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I have put this topic off for a while now, owing to the extremely controversial nature of it, but I think that we are all mature enough to cope without it becoming a battle of the wills – and if not – I will just turn the comments off! So, here is our most controversial your view to date! Remember, battle against arguments – not people – ad hominem attacks are a sign of a failed argument.
Should Abortion Be Legal?
My answer: No. I believe that abortion has become so out of control that it has become a form of contraception. There is a high physical and mental cost involved and many of the young women who have abortions are not always fully aware of these consequences. From a philosophical perspective I also wonder whether we would have a cure for AIDS and other diseases now if someone hadn’t aborted the child that was going to ultimately find the cure. Of course this also applies in reverse – how many Hitlers have been prevented from being born, but I think that society is better equipped to deal with that situation if it were to arise again.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Abortion takes innocent human life; it’s the ultimate act of murder. So, no.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Yes. It is not possible to take life where no life exists. The clump of cells that is removed in an abortion of any kind is not alive, it could not live outside the body of the woman. For all intents and purposes, it IS the body of the woman. It is also a threat to the health, autonomy, and future of the woman. You cannot remove the woman from the equation and call the fetus “life.” It does not exist without her.
Also, citing the potential grief of, or “mental costs” to the woman is an extremely patronizing and sexist way to view it. It strips the woman of her humanity, her dignity. I am able to make decisions for myself, and I don’t appreciate anyone telling me otherwise. That argument reduces women to dependent beings, unable to make choices for themselves, needed to be protected from the big bad world. It makes women slaves to their biology.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:09 pm
In the society we have – yes. In the society we would want – no.
Abortion should not be legal because it is murder for the reason of not wanting a child. If you don’t want a child then you should not be having unprotected sex, and if you still do then you should have to live with the consequences.
Abortion should be legal because we live in a world where contraceptives are not a hundred percent effective, and the average woman is not big enough to love an innocent child when it was made by a rapist.
In the end I have to say… any persons right to their body is absolute. What I do with my body is of no concern to the next person, or should not be. You can argue as much as you want that a baby is a life – it is made of the womans body, it lives of the womans body, it is part of the woman. Until it has independent thought (which requires the brain to be developed) it is not a person in its own right. Hence, the woman has as much right to perform an abortion in early pregnancy as I have to take worm medication if I happen to get a parasite infection.
So my end statement is this: abortion should be legal because the government should not decide what I do with my body, nor what you do with yours.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:13 pm
If the unborn child is a part of your body, then it should have the same DNA as you. Everyone’s existence is dependent on others and the argument that an unborn child can’t live outside the womb is not much different than a four year-old child can’t survive in the wild by himself.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Something I would like to add- the term “pro-abortion” is bandied around frequently. There is no such thing as pro-abortion. I agree with Hillary Clinton that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. Nobody here is advocating the use of abortion as birth control, or arguing that it is a good thing.
It is, however, a fundamental and inalienable right of women- of all human beings- to determine their own lives. I refuse to let the government decide what is best for my body, my life, my future.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Having an abortion is a woman’s unalienable right. However, I agree that abortion is murder, and that it should not be used casually.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Absolutely it should be legal.
A fetus lacks what all humans have- a functioning brain. Every living person from a newborn baby to a 120 year old woman has at least one thing in common: what makes us all tick, what separates life from death, the brain.
A fetus is not considered a person, why does a pregnant woman say “I have two kids and one on the way” instead of “I have three kids”? How come when there’s a miscarriage, there isn’t a funeral?
If abortion isn’t legal, then instead of women in doctors offices, you’ll have women in dirty basements with wire coat hangers up their uterus.
“Pro-life is anti-woman” -George Carlin
July 31st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
yes it should.
your not killing an innocent person because the fetus doesnt really have feeling. it doesnt know that it wont develop. and think of the women that wouldnt have to go through the pain, mental and physical, of pregnancy and birth just to give it up for adoption since they cant handle a baby. with abortion, that wouldnt happen. and yeah its the consequences of unprotected sex but things happen. and if you dont abort the baby and put it up for adoption, it might not get adopted and will have to grow up in foster care.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:49 pm
No, I believe it is a life. I don’t have the time or energy to provide evidence or reasons for this, but I believe that it is. With all the technology we have today we are able to detect and see so much more about the life inside of a woman, I am still amazed it can be so easy to abort them. Well, not easy, I am sure this is never an easy decision.
Another thing, if I am wrong, and this is not a life, would millions of women suddenly regret having children they really didn’t want? If the other side of the argument is correct, they are responsible for the murders of millions of unborn. Now, of course I realize, back alley abortions have resulted in the loss of many women, but I don’t think current facilities are even close to coat hangers. I think that’s a straw man argument anymore.
For those who think that women don’t grieve or endure incredible loss when losing an unborn child, I would like them to meet some of my friends. Their loss and their pain is very real when they have miscarriages, regardless of the stage of pregnancy.
And I have met and heard from women who have had abortions. And at least from that sampling, there is a very real sense of pain and loss. If it was just a matter of choice, I would think that wouldn’t exist, right?
Even though I am a pro-life, I will not stand on street corners or outside abortion clinics and protest. I will not judge or condemn someone who has had an abortion or plans to. I simply believe abortion is wrong, and if asked by a woman or couple seeking counsel, I will share my beliefs with her.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Yes, keep abortion safe and legal, in the US at least.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:16 pm
goof_ball: what’s wrong with foster care? I was in it for years and I’m not a serial killer. Growing up in foster care is a hell of a lot better than not growing up at all. Abortion is not giving the kid a chance. Sure, he may be the next Gacy, but not giving them a chance is ridiculous. Also, saying that you might hate the kid because his father was a rapist is (in my opinion) a bit strange. If I were to father a kid, and the mother was the worst women to ever plague the earth, I would still love the kid to death, anyone who hates their own flesh and blood is (again, in my opinion) sick in the head. The kid may be half rapist, but he’s also half you, and its not like there’s a rapist gene (that I’m aware of).
In others words, no, I don’t think abortion should be legal.
If this argument comes off mean or rambling incoherently I apologize, I was in the hot sun all day (Denver has been ridiculously hot lately!)and I’m just all around mad.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:21 pm
John G …. your arguments are poor.
“A fetus lacks what all humans have- a functioning brain.”
Wrong. A fetus has a brain, and brain stem, from an early point in the process. And it functions too. It regulates the heart, causes digestive processes to form, etc. If not, then when does it get one … when it is born?
“A fetus is not considered a person, why does a pregnant woman say “I have two kids and one on the way” instead of “I have three kids”?”
Why do we say the sun rises, when we obviously know that it is the earth’s rotation?
“How come when there’s a miscarriage, there isn’t a funeral?”
Stillborn babies (which fail to match your characteristics of being a functioning human being, apparently) are often “funeralized”. And the grief that most women feel after a miscarriage is real, funeral or not.
Your arguments are weak.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:22 pm
wow. so many people here don’t support abortion!
My answer: Yes, yes, yes! It is ultimately a woman’s right to choose and whether or not you agree with that, you should not infringe upon their rights. I believe that the fetus is just that, not a baby, not a person, until it can sustain itself outside the womb.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Ok… so i have a weird view on this.. I could never do it. NEVER. other than 4 cases. The baby would never live a normal life; the pregnancy would kill me; it was a product of rape; it was a product of incest. That’s it. I believe that a woman should have a right to choose, but i believe that you should only be allowed one a life time (unless your second has SERIOUS developmental problems and could never live).
July 31st, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Having an intense fascination and reasonably thorough knowledge of neuropsychology and it’s surrounding academic subjects I have utilised the branch of thought I am most accustomed to in which to develop my argument on this particularly controversial topic as my own opinion could not be created based upon the fundamentals of the debate.
With that aside, allow me to outline my two key arguments. Firstly I am pro-abortion being legal (Political framing has become an evidently boring and overused gimmick which, in this context, merely causes unnecessary feelings of guilt and encourages a serious debate to become a competition of opinions) despite the fact, judging by what I understand of the subjects I previously explained to have a notable knowledge of, I believe a fetus to be a living human given time (Initially it is as many ‘pro-lifers’ refer to a ‘blob of cells’ in my opinion) and this is before the current period of time given until abortion is disallowed unless there are specific circumstances regarding threats to the woman’s health. The brain of a fetus grows particularly fast in comparison to many areas of it’s biology and is complete earlier than many other areas also, the spinal cord however is a different matter but I ramble.
By my understanding having a partially functioning central nervous system classifies as life, but yet, I agree this life should be allowed to be terminated without the possibility of legal interference. The underlying assumption of the abortion debate for both sides is that life is an extraordinarily valuable asset, THE most valuable asset one could argue but yet I agree that it can be destroyed if necessary. Soldiers are executed on both sides of a battlefield and become numbers to preserve their ideals. Animals are killed for our food. Abortions can also be made for our convenience. Granted ‘convenience’ is not a particularly astute term to be applied in a debate regarding such unstable and uncertain concepts but it is in my opinion the most fitting word; I do not refer to something being convenient in this context as being analogous to having a shop next door or owning some brand of toilet/chair hybrid but instead as convenient on a far greater level. Convenient in that the person shall not be required to spend approximately 18 years of their life raising a child whom they did not want; for that matter how shall this in-turn affect the life of the child? Yes, many of us would like to believe we would rise to the challenge of raising a child that was unexpected and make the best of it but such a thought is ecologically invalid; you cannot know what such a situation is like unless you have experienced it personally (Though I respect those who have)
My second argument is a very simplistic question of practicality, with abortion being known to the human species now, it shall use it. If there is a sociological, cultural, zoological or generally human pattern that could be confirmed beyond that of any other it would be that if humanity is aware that something is at their disposal be it knowledge, power, items etc they shall wish to use them and given the size of the human population it is overwhelmingly likely that they shall. My basic point here is that if abortion is made illegal people shall continue to do it but in less healthy conditions.
I could also raise the dispute of the population problem being related to abortion but that would be a moot point so I shall disregard the thought.
Before I portray my ending notes I would just like to offer a brief opinion on the protest of legalised abortion. Those who utilise images of aborted fetuses to reinforce their points, you are convincing no one. This topic is rather personal to me (Please don’t allow that to persuade you to not argue against me however, I welcome criticism of my perspectives) due to my closest friend being made to cry at one time and when reflecting on this event. She remains ‘Pro-Choice’ but is simply upset by the images depicted. Thankfully I am far less squeemish and feel unbothered by the images but yet I find it to be a very shallow and cruel fashion to protest in. I welcome the opinions of all people and yes, the images used in the aforementioned protests are generally how the remains of many abortions appear but that form of protest is not only cruel and potentially offensive but also counter-productive to the cause of those performing it as it is astoundingly unlikely that a person shall agree to change their perspective on a very serious topic because a group of people upset them over it.
To conclude, I believe that abortion, beyond a certain point, is the killing of a human but the lives of the humans who are already present in this world and environment should be given priority over those of the unborn.
Forgive me for the length of this text and I appreciate your patience in reading it – Niall
July 31st, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Yes I think it should be legal but I also think that it should be more limited than what it is at the minute. For example if the pregnancy just was an accident then no I don’t think abortion is right but for those that have been raped or that it could possibly affect their mental health or could put the mother physical health under great strain then yes it should be legal. I mean those who are raped and made pregnant they could see the rapist everytime they look at the child and could end up resenting the child for what their father has done. And for those who it could affect there mental or physical health it could also end up killing them to a greater extent due to the fact that the birth may actually end up killing the mother or if it affects their mental ability could cause great strain on their health and they could end up in a psychiatric ward or worse suicidal. So in my opinion if it could cause less damage to the parents yes abortion is right but if its just because they dont want a child or something then they should have used better precautions.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:29 pm
If you want an interesting argument go read freakonomics. It makes a logical conclusion that abortion lowers crime rate. While there could be a few lurking variables there is definitely a correlation
July 31st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
There are some very interesting comments thus far – thanks everyone – and especially thanks for keeping things civil
It further enforces my belief that Listverse has the smartest and most polite citizens on the net!
July 31st, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Without a doubt it should be!, and a little
sidenote- A BABY SH0ULD BE B0TH THE (FATHER!!) AND
THE W0MAN’S DECISI0N!!, it took two 2 make- its the
guys sperm, if we dont agree then it should matter.
im so tired of woman that act as if they created the child
themselves like Mary.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:42 pm
It shouldn’t be legal. Weather is a bunch of cells or not, it is going to be a child, a human being, and well even if it is a buch of cells, we all know cells are living things, so even if a fetus is just a bunch of cells, it is a whole bunch of living cells
!! Anyways, I totally agree with the argument about women being able to make their own decisions, of course they can! They shouldn’t be limited in any ways, but then comes RESPONSABILITY, whichs comes with the power of making decisions, so while the argument of letting women decide what they want to do with their bodies is something good, they also have to keep in mind responsability, because an unwanted pregnancy can be prevented, (oh yes it can) failing contraceptives should not be an excuse because people are very different from animals, we don’t follow only our instincts, we have a conscience and an unwanted child can be avoided by not having sex until you are ready to take full responsability over a child in all senses, from the economical to psycological stuff. About the pain a women suffers in the future, well that is very real and there is medical proof of women that suffer the same syptoms that a veteran from war suffers, so there, women do suffer because of an abortion, maybe not right away but they do in the future. Also I have read testimonials of many people that their mothers tried to abort them (but procedures failed), and well they all seem to grateful for being alive but were once confused and hated their mothers. Also men should be held responsible, and not leave the whole responsability to the woman, woman can not reproduce by themselves!, hmmm I hink it all comes to good information, I’ve seen abortions many times and I also saw one through an ultrasound, for my surprise the futus moved like trying to fight for its life when pieces of it where been sucked and removed, even withouth its legs it was still moving around like trying to avoid being sucked, but then a huge clasp thinghy came and crushed its head. He was then extracted completely from the uterus. That made me consider the theory about fetus not being living things…Oh well, I just try to remembder that I can do whatever I want as long as I don’t affect other people with my actions… even if that other people resides inside of me.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:13 pm
You have got to be kidding me? Is this what people who can’t write, come up with? Are you just bored?
Well, remember the old saying, “If you’re bored, you’re boring.”
Smartest Citizens on the net?
July 31st, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I think abortion should be legal in certain circumstances – where pregnancy or birth would endanger the life of the mother, where the pregnancy is the result of rape and the mother is not psychologically able to continue with it, where the child would not be able to function alone (dependent on the definition of ‘function’ and applicable in some cases of incest and some congenital disorders), and possibly in cases where cultural conditions would endanger the life of a mother of an illegitimate child.
I don’t think it’s ethical to abort a nearly full-term child in most of those scenarios, not if it’s at the age where children born pre-maturely can survive.
Outside of those circumstances (there may be more that haven’t occurred to me) I don’t think abortion should be allowed. Human potential is too valuable a thing to be discarded.
I do feel quite strongly though, that the option of abortion should not be made inaccessible to people in the circumstances above, that government legislation shouldn’t be black and white. At the same time I find the procedure of abortion quite abhorrent – reading Samsara-gx’s comment above made me feel really ill.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I say yes, only because I support the woman’s choice to have an abortion. I do think that more education needs to be given on preventing pregnancy, other options besides abortion, etc.
I may support the right to choose, but I’m simply a pro-choicer. I don’t condone abortions and would also inform anyone that comes to me for advice that there are other options.
I also agree that it should be limited. If nothing else, I don’t believe in abortion after the first trimester, hopefully within the first month. I also think that women should discuss with their doctor before going to an abortion clinic, just to make sure that this is the right thing for her to do.
I can’t tell others what to do with the choices they made. I would rather them live up to their responsibilities or opt for abortion, but that’s not my call to make.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Oh wow, gross mistype: last paragraph, opt for adoption, not abortion
July 31st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Oh, and one last thing (sorry for the triple post), about your “mental cost” argument — I know this might be true for some, but I know 4 women that had abortions, and they didn’t suffer emotional trauma. My grandmother is one of them. She will be the first to say that she did the right thing in her mind, and that she wouldn’t go back and change anything.
I completely understand that this is not the case for everyone.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:38 pm
It should be legalized. It should also be government controlled. They should place ridiculous amounts of taxes and fees on it. Do you realize how much revenue this would cause? Not only would this stop 90% of abortions out there by young teenage girls that don’t realize the emotional consequences, but like I said it would provide so much extra cash flowing in. Everyone complains because the economy is faltering due to no one spending money…this is because every other dumb teenage girl is getting pregnant(certain unfortunate circumstances not included naturally) and then getting an abortion. They get pregnant again and they get it aborted. Well, if they can’t afford it, they’ll end up spending the money somewhere else. Like…at a department store buying clothes for the baby. Thus…this boosts the economy. C’mon people, think.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I feel that abortion is as immoral as crushing a VEGETABLE.
I’m not a big fan of the “We could be aborting wonderful people” argument, because you usually get aborted when you can’t afford a child. Maybe it would me more worth it for a child to be dead than to be raised like crap.
Too many people on this planet anyway.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
wow, so many holes in some arguments so far. let me address a couple…
“nobody has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body”…what if that woman is a baby, inside the womb of another woman. is it then o.k. to tell that woman what will happen to her body?
for those of you guys that see your selves as middle of the road types saying it should only be allowed in certain circumstances…who are you to determine the value of a life yet to be lived? what makes your value judgment any greater than anyone else?
“a fetus couldn’t support itself without the mother therefore it isn’t a living being”…try that argument with a 1 year old. kill one of them and see where that gets you with the law.
niall: you are the first person i have ever heard say that you believe that an unborn baby is a living being and women should still have the right to kill it. wow. that’s all i can say about that. wow.
and the old tired argument that women will end up in back alleys with rust coathangers is laughable that anyone uses that in a serious debate. this would happen no more frequently than illegal drug users need do their behavior in a back alley with terrible equipment. the service will be provided by someone who feels they must break the law to do so.
just to sum up…no, it should not be allowed for the following reasons and many more; it is murder (if you don’t believe that life happens at conception, when does it happen?) it is torture, psychologically, on many women (regardless if you think this is demeaning, it is still true in many occasions) it is the quick fix solution to a mistake and those are hardly ever the right decisions, there are many families that are willing to adopt, and other reasons which i will bring to bear later.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:50 pm
To Laura re:comment #2
As a women who have given birth once, and is currently 17 weeks pregnant with my second child, I do not find Jamie’s comment patronizing or sexist one bit. It is a fact that many women deal with anguish and grief regarding the choice they made to abort their unborn child. Personally I believe there is no “dignity” in making a choice to kill an innocent life. Having emotions to go along with the choices that we make (be it good or bad) and dealing with them appropriately IS what gives us our “humanity”, NOT being tough enough to have an abortion and being unaffected by it.
The excuse that it’s just a “clump of cells” is a tired one. How then at six weeks, did that “clump of cells” in me have a beating heart that was clearly detected on the fetal monitor. Or how at 20 weeks did that “clump of cells” develop enough for me to see during an ultrasound that I was clearly having a hiccuping, thumb-sucking son.
Any woman who is able to go through 9 months of the miracle of pregnancy, and still think abortion is acceptable, is completely irrational. I cannot fathom how someone could do this.
If someone has the guts to stand for abortion- then have the guts to watch this video.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Just to be clear I was referencing Jamie Frater’s original comments, not Jamie comment #27.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:10 am
How about an alternate to abortion. There was a professor here in NZ who proposed putting a natural contraceptive in the water supply. and to counter the contraceptive when you want a baby, take the counter-pill.
Outcome: Unwanted births would plummet to almost non existent.
No to abortion.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:11 am
Question to the masses, how would Y0U feel if you were aborted, lets take time to think about it…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..0K, you would’nt be able to answer.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:18 am
DiscHuker: What about the situation where a mother will die if the pregnancy continues?
And is it worth sacrificing the sanity of a raped woman? Or the life of a woman who will be killed to protect the ‘honour’ of her family?
If you think about humans in terms of resources (I am not saying we should) and disregard the idea of human potential then surely a woman who has survived until adulthood represents more value than an unborn child?
I don’t know the answers to those questions and they’re not intended as a counter to your argument in comment 28, but I would like to know what you think regarding them.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:21 am
justice: I wouldn’t exist, so I couldn’t give you an opinion. But we make these judgments on behalf of other beings that can’t give us an opinion when we implement animal cruelty laws and standards, so why can’t we make them on behalf of unborn children?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:30 am
Justin Anthony Knapp, you’d be surprised at exactly how much of your body doesn’t share your DNA;)
Anyway, abortion should be legal up to development of a central nervous system, as no harm is done.
I do, however, oppose the current practice of using abortion as a ‘form of contraception’. Luckily it’s more of a problem in repressed cultures – I live in a country where contraceptives and their use are covered in 6th grade.
As to the ‘cure for AIDS’ argument in original article – you do realize how many fertilized eggs abort spontaneously, do you? Artificial abortion is but a drop in the sea.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:33 am
Leo: You make a good point about spontaneous abortion, if I recall correctly, something like 20 – 30% of pregnancies are naturally aborted in the first few weeks and mostly before the mother even realises she is pregnant.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:38 am
I’m pro-choice.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:49 am
I’m not touching this one with a ten-foot pole
*runs away*
August 1st, 2008 at 1:01 am
Hannah,
I never said that women don’t feel grief and/or regret when having an abortion. It is a difficult decision, and one the no one, including myself, takes (yes, took) lightly.
What I said was that for the courts or the government to outlaw abortion based on the possibility of regret was extremely infantilizing. That argument says, essentially, that because the potential for grief exists, women ought not to be trusted to make that decision. The same reasoning could be applied to women making their own financial decisions- because the could possibly regret spending that money, we should outlaw women from having credit cards. I’m NOT equating credit with abortion, before everyone jumps down my throat, simply pointing out that the patronizing reasoning is the same. In both cases, a male-dominated authority is determining that women are unfit to make their own decisions, because the possibility exists they would regret those decisions. Surely you see how condescending this is.
This, of course, is just one of the arguments anti-choice activists use. There are similarly ineffective ones- to pick one out of a hat, letting a 4-year-old loose in the woods is NOT QUITE equatable to removing a wholly dependent fetus from a womb.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:05 am
Laura: What if it were women making this decision in a woman-dominated society? Your argument depends on the existence of a male-dominated society. It’s only condescending because you’re assuming that a man/men is/are making the decision.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:07 am
Or “What if it were women making this decision in an EQUAL society”, same reasoning applies.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:14 am
I am undecided on the issue – which hopefully I am allowed to be.
I would just like to throw something out there regarding Jamie’s comment on aborting potential prodigies that could cure HIV etc…
Looking from the other side, assume a 15-year old girl falls pregnant – abortion is illegal and she is law abiding – so she has the child. Drops out of school to raise the kid and ends up reliant on the state and crummy jobs for her and her child to survive. Had the same girl had the option of abortion, she could have stayed in school, gone to college…and ended up finding the cure to HIV.
Just throwing that out there….
August 1st, 2008 at 1:16 am
Tempyra,
I would object to this reasoning in any society. I don’t think it is fair or legal to remove the right of a competent adult human to make their own health decisions, whatever their gender. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of making decisions in a female-dominated society or even an equal one. Historically speaking, women have been subjugated to men and to their own biology and therefore, as a woman, I find this line of reasoning particularly repugnant.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:26 am
Laura: Following that argument:
“I don’t think it is fair or legal to remove the right of a competent adult human to make their own health decisions, whatever their gender.”
Drugs would be legal, no? And people with incurable contagious diseases could screw whoever they wanted right?
August 1st, 2008 at 1:41 am
To everyone that says no to abortion, I suggest taking a few months to work for a charity in an orphanage or go work with social services. Kids that aren’t aborted before birth are often beaten and neglected by their parents that didn’t want them and then left to fend for themselves, often turning to crime.
I’m not for killing anything, but for me I’d rather see people having abortions than letting the kids suffer a neglected and unloved life.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:43 am
‘I believe that abortion has become so out of control that it has become a form of contraception.’
Then you need to look up the definition of contraception. Contraception works to prevent pregnancy. Abortion happens when there is a pregnancy, so it’s can’t be called contraception. Abortion is birth control, as it controls birth.
There is a high physical and mental cost involved and many of the young women who have abortions are not always fully aware of these consequences.
LOL! No.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
SAFETY OF ABORTION
• The risk of abortion complications is minimal: Fewer than 0.3% of abortion patients experience a complication that requires hospitalization.[12]
• Abortions performed in the first trimester pose virtually no long-term risk of such problems as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or birth defect, and little or no risk of preterm or low-birth-weight deliveries.[13]
• Exhaustive reviews by panels convened by the U.S. and British governments have concluded that there is no association between abortion and breast cancer. There is also no indication that abortion is a risk factor for other cancers.[13]
• In repeated studies since the early 1980s, leading experts have concluded that abortion does not pose a hazard to women’s mental health.[14]
• The risk of death associated with abortion increases with the length of pregnancy, from one death for every one million abortions at or before eight weeks to one per 29,000 at 16–20 weeks—and one per 11,000 at 21 or more weeks.[15]
• Fifty-eight percent of abortion patients say they would have liked to have had their abortion earlier. Nearly 60% of women who experienced a delay in obtaining an abortion cite the time it took to make arrangements and raise money.[16]
• Teens are more likely than older women to delay having an abortion until after 15 weeks of pregnancy, when the medical risks associated with abortion are significantly higher.[17]
From a philosophical perspective I also wonder whether we would have a cure for AIDS and other diseases now if someone hadn’t aborted the child that was going to ultimately find the cure.
Potential means squat in the abortion debate. The fetus that was aborted could have grown up, and raped and murdered a bus full of children. You might as well say a carrot could have found the cure for AIDS if it wasn’t made into coleslaw.
Considering the woman who have the most abortions are poor minorities, I doubt their kids would be able to get the education needed for them to get to college, let alone anywhere near a research laboratory.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
Educate yourself, because clearly you have no understanding of this subject. I’d also like to know why you didn’t put that little warning up on the homosexual question. Or were you already aware of your inaccuracies and didn’t want to get called out on them?
Tony S – Wrong. A fetus has a brain, and brain stem, from an early point in the process. And it functions too. It regulates the heart, causes digestive processes to form, etc. If not, then when does it get one … when it is born?
Educate yourself please. Having a brain does not make you capable of sustaining life on your own. Having a heart beat doesn’t mean anything if the heart isn’t strong enough to pump blood around the body. Having a brain isn’t going to do you much good if you don’t have a cerebral cortex.
theReal.34 – A BABY SH0ULD BE B0TH THE (FATHER!!) AND
THE W0MAN’S DECISI0N!!
When a man can take the fetus from the woman, implant it inside himself, deal with the pain, emotional, and physical effects pf pregnancy and child birth, then he can have an equal say. When a man has sex with a woman, he relinquishes ownership of his sperm. What happens to that sperm is beyond his control. If he chooses to avoid contraception, it’s his own fault. What you’re saying is men should have ownership of a woman’s uterus, just because his sperm impregnated her. By your logic, organ donators should be allowed to dictate what happens to their organs once their in another person.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:45 am
Tempyra,
C’mon, are you missing the point on purpose? The situations are not at all comparable. I don’t believe it’s necessary to get into a semantic debate as to why; I think it’s obvious that I consider an adult and a pre-20-week fetus different things entirely, with very different rights. Therefore, spreading incurable diseases among autonomous adult populations and making health decisions for yourself are very, very different things. To use your language, “people with incurable contagious diseases” who are “screwing who(m)ever they like” are not making personal health decisions, since other autonomous adults are involved against their will.
I also don’t think it’s very useful to consider theoretical societies where men or women are equal, as that is clearly not the society we are living in.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:50 am
Tempyra – ‘Drugs would be legal, no? And people with incurable contagious diseases could screw whoever they wanted right?’
Drugs would not be legal, as they hurt society. Drugs bring with them crime, death, and aid in the spread of infections diseases. People with incurable, contagious diseases already screw whoever they want, or are you unaware of the statistics of HIV/AIDS infection in the USA?
August 1st, 2008 at 1:56 am
To one of the above poster’s, a baby in the womb does not have the same DNA as the mother, entirely, just as living child does not share identical DNA.
Yes, I support the legality of abortion. I do think at times it has been used casually as birth control, but that in itself is not reason for it to be banned.
Also, the view that a parent does not want to deal with the “consequences” of their actions does not take into account that the child would also have to deal with consequences of which they had no control. Should a child be born for the sake of being born if it is in to a home where it is unwanted by the mother and in that already has a strike against it in succeeding?
While a very personal decision, I feel that it is worse for a child to be born where it does not have the basic want and affection and care of a mother than for it to never be born.
Lastly, legality assures a notion of quality and oversight. Simply making something illegal is not enough to stop the action from occurring. In legality, as least there is a safe option in having it done, rather than some black market “doctor”.
Anyways, I am a guy and think my views on the whole matter should be taken at the fact a decision of such a thing would have far, far less impact on me than female counterpart.
ehh
August 1st, 2008 at 2:00 am
If someone doesn’t want to have a baby, the baby is better off not being born.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:24 am
Reaper: Drugs hurt people (individuals) too and unborn children, not just ’society’.
“are you unaware of the statistics of HIV/AIDS infection in the USA?” – Yep, probably because I don’t live there.
Laura: I don’t think I was missing the point, I was just applying the logic of your statement to another ‘health’ scenario.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:39 am
No, if they don’t want babies, let them stop having fun!
August 1st, 2008 at 2:43 am
I absolutely believe abortion should be legal. most “pro-life” people state that we should have no choice on the lives of unborn children, by making abortion legal. Well don’t you think you’re drastically changing the lives of the mothers by not giving them the choice of abortion? the moment the child is BORN, your life changes completely. so why should you be the people to dictate how other peoples lives are lived? does it really harm society for people to have abortions? theoretically, yes. but every moment we have changes the future in some way. so if we abort a baby, maybe it was a ghandi, or aristotle, or something like that. but what if the baby was a hitler, or some evil person like that? we’ll never know. until you can glimpse the future, don’t preach about all the possibilities those lives would have had. because unless its written in stone, thats all they are. hopes.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:49 am
It should be legal, yes. And I believe it’s entirely the woman’s decision whether or not to have an abortion. After all, it is her body, no one else’s.
I think it depends on the situation the woman is in. They might not have enough money to support or family to help them out, so might be difficult to bring up a child without those kinds of support.
If a woman was raped, then it’s not her fault that she didn’t use contraception to prevent it. She might not even want a baby.
The only thing I disagree about abortion is that it should not be used as a contraceptive. People shouldn’t be so lazy as to think that forgetting to take the pill or where a condom is all right, because there’s ‘always abortion’. Stupid.
My opinion.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:18 am
I have never met anyone who uses abortion as birth control.
I’m willing to bet that most women who have had an abortion
weigh their options quite carefully. I think most places give counseling and a stern talking before a woman has it done, and that the women are fully aware of what they are doing.
I don’t know how anyone can really say if it should or shouldn’t be completely legal or illegal until they are put into a situation where they would have to consider it.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:37 am
I’m glad it is legal.
It would be far too much trauma for some women to go through it.
I don’t agree with people using it when they didn’t wear contraception.
I agree with it being used so that under certain circumstances, a child isn’t born.
However, in my saying I think that I’m glad its legal, I also think that just anybody should be allowed to give birth. It really makes me sad seeing so many of the next gen turning into… Well, you only need to see todays media to see what they are turning into.
To be parents should undergo intense training.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:06 am
I don’t like abortion, I’m basically against it, but I reluctantly say it should be legal. It needs to have restrictions.
(I’m not hitting the “notify me” box, this might become another 1000+ comment thread (haha) )
August 1st, 2008 at 4:39 am
As far as i know “termination of pregnancy” is legal in South Africa (where i am from).
In terms of the Termination of Pregnancy Act, termination can take place up to 12 weeks, voluntarily, after examination by a dr and so forth and so forth. between 13 and 20 weeks a abortion can be performed if it is “necessary” with certain stipulations in the act being looked at very carefully in each this case. After the 20th week of pregnancy a abortion can be performed but only in most serious cases eg: death to either mother or child, incest, rape etc…
what concerns me is that this act includes minors (due to the “new” Age of Magority Act 2007 minors are now under 18 in South Africa).
Minors are “advised” to talk to a parent or guaridan about the abortion and procedure, but it is not necessary and the counsellors do not need permission from parents to perform abortions.
EVERYONE KNOWS… not only does abortion cause serious emotional scars but the abortion causes serious damage to your internal organs as well… womb etc. There could be serious complications due to the equipment they use to remove the fetus, as sometimes not everything is removed and causes hectic infections and sometimes leading to having the womb removed or leaving some women unable to have children again.
There are 2 methods generally used. The “suction” method usually cases this… they use a long metal rob, stick it up in there and stuck the fetus out like a vaccum. (so nasty) The other method (i’m not sure what it is called)they give you 2 pills… filled with hormones and these usually make you seriously ill, vomitting, diaorrea, violent cramps etc… the first pill is taken in front of the dr and then second pill is taken 2 days later at the dr office and the strong dose of hormones expel the fetus. Also a rather disgusting process… as young girls going through this usually dont know what to do with the remains of their “baby” as it usually is just a mass of cells or half formed and the fetus can expel itself anytime, anywhere. so you cant be sure how to prepare yourself… talk bout emtional scarring hey!!
in terms of the law… a legal subject only comes into being at birth and the requirements for a legal subject is that there must be complete seperation from the mother and it must be able to breath and live independently from the mother (there is no need for the imbelical cord to be cut)
If you are not a legal subject you are not the holder of rights or the bearer of duties. THEREFORE… you cannot state claim to anything. There are various methods which can be put in place such as nascitus fiction where the fetus is presumed alive but this is only in legal disputes. A fetus cannot be a legal subject as it cannot live independetly from the mother.
Then we have the conflicting rights in the Consititution… THE RIGHT TO LIFE… and… THE RIGHT TO CHOICE OF REPRODUCTION.
When it comes to abortion these 2 rights are in serious conflict. As most people believe that the right to life should have preferrance.
The things is… we all have the right to choice of reproduction, the manner in which we choose to repoduce, the amount of children we choose to have etc… so when it comes down to it women can do whatever they please with thier bodies… AS LEGALLY STATED.
I, personally, think that abortion should be leagl internationally but should be regulated very strictly!!!!! i think that health officials are to “sloppy” when it comes to abortion (and many other things). There should be a serious amount of counselling offered before and after, a full medical examination and a follow up examination. Abortion should also only be used in serious cases such as rape, incest, could cause death etc. IT SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS A CONTRACEPTION… THAT IS WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS… cause as i have stated previously the effect it has on your body could be disastrous and fatal.
just for the record i am studying law and practice as a paralegal so i’m always exposed to things like this. its sad how people misuse abortion.
I hope i have given you guys some food for thought…
Tee
August 1st, 2008 at 4:43 am
No,
Unborn children have been detected with brain waves. They can feel, eat, and move around. Just because they are inside a womb, they are not alive?
When you look at it this way, it doesn’t matter if the child is wanted or not; it’s not for you to decide. There will still be societal problems with legalized abortion. The whole idea of the Aryan race was to control birth; how did that little idea benefit society?
Looking at a toddler or baby playing should be a joy, not a liability.
All I know is if I was growing up in my mother’s womb, and there was any doubt by my parents to keep going with me, I would remind them everyday how “alive” I am now, no thanks to them.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:28 am
It really depends on when you consider life to have begun. Some people think that life begins at conception, some think that life begins at birth. Obviously, no one among us would dream of harming a newborn baby, which is probably the strongest reason we have for refusing to abort babies past a certain time. The human conscience has a problem with aborting babies after 3 or 4 months because they start to look human by that stage.
Theoretically, for months, human babies are just a little bundle of cells, going about doing their thing. You could argue that of course it’s alive, it moves every now and then, creates problems (I made my mum sick almost every morning for 8 out of the 9 months) but you could argue that viruses and bacteria that chill out all over us are equally living. Although the human body is comprised of about 100 trillion cells, only 10 trillion of which are ours. Considering most people have little problem with destroying bacteria (which makes up 90% of what we are), why should a small bundle of cells be any different?
In my opinion, it should be legal. If you consider the people most likely to get an abortion, it’s almost exclusively people who are unwilling, or unable to support a child, often because of age, and there are understandable moral issues for some people with adoption.
And as for the argument that destroying a potential life is as punishable a crime as destroying a real life? By that logic, every time a man masturbates, he should be punished for murder, for destroying lives (billions in fact) that could potentially exist, and I guarantee you, at least 50% of the population would vote against making that particular pasttime illegal.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:30 am
yes, & i wont go into detail because i have really harsh views on abortion, birth and families, and in the past ive offended too many people. Plus i find it hard to explain what i beleieve, it would just spiral out of control if i wrote everything down, and it even confuses me, so ill just leave it at a simple ‘yes’.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:32 am
Btw, just my opinion, I’m happy to debate, but don’t get all angry at me if you disagree!
August 1st, 2008 at 5:36 am
carpe_noctem: I see where you’re coming from, but bacteria don’t have beating hearts. What happens when your heart stops? You die. The same thing happens to a fetus. If its heart stopped beating it would die. And to die, it would have to be living in the first place.
“for destroying lives that could potentially exist”, yes, but a fetus is already existing, it will not potentially exist, it already is.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:39 am
Why would you want the State to decide anything for you?
August 1st, 2008 at 5:40 am
carpe_noctem: Regarding your last paragraph – those billions of lives are only 1/2 a life each and one sperm + one sperm does not = one zygote. Same with the un-used ovum that are reabsorbed into a woman’s body every month. I don’t think it’s comparable.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:41 am
wow. when I was younger, there seemed to be a more broad acceptance of abortion rights. now, not so much.
with government programs practically encouraging unwed, immature, uneducated women to have children, by offering various forms of monetary aide and free medical care, it appears to me to be a self-replicating problem.
I am sick of hearing the saying “it’s not the baby’s fault” and “you have to take responsibility for your actions”
as if society views children as the ‘punishment’ one must accept for a misbegotten night of reckless passion, or a broken condom, or a forgotten pill. I say bullshit.
since when is an unborn, unproductive, potential life more important than an existing one? Abortion is never something a woman chooses flippantly… it is often an agonizing time, unimaginable by those who have never gone through it first-hand. It is nights of fear and self-condemnation, tears and self-loathing… and it may even linger for some time.
Abortion should be freely available during the first trimester. by the time a woman is past her third month, if you don’t know your body well enough to realize you are pregnant, or are denying it to yourself, or worse, waiting for something tragic to happen (since quite a few pregnancies end in miscarriage), you are far to immature and irresponsible to become a parent.
Abortion, and the caring physicians who provide the service in a sanitary, compassionate environment, one that embraces a woman during a difficult time in her life, are truly a gift to society. Long gone are the back-alley abortion clinics, and the primitive forms of pregnancy termination, such as overdosing on penny royal extract, drug overdoses, and harming one’s physical body to cause spontaneous abortion.
It fascinates me that one of the most highly technologically advanced nations in the world (U.S. of A.) also has the world’s highest rate of teen pregnancy. it’s almost as if these children think the only thing they can actually accomplish in life is having a baby.
I went to a rural high school in South Carolina where a full 1/2 of the female student body either where pregnant, had a child, had an abortion, or had a miscarriage. Sex ed wasn’t even offered until senior year, and by then, well, it was too late for some girls.
And as such, the ignorance perpetrated.
Do not condemn the woman who has had an abortion-millions have and they are not ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ or ’selfish’ people. They are often successful women who eventually have children at an appropriate time in their lives, where they can provide and the emotional, physical, and financial means to raise a child. just because a woman (or girl, as the case may be)gets pregnant does not automatically give her the ability to be a parent… it doesn’t take a high school graduate to get pregnant… but it does take more than an 8th grade education to raise a child to be a productive member of society, and not to become just another clog in the machine living an unsatisfying life.
women have been aborting their undesired children since the dawn of mankind… and since a woman didn’t show her pregnancy until after her third month, it wasn’t even considered that a woman was actually pregnant until she felt her baby moving… it wasn’t until 1588 when Pope Sixtus banned abortions that it all became a social issue…and even then, there is little proof that there was an accept consensus that life started at conception…
here’s my real name, folks. that’s how strongly I feel about this issue.
Roxanne
August 1st, 2008 at 5:42 am
Krysten: See, that’s pretty much my point, you can view the fetus as already existant (which, with a beating heart, evidence of brain function and reaction to external stimulus, is not at all an unfair perspective) or you can view the fetus as non-living until the moment of birth. It’s really a matter of opinion as to whether you consider it to be alive pre or post-birth. But I do see what you’re saying.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:46 am
If a pregnant woman is murdered, are two people killed? How can we try this case as a double murder if that very same woman could have killed her own baby legally? I don’t see a way to justify this double standard?
This issue has become so politicized here in America that Democrats can’t even vote for a late term abortion ban for fear of angering their militant pro-choice base. Do you realize there’s controversy over whether to let a baby that lives thru an abortion be allowed to live? Lives thru an abortion. Think about that. “The human conscience has a problem with aborting babies after 3 or 4 months because they start to look human by that stage.” I quote from a comment above. Unfortunately, that is not true. Women are willing to abort babies well after the stage of viability. I don’t think they should be allowed to do this.
As far as I’m concerned, the “my body, my choice” arguement better applies to legalizing drugs rather than killing unborn babies. At any stage of pregnancy. For any reason. And did you know that the “life of the mother” clause includes the mother’s mental state?
Some people want abortion on demand, no questions asked. Other people want abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.” Still others want no abortions at all, perhaps except in literal life or death situations. I just wish society would address the issue of unwanted pregnancy at the root, which is, in my opinion, lack of birth control information and a sense of personal responsibility when it comes to women. Last time I checked, only women get pregnant. Women are ultimatley responsible for whether they get pregnant or not, whether they use protection or not. Obviously, there are accidents, and there are rapes. If that’s all we were having to address, this would be a very different debate. But we all know, those cases are not the majority of abortions.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:58 am
If a pregnant woman is murdered, are two people killed? How can we try this case as a double murder if that very same woman could have killed her own baby legally? I don’t see a way to justify this double standard?
That’s a good point. If abortion in is legal at any stage of pregnancy – what is desired by the people wanting legal abortions becomes a sort of curse for those who are the mothers of wanted children. How would you feel if the mother of your unborn child was murdered but the killer only received one murder sentence? Because the defence would be able to argue in court that if abortion is legal at that stage of pregnancy then your child has no rights.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:00 am
Definately yes. I am not going to address the issue of religion, as I think it had no place in this debate. I will say that unless a fully developed human being has consciousness, cognitive ability and self awareness, then a ‘life’ does not exist, in my personal opinion. I do not believe that a 3rd trimester fetus can be considered a human being in the legal sense, and I also reject the argument of potential life. I think that saying that the abortion of a fetus is taking a potential life is like saying that men cannot masturbate due to all the potential lives wasted in that act.
I think that the reason abortion should be legal is that there is no definitive way of addressing and/or proving right or wrong all the opinions that people have on this matter. Some people believe life begins at conception, some don’t. Some people think it is murder some don’t. Some people believe that abortion destroys people mental health, some consider that condesending and patronising. However, if you criminalise abortion, you effectivaly take away the rights of a considerable percentage of people who have the pro-choice opinion. If abortion is deemed legal, then the people who think that it is wrong can clearly choose never to have one. The only way to preserve the rights of all people (excluding whether or not you personally believe that a fetus is a life) is to legalise abortion.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:16 am
Tough question to ask but sure to garner lively debate.
Abortion is currently legal in all states but the stage at which a pregnancy can be terminated varies.
I think abortion should continue to be legal up until the point that the fetus can viably support itself outside of the womb. If an entity can support itself and you perform a procedure to kill it then its murder. If the entity cannot support itself it has to be considered a part of the mother and she can therefore do what she wills with her body.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:26 am
Considering the fact that due to the miracles of modern medicine babies are being safely delivered and surviving at earlier and earlier stages of gestation, the age of viability is currently evolving with each successful delivery of every premie baby.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:32 am
Only if giving birth is going to kill the mother or baby. Other than that, no. You chose to have sex, you reap the consequences. And rape is not an excuse, the baby did nothing wrong. Show me a woman who wouldn’t love and take care of her child she grew inside her body for 9 months! If you can, she has some serious mental issues. Its not the baby’s fault you are irresponsible and incompetent. Adoption is always a better alternative.
And how the f@#K can you justify killing it just becaus eit can’t support itsself? Hell, why not off the old geezers on meds to live and machines and shit. kill every one that has dyalisis for their kidneys and all the retards ( pardon the laymans terminology, mentaly challenged if you will) that can’t take care of themselves. And cripples and anyone with a communicable disease.
You can’t say yes to part and no to part. Its all or none.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:33 am
It’s difficult to say, I truly value above almost all, our free will and the ability to make decisions for ourselves, without the government deciding for us. obviously in the case of something like murder, it is both reasonable and acceptable for the government to intervene. I believe that telling a woman that the government tells her she can’t have an abortion is wrong because I don’t believe that the government has any right to tell a woman, or anyone for that matter what to do with her body. There are cases such as rape where to have the baby would be to put her through a horrible situation.
Having said all that, I don’t believe any woman should choose to have an abortion. I feel there are too many better ways of making sure you don’t have to raise a child then killing it. Many hospitals will take newborn babies, there are adoption agencies, etc.
So in short, I am strongly against the idea of abortion when other alternatives exist, as they do, but I am also against the government deciding for a woman and their people what is morally right in such a controversial debate. Yes, I think it should be legal, but I don’t think anybody should ever do it.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:34 am
or on the other hand, should abortion become legal, i think the age limit should be extended to 18 years. Until you are an adult and can be held responsible then you should be able to be aborted. It every parents right…isn’t that the argument?
August 1st, 2008 at 6:42 am
Hello, My name is Elsa and I had an abortion.
I am an educated person of reasonable intellect.I am not promiscuous. I was on contraception. I was in a long term relationship. I had counciling before coming to a final decision.
And I thank the heavens that I didn’t have to let the Government decide what choices I had. One generation before me did not have that luxury.
I’ve noticed an extreme amount of stereotyping in people’s thoughts about this subject. And you are welcome to your opinion. Just don’t force your choices on me. You have yours, I have mine. I think that’s the hallmark of a free society.
I was smart enough to know that I was not ready emotionally or financially to provide a flourishing environment for a child at that point in my life.
I am nearly 50, was a virgin until after high school, have had a histroy of long term relationships and have only had 5 partners my entire life. The other women who were with me that day did not fit a single stereotype so far presented. I met women who already had the family they were capable of caring for and failed contraception (no birth control is 100% effective)also led them to make a hard decision. These were women who had followed the rules of society and were still faced with an agonizing choice. As I said I met these women during counciling. I heard the regrets and sadness that they had to work through to come to this decision.
To assume that it’s mainly young teens with no regards for the outcome of heated sex in the back of a car is burying your head in the sand, in my opinion.
This announcement may change some’s opinion of me, but I am ok with that. I know the hours I spent mulling over the different options I had, and I am at complete peace with the choice I made for ME. I also know it would not only have changed my life in a non positive way, but it would have also impacted on the future of the 3 wonderful children I did have a few years later when I was capcable of providing a proper and loving environment without having to rely on the government to foot the bill.
I remember my mother speaking in hushed tones about friends that were lost to botched back alley abortions (these are not a myth) or women who were rendered sterile after having their uterus destroyed, or infection set in ,scaring otherwise healthy tissue, that is if they were lucky to survive. These women were also not teenagers. They were family women who had already had their children, had little or no birth control options and were still expected to have sexual relations with their husbands. The stimgma they faced to try and take care of the children they already had if the abortion was found out was terrible.
Safe controlled abortions should be legal. For those that want to use extreme examples to back up their arguments, continue to do so. You may vote for whatever candidate you choose to have your voice heard at the law making level. I will do the same.
Hello, My name is Elsa, and I had an abortion. I am not ashamed, and know I made the right choice for me and my future family.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:43 am
i am appalled by this site, that i used to love. Anti-abortion and pro-death penalty? I’m not coming back. You guys are extremists. And you hid it well, at first. Don’t insult my intelligence, cause I have one. Adios and f*** o**.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:45 am
Gilles, you say something like that, and expect us to care that you’re leaving us?
August 1st, 2008 at 6:47 am
And Elsa, you’re right, that did change my opinion of you, but in no way for the worse. Thank you for sharing.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:47 am
gilles: so you are pro-baby-murder and anti-murderer-killing? Makes sense. Bye!
August 1st, 2008 at 6:51 am
Uh, Gilles, the differences of opinion here seem to be about even, which is I think a fair reflection of (American, at least) society. Why all the hate?
