That’s seriously f*cked up

I have a feeling that an increased number of photos and information about the procedure would decrease the desire to have an abortion. I’m not a fan of abortions; I consider myself pro-life. However I am also deeply opposed to the government regulating how we live our lives and so am also pro-choice. I just hope that people choose life.

liberals are seriously sick in the head. liberalism is a mental disorder

I guess “Jane” is a fan of the CSI crime series shows because these are just like the photos of the murder scenes they take in the shows. This is disgusting.

I’m personally against abortion…But don’t care if you get one or not!

I am pro choice. But come on. 

So is this what the Jane Dough site is about – extreme left wing causes? Across the top of the page an article on Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Warren, Planned Parenthood, Abortion self pics and awesome movies about single moms.

Morbid. I think this woman needs help. 

So? Was it a boy or a girl?

Why? Virtually all of the images of abortion are proliferated by anti-choice groups — and they’re almost always inaccurate depictions used as propaganda. Why not show an actual image of what this proceedure truly looks like for the average patient? I think that would better educate women to make choices for themselves.

What “desire to have an abortion?” 

Do you think women have abortions because they desire them? 
I’m pro-choice, because I think we need to be the final decision makers for our lives, but I have never desired being pregnant, so I took my birth control pills daily when I was younger and got my tubes tied after I finally found a doctor willing to do it (and even then it was a fight).

I don’t think that choosing an abortion is always as simple as matter as deciding to “choose life.” 

Most women care about the quality of life their child is likely to have and several women I know who sadly chose abortion did so in order to save their child from early, painful death or from delivering a child that wouldn’t be alive because it lacked some essential organ. 

I have a friend who wouldn’t even have been conceived if her brother hadn’t been aborted. Alas, he had inherited a deadly recessive gene from his dad. Fortunately, she did not. I can’t exactly tell her that SHE has no right to be alive.

Do you believe she’d still have the abortion if the baby was further developed and showed limbs and other human parts?

That’s why I said that I will always leave the choice up to the people involved. It’s not the government’s decision to make. I do have issues with certain uses of abortion such as eugenics and gendercide, but that’s a different issue entirely.

I’m pro choice although I would never choose one myself.  I really think this hurts your cause.    The point isn’t that it’s a scary procedure, the point is that you choose to end the life of a baby.   The baby dies regardless of how you paint it.

It’s not a fetus, a  thing, it’s a developing baby.  Taking pictures trivializes  the death. 

succinct, but well said. 

And making it seem like a non-event is precisely what people fear. In out, next mistake please. It’s not frickin’ drive-thru event, no matter how in favor of abortion you are, and it should’nt be normalized to sipping coffee. If you believe a fetus isn’t a human, that’s because it can’t become one if you kill it.

Some of the comments here are sickening and appalling.  How dare any of you judge women with cancer who need life-saving treatments, but must terminate their pregnancies, or women with dangerous ectopic pregnancies, who must end their pregnancies to save their lives.  You are trying to interfere with and control these women’s decisions made with their doctors about their own health care, and you seem to care less if these women die. 
And do not ever dictate to women who have been brutally raped, and became pregnant, that they must be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, even if it means their health is put at risk (do some research, and you will learn that there are health risks with pregnancies and deliveries.)
What are the chances that some here have ever protested U.S. wars and civilian deaths, or the death penalty, taking people off life support, or imprisoning polluters who’ve contributed to poisoning the environment and causing miscarriages? Not likely at all.  The hypocrisy of singling out and attacking women is disgusting.  For some here, life begins at conception, but ends at birth.
Think about a little longer (or just a little bit) – if some here want to continue imposing their beliefs (that women should have their rights taken away,) then what’s to stop the police from interrogating every woman who miscarries? Because some miscarriages are the result of negligence or deliberate acts, then that could lead to all miscarriages becoming the subject of criminal investigations.
No further comments from anyone else is going to change the fact that many women will die if their rights are taken away, and there is a great deal of unfortunate and unacceptable hypocrisy when it comes to discussing abortion when issues such as innocent people being put on death row, guns being purchased by the mentally unstable, and polluters getting away with harming the environment are overlooked or ignored.

