“They said they did not get enough information or counseling. They were only given a form to fill out and the abortion was done,”
… Barbados Youth Worker Marcia Weeks talks about the bad experience of women having abortions in Barbados in the Jamaica Observer article Forum calls for definition of lawful abortion
Move ‘Em In, Abort and Move ‘Em Out – The Business Of Making Money Doing Abortions
There is an interesting contrast today between two online articles about abortion in Barbados. First we have a very balanced article posted online at the Jamaica Observer that provides a fair discussion of abortion with all sides having a say.
Barbados Youth Worker Marcia Weeks complains that Barbados abortion providers don’t provide counseling to women contemplating an abortion or to those who have had an abortion. “Just sign here” is how Ms. Weeks describes what happens to many pregnant women who are considering an abortion.
As we and others have pointed out before – when people in the abortion industry make more profits when they abort more babies, it is only natural that they will favour abortion over having the child born alive. Thus “Just sign here”.
Then we have abortions provider and sorry excuse for a failed BLP politician George Griffith writing in the Nation newspaper that even those who “benefit financially” from abortions don’t rejoice. (Nation article here)
Well, the abortion industry may not “rejoice” but they sure do like to market their services! And the more abortions they perform, the more money they make. That’s pretty simple to see even for an abortion cheerleader like Griffith.
And… from the independent observation of a local youth worker, Barbados abortions providers like George Griffith and his staff don’t bother counseling women before or after their abortions. The women arrive frightened, confused and abused. More often than not they have no idea of the size of the child in their womb, and no idea of the ability of the unborn child to feel pain, to sleep and to explore their world.
Nope… for George and his staff it is “Just sign here” as they move ’em in and move ’em out.
No wonder so many women have breakdowns after they have the abortion and then learn the truth about their unborn child.
Oh well – no one can claim that George Griffiths and his staff aren’t efficient! I suppose that is something to be proud of.
Barbados Free Press 
It is very interesting, not surprising though, that we have been entertained to five out of the 10 paragraphs dedicated to this column with comments pertaining to some George Griffith guy yet the main show of the article implicitly is that guy to the top of the page whose head is mounted on what appears to be a dweller of the local brothel. this is the inconsistency that i have commented on in recent times. wht does this guy to the top of the page, who bears striking resemblance to a minister have to do with all of this? this is my last comment on this blog as it clearly does not facilitate any comment from those who may be thinking of giving balanced commentary. all the best BFP
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The Minister of Health recently came out in favour of legalised prostitution and BFP is making a statement about that (I think).
Whatever BFP is, it is always eclectic and never boring!
Marcia Weekes is qouted in the Observer as saying” Another person from the audience, Marcia Weeks, a youth worker in Barbados, pointed out that even though abortion was legalised in Barbados more than 20 years ago, women have reported not receiving any form of counselling before or after the procedure is done. Counselling is considered an integral part of the process because it helps the women to cope after terminating a pregnancy.
“They said they did not get enough information or counselling. They were only given a form to fill out and the abortion was done,” she said. “We deal with a lot of cases where the women require psychiatric help.”
Can Ms. Weeks or BFP expalin what Ms. Weekes means when she says “”We deal with a lot of cases where the women require psychiatric help.”
Is Ms. Weekes a psychiatrist?
Equilibrium it is an irreverent political “cartoon”.
Lighten up will ya!
i wud seriously like ta kno where ms. weekes duz work or get she information….since is natural for a woman or young girl not to want anyone to know dat da getting a abortion….hence going to other not so familiar places where no questions are asked…….whose choice was it in the first place to get the abortion…..seriously think about it…..
Prostitution is not illegal in Barbados. How can it be legalised?
Why should we expect someone else to make a serious decision for us? Is it that we just want to abdicate responsibility for our actions to others? Any woman who has already proceeded to an abortion clinic has done so because she already knows the main reasons how an unwanted pregnancy would impact negatively on her life. If she would already consider an abortion as a solution then she would have also thought out the moral and eithical issues.
This article refers to “counselling” and I put “counselling” in quotation marks because as far as I’m concerned it is just a dishonest word for “trying to talk her out of it” by those who are hell bent on enforcing their thinking on vulnerable girls/women who are making one of the most important decisions of their lives.
These women have already thought long and hard about their decisions and they are at the abortion clinic because that was the decision they made and to interfere with that decision is nothing more than harrassment.
mmmmm….forgot to put muh handle on that…..last post by PiedPiper
PiedPiper… Why shouldn’t a woman have access to all relevant medical and other information during her decision?
Why shouldn’t someone try to talk a woman out of an abortion? Is that somehow less desirable than someone trying to talk a woman into having an abortion?
