According to several news outlets, the government of the Dominican Republic has voted to approve a constitutional amendment that would effectively end legalized abortion around the country. Dominican doctors say that women will die. The amendment was passed after a massive campaign by the Catholic Church.
OH. MY. G-D.
‘Nuff said.
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 
Rabanit Hausman:
As someone who is staunchly pro-life, I can only applaud the Dominican government for its courage! I pray our country will follow in their lead.
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Aliza,
Its moments like this that I am happy I live in a secular society.
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I don’t know if I’m staunchly pro-choice as you are staunchly pro-life but I believe (and Judaism supports) that sometimes there are extenuating circumstances where the life of the mother must be put before the child’s. That is my only concern with this decision. It will hamper the ability of a doctor to save a mother’s life in dangerous situations.
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Aliza,
I wouldn’t be here if there hadn’t been an abortion. My mother was unfortunately assaulted in her early teens, and it would have killed her to have the baby. Two Jewish doctors agreed to perform the illegal abortion. It saved my mother’s life.
My mother later started a program to help children with mental illnesses. I have done a lot of good social activism, my brother saved lives overseas, and my sister is raising my wonderful nephew. None of this would have happened without an abortion.
I don’t like the militant pro choice stance. Sometimes you really need to have an abortion. Not all women regret the decision, and very good things can come out of it.
It insults me that they judge my mother, like her life had no meaning. Their rhetoric also implies I don’t have the right to exist, and that’s disgusting. Sometimes its better to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.
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your website is showing pro-life ads (google ads) due to this post. you might want to go block the domain http://www.hh76.com and all its associated sites (you can easily do this in your Google Ads account) so that it doens’t show.
as of right now if you go to http://www.alizahausman.net/2009/04/pro-life.html directly, the ad it shows is a graphic ad for a Pro-Life company.
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As for my actual personal response – I am also disturbed by this. I am not pro-abortion, I am anti-abortion. But I am also pro-choice. As a religious Jew my religion and my rabbis tell me in no uncertain terms that there are times a woman MUST have an abortion – such as times when it would save her own life. This kind of legislation would make it impossible for us to follow our own religious doctrines, not to mention the destruction it would create for young girls (or women of any age) who become pregnant through incest or rape. A friend taught a girl who was 13 and carrying her *Father’s* child. Sounds like a freak case but there are lots of “freak cases” with extenuating circumstances that make abortion possibly the most humane option. The thought of telling that little girl she had no options makes me want to puke.
I wouldn’t be alive today if my mother had not had an abortion as a teenager.
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Something tells me there will be a lot more trips from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. I don't know how the DR amends the Constitution, but if they only applied the restriction to Catholics. Using abortion as a form of birth control is disturbing to me, and Roe v Wade may not have been the best way to legalize abortion, but I find prohibition an utter failure.
I also find the ideological divide on abortion perplexing, as the pro-choice position seems more liberal-right (individual choice, property rights), while the pro-life position seems more authoritarian-left (moral enforcement, protecting the helpless).
wrpn> 2/3 of the House and Senate and 3/4 of the state legislatures would be required to amend the Constitution. I also imagine if done by the US, there would be certain exceptions granted.
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I believe that abortion on demand is a grievous and heinous sin that reflects negatively on any society that allows it to happen. However, Judaism does permit, and even mandates, abortion when the mother’s life is at risk. However, we live in a time, Boruch HaShem, where women can’t really die from childbirth anymore, granted all of the medical expertise we have nowadays. Nonetheless, I am pro-life and if you read the teshuvo of Rav Isser Yehuda Unterman, you will see this view expressed most clearly.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20427256/
What? Women die from childbirth everywhere. The United States is no different.
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The article claims that this is due to rising maternal obesity and c-sections being on the rise.
Americans all around are sadly getting more and more obese and are not evidencing a reversal of unhealthy habits.
C-sections are being jused left and right as a means of insurance companies to rake in money. Just like 15 years ago, they gave every 35+ woman a hysterectomy. We need to return to our more holistic roots and stop entrusting the loving act of childbirth to the medical industry.
Ricki Lake came out with a documentary explaining this phenomenon and other unfortunate issues with the medical industry in ‘The Business of Being Born.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgLf8hHMgo
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