No you’re not. No person who is PC talks like that.

Really? Because if you didn’t know what was in that jar, you would assume it was just blood. Get real.

Good that she had this safe legal option rather than resorting to a coat hanger.

>> Amy Tennery (quote): “There are no horrifying images. No dank, dark, scary rooms with creepy doctors. In fact, if anything, the images are that of a straight-forward medical procedure.”

Right. No horrifying images.
Well, except for the now-dead baby sitting in a jar.
Check. Got it.

>> Jane (quote): “The perverse use of lifeless fetus photographs are a propaganda tool in the prolife/prochoice debate in which women and their bodies are used
as pawns to push a cultural, political and religious agenda in the United States.”

So let me get this straight — taking photos in an OPTIMUM way, so you can make everything seem so nice and clean and cuddly and warm…in order to push your OWN beliefs in a staged, positive way… DOESN’T count as propaganda. Yet when someone else does the exact same thing, just with an opposing viewpoint, suddenly THEN it’s “perverse.”

Check. Got it.

Of course, speaking as a professional writer, where my whole career is based on choosing and using words, to carefully construct certain images or feelings, once again I just LOVE that people like Jane (and apparently Amy) who support this like to ALWAYS drop cold, cool, clinical phrases like “lifeless fetus”. You know, as opposed to “now dead baby”, which would be an equally accurate phrase you could have dropped instead.

But, hey, simple word choices make all the difference in the world, right?
Check. Got it again.

“Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.”
- Jesus Christ 

That’s irrelevant, because she didn’t.  I don’t even understand what your point is, honestly.

01) I don’t think the image is horrifying at all. But then, it’s not a procedure that is supposed to be pleasant, or appropriated to make you feel good. Rarely are any medical procedures this way.

02) What you’re saying makes no sense. The pro-life propaganda the OP mentions is propaganda precisely because it is false and misleading in order to push a perspective built upon a foundation that is false and misleading – in other words, lies. These pictures are not false; they are not misleading. They are an event happening as it happens, being documented through the camera. What you see is the process. And that’s the whole purpose of the photos: to show women what the process is actually like, so that they can have what pro-life people tend to ignore, mainly a complete account of the entire experience/all of the information that should be available to women so that they can make an informed decision on their own. For a “professional writer,” I’d expect you to know at least that much.

03) It doesn’t matter what words you use. Call it a fetus. Call it a zygote. Call it a child; call it a baby; call it a human being (although, truthfully, what does that even mean? At what point does one become a “human being” – what criteria determine this? This is entirely vague in definition). It does not matter. Regardless, it should be a woman’s choice to decide if/when she wants to procreate. Hell, you could call it Prophet and it wouldn’t change a damn thing – the scenario is still the same, the conditions are still the same. And, frankly, the livelihood of the already-born outweigh the livelihoods of the yet-to-be-born.

Now this is just silly. No one is/has ever made abortion out to be a non-event, and these photographs certainly do not do that. It is an extraordinarily difficult decision that is not taken just on a whim. Please: do not trivialize the situation.

And if they don’t adhere to your religion? Should they still be stifled by it?

“No horrifying images.  Well, except for the now-dead” woman who had an unsafe abortion, or a cancer patient denied life-saving medicine.   Got it, you’re o.k. with killing women.  LAscreenwriter_1, “nice hypocrisy you got going there.” 

“I just LOVE that people such as” LAscreenwriter_1 could care less about the women in dire circumstances who are unable to carry out their pregnancies, the thousands of children abused or murdered every year by a parent who didn’t want them or was unable to raise them, the  515,000 children waiting to be adopted or in foster care in the U.S. as of 9/10, or war victims killed by U.S. troops, etc.

And since you seem to think you care about “choosing particular words” more than other commenters to this article, would you ever talk to a grieving woman who’s miscarried and “drop cold, cool, clinical phrases like” asking about her “now dead baby”? You know, because maybe the woman drank coffee, or exercised too strenuously, or was at an advanced age, and caused the miscarriage?  You talk to someone mourning the death of a relative after they made the painful decision to take the relative off life support with words such as “now dead mom/dad/sister?” 