Is your argument that all women have enough information to make an abortion decision at the moment they discover they are pregnant? Is your argument that pregnant women should have no access to varied opinions when making a decision about whether or not to abort their baby?
Many women regret a hasty abortion decision and many are forced into it against their will by men who want their responsibility to end. Abortion is an easy way out for a man and that is why many women are pushed into it.
Relying upon those “counsellors” who have a profit motive to do more abortions brings us to where we are at the present time. Move ’em in and move ’em out. Next!
Pied Piper says “These women have already thought long and hard about their decisions and they are at the abortion clinic because that was the decision they made and to interfere with that decision is nothing more than harrassment.”
PP, how little you know about the girls who are dragged to the clinic by lovers who are about to dump them. You should read up a little before making such an incorrect statement.
Cliverton, with all due respect, I am very well educated on the whole issue of abortion, it’s consequences, the medical aspects and, unlike many, the FACTS. Do not assume that just because I don’t share your view on abortion that I lack the knowledge to have formed my opinion.
BFP and yourself have made a number of statements without any supporting evidence. You claimed that “many women suffer from breakdowns after they have abortions”. Are you basing this on personal knowledge or do you have supporting research? I do not claim to know what goes on specifically in Dr. Griffith’s clinic but I can tell you this, in all abortion clinics, not only is a physical exam given to determine the age of the fetus, but an ultrasound as well to confirm the age of the fetus. No physician would either take the word of the patient or leave to chance the possible age of the fetus as this can lead to disaster during the procedure. Only in extroardinary circumstances, would a physician perform an abortion on a woman who is more than 4 months pregnant and this is primarily because it can lead to complications to the health of the woman that can’t be dealt with in a clinic setting. No physician in his right mind would want to have a hemorrhaging patient on his hands outside of a hospital.
I will concede one point. If, as you say, some of these women are being “dragged” to the clinic by the men who got them pregnant and it appears that it is against the woman’s will, then yes perhaps some “counselling” is needed but not the kind of “couselling” that I suspect you are referring to. I have seen the so-called counselling that the anti-choice movement uses and it is designed to shock, misinform and invoke guilt and ram religious hyperbole into it’s victims.
Abortion clinics empower child rapists and abusers when they fail to report child pregnancies to police. Incest and child rape happen in every society.
In the last five years, how many child-pregnancies have been terminated in Barbados?
Were all reported to the police? Were charges laid?
In the last five years how many child-rape charges or investigations were initiated in Barbados due to health workers reporting the pregnancy to the police?
Let me give you the answers:
How many child pregnancies were reported by health workers to the Barbados police in the last five years?
Zero.
Therefore the Barbados Family Planning organisation is covering up child pregnancies and empowering child rapists.
Dear Clivey:
You wrote “how little you know about the girls who are dragged to the clinic by lovers who are about to dump them”
Don’t you think than that it is the men who need to be counselled?
Are you doing anything about counselling such men?
There is no need for an abortion to cover up a child rape.
And why would you think it desirable for a raped child to give birth.
Since an abortion is a medical procedure there is no reason why the clinic cannot at the same time take a sample of the fetal tissue (because therein lies the DNA of both the victim and the rapist)
Properly stored tissue samples are very durable. There is no reason that the rape cannot be procecuted when the child reaches maturity and feels able to testify. I read lately about a Canadian case where a father who committed incest was propsecuted and convicted 60 years after the act. His daughters are now in thier 60’s and he is in his 90’s. It is only this year that they felt empoweed to testify.
Maybe this is what you should be lobbying for. No statute of limitations for rape so that procecutions can take place whenever the child feels able to do so. Even if it is 50 or 60 or more years after the assault.
*******************
BFP says,
You really don’t get it, do you? The abortion clinic staff never report to the police that a 12 year old girl is pregnant. They are therefore complicit in the cover-up that protects the adult who impregnated the girl.
Happens all the time. Child rape is never reported to the police by the Barbados Family Planning Association. Never.
Dear BFP:
You know very well that doctors and other health care providers do not report to the police mainly because of doctor/patient confidentially. However if a child has an abortion at least one parent likely knows and if it is incest very likely both parents know. It is the duty of the non-offending parent to report the assault.
You might want to lobby for the the law to be changed so that doctors and other care providers, as well as teachers, priests, pastors etc. are compelled to report when it comes to their knowledge that an assault has been committed against a child whether that assault results in a live birth or an abortion.
This of course will mean that doctors who oppose abortion will be COMPELLED to report all live births to girls younger than 16 years, 9 months to the police; and all abortions.
