Warning, potentially offensive post...
For as long as I can remember there has been an abortion clinic in West Ealing, and I can recall many occasions when sad-looking girls (usually Irish) have asked me for directions to this enterprise.I do not want to get into a discussion about the morality or otherwise of abortions, the fact remains that as long as it is possible for males and females to fornicate, it is likely that there will be a demand for this service, and no papal or fundamentalist edict is going to prevent it.
Something that continues to fill me with fury, however, is the collection of pious people who gather outside the clinic and pray loudly. I have every respect for their views, and in the case of the women, I have a great deal of sympathy. What I can't cope with are the men, usually well-fed large people in expensive clothes who stand there chanting and doing the rosary with an expression of smug self satisfaction on their faces. Again, I have every respect for their right to hold an opinion, but what right do they have to stand there, symbolic of the cause of these desperate and traumatised girls downfall and seek to intimidate them? If they are praying for the soul of the unfortunate foetus, or the girls, or even for the staff, do they have to stand there in the street doing it? or are they perhaps doing it because it makes them feel better.
My experience of abortion clinics, which dates from my brief sojourn as a medical technician (and was directly linked to my decision not to continue to pursue that career), was that nobody was there through choice, the decision to abort or not to abort was agonised over and never taken lightly, and the staff were always delighted if a pregnant mother decided to keep the child. As a male, I do not feel that I have the right to make that decision for someone else, as it remains improbable that I will ever have to make it for myself, and I have always been careful to make sure that I don't put anyone else in that situation. Apologies if I have offended anyone, I promise the next post will be funnier.
posted by Lampy @ 1/17/2006 04:32:00 pm
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