The Abortion Post
by Kelly
I am pro-choice. If that mere fact offends you, I suggest finding alternative reading material.
So for those of you still reading, I like to have a discussion about abortion. Specifically, the future of the right to choose in America and the current threats to Roe v. Wade. Oh, and the fact that our President is hailed for pussy-footing around the whole issue. (I love you B, but come on!)
If you didn’t hear, President Obama gave a cute little speech at Notre Dame the other day. Notre Dame, home of the Fighting Irish, is quite possibly the best Catholic university in our country. (At least, that’s what my Irish Catholic uncle tells me, but I digress). So, in his speech President Obama said the following on the subject of abortion:
“I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away…Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable…Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature…”
Also, this little nugget of goodness:
“…That’s when we begin to say, ‘Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman. So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.”
Okay. Obama, I agree with you – mostly. I agree that we should toss out abstinence-only sex education and increase the availability of affordable birth control. I also agree that we should provide care for women who do carry their “precious” children to term (funny that the pro-lifers love fetuses but don’t give a fuck what happens to them after they are actually born). However…
What is this nonsense about abortion being a heart-wrenching decision for any woman? Let’s stop sugar-coating this shit, people. I’m willing to say this straight up: If I got pregnant today I would abort it ASAP, no qualms, no hesitation. Give me that RU-486 pill, ma’am, thank you very much. I’m too young and I have no desire what-so-ever to bring a child into this world for at least 10 years (if ever).
If men were the ones who gave birth, do you think abortions would be “heart-wrenching” for all of them? Hell, abortion would be as common and accessible as breast augmentation.
Obviously, to have an abortion is a difficult choice for some women to make. By no means do I want to belittle their emotions and experiences regarding their abortions. However, I’m tired of the shame and disgust associated with abortion. For those of us who don’t think life starts at conception, the right to an abortion is a no-brainer. For those who do think abortion=baby-killing…why don’t you worry about saving your own soul, alright? You’re perfectly willing to support a war in Iraq, which has killed thousands of people ALREADY BORN and you sleep at night just fine, so I think you can get over a few women “killing” their unborn fetus. (EDIT: I’m aware this does not extend to ALL pro-lifers…)
I’d like to say this post is open for ANY and ALL commentary/debate/what-have-you. I would love to hear from pro-lifers, pro-choicers, pro-baby killers, whatever the hell you identify as. Just remember:
1) Keep it civil. No personal attacks will pass through comment moderation.
2) If you just want to preach your religious doctrine, go somewhere else. I’m a heathen and proud of it.
3) If your post contains the words “baby murderer,” “devil worshipper,” or “evil slutty bitch” (and you’re not being sarcastic), your comment will not pass through moderation.
I obviously have much more to say on the topic, but I thought I would respond in the comments section rather than standing up on my rotten little soapbox and boring you all to tears. :-) Hope to hear from you.
Yours Truly,
Dollface
EDIT: To the guy who commented telling me to “shut up”… I’d like to direct you to my “About Us” page in which I politely but firmly state that I will not shut up, for anyone. For more information on this subject, click here.
P.S. Free “President Bush Sucks” condoms for the 25th comment! (Shameless attempt to get you all debating, I know)
Let me just clarify this is your argument:
1) Men are not allowed to have an opinion on this subject because the actual act of abortion does not directly involve them.
2) Because some people who are pro-life also supported the war in Iraq, that means that aborting unborn persons’ lives is justified.
Is that fair?
Hey Ed, thanks for commenting.
In response,
1) Men are perfectly entitled to voice their opinions on abortion. However, ultimately their opinion should not be the deciding factor in terms of whether women can or cannot have abortions. Our bodies, our choice.
2) Of course I am being asinine on that point. That’s my sense of humor, take it or leave it. If I were going to present my case in a formal setting that’s not going to be an argument I’d bank on. However, on my personal blog, anything goes :)
1) In the same way then, do you believe that those of us not directly involved in a murder are not entitled to influence the service of justice? I think that the people who are pro-life are not interested in controlling women’s bodies, they are interested in preventing women from committing what they see as murder. If you look at through that perspective, it’s not hard to understand why they feel they are justified in intervening in abortion. They think that they are defending a defenseless unborn person.