Then we as a society have to be prepared to prosecute these offenders, including using DNA testing of the father, mother, child triad to establish that an act of intercourse took place before the child was 16.
Are our policy makers ready to do this? Are our doctors (and other health care providers) ready? Are our police, prosecutors and courts ready? Are our labs ready?
**********************
BFP says,
Are you ready to live in a first world country with standards and laws designed to protect children? Or would you rather continue to live in a lawless backwater where young women remain second class citizens and toys for older men? This is our Barbados and we have to choose.
BFP
They are therefore complicit in the cover-up that protects the adult who impregnated the girl.
************************************************
I suppose it supports you argument to assume that if a 12 year old gets pregnant, it will be as a result of sexual contact with an adult male. Don’t 14, 15 and 16 year old boys experiment sexually with girls their age and younger?
If you want to get on your anti abortion platform, bring facts not wild assumptions.
****************************
BFP says,
A moment of research on the internet would cure you of doubts about “wild assumptions”. Any time a minor gets pregnant, there should be a serious enquiry to discover the identity of the father. Many times a young girl says out of fear “some boy I don’t know his name” when it was an adult.
You have the damned Bajan “what can you do” attitude that holds us back from so much.
You are the old generation. We are the new. We will do better than you did if you will only stand aside and spare us from your “what can you do?” attitudes to life and government.
Dear BFP you wrote “Are you ready to live in a first world country with standards and laws designed to protect children? Or would you rather continue to live in a lawless backwater where young women remain second class citizens and toys for older men? ”
Yes I am.
But the question is are you?
Do you really believe that prohibiting abortion will prevent young women from being mistreated?
Why don’t you address male misbehaviour straight on?
Or maybe that would hit too close to home?
*******************
BFP says,
You still don’t want to see women who are contemplating abortion provided with any information other than what will reinforce a decision to have an abortion.
You are avoiding the entire issue of the article: Keep ’em stupid, move ’em in, abort and move ’em out as quick as you can for more profits.
• BFP
• You are the old generation. We are the new. We will do better than you did if you will only stand aside and spare us from your “what can you do?” attitudes to life and government.
**************************************************
It is interesting to observe how your anti abortion sentiment morphs into an argument against child rape (which should be a topic for another discussion) and your further implication that all the women who seek abortions are minor children or victims of abusive lovers who only seek to take pleasure from their bodies and flee at the first hint of pregnancy.
There may be many reasons why women choose to have abortions and I don’t think that they make these decisions lightly but I will leave it to women to articulate their justification.
I support all women’s access to medically supervised abortions in a safe environment because this “old generation” bajan has heard about the deadly results of some women encounters with backyard abortionists or the consequences of using local remedies e.g eating the inside of a calabash to initiate a miscarriage in order to terminate a pregnancy.
A wise man changes his mind, a fool never
************************
BFP says,
OK… don’t worry… things will stay the way you want them to. The abortion clinic workers will continue to cover-up child rape by not reporting the same to the police. Your way will continue.
Similarly, any information that would tend to show the humanity of the child in the womb will be withheld from any girl or woman contemplating an abortion. Studies on fetal pain thresholds, perception and learning in the womb will be withheld. Studies on the breast cancer/abortion correlation will be withheld. Information about post-abortion traumatic stress will be withheld.
Yup… things will continue just the way you want them to as young naive girls and women are funneled into the channel that makes money.
Gotta keep em stupid, move ’em in, abort, and move ’em out to keep those profit dollars flowing.
BPF: You are like most anti-choice advocates. You deliberately seek to obfuscate the issues, make wild unsubstantiated statements and even deceive your readership. You don’t even bother to address valid questions posed to you by your readership. You have attempted to make this item about possible underage girls receiving abortions without the clinic notifying the police that the pregnancy is as a result of rape. In reality, your focus is on ABORTION, full stop and your anti-choice stance on abortion is already well-known.
To insult a great number of your posters by referring to them as “the OLD generation” just because they disagree with you is childish in the extreme and I now find myself wondering just what age group most of the BFP staff are other. You come across as naive in the extreme and seem to have not experienced much in the way of real life and the choices that many are faced with.
If you must continue to to constantly open the discussion about abortion, then come with facts, research and documented proof of the statements that you make. You seem to think that everything on the Internet is the gospel truth while most of us know that the Internet is loaded with websites such as those by the Right To Lifers can post anything they like and not necessarily the truth.Wheel and come again.
********************
BFP says,
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree then because yes, we do think that abortion advocates consistently withhold information from pregnant women and push them into abortions for profit.
