This weeks "poor taste" award goes to Yahoo

[cecilia]

Getting pregnant with a child that has to be terminated isn't an "intelligent decision", it's an "accident" and a way of dealing with it.

it's "intelligent" because it takes courage to do the right thing.

there are alot of married women with children - say about 2 - who can't afford another. and out of concern for their existing children must have abortions.
if there was a contraception that was 100% effective these abortions wouldn't be needed, but no one ever seems to notice this.

Pride? Geeze, you make it sound like it's a goal to be aimed for, let's get pregnant and get abortions.

trust me, no one has an abortion because they think it's fun. it's not a goal to have an abortion. it's a goal to do the right thing.

if you look at the t-shirts that planned parrenthood does have (according to the link you had), they expressed the idea that Every Child is Planned and Wanted.
THAT'S the real goal.

Wearing a shirt like that is grinding salt right into that wound.

like i said, i personally wouldn't be interested in wearing such a shirt - mostly because I don't care to become a billboard - but if i saw it on someone else I'd see it as a person expressing their pride in self-determination in the face of rampant Political Correctness. the Bain of the 20th century.

and, BTW, since i AM an artist, I can make my own Amiga shirt. I don't have to wait for anyone.

Time and cecilia wait for no man!

[KennyR]

I see it as bad taste, in this same way I'd see a T-shirt saying "I euthanised my parent!" in bad taste. That might have been necessary too, and sure has hell takes just as much courage, but advertising it is still the absolute height of bad taste.

[PMC]

Since no method of contraception is 100% effective, there may be certain circumstances where pregnancy may be undesirable for a multitude of reasons - possible genetic defects, threat to health of the mother to name but two.

It's an emotive issue and I guess I could say I was pro-choice, but being neither female nor a parent as a result cannot speak from any perspective of experience.  Because it's such a thorny issue I don't feel wearing a T shirt with "I had an abortion" emblazoned across it is a particularly sensitive thing to do.  

But then I don't necessarily like the idea of T shirts with "Cocaine" or "Crack Whore" printed on them either.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

"Bad taste"
The pro-life movement has the lovely idea that there should be children crawling like worms over this whole planet, eating everything in it's way, and if there's nothing to eat anymore, they eat their weaker brothers or sisters.

[KennyR]

@speel

And if we go to the other extreme and don't make people face up to the responsibility of their actions, we might as well give up contraception as being too hard and inconvient, and set up 5 minute abortion factories where women go in one end once a month and them and piles of dead but suspiciously human-looking meat come out the other.

Bad taste is mankind's natural response to taking things too far. Sometimes it doesn't work. Most of the time it does.

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:
@speel

And if we go to the other extreme and don't make people face up to the responsibility of their actions, we might as well give up contraception as being too hard and inconvient, and set up 5 minute abortion factories where women go in one end once a month and them and piles of dead but suspiciously human-looking meat come out the other.

Bad taste is mankind's natural response to taking things too far. Sometimes it doesn't work. Most of the time it does.

:puke:

My god! Man you have a way with words! :lol:

[cecilia]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
"Bad taste"
The pro-life movement has the lovely idea that there should be children crawling like worms over this whole planet, eating everything in it's way, and if there's nothing to eat anymore, they eat their weaker brothers or sisters.

actually, what these so-called "religious" "pro-life" folks do is that when some of the unaborted, unwanted kids grow up and become criminals, they just kill them legally with capital punishment.

[T_Bone]

cecilia wrote:

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
"Bad taste"
The pro-life movement has the lovely idea that there should be children crawling like worms over this whole planet, eating everything in it's way, and if there's nothing to eat anymore, they eat their weaker brothers or sisters.

actually, what these so-called "religious" "pro-life" folks do is that when some of the unaborted, unwanted kids grow up and become criminals, they just kill them legally with capital punishment.

I'm not sure I grok the concept of an "unaborted, unwanted" child. I know for a fact my presence was "unplanned" and in fact our first child was too, but, well, here we are...

But back to pride, if a child was truely "unwanted" and conceived due to contraception failure, I can understand a woman getting an abortion, but I can't understand where the "pride" comes into play. What's to celebrate about contraception failure and surgery? You'd might as well have "pride" that you'd gotten the clap for the same reasons, but somehow I doubt people will be buying those "I've got the Clap" T-shirts.

Abortion is not an "achievement." I understand that it's important for those in that position to have solidarity, but  celebrating an "unfortunate" situation in the faces of those actually in that situation is cruel. It ranks right up there with those people outside abortion clinics shouting "Babykiller!" to a crying teenage girl walking out after surgery... in fact, it's the same exact message, except instead of "Babykiller, how could you?" it's "Babykiller, way to go!" Is either one better?

