my post about this. Our Demcrats are partly to blame.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2017353

Please feel free to contribue, as I get tired of being alone on this issue.

[uppityperson]

13. Some uninformed people think this is the same as the "abortion pill"

using their name for it. They don't know that this is a different thing. This has been around for at least 30 yrs I know of, yet is only now making it into the mainstream. Argh, educate them, please educate them. Let them know that this is available, moderately inexpensive and prevents conception. It is like birth control pills, or a condom. It does not give you an abortion as it just keeps you from getting pregnant.

Education education education.

[FreedomAngel82]

16. Rightwing "pro-life" groups

They'd do anything to control women. As a woman I'm so disgusted and insulted.

[madfloridian]

27. Our own party is involved in this. See my GDP post.

:hi:

[politicaholic]

18. You're right, fundies...

A new church opened by my place. It's full of really young people, I swear, I didn't see anyone milling outside over 40. It's supposed to be this church geared toward the urban 20-30 somethings. Rock and roll hymns the whole bit. I thought they might be liberal...*pfft* yeah right.

I walked by on Sunday and they had all of the doors open. The speaker was talking loudly into the mic about how contraception can't keep God out and that once your contraception fails you're killing the will of God so you might as well just forgo the contraception and let the will of God happen.

Rock and roll church my ass. They don't rock, they very much un-rock. Just put Pat Robertson in Hot Pants and give him a James Brown beat.

What a bunch of manipulative sickos.

[truthbetold]

26. Oh wow.

So they'd rather have all the kids in that church knocked up then use protection?
Oh wait, that's right! More children more FUNDIES! Brilliant plan, isn't it?

[friesianrider]

28. A lot of people confuse the morning-after pill with RU-486

And naturally, the pro-life fanatics do NOTHING to set the record straight. I suspect a great majority of them would outlaw birth control in any sense if they could, so to them doing anything to interfere with what would naturally happen is considered "like, killing." :eyes:

[madfloridian]

34. The pro-life DO consider it an abortion pill.

They say life begins at the moment of conception, and that the pill constitutes an abortion. Casey in PA feels this way, Roemer does, many others. Oberstar. Members of the Democrats for Life all feel that way, and they are pressuring our party chair on this.

[sakabatou]

33. Uwaahh... she makes my head hurt

[Oerdin]

38. I don't blame her.

I blame her parents who never taught her about proper birth control, I blame the schools which never taught her proper biology, and I blame the religious groups that try to water down science because they don't want scientifically literate people challenging their dogma.

[Fleshdancer]

40. many confuse the "abortion pill" w/ the morning after pill....

I honestly believe most people don't know the difference.