Please remember that it was the youth worker at the conference who reported that women in Barbados do not receive counseling before or after abortions – and that it was the Director of the Barbados Family Planning Association himself who revealed that abortion is profitable for those involved.
And yes, the abortion industry also regularly covers up incest and child abuse and allows perpetrators to continue abusing young girls. Lots of info on the internet if you care to look – just like the fact that Planned Parenthood accepts donations to be used to abort only black babies and that the organisation was established to stop the lower classes and races from breeding. Disagree if you like, but read some of Margaret Sanger’s original writings first, ok?
Thank you.
There you go again (ass)uming that I have not read the writings of Margaret Sanger. You attempt to take the mind set of a woman who was born in 1879 and opened the first family birth control clinic in 1916 and use it as a example of what Planned Parenthood is all about today. Like many things in life, a great deal has changed after almost 100 years and that includes the the attitudes of those born in the late 1800’s. To take the writings of a woman born into such an era and try to use them to shore up your position today is ludicrous.
********************
BFP says,
Really? It seems to me that Sanger’s vision of convincing “Negroes” to not breed in order to preserve the upper class aristocracy is being well carried out. Blacks are aborting their children at three and four times the national average and most Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are located “where the business is”.
Not to mention that Planned Parenthood still accepts tax-deductible donations that are directed specifically to abort black children.
Unlike millions of “lower race” children, Sanger’s vision is alive and well – and still very relevant to the organisation she founded.
Dear BFP: You wrote “Similarly, any information that would tend to show the humanity of the child in the womb”
Children in the womb are NOT human
To tell the truth the average sh*tty, p*ssy, 1, 2 and 3 year olds are not fully human either.
Humanity is a process of BECOMING. People BECOME human when they develop a conscience.
When you can show me a 2 year old with a conscience I’ll believe that they are human.
***********************
BFP says,
Forget it. Nah…. not even worth responding to.
Dear BFP:
If the 12 year old and her parents don’t want to report, do you really think a report made by the Family Planning will persuade the child and or her parents to testify?
And why are you getting so hot headed about the raped girls who have abortions? What about the ones who give birth?
If you want to make yourself useful why don’t you accompany the ones who have given birth to the police station and to the courts?
The truth is you don’t care about justice for raped girls and women who give birth. You only want to prevent raped girls and women from having abortions.
Let me tell you BFP there is no way that I would give birth to a rapist’s child. The “child” will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER see the light of day. If a rapist wants to have children, let him go find his CONSENTING wife or woman to give birth to his children. But his victims, NEVER., NEVER, NEVER.
And believe it or not, my view is the MAJORITY view.
****************************
BFP says,
You simply refuse to address the subject that the abortion clinic are covering up a criminal offense and empowering the child rapist.
Dear Sargeant:
In my mother’s generation a neighbour took rat poison to induce an abortion. It worked perfectly. She died (and the “baby”) in screaming agony in the presence of her two young children, her husband and the neighbours.
This happened in rural Barbados in the late 1940’s
These fools seem to think that we should go back there.
Dear BFP
If you want me to show you where the woman died I will take you there.
The witnesses were so traumatized that the house was abandoned.
Even in her 80’s my mother was distressed when she recalled the event.
My mother a good Christian woman was never anti-abortion. Maybe because she has seen what I hope that you BFP will never see.
*******************
BFP says,
We essentially have abortion on demand in Barbados and nowhere at any time has Barbados Free Press called for any change in that law. We have criticised people involved in the abortion industry and shall continue to do so.
We have called for…
1/ Women to be fully informed before they make the decision – not just spoken to by people who profit from the more abortions they do.
2/ The pro-abortion media and abortion industry to stop hiding the medical and scientific evidence and reports concerning the cognitive abilities of children in the womb and their pain response.
3/ Children in the womb who are to be killed should be given drugs that will prevent pain and make them unaware that they are being torn apart.
4/ Women to be counseled before and after.
5/ Parents to be informed of their children’s medical conditions and treatments prior to any treatments.
6/ Medical personnel to stop covering up child pregnancies and empowering child rapists.
You seem to have a problem with all of that. You have no problem with an “uncle” bringing your 12 year old pregnant daughter in for an abortion without the parent’s knowledge, the girl being talked to by strangers and given an abortion without either the parents or the police being told.
You sound like you have had some rough times in your life and I would gently remind you that there is nothing that God cannot forgive. Sometimes it is much harder to forgive ourselves.
Peace.
Cliverton
Dear BFP:
You wrote “You sound like you have had some rough times in your life and I would gently remind you that there is nothing that God cannot forgive. Sometimes it is much harder to forgive ourselves.”