How dare you presume health care decisions are made lightly, and do not ever criticize someone for providing additional information about a medical procedure that millions of women have undergone, and a million will continue to undergo every year.

I can kind of understand what she’s doing here. I think taking pictures makes her look like she is being insensitive to the overall situation, but I agree, the whole procedure and topic is so mysterious, it was overdue for some exposure. Though I think it could’ve been done differently. I admit, the only thing I feared about abortions was the mystery of the procedures. 

My last English thesis in college was about abortion and I know just what she means by propaganda when it comes to images of abortions… while researching it, I’d find pro-life sites with mangled up fetus that were most definitely past 21 weeks (the legal time limit to get an abortion). THAT is just dirty tactic. If you have to use fear, religion (there are actually quite a few religions that do not shun abortion by the way), and lies to get someone to join your side, just back up right now. No disrespect to those who are pro-life, I understand where they are coming from, but I feel both sides should be respected.

This is JUST like the argument of creationism vs. evolution. The government should not touch it because all beliefs should be respected. Many religious people seem to believe life begins at conception (although some believe it begins when the child has left the womb), while many believe in various scientific-evidence based beliefs… we cannot legally determine it, it’s just too taboo and invasive of other’s beliefs and rights.

So please stop hating on people for either view. Just like our sexual orientation, and our lifestyles, it is NONE of your business! It’s not your life, or your body. Stop worrying about the people that don’t even exist yet, and focus on the people who do… like children hopping from foster home to foster home, getting stuck in the system.

Nurturing????? This woman is fucked up.

Kerry – ease up on the alcohol.

 It’s your anti-education, anti-safe medical care beliefs that are messed up.

FFS! You’d understand if it was relevant if you read the article.

Lol at the idea that because women think long and hard about killing their child, it becomes okay. Abortion is wrong. (InB4 someone brings up rape, incest, life-of-the-mother “argument”.)

I honestly wonder what ‘pro-lifers’ think they’ll accomplish if abortion is made illegal. Will women who get an abortion be charged with murder? Will they be put into jail because accorded to pro-life activists, they’ve killed a human being? Do they actually think that people will stop getting abortions?

I’ll tell you what happens (because pro-lifers tend to conveniently overlook history). Look at totalitarian/Communist Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu. He outlawed contraception itself, contraception education, and abortions. ‘Unborn children’ were made ‘citizens of the state.’ Do you think giving birth to children that a woman and her family couldn’t afford was some magical, happy, religious experience? No. Orphanages were overflowing. There is no documented number of women who died or were mangled attempting to abort by themselves because there were too many who died in silence. Abortions will not stop because they are made illegal. They will simply hurt more women because instead of being done in a clean, sterile environment, they’ll be done in the shadows.

What angers me about many pro-lifers is that they don’t care about a fetus’s life once it’s out of the womb. Nor do they care about the woman who has to carry the fetus for nine months. Not everyone has a Hollywood experience or a Hollywood life. The mother is single and can’t support herself and the baby? Who cares, it was born. The family can’t afford another child? Who cares, it was born. Due to difficulties, the mother will face a difficult pregnancy. Who cares, it’ll be born. I honestly wonder if pro-lifers care about life when they blow up Planned Parenthood centers (which are the best supply of information about breast cancer and sexual diseases) and hurt abortion doctors. You don’t care about life. You only care about your own beliefs.

I’m pro-choice and I consider myself the real kind of pro-life. Choice is important. Choice allows a woman to control whether she can afford to stop working for months while pregnant (this isn’t the Dark Ages, okay). Choice allows a child to be born into a loving family that can care for it and give it a proper childhood. That is the kind of life a child deserves, not being constantly shuffled through foster care or living in an impoverished family without opportunities or care.

 From one man to the other, shut the fuck up. You don’t have a vagina, and the only consequence of having a child you don’t want is money out of your pocket. When you are capable of dying from having a child, then you can share your fucking opinion.

So you are pro.choice?

I support a person’s right to have a choice but hope that they choose life.