2) It’s just a bit silly. You’re making an assumption that pro-lifers are also pro-war, and even if someone was a hypocrite that doesn’t make ALL their views automatically wrong, and certainly doesn’t immediately validate yours in the process.
If you’re a politician who says “Women should have abortions without a second thought to it. It should be like zapping a wart off your face with a laser,” then I can guarantee you won’t be elected president of the United States.
Politicians carefully calculate what views to hold and/or how to phrase things to offend the least number of people. They will inevitable offend someone or say something that someone doesn’t agree with. But they want to make sure they aren’t alienating the bulk of the left, the right, and the center.
I happen to be on the far left, so I’m always offended by what politicians say, but I’m never disappointed. I expect that from them. I don’t see a far-left-leaning president in America’s future any time soon.
@ Ed –1) I know that they believe it’s murder…I just think it’s rather apparent that life doesn’t begin at conception. I’m not a scientist, sadly, but I’m sure there are those that could back that up with hard facts.
2) Again, I am aware that my comment is asinine. I still stand by it.
@ A.Y. Siu — That’s what I can’t stand about politics. It’s more about appealing to a large amount of voters than it is standing up for your specific beliefs. I extremely dislike the polarized left vs. right in this country. I suppose, though, that Obama’s moderate stance helps alleviate that polarization. Which leads to vague comments about abortion. Sigh…
So when does life start?
At birth
So you’d have no problem with a mother… ‘destroying the collection of cells’ inside her, right up until the moment it leaves her womb?
Yes, although I believe doing so would put the mother at risk as well, so at that point it is safest to just continue on with the pregnancy.
Fair enough.
Just appreciate that there are many that disagree with your definition of the beginning of human life, including numerous established laws and amongst the biological profession.
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought deeply about the definition of life, there is no established certainty for it.
Abortion is actually more nuanced than simply when does life begin, but it is a very important aspect. If you believe human life does not exist until birth, then that would explain your views.
I’m not sure where I stand with the life begins at whereever thing. But I know if I got pregnant now I’d have an abortion, and I would be sad about it. But being pregnant would mean I’d have to stop taking my medication and I’d get sick. I think my being able to live is more important than an unplanned unborn childs.
I respect any womans right to choice, and I’m happy for people to feel whatever way they like about when life begins. If you’re able to regard an unborn “child” as nothing more than a collection of cells then great, if you think it’s a person as soon as you can hear a heart beat then choosing to abort is going to be a lot harder.
I especially wouldn’t want to give birth to a child knowing that it was going to be disabled, making my life very hard, their life very hard, causing extra strain on the health system and my relationships, not being able to have a career because I’d have to be a carer etc.
@ Ms Constantine — I am on birth control & monitor my periods very closely, so I’m fairly confident that I would notice if I were pregnant relatively early into the 9 month period. It would be very easy for me to have an abortion using the abortion pill. However, after that time it would become more difficult for me to go through with the abortion (though, more because I don’t like hospitals or surgery rather than thinking I was ending a life).
I respect other women’s choices…just wish others would respect mine.
I think you raise an interesting point about giving birth to a disabled child. I’m not sure how I would feel about that either…I guess it depends on the circumstances. If I’m actively trying to have a child with my future partner, I think I would make the same decision as you regarding a child I know would be disabled.
I didn’t even realise there was an abortion pill. That would definitely make the decision easier I think, less intimate. And I think it being easier is not a negative thing at all. If it means less women will go through with an unwanted pregnancy in a situation where they might struggle it’s a good thing.
So let me get this right, I child who is full term and has one leg, one foot, one toe left in his or her mother is not a human life? There is only one point that is clear cut on when life begins and that is conception. Most scientists now agree, considering you can tell the babies sex and genetic makeup and everything that the child will have biologically is there. They now use a high frequency ultrasound to detect a heartbeat at 21 days.
Any woman’s right to choose only exists because that woman is alive. Therefore the right to life will always take precedence over the right to choose. We want birth control because we want to have meaningless fun and no suffering, no sacrifice. Lust is the attempt to seperate love from suffering and there are ultimately consequences for that mentality. Namely a culture of death. There are countries in Europe that are now trying to pay people to have babies, because the birth rate is below the level of replenishing the race. We are literally killing ourselves out.
nicely worded/thought out post. i, mostly, agree.