Actually I have always been deeply disciplined. I have always exercised strict control over all aspects of my life including my sex life.
So therefore my life has been and still is very, very, joyful. I expect to live a full and joyful life until I am 100.
As I write to you this Sunday morning I can’t think of a thing that I need to ask God’s forgiveness for. I can’t think of a thing for which I need to forgive myself. I can’t think of a thing for which I need BFP’s forgiveness.
Contrary to what you seem to think I have ALWAYS lived by the Great Commandments. I have always loved God with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul, and (the even more difficult commandment) I have always loved my neighbours as myself.
So whether I die today, tomorrow, or 100 years from now I am at peace with my God, my neighbours, and myself.
May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his light to shine upon you , may the Lord lift up his countanance upon you and give you peace now and for evermore.
But I will continue to challenge you whenever you write nonsense on this blog.
Because not everybody has been as fortunate as I have been.
I have a friend who has “asthma” attacks. Except that they are not asthma attacks.
She is middle aged but when she remembers the sexaul assaults committed against her 8 year old self by her 14 year old uncle (such attacks continued for 8 years) her breathing seizes up.
Should her pre-teenaged self have had to raise her uncle’s child too?
I have another friend in her 80’s the first time I heard her speak of her father she was shaking with anger and fear even though he was long dead. I could not understand that level of anger against a long dead man. It was then I was told that her father impregnated her when she was 14 and that she was compelled to raise his child (no safe medical abortions in those days) or at least none for poor women. Can you even conceive how difficult life has been for her?
It is BECAUSE I am a Christian that I have to challenge your nonsense whenever you write it.
I don’t know about uncles taking girls for abortions. I know for certain that my 12 year old daughter went to Black Rock poly clinic for a hang-nail (yes literally an infected hang-nail) and I know that the doctor refused to treat unless a parent was present. I believe that that is the standard of medical care which prevails in Barbados.
If BFP has EVIDENCE otherwise then you should present the EVIDENCE, othrewise many of us will think that you are telling lies.
So I see that what passes for the Jamaican intelligencia is still engaging in talking, and hand wringing about whether to provide safe medical abortions for poor girls and women.
In the meanwhile across the street 1400, and counting, fully grown Jamaican human beings have been murdered this year in Jamaica, and nuff, nuff more in the great white north.
In the meanwhile the errant daughters, unfaithful wives, and overburdened mummies of the Jamaican intelligencia can hop on a plane to have safe medical abortions in Miami, or New York, or London, or Switzezland. No doubt at the same posh clinics which also specialize in hymenoplastys (the restoring of virginity, ok, ok, not virginity which cannot be restored, but the restoring of hymens so that foolish men believe that their wife is virginal) for the daughters of wealthy religious fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. In the meanwhile poor women from those religious communities who have “erred” receive big rocks in the head.
Dear Clivey, Shona and the rest:
There are some of us in Barbados who can afford
our own fully paid up great houses
$8,000 dogs
bay houses
domestic servants
holidays overseas
SUV’s
private schools for our children
and ABORTIONS AT POSH PRIVATE CLINICS
It has always been so. It will always be so.
Do not let you comfortable existence cause you to be contemptuous of poor people.
It has always been the case that when the teenage daughters of the bay house owning class become pregnant, the daddies of the family paid for the girl and her mother to go to a posh private clinic overseas, so that the abortion could be safely done.
The Family Planning Association is only ensuring that poor girls and women have access to the same abortion services that have ALWAYS been available to HARD EARS RICH GIRLS.
Anti abortion advocates should do some fund raising and tithing.
The funds could be offered to support the children “saved” from abortion.
Put yuh money weh yuh mout is.
Man anti abortion advocates can become foster parents. They can raise some of the children not aborted. The can spend their time, money and energy doing good. But these nuisances prefer words. Talk, talk, talk, nonsense.
They need to get out from behind their gates and out of their plantation houses and out of their air conditioned SUV’s and for once in their blessed lives do some REAL WORK.
Somebody needs to tell them to shut up and to go to the Child Care Board and to take home a few of the non aborted children and spend the next 20 years of their time, energy and money raising those chldren.
And they don’t even need to fund raise to do it. They can just sell a half dozen of their big breed dogs and they will have enough to raise a child for the next 20 years.
I find it interesting that the anti-choice movement rarely, if ever, discusses the broader social implications of unplanned, unwanted children, particularily those born to young girls whose lives will essentially bottom out and be forever disadvantaged. Most will never be able to return to school in order to better themselves and have any semblance of a fulfilling life. Most will raise these children in poverty and the children themselves will have a disadvantaged life.