What’s the greater sin: bringing a child into the world who won’t be loved, who will have a VERY difficult life, and that you won’t be able to support? OR to take that into consideration as you make a very, VERY difficult decision to abort? 

I agree, and wish more pro choice groups would spend their money providing options and choices instead of lobbying, pamphleteering and billboarding to remove choices…
Just sayin

tangledthorns is obviously a troll, dont feed the trolls!

thank you!

I have to congradulate this woman on her courage. Good for her on countering the pro-life propiganda.

What I dont understand is with all the resources available (birth control, condoms, morning after pill) there is still need to have an abortion. Be fucking responsible. Abortion shouldnt be a form of birth control. 

Im curious how many abortions are life saving procedures or cases of rape.  My guess is most are not.  With birth control, morning after pill, condoms unless it is a life saving procedure there is no excuse.

You’re assuming that all women are fully educated about all birth control options, or have access to ways in which they can educate themselves or even afford it. When you get state governments pushing abstinence-only education and protestors blocking access into Planned Parenthood centers, you’ll get people making mistakes. Do women deserve to pay from one mistake? The number of women who use abortion as ‘casual’ birth control (and no one ever, ever should) is very low. For most people, it’s a difficult decision. But the ability to decide needs to be there.

Teaching people abstinence won’t stop them from having sex, it’ll only take away the knowledge of crucial things they need to know to have it safely. Having abortion ‘not be a form of birth control’ won’t make it go away. It is not a modern invention.

You should be embarrassed that you kept posting this, given that you are grossly uneducated about birth control, which does in fact sometimes fail, and this includes condoms and painful sterilization procedures.

Instead of mindlessly posting, please take even a moment of your time to learn about the failure rates of birth control methods.

Please do not make uneducated guesses, but instead refer to reliable statistics. Read the Medscape article written by a Univ. of Illinois Clinical Professor to understand that 1 in 1000 pregnant women learn they have cancer.  Read further about dangerous ectopic pregnancies. Learn more about the U.S. Dept. of Justice statistics on reported rapes/sexual assaults (260,000 in 2006, and given that rape is “one of the most under reported crimes,” the real numbers every year are much higher.)

Again, as I wrote below, educate yourself on the failure rates of birth control methods.

And never interfere with the private health decisions made by others, such as women physically abused by their partners, those in dire financial straits who’ve been abandoned by their partners,  alcohol or drug abusers, those of an advanced age, and the mentally unstable or depressives, all of whom may not be able to raise a child.  Not that you appear to care at all for women in pain or are suffering, nor for the children who will be abused, neglected, abandoned, or murdered by a parent who did not or could not raise them.

>> “I don’t think the image is horrifying at all.”

Well, that’s simply your opinion. What someone finds “horrifying” is in the eye of the beholder and is based on the emotional reaction that “something” causes in them. For example, one person could look at the photo of a victim
of a car wreck, where they are literally splattered with guts all about and cup a hand over their mouth and say “OMG! That is gross! I don’t want to see that!”…and yet a doctor used to treating wounds in the E.R. or a surgeon — heck, even a fan of splatter horrori movies — could likewise look at the SAME photo and calmly say “Huh, look at the way the veins burst and the blood was forced out by pressure relative to the how the actual flesh mass absorbed the impact.”

BOTTOM LINE:  Me (or others here) saying it horrifying versus you saying it’s not doesn’t make either of us necessarily right or wrong. It just means we have differing opinions simply because everyone will emotionally react to the photos in a different way — as the posts in this thread will attest.

>> “What you’re saying makes no sense…”

Really? Do tell. Explain to me where I made no sense.
Seriously, I’m listening.

>> “The pro-life propaganda the OP mentions is propaganda…”

Oh, this is gonna be good. I can tell already.
Hit me with it, Garth. Tell me WHY it’s propaganda.

>> “…precisely because it is false and misleading…”

Not good enough. That’s nothing more than a vague statement of OPINION that you haven’t even backed up. You just threw it out there. But go on, finish your sentence. I’m fascinated and still listening.

>> “…in order to push a perspective built upon a foundation that is false and misleading.”