August 1st, 2008 at 7:06 am
This is deep. I think that abortion should be legal, but only under certain circumstances. It is sad that it is easier to get an abortion, than a credit loan from the bank. It is unfair that many of the fathers are not even informed of the abortions. Why does it just have to be a woman’s choice? I also think that the decision to have an abortion should be one that should not be procrastinated about.. either have the abortion before 12 weeks, or not at all. Year after year, women are becoming less and less “motherly”, and are concentrating more on themselves. Could this be evolution’s solution to population control? Who knows. But I believe that is is better that the baby be aborted, than to grow up in a home where it is unwanted, and possibly abused. I had a co-worker that had an abortion at a young age. Even though it was the best decision for her at the time, she has been tormented by it for her entire adult life. Having 2 wonderful children myself, I am thankful that the decision of abortion never crossed my mind, even though they drive me crazy sometimes. I am happy to be crazy, and in love.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:11 am
Elsa ~ I could not possibly respect you more. Your honesty is admirable and your intentions are clearly good. My mom ran a home daycare throughout my entire childhood. I was able to observe many moms and their varied lives. I watched two loving mothers struggle with this issue. They both ended up pregnant with babies they were told would have severe genetic disorders. One had the child and raised and loved her until she (the child) passed away and the other terminated her pregnancy. Both gave deep thought to their decision and lived with the consequences willingly. My brother was engaged to a lady who used abortion as her chosen form of birth control. She had three pregnancies in her teenage years and her third baby died of SIDS, after which she never wanted to have another baby, yet continued to have unwanted pregnancies. I also worked with a very smart, lovely woman who was a nurse who got pregnant in her thirties, wasn’t ready, had an abortion and now is the happy mom of a son she had when she was ready.
This is called anecdotal evidence.
You bring up a good point, though. True accidental, unintended pregnancy despite careful attention paid to birth control. Sadly, these are the minority of abortions performed, statistically. If abortion were truly limited to cases of rape, incest, life of the mother, I don’t think a debate would even be necessary. It truly would be a decision to be made between a woman and her healthcare provider. But, since this is not the case, someone has to look out for the rights of the baby. I am so sick of hearing about the rights of the mother but completely ignoring the fact that the baby does indeed have rights. Should women be prosecuted for smoking crack or shooting heroin while pregnant? It’s her body, right?
August 1st, 2008 at 7:15 am
Carpe….
thanks for the support. Normally my history is not something I bandy about, but I thought a first person point of view was warranted in this case.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:18 am
Widely-quoted US studies show that some 2% of abortions are for given reasons relating to either the heath of the baby/mother (1.7%) or due to the consequences of rape/incest (0.33%).
As for the other 98% :
- too young/immature/not ready for responsibility (32%)
- economic (21%)
- to avoid adjusting life (16%)
- mother single or in poor relationship (12%)
- enough children already (4%)
[Source : Alan Guttmacher Institute; as also quoted in an earlier comment]
Does kinda imply that there is a tendency to resort to abortion for personal convenience…
FWIW, let me paraphrase Ronald Reagan :
I’ve noticed that all of the people that are for abortion have already been born”.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:20 am
Elsa,
Thank you for sharing your story. You’re right in that so many people stereotype the people who have abortions and don’t understand that it is a very difficult decision. Everyone should read your comment.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:21 am
A woman’s right to choose… It’s a term thrown about a lot in this kind of a debate. So much that it has become merely rhetoric. But if you really think about the term itself, you realize the essence of the pro-choice argument: it is the WOMAN’s right to choose.
It is not the government’s right to choose, it is not society’s right to choose, it is not the male partner’s right to choose. Until these people are smacked in the face with the prospect of
1) gaining 25-30 pounds at the least
2)feeling the pain that goes along with immediate weight gain and carrying a child to term
3)the nausea, heartburn, mood swings
4)loss of ability to work (the majority of women are not able to work into the end of their 3rd trimester)
5)the bleeding for up to 6 weeks after delivery
7)the pain of labor and delivery
8)the loss of sleep while pregnant
9)and the all around inability to sleep anywhere but on your left side… until all others are able to feel the abject fear of possibly being pregnant while being completely unable to have a child, I will not think of them as anything but laymen whose opinion is uneducated at best and misguided and abusive at worst.
I am older now and wiser, I have learned that I personally could not have an abortion. But I know what pregnancy entails and as a woman I know it is not to be taken lightly. Please understand that your right to an opinion, your right to drink alcohol, your right to do drugs or smoke is not diminished even though I don’t think you should do it. Just don’t take away my right to decide what I want to do with my own body be it harmful in your eyes or not.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:37 am
To answer the question put is simple. Yes it should be legal, and yes there should be rules. I realize that the rules are going to be arbitrary, drawing lines in the sand so to speak, but we do it all the time so it really shouldn’t cause all that much trouble. In the first 6 months or so, it should be a private matter between doctor and patient. After that it should be only in cases of dire need. A threat to the mother, rape, incest, and like circumstances.
A better question would be “How come the USA continues to have such a high abortion rate?” Canada’s rate remains at half the US rate. I’ll tell you exactly why. Because at the same time that near half the country wants to restrict women’s right to choose, they also deny their children the necessary education to lower the pregnancy rate.
How many people reading this view share the experience of Ringtail Roxy (Comment #12), no sex-ed until grade 12 and then a cursory glance? Seeing as girls can get pregnant at around 12 years of age, it is a little like closing the barn door after the horse has already left.
You folks ought to have proven to yourselves by now that ignorance about sex prevents no-one from participating in it.
Talk about hypocrisy. Contribute to the problem and then bitch about the consequences.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the considerable resources spent on both the pro-choice and anti-abortion sides of this debate were spent on education of the youngsters? It would be a win-win situation.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:39 am
Kiwi…..statistics can be dry and lifeless and not tell the whole story.I fit 3 of the 5 statistics listed in your example, and I can tell you that in no way did MY personal inconvenience ever come into consideration. There are real people behind those numbers and if you talked with most you will find there’s much more to the story.
You are still welcome to your feelings on the subject, as long as I am still welcome to mine.
I think that’s what anyone who beleives in the right to make a reasoned choice would ask.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:45 am
tempyra: i realize that the child of rape scenario is a popular one but look at this
“A number of studies have shown that pregnancy resulting from rape is very uncommon. One, looking at 2190 victims, reported pregnancy in only 0.6 percent.” (Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution [Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984], p. 283.)
even amongst those numbers, “…in the only major study of pregnant rape victims ever done, Dr. Sandra Mahkorn found that 75 to 85 percent chose against abortion” (Mahkorn, “Pregnancy and Sexual Assault,” The Psychological Aspects of Abortion, eds. Mall & Watts, (Washington, D.C., University Publications of America, 1979) 55-69.)
In 2000, cases of rape or incest accounted for 1% of abortions.(^ Guttmacher Institute,”Induced Abortion Facts in Brief” (2002) (13,000 out of 1.31 million abortions in 2000 were on account of rape or incest)
but forgetting all of these numbers, if this is the lgic we want to use to legalize abortion then we are making a value judgment on which life is more useful/valuable. please tell me that you see the problems inherent in this position. i realize that a slippery slope isn’t always the best argument, but when does this attitude leave crisis pregnancies and enter the world of convenience for the parents. if a parent decides that after 2 years that raising a downs syndrome child is too difficult and the child’s quality of life isn’t that good, could they kill that child?
August 1st, 2008 at 7:49 am
blacksunshine.I am very sorry you had such a terrible experience, but it sounds to me as if it was not YOUR choice. Being bullied into terminating a pregnancy would surely cause anyone mental and emotional anguish.
Have you thought of getting counciling to help ease your guilt and remorse? guilt and remorse that should not be your burden in the first place?
I wish you well and am sorry it was so tramatic for you.I can’t even begin to imagine.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:50 am
wow, I hope this doesnt turn out like the gay marrige one did.
I think it should be an option. So yes.
But only the last option.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:52 am
No except in cases of endangerment to the mother, incest, or rape. Please for one second ignore all of the scientific factual data or numbers and look at the big picture. I personally believe that the “facts or numbers” are a cop out for a decision which is often made out of convenience for the mother or father. Think about the fact that there is a life being created. It is amazing that the human body can do this. Creating a living, breathing, thinking being is truly something that should be valued and not taken for granted, which I feel abortion does. It is not just some statistical data to make you feel better about a “mistake.” The welfare and Medicare is out of control in this country (U.S.), but that it what it is there for. I do not think it is fair to decide on the fate of another innocent human life that can add so much to society. Just my two cents and I will not judge harshly on others opinions. I would much rather someone have an opinion that is different than mine than to be apathetic. (Btw apathy is really a problem that bothers me with people of my generation, I’m 20.) Have a good day!
August 1st, 2008 at 7:52 am
Hannah: Shame on you for showcasing that piece of propagandist crap. Who do you think produced that piece of sensationalist nonsense?
Read this, real doctors. A chief of pediatric neurology even.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/issues-action/abortion/anti-choice-activity/reports/facts-speak-louder-than-silent-scream-6136.htm
August 1st, 2008 at 7:53 am
warningdontreadthis: It won’t – I am closely monitoring – if it gets out of hand I will close comments.
I am trusting people to be respectful!
August 1st, 2008 at 7:54 am
MOM 424 I agree completely.education is the key for teenage pregnancies. But having worked with kids of that age for the last few decades there is a frightening trend that having a baby is “cool” it’s considered an accessory, much like the latest shoes, as well as “company” or a living doll baby. I’m much more concerned with that mindset than a lack of education or the right to be pro choice or against abortion.
But I digress.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:57 am
Yes and what contributes to the mindset? What makes having a kid the best option? A lack of education, or a poor one.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:58 am
Mom424: I have to just remind everyone who the founder of Planned Parenthood was and what she stood for – it was Margaret Sanger – a woman who founded her society on eugenics:
“the most urgent problem of to-day is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” She goes on to say: “possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon Americans”
Item 6 on 10 Books that screwed up the world.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:00 am
True accidental, unintended pregnancy despite careful attention paid to birth control. Sadly, these are the minority of abortions performed, statistically. If abortion were truly limited to cases of rape, incest, life of the mother, I don’t think a debate would even be necessary.
rushfan – firstly, I endorse the concluding parts of your earlier comment (#68), and I wholly agree with the comment above.
As for the “anecdotal evidence” remark you make in #83…right again; and this is a nuance most people miss. Anecdotal evidence is interesting, but adds little to the substance of a debate. There are many, many people who could relate a story similar to, but without the eloquence of, Elsa. I am in no position to judge anybody else, but such tales in the context of this discussion do bring to mind the remark made by the pro-choice activist Kate Michelman regarding the only 3 real reasons for abortion :
rape, incest, and “my situation”.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:04 am
patty; your list of all the bad things that happen during pregnancy is what millions of women all over the world gladly accept daily.
and you forgot the one main reason why they do so, the get the priviledge of bringing new life into the world. ask any mother, most likely yourself, if it was worth it.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:04 am
Elsa, thank you so much for sharing your experience. I was just wondering why you had decided abortion instead of adoption.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:06 am
jfrater; Her comments were taken out of context. I am actually disappointed that you believe the propaganda around Margaret Sanger. I suggest you read this.
http://fundamentalistdeceit.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
August 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
MOM424.I wasn’t dismissing education, simply commenting on a trend that I see. It’s a social issue here in the US that I am disturbed by and at a loss on how to combat.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:12 am
“Abortion takes innocent human life; it’s the ultimate act of murder. So, no.”
http://www.abort73.com
August 1st, 2008 at 8:13 am
DiscHuker: I agree it was worth it. Personally I have never entertained the thought of abortion. I don’t believe that for me it would be an option. But, I am not everyone else, and I don’t have the right to make that decision for anyone else either. Not my body, not my choice.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:14 am
Elsa: Better alternatives. Better education, better opportunities. I would suggest voting Obama a step in the right direction.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:15 am
I think it should be legal. Where I am from, and where I live, not only it is illegal but also others birth control methods are kind of rare (actually, what it happens is that birth control pills are quite expensive, and condoms are not that cheap). We usually don’t have sexual education at school, so unless your family teaches you about contraception methods, you have to learn it the hard way. There are many many teenagers (not only poor, uneducated ones, I’m talking about middle-upper class kids) that believe that the first time you have sex you cannot get pregnant. Or that if you wash yourself after sex, you won’t get pregnant either. And as the abortion is illegal, we have lots of teenagers (and actually little girls, girls of 11 or 12 years old) pregnant or with kids they cannot take care of.
Here we have to get a special authorization from the government to abort (it is legal in certain cases). Last time a woman asked for this (she had a mental disease and was raped by her uncle) the justice took so long to give her the authorization that the baby was born (it was a horrible story actually, and quite controversial, it is said that the judges were influenced by member of the church, that has a great political weight here).
Getting an abortion is quite expensive here, if you don’t want to end up dead or sterile or with a massive infection, so only few people has access to it (ironically, the people who could support a child, at least economically).
However, I think that along with legal abortion, sexual education has to come (so abortions rates can be reduced), as free access to contraceptives and a different view of what a woman is and what her rights are.
As for if the man has the right to make a decision about this? I think it depends on the situation, he has the right to say what he thinks, but I believe the last word has to come from the woman, after all, it is her body and her life what will be more affected.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:17 am
Obviously some people are bringing up very good points. Most people know what they are talking about. However I should like to point out some things.
First of all, I am totally against abortion, for any reason. I am not the type of person who often goes around preaching her belief on things like this, however I feel I must comment on this subject.
To those who are mentioning rape as a reason to abort a child, or a will-be child. It is a fact that during a rape a woman’s body is under so much distress that it is very hard for her to get pregnant by it? It’s true. Now I am NOT saying that this is true in every case, in fact I am sure that this is not true in every case, however I think that those of you who mentioned rape think that pregnancy by rape happens much more often than it actually does.
Also, for those who mentioned teenage girls who might have otherwise might have gone to school and college had they just aborted their baby. Um, if you are talking about 15 year old girls getting pregnant, I am sorry but do you know how much more likely it is for teenage girls who have gotten pregnant once to get pregnant again? Why wouldn’t they? They dont believe in using protection obviously. Now maybe it was a one-time deal with these girls, but in my opnion, if you are old enough to have sex, then you are old enough to take care of the baby that may come along with it.
ok, and what about grown women with familes who want abortions for one thing or another? Well this is a true story that i heard from the source just a couple of years ago:
A women has friends with another woman who had a husband, and three girls. The woman found out that she was pregant again, and when she went to the doctor to find out the sex of her baby, she found out that it was another girl.
Her and her husband wanted a boy, so the woman aborted her child. JUST because it wasnt a boy.
I was almost sick when i heard that. I couldnt believe that abortion was legal when someone could do that to an innocent child.
Im sorry the length of this comment, i greatly appreciate you reading all of it.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:21 am
krysten,
Adoption was definately an option I spent a great deal of time considering. I know me. If I had carried the pregnancy to term I would have had a hard time relinquishing the child to another. And I think that would have haunted me on a daily basis. Is my child healthy, happy, being loved by nuturing parents? Or was my child a last ditch effort for a couple to try and save their marriage, etc, etc. Instead, I chose counciling and an early term abortion. I knew I wouldn’t be able to turn over my child once it was born. And the child would have most likely suffered for my selfish choice. I was not ready emotionally, financially or mentally. As stated above, when I was ready to have children and support them with all my facilties, I was blessed with 3 wonderful children who have grown to become amazing people and contributing members of society. Even in my own household there are pro-choice and pro-life proponents and I give equal weight and the right to opinion to each side. I simply ask the same courtesy in return.
I had another friend who was pregnant at the same time I was with my first child. She chose adoption, well actually, her family chose for her. She is haunted to this day by her choice. That’s been 25 years ago. I am sure there are many that this is a good option for if they want to go through with the pregnancy, but once again it boils down to it has to be the individuals choice, not pressure from society or family.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:30 am
oh, I understand.
Does your family know about your choice?
August 1st, 2008 at 8:32 am
I am going to attempt to make a correlation to something I’ve experienced. Please understand I am in no way trying to make abortion less that it is.
I’ve been hospitalized against my will twice for anorexia. The first time. my doctor at the time called the police to my house and they led me to the hospital as a dnager to myself. I was 17 years old and being treated like a criminal. I was thrown in a bed and force fed through tubes because it was “what was best.” I understand now that I was close to death and it was best for me at the time. However, having all choice and all control over whats happening to your body stripped away from you is the most awful thing I’ve ever felt.
Anyone I’ve ever known who has had an abortion was much like Elsa. They were smart women who weren’t sleeping around and who, in most cases, were on pills or using condoms. Having someone else decide “what’s best” takes people down to their most base level. No one should have the right to control someone else’s body.
I used to think if I got pregnant I could abort. After watching someone very close to me try for years to get pregnant and suffering four miscarriges in the process, I personally couldn’t do it now. I’m also older and more established to the point where I could technically support a child if I ever slipped up.
However, my personal beliefs will never stop me from supporting the right to choose. Your body is your body, and you deserve control over it no matter what.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
absolutely not. if you didn’t want a child, then you should have thought about that before you fooled around with that guy. abortion is a very selfish alternative.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
Laura2,
Thanks for sharing your perspective from living in a society that does not allow “choice’. It’s heartbreaking to hear, but needed to be told.
Thank you
August 1st, 2008 at 8:40 am
Callie:
I think you are spot on.
Of any partner I’ve had, they’ve all said the same thing.
My personal thought is that it’s much better not to bring a child into the world at all than to bring a child into the world who isn’t wanted and who can’t be provided for.
The only stipulation I have on my opinion is that it should be within a reasonable time post-conception.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:40 am
i think a distinction must be made on somethings as to your private experience and your public stance. this is one issue that it is far better to state a general public view than to go on public record w/ details of your own experience. unfortunately people do sit in judgement of other people’s choices and can make sweeping generalizations about the person simply on the basis of one comment they have made about themselves in a public area such as this. it is not right or fair but it will happen. so i would strongly urge anyone to not share personal details that you do not want the public to know or that you do not want to be a matter of comment record for this site. comments may be changed on site but not on the feed. this is an extremely private matter than i would urge people to not share their own personal details about, simply state your public position.
and frankly..this goes for any subject, any comment. consider what you are saying. to whom. and about yourself. and that it will remain for public view.
there is no need for personal testamonials, simply state your opinion.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:40 am
DiskHuker: That millions of people agree in doing something doesn’t make me do it. There’re people who like onions, probably millions of them, and I still hate them. I know an onion is not a baby, but I don’t think that a couple of cells without much organization are a baby either. It’s just a bunch of cells. Ok, those cells can lead to a baby, but also every time I ovulate and don’t get pregnant (because I used a condom or because I didn’t have sex) I am letting a possibility of a child go and nobody considers me a murderer for doing that. So do you (you sound like a man) every time you masturbate.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:43 am
Laura2
That reminds me of a George Carlin joke.
“You don’t call a woman who’s had more than one period a serial killer do you”? “No, so let’s try to use a little consistency in these arguments”!
Not an argument in itself, but a reasonable point.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am
Krysten,
My husband does, but it has never come up with my children. If they ever ask me I will be honest and truthful. I will also support whatever choices they make concerning an unplanned pregnancy,Pro-Choice or Pro-Life, should it ever come up.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am
Completely, you are not taking life; you are taking the potential for life. If you removed the fetus, it could not survive on it’s own. It’s just tissue and growing organs. That is not a person you are killing. Even though it’s sad, and it’s a shame, it’s the same as wearing a condom, taking birth control, or abstaining from sex. It’s taking away potential for life, not life itself.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:48 am
Cyn:
I disagree. Public stances are garnered from private experiences. Someone who posts “I think it should be legal/illegal” should have a reason why they feel that way. The internet is a good outlet for people who may not be able to tell anyone else their secrets anyway. Plenty of people know mine, but that’s immaterial.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:52 am
Cyn,
I understand the point you are trying to make, but such an intense topic brings forth personal opinion, stereotypes, and mis-information -on both sides. I posted my personal experience fully prepared to be flamed. I am not ashamed of my choice or the reasons behind it but felt it important to give a first hand example of someone who did not fit the stereotypes being bandied about in the hopes of showing there is more to the issue than convenience or lack of self control.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:00 am
It must be legal. When the pro-lifer’s which by and large = religious conservative, stop beating and murdering kids and adults when they find out they are gay or transgender, advocating war, pushing the death penalty, then they can talk. Until then shut up and keep your hands out of my womb you fucking hypocrites.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:03 am
frank, it’s not that simple. If every woman in the world had the right to make a decision about where to stop when ‘fooling around with a guy’ then she probably would use a contraceptive method. But we are living in a society (at least I do) where not having sex is not ‘cool’. When I was at what I think you call High School (17 yo) all of my friends had had sex, many of them unprotected (and I repeat, not because coming from a poor background, but because they lacked sexual education). I was mocked because I was still a virgin, and I luckily come from a family where sex is not a taboo, and knew how to stop and say no when I didn’t want to go any further. I actually had a difficult time with my friends (yes, they’re still my friends) but I knew they said those things just because they didn’t want to look stupid, as I did for being a virgin (one thing, I never thought that my virginity was a prize or something like that, but I also knew that I wanted to spend my first time with someone I choose and because I wanted to, not because I didn’t want to be laughed at).
I still think it nearly all a matter of education
August 1st, 2008 at 9:04 am
this is about ‘commentor’s remorse’. i would urge anyone on any list to consider what they are posting publicly. if you can stand by your comment and live w/ the consequences…fine. just stop for a moment to consider that before you hit enter on a topic as intimate and sensitive as this.
personally-
i do not think you necessarily have to justify a stance on this topic ..pro or con…w/ intimate, personal details. simply stating you are for or against would suffice.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:07 am
@ rushfan + Tempyra – ‘If a pregnant woman is murdered, are two people killed? How can we try this case as a double murder if that very same woman could have killed her own baby legally? I don’t see a way to justify this double standard?’
Then you don’t understand how the law, and basic logic works. If I get a tattoo I am making the choice to change my body. Does that give someone the right to drug me, and give me a tattoo against my will? If I choose to cut off my finger and refuse medical treatment (which I have every right to do), should someone else be allowed to chop up my finger against my will? There is a law called The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which protects a woman from violence against her, and her fetus. In the event that a woman is killed along with her VIABLE fetus (ie. if she was 10 weeks pregnant, the fetus wouldn’t be viable), they treat it as a ‘double murder’. This is because the woman obviously had her rights violated. It was her body, and her fetus, and no one has the right to kill her.
Now before you talk about “but what is the doctor doing with an abortion?”, read the law. It clearly states that the woman’s right to terminate her fetus is not challenged. If she seeks the aid of someone to terminate her pregnancy, with her consent they will not be prosecuted.
Also, abortion isn’t legal at every stage of pregnancy. Please provide proof that it is anywhere, or drop that subject.
@ rushfan – ‘Considering the fact that due to the miracles of modern medicine babies are being safely delivered and surviving at earlier and earlier stages of gestation, the age of viability is currently evolving with each successful delivery of every premie baby.’
Except the evidence says you’re wrong.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7390522.stm
‘Babies born at 23 weeks or earlier are no more likely to survive than they were a decade ago, a study has found.’
@ Elsa – I applaud you, and I’m so glad you were able to make the decision that was best for you. People like to forget about the actual women with lives, families, and emotions in this debate. I have friends who have had abortions, one of them being a mother of a small child, and one of which I believe would be dead if she hadn’t aborted. I also agree 100% regarding your comment about teens. Only 19% of all abortions in the USA are performed on teenagers.
@ jfrater – By your logic, no one should by a VW car, because it was created by Hitler. Are you honestly saying Planned Parenthood should be shunned, and not allowed to provide low income women with not only abortions, but sex education, contraception, pap smears, pre, and post natal care, and STD/HIV/AIDS tests? Really? If you have a problem with someone using PP as a method of debunking (for the umpteenth time) pro-life propaganda and inaccurate fetal development, then I’ll point you in the direction of an unbiased website aimed at spreading religious tolerance.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_fetu.htm
@ DiscHuker – While what Patty provided about the effects of pregnancy are correct, she oversimplified. I will provide a link to the effects that are associated with pregnancy. Read through the list, and explain why anyone should be forced to undergo that kind of treatment, for a pregnancy they don’t want. Any of the effects can happen at ANY time with little to no warning. One minute a woman can have a healthy pregnancy, the next she’s dead. It happens that quickly. Pregnancy should never be forced on anyone. To do so not only reduces women to nothing more than incubators, but it cheapens the women who made the choice to give birth, and raise children.
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/004.htm
August 1st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Regardless of modern-day abuse of abortions, it should absolutely be legal.
When someone is raped, or protection fails, how is it justifiable that they should not have access to abortion, when a fetus is not capable of existing outside the body of the mother, and not technically a human?
Also, when a mother has no intention of stopping a drug or alcohol habit, bringing a baby into the world is unfair. It will almost certainly suffer greatly.
The most important factor validating abortion as a necessary thing for me is that people abort because they are not ready to raise a child, and deal with the stigma that pregnancy has in our society. Perhaps in an ideal society women would not suffer in the workplace and in social matters as they do when pregnant, regardless of marital status. The fact is, we do not need unwanted, neglected, and poorly raised children plaguing our society. Statistically, odds are poor that they will grow to be productive members of society when born to a 14 year old with a crack dealer for a babydaddy.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:17 am
My answer on this one has to be yes, abortion should be legal. Of course with regret.
I’ve never been happy about taking a stance on this issue. I’ve mentioned here before that during my life I’ve crossed over the boundaries of the political spectrum; in my early youth, I was rabidly liberal. Then in my early twenties, while in college, I swung over to the right. This was the result of the times, and my age, and the culture. I was part of a generation looking for a distinct break with it’s older siblings’ or parents’ left-leaning tendencies… in other words, we were looking for anyway to define ourselves that was “anti-hippie.” So I became a College Republican and a Reaganite, and worshiped at the altar of William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater. It never really sunk in wholly—I retained a brain and a sense of balance and I was of course no religious conservative; consequently I remained hostile to religious interference in politics, and I remained in favor of gun control and never really felt comfortable about opposing abortion. (You might wonder how I was therefore in any way conservative, beyond fiscal considerations, but trust me, I was, and I’m just too ashamed to go into all of it now). In time my political orientation was tempered–I had wanted a radical conservatism that would help the poor to better their position and so on, and I saw those ideals betrayed more and more by Reagan’s followers and successors (and indeed perhaps Reagan himself never really held those ideals, and Buckley, I think, was incapable of understanding many of them… perhaps Goldwater did, but who knows) and so some time later I began to move back to the center and finally a bit more to the left, where I am now. In all that time my thoughts on abortion changed barely at all.
And this made me realize–abortion really isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a political issue. Or at least it shouldn’t be used as such–it shouldn’t be so cheapened. It has too much gravity surrounding it for that. It can be, depending on the circumstances, a necessity, a convenience, a tragedy… it can be abhorrent and can also be not only understandable but imperative. (When the mother’s life is threatened, for instance). But it’s never as simple, I think, as politically it’s made out to be.
I understand people who oppose abortion on religious or other principled reasons; I could never be one of those in the crowd who shouts down such people just as I could never join the opposition in doing the shouting. But… I do think it’s wrong to try to make abortion illegal.
It isn’t only simply a matter of a woman’s choice. That’s a huge argument in and of itself. But involved in this are also some unpleasant facts about the life we human beings live on this world of ours, in the relatively brief time we have. Being intelligent and aware, we think of there being something deeply sacred and sacrosanct about our lives. Surely to some extent there is. Certainly there’s something vital and mysterious and powerful to us, about our human lives, and we don’t always restrict these feelings to ourselves as individuals or our immediate loved ones. We’re social creatures and we have some understanding and compassion and empathy with our fellow humans–we recognize on some gut level the single boat we’re all in when it comes to the nature of life and its brevity. We don’t like to think about death… and many of us choose to believe that there is life after death, so that we can cling to the notion that somehow we carry on. I don’t say this is wrong. I happen to not believe it myself, but I confess I wish it were so sometimes. But all of this colors our view of Life. We don’t like to get near considerations that sometimes life is less expedient and vital than *not* being alive. We tend to more often ask the question (and probably rightly so) that goes, “who are we to decide who should die?” And life being precious and wonderful, it’s a good question to ask. But sometimes the opposite is also a good question, and strangely just as vital in some ways: “who are we to decide who should live?” Or “who are we to decide that a life *must* be, that a life *must* happen?” On the face of it we don’t like to face that question, and some people will dismiss it, even. But it really is just as important and vital.
When a life is created, it isn’t only an abstract–”human life.” It can become, in time, far more complex. Usually this is the reason people bring up for opposing abortion. But thought about another way, it also become problematic. Who, after all, will look after that life? What sort of life will that person have? What life is it without parental love? With possible abuse and neglect in it? With tragedy? No matter what these aren’t easy questions. Many people who are anti-abortion walk away from these questions. They don’t answer them. And yet, one wonders–if a life is saved and allowed to continue–will those people who saved it be there to save it again, when it’s being neglected or hurt? The one difference between a person and a fetus that is more or less certain is that one possesses awareness that grows in time–the other much less so, if at all. And if one is to face a life of misery or even torture… then an ending while awareness is still small is, perhaps, a kindness. In the grand scheme of things.
It is, again, not an easy question either way. We can only observe that an unwanted child remains, usually, unwanted.
Unfortunately for us, life is all about hard questions like this. That’s the one sucky thing about being alive.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:18 am
@ Callie – I’m very sorry to hear that, but I know what you mean. I’ve dealt with clinical depression since my early teens (I’m now in my 20’s and still deal with it every single day), and at my lowest point I tried to commit suicide. When I was at the hospital I felt like I was under arrest. No one looked me in the eye, they left me alone for hours in a dark room, and the nurses were far from the caring people they should have been. When I was given injections, they acted like they didn’t care if I was in pain or not, and just jabbed at me. It was one of the lowest points in my life, yet they found a way to make it worse. They made me wish I’d succeeded in my attempt.
So when I hear people say I should just deal with getting pregnant, regardless of the effects it’ll have on me mentally (ignoring physically, as I have conditions that would reek havoc on my body if I was pregnant), it hurts, and makes me feel like nothing more than an animal. Hell, even animals are treated better if they are unable to handle pregnancy. Being told I shouldn’t make love to the man I want to spend my life with, because someone else thinks I should keep all pregnancies and be grateful, is like reducing me to a walking womb.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:18 am
If you abort a baby you should be aborted with it, end of story. Everyone knows the consequences of sex and there is always an alternate solution to abortion. It’s comparable to suicide, taking the easy way out just cause you can’t handle the baby. Unless you live in Africa and the baby will be born with AIDS or live a malnourished life, end up as a slave, or something along those lines, I can’t even begin to fathom the idea of someone aborting a pregnancy. Forget the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy, that kid could grow up to be the most influential person in the world or at the least live a long a fruitful life whether it’s with you or another family or is dying to adopt a child.
Has anyone seen the movie Idiocracy? The only argument I can think of for abortion is that movie. All the dumb people in the world have all the babies cause the smart people are too busy to. Eventually everyone turns dumb and society falls apart.
All the smart people with money will be having the abortions while the lower class people who can’t afford it have to keep their babies (unless they throw them into a dumpster after birth).
August 1st, 2008 at 9:19 am
#
119. CFEstes – August 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am
Completely, you are not taking life; you are taking the potential for life. If you removed the fetus, it could not survive on it’s own. It’s just tissue and growing organs. That is not a person you are killing. Even though it’s sad, and it’s a shame, it’s the same as wearing a condom, taking birth control, or abstaining from sex. It’s taking away potential for life, not life itself.
The same can be said for terminally ill people, mentally challenged, and people of life support IE: kidney dialysis and hospitalized people in a coma. Should we kill them too?
August 1st, 2008 at 9:23 am
Yes, it should be legal. At least during the first trimester. This world is already overpopulated, and there are a lot of unwanted children already, so why bring more to this world.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:26 am
I feel pretty strongly about this issue, and I’m pro-CHOICE. I like to say if you don’t like abortions, then don’t have one. My body, my choice. Your body, your choice.
I think if the father wants to keep the baby and the mother doesn’t, she should gladly let him carry it. Oh that’s right, guys don’t come equipped with a uterus, therefore they must own ours. I forgot.
If you’re so concerned about the wellbeing of the fetus, open up a fetus orphanage.
I get sarcastic and sort of snarky on this topic, it irritates me to no end that people who have NO BUSINESS telling others what to do are trying to make likely one of the biggest decisions of one’s life for them.
This is going to sound really mean, but I think I’d rather see people having abortions than people having kids on the government’s dime. I’m tired of seeing people making procreation a career. It’s a perpetual cycle, their kids grow up to do the same thing, because that’s all they know.
How about we educate the people we have living here now?
(Tara, I agree with you wholeheartedly.)
August 1st, 2008 at 9:30 am
I think it should be 100% legal. No terms. No limits. I still can not believe that there are people who think otherwise. It is NO one’s business but the woman.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:31 am
The alternative to legal abortion is illegal abortion.
End of.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:31 am
@ B_Rad – ‘If you abort a baby you should be aborted with it, end of story.’
That proves you have no actual sympathy towards the fetus, but you have a problem with a woman having sex. Please explain how having an abortion is ‘the easy way out’, when women have to deal with comments like yours? In case you weren’t aware, women in the USA, UK, and Canada are being used as slaves, both for work, and sex. The risk of poor, and minority women contracting the AIDS virus is on the rise, due to sub-par sexual education and the lack of access to birth control. In 2006, 9.9% of people in the USA were living below the poverty line. Of those 7.7 million people, 2.9 million were married, where as 23.8% were single women/female householders.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/010583.html
Please explain why you have to live in Africa before you have some kind of help, when the minority women in the USA are being screwed over by their government?
August 1st, 2008 at 9:32 am
“From a philosophical perspective I also wonder whether we would have a cure for AIDS and other diseases now if someone hadn’t aborted the child that was going to ultimately find the cure.”
I wonder how much more widespread AIDS and other diseases would be if we had a greater number of poor, uneducated and to some extent unwanted children in the world to spread them.
Should abortion be legal? Absolutely yes. If there are issues about how it is being used then they SHOULD be cleared up by our governments giving more than a half-arsed sexual education to schoolkids. Abortion being made illegal is like curing a headache by cutting off the head.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:33 am
129. B_Rad
First of all, intelligence is not necessarily genetic, and to a large degree, nature vs. nurture takes control in that particular matter.
Secondly, is an unwanted child, raised in a family that cannot provide the material things, not to mention love and belonging that a child needs to flourish, more likely to grow up ‘to be the most influential person in the world or at the least live a long a fruitful life’ or to go in a different, darker direction?
At this point, I’m willing to bet your answer is adoption. Many children suffer emotionally from adoption, regardless of when they find out. Also, what about a baby born to a mother who drank throughout the pregnancy? An FAS child has very little chance at a fulfilling, healthy and most importantly happy life.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:35 am
TO say that a woman isn’t “big enough” to take care of a child produced from a rape shows your ignorance of the mentality of human beings. Why would you want to have something you had no say in. It’s like the government telling you that you did nothing wrong but you will also be punished. Is that right? And I see everyone writing that it is due to unprotected sex. All sex that is “protected” has at least a 0.1 chance of producing a fertilized egg. Also, I think that if women knew there bodies better or were at least encourage by society to learn about themselves then we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.
A woman can only get pregnant at a certain time frame every month…let’s just not have sex then. I think that’s doable.
But even so, abortion should be completely illegal because its not impeding on anyones life but the woman’s. If the woman told no one she was pregnant or didn’t know she was pregnant and go a hysterectomy, would you say that was an abortion. Trying to control women is what the government, which is run by men, has been doing for the last 200 years.
Better decision making is the key to this problem and teaching people how to do so is the solution. A person shouldn’t have to pay for some small slip up which produces nothing. On the far side of things, what if a woman becomes pregnant from a rape and doesn’t tell anyone that she was raped then the man decides he wants partial custody. Should he be allowed to do that? Termination of pregnancy doesn’t kill anything that is, only something that could be. That’s just like imprisoning a the next man to cure cancer because he hit a pedestrian with his car. It’s not what will happen, but what is happening. When it comes to changing the entire course of your life with one decision, how can you fault someone for playing it safe and not taking the risk?
August 1st, 2008 at 9:36 am
Correction: Abortion should be legal…then the rest
August 1st, 2008 at 9:37 am
@ longball – ‘The same can be said for terminally ill people, mentally challenged, and people of life support IE: kidney dialysis and hospitalized people in a coma. Should we kill them too?’
Fetus – It’s life depends on a human being, who runs the risk of infertility, permanent paralysis, and even death.
Coma/dialysis patient – They are hooked up to a machine.
Mentally challenged – They are not dependent on another human’s body.
Terminally ill patient – Is being kept alive by machines, and in Oregon, can choose to die with the help of a doctor.
Unless you believe people should be forced to donate kidneys, or have a person surgically attached to them, a fetus and those other people are not even close to being the same.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:38 am
I didn’t read all the comments, so excuse me if I am repeating. Abortion has to be legal because it will always be “available.” People used to have abortions before it was regulated and infection was high and death could be a consequence. Women will ALWAYS have abortions legal or not. Better to keep it legal and safe than have it done in dirty places by uneducated people posing as doctors to make some money off some scared desperate woman. Making it illegal is a power issue.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:40 am
I’m from Canada and am a dual Canadian/American citizen, and I can honestly say, I get such little pleasure from visiting the States anymore it’s very sad. It has basically become a dumbed down, blinkered, theocracy. This debate is about something bigger. I don’t know of very many people in Canada (or I should probably say Vancouver more specifically) that wouldn’t be pro-choice. Of those that would be staunch pro-lifers, they hold this (wrong) belief due to strong religious views. So what’s the real issue here? I see it more as a separation of church and state. I am horrified at how religious America has become and am appalled that there is such a heated debate that is so obviously just a weak facade over the issue of this insane neo-crusade.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Looking at some of the comments of males, I find this to be more and more outrageous, and an infuriating example of unwillingness to recognize that it takes two to tango.
‘If you don’t want a child then you should not be having unprotected sex, and if you still do then you should have to live with the consequences.’
Any sexually active men in here willing to give up sex because they don’t want a baby? Nope, it’s all on the one with the uterus to abstain, OR make sure there is protection, and deal with the consequences if it happens to fail.
Until that attitude changes, or men are able to successfully carry children, there is absolutely no reason that they should get any bloody input.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:46 am
“It is not the government’s right to choose, it is not society’s right to choose, it is not the male partner’s right to choose. Until these people are smacked in the face with the prospect of
1) gaining 25-30 pounds at the least
2)feeling the pain that goes along with immediate weight gain and carrying a child to term
3)the nausea, heartburn, mood swings
4)loss of ability to work (the majority of women are not able to work into the end of their 3rd trimester)
5)the bleeding for up to 6 weeks after delivery
7)the pain of labor and delivery
8)the loss of sleep while pregnant
9)and the all around inability to sleep anywhere but on your left side… until all others are able to feel the abject fear of possibly being pregnant while being completely unable to have a child, I will not think of them as anything but laymen whose opinion is uneducated at best and misguided and abusive at worst.”
Because, of course, all of those things are SIGNIFICANTLY more tragic than the death of an innocent human being. *eyeroll*
When it comes to abortion there is only one valid question: Is it human or not. Nobody would support killing a newborn because his father was a rapist. Or because her mother had to quit her job. And God forbid we should bring up the possibility that all the retarded and handicapped should be put out of their misery at their parents’ whim.
In other words, no, abortion should not be legal under any but the most unthinkable of circumstances (IE as an absolute last resort to save the life of the mother.) Nobody has the “right to choose” whether an innocent human being lives or dies.
Susan B. Anthony is rolling over in her grave at the thought that this sort of abomination has become the litmus test for whether one can be considered a “feminist” these days.
———-
Mom424 said, “jfrater; Her comments were taken out of context. I am actually disappointed that you believe the propaganda around Margaret Sanger. I suggest you read this.”
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/3003757?n=2&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25
“Those least fit to carry the race are increasing most rapidly.”
“Many of the children thus begotten are sub-normal or feeble-minded.”
“Funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are diverted to the maintenance of those who lower it.”
And that’s just from the first paragraph!
That’s not “taken out of context.” That’s not “misquoted propaganda.” That’s directly from the primary source! Margaret Sanger was an unapologetic eugenicist. Whether or not she was racist is still open for debate (although the ABCL certainly had no hesitations about giving them a platform for their views.)
“The emergency problem of segregation and sterilization must be faced immediately. Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary type, especially of the moron class, should be segregated during the reproductive period. Otherwise, she is almost certain to bear imbecile children, who in turn are just as certain to breed other defectives. The male defectives are no less dangerous. Segregation carried out or one or two generations would give us only partial control of the problem. Moreover, when we realize that each feeble-minded person is a potential source of an endless progeny of defect, we prefer the policy of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded.”
“But in its so-called “constructive” aspect, in seeking
to reestablish the dominance of healthy strain over the unhealthy, by urging an increased birth-rate among the fit, the Eugenists really offer nothing more farsighted than a “cradle competition” between the fit and the unfit.”
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/8/1689/1689.txt
Tell me what kind of “context” justifies this sort of filth? It amazes me that people can consider Carrie Buck a tragic case and Margaret Sanger a hero without their heads exploding from the contradiction. Sanger would have been the first in line to support Buck’s sterilization, and any attempt to claim otherwise is willful blindness at best.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:47 am
Sorry, I had some formatting errors. The last two quotes come from the second link.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:47 am
@ nerdlette – I agree with you regarding adoption, but I would like to add the fact that minority children are far less likely to find a home, than those born to white people. When you take into account the fact that the majority of women who are having abortions are low income minorities, you get an idea of just how many children would be left to rot in the system (which is highly racist, and ageist).
August 1st, 2008 at 9:48 am
#
140. Reaper – August 1st, 2008 at 9:37 am
@ longball – ‘The same can be said for terminally ill people, mentally challenged, and people of life support IE: kidney dialysis and hospitalized people in a coma. Should we kill them too?’
Fetus – It’s life depends on a human being, who runs the risk of infertility, permanent paralysis, and even death.
Coma/dialysis patient – They are hooked up to a machine.
Mentally challenged – They are not dependent on another human’s body.
Terminally ill patient – Is being kept alive by machines, and in Oregon, can choose to die with the help of a doctor.
Unless you believe people should be forced to donate kidneys, or have a person surgically attached to them, a fetus and those other people are not even close to being the same.
Hey, i’m from Oregon and I hate that law. I’m just saying that just because they can’t take core of them selves without someones help (ie: Mother, caretaker, machine, whatever) that doesn’t mean you should kill them
August 1st, 2008 at 9:52 am
854,122 legal induced abortions (2003)
Top five reasons (Wikipedia) on why women have abortions
25.5% Want to postpone childbearing
21.3% Cannot afford a baby
14.1% Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy
12.2% Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy
10.8% Having a child will disrupt education or job
No wonder this country is in the shape it’s in. Seems selfish to me but that’s just my opinion. No shouldn’t be legal.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
@ 147. Eddie – http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
• The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.[8]
So it’s ’selfish’ for a woman who knows she can’t provide a decent home for a child, to abort? It’s ’selfish’ for a woman to feel she’s too young, and can’t provide for a child? It’s ’selfish’ for a woman to think of the future of her possible child, and that of her born children (as 60% of women obtaining abortions already have at least one child), and act accordingly? Wow, I guess a hell of a lot of people in this world are selfish. I hope you donate a lot of your money to charity, and do a hell of a lot of volunteer work.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
Can you people not worry about your own bodies? I love how people have all these high faulting moral reasons why abortion is bad, but they offer no real substance other than they do not like it. Good, do not get one.
You want to live in a theocracy do so, you choice, I won’t stop you. This country is not one however, its a goddamn Constitutional Republic. You do not get to complain that there is too much gov’t intervention in our lives then tell others how to live theirs.
The beautiful thing about choice is that you get yours too. Choose not to, hell, hate me for my beliefs. I encourage you to despise and decry me, but do not think yourself special enough to legislate my body.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:07 am
GettyB: You said “A woman can only get pregnant at a certain time frame every month…let’s just not have sex then. I think that’s doable.” That is NOT true. There are women who ovulate at different times of her period each time, women who ovulate twice a month (it used to be my case), and spermatozoids live a wide range of time, depending on the man and woman (I know a case where they lived more than two weeks).
So abstaining from sex during certain days is not an option (of course is doable, but it’s highly likely that you get pregnant). I had a friend that being on pills and even using a condom got pregnant. For a lot of personal and economical reasons she decided to have an abortion, unfortunately, she didn’t have the money to do it in a private clinic (it costs around 2000 dollars, more than what I make a month (I’m a scientist)). Unfortunately, she died.
Lots of girls die because they had a cheap abortion. If abortion was legal, it would save literally thousands of lifes.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
nerdlette: “Any sexually active men in here willing to give up sex because they don’t want a baby? Nope, it’s all on the one with the uterus to abstain, OR make sure there is protection, and deal with the consequences if it happens to fail.”
No condom, no pill, no contraceptive whatsoever…no sex. Maybe I’m the only responsible male around but if a dude doesn’t man up and take responsibility if he gets a woman pregnant then that guy needs to be neutered with a dull knife.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
I don’t think anybody should have a negative view on this until they find themselves in that position.
Personally, I am pro-choice, but I doubt I could go through with an abortion.
My best friend had one at 19, and it hasn’t bothered her at ALL, so saying it mentally affects all women simply is not true.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
This is a very touchy subject, especially for me, because unlike some of the people posting here (I’m not saying no one has, but some of you HAVEN’T), I have lived through the emotional turmoil of an unwanted pregnancy. My son was NOT conceived in a consensual manner. It has taken me months and months of expensive therapy to even be able to sit here and write about my experience, but to be blunt I was drugged, beaten, and sexually assaulted while staying over at a friend’s dorm.
It is difficult for me to sit here and read people condemning those who have considered or had an abortion, calling us “murderers” and whatnot. Personally, I struggled for weeks over whether or not to abort my pregnancy — ultimately, I decided that emotionally and physically stable or not, I couldn’t go through with it, and I am now the proud mother of a beautiful five-month-old son. Granted, I was nearly done with my education, I had excellent job prospects, and a family that was willing to help me heal and become the mother I needed to be. Not everyone who is put into my position has that.
So my personal view? Abortion should not be made illegal. Whether or not it is morally wrong (which I have believed my entire life), it is not fair to put a woman through a pregnancy she is not willing to go through. Pregnancy is difficult. Child birth is scary. The fear that you might not love your child because he may look like your attacker is terrifying. Yes, adoption is always an option, and no, foster children do not automatically turn out bad, but some women can’t even make it through the entire pregnancy, and it is not fair to force her to do so.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:15 am
Well I have read most of the self-righteous comments posted and I must say the sentimentality is a little silly. I feel that its immoral to ban something that a woman or couple feel so strongly needs to be done. The only reason that having children is encouraged and abortion is discouraged is because of modern society’s “growth mentality” which so strongly encourages us to get a higher population in order to create more customers. This way of thinking is also encouraged by religions, because if Christians (for example) have children, they make more Christians. More Christians mean more money for the Church. Thats why religions don’t like gay marriage, abortion or contraception. Wake up. The people who go around saying it should be illegal because “it’s a life” are the same people having steak or chicken for dinner tonight, guaranteed.
The earth does not need more people and if anything could do with a lot less. Besides that if abortion became illegal it would lead to illegal practioners who could not be regulated by the government and could cause the death of the people who would feel compelled to utilize their services. The teenaged girl who had a condom break? check. The woman who makes $7/hr ringing groceries? check. The woman who would be killed in her country for premarital sex? check. I would rather have people with established lives with friends and family and careers then countless children who were born out of moral guilt or law restrictions, whom may suffer from many serious problems due to the fact that they ‘had to’ be born to a teenage mother or a single woman who can barely support herself. AND before you play the adoption card, remember, we don’t need any more people around!
August 1st, 2008 at 10:15 am
@ jfrater – Seeing as you have no responded to the people who have provided evidence to counter your claims, I’d like to you take a look at this blog post, which explains exactly why pro-lifers do not care for the well being of the fetus, but are actually protesting women having healthy, NORMAL sex lives.
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/03/21/why-its-difficult-to-believe-that-anti-choicers-mean-what-they-say/
Also, I realised I didn’t address your last statement of your original post.
‘[...]but I think that society is better equipped to deal with that situation if it were to arise again.’
Two words. Darfur, Rwanda.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:25 am
@ B_Rad:
‘Maybe I’m the only responsible male around but if a dude doesn’t man up and take responsibility if he gets a woman pregnant then that guy needs to be neutered with a dull knife.’