Research shows that a disproportionate number of these children will develop psychological problems and many resort to a life of crime. Why? Because they are born to mothers too young to “mother” effectively, born to mothers who have ambivalent feelings about them, born into households where they is no supportive male role model and born to mothers who do not the social or economic foundation to provide them with a good start in life.
I believe that it is every child’s God given right to come into this world a wanted and loved child and every woman’s God given right to determine her own future as it pertains to her reproductive rights.
Having said that, I still think the answer lies in more and better sex education in the schools and a very vigorous campaign by government to educate parents about getting their children on birth control as soon as possible.
**********************
BFP says,
Pro-life (or anti-choice as you call it) people that I know would probably agree with 90% of what you have written – especially about education and birth control that does not involve tearing a child in the womb limb from limb as they scream in pain.
The difference between you and me is that you do not see the child in the womb as a human being.
Pro-abortion people seldom use the word “kill” when speaking about what happens to the child in the womb, nor do they wish to learn about the actual stages of fetal development. It complicates things terribly for them and often causes them to completely reassess their position.
I, Cliverton, was once a rabid pro-choice supporter.
J has never been a rabid anything.
J is always REASON-able.
It is not possible to scream unless one can breathe.
It is not possible to breath until birth when breathing begins.
“Children” in the womb CANNOT breathe.
Sometimes children who are born do not start breathing and doctor’s try their best to get breathing started.
Happily most time the doctors succeed.
Sorrowfully sometimes they fail.
When the doctors fail to get breathing started the result is called a still birth.
And recorded in the registry as a still birth, NOT as a live birth.
In other words the child was born dead.
That is it was NEVER born alive.
Therefore a “child” in the womb cannot scream
Why doesn’t BFP take some biology lessons and stop trying to intimidate and fool vulnerable people.
**************
BFP says
You are a rabid one, J. We never said we would prohibit lawful abortion. We only want women to know the reality of the baby in the womb. You are against women having that knowledge.
Even a small amount of research will confirm that many “aborted” babies exit the womb alive. Some have lived for hours in garbage cans as they writhe and die.. breathing of course. Many others are killed after leaving the womb which is called something else in our society.
No, not nice to talk about. But true nonetheless.
And Clivey I was once in the womb myself.
Maybe you came from a womb too.
Happily I remember nothing of being in the womb.
Happily I remember nothing of the “trauma” of my 1950’s UNMEDICATED traditional midwife attended rural Barbados home birth.
I remember nothing good.
I remember nothing bad.
I remember NOTHING AT ALL.
My first memory that is can recall was when I was 51 weeks old and my eldest sister migrated to England. I cried and hid behind the bedroom door because I missed her.
Do you think that maybe it is possible that fetuses less than 20 weeks in utero do not anticipate the future, do not recall the past, and have no perception or recollection of BEING?
Do you think that is is possibble that fetuses are UNAWARE?
Certainly I have no awareness nor recollection of BEING before I was almost one year old.
I expect that for most people it is the same.
Scary thought maybe, but what if it is the TRUTH?
J says “It is not possible to scream unless one can breathe”
It may not be possible to make sounds, but one view of “the silent scream” will put paid to J’s out of touch with medical science beliefs.
Unfortunately the miracle of ultra sound technology made it possible for people to actually see what happens during an abortion. “The Silent Scream” was only the first of several movies of the same subject. One view of that movie and J will be sickened. She will also have to question her own beliefs.
Sorry not 51 weeks. The week before my SECOND birthday. So I was 103 weeks old.
Dear 197:
I’ve seen teh silent scream and I am not convinced. I am not as out of touch as you may believe.
Thank You “J”. I was getting tired at just the thought of having to state what you have done very well. I will just add one thing to your post. The vocal chords of fetuses under 4 months are not developed enough to do anything and the brain is still primitive to the point that neural transmission is non-existant.
******************
BFP says,
Alright, lets arbitrarily accept that a baby in the womb will not feel pain until after 4 months. As a matter of fact, lets call it the third trimester just to really agree with you.
Now, what shall we do about the pain felt by a third trimester baby in the womb that is being aborted? Should the baby or fetus or whatever you call it be drugged into unconsciousness before it is torn apart or has it’s skull pierced and its brain sucked out?
What do you think the correct procedure should be?
Dear BFP:
You wrote “Now, what shall we do about the pain felt by a third trimester baby in the womb that is being aborted? ”
Let’s see, on average a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.
But I have here in my hand a birth certificate from a jurisdiction which requires the parent to state how far along the pregnancy was.
This birth certificate states 41 weeks and 6 days. It was a first birth. A vigorously healthy full term birth at day 293.
