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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: d[-_-]b who wrote (164397)	3/16/2003 1:58:23 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573129

As a 16 year old I "knocked" up my 15 year old girlfriend. We were both pretty clueless regarding birth control. Lucky for me she decided we were too young to have and support children and suggested we get an abortion. I paid for the abortion, $225 to a 16 year old was a fortune. We never had to inform our parents and Oregon had a law barring the hospital from informing them. I regretted saying "knocked up" after I posted it. As guys, we make it sound like someone is getting new tires or a lube job. If someone would have told us to get married I would have done it and hers and my lives would be so much different than they are today. We were in love or at least we thought we were. We stayed together until I left for college two years later. When I was commenting, I was thinking back to when I worked in a council office. I was working with this older woman volunteer on a city project. At one point, the issue of women's rights came up and she told be that she had had an illegal abortion in the 60s. The abortionist who did it was a butcher and she could have never have children again. She was 15 at the time......and its like you said above, what did she know about anything at that age. The guy never supported her at all......they were only dating.....and she didn't feel she could tell her folks [they were conservative and upper middle class]. At the time of the story, she had never married.......she thought no guy would ever want her because she couldn't have kids. When I heard her story, I wondered how many women had been irreversibly damaged by bad abortions........both physically and psychologically. That's why I believe its a women's choice even though I have ambivalent feelings about aborting a fetus. I remember she told me of all the women she met at the clinic I was the only one who's boyfriend was with them and supporting them during their operations. Several of the girls didn't really have boyfriends anyway, they got pregnant from one night stands. I gave her a milkshake in the parking lot after the operation and she threw up all over my dad's car. It was a tough emotional day - but we were sure we were doing the right thing. That's the sad part about it.....you'll never know for sure. The circumstances real people find themselves in are so different from the TV story of man screws woman and runs away. I really come down hard on the personal choice side regarding abortion - others should just stay the hell out of other peoples lives. I agree wholeheartedly. If a women has the legal choice to abort or have a child without the fathers permission, she should be responsible for the financial burden in my opinion - it's a matter of getting the liberty and the responsibility in one package. It still takes two to make it happen. Guys don't like it but they could wear condoms. I was angry at those fathers/partners that weren't involved. They probably never intended for those women to get pregnant but they could have at least provided assistance for the abortion. Making them pay for a child no one wanted is a bit over the top. I think if the girl or both are under 18, there should be a cap on expenses......sharing hospital expenses and the first year.....something like that. If both parties are over 18, I think the guy needs to pay his half. I say that knowing that this is a way women entrap men. However, my attitude is that its like driving a car without insurance or a license.......if you get caught and/or you've had a serious accident, you can get busted in a big way. PS: I can say now that I'm married and have twin 9 year old girls, I do often wonder what it would be like to have that child we aborted. It would be nice to have an older child of 26, perhaps a son. Some choices you make for a lifetime. Yeah, like I said above........the really sad part. If only we fully understand why we are here. Are we just higher animals rutting and going about our business,and then dying and becoming fertilizer like all the other organic life on this planet, or are we higher beings with a soul, put on this planet to learn and grow? If its the latter, it might explain why life can be so painful and challenging at times, and if its the former, life's a bitch and then you die. ;~(( ted