…And then what? Will that make him help pay and care for the child? I’m glad you are safe when sexually active, but a lot of men aren’t. And when they bugger off and do nothing to support the woman they made a child with, who’s willing to help? You?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:29 am
are you kidding? this seems like an easy, dumb way to stir up debate on the site. i don’t come here to read about people’s arguments for or against the legalization of abortion. i come here to read awesome lists.
my biggest problem with posts like this is that is leads to the polarization of visitors.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
Okay, I read several, but not all of teh comments, which is not normal for me, but I just see things going around in circles. I personally don’t think I could ever have an abortion, I probably wouldn’t unless the pregnancy was going to kill me. However, that is my CHOICE, and I don’t have the right to make that choice for any other woman. There are certain circumstances such as risk to the health of the mother, product of rape/incest, etc, where I think abortion should be allowed absolutely if that’s what the woman wants. I do think that abortion is overused as a form of birth control. However, I also know that abortions will happen whether they are legal or not, whether it’s some skeezy back-alley doc, or a woman starving herself or throwing herself down the stairs to induce a miscarriage, it’s gonna happen. So I am pro-choice, I say it’s better to have the abortions carried out properly by a licensed doctor in clean & safe conditions, potentially saving the life of the mother, than in an alley with a rusty wire hanger.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:39 am
@ 148. Reaper
I respect your opinion but disagree. Yes I feel it’s selfish. I feel as that life begins at contraception so abortion is taking away an innocent life that did not have a choice in the matter. I think it’s ironic that pro-choice is pro women’s or mother’s choice and not pro-unborn child without a voice choice. But we can argue until we are blue in the face and it probably will not change either of our minds. See my post at #93. I respectfully disagree with your opinion but support your right to have one.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:42 am
@ 159.Eddie
Do you eat meat?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:50 am
Phender Bender: “anyone who hates their own flesh and blood is (again, in my opinion) sick in the head. The kid may be half rapist, but he’s also half you”
That’s like saying that if someone came along and cut your arm and you bled onto the person that cut you that y’all belong together or someshit. If a person gives you no choice in the beginning, what makes it okay to not have a choice in the end. Oh yeah, hating your own flesh and blood…did you think about person that get abused sexually or physically by their parents, uncles, cousins. Do you think Oprah loves all the people that raped her when she was young? FLesh and blood don’t mean anything.
I would have to press the fact that when it becomes about your life…the only thing you really have…there are no rash decisions. That like saying a person trying to kill you has the right to because he has the potential to not be a killer once you are dead. And to some women, that’s what being forced to have a child you don’t want, can’t support, and won’t love feels like; death. What happens to the 13-yr old girl that gets pregnant by her biological father?–And just to let you know that’s a real story. He school called the police on the dad when she told him and a judge said that not only did she have to live with the dad, but she COULDn’t live with someone else since he was her only guardian. THat girl has two kids/siblings by her father and that judge, luckily, was disbarred.
“Well, it’s a living being that;s growing inside you” says a lot of people…let me direct you to CANCER, all of them. But because these cells have potential they should get to live…And the same people are against Stem Cell Research, which are…survey says…cells with potential to help already living people.
The fight against abortion is deep seated in the fact that human believe life to be a precious thing…but we still have the death penalty…but don’t those same people have the potential to be good citizens when given the chance.
A woman is more cognizant of everything that goes on in her body, so much that men don’t have the mental capacity to understand what a PMS and bloating feels like every month. How being told that you must suffer if you take the chance of having sex with someone you love and end up pregnant.
I say that if abortion is to be made illegal, every man that gets a woman pregnant that doesn’t live or support her, must pay child support. None of that shit about her making too much money to need it. She doesn’t have a choice in something that y’all both did, and then neither does he.
70% of all kids born nowadays are out of wedlock…so what;s that going to do to the economy.
Also, if making abortion illegal is an answer to keeping potential children alive at conception, then chemical castrastion, or vascetomies should be given to every man that doesn’t play by the rules and impregnates multiple women and isn’t there a father figure. That would most definitely remove the need for abortion when there is no possibility of conception…Sounds like that’s the real answer since a man can impregnate as many women as possible but a woman can only be pregnant at once in a 9-month time frame. One womans impregnator can be the same as 100 other women, but the mother is only the mother to one child, from one man at a time.
CHemical castration…the wave of the future.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:51 am
Yes
August 1st, 2008 at 10:57 am
jadester*I just read your previous post and wow. I’m not even going there. I do not even want to humor you. BTW I believe contraception is a great thing and should definitely be practiced much more and promoted worldwide but abortion is not a means of contraception. Why wouldn’t I eat meat? It’s a means for sustaining human life, unlike abortion, so I do not see an argument there. I’m out.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:01 am
B_Rad
If you abort a baby you should be aborted with it, end of story
Unless you live in Africa and the baby will be born with AIDS or live a malnourished life, end up as a slave, or something along those lines.
People who think like this are still pro-choice. TRUE pro-life is such a difficult stance to take because it seems like there’s always an “unless.” You may think abortion is abhorrent and that the only women who get them are dirty uneducated whores. That’s not true at all, but I suppose you’re entitled to think that way. However, your statement only serves to shine a light on why abortion needs to be legal. There needs to be a safe, sterile legal way for all these “unless-es” to not bear children, therefore it needs to be a legal practice.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:04 am
Well it just is very in line with your “taking away and innocent life” and “the one without a voice choice”. If you are so strong in your convictions about taking away an innocent life then why would not the same kind of morality be extended for animals? I know lots of people who don’t eat meat inclduding myself who sustain their lives just fine. It’s not a good arguement.
I don’t expect you to write back since you said “I’m out” but I did want to point out your hypocrisy. Sorry if my thinking scares you.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:04 am
previous post ^ is at eddie.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am
159. Eddie – ‘I think it’s ironic that pro-choice is pro women’s or mother’s choice and not pro-unborn child without a voice choice.’
Irony doesn’t mean what I think you think it means. To give a fetus rights is to take away the rights of born humans. If a born human can’t use another person’s body to sustain their life, then why is it ok for a fetus? If a fetus is the same as a born human, and deserves the same rights, then you should either a) acknowledge a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, or b) support mandatory organ donation for the living, and the dead.
The reasons that support a woman’s right to choose, also protect you from having your blood type in a government database, that allows the highest bidder to find you and demand you give them blood/marrow/organs.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:11 am
…pro-lifers do not care for the well being of the fetus, but are actually protesting women having healthy, NORMAL sex lives. [ Link to amptoons.com ]
Gee Reaper…at least you’re not just pointing jfrater to a biased (feminist-activist) blog;
Oh wait…it is a feminist activist site!
Here’s a sampler “it’s my intention that most of the discussions here be dominated by feminist and lefty views.” http://www.amptoons.com/blog/to-anti-feminist-mens-right-activist-and-right-wing-guests/
Hmmm…never mind, it could have been worse; it could have been the front for a bunch of porn sites.
Oh wait….bizarrely, it is!
A comment on the sale of amptoons : “Critics of the sale were horrified that a feminist website was connected to pornography, especially of the Bang. Bros style where exploitation is celebrated at every turn.”
http://adonismirror.com/08152007_leader_amptoons_porn.htm
http://easypersiflage.com/blameforum/index.php?topic=5339.0
August 1st, 2008 at 11:11 am
and I’m sorry but that whole “what if the kid grew up to be a superhero and cured cancer and found atlantis!!?!?” argument is about the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard. What if he grew up and became a crackhead kiddie rapist? What-ifs won’t ever help this argument.
Plus, everyone on this board was born, none of us have cured cnacer, found atlantis, become crackheads, or raped kids (I’m guessing on those last two). Chances are any aborted fetus would grow up and be just like us.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:13 am
“And rape is not an excuse, the baby did nothing wrong. Show me a woman who wouldn’t love and take care of her child she grew inside her body for 9 months! If you can, she has some serious mental issues”
Umm, Yeah…that’s why people with mental issues aren’t allowed to have kids.
And if you do have some mental issues that become unseated when you get pregnant then you are obviously at risk of post pardum depression and of doing harm to your baby.
It’s not that hard…oh yeah, what if you get pregnant and the man has AIDS, give you AIDS, and you have a baby with AIDS and is mentally retarded, physically retarded, both. THere may not be a rapist gene but there are things that genetically make people delusional and make them become serial killers and kill yo ass. Do you really want to take the chance when you didn’t even get to know the man?
That’s why we get the vagina and uterus, so we can weed out all the bad traits that we don’t want our kids to have. FUcking fight or flight…Darwin anyone. Because the way some of you are talking sounds like you’ve jumped right out of the worst parts of the Bible…which we all know can get pretty bad.
Oh yeah, for the person that said that you ovulate at various points in the month…a woman that a) knows her body, b) gets to know her body, and c) gets the chance to know her body without it being invaded by some potential life, will be able to show the signs of ovulation. But I do agree with you, but responsibility and knowledge are the preventative measure that we need to take so that we don’t have to go under some procedure to fix a wrong that we could have avoided. Just like understanding your body when a comprising situation happens like landing a back flip, preparation, practice, and knowledge about what you are doing needs to come before the need for back surgery.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:23 am
I think everyone should watch videos of abortions. From early in the pregnancy to third trimester abortions…quite the experience. Funny you should say that, I have a cousin who is a dirty uneducated whore and she has had a couple abortions. But no, that’s not the case for everyone, not at all.
I used that “unless” as a way to show that we do not live in a third world country, there just aren’t any excused to have an abortion other than the woman doesn’t want to have it for one selfish reason or another. And I say selfish cause it’s in the best interest of the woman…is it not?
The world is the way it is though. For this subject, it will be a neverending cycle. All we’re all gonna do is go back and forth but does it really matter? There’s really no point in all of this. I’ll follow Ron Paul and say it should be left up to the states to decide.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:23 am
heatherrr: Then don’t read the Your View threads.
This isn’t about being entertained by reading other’s arguments, its about jumping into the fray and entertaining yourself by having a stimulating conversation. If you are unable to do that, stick to the lists.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:30 am
Not if the woman believes it’s in the best interest of the child for her not to be it’s mother. Then it’s a difficult, and unselfish choice to make.
If we let the law take over out bodies, tell me where it ends? Should we outlaw obese people from eating because they’re killing themselves? Should we outlaw pregnant women from driving because they could crash and kill the baby? Should we outlaw all sex in general because it’s specifically for baby-making?
Something tells me everyone on here who isn’t a virgin has had sex for fun. Safely, unsafely, whatever. If it was safe, should we make the pill and condoms illegal because they prevent the conception of new life? That’s stopping a life that never started.
Yes, these are silly, far flung, reching arguments, but the second we our bodies in the hands of people other than us,they become all too real. Until you have unwillingly relinquished control of your body to someone else, you will never know how it feels.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:32 am
I got a little too passionate there..
REACHING arguments
the second we LEAVE our bodies
August 1st, 2008 at 11:33 am
This seems to be a very heated topic. I have my own views on the subject, but without trying to get very philosophical, yes, abortion should be legal and well-regulated. The value of an autonomous human life is greater than that of an unborn fetus. I may not agree with the decisions other people make, but I am outside of my rights to try to dictate to them how to live their lives. And that’s all I’ll say.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:34 am
B_Rad, how selfish is it to decide other peoples choices for them? That is what pro-life people want to do. No Gov’t including states should have any say on this issue. I think spending money on plastic surgery is selfish. Does that mean it should be illegal.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:34 am
*I* found Atlantis. It’s off exit 6 on the Massachussetts Turnpike about a half mile from the Podunk River. A boarded up hardware store, a Stuckey’s, a seedy looking Stop N Shop and a florist. That was *it.* Not even any place to get a latte. I bought a little plaster bulls-head souvenir that had “You’ve Found Atlantis! Now Get the Hell Out!” painted on it in cursive writing. I don’t think the poor schmucks even have cable.
I left and continued on my way to Portland. I’m happy to say, however, that I did take a leak on Atlantis, as I was headed out of town. So I can say that at least.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am
fuck fetus’
August 1st, 2008 at 11:46 am
Randall:
Well it is supposed to be underwater…I suppose you’re just helping out in your own small way there…:)
August 1st, 2008 at 11:46 am
In an ideal world, every one would know their body, would have access to preventive medicine and sex ed. Everyone would be in one or another contraceptive method and no woman would be raped because men would understand that we are not to be treated as property and that just because they are stronger than us it doesn’t mean that they can force us to do what they want. So every pregnancy would be either planned or a severe case of bad luck, so abortions would be minimal. That’s not our world, at least not now. Not everyone, not even the majority of the people has access to education, and even less have access to sex ed, girls (not women, girls) have sex because our society tells them it’s ok, and only on rare occasions they are told about the consequences. It is easier for a man, he can run away from an unexpected pregnancy, a woman can’t. Is it the girls’ fault to live in a world where having sex is considered the greatest thing it can happen to you but if you get pregnant you are a whore?
Lots of woman have consensual sex BUT forced to do it without protection, and if they refuse they suffer the discrimination of her partner and her friends (I had students who said “It’s only one time” and got pregnant the same). We still live in a world where men have the last word, where if a man has sex with tons of girls is kind of a hero, but if a woman has sex with several men is a whore. When you get pregnant you don’t get pregnant by yourself, you need a man who gave the sperm. Why do women have to carry all the responsibility??
August 1st, 2008 at 11:52 am
Remember these arguments are against other arguments not people. I am not scared by your way of thought; I am intrigued by it because it is the opposite of mine. I find these opinions and arguments interesting so I visit the site. Anyway “If you are so strong in your convictions about taking away an innocent life then why would not the same kind of morality be extended for animals?” Plain and simple a human life is greater than an animal life. I do not promote the needless harm of animals and I am very sensitive to animal’s rights as I am a pet owner. I choose to eat meat because it is life sustaining and I do not think or care to live a life purely vegan or vegetarian. If that is your choice to do so fine. But that is really off topic because they do not equate.
Reaper I see your point and it is ok for a fetus because they had no choice or say in the matter. I do not think “use” is the right choice of wording, however. The parents made the choice to have sexual relations. You make a valid point and I can see your correlation between if you must keep the baby without choice to keep it alive then you must donate your organs without choice to keep someone else alive. My rebuttal to that would be someone made the conscious decision to have sex knowing full well of what the repercussions may be. Mandatory organ donation would not be fair because an individual played no part in the other individual getting sick or needing an organ. These two scenarios do not equate because to have a baby one must make a thought out decision to have relations. One does not make the distinction on whether someone gets sick or not. Like I said above, in cases of rape, incest, or life-threatening danger to the mother or fetus abortion should be an option. Btw I am an organ donor. I have enjoyed this discussion but really must go finish up some work!
August 1st, 2008 at 11:56 am
Eddie. How would you feel if someone took away your right to eat meat?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Eating meat and aborting a life do not equate in my opinion. Thanks.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Sad fact in life is that there are people who need to be told what to do. Besides, you’re analogies are way off base.
“Not if the woman believes it’s in the best interest of the child for her not to be it’s mother. Then it’s a difficult, and unselfish choice to make.”
Who are you to say that? How do you know? In a courtroom I would say “Objection, speculation.” You talking about abortion or giving up for adoption?
“If we let the law take over out bodies, tell me where it ends? Should we outlaw obese people from eating because they’re killing themselves? Should we outlaw pregnant women from driving because they could crash and kill the baby? Should we outlaw all sex in general because it’s specifically for baby-making?”
Places are already doing that like with the trans fat stuff. Those people are only hurting themselves though, not an unborn baby. Driving a car is intended to get you from point A to point B while abortion is intended to kill the baby. You mean like in Demolition Man where sex is icky and gross? That would NEVER happen. I’d kill myself if that was ever the case.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Eddie, That is your opinion. What people are talking about is legality. Someone out there does make the equation of meat and human life. Should they have the ability to legislate your right to eat meat away because they find it objectionable?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
But murder is illegal and if I feel that abortion is ending a human life, or murder (murder is a very harsh word), then, yes I feel as if that right should be legislated away.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
You saying all abortions are for selfish reasons is exactly the same. That could be called specualtion as well.
I’m just saying you can think what you want about abortion but it needs to be legal. Morally, I don’t agree with abortion in most instances, and I know myself well enough to know I’d never be able to do it, but at least I have the right to make that choice. The people who use it as a means to an end repeatedly, or as a method of birth control, make me sick. However, because I recognize the right to choose, unfortunately I have to recognize everyones right to choose. We can’t place arbitrary “only if you were raped, only if you have AIDS, only if there was incest” rules on it.
As a woman, I also really fail to see how any man can put himself in a pregnant woman’s place. That’s why I’m making analogies. Even I can’t put myself there because I’ve never been pregnant, but I have been out of control of my own decisions.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Eddie, you are missing the point. Many many people feel that eating meat is murder. By your logic they should be able to render it illegal based on their feelings. Their feelings being equal to yours. Correct?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Yeah. Easy and simple. Nobody has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body and no matter how you twist and turn it: as long as the foetus is in the woman’s body it’s her call and not some judge, lawmaker or religious freak’s opinion.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I’m definitely pro-choice.
For one thing, most accidental pregnancies aren’t the result of being irresponsible (unprotected sex), they’re the result of a failed contraceptive. Pregnancies that catch women at a bad time in their life- a time when they would not be able to deal with having a baby- that baby should be aborted.
Then there are health risks in birth to think about. In the Jewish faith, the mother is more important than the unborn baby, and if there is a serious chance that something could go wrong and hurt the mother during pregnancy, we believe the baby should be aborted to save the mother’s life and let her conceive another day. There are, of course, health risks in abortions as well, as with any surgery.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Elsa: Thank you for your honest and emotional post. I am pro-choice. Of course I don’t beleive it should used as some sort of birth control but as a woman, I feel better knowing I have options should an unwanted or unplanned pregancy were to occur.
And as far as the argument that women carry the children and are ultimately responsible and men are “off the hook for responsiblity”, then it makes sense that we have the choice to decide what we do with our bodies.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Eddie:
Just a few points about the meat/abortion thing, then I will stop comparing it. Eating meat from factory farm IS supporting animal cruelty, plain and simple. The animals are tortured, crowded and diseased and no living thing should have to live like that. Further, you have not given a reason why human life is greater than animal life. No good debate is ever won by the “just because” clause. Now if you want to stop comparing them I can respect that.
Now my knowledge of stem cell research is rudimentary, so bear with me, but isn’t stem cell research a product of abortions? And then, woulnd’t this stem cell research lead to something that would ’sustain human life’ – your very arguement for eating meat?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Okay, I have read the last 186 comments so far, and now I dare myself to be thrown into the lion’s den with this;
I believe that abortion is the equivalent of murder. At least, up to the second trimester on. If you think about it, it makes sense. During the first trimester, the fetus is developing the body and as such, the nervous system will not have enough time to develop the cells necessary for pain, right? And the brain, although a tad bit developed, is not developed enough for the fetus to live outside th womb.
However, at the beginning of the second trimester, gasp!The fetus has developed enough to survive the outside of the womb…in an incubator. But it can survive nonetheless? Think I’m wrong? Well, there have been cases were premature babies are born as early as twenty weeks! And they survived into childhood, and adulthood without any physical/mental defects.
I am all for a woman’s decision on abortion, but when it comes to times when the fetus has proven to live outside the womb, with the help of doctors and incubators, and well into growing up into a healthy adult, then what arguments can come into that. Okay, there can be plenty of arguments, but let’s focus through another flaw; Why should a fetus have less right than an unconscious man or an abused animal? Sure, for the unconsious man whose plug is to be pulled, he lived a good long life, but what about when his family, not the man himself, decide enough is enough and they decide to pull the plug? What if deep down in his subconscious, he still want’s to live another day just in case his body can heal up and he can wake up good as new? Or what about the case of abused animals? Animals can’t talk, they can’t understand emotions and words, and many believe that they don’t formulate thoughts but live only sense and instinct, so why is it that there are more laws on animal abuse then there are for unborn children? Animals aren’t registered as humans, yet when we hear of cases of horrific animal abuse, we become disgusted at the way they are treated, yet when human fetuses come into play, we either fight for the abortion or against it? There are only a few key ways of preventing a pregnancy with a chance of it being aborted, and since people don’t seem to happy on abstinence and contraceptives, then there’s no chance for laws to outlaw abortion during and after the second trimester.
Of course, that’s just what I believe.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
The question is whether it should be legal, not whether abortion is right or wrong, so i’m leaning towards yes it should be legal. In much the same way that smoking, drinking doing drugs should be legal. That doesn’t mean you should do them, but they should be legal.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:37 pm
169. kiwiboi – ‘Gee Reaper…at least you’re not just pointing jfrater to a biased (feminist-activist) blog;
Oh wait…it is a feminist activist site!’
And your evidence that the article is wrong is where exactly? I love it when people spend all of their time trying to bash the source, in an attempt to ignore the actual issue raised.
172. B_Rad – ‘I think everyone should watch videos of abortions.’
I have actually. Mind you, it wasn’t The Silent Scream’, or some other pro-life propaganda film that makes up fetal development stages. I have absolutley no problem with the way safe abortions are performed. By your logic, no one should eat meat unless they’ve seen an animal being slaughtered (which I have). Saying things like “You’d have a different opinion if you saw it” isn’t much of an argument. It just proves you have no acutal logic involved in your argument, and your points only stem from, and count on making people feel guilty, and ashamed of their choices.
‘I’ll follow Ron Paul and say it should be left up to the states to decide.’
That right there explains everything.
182. Eddie – ‘Mandatory organ donation would not be fair because an individual played no part in the other individual getting sick or needing an organ.’
The problem with your view, is all you seem to see is ‘dead fetus’. If you actually thought into the future, and the kinds of laws that could stem from abortion being illegal, you would realise that the comment I just quoted proves my point.
You’re saying a woman shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion, because she chose to have sex, yet you make an exception for a fetus conceived from rape. This shows that it’s not the life of the fetus that matters to you, but the fact that the woman had sex you don’t approve of. First, who made you the sex police? Second, why is a fetus conceived from rape less worthy than a fetus conceived from consensual sex? There is no biological difference, and the physical, emotional, and mental effects of pregnancy, child birth, and raising a child can be the same. An unwanted fetus is an unwanted fetus, regardless of how it was created.
On to my second point, that mandatory organ donation is a likely outcome of anti-abortion laws. You say the sick person wasn’t made sick by anyone. What about people who contraceted AIDS from someone who knew they were infected? What about the rapist who tortured his victim? They knew they were doing harm, so logic would say they should be made to donate parts of their body to help the person they injured, correct? Now, some people might say this is fair, however they don’t understand that this is a direct violation of our constitutional, and human rights. What about the burgler who was going to rob, and rape a family, but the husband shot him? He was injured by someone. Should that husband then be made to sustain the potential rapists’ life? If your answer is ‘no’, why not?
Here, I’ll make it easier for you since you like to through around hte word ‘innocent’. A man rapes a 10 year old girl, and tortures her to the point where she needs a new liver, and he is the only available donar. Should he be forced to give up his right to his body to save the girl?
@ 187. Eddie – ‘But murder is illegal and if I feel that abortion is ending a human life, or murder (murder is a very harsh word), then, yes I feel as if that right should be legislated away.’
Oh Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. You opened the door, so I’m going to walk right through it.
Murder is a specific legal term with several prerequisites. First, the murder victim must be born. If there is no born victim, there is no crime. Second, you must be able to prove malicious aforethought. There can be no murder without malice. Murder has nothing to do with how you ‘feel’. Murder is not simply ‘ending human life’. If it was, the woman who fought back and killed her rapist would be on trial for murder. The soldier in Iraq who shot back and killed his opponent would be on trial for murder. The doctor who’s diagnosis was incorrect, and result in a person’s death would be on trial for murder. The woman who swerved to avoid a child in the street, but in the process crashed and killed her passengers would be on trial for murder. Please don’t throw around weighted words that have more meaning than you’re giving them.
US Code: Title 18,1111 – Murder
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001111—-000-.html
August 1st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I’m going to have to split the field on this one. I agree that abortions should be legal under certain circumstances. If a female is too young, meaning that she is fully aware that she will not be able to provide this child, she should be able to have the abortion. Also in hand if you are old enough to make that decision to have unprotected sex, than you are old enough to care for a child. If a female is raped and the child would cause any type of stress or turmoil in her life, it should be allowed. For that one to work, I also believe that the female should provide proof other than being pregnant that she was raped, such as a disclosure with her doctors signature. Any one can say they were raped but I firmly believe that the ones who truly are, and are scared and don’t want a “rape baby” will go threw and make sure that it gets terminated. I don’t want to seem insensitive about this subject, but I also want to have a decent comment. On the other side of my argument, it is always an option to carry the child and once born, put it up for adoption. I can’t begin to say how many families unable to have a natural child would adopt. I am kind of young, but I have dealt with the abortion thing with some of my female friend s and helped them reach a solution. Majority of the time they have it but put it up for adoption.
So to spell my answer out, Yes abortions should be legalized, but with restrictions.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Personally I think abortions are disgusting, and under most circumstancs, UNNECESSARY. I don’t think that way because of any religious reasons either because im Atheist. But with that being said I also believe a woman has a right to choose. I agree with allowing abortions up to a certain point in the pregnancy, unless there are complications that could end up killing the mother. If the mothers life is in danger then she should have every right to terminate the pregnancy regardless of how far long she is.
I knew a girl in high school who had 5 FUCKING abortions before we graduated. Women like that should be charged for criminal negligence in my opinion for being such stupid fucks.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
@ 194. Riya B – ‘However, at the beginning of the second trimester, gasp!The fetus has developed enough to survive the outside of the womb…in an incubator.’
If that’s all you’re going by, then it’s only the people in developed countries that shouldn’t have abortions. Your average American could get to a hospital, whereas your average person living in Afghanistan doesn’t have the luxuries we do. They can’t get to a hospital, complete with the equipment needed to sustain the life of a 24 week old fetus, so their cut off point for abortion should be much later.
‘Well, there have been cases were premature babies are born as early as twenty weeks! And they survived into childhood, and adulthood without any physical/mental defects.’
By your logic, a doctor shouldn’t advise against a woman drinking during her pregnancy, because there are people who were born to alcoholic mothers, but they’re perfectly fine! Never mind that there are some women who drank very little, and their child was born with FAS. Let’s gamble with people lives!
I’d also like to point out that not everyone in the USA can afford the medical insurance that would allow their premature child to survive in an incubator. What about them? Would you be willing to pay more in taxes to make sure those women can have healthy babies? If not, why?
Also, if you’ve read all 180+ comments, you would have seen my link to an article stating the fact that babies born prematurely do not have a better chance at life.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I was referring to someone else’s analogies, sorry. I know what you’re saying. There’s always a good and bad side to everything, pros and cons, whatever. I agree with the “only if” stuff. If something is morally wrong though, why should it be legal?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
197.Gematria~Exactly! There are plenty of other ways aside from abortion , and it also makes sense that women who are old enough to care for a child but don’t want to would play the rape card and make the real rape victims more like the bad guys, and excuse me for sound a little insensitive for that. And there are plenty of people who would want to adopt a child regardless of the history of it’s conception. Think about that, people!
August 1st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
sdggrant, Thank the Goddess herself that your opinion means exactly squat.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Also, I think fathers should have some say in Abortions. If a man is willing to take custody of the kid and raise it on his own, then the abortion should not be allowed to happen(unless of course its for health reasons). I think its a double standard, and women cry all the fucking time about double standards and yet they take full advantage of the ones that fall in their favor.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I’m pro-life and I always have been. I am also totally for adoption. If you get pregnant and don’t think you can take care of a child, give it up for adoption! There are so many families that would do anything to have a baby and I believe that it is selfish to have that baby murdered.
Also, when you get pregnant, you begin sharing your body with another human being. You are in charge of two lives and I think that it is very selfish to make a life altering decision for another person.
http://www.AmericanAdoptions.com
I totally agree with Eddie.
I think he sounds like the type of guy I would marry.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Reaper ~ You should really consider changing your name to Ranter, as you are quite good at it. Do you have a *link* for your claim that “some women who drank very little” had children born with fetal alcohol syndrome? Also, as someone who works in the medical field, families who acquire high medical bills often qualify for charity or reduced medical bills or medicaid or, as one of my co-workers is going thru at this very moment, some families have fund-raisers and communities come together to support familes in need.
And there’s a difference between the age of successful preemie survival and the rate of survival of babies born prematurely.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
B_rad:
Because everyone’s opionion of what’s morally wrong is different!
August 1st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Really, Tara, you want to turn this into a personal attack? Comments like yours are what turn these “Your View”’s into utter shit-holes with insults being thrown left and right.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:57 pm
B_rad. Your morals and mine are fundamentally different. As it should be.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Reaper~ Didn’t I state that there were flaws and arguments against my ’second-trimester-fetuses-have-a-chance-at-survival’ theory? Yes, there are people who can’t afford the medical bills, and of course there are plenty of countries that aren’t advanced enough to have the technology to support a premature babies! I’m not insisting that we gamble with peoples lives, and didn’t Einstein state ‘ God does not play dice’? I’m only saying that in many parts of the world, aside from the U.S, there are places(such as Third World countries) where premature infants can live outside the womb and lead normal lives?
And just to inform you, I did see the link you provided. That is where my argument stems from.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
@ 197. Gematria – ‘I can’t begin to say how many families unable to have a natural child would adopt.’
Then why are there 500,000+ kids in the foster care system?
The adoption system has become a way for ‘Traditional’ (Read: wealthy, white, Christian, and yes, ‘Traditional’ is their word) couples to adopt healthy, white newborns. The couples you’re thinking of aren’t interested in the crack babies, or the children with mental or physical conditions. Every time a white woman gives in to the people calling her a ‘whore’, and a ‘baby killer’ and puts her newborn up for adoption, a child already in the system gets bumped out of the way.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
All countries need to invest more in sexual education which in turn will prevent most unwanted pregnancies. I was lucky enough to go to an elementary, middle, and high school that ALL taught about safe sex and condoms. Its sad to know that there are some places in the states where they still only teach abstinence. The religious nuts (of ALL denominations) need to realise that their strict opposition of sex ed is directly causing most these abortions that make steam fume out their ears.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
No, not at all. Point of fact. It is not an insult to point out that opinions are meaningless. It makes me very happy that opinions of one person do not create legislation. I did not call you ignorant or even wrong. Everyone has an opinion on just about everything, they all mean squat. Your opinion of me does not effect my existence in the least.
You seem to have reacted quite strongly. I observe that it is precisely that attitude that starts mud slinging. If we could first distance ourselves from the emotionality of our arguments we could see them from both sides.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
If it is legalized with restrictions, who decides what restrictions to put? How young is too young? What if a woman gets pregnant during protected sex? If it was unprotected, would the father be forced to support the child and its mother?
I know being pregnant is not a proof of having been raped, but your sentence “Any one can say they were raped…” makes me remember and old lady I had as neighbour that said that the women that had been raped where guilty of being provocative and that they deserved it.
Sorry for my grammatical and spelling mistakes, English is not my language and I hope you had been able to understand what I said
August 1st, 2008 at 1:06 pm
@ sdggrant:
That girl in your school who had 5 abortions, would you have rather have had her have 5 children???
(And don’t pull the adoption card, we can both agree she probably would not have had the sense.)
And while I agree the father should be involved in the descision making process, such a thing would be very hard to regulate.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
ONLY if the mother is ABSOLUTELY going to die as a direct result of the child being inside her…and cases of rape
Otherwise…no, never, non, nyet, nein, nuh uh, NOOOOOO way at all, not even a maybe. The above two instances are the only exceptions…otherwise, it is selfish and irresponsible.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
You went out of your way JUST to point out someones opinion is useless, and you don’t expect them to see that as an poke at them? I’d fully expect someone to get irked if I made a post, for absolutely no other reason, telling them their opinion was useless. Maybe I just have an abundance of common sense, who knows. I wont bother responding to anything else that is said between us, so cheers!
August 1st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Because morals are personal beliefs shaped by one’s own experiences with the subject. All those who don’t eat meat are jusified in their beliefs, and all of us who do eat it are as well. But those who believe it’s morally wrong aren’t trying to outlaw it.
You can think something is wrong and still recognize the legal need for it. Someone way above me (I’m sorry for not giving credit where it’s due) pointed out that this isn’t about right or wrong its about legal vs. illegal and that sums it up perfectly. There is a need for legal, safe, abortions in this country, however unsavory those of us morally oppossed to it find it. Everyone deserves a choice.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:12 pm
If men gave birth, it wouldn’t be against the law, IT WOULD BE THE LAW. YES. It should ALWAYS be a womans right.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
If men bled, tampons would be free.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
@ Callie:
Le poste juste.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
@jadester
No, I think she would of been a horribly irresponsible mother, it would of negligent, bordering on criminal, to let that CHILD be in charge of a baby. Adoption was a choice, but like you said someone like her wouldn’t have the sense, so unfortunately the only other choice was abortion.
I would of liked to see some sort of punishment bestowed upon her for being so careless. This girl had complete access to condoms(free at nurses office) as well as a planned parenthood two blocks from the school. She could of EASILY been put on the pill seeing as how planned parenthood doesn’t even require parent permission to hand it out.
It all came down to her being lazy, careless, and stupid. At the very least she shouldof been sent to mandatory sex ed classes.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Have you ever had a child put on adoption? There are some people here that have kids, would you do it? Having a child is not like buying a coffee machine, not even like having a pet. Can you imagine how difficult it is for a woman to give up on her baby? A sperm cell and a ovule by their selves, are a human being? A recently fecundated egg, when the nucleus aren’t fused yet, is a human being? I think the main point here is when abortion becomes ‘murder’. I’m against abortion in the lasts periods of the pregnancy (unless the life of the woman is in danger), not in the first month (or two). But I think a lot of people here talks about giving up babies without understanding all that it involves, and what a difficult decision it is to make.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
And your evidence that the article is wrong is where exactly?
You need to educate yourself.
One only needs to read in the introduction the underlying assumption upon which the entire “article” on this feminist-activist site (gee, no bias there) is founded. ie. it sets out to show that those who are anti-abortion are “motivated by a desire – perhaps an unconscious desire – to punish women for having sex.”
Moreover, anti-abortionists are referred to – explicitly – as “opponents”.
And there’s even more. It sets the scene by claiming that “a lot of people say” that abortion is equivalent to “shoot(ing) a four-year-old in the head”.
I love it when people spend all of their time trying to bash the source, in an attempt to ignore the actual issue raised.
Such biased and baseless sources do not merit anything other than a brief glance.
Still, at least it is clear where you are coming from, given that you support this “perspective”…
August 1st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
sdggrant, Respond or not, does not change anything. You stated your opinion, I stated mine. You gave my opinion power by being offended. You and I, we should in theory neutralize one and another. Your opinion has at much weight as mine, no more no less. However, you think your opinion has merit enough to legislate, you opened the door for commentary by claiming in a round about way that your values supersede mine. They do not.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Yes, and it should be promoted as population control
August 1st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
This is such a simple argument.
Is a baby in a womb a human being? If it is not a human, than abortion is not murder and should be allowed. If it is a human, than abortion is murder and should be illegal.
Right? No? Oh yeah your right…it is way more complicated than that because of things like mental capacity and a woman’s rights and money and poverty and blah blah blah of over 200 comments of this crap…
Compared to a human life what do those things mean?
To many of you it obviously means more than a human life.
I know many of you will find amazing ways to counter this argument, but hey, until you can prove to me that a fetus is a not a human being I will continue to see abortion as killing a innocent human child.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Yes, it should be legal. If it is a religion thing backing up reasoning as to why is should not be legal then the real question goes to should the government be ruled by religion. In medical terms a abortion is when the pregnancy is aborted, which can be natural way, like a miscarriage. An ectopic pregnancy is also called an abortion, should this life form carry on in the fallopian tube or be aborted, any reasonable person would say abort because then the mother’s life is at risk. For a normal pregnancy and the woman wants to abort the fetus this could be the only option that mother has to take. Are there women out there who think of abortion as another birth control? Maybe, but you have to realize that there are too many people in this country to try to be able to control everyone. Plastic surgery is a good example of this, people who are in need of it do not abuse it, but there are also the perfectly healthy people who abuse the practice as well.
This then should be up to the doctors who have to make a ethical decision whether or not they would like to have the person as their patient. And doctors have the right to turn down a person for what ever reason they have. There is just too many people to decide something so personal, and so I feel that the choice should be open for the woman to decide the fate of her fetus.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Yep, and you have the right to do so. But you do not have the right to force that OPINION on anyone else, by that I mean legislation.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
@ 205. rushfan – I love how me disproving the many myths surrounding abortion, and the people who have them is now considered ‘ranting’. Thank you for proving that you don’t understand the subject you are discussing, as you have yet to address the issues I presented to you.
‘Do you have a *link* for your claim that “some women who drank very little” had children born with fetal alcohol syndrome?’
http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/drinking_alcohol_in_pregnancy_fetal_alcohol_effects
http://alcoholism.about.com/od/preg/a/blnu050614.htm
‘”It remains unknown how even a small amount of alcohol exposure can affect the newborn infant in terms of infection, particularly before or early in the pregnancy,” said Gauthier. “Therefore, all women of child-bearing age, including teenagers, must recognize that drinking alcohol before or during the time when they may become pregnant is dangerous for themselves as well as their baby.”‘
http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/14332_1170.asp
‘Although many women are aware that heavy drinking during pregnancy can cause birth defects, many do not realize that moderate—or even light—drinking also may harm the fetus.
In fact, no level of alcohol use during pregnancy has been proven safe. Therefore, the March of Dimes recommends that pregnant women do not drink any alcohol—including beer, wine, wine coolers and hard liquor—throughout their pregnancy and while nursing. In addition, because women often do not know they are pregnant for a few months, women who may be pregnant or those who are attempting to become pregnant should abstain from drinking alcoholic beverages.’
SOME families who acquire high medical bills get government help. SOME woman who are in lower socio-economic class can receive help. SOME women live in communities that will help them. However, you’re forgetting that the US government is cutting programmes left and right, and leaving low income families with no options. I’m glad you know someone who could find help in their time of need. It’s funny how I know women who couldn’t, no matter how hard they tried. Either they made too much money, or they didn’t work enough hours.
@ 209. Riya B – ‘I’m only saying that in many parts of the world, aside from the U.S, there are places(such as Third World countries) where premature infants can live outside the womb and lead normal lives?’
What you’re saying, is women shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion, based on their ability to receive medical treatment. If a woman has access to the care needed to sustain a premature baby, there should be no reason for abortion. This cuts out the woman who don’t have that luxury, and has nothing to do with the well being of the fetus, and everything to do with your personal belief.
@ 223. kiwiboi – I support that funny notion that women are more than walking wombs, only capable of spitting out kids and servicing their husbands. The fact that the major pro-life organizations are trying to OUTLAW CONTRACEPTION is proof that the pro-life side isn’t for fetal life, but against a woman’s sexuality. Please provide evidence to refute this, or admit you’re just trying to argue semantics.
And yes, anyone who is against a woman’s right to choose is an ‘opponent’.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Catty, I agree with you 95%. A Dr does not have the the right to turn a patient down for any reason they want. They are part of the public trust. That is why they have to help people even if they disagree with the person.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
sdddrant:
So do you think then that abortion should be legal but with punishments meted out to those who use it?
Don’t you feel the punishments (depending on what it was)would deter people like your highschool girl from having the abortion and raising the kid anyways?
In a perfect world yeah her parents would have sat her down and said, this is what you need to do, this is where you need to go. Or she would have not assumed she would without child if she pulled out/used rhythm method etc.
But its not a perfect world and this is a nescessary evil.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Reaper ~ You claim “there are some women who drank very little, and their child was born with FAS.” No one is disputing women shouldn’t drink when they are pregnant. I didn’t. Drink when I was pregnant, that is. One of your *many* links states “Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is a more specific set of symptoms caused by drinking alcohol while you are pregnant. A child is diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) when there is prenatal alcohol exposure and:
Facial deformities, Slow or delayed growth, Brain and neurological problems.” But none of your many links say anything more than drinking any amount of alcohol at any stage of pregnancy is not recommended. Duh.
Your passion for what you believe in is admirable, however you are young and misguided. You should use your powers for good instead of evil.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
What? Morals are morals! If one person grew up killing people and raping children cause that’s how he grew up and it was his belief that it was ok, you’re saying that is morally acceptable? Take the general consensus of everyone in the CIVILIZED world about what is right and wrong and there are your morals. The 10 Commandments are morals in that I’d say about 95% of the people who read them would agree with them. You guys are trying to make excuses, not pose reasons. It’s not a matter of morals if someone chooses to be a vegetarian.
If you feel it’s ok to kill a baby even though it’s still inside you, then go for it. But, let’s say you are christian and believe in God. What do you say when you die and go up to the pearly white gates and St. Peter asks you why you decided it was ok to kill a baby before it even got a chance to experience the reality which God created for it?
We should make it legal and have places made specifically for drug users to shoot up, share needles, etc? For child molesters to molest children? Hey, it’s morally right for these guys so it should be made legal for them…right?
August 1st, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I support that funny notion that women are more than walking wombs, only capable of spitting out kids and servicing their husbands.
Reaper – as do I (notwithstanding the unnecessarily emotive – not to mention sarcastic – way you choose to express this).
The fact that the major pro-life organizations are trying to OUTLAW CONTRACEPTION is proof that the pro-life side isn’t for fetal life, but against a woman’s sexuality. Please provide evidence to refute this, or admit you’re just trying to argue semantics.
I am not a member of any “pro-life organisation”, nor am I trying to outlaw contraception; so why would I care to “refute” the tenor of the article you referred us to? I took the trouble to read the article you referred us to and then called you on its credibility.
You are the one claiming that those who are anti-abortion are “motivated by a desire to punish women for having sex.” Not me…
August 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
B_Rad, you prove my point for me. You show that your morality comes from biblical sources. The problem is that this country is not a theocracy. You cannot legislate based on your feelings. you descend into hyperbole and equate abortion to molestation. Thats comparing apples and child rape. Come on.
Morals are not Morals. Hindus believe it is immoral to kill a cow. Should it be illegal?
Where in the 10 commandments does it day “Thou shalt not abort”. It does say “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors ox” Ever wanted something that someone else has?
Take a step back and realize that morality is based on opinions of right and wrong.
I think it is morally wrong to impose your will on another. Therefore your belief runs 100% counter to mine. Should I be able to decide legislation based solely on my morality?
We are a Republic, made up of many many people who all have different ideas. The only way to do that is to make choices for OURSELVES and leave others alone.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Reaper ~ Also, as far as the unborn victims of violence act, it states, and I quote, “The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law which recognizes a “child in utero” as a legal victim, if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines “child in utero” as “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.” At any stage of development. Riddle me this…How does a society reconcile the fact that it is a crime to kill a baby in one instance and yet a mother can choose to kill that same baby legally?
August 1st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I think your whole argument is bull (is this considered an ad hominem attack?).
//My answer: No. I believe that abortion has become so out of control that it has become a form of contraception. There is a high physical and mental cost involved and many of the young women who have abortions are not always fully aware of these consequences.//
While I agree that this is possibly true, so what? There are many examples of women actually needing abortions, so they should remain legal. We should of course do everything to avoid abortions and that includes increasing the availability of proper contraceptive methods and good sex education.
//From a philosophical perspective I also wonder whether we would have a cure for AIDS and other diseases now if someone hadn’t aborted the child that was going to ultimately find the cure. Of course this also applies in reverse – how many Hitlers have been prevented from being born, but I think that society is better equipped to deal with that situation if it were to arise again.//
This is not the way science works now. Science is a group enterprise. Laboratories, not individuals, will find the cure to AIDS and cancer. Of course, laboratories are composed by individuals and the glory will go to the chief of the laboratory that actually makes the discovery, but that non-aborted individual based his/her works on the work of many other scientists.
Besides, for your analogy to work (that we might have aborted the individual that was supposed to discover the cure to AIDS), it would have to be that the knowledge necessary to do that was in that person since he was conceived or born. If destiny is a real thing, and we were supposed to have a cure to AIDS, we would already found it. Maybe the person that was supposed to discover the cure to AIDS or cancer was already born, but we killed him or her in some war, or is dying right now due to famine or AIDS.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:40 pm
This is my writing from c-ral.org
1. In Any Pregnancy, Both Of The Parents And The Developing Child Have Limited Rights
No one has unlimited rights. An individual’s rights are limited at the point where he is infringing on another’s rights. For example, the right to free speech is limited at slander – one can not knowingly lie about someone else in the media. Similarly, a woman’s right to her body is limited when her developing child has rights that could be taken away.
a. Woman’s Pregnancy Rights
A woman has the right to practice birth
control in any legal manner she chooses, including abortive methods up to the
Point of Personhood of the child. However, abortive actions are limited by the
father’s rights.
b. Father’s Pregnancy Rights
The father of
a child has the right to contribute to the decision-making about the welfare of
a child. A father can not force a woman to terminate a pregnancy, and a mother
should not be able to terminate a pregnancy without permission from the father,
unless the father has abdicated his rights [these conditions to be developed].
This permission or abdication does not have to be legally documented,
but may be documented through the notarized signature of a Release of
Pregnancy Rights form, or if a court has determined that a father has
otherwise abdicated through criminal activity or abandonment.
c. Unborn Child’s Rights
After the point of personhood, the child has the
right to life and protection of that life under the law.
2. The Developing Fetus Has Human Rights After a Defined Point in a Pregnancy – The Point of Personhood
There are many possible ways to determine when a fetus becomes a person with rights. Many have argued forcefully for defining the starting point based upon genetic uniqueness (fertilization), by discovery time (giving the woman ample to time to discover her pregnancy), by viability (can the fetus survive out of the womb), by actual birth, and by other ethical and moral teachings and standards.
We believe those arguments to be insufficient, and believe that the beginning of human life ought to be defined by the same measure we use for the end of life. However, even this is controversial.
Science has given us many early developmental milestones that could be considered as the starting point for life and personhood. They are (References: Baptists For Life, Religioustolerance.org):
* Presence of Blood
At around 18 days, the heart begins to beat (see below). But blood forms just before that, so many argue that at around 14 days, we should consider the unborn child a person
* Heartbeat
Today’s technology can detect a baby’s heartbeat 18 days after conception. That is only four days after most women miss a period and begin to suspect they are pregnant.
* Brain waves
6 weeks after conception signals from the fetal brain can be detected. Dream patterns have been discovered around the 8th or 9th week
* Independent movement
At about the 6th week, the baby in the womb can move spontaneously: Kicking, swimming, jumping and stretching.
* Sensory Response
A baby in the womb is capable of responding to touch and sound by about the eighth or 10th week. A child at that age will move away from painful stimuli.
* Breathing
By about the 14th week, a baby’s lungs are functioning and he or she will practice breathing. Vocal cords are formed by the 13th week.
* Ability to Cognitively Experience Pain
Recent studies may indicate that although a fetus withdraws from painful stimulus much earlier, the part of the brain that makes them able to consciously experience pain does not develop until the 26th week (this point is, however, contested)
We believe that good persons can disagree on which or how many of these conditions need to be present before we believe the unborn child has rights. We propose that the presence of brainwaves and heartbeat at 6 weeks sets the latest limit of the abortion timeline, and we should discuss moving it back to 3 weeks, which is when the heartbeat begins. This 6 week upper limit is a compromise, and not an absolute.
3. Terminating a Pregnancy Based On Physical Attributes such as Gender, Race, Sexual Orientation, or Treatable Medical Conditions is Not Acceptable
Pregnancy termination based on basic physical characteristics amounts to killing for convenience (at best), and at worst, genocidal murder.
Regarding treatable medical conditions, the threat of a child’s potential suffering, physical or emotional, does not justify terminating its life via abortion.
We also understand that science is still debating the physical origin of sexual orientation. However, if a proposed physical or statistical measurement of the possibility of same sex orientation is used for fetal testing, the results of such a test could not be used as justification for terminating a pregnancy.
4. Terminating a Pregnancy for Severe, Untreatable Fetal Conditions Must Be Preserved as a Parental Right, but Not Required by Law
Some conditions are not treatable by today’s standards. Untreatable medical conditions that cause intense suffering AND death within the first two years of life (arbitrary?) may be candidates for abortions throughout the term of a pregnancy. However, terminations should not be mandated by law in such cases.
5. Terminating a Pregnancy Based on the Means of Pregnancy (Rape, Incest, Artificial Insemination, Natural Insemination) is Not Acceptable
Beyond the point of personhood, an unborn child has the right to life, and the method of its creation does not diminish these rights.
It is understood that a woman who has an unwanted pregnancy due to rape or incest is under extreme duress, but we propose that abortion will not in any large measure cure her anguish, and may actually create new emotional suffering of its own.
We believe that the best way out of a woman’s emotional duress is for her to make ethical and moral decisions in her pregnancy-related decisions. These include:
* allowing the child to live
* working through her anger and hurt to a point of healing and forgiveness of the perpetrators (if any)
* the pursuit of justice against the perpetrators in a court of law
* providing or helping the child find a good home where it is wanted and loved.
We also expect that other means of support, both private and public, will be brought to bear to help such women with pre- and post-natal care, adoption services, counseling and other services.
6. Terminating a Pregnancy to Protect the Life of a Mother Must be Preserved
There are some medical conditions where the abortive methods must be used to preserve the life of the mother.
However, mental anguish over a pregnancy, and any resulting physical problems from the mental anguish, are not justification for abortion.