@ Drew — One leg, one foot, one toe? What are you talking about?
Yes, some countries in Europe are underpopulated….like Sweden and Denmark! Most European countries are NOT underpopulated, so your argument is a little problematic. In fact, the Earth is overpopulated at this point. I’m considering not having children at all, because it would be selfish of me to consciously bring children into a world in which there is a) so much pain and suffering b) global warming will negatively impact future generations etc etc etc. It would be more charitable to adopt the children born to women who are pro-life but don’t want the child.
@ Ms Constantine — Yes, there is a pill! That’s why I am so comfortable with the idea of an abortion, it basically induces a “miscarriage” and there might be blood that comes out like a heavy period. Which, to be honest, doesn’t seem all that terrible.
Alright. Let’s start with the basics. I am a 35 year old male in a long term monogamous relationship. The Love Of My Life and I are united in our commitment to Not having children. I am not merely pro choice, I am pro abortion. I am a big believer in easy access to contraception, and to frank reproductive education, and think it is wonderful that there are steps that can be taken to reduce unwanted and unintended pregnancies. But to put it bluntly, in a world where people are careless, and thoughtless and accidents happen, the bottom line is that I would rather a billion fetuses be aborted than so much as one child be brought into this world unwanted.
At the same time I am pleased with Mr. Obama’s attempt to move beyond the Right’s attempt to characterize woman who have abortions as all uniformly blase about it. For many women it is a difficult choice. I know that any time the subject has come up with friends who are female, and who at some time in their past had an abortion, they all almost seem to say the same thing. They were glad the option was available, and they never wanted to go through it again so they used the experience as a wake up call and took better control of their contraceptive options.
My hope is that serious progress will continue to me made on male contraceptives. Frankly while mens reproductive issues are different from those of a woman, we are not anywhere nearly as in control as we should and could be in this day and age of such incredible breakthroughs in all the various sciences.
As for Mr. Obama’s call for common, ground, well it is a nice idea, but that would require the Religious Right to get off their high horse, and make reasonable compromise, and I don’t see that happening.
You commented to Ed that life starts at birth. So if a baby is being delivered and one leg or one foot or just one toe are left inside the mother than that baby is not alive? There is only one definitive point in the life of a human being that we can say that life has begun and that is conception.
Regarding the world being overpopulated, the population of the world is slightly larger than 6,500,000,000. Texas is 678,800 square kilometers, so everyone in the world could fit into the state of Texas with each person having 104 square meters for him or herself. The problem has nothing to do with overpopulation it has to do with distribution of natural resources wich has more to do with greed, gluttony and selfishness than anything else.
On a different note, in our country there have been over 50 million abortions since roe vs wade and less then one percent of those were due to rape or incest. (Please see: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html) That leaves over 49,500,000 pregnancies that could have been avoided if people realized that having sex has consequences. Instead, the abortion mentality is: “I want what I want, consequence free and I’m willing to kill to keep it that way.” If you don’t want a baby don’t have sex. I might be crazy, but it seems that the two go together.
@ Toriach — Good points, all around. I know I’m also influenced by the fact that my mother herself had an abortion in the 80′s in Australia, and it was an ordeal in which she had to be in the hospital for a week. That, however, was the only difficult part…she has told me that on an emotional level she was not upset over the loss of the fetus. I think the process of an abortion can be difficult but personally would have no guilt or regrets after the fact.
Thanks for commenting!
@ Drew — Are you kidding me? Sex is fucking awesome. We’re one of two species that has sex for enjoyment rather than mere procreation. I’m not giving that up just to avoid having a baby!!
P.S. Abortion, in some form, has been around for centuries.
P.P.S. I still think your point about the one leg, one toe scenario is silly. Of course that baby is alive…the water has broken, the baby is coming out…it’s alive! Alive, I say!