The beginning of the third trimester of this pregnancy was therefore day number 195 or 27 1/2 weeks or 6 1/2 months.
Now tell me truthfully BFP in a jurisdiction like Barbados where abortion is legal, inexpensive, and readily available do pregnant women and girls really wait until they are 6 1/2 months or 27 weeks pregnant to obtain an abortion?
Truthfully now BFP have you ever know ANYONE in Barbados who had an abortion when they were 6 1/2 months pregnant?
Maybe you would like to make abortions illegal so that desperate girls and women would have to butt ’bout the place and not be able to terminate unwanted pregnancies they are until 6 1/2 months along.
But it ain’t happening ’bout hey.
Not as long as I can speak, not as long as I can write.
WE WILL NOT GO BACK TO ABORTION BY RAT POISON for poor women
Even while rich women with unwanted pregnancies fly to exclusive private foreign clinics.
And Dear Clivey (forgive me being so familiar. But long, long, long, ago there was a Clivey of whom I was very fond).
If I do not remember my own UNMEDICATED birth, why would we seek to “drug… into unconsciousness” fetuses. Maybe you would like to think that the fetuses have consciousness. But the fact that NOBODY remembers his own birth instructs us that if 40 week old fetuses have no consciousness, then it is highly unlikely that fetuses younger than 40 weeks are conscious.
They won’t remember if they are not born, and even if they are born they still won’t remember.
Birth may create a traumatic memory for the mother and her attendants. But the baby VERY HAPPILY REMEMBERS NOTHING. Isn’t God wonderful Clivey?
Surely it is your own EXPERIENCE that you have ABSOLUTELY NO MEMORIES OF YOUR OWN BIRTH.
Why do you choose to disbelieve your own experience?
Forget about J’s rantings. She doesn’t consider a 1 year old to be “human”.
This is a very touchy subject but to my mind the carrier of the baby should have the last say. How come so called pro-lifers also seem to be pro-death penalty and have no problem with the gruesome act of having somebody neck pop , it don’t make any sense to me.
It seems so self-righteous to say let the child live but leave it right there . What about the rest of its life. I believe we are essentially spirit and energy , so that if our body is aborted , we will come again to a much situation next time around .
It may pain some people but you can’t make the decision to abort or not to for other people nor should you be allowed to . Unbiased education is the key not religious fervor. I am sure most females do it with a heavy heart for the most part anyway. It does take a toll on the body i understand and the mind i would think..
Illuminator wrote “It may pain some people but you can’t make the decision to abort or not to for other people nor should you be allowed to .”
Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!! another voice of reason
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BFP says,
You are still spinning the spin. All we have said is that the abortion industry tightly controls the information that is made available to women contemplating an abortion – because they have a conflict of interest and make more money by women choosing abortion than women who choose to keep their babies.
You don’t want to touch that one.
But BFP:
You know very well that in our 21st century Barbados government, individuals and organizations have lost the power to “tightly control information” (if they ever had such power)
ALL of our children from age 5 to 16 are in school, amd most learn to read and write at least fairly well by age 16.
A significant number of our young people who are older than 16 are in 6th form schools, or the Barbados Community College, or Erdiston College, or the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic, or the University of the West Indies, or at universities in the great white north, where most of them are deeply engaged in thinking, learning, reading, writing, and speaking, that is being educated.
Most of our libararies are wide open.
Bookstores are wide open.
Community resource centers with free/tax funded internet access and free/tax funded how-to classes are wide open.
Newspapers publish everyday.
The blogsters write whatever the h**l the feel like.
Pastors, priests, and other religious teachers are free to preach to all who want to hear.
Politicians regularly mount political platforms and speak freely.
Barbados ain’t North Korea you know.
Maybe some Barbadians have abortions because they have THOUGH about their decision and at this time they know that it is the right decision for them.
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BFP says,
Yup, and if those scared pregnant women haven’t taken advantage of the library or the internet, it is not the job of the Barbados Family Planning Association or other abortions supplier to inform them about anything. (And obviously they don’t according to the youth worker quoted)
Bad for business.
Keep ’em stupid, move ’em in, abort and move ’em out. That’s efficiency and the way to higher profits!
Dear BFP you wrote “if those scared pregnant women haven’t taken advantage of the library or the internet”
Not only the library and the internet, but bookstores, pastors, family, friends, health care providers etc.
Maybe they just don’t want to hear from Barbados Free Press that’s all.