7. Abortion as A Medical Procedure Should be Protected and Taught In Medical Schools, but Should Not Be Mandatory
Due to the remaining cases of early term abortions and rare but necessary late term pregnancy problems, many of the current abortive techniques should be taught in medical schools, at the discretion of the faculty. However, practice of these methods should not be a requirement for graduation or certification in any medical specialty.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Yun: I don’t know where you got your quote, but here is the entire essay. She is outlining the inept attempts by others to handle the problem. She is describing them in order to criticize them. Be careful, many have hijacked her work and taken paragraphs and re-ordered them to support their views.
“At the present moment, we are offered three distinct and more or less mutually exclusive policies by which civilization may hope to protect itself and the generations of the future from the allied dangers of imbecility, defect and delinquency. No one can understand the necessity for Birth control education without a complete comprehension of the dangers, the inadequacies, or the limitations of the present attempts at control, or the proposed programs for social reconstruction and racial regeneration. It is, therefore, necessary to interpret and criticize the three programs offered to meet our emergency. These may be briefly summarized as follows:
* Philanthropy and Charity: This is the present and traditional method of meeting the problems of human defect and dependence, of poverty and delinquency. It is emotional, altruistic, at best ameliorative, aiming to meet the individual situation as it arises and presents itself. Its effect in practise is seldom, if ever, truly preventive. Concerned with symptoms, with the allaying of acute and catastrophic miseries, it cannot, if it would, strike at the radical causes of social misery. At its worst, it is sentimental and paternalistic.
* Marxian Socialism: This may be considered typical of many widely varying schemes of more or less revolutionary social reconstruction, emphasizing the primary importance of environment, education, equal opportunity, and health, in the elimination of the conditions (i. e. capitalistic control of industry) which have resulted in biological chaos and human waste. I shall attempt to show that the Marxian doctrine is both too limited, too superficial and too fragmentary in its basic analysis of human nature and in its program of revolutionary reconstruction.
* Eugenics: Eugenics seems to me to be valuable in its critical and diagnostic aspects, in emphasizing the danger of irresponsible and uncontrolled fertility of the “unfit” and the feeble-minded establishing a progressive unbalance in human society and lowering the birth-rate among the “fit.” But in its so-called “constructive” aspect, in seeking to reestablish the dominance of healthy strain over the unhealthy, by urging an increased birth-rate among the fit, the Eugenists really offer nothing more farsighted than a “cradle competition” between the fit and the unfit. They suggest in very truth, that all intelligent and respectable parents should take as their example in this grave matter of child-bearing the most irresponsible elements in the community.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
It was used as an example, not the foundation for morals. I wasn’t equating abortion to molestation. I was arguing your point on morals, your argument had a flaw, I pointed it out and you went back to telling me I’m comparing two different things. I never said abortion is the same exact thing as molesting kids, it’s the morals behind it.
I said civilized world, not a third world country.
Abort->kill->murder…thou shalt not murder, there you go.
Where did I say it’s ok to impose your will on another? Find it and quote it please.
Why do people think we live in a place where everyone can take care of themselves, where everyone takes responsibility for their actions, where everything is exactly how you think it is? There are a lot of fucked up people in the world, someone has to tell them how to behave (to a degree anyways)
August 1st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
@Mom24
I’m sorry that you think a video of a 12 week old “fetus” trying to get away from abortion instruments is “propaganda”. In the see-it-to-believe society that we live in, I am baffled that you don’t believe video evidence. Clearly, once a person’s mind is made up, anything to disprove their beliefs is considered media bias or propaganda these days…
August 1st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I do think the decision should be completely up to the TWO people who created the child. If a person is against abortion then I feel they are against birth control. The logic is that you should not destroy human life. I say if you feel that way then you should also feel that humans should not block or interfere with nature taking its course. A person should be able to make their own decisions. Sometimes people can not afford to properly take care of a child. I also feel if you cannot afford to take care of one you should not participate in baby making activities. But what are the odds of every person living by that. None at all.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
What a touchy subject.
When my wife was pregnant with our first, we had to have many ultrasounds from week 6 or 7 through 15, and a few more times from 20 on. I don’t care how anyone else defines it: when I saw that little fetus in there, I knew it was a life, and should be protected at all costs, period.
Prior to then I had been of the opinion that abortion should be allowed prior to the point that a baby could be viable outside the womb, with medical intervention. When I saw my son in there, moving around and sucking his thumb so early… I just couldn’t bring myself to think in quite the same way about life anymore.
However, like many people, I feel there are circumstances where abortion is justified, and thus a woman’s right to choose should be protected as well- rape, incest, medical necessity. I do not think that economic situation should be a considered a legitimate reason, nor age, nor any reason that is purely a preference for the woman. Though I’m also not opposed to the morning after pill, however, I feel torn about it.
The problem is that I think it would be impossible to legislate my individual opinion. Both sides of the issue, in the USA, are extreme in either direction- any compromise would be seen as a defeat- any infringement on a woman’s right to choose is unthinkable, and on the other side, life is protected so fiercely that it would be hypocritical to give ground.
Since I can’t stand behind either side’s philosophies, I opt to stand behind the right to choose, and hope that when my opinion is asked for, it might sway the mind of a woman who is looking for guidance.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:28 pm
B_rad if you come at this from a religious standpoint you open a whole new door.
You say that these women who abort will have to answer to God when they die. If you believe that fine, I don’t subscribe to any particular religion but I honestly admire those who do. However, you’ve also stated that it’s ok for a mother to abort if she’s in danger, if the baby is in danger of being born unhealthy, etc. So those mothers get a free pass from God on judgment day? I doubt it. If it’s illegal, it’s ILLEGAL, which means the mothers you say its ok for still can’t get them even if you think it’s less morally wrong for them to do so. How is it better if a 15 year old gets pregnant and can’t handle it, aborts, and goes on to lead a life until she’s old enough to make her choice about children than if a 30 year old winds up with an ectopic pregnancy that puts her life in danger? According to you, both of those could grow to be babies, so why it it ok for one mother to abort and be called a baby-killer and the other to be called a tragedy? It’s the same procedure.
And if there is a God to answer to, where’s his benevolence to the mother that honestly thought she had no other option? He turns her away? God is either wrathful or forgiving, not both. Picking one is a dicey subject.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
“However, you’ve also stated that it’s ok for a mother to abort if she’s in danger, if the baby is in danger of being born unhealthy, etc. So those mothers get a free pass from God on judgment day?”
No, no, no. I never said that. The question is, should abortion be legal or illegal…in this country. I said something about living in Africa with AIDS or something, but this isn’t Africa. These are hypothetical situations I’m proposing, such as the God situation I used earlier. That’s all it is.
If she is 15 and make the choice to get knocked up, she should have the ability to raise it or at the least give it up for adoption. Now you’re just twisting it around and coming up with situations to go around the basis of the argument. I’m talking in general terms, not specific life threatening situations for the mother. In that case, all efforts should be to help the mother but still try to deliver the baby.
It’s all good though Callie, you’re still my girl. We’ll always have the Greatest Rockers list. I see Randall is still causing trouble over there =)
August 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
B_rad, By telling me that you fel your morality is valuable enough to legislate and override my body choices you are attempting to put your will over mine, to subjugate me to the rules of a book you yourself cannot likely follow word for word.
You made a comparison to attempt to illustrate a perceived flaw, you made the comparison I just stated it was hyperbole.
I have another tack for you. Why is abortion not like removing a tape worm? No emotionality, no hyperbole. How is it different and why?
August 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Finally some more pro-lifer’s. Anyways this is a difficult subject that people will always differ on. Reaper you seem very zealous and in your face about your points but to each his or her own. I just do not feel that is the right way to go about it. If everyone would just think about what it means, morally I would hope everyone would see that an innocent life is being taken away, unfortunately not everyone will every see it that way.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Well now you’re just being funny.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
You say hyperbole cause you can’t argue it. And how is anything I said an exaggeration of any kind?
August 1st, 2008 at 3:55 pm
No I am completely serious.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Sure, why not, it should be perfectly legal to allow innocent babies to be tortured to death out of a bimbo’s self centered convenience.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Reaper (125): no – by my reasoning, if Adolf Hitler had created a plan to rid the world of retarded and malformed people- I would say no one should use it. If Margaret Sanger, despite being an evil witch, had invented the safest form of transport in the world, I would use it.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Tara: if you are allowed to decide to murder the human inside you, why should B_rad not be allowed to decide to prevent you from doing so by legislation? It is easy to forget about the rights of the child – whose rights are completely ignored.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
jfrater, maybe you can answer me the the question that B_rad cannot.
Why is abortion not like removing a tape worm? No emotionality, no hyperbole. How is it different and why?
August 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
B_Rad I say hyperbole because you went from a discussion of abortion to.
“What? Morals are morals! If one person grew up killing people and raping children cause that’s how he grew up and it was his belief that it was ok, you’re saying that is morally acceptable?”
That is hyperbole, that is BS rhetoric. It is so far beyond the pale of the current discussion, it is an attempt to gain a gut emotional response to dilute the discussion.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Everyone starts out as a tapeworm in their mother’s womb?
End of discussion.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
GettyB: “That’s like saying that if someone came along and cut your arm and you bled onto the person that cut you that y’all belong together or someshit.”
What? Getting cut and having a baby are way different… I’ve been cut many times, I would know.
“Flesh and blood don’t mean a thing”
Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but both my birth parents, siblings, foster parents, or foster siblings can do no wrong. My birth brother was hooked on meth for about two years, he stole thousands of dollars from me while I was in the army, I still love him. Flesh and blood mean everything.
“THere may not be a rapist gene but there are things that genetically make people delusional and make them become serial killers and kill yo ass.”
Ted Bundy lost it from nurture, not nature (he had a twisted mother). David Berkowitz (A.K.A Son of Sam) lost it after he found out his birth parents put him up for adoption, but kept his sister. Bad people aren’t born, they are made.
“FUcking fight or flight…Darwin anyone.”
I don’t think thats what Darwin had in mind. A uterus isn’t some sort of security screening room, and I’ll bet you feel big tough talking an unborn baby.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
B_Rad? Thats it? That is all it took? I do not even know what you ment by that.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
No. You made an argument about morals. I explained it to point out the flaw in your argument against mine. That’s all. You’re the one making a big deal out of it and trying to turn it into a whole new discussion. Geez, I think we need a beer break or something, you down for that?
August 1st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Come on guys – keep it friendly
August 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Fair enough. I have to bail anyway. The point at its core I am trying to make is that we as humans are defined by intellect. Without talking about potentiality only about what is, then there is no person there. There is only potentiality. So let people make a choice for themselves. Abortion should not be mandatory, but it should be an option, a personal choice that no one should be able to take away.
essentially my closing statement.
I would love to hear your last thoughts.
It has actually been a pleasure.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
It HAS been a pleasure. My first real discussion on here where the other person didn’t become maniacal. *cough*randall*cough* =)
August 1st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
kiwiboi (169): best comment on the debate
August 1st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
heatherrr: part of the new design of the site is that your views are now more clearly separated from the lists – this allows people to ignore things they don’t want to see. The Your Views have proven to be very popular and so I continue to post them for that reason. Furthermore, considering I expected this to be the most controversial one to date, it has been the most reasonably debated of all.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:54 pm
143. nerdlett – read all comments up to 143 and agreed so wholeheartedly had to skip down to comment…until men are held accountable to the same degree as women, I have trouble hearing them on this issue… I can’t imagine a scenario in my own life where abortion would be an option. However, I know nothing of others lives, struggles or beliefs and couldn’t imagine trying to make that decision for someone else.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
@ jadester
In some states a girl doesn’t need parental permission to get an abortion if she is over the age of 15.
I KIND of agree with that law. A girl who fucked up and has to get an abortion should have some anominity. The problem is, is that these same girls are coming back TIME AND TIME again. They BLEW their second chance and the parents should be notified/OR the state should make her complete some sort of sex ed/community service when she comes back for multiple abortions. Just letting the girl cut up the potential baby inside her does NOTHING to solve the problem. Only education can do that.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
@ 143 and 265
By that train of thought, shouldn’t men have some sort of say in wether or not an abortion should be allowed???
Thats like saying that women should have absolutely no say in our wars because women aren’t allowed to hold combat positions.
For the record I believe abortion is a right that all women should have, but it should not be a form of birth control.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:47 pm
For some people, it should be illegal to have children. Why is it that the people who don’t have money to support children, who live a lifestyle that is not good for children around, are the ones who have the most. There are plenty of people out there who would love to adopt a child who is not wanted by the person that is pregnant. Making this legal only tells young kids that it is okay to have irresponsible sex because there is a solution to pregnancy that results in not having to carry a child, ultimately little consequences.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:51 pm
There is no right to take a human life, and for those who say it isnt a human life, You are still denying someone their life
There is no reason we should ever have abortions, morning after pills and condoms as well as many other safety nets are available
a funny thing though, if you are raped the bible says you should be punished(If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city. — Deuteronomy 22:23-24 )
August 1st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Not a man’s decision, this one is for the ladies to decide….their bodies, their choice.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I think that every woman should have the right to a limited number of elective abortions in their lifetime. Yes, it is VERY wrong to use it as a form of birth control, which many women do, but one must also take into account a few things. Birth control is NOT 100% effective, so there is always a chance of pregnancy. A young couple starting out in life, not ready emotionally, financially, or maturity wise, that gets pregnant out of the blue, even when all preventative measures have been taken should have the right to postpone such a large step. Pregnancy is so rare when using birth control properly that 1 allowed elective abortion per woman is very reasonable. Emergency abortions, for medical reasons, should NEVER be banned. Whats a more valuable life, a woman with a family, friends, husband, other children, or a clump of cells or fetus. What it all comes down to is personal responsibility, if you are not ready to have kids, do not have unprotected sex, and if you are not in a stable relationship, its probably not a good idea to have sex at all. America has become very sex based, it is everywhere we look. (I live in vegas, so this may be more so for me), and the 10-12 year olds here know more about sex today than I did when I was 16, and not in a responsible way.
Abortion spares many children the abuse, neglect, hunger, and trauma of growing up in a family that was not ready for them, cannot afford them, did not want them, or is unable to take care of them. That is the only way children factor into it, because at the time of abortion, we are not dealing with a child, we are dealing with a grown woman (or scared teenager) and a clump of parasitic cells, which may one day become a human.
Abortion should remain a choice for those women who choose to postpone a very large step in life, rather than have it cost her or her child years of hardship, or to cast another burdon on the state. If some women choose to waste their given chances, then they will suffer the fate they could have avoided.
And before you accuse me of hating children, I am a 19 year old father of a 2 year old precious little boy, who while I write this is sitting in my lap munching on an apple. I love children, and I love my son. My wife and I discussed if we should keep him, and we found that with hard work and sacrifice we could provide a decent life for him. But we made the choice, and every young woman out there who made a mistake should have the choice for a second chance, or to play the cards fate dealt them.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
ericxdravenx26:
Funny thing, but I don’t find that funny at all. Do you believe that raped victims should be punished, or are you just stating some historical opinions on the subject?
August 1st, 2008 at 7:06 pm
malfore: You are a rare gem. Bravo.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I believe it should be completely legal. It boggles my mind that people would think otherwise. It is not the governments place to decide on issues that are religiously motivated. What one person believes, may not be what another does. I believe life starts when it is possible for the fetus to live outside of the body on it’s own, without the mother to continue it’s life. I understand that others disagree, but where I am from, that is usually the ultra religious people who are more than willing to speak out about the atrocity of it, but you don’t see them lining up to adopt these children.
Also, I had a friend who was gang-raped by five men after being slipped some sort of drug at a nightclub. Afterwords, she found out she was pregnant and was horrified. She had no clue which would have been the father, she already had two children, whose father basically refused to support them, and she was being reminded of what had happened to her. So, she asked me to go with her to the clinic, and I more than willingly went along with her to support her. As we approached, people with signs were harassing her, calling her a murderer. They didn’t know what had happened to her, or how hard a decision she was making, but that didn’t stop them from having their say. I felt so angry towards them, to me they were the monsters. So, think how you want, but I will always be pro-choice after seeing that. The point is, no one knows the circumstances in every case, and I personally do not think it right that people use it in a way that is a form of birth control, but it definitely is none of my business, because I haven’t walked in their shoes. Unless all the people for pro-life are willing to put their name on an adoption list to save these so called babies, then they should not even be talking about the issue.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
o.k. seriously people. do you not see the hypocrisy of the main argument in favor of an abortion?
correct me if i am wrong, but it would seem that most in favor would say that the main reason is that no one can tell a woman what to do with her body. you should not be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
(my apologies to cyn for yelling but i feel it is appropriate) A CHILD IS BEING KILLED AGAINST HIS/HER WILL!!!
where is the concern for their autonomy?
also, if you want to be consistent, you must say that if a child is not viable until it is delivered then abortion for any reason at any time is fully permissable. it is either wrong or it isn’t. consequently, partial birth abortions must be seen as acceptable as well. (quite possibly the most vile thing modern man partakes of)
August 1st, 2008 at 7:43 pm
i tried… i simply couldn’t read more than the 1st 110 comments or so…
I had an abortion back in 1996. I was young, madly in love, and in Job Corps. I had nothing of my own, and was really doing nothing with my life. i had nothing to offer a child, and was scared.
so, after much discussion with my boyfriend and a counselor, we decided that the best thing for myself, my unborn baby, and the man i loved was to have a termination.
and guess what? i not only am STILL involved with the man who impregnated me, we are still together and in love! it was an accident-but not one that we had to pay for with our lives. i do, occasionally, wonder what life would have been like if we had a child… but he was 18, i was 19, and we had our whole lives ahead of us!we would most likely have split up and i would have been an unwed teenage mother… living in a trailer park, driving a 22 year old car, and working at Wal-mart.
now we are both in our mid 30’s, have lived a good life, explored and traveled, and own our own home and vehicles. as soon as i finish college, then, and only then, will we try to have a child to add to our lives… since now, we have the means, emotionally, physically, and financially, to provide for another human being. the greatest gift anyone can give another person is a happy, fulfilling childhood-not like the ones my boyfriend and i experienced! (poverty, government cheese, and second-hand clothes from the church bazaar)
if any of you choose to no longer appreciate my comments or humor, then you judge me upon a decision made during a tumultuous time during my youth… and i am certain each and every one of you have done something you are none to proud of, but believed was necessary at the time…i am not my past, i am what my decision are TODAY.
here is my argument to those who feel abortion SHOULD BE illegal-
Exactly what way do you use to enforce this? What consequences are issued for performing pregnancy termination? For having one done on yourself? Do you punish the woman, as well as the physician who did the procedure? If so, what is the punishment? A fine? Forfeiture of medical liscensure? Community service at an orphanage?
things to be considered….
ringtailroxy
August 1st, 2008 at 7:53 pm
ringtailroxy: thanks for being so open – your comment certainly won’t change my view of you or your comments (which are always welcome and appreciated) – even if we are not in agreement on this topic
August 1st, 2008 at 7:59 pm
disc-
A CHILD IS BEING KILLED AGAINST HIS/HER WILL!!!
Where is this child’s will? A few week old fetus has no more will than the carrot stick I’m currently munching on. Should I put it up to my ear and see if it’s screaming as I eat it? It’s nothing but a clump of cells. A fetus has no will. I’m not now, nor have I been for 260 odd comments, advocating abortion. But really. There’s no will involved for the “child.” That’s an awful argument.
B_Rad-
Randall and I have made our peace, but I’ll always love you best. I do like that we’ve been able to take different viewpoints on this eloquently and like adults. That goes for everyone.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:13 pm
ringtailroxy: I think that if you are going to have sex while not on a pill, or without a vasectomy or any other 100% chance of contraception not happening, then you should be mentally, and financially prepared to have a child. Its a lot like one of the main rules for firearm safety (do not point the gun at anything you are not fully prepared to destroy). I understand accidents do happen, but I believe that when you have sex you accept the consequences. As for the punishment, I believe that the mother should be at least charged with manslaughter, if not murder, and the physician, willing accomplice. I don’t speak for every pro-life person out there, I just have very strong opinions towards this. I feel that all life is precious, born or unborn.
As for the people that say things like “It saves the child from growing up in broken houses,” well, it also saves the child from growing up at all.
I apologize for anything I have said that may have sounded mean or callous, I just sometimes come off as quite mean (which is why I always avoid talking about politics).
August 1st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Oh, and if that post sounded mean, then tell me, I’m really really hot right now, so I get frustrated easily
August 1st, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I think abortion is unfair to the unborn child, but I also believe people should have the right to decide for themselves. Ultimately it should be up to the mother and father. People have already made this point , but it is valid so I’ll state it again, whether or not abortion is legal or illegal, women who don’t want the child will get an abortion, so a safe and clean place would be ideal.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Jfrader, I think its starting to get to the point of close monitoring..you may need to shut this down soon
August 1st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
@ malfore
I completely agree with everything you had to say and I give you much respect for keeping your child, considering your age.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
“Thats like saying that women should have absolutely no say in our wars because women aren’t allowed to hold combat positions”
And why aren’t women allowed to hold combat positions? (your view…what would the world look like if women had been in charge)
I have to say my mind has been changed…slightly..by the civilized debate here…my view of pro life thinking was regilous, uneducated zealots…after reading the comments of the thoughtful people here, I;m not sure you’re all uneducated..
I’m not very controverial so don’t contribute much to these debates, but thought it was worth while to thank those of you with strong opinions for sharing them…we that lurk here get a lot out of it
August 1st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
malfore: watchful eyes are upon the comments – believe me
August 1st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
if you made it you can kill it, the end
August 1st, 2008 at 9:22 pm
jesse: what kind of logic is that, where filicide is legal?
August 1st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I agree with you a 110% J, abortion should not be legal. Just look at our society today. Kids as young as 15 are secually active, the stats on teen pregnancies are alarming enough to give you nightmares (especially if you’re a parent!). To legalise abortion is like giving your teenage daughter a license to have sex. It will further increase the amount of irresponsible sex that is alerady rampant.
And for all the people who are coupling abortion with ‘women’s rights’, thats not fair. If the woman does not want children then why is she having sex without contraception. Jfray, you hit the nail on the head when you impliend that abortion is NOT a form of contraception.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Phender_Bender -
“I feel that all life is precious”
i have never thought i would ever say this on this website-but are you for real? as in, seriously, charging women with manslaughter for having abortions??
how do you feel about the death penalty?(which has been proven time and again NOT to be a deterrent to heinous crimes and costs taxpayers much more $$$ than incarceration for life?)
how do you feel about factory farms, that pollute our environment, exploit the lives of MILLIONS AND BILLIONS of chickens, turkeys, cattle and pigs, and cause wanton suffering beyond human comprehension??
how do you feel about puppy mills and catteries?
if you want it across the board, then across the board it shall be, in reverence to ALL conscious life!
oooo… I am unbelievably fired up right now… although not directed at me, you have basically said, in not as many words, that I am a murderer! and that is an ultimate judgment you DO NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT to impose!
although i completely accept your right to state your opinion, and I feel fortunate that there is a place we can all express ourselves in a (relatively) civil manner.
which, by, the way, I feel you are a pompous humanitarian whom is ignorant of the fact that there are over 6.3 billion human beings on this planet and it’s not going to take to much more before we are like deer loosed upon a habitat with no predators to keep us in check…we will eventually eat ourselves right out of existence… a more self-righteous speciesist i have not met in my 33 years…
human life is NOT the most important form of life on this planet… and the sooner we as a species realize that, the better our lives will become…
ringtailroxy
August 1st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I find it confusing that the argument is that “no one should tell a woman what to do with her body”. Yet the woman asking for an abortion is doing JUST THAT!! She is making a decision for another male or female life inside of her. A decision that is a matter of life or death. Why do you view a fetus to be nonhuman one day, then the next day it is human, the only thing separating it from the label is whether it is inside or out of the womb. My friend was advised to have an abortion. Being a devout Catholic and HUMANIST, refused even if her life was at stake. That is being a real mother. A good mother doesn’t kill their unborn children. Turns out her baby was born and with few complication they are now a very happy and very alive family. Thank God she didn’t go to the evil extreme the doctors were pushing her towards.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:09 pm
With all due respect to those who have commented before me, and I was particularly interested in ringtail’s comments, I believe it shouldn’t be legal.
I know that’s a hell of a lot easier for me, a man, to say and that some people’s decisions are a serious matter. I do believe that abortion has become birth control in quite a number of occasions. It’s difficult for me to accept in any case, but people, this is the 21st century. With all the STD’s out there, some of which can kill ya, and the possibility of making another life, I find it the height of stupidity and ignorance that some people still go into that ‘transaction’ without some sort of protection. And when the inevitable happens, some folks make the decision to end the pregnancy. And that angers me. I’m not saying this directly to anyone here, but abortion as birth control is just wrong to me. I’m a hell of a lot more sympathetic to someone who literally fucked up and isn’t mature enough to be a mom or a dad, but some of these people who have gotten multiple abortions need to grow up. I’m talking about some of these people with 5-6 + kids running around living off the government tit.
I understand mistakes happen all the time. Hell, my brother got his girlfriend pregnant, got married, had the kid, and got divorced and this happened in the 70’s and he is still paying for that mistake. But he gutted it out and tried the best he could. I know not everyone can do that. Life sometimes deals out some brutal, brutal cards.
I also think we’re cheapening the value of life when we accept abortion. But I’m not trying to preach to anyone here. Your business is your business. But as someone who’s been around for a while, I can tell you that you pay prices for the decisions you make in life.
Just my opinion. . . .
August 1st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I was adopted.
I had a miscarriage at 16. Tried to kill myself.
Was pregnant again at 18 (failed condom). Terminated pregnancy.
Now have 2 beautiful, healthy children.
How do you classify me? I am all over the page.
Shame on you all.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:22 pm
This is an informative message to Tara, I am glad that you have seen my point. But your statement about the doctor is incorrect. Yes, a doctor can turn down any patient, it is called divorcing of the patient. The doctor must present a notice to the patient that they have to see another doctor in a timely manner. Once a patient to doctor relationship has been established the doctor can evaluate the patients condition and see if he, the doctor, is fit to perform medicine on the patient. I am sorry that you have been misinformed by whatever source that you have learned your information from. The information that I am relaying is from a doctor, my dad, he has had to turn down patients before and not just because of his own personal beliefs. But you also have to remember that there are doctors, presidents, and people in power who choose to operate by their own moral standards.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Whether it is Legal or Illegal? These are the laws of man. whether or not you do it, and what it does to you….those are the laws of a more supreme power…
But whatever you believe, in my opinion, Forgiveness is greater than Judgment
August 1st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Sympathetically for 292 and any others here with heartrending direct experience or involvement,
I’m reminded of a simple cliché, “It’s easy to talk”. There are people who shouldn’t, and there are times not to. This is certainly one for me to say no more.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:11 am
Quoting Tomo: “…abortion should not be legal. Just look at our society today. Kids as young as 15 are secually active, the stats on teen pregnancies are alarming enough to give you nightmares…”
I get nightmares thinking of all those 15 year olds who would be forced to give birth to unwanted babies that will either end up stuck with their teen mothers who cannot provide for them, or stuck in the foster care system because there are not enough families to care for them. Sure, some might get lucky enough to have extended family members who might want them. But let’s face it, and I think this has been said before, unwanted is unwanted.
I understand the whole “if you can have sex you should be able to have a kid” argument, I really do. But I don’t think ADULTS should be told how to conduct their sexual business. (With the exception of being upfront about any STD’s they have and not screwing around while they’re infected with stuff.)
Teenagers, sure, they need to be EDUCATED and given better options for birth control and contraception, absolutely. Adults should be educated as well, I know. But people (adults!) like me who are in monogamous relationships and don’t want children (at least not yet!) should not be punished and be told we’re “not allowed” to have sex. That’s ridiculous.
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:23 am
This probably sounds callous and maybe I’m only saying this because it’s late (early?), but I’m not entirely opposed to the 1-abortion-per-woman concept. Abortions definitely shouldn’t be used often and maybe if young girls knew that they were only able to get one, they would be more careful. However, for those whose method of birth control failed (even the pill isn’t 100% effective) it’s nice to know that you’re not a slave to a pregnancy you were working so hard to prevent.
I could never get an abortion but I don’t want to prevent someone else from controlling their own future.
However, my idea is just somewhat ridiculous because I have no idea how it would be enforced. And a lot of ideas are good in theory but don’t work in reality (communism anybody?).
So essentially, while there are a lot of dandy ideas out there for how the abortion problem can be solved, the only real solution is that which was reach in Roe v. Wade: women get to choose.
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:29 am
Ringtailroxy:
“how do you feel about the death penalty?(which has been proven time and again NOT to be a deterrent to heinous crimes and costs taxpayers much more $$$ than incarceration for life?)”
I dislike the death penalty and think it should be done away with (but I’ll leave my reasons for another Your View
)
“how do you feel about factory farms, that pollute our environment, exploit the lives of MILLIONS AND BILLIONS of chickens, turkeys, cattle and pigs, and cause wanton suffering beyond human comprehension??
how do you feel about puppy mills and catteries?
if you want it across the board, then across the board it shall be, in reverence to ALL conscious life! ”
Let me rephrase myself, I think all HUMAN life is precious, but the way that some people can treat animals is just disgusting, I get really angry even thinking about it.
“which, by, the way, I feel you are a pompous humanitarian”
I may be pompous but I do not consider myself a humanitarian
.
“the fact that there are over 6.3 billion human beings on this planet and it’s not going to take to much more before we are like deer loosed upon a habitat with no predators to keep us in check”
Overpopulation is scary, but how do you deny someone their right to a family?
“human life is NOT the most important form of life on this planet… and the sooner we as a species realize that, the better our lives will become…”
If human life isn’t the most important, then what is? People come first. If saving a species of toad means killing 1000 people then I’m sorry, the toad is gone.
“I am unbelievably fired up right now… although not directed at me, you have basically said, in not as many words, that I am a murderer! and that is an ultimate judgment you DO NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT to impose!”
See this is why I don’t talk politics, I knew I would offend you, but I didn’t mean to.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 am
No. A woman has a responsibility to keep her child alive, not the right to kill it.
If I was raped, lost my virginity and got pregnant at the age of 12 I would have kept my child. Never ever would even consider an abortion.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 am
I believe if you aren’t prepared to handle the risk of pregnancy then KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 am
I know I’m coming into the posts late, and I apologize if I’m repeating what anyone else has said, but …
First I should say that I believe that its entirely possible to make a mistake and then choose to either keep the baby or have an abortion and then have a happy ending either way.
But, I have to say that agree 100% with this statement issued by the leadership of my church:
“The Church opposes abortion as one of the most revolting and sinful practices of this day. Members must not submit to, be a party to, or perform an abortion. The only exceptions are the rare cases where, in the opinion of competent medical counsel, the life or health of the woman is in jeopardy or the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape. Even then, the woman should consider an abortion only after counseling with her husband and bishop or branch president, and receiving divine confirmation through prayer.”
Source
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:02 am
Phender_Bender :
i was not entirely offended… just deeply saddened that other people could feel like those among us who have faced tragic decisions could be held accountable so heinously…
but, like I said, I appreciate your ideas, and if they differ from mine, it does not harm me-it is all part of the diversity of our ability to each have individual thought! (or else we’d be ants!!!or bees… bees are more cute & fuzzy…)
i will choose to agree to disagree that “People come first.”
to me, and my boyfriend, people are important, but not the most important. what a pompous thing to say! i am not saying that “a species of toad means killing 1000 people”…
but i am saying that if saving a species of toad, which is intrinsically connected to the food web, that eats a specific fly, that carries a parasite, that carries a disease, that could kill 1,000 humans, might mean that a new, multi-million dollar sub-division cannot be developed in the everglades, then yes.
thousands of people and millions of acres have been damaged more by what we do to ourselves… no other species so wantonly kills it’s own kind for so little legimitate reasons. NONE.
bucslim~
i will agree that abortion is being over-used as a form of preventative birth control. i can think of 5 women i know right off the bat who have had 3 or more terminations in their lifetimes! that does bother me, and i feel it is being done to frequently… becasue, obviously, these women feel that ‘it’s no big deal’.
but i think that has less to do with the availably of abortions, and has more to do with these ladies’ individual value-system. now, 2 are my friends, and i love them dearly… but like any love, you don’t have to always like what your loved one does!
when i was 19, i was on a birth control method called Depo-Provera…it was an injection given every 3 months…and you have to get it within a week or so after your 12th week… and i just didn’t. i thought i would be okay for 2 extra weeks while i scrounged up the cash… but i wasn’t.
my fault entirely, but an accident is no excuse for forced parenthood! i was so immature back then…
ringtailroxy
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:20 am
I am a firm believer in letting women decide for themselves. For me personally I could not get an abortion, however I don’t feel right forcing my feelings on everyone else. Abortion is not just a way for a woman to rid herself of the responsibility of having a child. There have been cases where a woman was raped or sexually abused by a family member and the woman had an abortion when she found out that she was pregnant. There are also cases where the child is a serious hazard to the health and well being of the woman carrying it. To make abortion totally illegal would only result in, as I think someone else has stated, women getting abortions any way at the risk of their health and well being. How many places in the past have had antiabortion laws that have found out the hard way that women are still going to get an abortion whether its legal or safe or not.
Just my two cents, sorry if I rambled or repeated anyone else’s arguments.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:28 am
Ringtailroxy, I am on depo as well, I love it and I hate it. Love Love the fact that it has kept me kid free all these years. Hate Hate the side effects, but then i compare those two things to myself and say well a kid is going to a side effect that lasts forever so why not prevent it before the little bugger starts growing.
And I have to disagree with some people saying if they were raped they would Not get an abortion. Here’s a question… Have you ever been raped? Do you want to keep the kid and have it as a constant reminder of something terrible that happened to you. This can effect how you parent that child, and can be very cold towards it even though it is just innocent, but it was made from something so wrong and terrible. A child is supposed to be formed from love, not an act of power and control from a man.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 am
Only if it endangers the mother’s life should it become an option.
I believe in cases regarding the emotional turmoil of the mother (ie rape) or deformed infants (either physical/mental) should not consider abortion as an option. All humans suffer to various degrees but I do think that the fetus should have a right to be born. I think aborting those with disabilities is wrong. For rape/incest victims, I think suffering is a given, regardless of pregnancy and wouldn’t be solved with an abortion (not that anyone is saying that.).
Adoption is expensive and takes years for applicants to go through the system. I find the majority of abortions to be a waste, given all the women who can’t have children of their own. I think adoption should become an easier process and abortions saved for medical emergencies.
Regardless of my opinion on the matter, I respect the opinions and stories from you all. I think this has been a pretty decent debate for such a controversial subject.
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:17 am
yes, if you have been raped you dont want a child of a raper
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:30 am
My opinion is:
Birth Control should be far more readily available. I personally would like to see a better version of the birth control patch. Then both partners could be assured.
If the woman can’t afford and take care of the child; she should abort.
Condoms Break, Morning After Pill Fails, crap happens…
Seeing as the survival rate for premature birth for babies born more than 22 weeks early is less than zero; as long as the abortion is preformed 22 weeks or earlier than projected birthdate you aren’t destroying even a potential life.
After going through labor and see the *cuuuute!* baby; most women won’t give the child up. And both of them become the byproduct of the welfare system.
I’m not concerned with ethics or morality. I prefer to focus on the survival of the human race… and it is better for one child to be aborted when a 18 year old girl is pregnant than for it to burden her for the rest of her life.
I’m Brutally Honest and most Abortion are for predominantly for economic reasons.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 am
Ringtail, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. I know this is an extremely sensitive and personal issue. I totally respect your position and reasoning.
It’s just that this is the kind of thing that most people don’t have a sense of humor about, and nothing will change their minds until they have to make that decision.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
RTR ~ “when i was 19, i was on a birth control method called Depo-Provera…it was an injection given every 3 months…and you have to get it within a week or so after your 12th week… and i just didn’t. i thought i would be okay for 2 extra weeks while i scrounged up the cash… but i wasn’t.
my fault entirely, but an accident is no excuse for forced parenthood! i was so immature back then… ”
Gotta say that made me cringe a little. My fault entirely but an accident is no excuse for forced parenthood? Forced parenthood? I think the biggest problem I have with the pro-choice crowd is this mentality. Nobody forced anybody to *get pregnant* *You* got pregnant and would like to not be pregnant, but it’s too late, you’re already pregnant. It’s really hard to be a parent, but that in no way justifies avoiding it at all costs, even once you’re *already pregnant*
The whole mentality is reactionary and defensive. “How dare you tell me what to do? How dare you force me to have this baby?” Well, that completely avoids all responsibility up to the point of pregnancy. Just something to think about. Honestly, I wish everyone would just use more than one form of birth control and we could seriously cut down on unplanned pregnancies. Most of us live in countries where we have that option, we just fall back on the fact that the option for a last-resort abortion is also there, so there’s less of a sense of personal responsibility. Once you absolve yourself of any morality on the issue, it’s much easier to see it as a “choice” and not a baby.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
ringtailroxy: Now I know what you mean by the human race isn’t the most important. You mean like the world and all its life are greater than the human race, right? I agree with you there, but unfortunately to some people money is everything, which is why there are housing developments where there shouldn’t be, and people still make clothing out of fox. At first I thought you meant that the life of a cow was more important than the life of a human.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
I didn’t mean for that to sound as harsh as it may have come across. Sorry. I, too, was on Depo for 6 years. I love the convenience of it, just every three months, no thought necessary. When I got off and my husband and I were ready, we had our little bundle of joy.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 am
I posted my thoughts on this way up in comment #127, and felt there was little more to say. But as should have been expected, much of the anti-abortion rhetoric here has been simplistic, injudicious, and narrow-minded–and in a few instances downright ignorant and ill-informed. (Though please note, I said MUCH of the anti-abortion rhetoric. I’m not referring to *everyone* here who expressed anti-abortion views).
I have no interest in debating individuals on this topic. Certainly I’m sure many people are deeply sincere about what they believe to be an altogether proper reverance for human life, and are deeply sincere in their feelings that the fetus should be considered as much a human life as any adult or child.
I’ve already spoken on my own stance in this regard, in my earlier comment. No need to repeat.
But in reading through these comments, we see the sort of attitude one always hears: that abortion is murder, and should therefore be made illegal.
But of course we rarely, if ever, think of the woman who has an abortion as *actually* being equivalent to, let alone equal to, a *murderer* who actually kills another adult human being or a child, in cold blood or otherwise. Oh, some people may stand up and say that this is the case–but don’t we all more or less reject that, when you get down to the heart of it? People prefer viewing abortion as “murder” but are not quite as ready to call the woman who has one a “murderer.” (They’re somewhat more prepared to call the doctor who performs the procedure a murderer, but this strikes me as a species of evasion, if you follow me). It interests me that this is so, and to me indicates something about our deeper nature that many people are not prepared to recognize or accept. In essence people are, perhaps, viewing the fetus as a *potential* human being–how can you view it otherwise, after all–and as such, in their deeper minds they are unwilling or unprepared to give its existence *precisely* the same weight as a human being who has been born and has found awareness and experienced the world, and developed a persona and mind of his or her own. This is a more difficult debate, and people aren’t as ready to indulge in it.
But I note also that, in reading through the comments, there is nowhere in evidence the associated concern one should logically expect for the life *after* it is born. If life and its sanctity is the core concern for those who are vehemently against abortion, then what do they have to say about what becomes of it once it is brought into this world? They demand that the life be protected and forced to be delivered, but there their concern ends; indeed, this seems to be the entire point. No one is (or very few are)stepping forward to say “I will rescue that baby and raise it since the mother cannot do so, and I will protect it from the abuse and neglect and poverty it may have or would have faced otherwise.”
It’s easier to demand that others be forced to live up to our black and white notions of right and wrong, but much harder to face the grey reality of life and step forward to accept our mutual responsibility in that grey world… to not simply *demand* that it conform to our morality, but to bring our personal morality to bear on the world around us.
The thoughts here are not so much for the child that will come from a prevented, illegalized abortion–but simply for making the statement that abortion is wrong and that we have done our duty in stopping it, in criminalizing it.
It’s that kind of low, singular, superficial take on this world we live in–and each other–that contributes to the misery of human life.
I don’t say that everyone who opposes abortion should be forced to or even be willing to adopt an unwanted child. (Though of course that would be an admirable way of demonstrating one’s convictions). But the consideration of that life, in this manner, *after* it is born, would go a long way to proving that the true concern we should all be expressing here is for the quality of human life in general.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
268 karma: That’s called eugenics. It has been proved that even ‘letting’ people with physical or mental diseases have children, the world WILL NOT become a place full of physical or mentally ill people. That’s called population genetics. What is worse, you are not thinking about physical traits, but social ones. YOU decide that being poor is a wrong thing, so poor people cannot have children, and you are kind of saying that poverty is inheritable.
Other people I fail to find now: You can get pregnant even if you are on pills AND use a condom. It happens. Sex is not only for making babies, I agree that 12 years old is a very young age to have sex, and sometimes at that age your body is not even read for it. But again, we see everywhere that sex is desirable (movies, TV, etc) and who is more influenciable ??? (don’t know the word) than a teenager?
Now let’s consider my case. I’m 26, I’ve been in a relationship since I was 21 and I moved in with my boyfriend a year ago (for my age, I consider this a long time relationship). Do we want kids? Absolutely. But right now, we cannot afford one. I’m in grad school and the chances are that if I get pregnant I loose my job. My boyfriend is writing his thesis, and if I loose my job he will have to find a better one for himself, so good-bye college. Of course we use protection when we have sex (I’m on the pill and he uses a condom, just in case). And I got pregnant, fortunately I miscarriaged 3 weeks after. If I didn’t, I would have had an abortion, because I wouldn’t have been able to give the child (though what I lost was not a child for me) the life I think a child deserves.
The thing is that if you don’t kill a human being then you are not a murderer, and I believe that a fetus with a couple of weeks is not alive (or just as alive as the cells in my fingers that I’m killing while I type), and it’s not a human being.
As I said before, I’m not in favour of using abortion as another birth controll method, but seeing what happens where I live (abortion is illegal, however the abortion rate is the same that the one of countries where it is legal, but getting a safe abortion is really expensive so most girls end up dead or injured), I am totally in favour of making it legal.
gabriel1836: So if a woman gets raped and pregnant, she cannot make a decision but the men that surround her can (husband, bishop or branch president). Again, what it is in stake here is not abortion or not abortion, but the right of a woman to make decisions about herself.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
of course it should be legal, it stops people having children they dont want and/or cant care for. its not much of a life if they are going to grow up in crappy conditions with a crappy mother.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:39 am
I can’t say how glad I am to live in Canada where we have put this debate behind us legally, if not ethically. Thankfully, we have the Charter of RIghts and Freedoms which prohibits discrimination against sex, amongst other things. That discrimination extends to legislation, which means its illegal to have a law that is applicable to one segment of society exclusively. Which means that abortion laws are anti-constitutional by nature since they can only apply to women. That’s not to say our ultra-conservative government might not try to re-criminalize abortion, but any attempt to do so would ultimately be struck down by the Supreme Court.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
Randall: I have 3 adopted kids (one from China). I guess thats why I feel so strongly against abortion. My wife can’t have kids, and when I see the baby aborted it feels like such a waste, there are so many families that are willing to take these kids.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
Pregnancy takes 10 months from start to finish, plays hell on your body (I have a kid, I saw what it did), makes you miss work, makes you eat a lot, destroys your figure and can mess up your self esteem and cause depression and diabetes, and childbirth costs a LOT of fucking money.
How is it the government’s right to force you to go through that for what’s essentially a parasite. A tapeworm’s alive, should we not remove those either? You’re killing a living creature when you take medicine to kill a virus. Doesn’t the flu have a right to live? After all, it’s a collection of cells just like a fetus, and it’s fully developed.
Are you a vegetarian? No? You killed some animal that probably had a lot more ability to think and reason than a damn fetus does. AND it was probably, unless you’re eating only organic, kept in conditions that can only be described as slightly cruel for it’s entire life. Don’t get me started on veal.
Why is it that the same people who oppose abortion are almost universally for the death penalty? What, your government can’t let you remove a clump of cells that’ll cause you almost a year of pain, illness, distress, and financial hardship, but it can kill your citizens? How is that fair?
I think it should be legal up to 3 months (that’s where the brain forms to be fully thinking and self aware), and I think you should only get 3 a lifetime. If a first abortion isn’t going to show you that you need to wear a condom, you get 2 more chances to try again. The federal government already has 3 strikes and you’re in jail for life for felons, why not make pregnancy work the same way?
And, for the record, I’m personally for myself against abortion. I wouldn’t be ok if my girlfriend did it, I’d probably leave her. But, I use protection of a few forms, so wtf.
Why is it always males and old women who are vehemently anti-abortion? Can you have one? If not you’re never going to be in a position where the law would effect you. I find it rather unfair, though, that a woman can abort a fetus without the father’s consent, and he has to deal with it, but she can also ignore his plea to have her abort it, and then sue him for child support. It’s a gross double standard.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 am
iamaneviltaco: “How is it the government’s right to force you to go through that for what’s essentially a parasite. A tapeworm’s alive, should we not remove those either? You’re killing a living creature when you take medicine to kill a virus. Doesn’t the flu have a right to live? After all, it’s a collection of cells just like a fetus, and it’s fully developed.
Are you a vegetarian? No? You killed some animal that probably had a lot more ability to think and reason than a damn fetus does. AND it was probably, unless you’re eating only organic, kept in conditions that can only be described as slightly cruel for it’s entire life. Don’t get me started on veal.”
None of those things can ever grow up to be a human.
“Why is it that the same people who oppose abortion are almost universally for the death penalty? What, your government can’t let you remove a clump of cells that’ll cause you almost a year of pain, illness, distress, and financial hardship, but it can kill your citizens? How is that fair?”
I’m against the death penalty, but that logic works better the other way, how can someone kill an innocent baby, but not kill a serial rapist-murder.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 am
I believe a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her body and the government should not regulate it.
If a young girl is raped, I don’t think she should be forced to carry that memory around for 9 months or more. And I know getting an abortion won’t erase the memory, but she could at least get back to having a normal young girl life instead of carrying a baby.
That being said, I think women who go out and have unprotected sex all the time and get pregnant should not just have abortion after abortion. That makes abortion an “easy way out” and let’s them be irresponsible. But I have a feeling that most women who live their life like that are the kind of people/ having sex with the kind of people we don’t want procreating.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
This is a topic that I find myself leaning more to the right than the left on, but my general answer is still YES.
First, I would never have an abortion unless it was going to kill me. Whether my child had severe disabilities or I was just too young, I would have it. I do not believe, however, in forcing that opinion upon others.
I would highly regulate abortion. It is abominable, whether the child is functioning or not, to destroy an almost completely formed human as a form of contraception. I believe the mark for me would be the heartbeat- when a doctor can detect a heartbeat, it ceases to become a parasitic life form and moves into being an unborn child. That point occurs WELL into the pregnancy. There’s just no reason for partial-birth abortions. It’s sick.
I do believe that until society sets up proper programs to help support these children that have been saved from abortions, that they should still be legal. As people have stated above, it’s very taxing on the body, the mind, time, and especially the wallet to have a child. It can be a great blessing to many, but to some it’s nothing but pain. Why force someone to go through that if they choose not to?
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I apologize if this was already mentioned, I have read a lot of the comments, but not all 300+, but what about the father? It’s his “clump of cells” too, and no one ever mentions his rights, and what if he wants to keep the baby? I hate that men are given NO choice, whether the woman aborts the baby, or keeps the baby and extorts him for child support for the next 18 years whether he wanted the baby or not.
But, for the record, I’m anti-abortion, and I think the laws should be changed to say if a woman was raped, or there was incest, or there is a life threatening situation to baby and/or mother, that abortion would be okay, I think that would cut down the number of abortions and pacify most anti-abortion people.
I just hate that it’s used so frequently as a form of birth control, and I don’t think women realize the emotional turmoil it will cause them. Maybe not right now when they are a stupid, knocked-up teenager, but later, when they get married, settle down and want to have kids, and then it will hit them.
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
iamaneviltaco – how come almost no one uses the reverse of the statement you made:
“Why is it that the same people who oppose abortion are almost universally for the death penalty? What, your government can’t let you remove a clump of cells that’ll cause you almost a year of pain, illness, distress, and financial hardship, but it can kill your citizens? How is that fair?”
So why is it that the same people who are pro abortion are almost universally against the death penalty? Pretense runs both ways, methinks. You’re willing to end an innocent life, but have reservations about some of the most heinous lumps of crap ever to come out of a womb. Yeah, let’s let Jeffrey Dahmer, Tim McVey, and Ted Bundy continue to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide because all life is valuable, er . .uhm unless I forget to put a condom on, then it’s ok.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Yes. It keeps the minority and female populations in check. I’m being a smart-a** by the way, but the above fact is all that Roe vs Wade has really accomplished.
The Feminist movement should have had the foresight to realize that by legalizing abortion in 1973, they inadvertantly sparked off a Holocaust that has so far resulted in the deaths of millions of unborn American women!
Here’s a question…What has killed more Blacks: The Jim Crow South or abortion? The answer would surprise you.