P.P.P.S. Maybe we COULD all fit into Texas…but I don’t think it would be very pleasant…
As for your first comment, that is my point. You wouldn’t give it up to avoid having a baby & if you did accidentally get pregnant you’d be okay with killing it. I’ve heard women equate being “forced” to carry out there pregnancy with slavery, but, God forbid, unless you where raped, it was your decision to have sex and now you should own up to the responsibilities that it brings and so should the fathers. We think we can do what we want without consequences, but we can’t. I’ve heard lust described, in all it’s forms, as an attempt to seperate love from suffering and that is what we’re trying to do. It cannot be done, love always makes demands on us. We’re building a culture on immediate, selfish gratification, and trying to “kill off” all the consequences and we wonder why there are so many broken homes and so much fighting. The basic building block of matter is the atom, we learned how to split it and created the most destructive force on the planet. The basic building block of society is the family and, through the contraceptive and abortion mentality we are “learning” how to split them a part and that is destroying society.
In regards to your second comment, so then when is a baby alive and how do you feel about partial birth abortions? This is where in the second trimester the women is induced into labor and the baby is born breach until only the head is left and then the doctor proceeds to vacuum the babies brain out of its head through an incision in the neck.
How about the fact that a baby can feel pain at 8 weeks?
@ Drew — A quick response to the second paragraph — ew. But this is coming from someone (me) who is grossed out by the thought of pregnancy as well. I can’t really say what I feel about it, because anything that takes place inside a hospital grosses me out. I’m sure someone else could give you a more objective answer.
As for broken homes and fighting…what does that have to do with abortions? Abortions often prevent children from being born into situations in which the parents cannot care for the child monetarily, emotionally, or otherwise.
As for family being the basic building block of society — I beg to differ. The concept of family varies from society to society, and has changed dramatically over time. In some countries, family is a village. In others, family is a mom, dad, children. You are speaking from a Western, modern standpoint by claiming the nuclear family is the basic unit of society. You would do well to keep in mind that not everyone sees the family in that way.
I thank you for commenting, but I feel we see the world in dramatically different ways. I respect your views but cannot share them.
If you can show me how a village can create a child other than through a mother and a father than I’ll concede my point. Even in a village every child has his own mother and father. So the Mother, Father and children they create are the BUILDING blocks of that village. It’s only in these “modern” times that we seem to think that a child doesn’t need a mother and a father only a parent or parents of same gender. This androgenisitic view attempts to equate gender equality with “sameness”, rather than accept that men and women are different in essence yet equal in dignity. Thanks for sharing your views as well, I enjoyed our discussions, hopefully more people can keep open dialogues. Cheers!!
I think the biggest point here is that there is no legal authority on this earth that should have the authority to tell a human being what they are able to do with their own bodies. Our beings are the only things that it is truly just for us to own and for someone to try to make a decision for another, especially about something so personal, is ethically wrong.
*sigh* This topic fascinates me because it always becomes this argument about opinion. Then lost, in the poop/opinion throwing, the reality of facts is lost.
Fact one: it is not a collection of cells, by DNA evidence it’s a human being.
Fact two: it’s not conscious.
Fact three: consciousness is not destination it is a direction. An adult dog has more consciousness than a human infant.
Fact four: death means two different things, first lost of biochemical function, second permanent loss of consciousnesses. When you speak of killing weeds it carries different moral ramifications than killing a person.
Fact 5: Abortion is killing something. Cells who’s DNA is unique from the mother’s die.
Fact 6: it is not killing something with a consciousness, so its not the second type of death, but the first.
Fact 7: it is killing something that would develop consciousness, hence it is more serious than killing a flower.
Fact 8: Beginning at conception, killing it is more serious than killing a flower, but less serious than killing a person. As the fetus grows it approaches consciousness more and more. Thus, it is approaching the point where killing it becomes homicide.
Fact 9: the addition that it is approaching homicide does not mean it is per say murder. Homicide can justified.
Fact 10: A child effectively has no rights. The parent is the guardian of the child’s right. A child cannot consent to surgical procedure, the legal guardian consents.
Fact 11: any person can choice suicide. For a person totally unable to exercise their own rights, their guardian has the legal right to pursue it.