So let me get this straight LITERALLY using YOUR words. It’s propaganda because it’s false and misleading because…it’s false and misleading. Wow, those were some real hard-hitting facts you threw out there, Garth. Whew! My head is spinning!

LMAO!  Seriously, what the hell!  Do you have any idea how SILLY what you just typed even sounds? I swear, you’re literally one step away from recreating Abbott and Costello’s the classic “Who’s On First” comedy routine. It’s false and misleading because it’s false and misleading. Who’s on first? Who. What’s the guy’s name? Who? The guy on first. Who.

>> “These pictures are not false; they are not misleading.”

I disagree. The pictures are taken at a clinic, that’s true. But they’re cold, sterile, clean, lifeless…in fact, they were purposefully taken so they WOULD look cold, sterile, clean, lifeless — in short, to make it seem as if this was just another visit to the doctor — as if it was somehow akin to getting a flu shot — which means that so long as the office was nice and tidy and sterile and clean, all is good…right?

Well…except for the fact that in presenting such nice, cool, clinical photos you removed the actual HUMAN ELEMENT from things, which should ALWAYS be the basis and backbone FOR telling a story. At least if you want people to actually be drawn in and CARE about the tale. Which is the total IRONY here. You want to declare (quote): “What you see is the process. And that’s the whole purpose of the photos.”

In which case I stand by my core point. In that case it IS propaganda. Now, it might be a pro-abortion propaganda, and that’s fine if that’s something you belief in. But, in the end — any way you slice it — that DOESN’T change the cold, hard fact that’s it’s STILL putting forth a particular spin on things simply because it’s ONLY showing ONE side of the process and the ramifications of it. And going by the pure definition of the word — yes, Garth, sorry to break this news to you — that IS what propaganda is.

>> “For a “professional writer,” I’d expect you to know at least that much.”

Well, so far it’s clear that I know a bit more than you given how much I’m having to school you in pretty basic things. Then again, I guess that’s why I get paid six figures to write while you’re posting on a cute Twitter blog.

>> “It doesn’t matter what words you use…”:

Uh, sorry, it absolutely DOES. Which is why I pointed that out at the end of my post. But go on. I can’t wait to hear THIS one.

>> “Call it a fetus. Call it a zygote. Call it a child; call it a baby…”

Okay, fine – me and many others posting here are gonna go with “baby.” Hey, you SAID we could pick. So I guess that means game over!

>> “…call it a human being (although, truthfully, what does that even mean?
At what point does one become a “human being” – what criteria determine
this? This is entirely vague in definition).”

Actually not. Least not to people like me and, again, many others posting here. We see the moment of creation…the moment when spark of life is ignited…to be a miracle of life. Now, when I say “miracle”, I don’t necessarily mean a religious (deep booming voice) “HAND OF GOD” kind of thing. Though many look at it that way given their beliefs. On the other hand, you could still look at it from a purely SCIENTIFIC stance and it would STILL be a miracle that’s occurred. Simply because so many factors…so many intangibles…came to together at just the right time, in just the right way, to create a new life. And that IS a miracle any way you slice it.

Not to mention, you’re already on THINK ICE, Garth. You’re trying to go for the oldest, WEAKEST argument in the book by saying “What is life? I don’t know. Do you? Do any of us?” — at which point THEN you want to fall back on the truly LAME argument “Well, since I can’t define it, I guess there’s no reason to question things or look any deeper. So what the heck! Let’s just wing it from here and not even BOTHER to ask any HARD questions because, heck that might through a monkey wrench into all the carefree, fun, non-committal things I want to do!”

>> “It does not matter.”

Well…unless you’re the baby that was just killed. Then I think it’s kind of fair to say it mattered. Unless of course you want to go back to your blathering nonsense of tossing out random words. But as I explained in my original post — and now once again – yeah, the words you pic always DO matter. That’s just a FACT of life you’re going to have to learn as you grow up and grow older and join the rest of us in the ADULT world.

>> “And, frankly, the livelihoods of the already-born outweigh the livelihoods of the yet-to-be-born.”

Wow, so nice of you to set yourself up as judge, jury and executioner. And so nice of you to decide — for all the rest of us and the world — WHO gets prioritized and who doesn’t. Gee, funny thing. I don’t recall casting a vote to declare you Emperor or anyone who thinks like you, along these lines.

