Abortion II

[inked]

You might be amused or ashamed to know that abortion is normatively exempt from the same record keeping, reporting, and inspections that hospitals and surgery centers go through. There is no equivalent of JCAH evaluations and grading and reports accessible to the public, even for governmental funding where it exists.

As these reports show, that is tragic - not only potentially but actually.

I submit that abortion providers should be held responsible at the same levels that my office and hospital and ER are. For the safety of the one-half or less of the patients who actually leave the facility alive.

[brownjenkins]

With the amount of mismanagement I've seen at all levels of the health professions, it's hard to rank abortion all that high. You guys have a boatload of bigger fish to fry!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

You might be amused or ashamed to know that abortion is normatively exempt from the same record keeping, reporting, and inspections that hospitals and surgery centers go through. There is no equivalent of JCAH evaluations and grading and reports accessible to the public, even for governmental funding where it exists.

As these reports show, that is tragic - not only potentially but actually.

I submit that abortion providers should be held responsible at the same levels that my office and hospital and ER are. For the safety of the one-half or less of the patients who actually leave the facility alive.

Neither amused-what's amusing about lack of proper standards for health-care?- nor ashamed- I am not responsible for lack of oversight in any of these jurisdictions- but I certainly agree they ought to be held to the same level of regulation that clinics performing medical services with equivalent levels of risk should be.

[Nerdanel]

"Abortion rates plummet with free birth control"

http://esciencenews.com/articles/201....birth.control

This is what should be fixed; no matter if one is for or against abortion, a drastically lower rate of abortions is probably a desired thing.

[Insidious Rex]

Yet the Rush Limbaughs of the world would say they are all whores for getting state sponsored birth control in the first place. Nevermind the results. Also interesting is this article about teen pregnancies rising in direct relation to level of religiosity which to me says kids are going to have sex no matter what and if they arent given access to proper sex education and birth control options they are going to get pregnant.

[Lotesse]

An abortion saved my life.

I was a virgin, and had to leave home at 16 due to a terribly abusive stepfather/homelife, while I was a straight-A student & multiple club leader & student council member, etc etc, got targeted by a violent drug dealer when used to have to walk home from working at a pizza hut to my rental in a bad area of a big southern city in the dead of night, I tried many things to lose his trail but he & his henchman, slow-driving a dark-tinted-windowed old souped-up Cadillac finally cornered me.

I was accustomed to a lifetime of violent abuse, had just left home, was still struggling to finish my senior year supporting myself & living alone, had been slated to get into Dartmouth College, but he caught me. Raped me viciously, knew where I lived because he'd been tracking me, said he knew where my family & friends lived and I believed him because I saw him show up outside my best friend's house out of nowhere, just watching me.

I had to leave the state that christmas vacation & make a total getaway to california w/o saying goodbye to even my mother, sister or best friend. The whole drive to Cali I kept throwing up & thought it was because how distressed I was at having to leave everything behind 4 months before graduation & a certain future ivy league college future.

Nope. The rapist made me pregnant. Understand, I was a Young Republican, active anti-abortion activist in high school. But this? No. And I have less than zero regrets about aborting that 3-week-old rape fetus. Abortion is a woman's right. Not a man's. And fk you if you're a religious man and you disagree, because you're completely irrelevant. Period.

That is all.

[Nerdanel]

it's incredible brave of you to tell that, lotesse, on so many levels. thanks for your story, and i'm unspeakably sorry you had to go through that.

as so many other things, making abortion illegal is just another attempt to control people, in this case women. i do not have any understanding for people who say that abortion should be completely illegal - even if it's conception through rape. work on stopping rape instead, and we can talk when you've managed that.

and just like so many other things, no matter how much you try to control it, people will continue having sex and women will continue having abortions. they are the ones having to take all the responsibility if they get pregnant; i think that means we should listen to them extra carefully.

[Lotesse]

Aw, thanks so much for saying so, Nerdanel! And "hi," so many years since we last spoke here. *hugs*

Well, I *did* struggle a lot over the past few days since posting this on whether or not to just come back real quick & delete it, but then I figured, why? It's part of my life, & this is the 'Moot, where ppl have known me for years anyway. Usually I'd not touch one of these endlessly volatile GenMes thread topics with a thousand-mile pole!...

[Lotesse]

*bump* I just posted here like an hour ago! How did this thread suddenly vanish from New Posts Updates, already?? That glitch ought to be looked at, it's no good for the site's health.

Edit after checking-
*it was less than 45 minutes ago. WEIRD! Not the only time I've noticed this annoying glitch, either.*

[Earniel]

I was a bit taken aback by the openess with which you can talk about what must have been a truly terrible, horrific time, Lotesse. But I'm glad you were able to make your own choice and had access to a doctor able to perform an abortion. I'm deeply disappointed that so many women who had such aweful, soul-shattering experiences are denied both.

Medical care, including an abortion-procedure if necesary, should be available to all women, and not be denied on purely religious grounds.

PS: about the 'new posts', those are only the new posts since the last time you have logged in in the 'moot. It's not a glitch. But go to 'quick links', and select 'today's posts' and you should get all the posts posted today irrelevant of when and how many times you have logged in in a day.

[Varnafindë]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

But go to 'quick links', and select 'today's posts' and you should get all the posts posted today irrelevant of when and how many times you have logged in in a day.

I'm learning something new every day!

[Lotesse]

Ah! Thanks for explaining that to me Earniel, lol! Now I just feel silly, heh. I probably even knew that at some past point, & my brain just misplaced the lil tidbit of 'Moot knowledge~

[Earniel]

I'm getting so effing tired of reading about every single day some moronic %$µ#! statement about women's reproduction systems from a politician. Just get that gorram election over with so these guys can crawl back under their dirty rocks from where they came from. At least our politicians (while often equally inept) don't treat half of the population as second-class citizens/incubators.

So I have been thinking hard since I read this yesterday whether I should post this here. But I think I should. I know this deals with but a specific fraction of the abortion-debate and that the issue is wider, but where rape is concerned in the abortion debate, it needs to be said.

WARNING: It is most definitely not-safe-for-work, it is scary and triggering as hell for victims of sexual assault and everybody else too will probably feel like you need a shower afterwards. But it's about time politicians see whose rights they are really advocating when they refuse the right to women to make decisions in and on their own body.

From John Scalzi's blog: a fan letter to certain conservative politicians