Abortion is a surgical procedure which terminates either a potential human life, or human life. It’s always death, and it approaches homicide as the term progresses. Whether or not that death, or homicide is justified is up to a to the legal guardian/s and the physician. Same as the justification for any other surgery.
Then Ian, you do not understand the issue.
Would you also say that there is no legal authority on Earth that should be able to tell a human being that they are not allowed to use their body to murder someone else? Because that is essentially where the pro-lifers have an problem. They see abortion as an act of murder, and full justified in creating a legal authority to prevent murder.
The difference is that by murdering someone you have violated their right to exist as a conscious, sentient being. I believe that I understand this issue much more than you would know, but that personal freedom and liberty is and always will be the core of my belief.
How is “conscious, sentient being” objectively defined?
I guess that would mean that you could kill anyone who has been knocked unconcious. In the end you are trying to impute which human lives have dignity and which ones that do not and wether you claim to believe in God or not. Your actions are saying that you do believe in a god and that god is you.
Drew
That statement is an ignorant straw man.
Is the attempt to define human life the “straw man” here?
“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar”
- T.S. Eliot
Let’s got some things out of the way:
If you think life starts at conception, it makes sense to be pro-life.
If you think life starts at birth, it makes sense to be pro-choice.
That’s why this debate tends to be gridlocked. People aren’t actually arguing about the legal efficacy of abortion, they’re arguing over when life actually starts. However, the majority of people involved in the debate have chosen an arbitrary event as “the beginning of life” while failing to define what life is.
If you consider “life” to be a collection of cells that could potentially form a fully functioning organism than life begins once a fertilized egg starts to divide. This collection of cells is called a zygote.
There a misconception among a lot of people that every zygote will become a fully formed organism. In reality, many zygotes never develop much further for a few reasons. They can get stuck in the fallopian tubes, or sometimes they simply stop developing.
But if all goes well, a zygote will develop into an embryo after about a month. The word “about” is very important. People often draw a line in the sand, saying something like abortions are ok before 4 weeks, 2 months, etc.
But every embryo develops at a different rate, so this lines in the sand aren’t always transferable between pregnancies. However, this line of thinking is usually based on the developmental stages of pregnancy. Some people consider human life to begin when the brain is developed, or when an embryo can feel pain, or kick.
I think this debate is interesting, because it is essentially asking what it means to be human. Unfortunately, this part of the abortion debate is usually overlooked in favor of slogan throwing.
Most physicians agree that a zygote is not a human; it can not think, feel, move autonomously, any of that good stuff. Zygotes are destroyed naturally all the time, but we don’t consider that to be a death. For this reason I find the idea of the morning after pill as being an “abortion pill” ridiculous. Still, there is a chance that that zygote could one day be an embryo, which would one day be a human.
Most physicians (and people who aren’t crazy) agree that aborting a fetus a few minutes before it would be born is bad. I think it is absolutely fair to call that murder (but I would also like to point out that that would be illegal, so it does not factor into the legal aspect of the abortion argument).
Most abortions occur during the first trimester. So called “late abortions” or “partial-birth abortions” occur at the end of the second trimester. These constitute a very small percentage of abortions, and are usually only performed in the interest of the mothers health.
So, based on the science I know (I’m an undergrad studying neuro-science) I can say that extremists on either side of the debate are wrong. A zygote is not a human being because it lacks a brain, which I consider to be an important part of being human. It not lacks a brain, it lacks a neural tube. It lacks the cells that become the cells that become brain cells. The debate about weather or not a zygote has a soul is not a debate that should be considered from a scientific or legal perspective because the idea of a “soul” isn’t based on reality.
And I would say people who support the right to have an abortion at any time during a pregnancy for any reason are also wrong. Admit it, the geographical location of something (inside or outside of a womb) does not have any influence over how alive something is. If we shoved a baby back into the womb (gross, right?) it would still be alive. It would also probably be pretty upset and confused.
So there is a huge grey area. When does human life begin? I don’t know. Neither do you. Nobody knows for sure in any definitive sense, so people on both sides should stop being so self-assured over the issue. Whether or not women have a right to have abortions seems to be something you’ll have to agree to disagree on. But abortions aren’t fun and are unpleasant to go through (I assume) so can we at least agree on the fact that we should educate kids about sex and provide them with contraception?