I have a couple friends who have had abortions as easy as drinking water at a certain “clinic” in the south in close proximity to CCFS. I’m not sure if they are administered some kind of anaesthesia and wake up hours later without a child. One of my friends in particular has had three abortions in one year with this clinic. They say they have to pay upfront by putting the money in a glass or something while they undress. I get so upset with them cause they are contraceptives out there they can use but every year they just dispose of children like garbage.
Dear Kathy:
Maybe you need to choose your friends more carefully.
And would yo have preferred that your 3 abortions in one year friend was now the mother of 3 children.
Does she strike you as being ready to be a good mother?
Can anybody say…CONTRACEPTION?!?!?!?!
It doesn’t even HAVE to go to the abortion stage! If you use CONTRACEPTION, such as the condom, or the pill, or the injection, or PREFERABLY 2 out of 3 together, then abortion wouldn’t even be an ISSUE!
Stop complaining that it “doesn’t feel comfortable”, a condom can save a LOT of trouble! And the Pill & Injection could save a lot of grief for the woman…
I think that as soon as a girl turns 16, she gotta go on the pill…it regulates periods as well as protects her from one heartache…her carrying condom and using them at all times will go a long way to protect her from the other one.
If rape is involved, and it concerns a child, and that child is seriously underage, there may not be any choice…i think that is the only instance in which abortions can be issued; if the child is raped and is under the age of 15. And even then she should be told everything!
Oh, and one more point to make…
Condoms cost about the price of a coke, and a two-month contraception injection is the same price as a large pizza – which is $2.50 and $35.00 respectively.
I know this because I called the PFPA and found out.
So You see, EVERYONE, the BFPA is NOT only about abortions, but it’s about CONTRACEPTION, which everyone should be using in the FIRST place!
George Griffith should be the last person on earth to be running anything! He is not nice!
I am currently doing some research on abortion. As a result, I have taken a lot of time to carefully read each person’s comment(s). Some of them made me think while others made me cringe while thinking (some of J’s comments).
Each view stated in this forum has been helpful even though this is not a decent enough representation of the Barbadian society’s view on the topic.
I will just like to say that through out the years of human existence what was believed to be true and accepted, on any topic, has changed several times. I, therefore, applaud those persons here who have been open minded.
I shall not comment on the topic but these discussions have prompted me to do some more reading.
Thanks for sharing your views.
Dear Knowledge Seeker:
I’ll repeat for your benefit and the benefit of BFP.
“Do you think that maybe it is possible that fetuses less than 20 weeks in utero do not anticipate the future, do not recall the past, and have no perception or recollection of BEING?
Do you think that is is possible that fetuses are UNAWARE?
Certainly I have no awareness nor recollection of BEING or of anything before I was almost 2 years old.
And it is the same for ALL people.
I know that we don’t like to believe this but it is the truth.
Dear Knowledge Seeker and BFP: Do you remember your own very painful births?
If we continue to venerate all fertilized eggs we will end up with many, many more Nadya Sulemans (octoplet mom)
If God loved and valued sperm life so much why did he make them by the billions knowing full well that one will be fertilized and most will die.
If God loved valued human female eggs so much how is it then that women give birth to at most about 12 children (although I knew a neighbour who gave birth to 21 and raised 18 to adulthood, and lived to be 80 something). The average female begins to produce LIVING eggs at about age 13 and continues until she is about 53, that makes about 480 eggs of which at most maybe a dozen will be be fertilized, the other 468 will DIE. That is God’s way or Mother Nature’s whichever you choose to believe.
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BFP says,
eggs are nothing. sperm is nothing…. together…, now that is SOMETHING. IMHO
Dear BFP:
You need to go back to your Infants A mathematics class.
Nothing + nothing= nothing.
Contrary to your religious nonsense, both sperm and eggs are very much ALIVE.
And both DIE by the billions and billions each and every day.
Try to stop God and Natures way if you can. Fool.
Dear BFP:
You wrote “eggs are nothing. sperm is nothing”
I know that some of BFP is religious when you are not out feting and getting drunk, so if you are sober enough to go to church tomorrow Sunday please ask your pastor why if “sperm are nothing” why is it that God said “thou shall not spill thy seed upon the ground”
There will always be heaping arguments with strains of validity for the legal choice to kill one’s children in utero but i beg us to ask and answer the singular question – what is the unborn? what is in utero? SInce its an accepted scientific fact that this is a human being then the next question is – what rights does that human being have? well the first and most basic is the right to life! This should then be our standard and from which all else should flow. Protect life in our constitutions from fertilization and create a cohesive system which encourages behaviours consistent with this high regard for human life. Including systems of support and rehabilitation for those who fall prey to teen pregancy, abuse, single parenting and coping with a special needs child.
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