KennyR was right on the money in his closure. labelling it as "good" or "evil" is equally wrong, and both labels shout "babykiller" at the mother in different contexts. The only middle ground available is "unfortunate", anything else is "babykiller!" spoken in contempt or celebration. The T-shirts chose celebration, and so are part of the "Babykiller!" camp.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Well, it seems that there's indeed no way between pride and shame for many.

[T_Bone]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Well, it seems that there's indeed no way between pride and shame for many.

Pride and shame are irrelevant unless you are talking about an achievement or goal. Abortion is an unfortunate situation, not an aspiration, and is kind of apples/oranges to the concept of pride and shame.

Would you be "proud" to find out you just got AIDS? What about "shame?" I wouldn't feel either, if I hadn't done anything wrong. It's simply unfortunate.

[Cyberus]

T_Bone wrote:

KennyR wrote:
@speel

And if we go to the other extreme and don't make people face up to the responsibility of their actions, we might as well give up contraception as being too hard and inconvient, and set up 5 minute abortion factories where women go in one end once a month and them and piles of dead but suspiciously human-looking meat come out the other.

Bad taste is mankind's natural response to taking things too far. Sometimes it doesn't work. Most of the time it does.

:puke:

My god! Man you have a way with words! :lol:

Pessimism I should say, out and out pessimism :-)
"We're all doomed" - and the thing is, he's right!







Kind of.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

T_Bone wrote:
Would you be "proud" to find out you just got AIDS? What about "shame?" I wouldn't feel either, if I hadn't done anything wrong. It's simply unfortunate.

Youre quite right if you take in consideration that it is accepted by the many.

But in South Africa for instance, it is a shame to have AIDS or have an abortion. I can imagine in some places in the US where there is the same situation. I can imagine these persons do not want to live the rest of their lives in shame because their community condemns their situation and says that you should feel ashamed. They're just protesting against this community's ideas in the way mentioned.

[cecilia]

I can imagine these persons do not want to live the rest of their lives in shame because their community condemns their situation and says that you should feel ashamed. They're just protesting against this community's ideas in the way mentioned.

FINALLY! somebody gets it! thanks speel!
yes, indeed.
in america, Land of the Puritan, trying to get people to feel shame is a national pastime.
I refuse to get sucked into this neurotic sickness. if an unfortunate situation has occured - dispite all precautions - the rational and inteligent thing to do is take care of it. and THAT willingness to be rational is what one should be proud of. even tho one is surounded by nuts and people who's entire goal in life is to make people feel bad.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
@speel

And if we go to the other extreme and don't make people face up to the responsibility of their actions, we might as well give up contraception as being too hard and inconvient, and set up 5 minute abortion factories where women go in one end once a month and them and piles of dead but suspiciously human-looking meat come out the other.

Maybe you do not know it yet, but the countries that have legalized abortion have the lowest abortion rates. And until 1996, when the Netherlands had for a long time abortion legalized, it had the lowest abortion rates of the entire world. (and it has still one of the lowest abortion rates)
So the image you're describing is in reality plain untrue.

[T_Bone]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:

KennyR wrote:
@speel

And if we go to the other extreme and don't make people face up to the responsibility of their actions, we might as well give up contraception as being too hard and inconvient, and set up 5 minute abortion factories where women go in one end once a month and them and piles of dead but suspiciously human-looking meat come out the other.

Maybe you do not know it yet, but the countries that have legalized abortion have the lowest abortion rates. And until 1996, when the Netherlands had for a long time abortion legalized, it had the lowest abortion rates of the entire world. (and it has still one of the lowest abortion rates)
So the image you're describing is in reality plain untrue.

It's legal because they don't have a problem with it obviously. To say they don't have a problem with it because it's legal doesn't make sense.

It's legal here too. We have more legal abortions than you do.

Anyways, looking at recent trends in the netherlands, it looks like your abortion rate has been doubling every year for the past 3 years.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

T_Bone wrote:
Anyways, looking at recent trends in the netherlands, it looks like your abortion rate has been doubling every year for the past 3 years.

I'd like your figures, please.
From what I know, the abortion rate has been risen from 5.2 per 1000 women in 1990 to 8.7 per 1000 women in 2003, on the third place behind Belgium and Germany.

The main cause is immigrants from the Antilles and Suriname (prudishness might be an important factor). The abortion rates between these minorities is FAR higher than the avarage abortion rate of NL, the abortion rate of women from Suriname (here in NL) it is 25.9 per 1000, and the abortion rate of women from the Antilles, it is 30.4 per 1000.
So it seems a frustrated pov towards sex and everything related to it is deadly.