So, sorry, Garth — once again we’ll have to agree to disagree. Simply because the way that YOU want to sacrifice lives or unborn children because it fits YOUR vision for how the world should be run, because of all the people already born and running around, is NOT the way that I…or others posting here…EVER want the world run.

Sheesh, are you kidding me? “The livelihoods of the already-born outweigh the livelihoods of the yet-to-be-born?” What the hell kind of psycho babble is that? What, is that supposed to be your hip, twisted version of Spock talking to Kirk through the glass at the end of WRATH OF KHAN? Not to mention — what — are you afraid some unborn baby is gonna pop out and, in years to come, grow up and beat you to the punch and buy something that you wanted really, really bad?

Sheesh, if that’s your big gripe, go get it now!
But that’s no reason to abort the kid!

Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life.  If you can live with that, God bless you and God help you.

god loves abortion. he told me so. If you dont believe me then try to provide evidence this did not occur.

I agree with everything you said but I think the problem is that pro-choicer are not willing to admit they are in favor of murder. It is a fact that abortion is murder. I am pro-choice because I believe sentience is what gives life meaning and bc fetuses are not sentient creatures (until about the 2nd or 3rd trimester) I think it is reasonable to allow the sentient human to decide whether the non-sentient human growing inside of her will live or not. My point is that pro-lifers are not the only ones who haven’t completely thought out there position. They also aren’t the only ones being dishonest.

I disagree with your comparison of creationism vs evolution. Creationism is provably wrong. Evolution is provably real. There is no grey area like there is with the abortion issue.

Well, Richard, I can’t speak for your conception of “god” or your notion of reality. As for providing evidence God doesn’t “love abortion”, since you’re mocking me and not interested in a serious conversation, this is obviously a fool’s errand. But Christianity calls its adherents to be a witness and to risk being made a “fool” in the eyes of the world, so I will humor you. My evidence comes from a global, multi-generational best-seller now available as an e-book:

“For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret … Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book all the days of my life were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” (Psalm 139:13-16)

These words are not being sung by God, but to God by the Psalmist (perhaps King David). However the universe’s creator did not rebut. Also, in the book of Job, Job refers to stillborn babies not as “lifeless fetuses” as “Jane: This is my abortion” might choose to call them but as “infants who never saw the light of day.”

Ummm, Richard.  The science you believe is “political” science.  Evolution cannot be irrefutably proven.  That’s why it’s still called the Theory of Evolution and not the Law of Evolution.  Like too many Hollywood movies, evolution has some major plot holes that need to be filled in.  Here’s just one: 

How does a species know it needs to develop a new organ, or appendage, or sense?  Take the eyeball.  Until you have a functional organ, all you have is a mutation.  And most creatures with mutations are spontaneously aborted or go through life as freaks that similar creatures wouldn’t care to mate with.  So how does the eyeball come to be?  What thoughtless natural process can deliberately add, erode or sculpt such a distinctive and elegant organ as the eye?

Evolution might explain things like a longer or shorter tail or a better sense of smell, but how do you explain the development of an advanced, complicated, specialized organ with multiple parts such as the eyeball?  That’s like expecting sand to glass into a iPad if you just give it enough time.  If evolution is just a long, long series of happy accidents that happens to result in new and improved organs or whole new species (sort of like a room of monkeys tapping out the works of Shakespeare on a keyboard), doesn’t that strain belief more than it does to believe in an universal Creator?  It takes way too much faith to believe that all the myriad miracles in this wonderful world can be created by random chance and mindless physical laws.

For the record, I actually do believe in evolution as a natural process.  It does make sense.  But only if I also believe that a higher power is somehow behind it.

Excuse me, but you need to have a better understanding of evolution, or
mortality of the least fit. The way evolution works is it favors genes that are
beneficial to the species. It starts with a mutated gene, and if that gene
gives the organism an advantage in reproducing fertile offspring than it will
be passed on to their descendants. If you think about the millions of years
this planet has to evolve it makes perfect sense why the eyeball has advanced so much through time.