That, and children are a gift from God. That’s why I can’t support the legalized abortion. Yeah, it’s a woman’s body, and she can do whatever she wants with it, but she also has to respect herself, act responsibly, and be a good gatekeeper (wink, wink) if you know what I mean…Men are only half of the sex equation.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
yes. many teenagers are becomn pregnant and they should be banged from havin a abortion.
if they didnt want a baby they why have sex.
i should know
im 14 and have a 2 week old baby.
so as i was saying woman or teenagers shouldnt have abortion unless they are either unfit 2 have a baby or medical resons
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I have seen very few comments mention the male’s role in the pregnancy/abortion decision…
and here is my take on it…
ever notice how little some men seem to be involved in the abortion decision? some men demand it of unwilling partners… others, suffer silently as they acknowledge what they know (or believe to be) unborn child terminated…
but what about men who don’t want to be fathers, but the women decide to have the child anyways?
or men who want to be fathers, but have a partner terminate the pregnancy? what about them?
if the decision to have sex takes two people, then the decision to terminate a pregnancy, or to have a child, should be between the two people involved. and if one person (or the other) can’t accept how their partner feels on that decision, then they aren’t going to stay together for very long anyway.
Bucslin~ thank you and I always respect you. you an me r pals, no?
Randall~ I agree! all these “Hope” pregnancy centers will ‘help’ you get government help and food stamps, WIC and Medicaid, maybe second-hand baby supplies… but where are they when the child is 2? 5? 10? it’s almost as if these pro-life, crisis-pregnancy organizations just care to help babies, not the children and adolescents they mature into…
and since when where pregnancies ever considered a crisis? an ectopic pregnancy , maybe…
Phender_Bender~ thank you for being open-minded enough to see where I was coming form that “humans are not the most important species”
I do think ALL species and life is important, and all other life on this planet ultimately benefits, harms, or affects us… if one species dies, then another, it can cause a cascading effect that ultimately will cause our own demise.
and yes, overpopulation is horrifying. that’s why I support this organization:
http://www.populationconnection.org/
check it out! I most certainly do not want to infringe on anyone’s right to have children… just as much as I desire them NOT to infringe upon my right to not have children until I am emotionally, financially, and physically capable of doing so to the standards I have set for myself. (and my future family!).
Jfrater~ this discussion, for the most part, has been impressingly civil, and I hope I am not speaking just for myself, but I applaud all who have commented! right or wrong, opinions or facts, FEARS OR TRUTHS, this has been a powerful, enlightening, and emotionally-charge discussion… one I have thoroughly enjoyed and learned much from!
ringtailroxy
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
272. kittym
not funny as in i think the situation is, i find it funny and idiotic that people believe a bible where it says both “he who is without sin among you cast the first stone”(jesus said when a woman who had committed adultery was brought to him and asked if they should stone her)
and then things such as that and “though shall not suffer a witch to live” “he who lies with man as with woman has commited an abomination and shall surely be put to death”(or something very close)
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
301. gabriel1836
children are born sin free, while a mother must have some sort of sins, making the child’s life more valuable than the mothers
I do not believe this, but by following the bible, this is a “logical” outcome
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
The most incredible is how much people care about abortion, discussing about if fetus is “life” or not. Of course is a living being, but this doesn’t mean anything. A chicken is a living being too. Terrible sentence, indeed.
But we live in a terrible world.
Every minute we discuss about that in here, 10 childs die of starvation in the world. And I don’t see “pro-live” organizations caring about it. ¿How can we take so seriously something related to a “presumed human being” and close our eyes to something related to CONFIRMED (yes, they are) human beings?
Of course. Abortion MUST be legal ever.
The day starvation will be ilegal; The day that those who deffend “pro-live” stop killing people in other countries or in theirselves; The day suffering will have ended; In that day we will be able to discuss about de “moral” legacity of abortion.
324. sarah:
“if they didnt want a baby they why have sex.”
Well. Maybe cause you’re living in another set of values…
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
326. ericxdraven26:
I don’t think bible sais anything about abortion. It says that having sex without wanting a baby is a sin.
¿why?
By the same reasons we’re deffending abortion. Couse a non-wanted child always carry problems. Of course you will love him but it changes your live and whatever future you’re expecting.
What Bible means is “If you don’t want a child, don’t have it”. In ancient times that mean not having sex. Nowadays means taking preventions. And if it fails (rarely but sometimes happens) then abortion is the solution.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I think abortion should be illegal. Murder should never be the answer. If you dont want a baby dont punish it with murder just give it up for adoption so at least it will be able to live a life of its own.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Those against abortion please answer these two questions:
When does life begin?
Should acception be made for rape, fallopian pregnencies, and other things out of the mother’s control?
Those for abortion should answer the top question.
That may halp with this discussion.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
292. qwerty:
Intrumision is the way of keeping people involved in discusion about things they fairly understand. Meanwhile the wheel of opression keeps turning, forbbiding what shall be universal rights, thanks to the power of ignorance.
For the next time: “Your view: What do you think about chinese birth control”
I would like to read where’re the sins and responsabilities in there.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Cedestra:
1) At the moment of conception
2) No – no exceptions.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Sorry, selfcorrection
328. JB: “Of course. Abortion MUST be legal always.”
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
It is fun having to justify yourself to both sides, but I think abortion in the early term is a necessary evil. I disagree with the right’s mantra that “life begins at conception,” which is used to condemn the morning-after pill. Sure, a newly fertilized egg has the genetic code to determine the traits of an individual person, but so too do the millions of skin cells we shed every day. On the other hand, in his final performance, the late comedian Bill Hicks quoted “That three month old thing in your belly is not a person, it is a mass of undifferentiated cells.” Well after one month, let alone three, it takes a clearly human form, with eyes, internal organs and most importantly, a functioning brain.
So naturally I won’t win friends on either side of the issue, since I am not quite pro-life enough, but tough sheisse, that’s where I stand.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
To me the bottom line is this: women who see it as their only option are going to have an abortion whether it’s legal or not, so might as well keep it legal, clean, and safe so two lives instead of one aren’t lost. If abortion is illegalised, what will be the penalty to those who have one? Prison sentence? Fine — fill up our over-populated prisons with scared teenagers, mothers of five; put the rape victims behind bars in the same place their rapists are kept. Pro-lifers want to stop abortions? Then prepare to have foster and group homes overflow even more because guess what: there are thousands of children in the system already, waiting for someone to adopt them.
I personally believe it a dangerous slope, legislating what specific people can and cannot do with their bodies, with their life. Yes, using abortion as a means of birth control is wrong, but one way to help prevent that is to educate young men and women about other alternatives, to teach them about the repercussions of having unprotected sex. Teach them about healthy body images, how to heighten their self esteem, and most of all, to respect themselves and each other.
I’ve been on both sides of the fence. True, I wouldn’t give up my son for the world now, but it is truly difficult to see the joy of a coming baby when you’re physically and emotionally damaged by things that happened beyond your control. I was lucky: most women who were in my position did not have the reassurances of an almost completed secondary education, good job prospects, a family willing to help, and money saved in the bank.
I am pro-choice, and am active in the sexual education of young people. Every month I travel to different junior/senior high schools in my area, toting my son along with me, and give teenaged girls and boys an inside look at the darker side of parenthood (although it doesn’t help that my baby is one of the best behaved ones out there
.) Maybe that’s not a lot, but I truly believe that the best weapon we as a society have against teenaged pregnancy and abortions is education and heightened body image/self-respect, and I will do my part to help keep girls out of the situation I found myself in.
This was an excellent debate to follow, and I thank all the people who commented with respect and heart. It reiterates why I love this site so much.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
While I could not get an abortion if I popped up pregnant, I do not look down upon the people who do. I have no right to tell someone what to do with their life, nor do I have to live with the consequences of that decision. We can simplify the reasons why woman have an abortion all we want but plain and simple the reasons are more complex than any of us who have never had to go through it can imagine.
I have a friend that was in a long term committed relationship. They were using contraceptives and by accident she turned up pregnant. She wanted to keep the baby but her significant other told her that he didn’t want the baby and that she was either to have an abortion or he was going to toss her out. After some long thinking and four trips to the clinic she finally had an abortion. Her relationship with her ex was over not too long after that. She was 22, going to college, and scared. There was no way she could support herself and a baby at that time, no matter how much she wanted it. Its a decision I know that still hurts her today. So to label her as someone who doesn’t care is not fair. You don’t know her or the other woman who have gotten abortions, you don’t know what is in their hearts or their minds.
I’m not going to disagree that there are women out there that use abortion like its the pill. As with everything out there they are people who take things to the extreme. Your average woman though do not use abortion like it is birth control and if the case happens where a woman wants to get an abortion they should have the option to have a safe abortion.
So yes I’m pro choice. I think it should be legal. Their body, their lives, not my choice.
Now when it comes to late term abortions that’s where I draw the line. I think if the woman has not made the decision to abort in the first trimester, than they should carry the child to term and give the baby up for adoption. Now if there are medical reasons than yes it should happen but to just all the sudden decide you don’t want a child when your eight months pregnant is too much. That might sound hypocritical but that’s the way I feel
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
@James
Its not that simple. A mother cannot simply pop the baby out whenever she wants to and give it to an adoption center (which is absolutely no gurantee that that will lead to a good life for a baby). It takes 9 months of pain to birth a baby.
@Everyone
Before anyone gets all huffy, know this: I am anti-abortion, BUT pro-choice. I don’t believe abortion is right, but I also believe it is not my choice to decide and neither is it the governments. Also, I’d rather that a mother have an abortion at a clean, professional clinic instead of getting a back alley abortion (happens FAR more often than you realize).
Know this: The Mexico City Policy, a.k.a “The Global Gag Rule) (as I’m SURE some of you have heard me metion this before) is a Reagan policy that was rescined by Clinton and re-instated by George W. Bush. It basically removes or severly limits (if they’re lucky) the U.S. funding to any NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that does not promote abstinence and/ or has any relation to abortion/ and or contraceptives. So basically, any NGO that is making an attempt to PREVENT the spread of HIV/ AIDS does not get American funding, which can be a huge deal. This has caused several abortion clinics, which provide sex education, to shut down, especially in extremely poor areas. This may sound like a great thing to some of you, but that is incredibly selfish thinking. This has caused AIDs to be FAR more rampant than is should be as people are unaware of its dangers and how contraceptives can prevent its spread. I found a quote in my research of a young African male who, because of lack of sex education (often provided at the same clinics that provide abortions), didn’t see what the big about AIDs was, nor why the use of a condom was important. Furtermore, what has been an attempt to stop abortion has actually created MORE abortions. Worse, because many women do not have access to a safe abortion, they eventually get back alley abortions where 50% of the time (according to the World Health Organization) there is permanent damage or death (to the women). This also happens in the states, more often than people realize.
Now, some of you may be thinking, “Well they shouldn’t have had sex in the first place!”. Well, it is not that easy. It never is. In many African cultures were they are cut away from the luxuries such as ovens and plumbing, it is a women’s job to walk several miles to fetch either firewood (to cook) or clean water (a very small portion of availble water in the world is clean enough to drink), or in some cases, both. So while these women are walking BY THEMSELVES for several miles, they are extremely susceptible to rape. And since sex-education clinics located in abortion clinics are struggling to stay open, the potential rapist may not know to use a condom, which would not only potentially cause conception, but could very easily spread STDs (including AIDs). If it is a specific woman’s duty to fetch water for her family or village (as her husband or father probably scrapes for money), she cannot easily do so while pregnant. Or would it be a good idea to send someone younger, a child perhaps, and have them go through it? Another problem is if a man raped a HIV-positive woman, he would contract it and pass it on to any other women he sleeps with, consentually or non-consentually. Which will either lead to more abortions or a child with AIDs, who will have a short, painful life.
Now, back in the states (or any other similar, rich country), there ARE back alley abortions. They do occur and the dangers are just as real. Would you rather a women have a safe abortion or an illegal, unsafe, and unclean one where there is a possibility that she may die? There is no “neither” as it is her choice, not yours. You can’t get into her head and make her descions for her. Many school districts do not have proper sex-education that teaches safe-sex, thus teen pregnancy occurs more often than it should and leads to more abortions. Often, THE SAME PEOPLE who are anti-choice are AGAINST sex-education on safe-sex in schools, which leads to MORE abortions.
The world is not black and white and nor is there a shining sword of justice that seperates good and evil. And neiter is the topic of abortion. Both sides are grey, but I believe in the lesser of two evils. Which means that abortion should be safe, clean, and legal to all citizens of the world along with the safe-sex education that goes with it. That way, we can bring down the spread of AIDs (and other STDs), unsafe (and illegal) abortions, teen pregnancies, and overall deaths.
I love people, so I will ALWAYS defend people’s freedom to think as individuals without a government coming in and telling them how to think. Even more, I believe that some day abortions maynot be needed, but the only way to get there is by allowing safe abortions with safe-sex education along with it.
P.S. If you just skipped ahead, please go back and read everything. A lot of this has been hard thought through lots of research at various times of my life.
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
D Holmes:
“I am anti-abortion, BUT pro-choice. I don’t believe abortion is right, but I also believe it is not my choice to decide and neither is it the governments. Also, I’d rather that a mother have an abortion at a clean, professional clinic instead of getting a back alley abortion”
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Abortion, I believe, should be the last choice for anyone, and used merely out of desperation (i.e. after a rape case, or the mother’s life is in danger.) However, I don’t believe that abortion is the same thing as murder either. For murder requires the death of a person, not an organism. Yes a living organism with human DNA is destroyed, but I don’t believe anyone can substantially argue that a fetus is a “person” or not a “person” for that matter (many men and women much smarter than I have been arguing over this same notion, the idea of personhood, for years and cannot find definitive proof on either side). Governments therefore have no right to tell people what they can and can’t do with their own bodies (as long as what they do with their own bodies do not interfere with the rights of others). And once again because a fetus cannot be proven as a person, it has no rights. In the end it should come down to an informed personal choice of what is right. The moment governments start pushing what they believe morality should be on people and forcing them to ascribe to these notions, freedom is lost. Laws are enacted to preserve order and promote welfare within a society in order to advance not only that singular society but the entire human race. They should under no circumstances tell people what they should think, feel and believe ( to do so would trump man’s fundamental and God given rights.) that is my opinion anyway.
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
To those who question what the penalty would/should be for having/providing an abortion, what would make this different from any other crime, were it to be criminalized? There are plenty of laws people disagree with, there’s nothing special about this one.
The media and activists on both sides have politicized this issue into the frenzie of rediculous divisiveness that it has become. And those of you who confuse the issue into peripheral issues, such as the ever-popular overpopulation arguement or the you pro-lifers don’t care about these kids after they’re born arguement, you avoid the central issue, being: is there a fundamental right of a woman to have sex, get pregnant and then terminate the pregnancy with a surgical procedure. Those are the facts. Is the termination of a pregnancy killing a baby? Yes or no. As a former embryo, I think it’s pretty clear that it is.
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
#338 D Holmes: “Often, THE SAME PEOPLE who are anti-choice are AGAINST sex-education on safe-sex in schools, which leads to MORE abortions.”
EXACTLY! People are such hypocrites on this subject, it’s disgusting. They are so quick to stand outside of the abortion clinics and hurl insults at these young women, calling them baby killers, whores, when instead they could be trying to HELP them. Instead of crying that they shouldn’t be having sex and getting pregnant, they should be offering EDUCATION to help them make better decisions. Lots of these young women (and young men too!) get very little in the way of sex-ed. I was pretty lucky in that my school was pretty good about it, and my mom was always very open about the subject. I had no desire to go about screwing around and getting knocked up. I know this is not the case for everyone, so there needs to be better education.
For everyone who’s saying “why don’t you just put it up for adoption,” I have a reply. Not every baby who gets put up for adoption gets handed out to a perfect loving family right away and lives happily ever after. Lots of them go through foster care systems, moving from house to house, city to city, never quite feeling wanted or at home anywhere. What if the kid doesn’t like being adopted? They still don’t have a choice anyway, whether they live or die. Why should it be such a big deal that the kid doesn’t have a choice in the matter? It’s the truth, they don’t. Even if they’re not aborted, they generally don’t get to choose who adopts them. They don’t get to choose not to grow up in foster care. They don’t even get to choose not to grow up with their own idiot parents if that’s the case. Who among us even got that choice? As callous as it is to say, their choice should be a non-issue for the simple fact that no matter what, even if the mother adheres to your precious little pro-life mentality, the kid still gets no choice in the matter.
But oh noes, what if I was aborted? I don’t think I’d really know the difference right now.
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
rushfan: Is there also a fundamental right for one group of people to decide what another group of people are to do with their body? Is that right? I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with controlling what a person does with their body. I never have, and never will. I also don’t agree with abortion, so I am doing MY part to help educate. As I’ve said, education is the key to helping to fix this problem, IMO.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Hang on to your attention spans or skip to the next posting. This is going to be a longish one, more a short essay. If taken seriously, the subject demands that, as other postings show. Perhaps abortion also better qualifies as a moral dilemma.
At entry 295 I said I would skip the issue. The reason: I felt my glib, intellectual objective comments might sound as empty brass beside the intense personal histories and suffering expressed by women here. Then I remembered later. Of course, I was aborted myself before I was born, I too can speak from experience! I do promise that everything to do with my own life as follows is absolutely true.
When a friend told his father the problem with our planet was too many people, his father asked him to put his money where his mouth was and make it one less by removing himself. Fair comment. So here is my qualifying removal from the scene. I was one of a pair of identical twins. One of us aborted at a late stage, to the temporary despair of my mother, who was desperate for a child to seal her love-match with my father.
Now everyone is going to say, “You phoney, Anon. You survived. Your twin died.” Clinically and logically, yes. Remember, though, we were genetically identical. And being an imaginative child I used to wonder, and have gone on wondering, what if it had been the other way round? I would have been it, and it would have been me, Anon-II. Keep on wondering enough, and the two identicals become inextricably mixed, like whirling images. There is no intrinsic difference. The same genes, the same parents, the same love from them, the same background, the same historical times to live through, etc. Inevitably we would have taken quite different individual pathways in life. It is impossible to say where Anon-II would be now, any more than where Anon-I would be had he chosen differently between many, many close options in life. Anon-I has led a fairly active life and identifies at least 12 *cat’s nine lives * when death has been a whisker away through drowning, electrocution, falling from heights, road accidents, health problems, etc. Any other pathway could mean neither of him would be here writing this bxllshxt! Bad luck, the rest of you. Needless to say, life would have been a totally different ball game had both Anons survived.
Some identicals are known to be almost telepathically close. So the darker side of my wondering has led me to ponder over my aborted self. Did I exist in any meaningful self-aware sense. If so, did I know what was happening? Did it hurt? Does it matter? I am able to link that up with my developed knowledge and fears about my own mortality. Death matters by anticipation if your conscious mind has the abstract concept and knowledge of death. Only humans past a certain age and some advanced animals do. Death matters if you can see it coming, or believe you can. Death matters if you suffer in the course of it. We know all this from people who have been knocked unconscious in car accidents that killed their companions. They remember nothing of the event. It came too quickly to register on their senses. That is really all. Therefore I am sure my abortion meant nothing to me other than to put paid to the potential of my life, which my other Anon has fulfilled. Does my aborted life as an unopened and unwritten book matter? I tend to feel instinctively that it doesn’t, even though from a selfish point of view Anon-I wishes we both had lived. Looked at from a religious standpoint, I am told I went straight to Heaven as an innocent soul, but that would have been as true had I been aborted deliberately. The possibility of pain and suffering had I already developed my nervous system would be the worry in the latter case.
We often think how catastrophic had Shakespeare, Beethoven, Michaelangelo or Elvis been aborted. Or how wonderful had the same happened to Hitler, Stalin and Idi Amin. But we know just as surely that there would have been others like them in any gene shake-up. Not exactly the same, but like them, to fulfil their place in human destiny.
Everyone’s continuing existence is important to themselves from the moment they are self-aware, unless they are driven to commit suicide. If we are lucky, we will have near and dear ones who care about us. That is not neccessarily so: some children are unloved by their own parents from the womb onwards. Most of us have friends and colleagues to whom we matter. Most will find partners, many will have children and grand children. Life abounds with casual, often anonymous, passing contacts. We may make an even wider identified impact on life as public figures, creative artists, scientists, criminals, explorers, sports people, LV posters. In that case more people will at least know of us and feel our loss, either with sadness or relief. But they are unlikely to have an intimate view of us unless we feature in an autobiography or biography. Virtually all that experience awaits us after we are born. Had Anon-I fallen at any of his dozen or so *nine lives*, his impact on the world, contributions to it, and experiences of it would have been correspondingly fewer, starting at almost zilch.
While still in the womb, we are only of emotional concern to our mother, and perhaps others close to her; to doctors in a professional sense; to several religions in an impersonal sense; and extremely rarely indeed to entire nations, if we happen to be dynastic and next in line.
The question finally arises for me: so what is abortion? Is it merely the termination of the initial development of cell division? Or is it putting an end to an existing conscious life? Or if one leads to the other, at what point does one become the other? Such knowledge as I have of biology does not provide a crystal clear solution. Personal judgement and values still have to enter the fray.
There’s no intention to provide a resounding personal yea or nay here, although I do have my own leanings and you may well have the feel of them by now if still with me. I’m merely sharing a little context from a rather different perspective by trying to imagine myself as the aborted, as I have before, and I dearly hope with some respect.
I consider I revere any extant life as precious and *sweet* and to be preserved if possible, provided it doesn’t threaten me or my interests unduly, and I’m not just talking human life. At the same time my reverence often strikes me as bordering on absurd sentimentality. For example when I watch a jewel-like butterfly I took time from work to release from fluttering against my window being immediately snatched and eaten by an unlovely bird. My brain tells me that this is, and has to be, the pattern of life in nature, from humanity down to bacteria. Nature permits natural abortion like mine all the time in humans. Tribes of North American Indians used to abort when times were hard to strengthen the collective survival of a smaller number. These same kind of observations pained the great Darwin.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
kittym ~ I understand people disagree, but does not the unborn baby have a body? Do you aknowledge a point where that body has right? People do not have unlimited rights to do anything they want just because they own their bodies. Can you legally shoot heroin into your body? Can you use your body to commit various crimes?
And I fully agree with the necessity of education. See my posts #68 and #83.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Abortion is not a Moral or Ethical Issue. It shouldn’t even be a legal issue. Nor a Religious one. It is an ECONOMIC issue.
Most abortions occur because the child will not have a stable life. The mother cannot afford the child.
Take away Legal abortions… and *poof* your back to illegal ones.
Religious Zealots claim it is sinful to have sex, and abortions and etc etc. Forget it. Laws should not be made on beliefs of for morality but in the Best Public Interest.
What is for the better public interest…
Legal REGULATED Abortions. Or Illegal UnRegulated ones?
Unfortunately, or in this one instance Fortunately, Abortions are an ECONOMIC issue.
MONEY IS ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.
It cannot be denied. The reason we are not focused on solving our own problems (Disease, Oil, Etc, Etc) Is that there is far too much money to be made off of us having these problems than if we worked to eliminate them.
If you could get a shot (chemical vasectomy) that made you sterile, and then 5 years later another that undid it… how much money would the birth control industry and doctors lose?
If we eliminated all disease, were able to regrow lost limbs, (The POTENTIAL OF STEM CELLS)… the Drug Companies and Condom companies would be bankrupt. If we found renewable energy then the Oil Barons would lose out. If we Made technology extremely cheap (5 dollar Ipods) like we could the computer industry would lose out. If we sold cars at construction cost new BMW’s would be under three thousand dollars.
You’re Forced into debating over ethics/morality/legality of things… You fail to see the wool that’s been pulled over your eyes.
Big Business only supports Big Business; they could fix 98% of the worlds problems if they weren’t focused on making a profit off them…
Just saying…
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
#344 Rushfan
Check out my post, that should answer some of the questions you posted there. In the debate over abortion, the real question is whether the fetus is a person or not, and therefore should have the same rights over their own well being and bodies as others within the society.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Brutally Honest: so the state should allow murder of babies but not random murder of others who cause economic harm? For example the ex-husband paying child support that he can’t afford should be allowed to kill his children who are a financial burden on him. The fact is, execution IS a moral issue and it doesn’t matter whether it is a baby or a teenager, or an adult – it is not moral to execute a person who is innocent of any crime.
And no matter what anyone says, adoption is an option in all cases and does not cause financial hardship to the mother. Murder to save money is a vile idea.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm
If a woman gets pregnant then she should have to take care of the baby, because it is what we all “in a way” sign up to do if we have sex. Sure the woman should deal with the consequences but why does an innocent child have to be raised perhaps poorly in the hands of a mother that never wanted a child in the first place.
Most are teens or adults who are not ready to have a child. Do we want children roaming around with no father figures or a loving family, mother’s who don’t have time for them or worse, neglect them? Or do we prefer children going from foster home to foster home? There is a reason why a woman may choose to have an abortion, and it is not up to us to force her and a child to go through a lifetime of pain and neglect.
This is not to say there are many women who don’t make mistakes by having an abortion. Perhaps the solution is to make getting an abortion a bit harder. The individual may have to go to therapy to make sure abortion is right for her. Of course this is just a suggestion, but making abortion illegal is taking a persons right to. There is argument whether the fetus is alive or not, which I say is not at the stage of a ball of cells, but one should be able to choose whether or not she wants to go through pregnancy and take care of a child, or have to give her baby away.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Jfrader, you do have a valid point, but the fact of the matter is, its not JUST about saving money. Its about saving a lifetime of financial insecurity,hunger, and a life in the slums from being inflicted on an innocent. There is also the trauma of being adopted, or god forbid, growing up in an orphanage. I respect all view points on this subject, as emotions run deep on all sides, and I am not trying to shoot down beleifs, but say my own.
As for the argument of “its not a human until it can survive outside the mother” argument I have read MANY times in this debate, take this for example. I was born 3 months premature, and barely survived. Many, MANY babies are born premature and do not survive. Does that make them any less human?
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
malfore: I think people tend to forget that it is not just poor people who have abortions – it is all manner of women. Money is not an issue as adoption is possible – and I am not aware of trauma from being adopted – many people I know are adopted and lead very happy lives. Murder is not a better option than adoption – or EVEN an orphanage.
Ask any person here whether they would rather be dead now, or have grown up in an orphanage – I don’t think many people would say they would rather not be alive now.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Its about saving a lifetime of financial insecurity,hunger, and a life in the slums from being inflicted on an innocent.
Aren’t you being a bit dramatic malfore?
What about all the brilliant people who have come from the sort of childhood that proponents of abortion for ‘the sake of the child’s upbringing’ reasons are describing?
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:58 pm
A valid point, yet if those people had been aborted, they would not have ever lived, at least as we know it as life. A preventative measure should always be used, but the choice should remain. I should point out I am STRONGLY opposed to elective abortions later than the first few weeks, when the embryo is little more than a few cells. I am also opposed to a person who has the means to take care of a child having an abortion, as this is more a matter of convience than survival or welfare.
And, as this is your site and I enjoy it greatly I will not press the issue, I would appreciate the absence of the word “Murder” from the argument. In my opinion it brings more emotion to the argument than is needed. In a debate where religion is involved, allowing emotions in is just a pathway to name calling and witchhunts
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I agree. The word *murder* is inappropriate here, unless we are going to slip right back to conception and consider that farmacological intervention at the moment the sperm fuses with the egg is murder, as is happening somewhere in the world at this time. Otherwise, at what point do we cry, “Murder”? That was why I decided to eliminate an ethical question naming the word from my 343 ramble above. I suspect it would in any case raise problems of definition. Surely by *murder* sensu stricto we at least acknowledge that the perpetrator understands they are unlawfully killing a recognisable fellow human being?
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 am
No one NO ONE in the Public Shools is allowed to teach any of this (Sex Ed.) I am hiding here because of the risk to my career. It is not right. But who can change things when we are all so afraid.
Please please my email is not shared.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 am
The point about whether one would rather be dead now is an interesting one which I believe I have at least partially answered in my 343.
However, it’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to over the years. The existence here of each and every one of us, the precise meeting of one particular sperm out of millions with one egg at one precise fraction of time is such an astonishing lottery win. The slightest glitch of history, even reading an extra page of a book in bed by one of our parents, would have seen some other combination in our place.
So dead? Perhaps technically so if conception had taken place and one was already *underway*, so to speak. However, from a practical point of view, I prefer to think of it as never having existed, since one has to be aware of something to miss it. Therefore I would be sorry not to have existed from my present privileged position of conscious hindsight. And I am at least as rueful that I shall one day have to quit this existence which has on balance been so enriching and enchanting.
However, had I not first materialised, and then trod this vale of tears, there would have been no me to think such thoughts and spout such philosophy. It’s as simple as that. Nor do I consider my individual existence so important that I must have had to live, although I admit it did once seem that way. I now recognise that I was quite unbelievably lucky, am duly grateful for that and try not to take it too much for granted.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 am
All in all, I believe in pro-choice. It is no one’s business what occurs with anyone’s body and what they choose to do with the consequences that may become of what they do. We are not purely baby-makers, and abortion is far from murder. To call anyone who has aborted their child a murderer because they aborted their embryo or fetus would be purely ignorant. This topic will forever be debated, so I won’t bother returning to this page because reading anymore comments would just make me more angry. This is an sensitive topic, and I think the decision for pro-choice should stay. It is no ones business what someone does with their body or life. This is why most abortions after 5 or 6 months aren’t allowed, of course depending on the situation. No fetus should be aborted after the 6th month because at that point they sustain (even if minimal) some chance of living. Do not judge those who’s shoes you’re not in. You never know what kind of circumstances might have brought them to a difficult decision such as abortion.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 am
Just to add some fuel to the fire, but has anyone heard of the new bill Bush is trying to pass. If it passes then birth control pills and other forms of hormonal contraceptives, as well as intrauterine devices will all be defined as “Abortions”
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/91560.php
If this bill passes then we will become a modern day Theocracy just like Iran.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:31 am
The decision falls to women, and the answer would depend on the circumstances. I think that if the birth endangers the life of the pregnant woman (Which can happen in teen pregnancies) then they are absolutely necessary. I think that accidental pregnancy should be able to be rectified, as long as its not one of those late trimester abortions. If the pregnancy were to be detected early I would say that it is fine.
One major argument people make is that an embryo should not be destroyed because it is human life, some goes as far as to say it is the equivalents of a human child. I took an ethics class in college, and I find that what I learned helps me destroy this argument. One example my professor gave me was a scenario in which I found myself in a burning building. I am right next to a shelf of preserved human embryo’s and a human child. If I can only save one from the fire the issue of equivalence is solved INSTANTLY. Any rational human being would save one small child even if they could carry 1,000 embryos, even a million wold not sway this decision.
Bottom line is that abortion is not a NICE thing to have to live with, have done, or allow. Abortions are absolutely necessary in todays day in age where the youths are getting knocked up left and right. without abortion children would be forced to forgo their lives, and youth for something that is not necessarily their fault. The real problem with this issue is that it is so simple to answer, but people often times bring god into issues were he is not needed. I believe in anything that furthers my species. I believe in stem cell research, for a religious dominated voter base (republicans) to be holding their votes for however will deny it is wrong. Any technology that could save, and aid millions of people is morally righteous and anyone against it should consider themselves dinosaurs. Republicans try to get this country to be the united states of Jesus, and that is not freedom. When the voter bases Christian dominance makes these issues a question then you know we are in trouble. Honestly if i had to slaughter a 100 puppies to save my kid I would be down plain and simple. Survival and advancement!
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 am
sddgrant: why are you a theocracy if you consider abortifacients and contraception as abortions? The definition of theocracy is “Any government in which the leaders of the government are also the leaders of the religion and they rule as representatives of the deity.”
This is a moral issue, not a religious issue. Don’t you think you are being an extremist with that view?
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 am
I don’t say that everyone who opposes abortion should be forced to or even be willing to adopt an unwanted child. (Though of course that would be an admirable way of demonstrating one’s convictions).
Randall – extending the “courage of your convictions” line of argument, a number of people here have claimed that fetuses are merely “clumps of cells”, or similar. Would it be reasonable, therefore, for pro-lifers to suggest that these people demonstrate the courage of their convictions by volunteering to re-assemble the dismembered “clumps of cells” of an aborted fetus to ensure that the procedure is properly completed – I’m referring to the common post-procedure check which ensures that the doctor has, indeed, removed the entire “clump of cells” (2 arms, 2 legs, a complete torso etc.) from the mother’s body following a vacuum or dissective operation…
Or to suggest that as a part of their pre-termination counselling each woman who claims it is “my body/my right” (with the imlicit assertion that the decision exclusively affects only their life and well-being) demonstrate the courage of their convictions by being made to view an ultrasound of their womb prior to signing up for the procedure?
…of course not.
The fact remains that more than 1 million abortions are carried out in the US alone each year and, as the statistics unequivocally demonstrate, only a tiny fraction of these are due to the health of the baby/mother or due to the consequences of rape/incest (a somewhat common ground for pro and anti abortion viewpoints). So it is, in my opinion, reasonable for people to make the assumption (and debate the fact) that abortion is being used as a form of birth control (albeit, as a measure of last resort).
I know you are not explicitly making the “courage of your convictions” position, Randall, and you have couched your words very carefully (and reasonably) here; but I’m sure you would agree that addressing the causes of this astounding need/demand for abortions is the only constructive way forward – much more so than going around in ever-decreasing circles on the wholly unresolvable debate as to the rights/wrongs/legalities of abortion.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 am
I took an ethics class in college, and I find that what I learned helps me destroy this argument. One example my professor gave me was a scenario in which I found myself in a burning building. I am right next to a shelf of preserved human embryo’s and a human child. If I can only save one from the fire the issue of equivalence is solved INSTANTLY.
Manny – You are talking about dead embryos and a dead baby right? If so, the ethical argument and resolution you present has so many holes in it that it is wholly baseless.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 am
jfrater: Morals differ from person to person so I admit, it is extremely tough to define what is and isn’t moral, much less make it into law. My problem with the bill Bush is trying to pass is that it is based solely on his religious morals. The constitution clearly states that there is a separation of church and state. This bill is in conflict with that part of the constitution because our President is trying to pass a law that is based strictly on his RELIGIOUS morals.
Sorry if my post is repetitive or isnt clear, I had a loooong night with Jose Cuervo and I haven’t slept yet(its 4am!) Ill post again later today when I can think clearly and ill explain my “Theocracy” comment then.
Cheers!
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:06 am
One more thing though…If this bill gets passed then it will make it very difficult for young women to get the Pill. Its safe to assume that if these women are denied the use of the Pill, then it will result in more unwanted pregnancies. More unwanted pregnancies will result in more abortions. Ironic, isnt it?
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:00 am
“My answer: I am going to be controversial and political with my answer, which is: Should the state have any say in a moral issue such as this anyway? At what point does the state have a right to legislate for or against issues which are traditionally left to a person’s conscience?”
This was from the top of the Your View debate about gay marrige.
And I think the same applies here.
The government doesn’t have a right to decide who should have an abortion. Yes, some people aren’t aware of the consequences, and take the matter far too casually. But they cannot decide what is wrong and what is right. Only the pregnant woman can choose.
And any men who are against women having the choice; your opinion shouldn’t even be considered.
You will never be left by a man after finding out you were pregnant, even when you used birth control. Left to bring a baby up alone, maybe at a young age, durig a financial struggle, or just when you really don’t want to have a child.
You will never be inpregnated during a rape, and have to bring up a living reminder of posibly the worst thing that has ever happened to you.
You will nevr be faced with the possibility of the birth of our child killing you.
I’m not sayig men shouldn’t have a say when it is their child. After all it took two people to get pregnant. But they should not be allowed to make women have children. No one should.
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:37 am
LZ: very well said, it is interesting that people can be for legislation dictating morals… but only in certain cases when it suits them.
You’re welcome to be anti-abortion, but when you say that you shouldn’t legislate for gay marriage but you should for abortion, you’re being completely unfair in a don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts sort of way.
I think abortion should be an option, but I’d never get one. I think gay marriage should be an option, but I’d never get one.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 am
I personally would be horrified if that law passes. I am huge fan of sex education and birth control. How are teens suppose ot make informed decisions if they are not given all the facts. While I do think abstinence should be taught, it should be taught in addition to other forms birth control and contraceptives.
My mom was a young mother, she was 19 and 20 when she had me and my older sister. Because of this she was determined that my sister and I not follow in her footsteps, so she made it a point to make sure we knew that we could come to her if we had any questions what so ever. Heck it was my mom who showed us what condom was and what is was for when my sister came home and asked what one was. She also made it clear that if we started having sex she wanted us to come to her so she can put us birth control. And yes she did follow through with that when my sister asked to be put on it. Also she put me on it when I was 18 and off to college even though I was a virgin. Its not like my mom was one of those mom’s who let the boyfriend come home and we can screw in our room, but she was still realistic. She knew that irregardless we were going to have sex whether she gave her permission or not. She wanted us to be safe. I credit her with the fact that I’m 26 years old and never been pregnant. Why, because she gave me the knowledge that I needed to protect myself. My mom was realistic, she did not give us the whole song and dance that you should wait until your married. She was always honest and open with us. Other teenagers need that kind of honesty whether its from their own parents or a sex education teacher who is willing to give them the truth. People who go into something with a fairy tale view of what something should be, hit a hard wall of reality. That’s the point of growing up and having parents they are suppose to teach you the things you need to know to live in the real world.
The other thing I credit for my lack of pregnancy is my younger siblings. My parents got divorced and remarried. I was 8 years old when the first of four half siblings were born. I got to see the day to day care of what it took to have a baby. I heard the late night crying, got to change diapers, and baby sit. Knowing what it took to take care of a baby was another driving force on why I wanted to wait. I knew I wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility. I think as part of a sex education teenagers should experience the day to day care of an infant.
A strong sex education and easier access to contraceptives (especially for teens whose parents refuse) is an important part of keeping unwanted pregnancies down. There will still be unwanted pregnancies because hey contraceptive failures do happen even to people in long term committed relationships. But getting rid of abortion will not cause the amount of unwanted pregnancies to go down.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:03 am
“My answer: I am going to be controversial and political with my answer, which is: Should the state have any say in a moral issue such as this anyway? At what point does the state have a right to legislate for or against issues which are traditionally left to a person’s conscience?”
This was from the top of the Your View debate about gay marrige.
And I think the same applies here.
LZ – so, given that you equate these issues, explain, please, whose life/existence is at stake in the case of gay marriage?
And any men who are against women having the choice; your opinion shouldn’t even be considered.
Interesting; so I take it that the opinion of any male who is pro-choice should be considered. Therefore, I am also logically surmising that the opinion of any woman who is pro-life should be discounted? – that way you restrict opinions to those who agree with your views.
How convenient for you…
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:40 am
Kiwiboi,
Extending your argument, any kind of imposed legislation, whether by democratic vote, political or religious dictatorship, or whatever, restricts the actions, yes actions, of those who hold opposite views. Only individual freedom of choice allows otherwise. That is why we value it so highly and try so jealously to cling on to it.
If the state decides that it has to intervene on behalf of a life which cannot express its own *freedom of choice* (the foetus), it has absolutely no moral right to usurp the primacy of the mother until and unless (at least) … It has taken every last step to ensure that free and total sex education is avaiable, including as compulsory in every school, as well as contraception for all. Likewise massive state support for adoption and counselling schemes. If it fails to do this, it is itself as responsible for the misery it condemns, or more so. In that case, cry “Hypocricy”.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:53 am
Anon : I expressed no argument. However, I think you may have been confused because the commencing part of my comment was a quote from someone else that started “My answer…”
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:27 am
Hannah (#241): Bullshit, when I saw the video way back in the day I was upset too, so then I did some further research. No cerebellum, no pain. Trying to get away, hah. Push on one side of a balloon, everything moves to the other side. gads.
Jfrater: (#253) There is no child in this discussion. There are no children until after birth. A viable fetus maybe, depending on your definition of viable. Even most folks who advocate for choice are not willy-nilly suggesting late term abortions as an answer for anything.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 am
There’s a reason this will continue to be a debate, and nothing more. In matters of religion, which are taught from birth, there is usually no way to change people minds, as is seen in the middle east. There can be no answer to this until we put an end to organized religion and evolve to freelance spirituality. This, however, is a subject for another topic.
I am aware how much the above statement will anger people, but that is my view. I will remove myself from this debate, as to avoid further conflict
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
There can be no answer to this until we put an end to organized religion and evolve to freelance spirituality.
malfore – it is a bold assumption you make that to be pro-life you are necessarily taking a religious viewpoint.
And BTW, what, exactly, is “freelance spirituality”?
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
@ Kiwiboi
No, many people are opposed to abortion simply off thier own morals, and I stand for their freedoms, but the people who take a violent stand against it are the religious yahoos who are taught from an early age if your not with me, your agaist me.
As for your question, freelance spirituality is unorganized religion. Take away the mantras, groups, names, and masses and you have freelance spirituality. It allows people to keep morals and religon without the danger of it becoming a mob mentality, or a driving political force
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
I cannot speak for all women…just this one. I had an abortion when I was 17 years old. I was young and incredibly immature. I got mixed up with the wrong crowd and ended up pregnant by a man that beat me on a continual basis – including after I found out I was pregnant. I knew I did not want this lifestyle for my child. I went to my parents and they gave me the speech “you made your bed and now you’re going to have to lay in it”. Had I not had the abortion, and given up the child for adoption, the father would never had agreed to adopting and I would be tied to this person, ’til death I do part’. I do look back on this with terrible grief. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of September 5, 1989. I look on it as a day of grief, but also as a day of freedom – afterward, I had to move to a different state to get away from him. He just got out of prison this last year – has been in jail for 15 years. Had I had that child, I would have had to raise it on my own, probably living on the system, with absolutely no family support. Since then, I completed my college education and just 3 years ago, got married. When I was five months pregnant, he told me he couldn’t handle the responsibility and walked out. I now have a 2 year old little boy that is my complete soul. It is incredibly hard doing it by myself, but I think coupled with the fact that I am much older and financially capable of supporting a child, I don’t think I would have it any other way. Do I support abortion? You bet I do. I do, however, think you should think of every alternative before doing so. I think it would have been different had my family been supportive. At least I know my child is in different hands, and not in the hands of an abuser. What kind of ‘life’ could I have possibly given that child? What kind of ‘life’ could I have possibly given myself? Sometimes I wonder where I would be right at this minute, had things turned out differently. Every single abortion is made for a reason, and most for different reasons. In an economic standpoint, I agree, most abortions are done for financial reasons. Most abortions are from single women where the father doesn’t want the responsibility. How many of these women that don’t have abortions end up living on the system? These dollars come out of your pockets. They are unable to go to school, or have a job. Child care. Groceries. Formula. Diapers. Housing. All of that would have to be paid for. Then your talking about adopting. You would constantly be wondering if that child is being loved and cared for. On top of that. What’s going to happen 20 years later when that child wants to find you? How are you going to handle the possibility of someone showing up on your doorstep, possibliy accusing you of abandoning them? As I said before. Think of all alternatives before doing it. None of us, and I mean NONE of us, have a right to judge anyone based on our decisions. Until you can walk two steps in our shoes, no one has that right. Thanks for reading.
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:19 am
No, many people are opposed to abortion simply off thier own morals, and I stand for their freedoms, but the people who take a violent stand against it are the religious yahoos who are taught from an early age if your not with me, your agaist me.
malfore – yet in the case of the “with me or against me” camp, you don’t even get the “with me” option in the case of those pro-choicers who state “if your a male your view/opinion doesn’t count”?
Be consistent, malfore, otherwise your argument could be construed as merely being anti-religion…
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:19 am
Excellent post Texaswoman. The scum-bag that just got out of prison would have had legal rights to the child too. What a horror you escaped and prevented.
You are the supreme example of why legal abortion is an absolute necessity. You made the responsible and correct decision. Twice. Different times of your life, different choices. Enjoy your little one.
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:22 am
Kiwiboi: I’m assuming you had a great vacation/trip? Nice to see you populating the comment boards again.
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:26 am
Mom – why thank you
Nice to be back amongst friends again
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:55 am
Kiwiboi,
I am happy if my views don’t conflict with yours.
However my 368 stands as a challenge to call the bluff of interventionist moralists here and everywhere. The collective interest of these people is to attack and suppress, or side-line effects (irresposible, *immoral* sex; consequent unwanted pregnancy; and *murder* by abortion), while ignoring or even exacerbating causes. Principle causes being:
1) Our hard-wired sex drive, imperative for collective survival. No? Only the poor and animal-ignorant do it? Then take a look at the antics of all strata in most nations, from the highest and best educated downwards, starting with presidents and royalty. As Cole Porter put it, “… even educated fleas do it”.
2) The lack of open and fearless but sensitive sex education for all from the earliest possible age, to enable us to understand our *hard-wiring* and to help us to control it, or at least keep it under reasonable control by means of our cultural evolution. And as is now seen in some enlightened northern European countries, to allow us to consider it without overtones of embarrassment or obscenity. On a lighter note, taking that and my (1) together, I recall reading a remark that Bill Clinton’s *performance* would probably have boosted his image had he been president of France!
3) The lack of a complete range of easily available prophylactics within reach of all, and free where necessary, to compliment my (2).
For many moralists, my 1) is simply a disgusting Darwinian perversion of our essential special divinely elevated status above the rest of organic life and my 2) and 3) must not be allowed because they will lead to further depravity and an increase in consequences such as abortions. This is no more than metaphorically blocking steam escaping from a kettle with heat under it. We all know what happens then.
I hope my limited use of the word *moralists* here is plain. I do not of course mean an individually developed moral sense, which I hope we might all have.
As one with a strong instinctive distaste for politics of either wing (even when I happen to agree with particular policies), I have noticed that the *right* everywhere labels all *left-wing* intervention as depriving individuals of freedom, but its own intervention is always promoted as protecting individual freedom.
My use of the word *murder* above was illustrative. Please may its direct use have disappeared from this debate.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Kiwiboi: gay marrige is another thing that applies to only a few people, therefore stressing LZ’s point that only people who may have to make the choice can have a valid opinion on, which I am sure is what they meant. So straight people on the sidelies cannot restrict gay peoples choices, the same way men cannot prevent women.
As for the fact that gay marrige doesn’t hurt anyone and abortion does – this gets cancelled out by the fact women could be hurt by the illegalising of abortion.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
sdggrant: I have a real problem with your post – you claim they are “disgusting”, and then say they should have the right to choose.
Another “disgusting” act – let’s say a violent assault – should this not be punished by law?
I too think they should have the right to choose, but would never call them “disgusting” – if I did think that, i would say ILLEGALISE!
I also know a girl who had 4 abortions – her behaviour is DISGUSTING – she obviously has the casual, cold attitude towarsd abortion that brought this argument to surface in the first place, but i think a reversed saying is neccessery here – “don’t hate the game, hate the player”.
Every situation is different, which is the reason CHOICE is neccasery.
soz for all the CAPS, but thought i’d be clear.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
@MEG
I think abortions are disgusting but not necessarily the people, I should of been clearer, sorry! As a straight male I also think gay sex is revolting, but I’m able to see past that and realise that how one person lives there life should not bother me, unless it is directly affecting my life.
I don’t agree with abortions, unless under certain circumstances(rape, mothers life in danger) BUT, I realise their necessity. I try to not let my personal feelings infringe on the rights of others, in this case, the basic right to CHOOSE.
For the record, I know a few girls who have had abortions, my cousin one of them, but they are all great people and I would never think of calling them disgusting. On that same note, I can’t help but think that women who have 3,4,5 abortions as being immensly STUPID. Birth control extremely easy to get at the moment, such as free condoms and the pill at planned parenthood, most community colleges will also give out free condoms at their nurses offices, so these women are just being plain lazy.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Kiwiboi:
As I said in my post, gay marrige and abortion are issues of ethics, which differ from person to person. You obviously don’t see an ethical problem with gay marrige (neither do I), but many people do (and said so in that debate). The government shouldn’t be able to dictate which of these points of views are right, just as they shouldn’t with abortion.
And as for the “whose life/existence is at risk”: this is a debate whether abortion should be legal, NOT wheter it is wrong or right. In truth, I don’t know where I stand on this. My morals obviously aren’t as strong as yours.
Plus, I never said anything about pro-life women’s opinions not being counted. Of course THEY have a say. IT IS THE WOMANS CHOICE. But men will never face that (for some) terrible, terrible choice. A pro-choice man is not ‘pro-abortion’. They are leaving it up to the woman, which in my opinion is how it should be.
In your opinion, the choice should be made for them.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Kiwiboi:
I actaully don’t know if your pro-life or just anti-my post, so I shall rephrase that last sentance.
In people-who-want-abortions-illegalised’s opinions, the choice should be made for them.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
*Kiwiboi,
I actaully don’t know if your pro-life or just anti-my post, so I shall rephrase that last sentance.
In people-who-want-abortions-illegalised’s opinions, the choice should be made for them.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
sdggrant:
Reaslising their neccesity IS agreeing with them!
Or is it not?