No, we can’t, because of people who support abstinence-only education. So fuck those people.
Also, @ Ronin. Your post makes no sense. Do you have any evidence to support your “facts” other than the word fact which you wrote next to them?
I know I’m late and the discussion seems to be over, but I feel like commenting on one of Drews comments, because he’s missing something. Drew writes that in some European countries “they” pay women to have babies. I’m from Denmark (Northern Europe) and even though I’ve heard of governments trying to make it a little easier to keep children, I’ve never heard of any of them paying women in any direct form.
You mix things together in a most annoying way when you argue, that the reason European women have fewer and fewer babies are a selfish attempt to separate love and consequence. Women in the Northern, Middle and Southern parts of Europe (leaving out the Eastern countries, whose history is very different from the rest due to the years as Soviet States) have fewer children because 1) they have the means of contraception, obviously, 2) women still have to choose between career and being a housewife, the latter leaving them without any economic power (since the work in the home is unpaid) and thus totally dependant on their husbands.
Norway, Sweden and Denmark are the only countries in the world, I presume, that fully give women the opportunity to have both careers and families. Among other things, we have extensive day-care programmes and paid maternity (and paternity) leave, one year for the woman, three months for the man, fx. In Italy, Spain, Greece and even in Germany, there aren’t day-care, these things have to be covered by family: the mother, grandparents, friends and so forth. And since men STILL get payed 18 percent more salary that women IN THE SAME JOBS, of course it’s the mother who have to stay at home to take care of the children until they are ready for school, and, when they are, to have only part time jobs because someone have to be home when the kids get in.
Population stagnation in Europe stems from dysfunctional social systems and traditional gender roles; The European countries are failing in creating equal opportunities for both women and men and since women are the traditional care taker and men the providers, then women are stuck with choosing between two paths of life – career or family – instead of having the opportunity to merge them. Thus a lot of women choose to have no children of very few, in order to be able to do this merging.
So to claim it’s all about people wanting to fuck while laughing like there was no tomorrow, then you miss out on very blunt social and cultural explanations on the issue.
@Fact-based
I actually found Ronins comment very interesting. I understand it as a comment based in the philosophical disciplines theory of consciousness, Logic and Ethics. If you ask when life begins, first you have to determine what life is in both a scientific sense and in a philosophical sense. Philosophical because what (human) life is and what distinguishes human beings from other beings isn’t something that can be explained solely by observing biological differences in a laboratory. If, to make it simple, we determine a human being as an entity defined by it’s consiousness, we have to determine what distinguishes this entity from other entities with consiousness, like dogs and maybe fish. Then we (try to) determine what this difference consists of and what this means. What is (human) consciousness and when is someone a human being – or not a human being, if consciousness is what makes us human beings and not fish? Is a brain dead person still a human being if it is in fact brain dead and without consciousness? This is of course a very big issue in philosophy, and a question not solved yet.
Determining human beings as unique (to all other beings on Earth) is what is the basis of making laws that protect human life in ways and to extents that are not given other living beings. We can kill wild dogs that roam our lands but we cannot kill people that do the same, unless they pose a direct threat to our own person (not in DK, that is). This is because we believe human beings have earned special moral status due to their uniqueness, status not given to dogs, and this is what makes it okay to kill dogs and not human beings.
Specific rights are given and taken on basis of ethical discussions and examination of issues of this sort. If a zygote is comparable to a flower in more ways than to a foetus/grown human being, then it is not necessarily possible to argue that the zygote have the same rights as human beings, regardless of it’s ability to grow into one. Not if your argument is to have consistency and not if you don’t want a flood of implications prompting you to defend the moral rights and status of all things consisting of cells. The zygote’s status as an autonomous, moral individual is distinguishable from the status of a woman, because they are different entities and thus it can be argued they have different rights and that hers trump the zygote’s (in lack of a better word).
Whatever argument you pose on this matter, there are implications that are far more complex than you would immediately imagine. Ethical as well as logical. That is, if you insist on arguing from an informed standpoint, and if you are okay with considering the implications of your arguments and follow the laws of logic when doing so.
Sorry if this is a bit messy, my English is rusty.