Reply #7: The nature of the whole issue is so private.

[Iris]

It's really hard to speak about it. And, what's worse, when these conversations come up, you really have no idea which women around might have had an abortion and choose not to disclose that information.

I grew up Catholic but haven't been to church in years. Last night I went to Ash Wed. service w/my sister and tired to set straight in my mind how I can be for abortion rights and against the death penalty. And, personally, although I'm vehemently pro-choice, I find abortion pretty difficult think about. Would there be instances where I'd consider having one myself? Probably. And at different stages of my life, I'd probably consider one more or less. But what it boils down to for me is that the government should not have the right to make these decisions - the gov't. should not be saying who should die, should not be setting up chambers to kill people in nor should the government be making decisions about pregnancy - that should be left up to the woman, her family, and her doctor.

When I looked around last night at all the women in the church and thought about one of them being 8 or 9 months pregnant with a rapist's child, I wanted to vomit. And I started thinking more about the folks in Mississippi and South Dakota. How supportive do you think communities would be of a woman, maybe a very young woman 13 or 14 years old, who was pregnant after a rape? Jeez, some people are more than willing to blame the victim in this situation, just image if she had that sort of proof of her "fault" hanging out in front of her. Would she go out in public? Become a reclues for nearly a year? If she were a teenager, would the teachers and administrators of her school be supportive?

At any rate, I think this is an issue that needs to be discussed reasonably and rationally. The kind of in-your-face rhetoric that usually enters these debates is dehumanizing and seems to make things worse. I'm not saying Iknow what the answer is. I guess if this came up in a normal, every day conversation, I'd speak up, but I'm not going to engage random people in a conversation about this.