If you could expalin, that’d be sound.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Kiwiboi:
The only answer that I can give, to the questions you posted to me, is to go back and read *both* of my posts here.
The first was #127. It should answer the questions you put to me.
We should also have the courage to admit that human life isn’t as sacred as we like to think it is.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
It has to be recognised that so long as abortion is permitted there has to be intervention by a central authority to determine the cut-off date (sorry, no disgusting pun intended) for all except illegal abortions. The only way to avoid endless agonising and moralising as above is to have a perfect society where no one needs and no one wants an abortion. We should therefore be aiming to get as close to that impossible situation as we can.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Randall,
“We should also have the courage to admit that human life isn’t as sacred as we like to think it is.”
That’s what I was trying to put across in my 343 and 355, but using a lot more verbiage to make clear I accepted it as a personal thing. It’s all very well to talk about *the foetus*. Surely not valid though unless you accept the foetus could be (have been) yourself.
One problem with this subject is its oscillating so wildly between detatched objective views and intensely personal experience. There has to be an effort to synthesise them.
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
MEG:
For lack of a better example I will use the old saying “A necessary evil.” But I use the term evil here in a very broad manner and don’t really think its “evil.”
I feel though that that saying best describes how I think of abortion.
Again, I am not so self-centered that I think that my personal feelings should over ride the rights women, or any other person. That is the point that I was trying to make.
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I don’t think it should be the woman’s right to choose.
It should be the fetus’s right….or the pre-fetus…the zigote…or is it the pupa?.
This question by the expert hospital staff should be blunt,”Do you or don’t you want to live in this world?”
“Come-on, we don’t have all day..the tickers running and the bills aren’t getting any cheaper.”
“Cant speak? or haven’t made up your mind?”
“Do you know, how many other “Babies” are waiting to be born on this floor alone?”
A little fetal guilt is what’s necessary in the modern-overpopulated-undecisive-planet we call mama.
oh mama.
p.s.
lost in the shuffle.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
no.
But the whole strict government control thing brings up an interesting point. Mainly that our government controls too much. And this would just be another. And whenever the case gets to the supreme court again they’re gonna hand down some other B.S. decision and basically legislate from the bench. Its not their job to make laws. So we shouldn’t allow the high court from ruling on the issue. This can be accomplished by not letting any abortion related cases from entering federal court. Congress is totally allowed to do that too, look it up.
Let the state decide what’s best for their people (in this case as well as many others) they’re closer to the problem at hand and therefore better equipped to handle it.
People say “if you don’t like things in America then leave” but America is really fuckin awesome so no one wants to leave. So if we let our states function in the way they were intended to based on the constitution, look it up. Then people will be saying “if you don’t like things in Texas move to Seattle…….fag”. I like that future, because then no one has to leave America, and i would never want anyone to have to leave America, because its easily the greatest country in the world……. ever.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
“We should also have the courage to admit that human life isn’t as sacred as we like to think it is.”
I profoundly and unapologeticaly disagree.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Randall,
“We should also have the courage to admit that human life isn’t as sacred as we like to think it is.”
The question should be.
¿why are american and occidental lives more sacred than the ones of those who suffer the overpopulation? For living as #392. smerkis said, each american carried to the world means at least hundreds of lives taken in other places.
So we’re here discussing about if an AMERICAN fetus is hundred times more sacred than an AFRICAN OR IRAQY child.
Why must China have a natality control while in the US women are bound to have non-wanted childs?
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
rushfan, 393,
How sacred is human life then, and by what criteria? And why do we fail to treat it as sacred most of the time? Wars; genocide; contemptuous commercial exploitation; cynical political expediency; religious bigotry; racial and tribal bigotry; unimaginable richness alongside unspeakable poverty; widescale self-abuses of kinds, not least by drugs; Paedophilia within churches; pollution and degredation of our own environments. Take a realistic look around the planet. Or is lip-service to our sacredness enough? The Dalai Lama is more honest. He effectively tells us that we could be more sacred if we tried. But that, implicitly, is building sacredness, not assuming it to be intrinsic in humanity, and that is what we should be about (in case you consider I am being merely negative and cynical).
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
@ Mom24 (370)
No cerebellum you say? Why then was I able to feel the child currently growing in my body move of it’s own free will at only 12 weeks gestation? I am not willing it to kick and move around even now, yet it does. That alone could keep me from ever wanting to abort a child.
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
rushfan:
You may disagree, but I think you also need to elaborate.
Take a look at the world around you. We hold human life *far* from sacred. We… (and by “we” I mean the collective “we” of the entire human race, I am not referring only to some specific nation or group or ethnicity) we neglect and ignore and maltreat our fellow men and women, not to mention children; we torture and even kill each other. We oppress each other, and almost always look the other way when our fellow human beings are suffering. Our attempts to reach out and help are the exception rather than the rule. We hate each other and find reason after reason to exclude, ostracize and otherwise single out our fellow men for this or that difference–sexual orientation, religion, color of skin, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
It is profoundly easy to speak out with one’s terrible indignation at something like abortion, because of the instinctive tenderness and protectiveness we feel towards the defenseless infant; but where is our care and concern for our fellow man or woman when he/she is actually *here* on the earth, all around us, living in our midst?
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I wonder how many pro-abortion people would be accepting of aborting puppies by putting instruments up into a dogs uterus and ripping apart the puppies piece by piece, or by sucking the puppies brains out. I imagine very few would ever agree to this.
Is animal life more sacred than human life?
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hannah:
Ok. I spend time talking about non-occidental people and you come out about puppies. I hope to be just an unfortunate coincidence and you really didn’t read comment #394.
If not your final sentence was really unfortunate:
“That alone could keep me from ever wanting to abort a child”
Stop thinking about what you feel to make rules for the others.
¿Could I say reggaeton must be ilegal couse I will never listen it?
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Hannah; an amoeba kicks and moves around. It thinks? It is self-aware? Lame argument.
Isn’t that protectiveness you feel towards your yet to be born child wonderful? Entirely based on the fact that that fetus is a part of you, all yours.
Entirely the reason why the right of choice needs to be left up to the woman. Because it is a part of you, not your husband, not the state, yours. It doesn’t matter what the legislation, that life is not autonomic, it is part of the woman. No one can ever force someone to carry a child to term, by criminalizing abortion you don’t stop it. You just deny woman a safe and legal medical procedure.
Where is your compassion for the young women who will die from septicemia or hemorrhage to death? Their lives worth less because they don’t share your beliefs? Bah!
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I do not follow your logic. Some do not treat life as sacred. Granted. How in any way does this mean life is not sacred? Is not the sanctity of life what makes the behaviors you speak of so grievous? If life were not sacred, we would be inclined to accept genocide, descrimination, murder, abuse, etc.
Randall ~ “It is profoundly easy to speak out with one’s terrible indignation at something like abortion, because of the instinctive tenderness and protectiveness we feel towards the defenseless infant; but where is our care and concern for our fellow man or woman when he/she is actually *here* on the earth, all around us, living in our midst?”
Again, I am against abortion simply because I, as you were, was once an embryo. I think that it is an early stage of life and therefore not a choice, but a child. I am not emotionally reacting mindlessly “with indignation” I am simply stating my feelings on the subject at hand. And my “care and concern for my fellow man and women” is firlmy in place.
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
YES: It is the sole business of each and every woman what she chooses to do with her body. (Mainly).
I had an abortion at the age of 20 (3 years ago) and not for a single moment have I ever regretted it. Those who use the ‘emotional turmoil’ and ‘mental distress’ arguments do a dis-service to women the world over; are we still seen as such delicate little flowers that we cannot be entrusted with making decisions about our own bodies and lives? And yes, I believe that MY life was of greater value than a zygote. Call me crazy if you will.
Do NOT call me a murderer though. There was no ‘life’ involved in the lump of cells removed from my body. I believe that the term ‘baby’ is wildly inaccurate and unnecessarily emotive in a debate such as this because, to me, a baby is a new-born infant. I will admit to finding third term abortions unsettling as I will concede that the possibility of independent sustainance outside of the womb poses a greater issue, but in the end it is the WOMAN who must have the final say. Not the government and not the church and certainly not a group of strangers who’s beliefs are so dogmatic that they believe they should be enforced on EVERYONE, regardless of situation/circumstance. Example…….
How anyone could deny a victim of rape the CHOICE to abort is beyond me. I should imagine that is a predominantly male view though; you can’t be impregnated against your will and you will never be able to know how it feels so you may find well find yourselves quick to judge. As trite as it may sound though, try to personalise it; say your sister was raped, found to be pregnant and had no choice about whether to abort or not. Do you honestly think her rights would be better served if she were forced to bring a child into the world, a child that she may well end up resenting, a child that would daily remind her of arguably one of the most traumatic events a woman can experience, than if she were allowed to abort? Do you honestly think the so-called ‘trauma’ of an abortion would out-weigh the trauma of having to carry the result of such a vile act within your body for 9 months? I completely fail to see the logic here.
Abortion as a form of contraception is wrong, that I can understand and agree with. But to say that EVERY abortion is carried out in such a manner, or even to say that it is particularly common, is glib to the point of the ridiculous. My abortion was the right choice for me and I will stand by that decision every day of my life. I have never felt guilty, I have never felt ashamed and I have certainly never felt remorse for my decision. I KNOW that it was the right choice for me and, in all honesty, suffered very little emotional distress as I was informed, prepared and incredibly well looked after by the staff of the British NHS.
Incidentally, I was also on the pill AND using condoms. And you know what? Shit happened. Anyone who says that if I didn’t want to have a child then I shouldn’t have been having sex can take a long walk off a short cliff. That is the same as saying ‘if you don’t want to get hit by a car, don’t cross the road’ – You can wait for a red light, you can use a pedestrian crossing, hell, you can even wear a giant protective bubble-suit designed explicitly to prevent against road-traffic collision injury and you MAY still get hurt. (Btw, if you don’t see the parallels: rhythm method *useless*, pill, condom etc.)
My point here is that despite everyone’s best intentions things can still go wrong and it is unfair to punish women by forcing them to have children!
To end with a question: Pro-lifers – If abortion truly is ‘murder’ and say it were to be banned, what should the punishment be for illegally having an abortion?
Jail? A fine? Community service? None of these will serve any purpose. None of these will help the situation. There is no rehabilitation required here and financial punishment seems arbitrary here….. so what? A ban may make abortions harder to get and certainly more dangerous, but hey, that’s not bad enough, we’re also gonna punish you for asserting your right over your own body! Very constructive.
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Randall: I’m with you on the sanctity of life bullshit. For that is just what it is. I would be curious to know how many of the staunch anti-abortion folks here also believe in the death penalty. A system they know is flawed and has and does kill the innocent. I have argued with some of these same people about their justification of the behavior that is happening at Gitmo. Sanctity of life? Bullshit is the correct call.
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
rushfan:
“I do not follow your logic. Some do not treat life as sacred.”
No, rushfan, you missed the point entirely. NONE of us–or at least very, very, very VERY few of us–actually treat life as truly sacred. LOOK at the world around you. Open your eyes to the suffering, misery, torment or just outright neglect and ignorance that your world is *steeped in.*
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
no one should give a crap what other people do. simple as that. if someone doesnt want the baby. they dont want the baby. it’s not even alive till it takes a breath of air. now, killing the baby after it already has come out of the womb. would obviously be murder. lets worry about the women who are doing that, because they cant afford abortions, rather than the women killing a clump of cells that have not yet become much of anything.
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
rushfan,
I too was once a foetus and I most sincerely do not share your view for reasons I have explained. Is my point also valid or not? I’ve put myself in the frame. No one seems interested. Randall writes along the same lines as I did and gets the courtesy of a reply. Why the hell did I bother. Well, call yourself Anon, and what can you expect.
And you have still not defined *sacred*. Life? Human life, or all life? And if only human, why and how the distinction? Is it our distinction, or did it get bestowed on us from without?
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
my answer: yes
A woman’s body is her body and she should choose what to do with it.
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
There is a huge difference between being pro choice and pro abortion. I do not believe that I, or anyone else, should have a say so over the physical implications of another woman’s body. Some women should not give birth, whether they keep them or not. No one should tell a 12 year old girl she HAS to have the baby. No one has that right, not even a parent. Any women should have the right to choose, perhaps with mandatory NON-BIASED counseling and information about adoption. I had a friend in high school that had an abortion. She was young, foolish, and made a bad decision. Had she carried the baby, even if she had given it up for adoption, her parents would have disowned her, the “good christian” folk that they are, and she would have had nothing, so education, no future. No person should have to pay for a mistake forever, and NO CHILD should have to pay either. There are FAR TOO MANY unwanted children in this world who are being raised by parents who thought they didn’t have a choice. Poor babies.
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I second Reapers data.
In addition, lets talk about the psychological toll on women who have children they can not support as opposed to the psychological distress of an abortion. In my experience most trauma from an abortion cames from having to deal with people who are insanely anti-abortion rather than the abortion itself. Lets talk about how much the state really helps financially. Lets talk about how many men DO NOT help with the raising of the children and how little most give for child support if at all and what that does to the psychological health of women. Lets talk about what a woman who has no health insurance and does not qualify for aid does with the hospital bill for delivery and how that affects her psychologically.
I second the position of the person who said in the society we want abortion should be illegal.
In the real world I have come to this conclusion, unless you are going to pick up the tab for all of the bills of that child and not complain and unless you are going to be there for all of the parenting the woman has to do, and unless you can assure a woman she will have less psychological trauma from raising a child than from aborting it, you have no business telling her she shouldn’t have an abortion.
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Anon ~ The first part of my reply was also to your comment, as there was more than one comment making the same point.
“No, rushfan, you missed the point entirely. NONE of us–or at least very, very, very VERY few of us–actually treat life as truly sacred. LOOK at the world around you. Open your eyes to the suffering, misery, torment or just outright neglect and ignorance that your world is *steeped in.*”
Ah, Randall, you didn’t answer my question. Is not the sanctity of life what makes the abuses you see all around you so unbelievably wrong? You are preaching to the choir, buddy, when you try to tell me the world if full of horrors.
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
On a personal note, I work with adult and pediatric patients who are awaiting life-saving transplants. There is no denying the world is full of those who could care less if others live or die, in fact would happily kill me or you. But I am lucky enough to be exposed to doctors and nurses who work tirelessly to provide life-saving operations because of the sanctity of each life they encounter. And not just in America, one of our heart docs goes to Mongolia every year to treat patients and train their doctors. Look for evil and you’re sure to find it, but it in no way detracts from the sanctity of life.
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
my answer is no
“The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.” Mother Teresa
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
401. rushfan
not a single molecule of your actual body was in the embryo. So you weren’t any embryo at all.
Sorry, but any kind of spiritual discussion deciding for real problems makes me sick.
What kind of logic are you using?¿wasn’t the ovule and sperm yourself also? If your mother had menstruation it would have been an abortion for you also.
I see more clear everytime that those “pro-live” hasn’t any kind of idea about what live is. And better don’t talk about natural science…
All your talking about come from a morality point of view forced through historical religious imposition.
It doesn’t mean: “I believe in God then I think this” but: “My ancestors believed in God and they left a latent morality under facts unsopported by science noer sense of reason”
A laicic state must take care about the intrumision of those kind of morality. Even more when is shown to keep an unhelthy individualism and egocentric behaviour.
410. rushfan:
If sanctity of life is the reason that keeps you to not doing so… I’m sorry to say that: But you’re a kind of monster unnable to behaive like a human being by your self sense of reason.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
JB, Congrats on a poorly articulated, offensive comment at my expense. Kindly do not include me in your ramblings, as none of my comments are directed at anyone who cannot comprehend the there are stages of fetal development, one of which is the *embryo*
As far as religion or spirituality, I have mentioned neither, as I am not religious.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
This is probably off topic, but reading many of the comments above (which I am assuming are mostly from American readers) makes me very glad I live in a different country
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Here’s something this debate has left me wondering: suppose that abortion is illegalised — then what? I’m curious as to know what people who are pro-life think would be the next step, assuming you agree that making legislation against abortion isn’t the end of the road (because I believe that it is far from it). How do we as a society prevent these women from feeling so outcasted, so cornered, that they feel their only option is termination? If you agree that they aren’t all moraless “baby-killers”, how do you propose to help them once the child arrives? Because obviously we are doing something wrong, or are not doing enough, if abortions are considered the only alternatives for women in tough situations. Any thoughts or suggestions?
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
DiscHuker: My perspective regarding the subject does often shock people but do not mistake me for a cruel or malevolent person. I appreciate the significance of a creatures life as much as most, likely more so as humans particularly fascinate me. I have simply developed my opinion based upon the criteria provided by the debate.
I believe it was Thomas Kuhn who put forth the hypothesis that science can only really change when a paradigm is questioned and altered (A paradigm being an underlying assumption of the scientific method i.e. All animals breathe in some way. When performing a scientific experiment one need not investigate this aspect as it has been proven to be correct so consistently that it no longer requires proof). It is my opinion that these sentiments should be followed in many other debates, abortion included, the paradigm of such a debate being that we share a certain form of morality based upon our psychological and sociological preferences, the practicality of this morality and to some extent, logic. So I ask why it is that when discussing abortion one does not question one’s moral orientation and how this affects their opinion within the discussion. You may be understandably confused so allow me to elaborate, morally people assume that a living creature has the right to be alive, this is obviously reasonable but should certain rare circumstances arise then is it not also reasonable that this creature may be killed? That is unfair one may state and indeed one would be correct in doing so but if I may be so blunt, life’s not fair. The belief that we are all created equally is a humanist fallacy; from birth we are genetically inclined to have a certain level of intelligence, certain physical features that may be deemed unattractive or otherwise, we may be born into a wealthy family etc. In a philosophical sense it is possible that we could all be considered equal but many whom I know who follow this thought are also the ones who immediately condemn and despise any criminal who is displayed in the news believing them to be ‘no longer human’ which rather saddens me.
Forgive me, rambling is a terrible habit that I possess. To summarise my feelings on the subject, I do not believe abortion is a good action; to destroy a life is certainly not a simplistic choice but in my opinion it should be allowed regardless because I believe those who are born should be given priority over those who are unborn. I use the term ‘unborn’ fairly loosely in this context due to the fact that initially, when first conceived, the entity inside a woman’s womb is not a creature from my perspective but it grows very quickly into one, far more quickly than most would suspect.
In addition to my previous argument based upon practicality I would like to state that by no means do I believe that if abortion were made illegal woman would be using coat hangers and visiting ‘back-alley surgeries’ with rusty tools (though this will obviously happen at some point I highly doubt it would be a regular occurrance), these claims are unfounded and illogical. In any given market to survive a business, be it a superstore, a restaurant or an illegal abortion clinic need to focus on that which their potential customers should desire most and advance on it; in the case of illegal abortion clinics the ‘customers’ shall desire a healthy and hygienic setting above all else so the businesses offering this service shall react accordingly to compete with others.
My argument however was not that the above claims are true but that the ‘anti-abortion’/'pro-life’ arguments are an exercise in futility as humanity have realised that abortions are plausible alternatives so if they wish to have them they will regardless of what law, morality or logic dictates; this remains true in many walks of life.
My apologies once more for the continuous functionless rambling but it is the manner of getting others to understand my perspective which I am most skilled and experienced with. Have a nice day – Niall
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I am very strongly pro-life. I see no reason to include any opinions, as any I could throw out seem to have been covered many times already. However, I do often wonder how abortion ever came about. And I’m not looking for a history lesson found on Wikipedia, as I am certainly not claiming to document any actual ideas of how abortion came to be. This is just my attempt at an objective insight on the issue. The scenerio I somewhat sarcastically play out in my head includes a young obstetrician, decades ago, explaining his new concept for a partial-birth abortion to a colleague, gruesome details included, and proposing such a procedure be used to meet various needs for pregnant women, perhaps emergent cases or last-ditch effort at contraception. I can’t ever seem to find any way to imagine such a conversation moving much further than that. It seems as though such an idea, even in today’s society, would be met with shock and horror. Go back several decades and that shock and horror would presumably be even greater. It truly baffles me to think that such an operation is performed by physicians who take an oath prior to beginning medical school with distinct provisions regarding abortion.
I have read many posts from both sides of the argument and have found many valid points on the opposing side. However, I refuse to believe that any “clump of cells” is worth disregarding. But I’m beginning to see that this argument will likely be in a stale-mate for at least a while longer.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
JB – Please refrain from arguing in a language you clearly have not grasped and your “logical” understanding of this topic is misguided/unclear. Just read the comments of the guys who know which side they’re on.
You have a very one-sided and shallow perspective on religion which leads me to believe (again), you don’t know what you’re talking about.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
rushfan,
I’m playing catch-up here, so hope this doesn’t duplicate anything further down the line.
“Ah, Randall, you didn’t answer my question. Is not the sanctity of life what makes the abuses you see all around you so unbelievably wrong? You are preaching to the choir, buddy, when you try to tell me the world if full of horrors.”
I think the point you’ve missed here, and what Randall and I have been putting across all the time is easily explained by metaphor. You won’t agree of course, and may even find the concept obscene and inhuman. However we must all be true to ourselves, you and us.
We are not prepared to place at the same level someone tearing up a Leonardo canvas before he has painted a stroke on it with a finished masterpiece. Of course that matters, but not at all in the same way. For us the situation of man’s inhumanity to man relates to when the painting has been executed and is defaced or destroyed. The canvas has then, if you will, been *made sacred* by the hand of Leonardo.
In other words people matter for what they have become, not what they might become. Sperm and eggs are potential *half-people* too, but no one considers them intrinsically sacred. Why on earth not? They are miracles of DNA, some of them full of the potential to make another Beethoven, Salk or Einstein. Isn’t that as sacred as anything? They are life. They are not inert lumps of protoplasm. Or do you too have your arbitrary cut-off point?
Posting now and reading on.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Remember guys – fight the argument – not the person
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 pm
rushfan,
I’ve caught up with your bit that answers mine on sperm and egg. However, can that be dismissed so readily? Did you and I really not already exist as separate halves in all our potential when we were sperm and egg, albeit in different bodies. I should claim we did, and in a definite, material sense, not as some kind of *sacred essense*. In fact, in a very real sense we could be said to part of the flow of our species since it initiated, and indeed as part of the unbroken chain of life since it began. (Unless you reject evolution. that is.)
You’ve told us recently here you are not religious (I haven’t yet been able to read all the way back up through to find your first reference). But you have still not produced your definition of the sacredness of life, where it originates, whether it is limited in application to human beings at conception, and if so why not to other life forms, or to all life. And indeed, if it is exclusive to humanity and you accept evolution, at what point it began?
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Blimey,
Trying to follow this topic is like watching a ball at championship squash match. I’m struggling to post arguments in other topics too. It’s like one of those grandmaster chess tourneys: one against a lot! I really want to visit the early flying machines too.
August 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Yes, abortion should be legal. The way I see it this debate is about whether a fetus is a human being at the time of abortion. When that’s settled all is left are opinions on whether or not a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body.
What is a human being? Is it an organism that can react to external stimuli? If so then just about anything alive is a human being. Even an amoeba reacts when affected by external stimuli, it is reflex and not intelligence. Is it an organism that feels pain? Then a fetus is not a human being at the time of abortion. According to research the part of the brain that allows the fetus to feel pain is not developed at such an early stage of development. Reacting to stimuli is a reflex and is not a proof of feeling. Other movements such as a hiccup or sucking on the thumb are also reflexes. Is it thought, memory, emotion? This does not exist in a fetus a few weeks old, actually this is one of the last things to develop in a baby.
Source: http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_key_brainFAQ#fetus
It is a personal opinion when a fetus becomes human, but it is certain that a fetus at such an early stage of development does not possess the characteristics of what we consider a human being. When it comes to that, banning of abortion is a violation of human rights.
Keeping a fetus is putting your body through so much and going through labour. Perfectly fine if it’s worth it. But what women get is an unwanted baby, or a baby that will not be provided with the best that the mother wants to give it. If not it’s having to go through the pain of giving up her baby, and for many years thinking about it. This is a decision too personal and too grand for anyone to make or force on someone.
August 3rd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
@ JB
“Stop thinking about what you feel to make rules for the others.”
Never once did I say, that because this is how I feel than this should be the rule. It is why I simply said that this is why I personally could never have an abortion. I don’t know why you went ahead and assumed that I don’t hold all human life sacred by my puppy comment. It pains me just as much to see starving children in Africa or kids in Iraq being bombed as much as it does to hear about children being aborted. Please don’t assume, it only makes you look closed minded.
@Mom24
“Isn’t that protectiveness you feel towards your yet to be born child wonderful? Entirely based on the fact that that fetus is a part of you, all yours. Entirely the reason why the right of choice needs to be left up to the woman. Because it is a part of you, not your husband…”
Yes, it is wonderful, but it has nothing to do with the “fact” that it is all mine. In “fact” it is not all mine. I did not create a “fetus” all by myself by willing my body to do so. We all know it takes a egg AND sperm, which thankfully, I don’t have both of.;) This child is just as much a part of my partner as it is myself. Quite evident by the fact that our 2 year old son looks exactly like him, not me. By no means is my love for our son any greater than my partner’s just because I carried him for 9 months and just because my body is the place that the child grows within. This child is not all “mine” and it’s quite foolish to say so.
What unsettles me the most about your comment is that you make it sound like, as women, our motherly instincts should be selective towards the babies we carry. Did you have these “wonderful” feelings with the child you may have? Would you be able to turn them off toward another child growing within you because that child may be an inconvenience, or perhaps a result of incest? If I were to find out that the child within me could mean my potential death, should I then remove my protective/nurturing feelings toward this child? If I were to be raped and become pregnant, although I would find the situation absolutely abhorrent, there is no way that I would feel any less protective of that child. I know with 100% certainty I could not abort that child.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Yes, abortion should be legal.
That being said, I am totally against abortion — birth control should be widely distributed. Abortion should be very rare.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Hannah- You clearly don’t have the slightest idea what a victim of rape feels like, and neither do I. But I am respecting enough not to judge a situation I can’t even imagine. The human psyche is amazing and very flawed. It is not as simple as accepting a child no matter whose it is.
Also you say you are positive you would feel the same towards a child conceived through rape, but you are so wrong. It’s not a matter one can control, it is a mental disorder of sorts. I am sorry for bashing, it is not you, but for anyone who feels this way towards victims of rape. It makes me furious that people continue to blame these people whether for the rape or not accepting a child. Please don’t judge anyone unless you’ve been in their shoes.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:19 am
gay marrige is another thing that applies to only a few people, therefore stressing LZ’s point that only people who may have to make the choice can have a valid opinion on, which I am sure is what they meant. So straight people on the sidelies cannot restrict gay peoples choices, the same way men cannot prevent women.
MEG – So, using this interpretation, you are saying that only the members of a minority should have the power to make the laws that affect them? Surely not. That is flawed on so many levels.
As for the fact that gay marrige doesn’t hurt anyone and abortion does – this gets cancelled out by the fact women could be hurt by the illegalising of abortion.
I’m not sure you have grasped the point I was making. Nobody is killed/hurt in the gay marriage debate (which we both agree on). But the stakes are much higher in the abortion debate (whether it is from the perspective of harm to women from backstreet abortions or, conversely, from the perspective of harm to otherwise healthy fetuses).
August 4th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Abortion should be legal.
I don’t understand why any person should think that they have the right to choose or judge what another person does to their own body.
No one is forcing abortion on you – it’s a choice. If you feel that it’s murder, you don’t have to do it. However, many people believe it is an option that should be available, and I agree with them.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:00 am
You obviously don’t see an ethical problem with gay marrige (neither do I), but many people do (and said so in that debate).
LZ – actually, my view on the gay marriage debate was that I did not support it (not that I felt especially strong about it either way).
The government shouldn’t be able to dictate which of these points of views are right, just as they shouldn’t with abortion.
That is a naive view. We live in a society and there should be, and always will be, rules and boundaries. On a broader level I think that if you look back over time this does tend to work relatively well, in that legislation evolves (maybe slowly) to largely reflect the values/characteristics of the times.
Plus, I never said anything about pro-life women’s opinions not being counted. Of course THEY have a say.
My remark here was clearly a general point based upon a number of previous comments; I find the view ridiculous that men should not have a say in the abortion debate.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:48 am
If you disagree with abortion just don’t have it done simple stop trying to meddle with other people’s decisions.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:03 am
sdggrant:
i think i see what you mean.
so do you put your-self under the heading pro-life or pro-choice, or neither?
kiwiboi:
WHY IS THAT FLAWED?
i live in england, have no idea of what it is to be american, so should i have a right to vote who should be your presient?
But the stakes are much higher in the abortion debate (whether it is from the perspective of harm to women from backstreet abortions or, conversely, from the perspective of harm to otherwise healthy fetuses).
yeah, thats’s true, but this statement does nothing FOR abortion or AGAINST it, so is useless in this debate.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:45 am
“I find the view ridiculous that men should not have a say in the abortion debate.”
Kiwiboi:
In my view, the idea of a man deciding womens rights is ‘ridiculous’.
To me, the idea of a man wanting to ban abortions is like a vegaterian wanting to ban butchers.
(I know this is a lot more serious than that, but I can’t think of a better way to put my point).
A man will never be a woman.
A man will never get pregnant.
A man will never want an abortion.
So the choice is a lot easier for you.
You don’t have the conflicting ideas that women have (well, that I do).
On one side, you are killing a defencless feutus, an abortion would be selfish, as I should live with the consequences of having sex.
But on the other, do I want one failed condom to map-out the rest of my life?
On one side, this child could be the best thing to ever happen to me, and abortion is against my morals.
But on the other, my partner could leave me or my family dis-own me.
On one side, this abortion could be far more traumatic than I ever expected. There might even be complications.
But on the other, having the child could be traumatic for both of us.
We’re not going to agree on this.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:50 am
WHY IS THAT FLAWED?
MEG – firstly, who decides/defines what is a minority?
What happens where there are equally conflicting views within that minority?
What happens where the view of the minority breaches “superior” common law or general legislation?
- do militant Islamic fundamentalists make the laws that apply to them?
- do white supremicists make the laws that apply to them?
- do one-eyed airline pilots make the laws that apply to them? (a foolish example, but you see how quickly this becomes a farce)
We live in a society, not as individual cells within a society. And, in general terms, the better that the society is integrated – and not separatist – and the more that the laws and conventions governing that society operate…the more beneficial it is for the common good.
i live in england, have no idea of what it is to be american, so should i have a right to vote who should be your president?
I’m not American – and I live in London. Where are you? (don’t answer if you prefer not to…)
yeah, thats’s true, but this statement does nothing FOR abortion or AGAINST it, so is useless in this debate.
Hence my earlier comment that you are missing the point.
The original poster was saying that one could apply a general perspective from the gay marriage debate to this one (abortion). I replied that this is not necessarily the case, as the gay marriage debate is not a life or death issue, whereas abortion is – whether you are pro or anti abortion.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:00 am
In my view, the idea of a man deciding womens rights is ‘ridiculous’.
LZ – “deciding”? Where did I say “deciding”? I said “have a say”…due to being a member of the community to which such laws would apply. And I’m not, of course, referring to individual cases, but to abortion laws in general.
To me, the idea of a man wanting to ban abortions is like a vegaterian wanting to ban butchers.
Unfortunately, this analogy implies that (like the vegetarian) men have an implicit reason or agenda to undermine women. Which is, in my view, an erroneous and somewhat twisted view (and, possibly, not what you were intending to convey).
We’re not going to agree on this.
Well…we agree on this bit
August 4th, 2008 at 4:29 am
kiwiboi:
I never used the word “minority”, so those examples you’ve given don’t go with what I am saying.
and as for what decides/defines a “minority” – in this case being WOMEN(not a MINORITY), i’ll tell you:
woman have a vagina
men have a penis – meaning they can’t forge a valid opinion, because they can never fully understand what it would be like to be in that situation.
- do militant Islamic fundamentalists make the laws that apply to them?
- do white supremicists make the laws that apply to them?
- do one-eyed airline pilots make the laws that apply to them?
the rules THESE groups make could harm people outside of them.
a woman, chossing the fate of herself and her baby can only affect these two – why should the goverment decide?
a mother is in the greatest position to decide what is best for herself, her unborn child, NOT an outside party, either the goverment, or a male not connected to the situation(I say this because of course the Father has a say, of course).
For this reason, SHE SHOULD CHOOSE.
Your second point, that wasn’t clear. I get you now though.
And all you need to know is I am NOWHERE NEAR LONDON.
So, how would you feel about americans voting who heads our goverment?
August 4th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Ooh, heated. I’m kinda on the fence- the issue seems to be not whether abortion is right or wrong- but *when* it becomes wrong, as in- when something as indistinct as a “fetus”- a lump of meat and nothing more- becomes a little person, with feeling and sentience.
Abortion is something that affects society, however- society should have a say, I guess I’m with kiwiboi here. It’s not men trying to control women, it’s men wanting to have a say in an issue that affects society- of which they are a part.
I reckon it should be legal, and free on the NHS (in the UK, at least)- backstreet abortions and such, not cool. Well, legal up to the point where “fetus” becomes “person”.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Hobolad:
yeah, i can actually see what you mean there.
Abortion does affect society, and men should have a say, but I just think their say’s will always be slightly “flimsy”, because they’ll always be on the outside of the issue.
But, what if Society MADE IT ILLEGAL?
how would you feel then?
I just think it should be legal because the choice of abortion/no abortion will have a much greater impact on the individual mother and child than the whole of society.
This isn’t directed at you Hobolad -
To be honest, it is “society” thats caused the huge amount of abortions happening.
I think the people who are AGAINST abortions should also be totally against todays culture of casual sex, i.e. if you think abortion is wrong, you should think one night stands, sex before marrige etc is wrong, and not do them.
I can totally understand someone like that being totally Pro-Life.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:34 am
I never used the word “minority”, so those examples you’ve given don’t go with what I am saying.
MEG – no but I did…and you, in turn, responded to that by asking (shouting) “Why is that flawed”; so I answered you.
and as for what decides/defines a “minority” – in this case being WOMEN(not a MINORITY), i’ll tell you:
woman have a vagina
men have a penis – meaning they can’t forge a valid opinion, because they can never fully understand what it would be like to be in that situation.
Very droll. In any case, I take it that (by applying your definition) infertile women are also disqualified from having a “valid opinion”; after all, “they can never fully understand what it would be like to be in that situation”
the rules THESE groups make could harm people outside of them.
Yes they possibly could…the same way that a pregnant woman may make a decision that could harm another life.
a woman, chossing the fate of herself and her baby can only affect these two – why should the goverment decide?
Because somebody has to consider the rights of both the woman and the unborn baby.
a mother is in the greatest position to decide what is best for herself, her unborn child, NOT an outside party, either the goverment, or a male not connected to the situation(I say this because of course the Father has a say, of course).
So…if the pregnant woman and the father decide that they want an abortion at 8 months, that’s ok then? After all..they are in the “greatest position to decide”, according to you…
And all you need to know is I am NOWHERE NEAR LONDON.
Actually, I was merely asking out of friendly curiosity (given that most commenters/regulars here are Americans). Judging by the caps, this is a sensitive issue for you, so sorry for asking…
So, how would you feel about americans voting who heads our goverment?
That would be odd, since even we, in the UK, do not vote who heads our government.
But, understanding the point you are trying to make…why should they? They are not (directly) affected by nor pay for our domestic policies, and their interests here are protected and governed by way of diplomacy and international law/treaty.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:43 am
“yeah, i can actually see what you mean there.
Abortion does affect society, and men should have a say, but I just think their say’s will always be slightly “flimsy”, because they’ll always be on the outside of the issue.”
Yeah, men will always have to look at it with slight… detachment I guess. Like when I was thinking about it, it was purely as a hypothetical situation- if it was something I had to judge as a possibility, it might be different- but I don’t know, and I shouldn’t think I’ll ever know with certainty.
“I think the people who are AGAINST abortions should also be totally against todays culture of casual sex, i.e. if you think abortion is wrong, you should think one night stands, sex before marrige etc is wrong, and not do them.”
True! Especially among young people- if you don’t do those things then you’re a wierdo, if you do those things and are one of the unlucky ones who get accidently pregnant you become a pariah. People only have one life to live, it would be wrong to trap a person into a life they don’t wish to have because of a mistake that hurt nobody.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Wow this has really taken off. I’m glad this is sparking so much debate. I still agree with Royce’s post, only to a lesser degree.
Honestly, just because you personally would not have an abortion, why force others who willingly make the choice not to have that option? Oppose it all you want, but don’t take that right from them.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:48 am
“To me, the idea of a man wanting to ban abortions is like a vegaterian wanting to ban butchers.”
Kiwiboi:
I did not intend to make pro-life men seem like they are trying to undermine women. I just mean that they don’t know about the decision to abort (As I have tried to convey in all of my posts).
I just meant that vegaterians don’t require butchers, so to ban them wouldn’t affect them. They are not meat eaters, so that decision is easy. But the butchers are still there. They don’t have to go in. But the meat eaters are free to buy from there.
Your right. You havn’t said anything about deciding.
You (unless you are involved in Parliment) don’t have the oppurtunity to decide (just as I don’t).
And this is a debate. You are allowed your view. Anywhere, you are allowed your view.
But say, if Gordon Brown called you and said:
“Kiwiboi; Abortion. Me and my cabinet just can’t decide whether to make it legal or not. So, its up to you.”
Would you go with your point of view, and strip that right from all women in Britain?
And please don’t point out this would never happen.
I’m just asking, theoretically.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Methinks that every girl in this situation should have the right to decide by herself what she wants to do.
Example: this girl I know 19 years old at the time, 1st year university. Parents all the way in Africa 15000 miles away. Girl has onenightstand with boy 18y last year college. Bit careless,bit drunk or just plain unlucky she finds herself pregnant.
Not many options …
August 4th, 2008 at 6:39 am
Sure, as long as the mother let the fetus choose whether it want to have abortion, it’s its life after all, let it decide.
So, no, no way. Unless There’s some complication that threatens the mother’s life. Yes there are cases of pregnant from rape, but legal abortion will only encourage the lack of accountability and responsibility. There ARE other options like adoptions.
And I’d rather err on the side of caution that life began when a living cell of a different DNA set exist inside a womb.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:41 am
kiwiboi:
You say you can see the point and I’m trying to make, but obviously you don’t.
In my opinion, The woman is in the best position to judge what is best for her and her baby.
That is in my point, using everything I said in my post.
you break up my answer, take it out of context, “the 8 month abortion – why bring that up?”, and it is slightly confusing.
and Droll? Haha!
August 4th, 2008 at 6:48 am
kiwiboi:
But, understanding the point you are trying to make…why should they? They are not (directly) affected by nor pay for our domestic policies, and their interests here are protected and governed by way of diplomacy and international law/treaty.
Waitwaitwait,
are you, gasp, agreeing with me? I’d think so, but the rest of your post was a bit, bashing.
well done for not mentioning whether this is the same situation for men and women,
what do you think?
you break it up too much, ad leave me with no conclusions!
August 4th, 2008 at 6:50 am
I’d like some people to start answering kitty’s question. (416) It’s a good one. If abortion were illegal, how do you propose dealing with the onslaught of children in foster care? With the rise of back alley abortions, or god forbid, with the rise of women forced to give birth, seeing no other option, and murdering (here, finally, this word is used correctly) their newborns?
August 4th, 2008 at 6:56 am
It’s as old as mankind. With all kinds of pointy things or herbs or douches or all of the above. Mostly the girls didn’t survive.
Shouldn’t modern woman have another choice?
August 4th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Hannah (425): Must be awfully nice to be so young as to be 100% certain of anything. Unless you have been raped and brought that child to term, that child who would likely remind you every day of the horror of that experience, I would suggest that you have no clue of what you’re talking.
Read Mama-Kali’s comment. She is entirely correct. You can’t stop it, all you can do is make it dangerous. Or even worse, it will become an option only for the rich. Those who can afford to come to Canada or go to Europe. Stupid idea; Instead of railing against abortion, why don’t you rail for education and birth control?
I don’t believe in abortion for me, I’ve never been in a situation where it was necessary or even a consideration. I don’t believe that I could do it. The big difference between us Hannah, is that I know I am not everyone. My moral and personal decisions are just that, mine. I have no right to force my beliefs on another. I have no right to force another to carry a child. And frankly it is an impossibility.
Come back in 20 years and we’ll see if you still feel the same way.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Didn’t read all the comments.
But I’m disappointed that someone is using an RSS feed I enjoy not to bring me interesting lists of things, but just to promote his political agenda. (not even in the form of a list!)
I might be unsubscribing out of annoyance.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Jane Gray: This is not a list, this is a your view. A spot for all to debate and state their opinions. Jamie runs an Our View every couple of weeks or so. Have a look-see, he’s been putting this one off for a long time. There are many other views. Who is the most evil man? What is the greatest invention? What is the most influential book? and a ton more.
Feel free to unsubscribe if you don’t like debate. And by the way Jfrater, the owner of the site, is anti-abortion. So what exactly would be his political agenda? Where do you sit on the issue?
August 4th, 2008 at 8:34 am
i Dont think we should abort anything, untill we know what it is gonna be. So i say we raise the abortion age to like 15, couse by that time we know if the kid is a waste of life. We can save ourselves the hassle of people who are gonna get into a situation in which they feel they need to get an abortion, by aborting those people.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:43 am
I would like to see all laws concerning abortion stricken from the records–yea or nay. I see this argument in two parts: Abortion as a medical procedure and abortion as a moral question. As with all medical procedures, the doctor willing to peform an abortion discusses with the patient all the risks, benefits and alternatives. With this information and believing what is best for her, the woman makes the decision whether or not she wants to go through with it. As was first pointed out,it’s too often used as a form of birth control and a dangerous one at that with the same kinds of risks you would have with other surgeries (true, probably less dangerous than coat hangers).
As far as the moral question of abortion, I don’t see it as immoral. Others may differ and they’re welcome to their beliefs.
I can’t stop there without looking at the impact abortion has on society because I see it as detrimental. Society needs children in order to continue. Legalized abortion along with AIDS and other STDs is an outcome of the so-called sexual revolution which society did nothing to fight. We,the members of society, just surrendered and now witness the consequences.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Ofcourse it should. woman should have the choice. Without choice, woman all over the world harm their bodies in disgusting ways to rid themselves of unwanted pregnancy, killing both mother and baby. Legalizing it isn’t forcing anyone to practice it, but it does give woman who believe in it the option.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:26 am
rushfan,
A lot of different water has passed under the bridge since my 422, much of it British, so this contribution will keep it in the family. I presume you have been off air, but hope you’ll be back. This is trying to keep the same thread going, and a reply would be interesting.
First off. Note the perspectives and point of view of practically everyone. I’m a woman, she. I’m a man, he. A gulf of reproductive destiny. It’s a foetus. IT! But that is the one thing we all have in common, we were all foetuses and in the course of that development, were made *he* and *she* by X and Y chromosomes. Furthermore, that’s when abortion was relevant to us directly. Is anybody trying to conceptualise the debate from that angle? (Sorry for the unavoidable pun.) If not, why not? I’ve made my tentative decision on that basis.
Now, to return to (human?) life as sacred. A further point.
You told Randall and myself that our outrage at such as war and genocide proved that we held life as sacred, otherwise we wouldn’t care. False argument. I’ll bet my bottom dollar I’m speaking for Randall too. My reaction to the death of any human being is not *equal*. When Hitler or Stalin die, I cheer. When Jews die at Nazi hands, I’m outraged beyond the limits of my emotions. When Kennedy dies, I despair. When a few tens of thousands die in an earthquake, my mind goes numb. Incidentally, we don’t add unborn foetuses to body counts. When someone close to me dies, I feel for a while like a chunk of myself has been torn out. I still feel a reaction for the early deaths of Schubert, Mozart and Mendelssohn a few centuries after, for what more wonders they might have contributed. And so on. So you will see as plain as the nose on your face, that I am reacting to developed people, and I am reacting in a great manner of different ways. I cannot react to an unborn foetus. After all Hitler was once an unborn foetus. Should I have considered him *sacred* then? You cannot argue that he is *innocent* at that point either, because his gene-mix already predisposes him to be what he became. It only needed the circumstances (environment) to trigger the sequence, and you cannot suggest he should somehow have taken a conscious decision to avoid those. Remember what Caesar said to Brutus about stars.
My concern for a foetus is not based on *every human past conception is sacred and must be allowed to live on*. I might as well wish the same for every sperm and egg. It is based on seeking the point at which we can identify the foetus as being sufficiently advanced to have developed a nervous system and what we recognise as consciousness. In other words, an ability to act for itself in a deliberate way, and above all, to feel in every sense of that word. Then, I believe, we are confronting a fellow human-being because at that point the internal baby begins to react consciously to external stimuli.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:06 am
In my opinion, The woman is in the best position to judge what is best for her and her baby.
MEG – Where I have a problem is accepting that death is “what is best” for an unborn baby.
and Droll? Haha!
Droll? LOL. Firstly, I use the term as homage to the wonderful Arthur Daley (“very droll, Terrence”); secondly, I work with many cockneys – it’s not that they use the term all of the time, but just often enough to keep the phrase “alive” for me.
the rest of your post was a bit, bashing.
Actually, I wasn’t meaning to sound like I was bashing (sorry if I did). In a topic like this nobody is likely to change their views, and it gets continually frustrating going around in circles…
August 4th, 2008 at 10:25 am
rushfan:
Yes, Anon is essentially speaking for me, but there’s even more to what I was saying that I’d like to get across, because the point still isn’t being made, which is my fault–it’s a thought with some measure of nuance in it, and it’s not easy to put this kind of thing into words. I’ll make a better attempt then.
And actually there’s two parts to this, one easier to formulate than the other.
First, what all this is about, at heart, is the consideration of the unborn as a viable human life which is held to be “sacred” or sacrosanct or in some other sense inviolable. By extension this would clearly indicate that all human life is so inviolable and/or sacred, and so we like to think (most of us) and it’s the philosophy on which we believe we operate, whether that philosophy comes out of religious belief or no.
But in reality, in practice, we do not really treat human life as inviolable or sacred. Particularly not in the way that Jesus clearly taught. The Jewish Law (in the form of the Ten Commandments) laid out a relatively simple code of conduct which prohibited killing, coveting that which belonged to one’s neighbor, stealing, etc., but even following on this the extent of the misery and murder to which we (human beings) would subject our fellow human beings was largely unabated. At times, one may say, the letter of the law was obeyed, but hardly ever the spirit.
Jesus’ message went far beyond the law. He said that it wasn’t enough to simply not kill or harm or mistreat your fellow man/woman, but we must in fact go beyond this, and realize that we ARE our fellows, and they are us.
To some degree this message sank in. Nevertheless, two thousand years later and only a miniscule few of us actually live by it. We are less prepared to do our fellow man harm. We even, occasionally, reach out to him and offer aid–and surely more than we did at the time Jesus was preaching. But the aid and care given is still only an exception. We have yet to step up to the plate and live the kind of life both Jesus and the Buddha recommended for us.
And yet still we pretend that we can have it both ways; we can go on treating each other (as a species) shabbily… or worse… and still lay claim to the “sanctity” of human life. This is hypocrisy, yes, but it goes beyond hypocrisy I think. (More about that in a moment). But the point is, we have a daily, even hourly chance to live–ALL OF US–as we’ve been instructed. Yet we don’t. I’m no less guilty of this than anybody else. As are you, and everyone else here, and probably everyone we know.
All around is a world of missed opportunities to change the human race. But the only thing we’re willing to do is say that “abortion is murder” and that human life is “sacred” and inviolable. But once that life is brought into being, we want no further part of it. We won’t say “I will live the life of my brother or my sister person–I will support him or her and give love out to him or her, and concern, and caring, and be one with him/her.” We want to protect babies (laudable, but not a difficult decision to make, really) by saying “This thing (abortion) should not be done,” but we take not one step farther.
I hope you can see where I’m going with that.
The second thing I was getting at is, as I say, harder to put words around. Why are we so quick to disregard one another? Why are we so uncaring, so empty of love for our fellow human beings?
Because our care and concern is ever turned inward. The life we truly view as sacred is our own. And even that we’re hypocritical about, because for every desire we have to hold onto and keep life, we as often turn away from it. Some of our hate and anger, surely, is always turned inward, even as it goes outward. It’s easier to see this in the way adults treat adults, and harder to look into the face of a child or a baby or a sonogram of a fetus and there see it, but the mirror image of our disregard is nevertheless the same. In the face of the baby or the child or even the fetus we perhaps delude ourselves into thinking we see the true picture of life, but here we’re mostly responding to the simple instinctive call of our species which demands care and affection for the helpless infant or child, which is a mammalian trait that we have simply taken a little further. But in reality we still look at this face, whether child or adult, and we see (however we’re unaware of it) ourselves. In a sense this is good, because it’s the beginning of compassion and understanding–but it also isn’t in the spirit of what Jesus was talking about.
