TERRIBLE THINGS
SARAH [MIRK]—Killing a baby is a terrible thing, and should not be done easily or taken lightly [“State of Choice,” Feature, Sept 2]. Furthermore, do you honestly think that the parent of a teenager does not have the right to know that their child is engaging in sex, getting pregnant, and having an abortion? Understand that I am not a “bible thumper” and could not tell you the last time I went to church. However, I do have a conscience.
-Andrew
LADIES’ CHOICE
DEAR MERCURY—I read the story about the pregnancy resource centers, and I pass the MLK Planned Parenthood twice a day, and my biscuits are officially fucking burned [“State of Choice,” Feature, Sept 2]. When I was 19 the PP counselor presented my test results by saying, “Yes, you are pregnant, but you’re only a few weeks along so we could schedule something for you right away if you like.” I was all up in righteous arms that she’d not only made the assumption that I’d want an abortion, but that she’d offered it up so easily. So I left, and I had a baby. But in hindsight, I appreciate that they presented the option to me, because it would not have occurred to me that I COULD have an abortion. I wouldn’t have known how to ask for one or where to even find one. To the counselor from way back when: I’m sorry I snarled at you. I just didn’t know.
-Cordelia
FOSTERING SAFELY
DEAR MERCURY—”Don’t bike on Foster Road.” That was Mayor Sam Adams’ response at a town hall meeting last night when asked what can be done to lower bike fatalities on that stretch. This came after he and other officials announced they had no plans to put in bike lanes. The reason? It’s too expensive to widen the road to keep four traffic lanes AND onstreet parking. They admitted they haven’t even considered reducing traffic to two lanes and adding a center turn lane. Why? Aren’t the multi-million-dollar proposed stoplights intended to slow traffic anyway? Keeping the traffic whizzing through won’t do nearly as much to attract more business to that beleaguered street than making it bike friendly.
-Naga Nataka
DRUNK ON FREEDOM
DEAR DENIS C. THERIAULT—RE: “This Beer Frame Doesn’t Fit,” [Hall Monitor, Sept 16]. I lived in Europe for four years, and in no place was public drinking prohibited, and in no place was there the problem with drunkenness and alcoholism we have in the United States. Cause and effect? The fruit of the forbidden tree is always sweeter. Institutions of higher education keep ratcheting up the penalties for underage drinking, and we keep having increasing binge drinking and alcohol poisoning. Stop the insanity. Jews get wine every Friday evening from an early age and have low levels of alcoholism and loutish behavior (State of Israel excepted). Italian kids get wine with their meals from an early age and likewise have low levels of alcoholism and loutish behavior (adolescent boys with tight shorts and moussed hair on scooters excepted). Young German men recently mustered out of their obligatory national service spend their first week of freedom drinking, sleeping outdoors, crying “Ausschreiben wir!” (“We’re mustered out”) and having passersby sign their shirts. And nobody bats an eye. But we Americans still haven’t learned the lessons of Prohibition, some 77 years after its repeal.
-Brian A. Cobb
CHEERS TO THAT, Brian. If the tourism board really wants to sell Portland’s “European feel,” we’re going to need obligatory national service much more mousse and drunken shirt signing. In the meantime you can catch a European film or two with your two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater and lunch at No Fish! Go Fish! where you can eat like a citizen of the world.
Andrew and Cordelia: I was 16, my girlfriend was 17 years old. Our condom broke. Even though I had not ejaculated we rode the bus for almost 2 hours to get the morning-after pill. This was in Toronto in 1986. Why did we do this? Because we learned in school that sex is the cause of pregnancy. We knew that we were not prepared to have a child. Abortion would have been a horrible option after, what I can imagine, a horrible scarring emotional struggle.
Who says you need to be a Bible thumper to be a complete chauvinist pig who believes that he has the righteous duty to control women and their bodies? Thanks for the reminder, Andrew. Score one for empowered, entitled white men and their oh-so-troubled, burdened consciences!
who said he was white?
I think Andrew’s got a good point – I only worry because I thought the actual question was whether the kid needs the parent’s permission? Even if it’s just ‘notification,’ I’m sure that would rapidly become ‘over my dead body!’ in many households. A 16 year old shouldn’t be forced to have a baby just because their parent wants them to.
@Naga – Yeah, don’t bike on Foster Road. Also, don’t bike on the I-5. Plenty of sidestreets to choose from. Not sure why you needed to be told to not play with your toys on the highway.
Killing a baby is only a bad thing if you don’t plan to eat it.
BokChoy — You say this as though preventing pregnancy after the fact was the choice, when in fact you said you learned that “sex is the cause of pregnancy. Not unprotected sex. Not accidental condom breakage or other birth control failure. SEX leads to pregnancy, so the real question for everyone is this: if you aren’t prepared to have a child, why are you having sex?
Lamb — The whole point those who oppose abortions make is that the developing child is NOT your own body. Protecting a child has nothing to do with the rights of the parent. I’m so tired of the argument that men are trying to control women by protecting the innocent lives of children. Ever wonder why more men don’t stick around to take care of their families? I suspect in many cases it has to do with the fact that women have told them they have nothing to do with the baby from its conception. How can women continue to say, “It’s my body; it’s my choice,” and then expect men to be the fathers our society needs?
Here are a couple lesson for everyone based on this thread:
1) If you’re not ready to have a baby, don’t have sex. SEX MAY LEAD TO BABIES!
2) If you’re not ready to talk about sex like an adult with an adult, don’t have sex. Again, SEX MAY LEAD TO BABIES AND GROWN UP DECISIONS!
I love how you argue that you’re not trying to control peoples’ bodies, then follow it up by telling they may have sex. And, I’m sorry, pregnancy has everything to do with a woman’s body. And, no, this has nothing to do with deadbeat fathers, which is more likely the product of a male-dominated culture that is both permissive and dismissive about the moral responsibilities of men.
I’d definitely agree that ANDREW’s daughter shouldn’t have to tell him if she has an abortion or even if she just has sex! The guy’s obviously a potentially violent misogynist control freak…and a Sarah Palin voter in 2012(of course, that last sentence is pretty much redundant, if you think about it).
uh…spartacus…are you trying to set up the world’s worst “catch and release” joke?
Note the “IF” statements, Lamb. The logical choice is that IF you do not want a baby, you don’t have sex. No one’s controlling anyone — it’s a choice. It’s just the choice that most people ignore.
1. Just so y’all kids are aware, in Washington teens/children of all ages can access abortion services without parental consent.
2. I am one more vote for, don’t ride your bike on Foster you fucking moron.
To Cordelia,
If you had no intentions of getting an abortion & the OPTION of having an abortion never even occured to you, then why would you have gone to a PP in the first place? Then you snarled at that poor counselor lady who was just trying to help your dumb ass, then have the baby out of spite? Good job! Way to take your oppressive religious up-bringing out on an innocent person. You “just didn’t know”, well maybe she just didn’t know – which is why she asked or suggested.
FUCKING LOL @ Spartacus!!! <3<3
@Reymont – because I live on Foster road, kind citizen, and riding on it is the only practical way to get through the tangled neighborhood until I hit the bike routes on my way to work. You might not have noticed, but the plentiful side streets run at diagonals to Foster and are full of dead ends. There are lots of us who live on this road and bike it, and we’d like to have a little protection on the highway that it truly is. In fact, the mention of bike lanes got the most applause of anything at the town hall meeting. So why is it not even an option for the city?