*Regardless* of child or adult, we should ALL look into that face and see not the other person, nor ourselves, but *god.* Or… if you prefer in not believing in god, then in the element of life itself that we hold ‘divine’ (in a non-religious sense) or in whatever sense cosmically/existentially equivalent to “divine.”
Do you follow me?
The physicality of life is not the purpose or the point here.
I’m sorry, this is still so hard to express in words. I’m doing my best.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:30 am
kiwiboi,
How and when do you define *death*?
Providing another perhaps more objective context, all of us recognise that our roast chicken was a living creature that died for us to eat. I doubt very much when we eat a fertile egg with that slightly darker and more fibrous tiny piece in it that we consider anything that was significantly alive is now dead, even if that is so technically. Intelligent assessment would probably consider its potential development had been stopped. On the other hand, when you see an egg a cuckoo has shouldered from the nest, and a virtually formed pink nestling lying beside it …
Loved Arthur Daley, aka George Cole. What an actor, George. What a career, from a youngster onwards. The series was
‘Minder’ with Dennis Waterman, which connects us to the unforgettable ‘The Sweeney’ with John Thaw and thus to …
Ah, they don’t make èm like that any more.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:21 am
How and when do you define *death*?
Anon – The point beyond which life is ceases to exist (though I am sure that there a million better definitions)
Re Arthur and Terry…you’re right; quality! And Terry was a good Fulham supporter too (ok, even if fictional), like me!
August 4th, 2008 at 11:42 am
It’s sick when women get abortions every other week because they won’t take any birth control or close their legs for a while, but I don’t think it should be illegal. What is the point of bringing another unwanted child into the world? In a lot of cases, I’d say abortion is MORE humane than having the child so it can grow up in an orphanage. Also, you have to consider rape and incest. As long as those exist, abortion should always be an option.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:49 am
kiwiboi,
One has to tread carefully with fictional sports supporters. The legendary Alf Garnett would have died for his beloved Hammers (a team I’d be willing to support), and was often seen wearing their colours, singing their songs and chanting their chants.
But his actor alter ego, Warren Mitchell, hated them and was, as I recall, a Tottenham man, or if not, of the Arsenal. (Fanatics of those two won’t be happy I’ve mentioned them in *the same breath* either!)
On the other hand the *scouse git* was, I think, a Liverpool supporter in both his incarnations. Boo!
We are talking about the last prime minister’s spouse’s origins here, of course.
Better get back on track!
Perhaps I’d better augment then by asking at what point do you consider life begins? (I should point out here that I see life as a continuous, unbroken process since it first began, whether here on the planet or elsewhere. Obviously in my perception it has different levels and differnt qualities all the time, including in its human manifestation.)
August 4th, 2008 at 11:53 am
@Mom424
Like I said to JB, don’t assume, it only makes you look close-minded. You have no idea how old I am (37, but thanks for thinking I’m younger), nor do you know anything about my lifestyle or the things I have experienced in my life. So trying to belittle my opinions with a poke at my “youth” is ridiculous.
Yes, I know with 100% certainty that I would never abort a child that I conceived through rape. The child did not choose to be conceived through a horrible event. Why should I punish the child? Never did I say that I would choose to raise the child. Just a nother assumption you made. That is a decision that I would make when faced with the situation. God forbid either of us would be put into a situation like this, but at least I would give that child a chance at life.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Perhaps I’d better augment then by asking at what point do you consider life begins?
Anon – human life? Well, I defer to the scientists (human embryologists) on this one : when we have a zygote complete with its (typically) 46 chromosomes.
BTW…you boo’d the scouse git. You a blue then? Or just booing a scouser?
August 4th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
God forbid either of us would be put into a situation like this, but at least I would give that child a chance at life.
Hannah – I salute you.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Randall,
I don’t know where you stand on Life’s Great Mystery. I’m sure you’ve provided an answer I haven’t yet read in the Does God Exist slot. I’ve drafted something for that myself, but not yet posted.
It matters here, so in a nutshell, the only options that could make sense to me are that the whole of existence is an uncordinated accident, or *God* is absolutely everything: i.e. we and everything we are aware of are part of that integral fabric. I often like to feel I’m equivalent to a blood corpuscle in that system, although in truth advanced organic life, with its intellectual, sensual and philosophical abilities may be closer to the centre of universal *self-awareness*.
God being apart in the religious sense is simply not on for me. And since the accident option strikes me as going against everything I can observe, that’s off too. So *God* must be everything. That, of course, is blasphemy to the *religious*. I’ll accept that, because their intrinsic belief that Hitler and Stalin and all the rest like them to an equal or lesser degree were somehow *sacred* to start off with and have allowed themselves to become *evil* is a blasphemy to me. So we are quits.
I suspect that we may be saying the same thing. I see *sacredness* (I can’t explain it shortly, but think we know what we’re talking about: *everything* positive we value perhaps, but that is perhaps an all-too-glib construct), as something we build, something that develops with us, part of the cultural evolution of our civilisation and mental expansion. Until it has evolved, it is no more than potential, just as the potential for a human being exists in the sperm and the egg, and the potential for a more complex, more advanced organism exited in its primitive forbears. Like all forms of evolution, it will never be completed and never be perfect, and (our form of it, not the abstract) will always be subject to the threat of local or total extinction.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Sorry, line 3 from bottom should read existed, not exited. Spotted it the moment I pushed *Submit*, but ti was too late then.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
kiwiboi,
From south of the Wash, so just booing a scouser, yes. It’s all relative though. I’ll shout for the most hated Premiership to win in Europe, and cheer on any England player, from whatever outfit.
I’d happily go for a scientific definition of when human life begins, but suspect there might be different criteria involved, leading to a saying my parents often used in fun and told me someone on the radio had invented: It all depends on what you mean by …
In this case, human life.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
#153 Nikki “I don’t think anybody should have a negative view on this until they find themselves in that position”
A few years ago when I was twenty years old I had an abortion. Prior to that I was the one always saying how wrong it was until I was in that situation. My reasons were: I couldnt afford a child at the time, I wanted to be married first, the guy didnt want it. All of these reasons went right out the door after my surgery. It was about 6 other girls in the room. We were all there alone. No men. Except one woman who apperared to be under 18 whoses mother was present. I can remember crying so much during and after I just wanted to die. I remember being in the post room and listening to all the other girls make comments like ” I am so glad I got that over with”, while I felt like I made the biggest mistake of my life. Now it is 3 years later and I still feel all the pain. I know feel like I cant ask god for anything, so when I pray at night I just ask for forgiveness. I can go on and on with my story but I wont.
Im not judging or forcing my opinion on anyone I just wanted to share my thoughts and my story and I would prefer if no one judged me.
My answer is no I dont think it should be legal.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
The argument that men’s opinions should not be considered and, “only the woman knows what’s best for her and her child” simply highlights the hypocrisy of many pro-life folks.
LZ, I fully acknowledge with your assertion that I will never know the difficulty of being pregnant along with it’s associated decisions.
On the other hand, you will never know the agony of sitting home in tears because at that very moment someone was legally destroying your child and there was not a thing you could do about it. “Choice” my ass.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Ok, here’s a situation for everyone:
In case you are not a fan of the UFC, you probably did not hear about their former light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson who, just 10 days after losing his title, went nuts and drove his truck at high speeds on sidewalks, hitting other cars for no apparent reason. One of the cars he hit was being driven by a 38 year old woman who was pregnant with a 16 week old, healthy baby boy. He didn’t really do much damage to the car but it was enough to knock the woman hard enough to allegedly cause a miscarriage. The couple is looking to press charges against Jackson because so far all indications point to that accident as the cause of the miscarriage.
So, does this mean that the only circumstance where an unborn fetus can be killed is if the mother wants to kill it? And anyone else, by accident, on purpose; directly or indirectly, has any part of the death of an unborn fetus is then a murderer?
Lets say, hypothetically speaking, that the mother was on her way to have an abortion and this accident happened and she decided to press charges on Jackson for causing a miscarriage, what then?
I just thought this was an interesting situation, seeing as I am a big fan of the UFC. It fit into this discussion so I thought I’d share it with everyone.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Ok..I have nothing to say to the actual argument (sorry everyone for going off on a tangent), but B_Rad I just fell a little bit in love with you. I never get to talk about UFC with anyone cause all my friends are girly-girls (I am too, I just have a really cool brother in law who got me into fighting)
August 4th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Well then, time for a top 10 MMA fighters of all time list. Who do you have this weekend, GSP or Fitch?
Sorry this doesn’t add to the discussion too.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
i think abortion is an evil thing to do abortion should be illegal
August 4th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Anon & Randall ~ I appreciate your thoughtful commentary. I don’t have much more to add to the sanctity of life discussion. I concede your points and understand what you are saying.
I’m having some difficulty articulating how I feel right now, so I’ll return when I can.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Oh, hadn’t read the UFC comments yet. Fitch is gonna get a French Canadian beatdown from GSP! And how about some Anderson Silva?! WTF!!??
August 4th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
it is wrong but if people want to do it to them self and there baby then i suppose they can so why should people stop them
August 4th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
rush and b_rad
If one of you starts an MMA thread in the forums (see i’m trying to get people signed up, jamie!!) I’ll gladly contribute when I get home. Otherwise I’ll message you privately. right now my work day is done, though. Wooohooo.
Oh and GSP all the way. Love Fitch, love what he’s done so far, but that division is stacked, he doesn’t deserve the title shot so soon.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Consider it done.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Please,please,please do a list on UFC fighters!!! Yay!!
I think abortion should be illegal. It is simply put, murder.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I just started a discussion in the forums. Don’t want to dilute this comment list any more with UFC stuff.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
@Quiana
Thank you for sharing your story and admitting to the pain you feel for the abortion you had. I think many women feel the same way you do, but are afraid to admit to making a mistake and own up to the feelings of regret.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
It should be legal. Regardless of whether you think it’s a ‘baby’, scientifically it’s a fetus. A fetus should not have any rights. Once a fetus is viable though, it absolutely should not be aborted except in the extremely rare cases of saving a mothers life. If you have made it far enough in a pregnancy that it’s viable (could live outside the womb), you’ve made your choice and you are just going to have to deal with a few more weeks. Otherwise, it IS a lump of cells, and a woman has every right to decide what’s best for her mind and body. Also, men really shouldn’t have any legal say in this what so ever. Your opinions are respected, but the only person who should ever decide about abortion is the woman’s who’s life is in the balance. It’s her decision to decide what is best
August 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Abortion should be legal because the potentail for life has no rights. If one responds saying that the “child” has rights then were does it stop? Would sperm also be considerd life? If so masturbation, because you are commiting mass murder when all of those sperm are killed. And making it illegal takes abortion out of the operating table and into the basement. And you are filling up prisons with these supposed “murders” instead of real criminails that can kill real thinking people.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
414. rushfan:
I’m sorry. Wasn’t my intention to insult you. I wanted to show you how stupid is to think sanctity of life is the only reason for being nice to others. I don’t believe you really think so. You shall find deeper reasons
About the *embryo*. Maybe I should quote your one words: Again, I am against abortion simply because I, as you were, was once an embryo. I think that it is an early stage of life and therefore not a choice, but a child.
I could say: “if that embryo hadn’t existed I wouldn’t be here by now.” But then that leads to a futil debate about destiny.
I think, wanted or not, that “sactity” term comes at least from a spiritual or philosophical point of view, not from empirical facts. That’s why I was saying all that stuff. Couse even behind the most atheist morality lies some prejudices that come from the cultural underground.
It doesn’t mean you are religios.
You find that “life is sacred” statement comes from “common sense”. But if you think long about this -about what carry to this statement without taking itself for granted- you’ll find at least some weak points. And, again, trying to deffend that statement will lead you to another destiny debate.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
JB, no harm done. You did call me a monster, but I’ll let it slide, this time.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
484, JB.
“I could say: “if that embryo hadn’t existed I wouldn’t be here by now.” But then that leads to a futil debate about destiny.”
Been there, said that. Is there any point in posting? Yet again I wonder.
And it doesn’t lead to a futil (sic) debate, it’s absolutely central to this whole debate.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
425. Hannah:
You’ve to admit your puppy comment was little bit offensive. “pro-choicers” aren’t sadistic guys who enjoy killing babies. Of course you don’t think so.
But your comment #398 seems to say that, at least, no kind of feeling comes to us or to the mother when she have to do the choice. And that it will be easy to accept for her.
It pains me just as much to see starving children in Africa or kids in Iraq being bombed as much as it does to hear about children being aborted.
So I feel the same.
A world without the need of abortion will be wonderfull. But if the need is there, better to keep the opportunity.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
it should be legal. there should be a choice. if you don’t believe in abortion don’t have one.
keep your laws off my body.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Lets break this down into the base issues.
1. Is the fetus a life? Yes
2. Is abortion a bad thing? I think so yes. There are often situations that have no good outcomes.
3. Is the fetus a child? In the same way an egg is not a chicken, a fetus is not a child. This is sophistry that clouds the arguement.
4. Should it be legal? Since this is a question of legality versus morality, the obvious answer is yes. Laws are a structure of the state to enforce the common values. If there is a question on the prevailing values the law must permit and stand by. The fact there is a debate about this shows that the law must permit until there is a concensus.
There was a time when spanking was ok. It was abused by some (my father included) but by and large it passed the moral test of the prevailing values. It doesn’t fit the prevailing values today and therefor is frowned upon. Technically, it is assault and battery, but one would be hesitant to charge your average parent with a felony if they disciplined their child that way.
I am reluctant to espouse a position because I am a male. No matter what I think, I have no standing. A baby/fetus will never inhabit my body. Guys need to but out and leave it to the people with the vested interest, the women having to make the decision.
My compassionate nature says that we should not make this horrid decision any harder for those that make the choice either way. They have to live with what they do.
That being said, my wife disagrees. She feels that, if it had been illegal, she would not have had one and that is her one regret in life.
Lets not demonize either side. There is no such thing as moral high ground and saying hateful things hurts everyone. The only ones that don’t realize they are being hurt are the ones saying the hurtful things.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
@ JB
My puppy comment was not to accuse “pro-choicers” of being sadistic people, but merely to put things into prospective.
Sadly, I personally know pro-choice people who would much rather speak out against the slaughtering of puppies vs the slaughtering of what pro-lifers believe is human life. On the flip side there are “pro-life” zealots who gun down abortion doctors. I find both to be incredibly hypocritical.
No, I don’t believe the most abortions are an easy choice, nor do I believe they are made without feeling. I’ve noticed that many of the people who have spoken out for abortion in this thread reduce a human “fetus” to a “clump of cells”, and clearly have little emotional regard for these “clumps of cells”.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I meant “perspective”, not “prospective”.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
489. RaB,
“Is the fetus a child? In the same way an egg is not a chicken, a fetus is not a child. This is sophistry that clouds the arguement.”
No it isn’t. It’s quintessential to the argument, because it allows us to consider it without personal and emotional overtones. THOSE (excuse caps) are what (tend to) cloud the issue. Whether you like it or not, a proper outcome to this situation has to be dispassionate. No laws or general social conduct are based on emotional experience, or if they are, they’re wrong. (Kill all the vile murderers!, etc.) That is not to say that cases and opinions don’t have a vital part to play. Of course they do. But they don’t represent the full and final outcome. And always, in any profound debate such as this, all thoughtful evidence and points of view are likely to be valid. Anything may cast a fresh perspective. That is why I set out to consider myself as a foetus above, as I have in my own mind before. If you consider that phoney, rather than a search for a different insight, too bad.
I’ve made the dead chicken, initial fertile egg and developed dead chick embryo from egg point above and you clearly don’t like it. Well again, I’m sorry. I stick to my guns. In my opinion it sheds light and opens doors of discussion, rather than clouds the issue. I also made it implicity clear that I feel nothing for the egg, but an empathetic reaction for the fully-formed dead embryo which you are welcome to label as sentimentality. Nor am I a 100% happy bunny when it comes to eating fish and flesh, but I recognise it as my *evolutionary destiny*, for want of a better phrase. My personal quest, since I first became aware of this dichotomy, is where does the metamorphosis from mere early cell division occur, can it be pin-pointed, or at least placed within a range of the growth pattern, and if not, why not? For me that is a question with vital implication for all sentient life, including humanity. If you find it mere sophistry, I’m sorry to have wasted your time in these postings.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
RaB,
I understand and deeply respect your very sensitive point about males, but I believe they must be involved.
They provide half the new life. It’s half their genetic input. They are as often as not responsible for unwanted preganancies, and as often as not have less further interest in the outcome than a male dragonfly. They rape. They cajole women into having sex by (often callously) manipulating the drive nature has imbued women with. (And please don’t give me that shit about women keeping their legs closed, or we’d better start on about men having their dicks cut off.) Another facet is that men are often denied the involvement they wish for with a child of their own. Until DNA testing a man, unlike a woman, could not be sure a child was his own. Undoubtedly there are still many unknowing cuckolds walking the land anyway.
For all these reasons men both deserve a say and should take responsibilty. What men must not do is adopt an arrogant macho pose. In many countries men predominate so much in politics and public life as to almost entirely control these matters. I cannot say how unspeakable I find that.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I definetely think abortion is imorral
Here’s a intresting statistic for you people 90 PERCENT of woman who plan to have an abortion keep their baby after having a sonogram.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
494,
That’s a heartening statistic. Surely no one can actually find abortion laudable or desirable.
I also appreciate we are limiting this discussion geographically by virtue of the qualification *legal*.
However if we allow abortion to include all humanity, as perhaps we should, how much sonogram coverage is actually available throughout the world, where, and to what class of women?
Not yet in the garbage dump cities of Mexico, the backstreets of Rio, the packed urban landscapes of Asia, or the beaten earth of Timbuctu, I fear.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:32 am
If one responds saying that the “child” has rights then were does it stop? Would sperm also be considerd life? If so masturbation, because you are commiting mass murder when all of those sperm are killed.
Lambda121 – see #463 for a standard scientific explanation as to when we have human life. Sperm on its own or egg on its own do not constitute human life.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:03 am
I would be curious to know how many of the staunch anti-abortion folks here also believe in the death penalty. A system they know is flawed and has and does kill the innocent.
Mom – I’m anti-abortion and pro death penalty. There needn’t be a conflict. I believe that an unborn child has a natural right to life. And I believe that by committing certain crimes individuals are able to forfeit their right to a natural life, in the interests of protecting the innocent. It’s not about “sanctity”…
As for the innocent people that have been wrongly executed..I agree, that this nothing other than tragic. But it doesn’t require me to change my position. And, whilst I could not tell you how many innocent people have been wrongly executed, I wonder how the figure stacks up against the 40 million unborn babies that have been aborted in the US alone over the past few decades?
BTW, I am not a militant anti-abortionist by any means; nor am I vehemently pro death penalty. With respect to the latter, the fact is that if criminals given a life sentence were actually made to serve a life sentence (ie. until they die), I could see a measure of justice in that.
I have argued with some of these same people about their justification of the behavior that is happening at Gitmo.
There is no justification for Gitmo.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:19 am
First, what all this is about, at heart, is the consideration of the unborn as a viable human life which is held to be “sacred” or sacrosanct or in some other sense inviolable. By extension this would clearly indicate that all human life is so inviolable and/or sacred, and so we like to think (most of us)…
Randall – Not necessarily.
I believe that the unborn child has an inherent right to life. But I would not assert the same in the case of those who have, by their own conscious actions, forfeited their right to life (eg. for carrying out certain criminal acts). And this view may be held irrespective of religious belief.
And yet still we pretend that we can have it both ways; we can go on treating each other (as a species) shabbily… or worse… and still lay claim to the “sanctity” of human life. This is hypocrisy, yes, but it goes beyond hypocrisy I think.
I’m having trouble trying to understand why you find the points on :
(i) people having the “courage of their convictions” with respect to (in this debate) adopting etc. babies that would otherwise be aborted; and
(ii) the supposed “hypocrisy” in avowing the “sanctity of life” when one considers global issues such as man’s inhumanity to man etc.
..relevant to the abortion debate.
As I infer above…I, personally, hold the unborn child’s right to life to be absolute.
Therefore, on this basis, even if I am a hypocrite, how do my actions or words diminish or impact the baby’s inherent right to life? It is not within my power to add to or take away this right even if I wanted to…
If you want to explore hypocrisy there are many more viable and tangible targets. Only recently I read a blog that mentioned that Bono, who is a figurehead in the Make Poverty History movement, having exhorted governments to collect funds for poor nations via taxation, went and arranged his business interests offshore in order to reduce his own tax obligations – now, I cannot say that this is factual (and I would be surprised if it is the full story); but if it is, then such a deliberate act would concern me much more than a general apathy or lack of affirmative action.
BTW, realising that others will choose to disagree with what they see as being only my personal view as to the rights of the unborn baby, it can also be approached from a legal perspective; the American Convention on Human Rights, the Constitution of Ireland, and the German Constitution come to mind (2 of which explicitly decree that the right to life begins at conception).
August 5th, 2008 at 4:25 am
“Not yet in the garbage dump cities of Mexico, the backstreets of Rio, the packed urban landscapes of Asia, or the beaten earth of Timbuctu, I fear.”
Those aren’t the women who are protesting in the streets to keep and expand their right to abort. Eloquent wording, but culturally these women are less likely to want an abortion. More access to birth control probably, but not an abortion.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Kiwiboi: My statement was not directed at you Kiwi-Boi, but more a comment on the disturbing trend happening in the USA. For there, you and I both know that the same people who are anti-evolution, anti-sex education, pro-gun, and pro-death penalty are the ones who protest loudest against abortion. It is disturbing and hypocritical. There should some rule about contributing to the problem and then being allowed to complain about the consequences.
The money spent on this debate, by both sides, would be better spent on education and birth control. Lets lower the abortion rate in ways that work. Canada has a very low abortion rate and is also one of the easiest countries in which to procure one. Because of education. Good comprehensive sex ed. beginning in Grade 6. Before you get pregnant, not after.
Kiwi-boi there are no children in this debate, just like there is no murder. A child is born and autonomous, a fetus is not. It is a fine distinction, but a necessary one.
PS: We are on the same page when it comes to the American policy of rendition and the horrors at Gitmo.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Mom – understood.
Actually, I hadn’t realised just how “liberal” Canada is in terms of its abortion laws.
If I understand the situation correctly, then a baby is deemed to be a “human being” when it has “completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”
That is to say, the baby has no rights at all until after it is born.
Gee….
August 5th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Mom – I commented on this whole death penalty/abortion thing in comment # 322.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Kiwi-boi there are no children in this debate, just like there is no murder. A child is born and autonomous, a fetus is not. It is a fine distinction, but a necessary one.
Mom – sorry, I meant to comment on this point also…
I see no relevance whatsoever in the fact that a fetus is dependent, insofar as having a right to life is concerned; in fact, this makes the situation all the more saddening for me.
I guess we’ll have to differ on this one.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:40 am
It’s just I hear that being stated by pro-abortion people that pro-lifers are always for the death penalty and I put forth general statement that the opposite is true. But I hardly ever hear that.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:56 am
kiwiboi:
You quoted me:
“First, what all this is about, at heart, is the consideration of the unborn as a viable human life which is held to be “sacred” or sacrosanct or in some other sense inviolable. By extension this would clearly indicate that all human life is so inviolable and/or sacred, and so we like to think (most of us)…”
and then responded:
“Randall – Not necessarily.”
Oh yes, kiwiboi. Very much necessarily; see below:
“I believe that the unborn child has an inherent right to life.”
oh, before we go into the rest, stop for a second. Why? That is, why do you believe the unborn child has this inherent right? On what do you base this? (this sounds argumentative but I mean merely to ask for elucidation here).
“…But I would not assert the same in the case of those who have, by their own conscious actions, forfeited their right to life (eg. for carrying out certain criminal acts). And this view may be held irrespective of religious belief.”
well regardless of that, this is irrelevant. We’re talking about two different things.
I was talking about the inviolability, the sanctity, the *sacredness* of life. Not the “right to life.” There’s a distinction there. We might say that the “right to life” is *based* on the sacred nature of life, but my meaning really goes beyond that.
But before we go any further, I need to hear from you why you feel there *is* an inherent right to life that unborn children have (and which adults can forfeit). Oh, and by the way… also why the latter, regarding adults forfeiting this right, is not simply a legal distinction.
“I’m having trouble trying to understand why you find the points on :
(i) people having the “courage of their convictions” with respect to (in this debate) adopting etc. babies that would otherwise be aborted; and
(ii) the supposed “hypocrisy” in avowing the “sanctity of life” when one considers global issues such as man’s inhumanity to man etc.
..relevant to the abortion debate.”
You do? You have trouble with this?
I’m not sure how I can illustrate it further. Think of your Christian teachings, if you will.
It isn’t *so* much a matter of hypocrisy, though it can be. Neither is it so much a matter of contradiction–though I suppose it can be.
What I tried to do in my last posting (to rushfan) was explain where I was coming from on this. I would have thought the “relevancy” was obvious. But again, I suppose it depends (from your point of view) what you’re basing your beliefs on, regarding the inherent “right to life.” I think I need you explain that to me, before I can explain better what I said to *you.*
“As I infer above…I, personally, hold the unborn child’s right to life to be absolute.”
Based on?
“Therefore, on this basis, even if I am a hypocrite, how do my actions or words diminish or impact the baby’s inherent right to life? It is not within my power to add to or take away this right even if I wanted to…”
Ah. This is a good point. Logical.
But what I was doing was turning this around. Why *are* we hypocrites in this regard? Why do we believe a fetus is inviolable but our fellow men and women are below our radar 99% of the time?
I do not, as it happens, believe that life is inviolable. Regardless of what life it is. Unborn or otherwise. I believe there is a “sacredness” not just to life but to everything in existence, life being only one part of that. Seems to be a contradiction, and I have a hard time explaining it myself.
It is, I suppose, best illustrated by the eastern idea that the world we inhabit is (largely, though not always) a horror that is simply in the foreground of a great wonder. A tremendous mystery. And so I find morality to often be superficial, and certainly always artificial. (but *not* unnecessary… I’m not one of *those*
)
I know this is inadequate, kiwiboi. I’ll try to think of a better way to put all this.
“If you want to explore hypocrisy there are many more viable and tangible targets.”
Ah, but now, who says? You? Why? Why is this “less” viable?
“Only recently I read a blog that mentioned that Bono, who is a figurehead in the Make Poverty History movement, having exhorted governments to collect funds for poor nations via taxation, went and arranged his business interests offshore in order to reduce his own tax obligations – now, I cannot say that this is factual (and I would be surprised if it is the full story); but if it is, then such a deliberate act would concern me much more than a general apathy or lack of affirmative action.”
Nope, kiwi…. in a sense I agree with you, but on further and deeper thought, I find the issue I’m talking about to be the truly more serious problem.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:56 am
Abortion should be absolutely and unquestionabely legal. However, it should be enforced quite strictly as to not have it mistaken as another form of contraception. I think people anthropomorphosise the zygote/fetus/whathaveyou. The fact of the matter is, the fetus has to reach a certain level in it’s development before it becomes a sentient being. Until then, it is merely a group of cells developing soley on the nutrients of the host (mother).
I quite like the idea of mandatory vasectomy of the child at birth. That way, if a couple can pay for the process to be reversed (€3000 in this country), they have proven that they can financially provide for a child and give it a decent start in life. Chances are though, that this solution will probably breed (huh huh) other problems.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Ste – I two adult children and one teenager, all of which were born into a household that could have been proven that the parents couldn’t provide for them financially. Taking a test to determine whether or not you can provide for a child is draconian, besides which who’s going to say how much is enough?
You ignore sacrifice on the part of the parents in favor of mutilation of the baby.
I prefer Dennis Miller’s idea of having to get a license to be a parent. You have to be able to prove that your child won’t grow up to be a rapist or murderer or Dick Clark in order to procreate.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Dick Clark? You mean an immortal earth-wandering undead vampire host? *shudder*
August 5th, 2008 at 7:40 am
I think, the issue should be completely legalized and the would-be mother should have the final veto power to either go for it or not.
Till the child is born the mother is the single most important authority for the child’s life. Now, issues can arise if the mother is a minor… For that, I believe, the civil justice system should look at each case independently.
August 5th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I wanted to ask an off-topic question to the pro-lifers. Just to understand better their position, and moral underground:
What’s more sacred: life or freedom?
Not talking aobut abortion. Meaning: its more sacred stay someone alive or let him act freely? (presuming he’s not any criminal going to commit murder.)
August 5th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Kiwiboi: You neglected to acknowledge that although abortions are procured in Canada with ease, we have less than half the rate of the USA and a substantially lower number than the UK. The concern over the legality of abortion should be secondary to lowering the numbers by education and easy access to birth control.
In a perfect world Kiwi-boi abortions would be carried out only in extreme circumstances such as rape, incest, and danger to the mother. (I would use a broad definition of danger, ie; not just physical danger but also mental danger, think Andrea Yates and post partum psychosis). But unfortunately that is not the case. And ultimately, legal or not, women will always choose whether or not to carry a fetus to term. Making it illegal will just give you more criminals and more deaths by septicemia or hemorrhage.
Women will always have the choice, the legislators can’t decide that for the women, they can only decide whether to make criminals out of them. Or as I stated before, it will become an option only for the rich. Those who can travel. Doesn’t sound much like equal rights now does it?
Bucslim: I missed your original comment, sorry about that. I am consistent Bucslim. I value individual freedom above all things. That includes the right of women to choose whether to have a child or not. It is also the reason I oppose the death penalty, the ultimate denial of freedom. (Even without the horrors of the execution of the mentally infirm or god forbid the innocent). It is also why I think the policy of rendition to be evil and the activities at Gitmo to be deplorable. Extremely consistent.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Did I stump all the pro choicers with the situation I proposed earlier? I thought that would prompt at least a little bit of discussion (at least discussion that didn’t turn into UFC stuff).
August 5th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Kiwiboi, 497 (also bucslim),
“Mom – I’m anti-abortion and pro death penalty. There needn’t be a conflict. I believe that an unborn child has a natural right to life. And I believe that by committing certain crimes individuals are able to forfeit their right to a natural life, in the interests of protecting the innocent. It’s not about “sanctity”…”
There is no direct comparison between a foetus and a person who is executed. Please get that straight. Let’s begin with all executions, of the guilty and innocent. Many murdered people and all foetuses have no foreknowledge of what is going to happen to them. A foetus is not mentally equipped for that anyway. Of course, in some the most revolting institutional executions ever, mentally deficient people have been topped who did not understand what was happening virtually up to the end. I won’t go through the whole rogmarole of arrest to execution, or even how long it can drag out. Too well known.
Execution of the innocent. A few innocent is O.K. against thousands of unborn? Reverse that. We should de-consider the death penalty if lots of innocent were topped and allow abortion if only a few unborn were involved? Are we talking quality or quantity here? Doesn’t a life matter if it’s only one. Well, I tell you folks, mine does, and so does everyone’s I care about. I had an uncle, strongly pro.DP. I asked about innocent (and named examples). That was a price worth paying in his opinion. Shutting him up couldn’t have been easier. “And if I, your own nephew, was the innocent one about to hanged, Uncle Albert?”
My own opinion is that a society which hangs people degrades itself. I appreciate and respect that others hold the same for abortion. However, apart from the executed innocent (said to be quite high among US blacks), my objection is not removal from the scene of someone who has forfeited their humanity and right to live. It is the legal paraphanelia, the media and public reactions that sickens me. *The Show*. Read of or see images of any public execution from earliest times to those ghouls clustering around the gates of British prisons to read the death notice and then cheer loudly, and you may see what I mean. I entirely agree with locking away for life, and I too mean for life, and consider that form of deprivation and *slow rotting* to be a much more dire punishment anway, despite the extra cost to the taxpayer. And it always allowed the innocent to be freed, even 15-20 years later, as can happen.
Finally, we are all agreed without argument that we execute an autonomous human being, regardless of our evaluation of them. It is quite clear from this column that there is not the slightest agreement about the status of what passes from fertilised egg to unborn child.
rusfan, 499,
“Those aren’t the women who are protesting in the streets to keep and expand their right to abort. Eloquent wording, but culturally these women are less likely to want an abortion. More access to birth control probably, but not an abortion.”
I hope you’re more sure of that fact than I am. I’d agree with you without qualificaion if there are stats to back you up, but I’ve a gut feeling you’re quite mistaken. We might add that for protection of the unborn, more AIDS education is needed in at some of those regions, too, but that still seems to apply almost anywhere.
I would like to point out, extremely tentatively, as a point that perhaps at least deserves consideration, that nature does not consider unborn life sacred or sacrosanct. It would give context to this point, and I would be extremely grateful, if somebody could provide the stats for natural abortion. This is also a personal thing. I have pointed out higher up that I am the survivor of twims, my pair aborted naturally. Even if you regard me with Freudian (fraudian?) glee as the sibling-rival cuckoo-in-the-womb who cast it out, that was still natural abortion!
August 5th, 2008 at 9:54 am
that should have read … in some of the most revolting institutional executions …
August 5th, 2008 at 9:56 am
and rigmarole, not rogmarole. Sorry, why do I only see these checking through afterwards? It’s something to do with this little posting window, I think.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:15 am
B-Rad,
Sorry no one has given yours a shot yet. I’ll give my two-wotsits-worth quickly. I’m spending far too much time here.
But please don’t label me Pro- or Anti- anything. I’m trying to discuss aspects here, not take sides, and I detest labels, they destroy individuality.
First off, I think you may need a leagal eagle to give you a weighty answer.
My own question to one in that case would be, is the case being prosecuted on behalf of the mother (loss of her child-to-be), or on behalf of the foetus as having been the independent victim of unintentional homicide? I’d guess the former, but would bow to informed authority.
As to whether she was on her way to have an abortion, that would be primarily for defence council to prove, rather than for her to disprove. I can only point out it’s a very human trait when putting in an insurance claim, for example, to try to get as high a price you can for something that was basically worthless to you. Companies know this and try to go to great lengths to protect themselves from such fraud.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:39 am
499 rushfan: Ok, I’m not form Mexico nor Brazil, but I live in a country where abortion is illegal and yes, we are trying to make it legal. My society is quite conservative, but anyway we fight for our right to choose, as we fought for free condoms, birth control pills and sexual education at schools (here the most of the private schools are religious, so it is really difficult to achieve that).
For the ones who think that life begins at the moment of conception, do you realize that most of the pills not only prevents ovulation but also changes the uterus so that if there is conception, then the zygote doesn’t stick to its wall (don’t know the English term for implantación). That’s abortion? Do you think that birth control pills should be illegal??
I wish birth control methods were 100% effective, that there were no rapes, that everybody would be aware of the risks (not only pregnancy) of having unprotected sex. I wish men, and women, knew that the responsibility of having a baby is not only a woman’s thing (forcing woman not to having sex is not a solution, why don’t men have a vasectomy? Why is nearly always the woman the one that has to surrender her rights?). and I wish there were no unwanted babies, and that the orphanages would be empty. As I said before, that’s not the case. So I repeat, abortion should be legal.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Auto-quote: But please don’t label me Pro- or Anti- anything. I’m trying to discuss aspects here, not take sides, and I detest labels, they destroy individuality.
I should have added:
They all too frequently destroy one’s ability to see, and if necessary accept, another point of view, and to evaluate both (or many) sides of a debate.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Some interesting info, not pro-life or pro-choice propaganda, actual stats about abortions in other parts of the world:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2820502.html
http://lifeissues.net/writers/air/air_vol13no4_19991.html
August 5th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Laura2,
implantation: almost the same, everyone will know. You’re from Latin America, I guess, and not Brazil either. Most words ending -cíón are more or less the same in English if you change to -tion.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Laura2,
Amen to your sane and practical comment from the *real world*. Sorry, stupid me, you had said you were not from Brazil.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Wow. I can’t believe how many MEN have replied to this. This is not a man’s issue. You do NOT have the right to an opinion on this subject.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Not even the right to an opinion? It’s one thing to point out a man will never get pregnant, which is factual. But men are fathers. Men are half of their children. Everyone has the right to an opinion.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
rushfan,
Very grateful to you for the two cited sites. I’ve only had time to dip, dive and skim through the first few paragraphs so far, but they seem to offer strong support for my gut-feeling about abortion in Latin America. I don’t recall (TV) programmes specifically on abortion, but many docus I’ve watched on primitive, underprivileged, un- or under-educated and other groups in any parts of the world deprived of the advantages of *progress* (whether tribal, or urban slums)suggest to me that abortion all too frequently goes with the furniture.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
#523. rushfan:
Men are half of their children.
well, maybe a little less than the women who have to carry them inside, and feed them after.
But that don’t mind that isn’t a men issue. Was nazi genocide just a jew issue?
Having to chose is a women issue. But not the debate about the right to chose.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I can’t believe how ignorant people are in here with these ridiculous arguments and analogies. I can’t even begin to counter any of these arguments as it would take all day and would be pointless anyway. Saying men have no right to an opinion on this is asinine and making a comparison to genocide is absurd (even though I do know what you are trying to say).
August 5th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Stupid arguments -> stupid answers. Didn’t mean to offend you oh supreme intelectuality
August 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I was born because my mother who was raped made the decision to have me. I believe every situation and person is diffrent. My mother felt it was the right thing to do to have me at the ripe age of 15 and raise me very well I might add. Now a woman put in that situation may have decided otherwise. You may think I’m pro-life however I am not. Just as my mother had her right to have me she also should have the right to not. Obviously grateful she did.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Ladyling -
Yeah men shouldn’t have an opinion on this.
Kind of like women shouldn’t be in the locker room, women shouldn’t vote and women shouldn’t speak unless spoken to.
Sheesh, some of you people just slay me.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
My wife and I just heard our babies heart beat two weeks ago when it was about 6 or 7 weeks along in the pregnancy, we are very excited. I pity all these people who think Abortion is Ok. I also think they are mentally unstable.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
That’s ok JB, you are forgiven…just don’t let it happen again =)
August 5th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
A few more ideas to throw in concerning when life begins and ends here, with the aim of a bit more rigorous thought all round.
The (at least traditional) religious view: The sperm and the egg are of no *holy* concern. They are not immortal. They are not *half-souls*. A sanctified, innocent new human being with an immortal soul commences immediately on fertilisation of the egg by the sperm. Since neither sperm not egg contain the *supernatural essence*, we must assume a trinity fertilisation: sperm, egg and God. There is no alternative.
This is why the pill that doesn’t allow the fertilized egg to adhere to the uterus is banned in many? most? catholic countries. It is considered to have aborted a life with an immortal soul. Personally, I, like anyone who does not share the belief, find it as bizarre as the caperings of a shaman in a far off rainforest. But I accept that even the pope sincerely *knows* it to be true.
Second point. We have had a lot of thoughtful, considered data as to when life commences scientifically, clinically and medically. These are essentially beyond dispute. What we do not have here is a scientific view of when what we recognise as death (as opposed to mere termination of development of life: yes, there is a difference) is considered to occur. It has been assumed here that *death* and *killing* are the exact converse of the word *life*. Sorry, but they’re not. If you want to invoke science for one, you must allow it for the other.
Nor do we have a relevant definition of murder for this situation, reluctant though I am to bring in the word again. The law and science, at least, define murder, killing, or having caused death with the suffix -cide. However, the scientific and legal implications and applications are quite different. Thus we have homicide and infanticide, for example, and herbicide is not a capital crime … yet!. However, look up the word embryonicide, a perfectly valid scientific definition, on the net. It is also much batted around and proposed as a legal definition, but so far as I understand by simply reading headings, has not been adopted by law.
As an interesting footnote, presumably to kill an extremely premature-born child totally dependent on a life-support system would actually amount to legal infanticide?
I’ll end with another of my repeated observations. Nature does not tell us by example that developing life is sacred, not even human life. Far from it.
Perhaps people would care to open up on these points?
August 5th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
JB, 525,
Men are half of their children.
“well, maybe a little less than the women who have to carry them inside, and feed them after.”
Know that rushfan and I mean they are half genetically. That is undeniable. You are just trying to smoke up the issue.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
kiwioboi:
don’t know if you’re still reading this, but i want to comment on what you said,”my problem is accepting that death can be best for an unknown child”.
what if a girl falls pregnant, this a hypothetical situation, who was tricked into prostitution at a young age (it happens), addicted to heroin involuntarily (it happens), is a victim of domestic violence from her also smack addicted boyfriend (it happens) has no contact with her family, and can’t get any help from adoption agencies (it happens).
is death not best then?
I may be contradicting myself completely here, but it is actually your moral view point which determines whether you accept that death can be best.
But what you do have to except, is not all women are “Juno’s”, with strong characters and will, and a supporive family.
I used to have the same view as you, that I could never kill an innocent child, and was strongly against abortion. I mean I may think differently if the unthinkable did happen to me, but from the point I stand at now, I could say that even if I was raped, I would have the baby, and try with all my will, to love it. I still think that. So, me and my friends were talking about it(I am a teenage girl), and five of them felt exactly the same as me. But one of them, my friend *Penny* said that if she was raped, she would have an abortion. I was shocked at first, but because I knew her, I started to understand.
*Penny* was the most immature of all my friends, and relied on her parents the most, and the most sensitive. If she had that baby, it would completely destroy her. You may call her evil, selfish, cold, but in my opinion, abortion would be her only option.
I completely condemn the many women who use abortion as contraception to avoid stretch marks, but I stick to the fact it needs to be an option for the Penny’s of the world.
Not everybody has the same moral stance or strengh that me or you seem to have, and that is what you have to accept.
I would also like to say I am very pleased my droll insult landed. Thanks for explaining.
And I read you converstaion with Anon, and just guess where in England I’m from!
Oh and you still have not answered my question!
-This is from my earlier post
“kiwiboi:
But, understanding the point you are trying to make…why should they? They are not (directly) affected by nor pay for our domestic policies, and their interests here are protected and governed by way of diplomacy and international law/treaty.
Waitwaitwait,
are you, gasp, agreeing with me? I’d think so, but the rest of your post was a bit, bashing.
well done for not mentioning whether this is the same situation for men and women,
what do you think?”
August 5th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
miller, 528,
Well said. I’m so, so glad you are here. And love to your mother, she richly deserves it. The traumatic effect on the mother of rape is one thing. To suggest rapist tendencies (or any other) would be carried on through the family line, as some do, is criminal. If it were true, working backwards, gay people would have gay parents, and working forwards, we could breed Einsteins ad inf.
Right now there is a distasteful example of this in Albert Speer Jr being denied opportunities because his father had the same name and was official architect and latter Minister for Armaments for the Nazis during WW2. Incidentally, he was not implicated in genocide, not executed, and he to a degree repudiated Nazi philosophy. Presumably if Speer Jr. has a son and calls him Albert Speer III, that scion won’t be allowed to do things either, and so on. Worse things happen at sea, but even so.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
newfather, 330,
Understandable, given your circumstance at this exact moment. However, we in the west keep dogs as beloved household pets and personal friends. To us the eastern habit of eating them is abhorrent. Nevertheless, we recognise they have a different attitude to us. We do not (or should not) go to the hysterical extreme of labelling them *mentally unstable*. A little calm moderation, and respect for others who are obviously not one screw short of a set please.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Anon 535:
totally agree with your post. I could never of put it as well as that.
thats including: Miller, 528, love to you and your mother, she does richly deserve it.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
MEG,
Sorry if you’re a scouser, But the blues hate the reds, and vice-versa, and everyone hates Man U. So what? To be hated means you matter. Hardly anyone talks about my team, boo, hoo (no, I’m not telling). I only sing when we’re winning, so my voice doesn’t get very hoarse!
August 5th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
okay, I have just read post 462, from Hannah, so if anyone is going to comment on my age, you’d better at least tell me yours so I can comment back.
Thats fair.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
okay, Anon, I’m don’t follow football, so your post doesn’t really mean anything to me.
But I get the idea, and thanks for apoligising. Just don’t post any robbing jokes, and we’ll be fine.
What can I say, i love a good forum argument!
August 5th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Obviously this is an explosive issue, and not one which will be decided here or anywhere, anytime soon.
That being said, I have a great deal of trouble, personally, with abortion.
Why?
Because from the moment of conception, there is only *one* outcome, *one* possibility (barring genetic accidents which create a nonviable something), a human being.
Yes, I do believe that the egg+sperm is human. It is genetically human. okay, okay, okay, I know, it doesn’t have the required bits to make it work yet; no cerebellum, no nervous system, not much more than a group of cells, but that group of cells has but one destiny, to be a human.
What about the human who is already here? The woman, within whom this tiny bit of human cellular matter is living?
There are questions to be asked, of course.
If she didn’t want to have a child, why didn’t she make sure she was protected against pregnancy?
Maybe she did her best, and science failed her.
Maybe she wasn’t in a situation where it was even a question, and she was raped.
Maybe she was young and naive, and really didn’t think it could happen to her.
Maybe it was just sheer bad luck.
Now she has a decision to make.
Abortion.
Carry the child to term and keep it.
Carry the child to term and give it up for adoption.
Every choice is life changing. Every choice will make you wonder a thousand times, “did I do the right thing?” Because I don’t think there *is* one right answer for everyone.
No One Answer Fits All.
Every woman has to look deep into the recesses of her own heart, and look honestly to the future, her future, the possible future of the possible child, and answer for herself, answer for the child.
Just because I have one belief, it doesn’t give me the right to tell you what to do.
Only the woman involved can answer.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
The male response to this question has caused me pause and pondering. A child is essentially half the man’s and half the woman’s. I think I would side that the decision should be made between the two people (if the father wants to be involved at all). If the man decides yeah and the woman nay, I think he should pay restitutions to see to the comfort of the woman, but she should deliver. Then he must care for the child with child support from the mother.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
segue,
You are so right.
Of course plenty here and everywhere disagree with that fundamentally. They consider the fertilized egg is an independent human being from the word go, and as it does not have a *say*, the rest of us must *say* for it, as we do for the mentally deficient (that’s only a parallel, not a comparison). They therefore assume its decision-making and say it must live, because it could not possibly say it didn’t want to. Well, how can one argue against that standpoint? It scarcely differs from religious belief, even when it isn’t.
Suppose we adopt your viewpoint, which I personally totally prefer. Apart from other factors to do with us being what we are, in nature the mother almost always has primacy anyway, not the social group, when there is one. But we are not nature, and that’s where the problem lies. Unless you allow the mother to choose abortion at any point between conception and birth, a responsible national authority has to make a decision on that. And it has to be free of emotional overtones. If not, one rapidly arrives at the equivalent of lynch law. Being responsible is not necessarily being popular either. Most states that ban the death penalty would be obliged to enact it by plebiscite. But taking actual responsibility for an action is very different from pontificating about it. I wonder how many CND activists would immediately have *banned the bomb* had they been dumped straight into the Oval Office? So ultimately, some kind of legislative decision cannot be avoided.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Cedestra,
I’d only been thinking of that from the point of view of men having an opinion, as here, rather than a direct say. That must happen anyway, of course. Would it be then, that if the man happened to be incapable of supporting the woman and child, he would definitely be excluded from the decision? Fine by me. There would also need to be strong state back-up to *make the bugger pay*. What happens now in that respect is not always too encouraging.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
It is legal. Shouldn’t the question be “Should Abortion be Illegal?”….answer. No.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I will never have any other answer other than yes.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
“It is legal. Shouldn’t the question be “Should Abortion be Illegal?”….answer. No.”
Abortion is not legal everywhere. And even places where it is legal you can ponder the question of *should* it be legal.
You can question whether all abortions should be legal, 1st trimester vs partial birth abortion; should a woman have the option of terminating a pregnancy because her child will have Down Syndrome? Should there be criteria in place to qualify for an abortion? Or absolutely no restrictions whatsoever?
August 5th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I am pro-choice, and by no means am condoning it as birth control (it can’t be a contraceptive because the the woman has already been impregnated) And honestly I don’t know why a woman would want to reguarly use it as such. While it doesn’t always leave emotional scars, I would have to assume it is not a pleasant experiece.
I am lucky enough to live in an area(chicago)that has sex ed from 5th grade until 12th. The teachings are all pro-abstinence but they know that not everyone will be abstinent throughout highschool. As well as the sex ed, the nurses office can give out condoms and pills if the parents have signed a consent form freshman year. They also hand out free condoms at the civic center if they don’t want their parents to know. The people who choose not to use these resources and have unprotected, underage sex are, in my opinion, idiots(this obviously excludes couples trying to concieve)
I am a woman, I am pro-choice, and to be honest this shouldn’t even be a question. Abortions should be legal and are legal for a reason.
August 5th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
@ 292. qwerty:
I just want to know, out of my own curiosity, Do you not think you would have loved the child that you aborted as much as you love your two children you have now? Do you not feel guilty that you have those 2 and that another one is dead that you never even got the chance to know???
Do you not think about that aborted child every time you see your other two children?? I don’t understand how people can pick and choose which children to keep. If you aborted one already, I dont think you should even try again.
I believe that is pretty selfish myself, so thats how I would classify you.
You can say shame on you to all of us, but I say shame on you. Think about that precious life you gave up.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
But isn’t it a crime to not give an unborn child a chance to live?
August 5th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
This post made me de-lurk and register just so I can share my experience as a birthmother. I was raised in a strict Catholic home and when I got pregnant my senior year of high school, adoption was the obvious choice.
I picked my son’s parents, was promised an open adoption (in that I would be sent letters, videos, and have on-going contact), and repeatedly told how “strong” I was and what a “loving choice” I made. And now, nearly nine years post-placement, I can say with certainty that I was preyed upon by the adoption agency because my white, healthy, infant was in high demand. I was not given post-placement counseling, my wished and promises of an open adoption were not fulfilled (in fact his parents have ceased all contact with me), and I live in absolute grief everyday because the adoption choice I made and the deception I feel. The pain that surrounds my heart is indescribable.
So for all of you who promote adoption as being an easy alternative to abortion, from my experience, it is not. As a former pro-life person, I am now a firm pro-choice supporter. Remember that many women who place their child for adoption are silently suffering in a country (USA) that promotes adoption as the “loving choice”.
If you have read this far, thank you.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:41 am
I’m so tried of this subject, but anyways! I’m a I-Don’t-Care-er, so I’ll give you my input. Another person’s abortion doesn’t affect me in the least bit, but to tell you the truth I’d rather somebody give up their child, and spare it the neglect and abuse that most unwanted child get anyway, because the mother’s don’t “believe” in abortion.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:06 am
@ Anmali
I’m curious to know- would you rather have aborted your child rather than give him up for adoption? Is your experience with adoption the reason you have become a supporter of pro-choice?
August 6th, 2008 at 1:20 am
****
anmali -Re: your 551. Stories like that are tragic, to be sure. So many choices end up being tragic. Some don’t.
Read my 541. segue – I hope it helps to put some perspective on your situation.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:51 am
While reading through yet more answers, it dawned on me that none of this makes any sense whatsoever. Abortion should be legal simply so the women or parents concerned can have the choice. Every single argument proposed has been down to each individual’s morals. That’s all it is. I don’t think it’s fair that people that are pro-choice are censored because pro-lifers don’t like it.
It’s simple. If you are in the situation where you wish to have an abortion, go for it. Great. Good for you. And if you feel that abortion is just not for you and against your moral values, well nobody’s holding a gun to your head, are they?
August 6th, 2008 at 2:49 am
So many people…………..so many opinions.
I was in a difficult position when I was 18, 29 years ago. It was an accident, and a readily available abortion decided that for us, (My husband and I) it was easier to abort. 2 years later, again, I had another abortion, convenience and acceptability, in the society I lived in. We were young. (Middle class Australia by the way!)
People said “You don’t have to have a child until you are ready! Don’t wreck your life, and don’t have a child until you are really want one….. Every one suggested to us that we should, put yourselves first, but if I could take it all back my children would be born. We were poor, but we would have been okay. (But having an abortion wrecked our life)
I am 47 years old now, and still with the husband of those chidren we CHOSE not to have. We have no children now. Why??
To this day, the children I did not have, consume me. I killed them!! How could I have known that no matter how hard or poor we were then, that everything would have been okay because day by day we do survive! My children, (Yes I probably don’t deserve to think of them as my children, but I do!)should have been at least been born and adopted out. I would at least know they lived. How do I suffer?? Let me count the ways!! We didnt have any more because I still grieved for the ones I CHOSE not to have. My husband, that I love so much, consoles me in the deepness of my despair when it gets too much, but he silently suffers too. I pray there is another chance at life, some where, some time, because I would never choose the same path will all it’s selfishness and pain and guilt.
If there is any woman, (or girl) considering an abortion, and in a position that it would be okay to have their child because they have support, and can survive okay, please have your baby. I promise you, when you are older, and have your beautiful child with you some how, GOD will provide, no matter how hard you think it will be if you have your baby. Let the child live!
Or Adoption is the best option. The child at least lives!!!
You would not want to live my life, (30 years later) of going through every day with mega guilt, and wonder of what might have been. I don’t wish this on my worst enemy. I do not judge women for having abortions. If they can and they don’t suffer what I have, good. The trouble is, abortion is easy, it’s later, in the future, when you miss the child that should have been and all the memories that should have been yours and theirs.
Abortion is an easy way out that could affect your life forever!
A decision that is easily regretted.
Sorry there’s a bit of baggage in this post, but I have been living with it for years and abortion changed my life forver. Not to mention the people (my peple) that should have lived.
No to abortion for REALLY selfish reasons or because you are young!! My opinion. Thank’s for reading. Have the child and see what happens. It probably will be okay!!
August 6th, 2008 at 5:58 am
I’m sorry that having the abortion has affected you in this way, but there’s every chance that you could have had a disaterous experience if you had the child. There’s two sides to this. I’m not saying that “NOOO, NOBODY SHOULD HAVE CHILDREN!”, but you don’t know what might have happened. Sure that’s the thing with choice, you might make the right or wrong one. And I don’t think you should beat yourself up over the choice you made. You obviously felt at the time that you couldn’t handle or take care of a child, mabye you felt you weren’t ready, mabye you just wanted to do a bit more livin’ first. You made the choice and at the time it felt right. You did absolutely nothing wrong by acting on what you deemed to be necessary.
Life’s full of choice. I just think people should have the choice whether or not to have a child.
August 6th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I’ve read alot of these comments and many say that they want to control their own bodies. What you need to realize is that abortion wasn’t always around. God created sex for two purposes : reproduction and the intimate pleasure of being with your wife/husband. The bible tells us that life begins with conception.
God said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah 1:5
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13-14
This just shows that God knew us before we were formed. So even before we are considered a baby God knew us, He made us. Why would anyone want to destroy one of God’s creations?
August 6th, 2008 at 9:17 am
So if life starts at conception, should we punish every baby that is born because he could have been two? or three? I mean, a zygote has the potential to become not only one but several fetus. Should we punish the zygote then? Or the mother?
About men having opinions on this. I think they should participate in the decision, however, I don’t think it’s that simple. Men are not forced to participate in the life of the child if the mothers decides to keep it, why should women be forced to have a baby if the man wants it? Yes, genetically a baby is nearly half and half (actually except in some very rare cases, the mitochondria are provided by the mother), but it is the woman’s body the one that get to carry the baby, the one that changes, the one that experiences all those hormonal changes, the one that has to stop working, the one that has to deliver it. It depends so much on the people involved, that I’m not sure if there is an answer to that question.
August 6th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Christian:
Nice try, but:
A) Abortion *has* been around for a very, very long time. If I recall it was practiced by the ancient Egyptians and Romans (I don’t recall specific evidence that the Greeks practiced it, but they probably did) and I vaguely recall the Persians did as well. In short, most ancient people with a fairly sophisticated knowledge of medicine and anatomy (for their day) knew of induced abortion and practiced it.
B) The bible, despite your interpretation, does not specifically or clearly state that human life begins at conception.
C) In any case you are presenting a Judeo-Christian view on the matter, but do not explain why it should follow, logically, that everyone should have to cleave to that view even if they are not Jewish or Christian.
D) As is often the case, you are making a literal interpretation out of a non-literal, metaphoric statement. In literal terms all that we can say of that quote from scripture is that the ancient Hebrews were aware, as most ancient peoples were aware, that the growing fetus in the womb eventually is born and thus becomes a human being. How anyone *wouldn’t* know this, I can’t say. In any event, God’s statement can be taken to mean that as we are all conscious, we all came from consciousness. And he is that consciousness. You see this as proof of the individual ego. I see it as a metaphor for the collective consciousness that is god, which we are all a part of. Our individuality, then, is real, but also is an illusion in a sense. Which is confirmed by the things Jesus (as well as the Buddha) later said. (Actually the Buddha was probably contemporary with what was written here).
That consciousness cannot be destroyed. Only the vehicle that carries it. The ego ends (I believe) but not the light and consciousness that supported it.
What you are arguing is that god could create something that we could destroy for all time. I find that impossible. We can only destroy the vessel. The fluid within is the eternal consciousness of god which can never come to an end.
Understand?
Anyway, that’s my interpretation. You have another.
August 6th, 2008 at 9:33 am
558: Because not everyone thinks that a baby is a god creation. Is that your belief? That’s ok, but it’s not mine. You may think I’m wrong, as I may think you are. If I don’t punish you for your believes, why do you have to punish me for mines?
And abortion has been around for a really long time.
August 6th, 2008 at 9:43 am
558: “Why would anyone want to destroy one of God’s creations?”
I’m sure you destroy lots of ‘God’s’ creations everyday. By your religion, everything is created by god. Therefore, anytime you eat meat, vegetables.. heck ANYTHING that is not man made, aren’t you destroying one of your gods creations? So yeah.. just saying. Also, as said, not everyone believes in that religion. I don’t. My beliefs are that fetus’ don’t have rights, and the woman should always come first. I wouldn’t try to make your beliefs illegal if they aren’t hurting anyone, and my belief that abortion before viability is okay isn’t hurting anyone either, it could infact be SAVING someone (the mother).
August 6th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Persective,
Isolated tribes of ancient lineage with no *civilized* contacts have usually been found to practice abortion. Often this is imperative for their collective survival. Nature *causes* natural abortion and always has, in all placental mammals so far as I understand, although that would require verification. If you are going to pontificate publicly, pleazse get your facts straight. Declare what you are saying as either belief or fact. Don’t confuse the two and come up with pseudo-facts based on belief.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I’ve had an abortion and it sure is my right to do what I want with my body. My pregnancy was at the wrong time and with the wrong person. For reasons that are entirely personal, I choose not to keep the baby.
If a government can decide to take the life of someone via Capital Punishment then it better not tell me that when I decide to end my pregnancy it is immoral and taking the life of my child. In my mind, it’s “either/or” good ole’ Gov’t; you can’t have it both ways.
Although I love children, and cherish my nieces everyday, I would have made the same decision if faced with it today. I have no regrets. I didn’t fall apart from grief and I do not suffer any ill consequences. I wish I never had to make that choice and I’m sure when I have children of my own I will come to know my decision on a different level but I’m glad I was at least given that choice.
I hate to think of what I would have done at that point in my life if abortion wasn’t an option. I’m not talking suicide (whatsoever) but where my mind would have went I just don’t know…
August 6th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Bucslim – fine, agreed – men of course have a right to discuss/debate any topic, however there is no place in our society for men to be making legislation that prevents women from being able to abort. It is our bodies, therefore ultimately our decision, as much as people LOVE to point out that the baby is “half the mans”. Even if that man is serial rapist.
My favourite quote thus far on this forum is
“How would you feel if YOU were aborted” I don’t know genius, I don’t think I would.
And finally, to NEWFATHER, I feel very sorry for your child to be that will grow up with squares for parents. I hope she is never raped and has to deal with the stigma of a father who thinks she is mentally ill for wishing to terminating the result of a horrific experience. Shame on you.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
i have been out of the loop for a couple of days so i am about 250 comments behind. please forgive me if this idea has already been floated…
it all boils down to one question, as i see it. is an unborn baby/fetus/clump of cells (whatever your prefered term is) living?
if it is terminating/aborting/killing (again, pick your prefered term) is morally wrong and against the law.
if it isn’t then it is no different than expelling any other waste from your body.
there can be no middle ground here. either a life is being taken or it isn’t.
as for me. at the 20th week webmd.com describes this ability “Your baby weighs about 5 ounces (300 grams). The nervous system is starting to function. The external genitalia can be used as a means for you to see if it’s a boy or a girl. It can suck a thumb, yawn, stretch, and make faces. Soon — if you haven’t already — you’ll feel your baby move, which is called “quickening.”
and it looks like this http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/20-Week_Fetus.gif
so many of the arguments presented above are stuck in the theoretical and philosophical realm. lets not forget that something much more real is at stake.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
and just today i saw a new bumper sticker. it read “equal rights for unborn women”
August 6th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ladyling – agreed, but what about the future pro-choice women you want to abort?
I’m for abortion only in one instance. If I were around when my boss’s mom was pregnant, I would not only be for abortion, I would have performed it myself. I mean what about my right to not have to put up with a work environment where the stupider and lazier you are the more rewarded you get? Has anyone ever thought about that? I could have saved my boss from a lifetime of wallowing in his own gran mal shitheadedness.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Why does it always have to be for or against? If a woman chooses to do it then that’s what she decided to do.
If a woman doesn’t. Then that’s what she decided to do.
And I wish people would just stop with the “It’s morally wrong thing.”
Because this country has a rule of separation of church and state, and seems as though with all of YOU assholes that is slowly deteriorating, and the right to chose what we want for ourselves is following.
Because everybody wants everybody to live with their same damn rules. Because nobody can handle another persons choice to do something anymore.
You are all fucking everything up.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I love how women say they can abort the baby cause it’s “their body.” Uhh, it’s not you you are aborting geniuses, it the body of another human being growing inside of you. You are not removing a tumor, a wisdom tooth or an appendix.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I am pro-life. I have a beautiful 2 year old son to someone that was abusive, and still, I never look at him and think of who his bio-father was/is. It was extremely hard to go through a pregnancy alone but it was truly worth it. My best friend had an abortion and never talked about it, in fact she is a person that doesn’t even like children but seeing me go through it really brought out emotions she had held inside about aborting her own child. The tolls of an abortion will eventually catch up with a person.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
#567&568- pure comedy
I’ve got a question for all fervent pro-choicers out there, and my agenda should be clear: At what point is it too late to abort? Do you advocate an unlimited right to abort, even if it’s the day before the due date?
If you would limit it, why?
And #569 Electrolivia- why would you think that morality is limited to those who are religious? Can’t people have their own morality, without being affiliated to a church? Also, why would you think that being pro-life=being a religious nutcase, bent on the destruction of national ideals?
The issue isn’t as simple as you suggest. If you see a person murdering another person- do you want the murderer punished, or do you say “well, that was his choice, based on his morality… I have no right to tell him what to do.” I doubt it- you’d want to live in a society that criminalized that behavior, and actively made laws to prohibit that action.
Abortion is the same issue. An abortion is an act or murder in some people’s eyes, and it doesn’t matter if it has to do your body, or your choices. They believe that you should not have the freedom to act as you choose on a *life* that just happens to have the bad luck of living inside you. And they are going to attempt to legislate that belief.
Do you also advocate the complete and total abolition of any controlled substance? Should I be allowed to shoot as much heroin as I want? At any age? When you take a personal freedom stance, you’d best be prepared to take it all the way.
August 6th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Looking back on what I wrote in the last paragraph- what I meant was the *legalization* instead of *abolition* of controlled substances.. quite the opposite intent!
August 6th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
At B_Rad the chance of a genius being aborted is the same as a serial killer being aborted. But we shouldn’t think of abortion in things like that, the fetus’ values to society will never be known while they are in the womb and this borderlines on the nature vs nurture debate a lot.
However it is the woman who has a real chance at impacting our society as either a genius or whatever she may choose to be. How can you put the life of something that isn’t even alive yet over someone who actually is a living, breathing member of the society?
And I know a lot of people fear that if abortion is so accessible then women will be using it as a sort of birth control. This would very rarely happen, having an abortion is the hardest decision a woman can make. But you have to let her the individual choose what she wants to do with HER body. Yes it is her body, a person whether they be male or female should always have the right to do what they want with their own body. Saying that a women doesn’t have the right to abort a baby is likening her to some kind of birthing machine in which her wants, and dreams are completely ignored.
I hope all of that made sense x.x
August 6th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I’m guessing you didn’t read my post about the “her body” nonsense. And hell yeah your dreams and wants are ignored if you make the decision to have sex and pregnancy is the result, you know the risk being taken. Same with the guy if he ends up having to pay child support. And then you say, “well what if the woman is raped?” To which I say read all the other comments regarding that.
August 6th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Abortion is an unwanted necessity in our society, I think most will agree with this. In a perfect world, there would be no need for abortions, and therefore no need for this debate. But the reality is this is NOT a perfect world, we are NOT a perfect society, and there are situations some women find themselves in that leaves them with the thought that their only choice is abortion. So if abortion is illegalised, how do we help these women? The way I see it is if abortion is taken completely out of the USA (only using the States as an example because that is where I currently live), then we as a society have a lot more issues to solve.
First and foremost: education of the coming generation. Are pro-life advocates prepared to have sexual education placed into all their junior/senior high schools (and not just that “abstinence only!” rubbish … we need to teach young people the ramifications of unprotected sex, because they’re going to do it whether we tell them to or not)? Are we prepared to make legal contraceptives more readily available to high school students? Are we going to help promote self-esteem, positive body image, and self-respect to our young people through education/counseling/media as a way to prevent these teenaged pregnancies?
For those who have unwanted pregnancies: will pro-lifers help legislate to have more free counseling to women who, one way or another, found themselves pregnant and with the feeling they have nowhere else to turn? Will we legislate to make the adoption process easier and more efficient so more of these mothers can feel more comfortable with giving up their children? And what of the ones who keep their babies? Will we put more money into Medicare, WIC, etc? For the ones who suffer from post-pardum depression and (forces forbid) pyschosis(sp?): will we put more money into funding for free counseling? Because take it from a woman who knows, counseling is NOT CHEAP.
In a lot of cases, there is more than just one life at stake when debating abortion. If we take away the option of abortion, then we must also see to the issues that will crop up afterwards. Illegalising abortion is not the end of the road, especially for the women and families involved, and I believe it’s high time for us as a society (pro-lifers and pro-choicers) to put our money where our mouth is, and help the women in these situations.
After all, we can’t pick and choose which lives are sacred, can we?
August 6th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
kittym: yes, if that is the trade off. i would gladly rather have our problem be finding counselors, teachers, contraceptives, etc. most definately.
paula: check your facts. in most studies under 10% of all abortions are done for health of the mother or because the mother was a victim of rape. and 10% is very liberal, usually much less. the other approx 90% is for reasons of convenience or contraception.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
B_Rad: You make it seem like having a child should be a punishment for those who have sex and end up pregnant. Is this really better for the baby? To have him/her to be raised by people who were forced into carrying them?
DiscHuker: What they should be looking at in those studies is that of the 90% of women, how many of them have had more than one abortion? Reasons of convenience or contraception can mean anything other than for health or rape-victims, this could be for monetary reasons or even if the woman doesn’t feel ready to bring a child into the world. I stick with what I say this is NOT an easy decision for women to make.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
571. adore316
So just because you love babies and children, we all must love them because you said so?
Well I HATE children. Therefore, abortion is now mandatory!
August 6th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
yes. it should be legal.
i have had 2 myself. i was stupid and young and terrified and not ready to take responsibility for what i had done. granted it took me two times and two PEOPLE to figure out that taking one pill a day was easier than killing the baby within, but that it something i have to live with everyday.
did i do it? twice.
do i regret it? ABSOLUTELY.
do i condone it? no way. i am the definition of a walking conundrum. but i do think it should be legal. there are many other factors that could add into the decision for an abortion. perhaps rape, incest, or genetic birth defects.
or silly little girls who need to learn to close their legs or take charge of their own sexuality.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Okay, I just wanted to put my view out there. I’m not against abortion, I believe that sometimes the child would be brought into such a negative and unhealthy world that it benefits the child more not to be born in the first place. I’m not going to argue that when a baby is aborted, it’s not alive. For anything to survive and grow and multiply cells, it’s scientifically alive.
Also, there is something I feel extremely strongly about, and that’s rape. The only way I would understand abortion being illegal is if rape didn’t exist. But it does. It happens every fucking day. Women all over the world are pregnant with horrible, evil men’s sons and daughters, who should never have been created in the first place. They look just like their fathers, have the same tendencies by the forces of nature, and even if they are good-hearted, would you want to grow up knowing the only reason your mom had you was because your dad raped her??? No. Abortion is the woman’s choice, although the way some people use it it’s a little morbid. It shouldn’t be used as a contraceptive, I think there should be a limit to how many times someone gets an abortion, an examination to determine whether a rape occurred, etc., etc. I don’t believe in “we made a mistake.” No, bitch. You use a fucking condom and take a fucking pill every morning, better that than having a child you never wanted killed inside you and pulled out of your vag. Sorry to put it so morbidly, but that’s pretty much the deal. Rape and sexual assault. Or if you were on birth control and used a condom and still managed to somehow get knocked up, and there are ways of proving that both contraceptives were used.
I just wish people who don’t believe in it at all would mind their own business. I believe that everything happens for a reason, and in the end everything works out as someone up top intended it to be.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I’m giving up making further long and serious hard-thought-out attempts to raise and try to provide information on difficult ethical issues for this topic from now on. People simply carry on posting as if the points hadn’t even been considered. Well, more fool me, of course. Guess I’m too much of an agenda bender.
So, back in my capacity as the shallow male, I’ll give a flip cliché answer to those of my sex who demand to know why women should have the say in this case:
*Possession is nine points of the law*
Or perhaps *nine months of the law* would be more appropriate.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:46 am
It seems as though nobody is going to change anyone’s minds here. Anyone against abortion seems to be stubbornly putting forward the argument that abortion is murder, when I believe, and many other people it seems, that no, it’s not murder. I consider it murder in the same sense that masturbation is “murdering” millions of potential people. I guess millions of men commit genocide every day.
And a man absolutely has a say in whether or not to have an abortion! You better believe that if that’s my genetic code in your womb, you better come to me and ask me what I think.
Lastly, and probably leastly, I’ll never understand why people who are against abortion will incriminate those who have abortions, or deny them the right to make that choice. If you find yourself in the circumstance where you don’t feel like you can/want to take on a child, everyone should have the right to say “no”.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Ste, you’re broadly correct,
The topic fundamentally asks you to say yes or no (it could also be asking you to express any doubts and uncertainties). However, I’m sure the main hope was to stimulate intelligent discussion. People challenging other’s assumptions constructively, leading to concession or counter-argument.
However, by and large people are ignoring any viewpoint but their own, or expressing outrage at opponents rather than applying their brains as well as their emotions. You could expect a better debate on the subject in many a pre-university school classroom. I notice the absence of a number of LVers who usually provide the most stimulating ideas, and suppose that’s why.
Many of the most probing and thought-provoking questions have either simply been by-passed, or dismissed as *cerebral*. (So we don’t need to think deeply about all the implications and be sure our convictions are logical?).
As for masturbation, it certainly involves something which
is neither dead or inert, indeed which cannot be: the chain of life since it first appeared on earth has not continued where broken at any point. It must be absolutely continuous. However, sperm isn’t complete or developing life; it’s potential. It’s pollen compared to a fertilized seed or growing plant. In fact nature replaces sperm all the time. Not that there appears to be a great deal of interest here in what happens in nature at large. Nature is more interested in maintaining a powerful reproductive urge in men (and women too, of course), and semen loss is a fair price to pay. In that sense, one might say masturbation was more pro-life than murder! Excess masturbation is pathological and morbid, because it affects the perpetrator adversely. To call masturbation *a sin* is bizarre beyond words.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:54 am
A lot of you are saying that abortion should be allowed if the woman was raped. This is ridiculous, so what you’re going to punish the women who had sex consensually? Babies should not be a consequence as a result of irresponsible sex.
Thing is whether abortion is legal or not, women are still going to have them. Before abortion was legal, many women took the risk of having ‘back alley’ abortions. Many women died, or were mutilated as a result of their abortion. So shouldn’t abortion be legal so many of these women can have access to abortions that are safe?
August 7th, 2008 at 8:09 am
583, Ste:
I just want to know how you think masturbation is murder. Not ever single sperm is designed to be able to penetrate an egg, it takes many many sperm to find one that is supposed to make it. It’s not effing genocide, it’s nature. It’s the way God or whoever you believe created man designed it, because trust me, without the force behind those millions of sperm, that one that reaches the egg wouldn’t be able to get there in the first place.
However, I do agree with you on your last two points, that a man has a say and that people should be able to make their own choices. I don’t believe that a man has the right to tell a woman she CAN’T do something, even if it’s that she CAN’T go out with her friends that night or she CAN’T go to the beach without him for a week–whether she chooses to do it is a show of the relationship. But I do think that if someone is in a relationship in the first place, and they had consensual sex and didn’t use protection, they should have to deal with the consequences.
585.Paula: So you’re saying that women who are brutally raped and become pregnant as a result shouldn’t have the option of taking any means necessary to get their rapist’s DNA out of their bodies? I don’t understand what you mean by “Punish the women who had sex consensually”. Women who had sex consensually and didn’t use protection and created a life they now have to destroy should absolutely be punished!! Ignorance is not a handicap. Irresponsible sex is what it is, and it should be for the mother and father if they’re both around to decide what to do, although again, my view is that you use a fucking condom or you deal with it and don’t make the same mistake again, unless it will be a negative environment for the child.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Why? That is, why do you believe the unborn child has this inherent right? On what do you base this? (this sounds argumentative but I mean merely to ask for elucidation here)
Randall – strangely, the religious answer would be the easy one. And – as you well know – you ask an especially difficult question. Moreover, I was raised and educated a Catholic (though I’m the last guy that the Pope would hold up as a poster boy…trust me!!) and I also have to admit that, even if I try, I’m not sure I could come up with an answer that isn’t colored by religion.
So, let me reverse my answer and say that it is implicit on others to afford this right to another; I believe that no individual has the right to unjustly deprive another of their existence, nor to cause them undue harm. A “soft” answer, I know, but this and similar questions have vexed great minds for centuries…
Religious or not…it still comes down to “belief”, I guess.
But before we go any further, I need to hear from you why you feel there *is* an inherent right to life that unborn children have (and which adults can forfeit). Oh, and by the way also why the latter, regarding adults forfeiting this right, is not simply a legal distinction.
I think that an individual’s acts can be so heinous that they forfeit their right to a natural life, but also accept that this concept must be secondary to what is held to be for the greater good of the community; so, yes, there can be a significant legal aspect to this.
I do not, as it happens, believe that life is inviolable. Regardless of what life it is. Unborn or otherwise. I believe there is a “sacredness” not just to life but to everything in existence, life being only one part of that. Seems to be a contradiction, and I have a hard time explaining it myself.
I think I see where you are coming from. And, yes, this entire topic is difficult to articulate adequately in words. The father of a girl I worked with many years ago was a Professor of Behavioural Science; I remember him saying “what you think and what you feel are 2 different things”.
“If you want to explore hypocrisy there are many more viable and tangible targets.”
Ah, but now, who says? You? Why? Why is this “less” viable?
The Bono example is, to me, more viable because (if true) it is a deliberate act in contradiction to an explicit position on his part which he exhorted of others. That, to me, is a far more egregious.
Nope, kiwi…. in a sense I agree with you, but on further and deeper thought, I find the issue I’m talking about to be the truly more serious problem.
Well, it does come down to making a personal judgement after all; there’s no straight answer…
August 7th, 2008 at 9:05 am
****
566. Dischuker
it all boils down to one question, as i see it. is an unborn baby/fetus/clump of cells (whatever your prefered term is) living?
****
Disc, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t quite boil down so simply.
Of course, the clump of fetal tissue is living, it grows, develops, becomes larger, more complex, until it eventually turns into what the physicians refer to as an embryo.
Non-living tissue doesn’t act this way.
As I stated in my original post, I have my personal beliefs on abortion. They, however, are *my* personal beliefs, and have no bearing whatsoever on what another woman should do, or think, or be allowed to do, if she finds herself in a position of unwanted pregnancy.
There are several alternatives from which any woman can choose. Abortion is just one.
This is, and must remain, a decision between a woman and either her partner or, lacking that, her doctor.
Period.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:39 am
I want to let you all know, in case any thing I post, on any list, is repitious of anything that was posted yesterday…my mail system went down late yesterday a.m., and did not come back online until this a.m.
This means I am trying to read through 100+ emails, and here and there responding (which I should *not* do until I’ve read them all, I know), but some just scream at me to answer!
So.
My apologies if I’m off the mark.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I’m happy to see a little more moderation and thought of late.
It prompts me to post a reply to a point raised several times here, whether or not anyone cares what I think. I will also apologise, in case someone has already given this answer, and I’m repeating. This has happened to me on several occasions, including above, and it’s really irritating.
O.K. The point. Why should individuals have a right to personal choice on abortion when we are not allowed the personal choice of, say, murdering someone we hate?
It boils down to this. There are certain actions that all sane, civilised people are agreed upon virtually without quibble. Or we collectively agree the dissenters do not carry sufficient numerical or argumentative weight to prevail. Or collective public interest is so strong we must outlaw the event. Condemning murder is one such. That we must all drive on the same side of the road is another.
But there are many *grey* areas where we are in open disagreement, and split into significant groups with no common consent, as we see for the present topic. These are also areas where social and personal damage or nuisance often can and does result. But we still allow individual freedom of choice. In fact there is really no reasonable alternative.
A few examples:
Smoking. This causes widespread health problems for many people. It overloads the care and free social systems and absorbs the valuable time of medical staff. Those who don’t smoke themselves find it offensive when it affects them directly. We address that latter with ever-tougher restrictions.
Drinking. A generally pleasant and harmless social and personal pastime, which nevertheless marginally causes great nuisance to some (for example via publicly drunken slobs and those who urinate in gardens and telephone booths), self-damage to others (health again), and can lead to frightening violence as never experienced in smoking.
Partying and keeping dogs. Both of these can produce noise pollution which drives uninvolved, non-benfitting third parties mad. But we allow them, but again within reason.
For you in the US specifically: the right to bear arms. Many object violently, and some who object will surely die as a result of the rights of their opponets being upheld. This is a case of “Who have NOT lived by the sword dying by the sword”, I fear. As a result of a school massacre, the UK has virtually banned the rights of private individuals to own, and almost to use, arms.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
590. Anon, these are all points I grapple with every time the question arises, perhaps especially because I am personally of the belief that the life which arises from the point of conception onward is human, and therefor sacred.
This has nothing to do with the way I was raised, and everything to do with one, simple, scientific fact; a fertilized human ovum has but one destiny.
It is human from the first day. The genes are there; busily telling the cells what to do, what to be, how to grow.
If it’s genetically human, then how should we treat it?
Shouldn’t we treat it humanely?
I become confused when I hear people arguing against the death penalty and for abortion…Or to save the whales but for abortion rights.
Why is the life of a serial killer more important than the life of the unborn?
I want to save the whales and, in fact, the whole planet, but that doesn’t mean I have to exclude the unborn.
Then I stop myself, and I think…who am I to make someone else’s decision for them?
Does that make me realistic, or a pansy?
If I truly had the courage of my convictions, wouldn’t I stand up and fight for them? Or would that just make me an unrealistic fool?
I don’t see two sides to this argument (I’ve left out, you should all thank me, another half dozen sides), I see, at least, an octagon of sides.
And yet, I maintain my own. Unsullied and unchanged.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
don’t you see the hypocrisy?
it is being said that we (as men, or as non-pregnant, periferal women) have no right to make decisions on behalf of another person. yet, over and over again, we are making a decision on behalf of a child. even going so far as to say to some of them “I don’t believe your life will be according to my standards of what is a good life and a bad life so you will not even be given the chance of living”
holy crap. please tell me you guys see this.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
#591 Segue
We tell our fellow humans what to do with their bodies all the time- banning certain substances for instance. What does it hurt you if I decide to shoot up in the privacy of my own home, no driving or any contact with anyone else? And yet any reasonable person would consent to live in a place where it is banned. Because in almost every case, your actions on yourself effect someone else in some way. The heroin addict could be on unemployment, or burden the medical system in some way.
Abortion is a similar case- only the other person being effected is the unborn child. Then the merry-go-round starts with the “when does life begin” or “when does the child start having rights” arguments.
I guess my point is that we do have the ability to tell our fellow “man” what to do with their bodies, and we exersize that ability on a daily basis. Show me a country that doesn’t, and I’ll show you a sh*tty place to live.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
segue,
That’s all we can all do. We must be sincere and true to ourselves, and try to respect that similarity in others of different opinions, when it is so.
We should not be afraid to admit our uncertainty either. Only that will allow us to make progress. Science progresses because everything it publishes only stands for as long as it cannot be successfully challenged. I recognise belief as a terminal stick in that wheel, emotional reaction too (which is not intended to invalidate either). A contest between the two always results in a simple impasse.
I’ve explained my position on capital punishment above. In a nutshell, my own view is that I don’t view a fertilized egg as in any way the same as an embryo which is already a de facto human being (I’m not equipped to say when the change occurs), even less a human being which has begun to fill the empty book of destiny with experience. As to your serial killer, medical, genetical and environmental factors aside (who am I to judge without full knowledge of the impact of those on *his* – I’m assuming male – actions?), it wouldn’t worry me ethically to see him removed from the scene. I don’t regard developed human beings in general as equal anyway. Neither does society or nature. That isn’t the same as saying they don’t matter, by the way. My objection to capital punishment is twofold. I find the process obscenely degrading for any society, and the risk of topping the innocent cannot be avoided, even in serial killing (e.g. See the Timothy Evans case, or as a film, ‘10, Rillington Place’, 1971, with Dickie Attenborough on form as the seedy serial murderer). Higher up I have explained how my uncle thought the odd innocent executed was a price worth paying, until I asked him whether would hold if I, his nephew, happened to be one of those innocent.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
short and simple
yes
women
have
the
right
to
chose.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
You’re either pro life or you’re pro death.
I feel that abortion should be legal, although it seems highly suspect to me.
The people who vehemently oppose abortion on the grounds that something/one is being murdered are very likely supportive of capital punishment as well, which in some(not all) instances innocent people are murdered, and this time, they really are murdered, no questions asked. They’re freakin executed by the Govs! Think about it. You can’t have it both ways[logically]
August 7th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Aaron E,
(Sighs), You haven’t bothered to read before you post, have you, son? I mean the whole debate above: what various people have taken considerable trouble and thought to type out. If you had you’d find the subject has already been raised and explored.
So too has the issue of what *death* might be.
I ask yet again, is it worth bothering?
August 7th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
@ Dischucker
Excellent point. I agree 100%- it’s totally hypocritical. But, unfortunately the majority of people who believe that abortion is okay don’t classify an unborn baby as “another person”. It’s just a “clump of cells”
Well, my 18 week old “clump of cells” is kicking me as I type…
August 7th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
****
593. logar
#591 Segue
We tell our fellow humans what to do with their bodies all the time…I guess my point is that we do have the ability to tell our fellow “man” what to do with their bodies, and we exersize that ability on a daily basis. Show me a country that doesn’t, and I’ll show you a sh*tty place to live.
****
And I would guess that, in great part, is why I continue to believe that the choice is always, and should always, be up to the woman involved.
My personal beliefs are just that, personal. I say so every time.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I am a clump of cells. The plants in my garden are clumps of cells. So are the millions of bacteria seething over my hands as I type. All of us have autonomous life right now. The chicken in my delicious Thai lunch was a clump of cells. So was my breakfast boiled egg, which came fresh from a free-range, fertilized hen. Those were dead clumps of cells.
Now think carefully about the question I’m going to pose. Did I *murder* a chicken when I ate that egg? That’s for you to decide and answer. I have considered this and know what my reply is.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
****
594. Anon
segue.
That’s all we can all do. We must be sincere and true to ourselves, and try to respect that similarity in others of different opinions, when it is so…
I’ve explained my position on capital punishment above…
****
August 7th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
yes. of course, yes. if a teenager makes the choice to have unprotected sex and gets pregnant, it’s their fault. most of you would say ” no because if she had sex, she has to deal with the child. it’s like a punishment.” newsflash: a child is NOT a punishment. getting grounded is. it is a living breathing child, and if the parents are unable to support him/her and still chooses to keep him/her, the child would be going through hell. imagine that. plus, a fetus has almost zero brain function, so it has no idea whats going on. it is not murder.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
****
594. Anon
segue.
That’s all we can all do. We must be sincere and true to ourselves, and try to respect that similarity in others of different opinions, when it is so…
I’ve explained my position on capital punishment above…
****
Sorry, I got trigger happy.
Capital punishment. Anon, I couldn’t find your post on it, but here, in brief, is my view.
I oppose capital punishment. There are too many ways for it to be misused, or for the wrong man to be executed.
That being said, if someone were to kill one of my children, or my grandchild, I would not hesitate ( at least in my imagination ), to personally kill him.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
ABORTION SHOULD BE LEGAL
For the sole reason if it was not legal it wouldn’t stop anybody from having “ILLEGAL” Dangerous Back Alley Abortions.
Does the fact that marijuana is illegal stop people from smoking? no.
What happened? Drug Dealers.
Does the fact that there is a drinking age stop people from drinking? no. Bribing Older Individuals to Buy alcohol for them.
Did prohibition work? no.
What happened Speakeasy’s, Mobsters, Bootlegging.
You’re trying to put a stop to a problem that is a side effect of another problem.
Birth control should be more readily available; Cheaper as well. They should have better contraceptives. I would like to see a TEMPORARY Chemical Vasectomy. Get a shot, you’re sterile; get another shot; you’re able to procreate, again.
Condoms break, morning after pill fails, what’s next? Abortion.
If the mother gives birth to a baby that’s 22 weeks premature it has a ZERO PERCENT survival rate. It is GUARANTEED STILLBORN.
jfrater: I was stating that abortions are primarily used for Economic reasons. Because the mother and father cannot afford a child. Or it is not the best time for the mother to have a child in her career.
How many women will go through LABOR which is absolute TORTURE. (Because of the size of the human brain, FYI?) Most painful experience one can have; comparable to being “drawn and quartered.”
Then hold the “cute” baby in her arms and say “seeya!” ?
Very few. The woman’s brain will go back to her maternal instincts. She’ll throw her life and her childs future’s away to preserve the life. She knows that her life will be miserable. But her genetics and her instincts will convince her to
Drop out of college
work at Mcdonalds
Love the child to death
but not be able to to support it
never get back to college
live off welfare
pump out a few more kids
more welfare money
etc etc
Think it won’t?
I’ve seen it happen, Dozens of times.
And in inner city cases her best hopes for the child will be to be a Drug Dealer not a Drug Addict.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Oh boy, segue,
Are we on the same wavelength! I’ve never been able to understand why people like John Lennon get assassinated, yet not paedophile murderers when they are released. *Vengeance is mine saith the Lord*. Well, I’m sorry, not in my book. I think, I almost dared to say hope, if someone had raped and murdered one of my daughters, I’d be out there waiting for the release date (if there were one) as long as I had breath and co-ordination left in my body. That’s an abstract situation, of course. In the event it might not be so.
Merciful fate, we’ve been spared, but it used to be a background worry when they were growing up and too far out of sight at any moment. How to protect them while allowing them independence also entered into that scene.
See my postings 513 & 594 re capital punishment.
It took me long enough to trace them.
I must heed my own advice and read everything here. Have I got the stamina to stay up all night though?
August 7th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
BrutallyHonest,
Like it or not, and you have stated your case very well, another facet for anyone who had to make a real-life judgement on this issue to consider, along with all the rest. Who’d care to be in that position?
August 7th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
****
604. BrutallyHonest…How many women will go through LABOR which is absolute TORTURE. (Because of the size of the human brain, FYI?) Most painful experience one can have; comparable to being “drawn and quartered.”
Then hold the “cute” baby in her arms and say “seeya!” ?…
****
Who, exactly, gave you that explanation of labor?
I gave birth to three babies, 10lbs posterior, 9lbs, 8lbs, (all within 34 months, on purpose) using no drugs what-so-ever, and I can’t begin to compare it to something as brutal as being “drawn and quartered”.
Yes, labor is painful. Very painful. But what you keep in your mind is the simple fact that at the end of it, you’ll have a beautiful baby, a gift of incomparable price.
That’s if you want the child.
If you don’t want it, then you sure as hell aren’t going to go through labor drug-free, and feel the pain. You’ll get a spinal and pretty much glide through.
The balance of your post was spot-on.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
brutally honest: you should change your name to tragically uninformed. i am not sure that i have seen a bigger straw man of an argument than what you have just posted.
your oversimplification of labor, life with a baby, economic impact and a mother’s ability to provide for her child would be quite amusing if it was sarcastic. i fear that you are being completely serious though.
do you really believe the option is either abortion or a life as a drug dealer?
August 7th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Amber: In no way did I mean that women who were
raped shouldn’t get abortions. I just wanted to point
out that it’s rather stupid to say that abortions should only
be available to women who’ve been raped. Abortions should
be available to ALL women. A lot of people are basically saying that if a woman ends up pregnant and she wasn’t raped she deserved it. This likens getting pregnant to a consequence of ‘unacceptable’ sexual behaviour in women. Children should not be used as a punishment, as in she got herself pregnant now she’s going to just have to stick with it. This logic is seriously flawed and I suggest anyone who thinks this way should seriously rethink this. Condoms rip, haven’t you learned that no birth control is 100% effective?
But really wwe shouldnt care about the situation of the matter. Maybe a woman simply doesn’t want to have a baby? Maybe she doesn’t feel the need to place yet another child in the adoption system? Maybe she doesn’t feel the need to possibly mess up her body? A lot of people like to say abortions should be illegal and get their self-righteous moral high from it, but where are these same people after the baby has been born? Where are these people when women who aren’t ready for a child have to struggle with raising a baby they were forced to carry? Where are these people when these new mothers need to cover all her hospital costs on top of her new baby costs? It’s not as simple as just carrying a fetus for nine easy months, and then just popping the baby out. It doesn’t end once the baby’s born.
Anon: You’re question’s pretty much the reason why there is so much heat in the abortion debates. Everyone has their own definition when life starts. Personally I feel life starts when you’re born, and so I don’t really belive that a fetus and an already born human exist on the same plane in a way. But I think it’s imporant whethere you believe life begins at conception or after birth to always know that it’s not just one life involved in abortions, it’s two lives the mother and the fetus. If you’re going to say how can you put the life of a fetus above say a criminal who’s getting the death penalty, then how can you put the life of the fetus over the life of the mother’s as well? This whole thing is so deep, my brain is all woah.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
607 & 608,
My *last post*. I was called away for a meal and just flung it off via *Submit*. As a rule I hope to be more careful. Even as I posted doubt was there and more was flooding into mind. That should have held me back until I’d thought.
Our two daughters were both born by Caesarian. My wife’s pelvic arch was too narrow for conventional birth. Therefore no pain of the usual kind was involved for her. Both daughters have inherited the same bone-structure. As with much human *cultural evolution*, our onward line is therefore now *defying Darwin*. Such a situation in the rainforest, in an igloo, or a prehistoric cave would simply have resulted in the agnonising death of the mother and the end of the maternal line. Full stop.
I recall reading, I think it was a ‘National Geographic’ article, about a neaolithic family of early humans. It pointed out that the rapid increase in brain-size and initial helplessness of the infant had led to ever-longer pregnancies as we evolved, large-headed infants and more difficult and dangerous births. I seem to recall archeological evidence had showed evidence of considerable death in childbirth (they simply threw bodies into a large *sacred* pit. The suggestion was that many girls simply became too scared and this had led to the spread of abortion (relevant here). (Bear in mind I’m working from memory.) Death, abstinence and abortion are presumed to have led to a genetical strain by and large far more capable of giving relatively safe birth, modern woman (except my wife, daughters and others). I believe this capacity may also vary between races, but am neither an anthropologist nor a medic.
Therefore in that respect, BrutallyHonest is still living in the stone-age, and certainly exaggerating absurdly.
There is also the interesting matter of the natural method in water, which I understand greatly helps relaxation, posture and birth itself.
I would add though that not every point in 604 should be dismissed so readily and contemptuously without thought.
Something about throwing babies out with bathwater, perhaps?
August 7th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
609. Paula:
I definitely don’t think that children should be used as a form of punishment, but I am kind of on the fence (which makes me look great at proving a point, for sure) as to the whole issue because with abortions available everywhere, people will abuse the right to have one, especially because it’s been denied them for so long. As for women who don’t want to have babies, I remain firm that they should use protection. I do believe that a fetus is alive, and it sucks that there are situations where it has to be killed (although as to the whole “physical pain or mental acuity or the fetus” issue, I’m clueless), but it should be avoided, by simple safe sex practices. Agreed that not everyone can afford birth control, that’s understandable because it’s ridiculous, but condoms are pretty cheap. I agree that people against abortions are self-righteous and ignorant though, because you’re right. They’re not there raising the child for 18 years or more on no money and no prospects. All in all, I do think abortion should be legal, and if it came down to it I would vote yes, but I’m definitely concerned about abuse of that right.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Fetus this, fetus that. Paula, I’m not sure if you’re a mother, but I’m going to assume you are. Did you and your partner ever discuss what to name your fetus? I can imagine the conversation:
“But Paula, looking at the ultrasound, I think our fetus looks like a Steve.” Or did you call your friend to ask what they were going to name their fetus? Is is an XX fetus, or XY fetus? I’m really hoping for an XY Fetus.
I love how everyone dehumanizes the baby by calling it a fetus (although I am aware that it is a scientific term).
Paula, do you know what the difference between a baby (fetus) the day before it’s born, and the day after it’s born? One thing- it needs you to supply oxygen. Otherwise, it’s the same thing mentally and physically. Your definition of when life begins needs a little more thought. Like they magically turn into humans when the cord is cut.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Amber: Ahh see I think it’s great to always questions things like this as you are, I’m glad that you think it’s legal and women should at least be presented with the choice. That’s all I fight for, for people let that choice be there. =)
Logar: No Logar I am not a mother, and I’m sorry if my use of the word ‘fetus’ seems so cold to you. I try to always use the scientific terms, you could say that people who use the term ‘baby’ tend to over emotionalize the abortion debates. Now of course debates like these shouldn’t be one or the other, but a moderation of the two; emotional and scientific thought. I don’t really know how to explain my stance to you on this issue, as you won’t understand it if you’re already set in how you feel. I feel that there is a difference when a baby is born. The baby is no longer, and I have no other way to say this, ‘leeching’ off of the mother. To me the baby hasn’t had the chance to experience true life until it is born. Once the baby is born he/she can breathe their own air, eat their own food, and to me the most important of all start to feel their own emotions. I personally doubt that a fetus in the womb can feel any real emotion. What is one of the many things that defines us as living human but our emotions? Of course I’ll probably have many animal-activists who would like to disagree with me on this but that’s a whole other debate which I’d rather stay out of. But yeah I hope that made sense if not, I feel we’d have to agree to disagree. This aspect of the debate is really a matter of opinion there’s no right or wrong.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Paula:
Haha! Yeah I definitely think it should be legal, there’s no doubt about that, but I can’t help but wish there was a way to stop people from getting abortion after abortion etc..
I actually was in DC during that whole Pro-Life march, not for the march, I was taking a bus trip home from seeing my dad (worst mistake of my life, never take Greyhound), and there were two really really old, very Conservative, very anti-abortion men on the bus who kept trying to talk to me about how fabulous our President was, and as if that wasn’t enough, they began to try to argue with me about abortion.
In the end I basically told him to go suck one and gave him the finger. It’s people like that who have no openness to different ideas, I mean they’re fuck-old, they’re not going to change now, but all the same, closed-mindedness drives me nuts, like some of the people on here who won’t hear a word out of anyone else’s…keyboard. lol.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Amber: Ohh I hope I’m not guilty of that. I always try not to jump on people when it comes to things like this, that just hurts your stance and takes any credibility out of your arguments.
I was just showing a lot of this debate to my friend, he basically just told me what you said. A lot of us are too stubborn to really try to understand some of the other arguments lol.
I was accused of being too scientific, which I do understand but I get so passionate during these things I always need to reread and reword what I say. ‘WTF are you talking about’ may just turn into ‘ I don’t really know what you’re trying to argue’ lol.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
You can force people to do things.
You cannot force anyone to believe or accept anything.
You can only convince or brainwash them.
Baby vs foetus perhaps depends on the context, or should do. I never thought of my daughters as foetuses. Then I don’t tend think of my body, or anyone else’s, as a mass of tissues, nerves, blood channels, organs, hormones, digestive processes, energy conversion and waste processing functions either. (Except perhaps those under treatment by Dr House, or that terribly wounded soldier in ‘Private Ryan’, etc.)But it is, they are.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Paula: Oh, you’re not, you seem like a pretty open-minded person. I’m the same way, though, I have to read over my comments because I get so heated in arguments that sometimes I just refuse to see other peoples’ points. For example, I understand people don’t want abortion to be legal because they want to spare the lives of innocent children. I get that. I feel the same way, that it’s a waste. But at the same time, it can be a necessary waste, for the good of everyone involved, including the innocent child. There are two sides to everything, excepting maybe the Holocaust, racism, and rape, things like that, but for issues like this I honestly think it’s a personal decision between the people who are having (or not having, in this case) the baby. If people don’t want to have one, I’m not going to tell them they should, although I do hate when people have kids and they can’t support them, it just seems ignorant and careless to me. But I do think the option should be there for people who want them.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Paula
Forgive me, but I had to laugh when I read your comment, “I feel that there is a difference when a baby is born. The baby is no longer, and I have no other way to say this, ‘leeching’ off of the mother.”
My son was completely “leeching” off of me for months after he was born. My breast milk was his sole source of nutrition for a solid 6 months. Just because he was being fed through an umbilical cord vs his mouth doesn’t make him any less of a leech. I’m know someone else has mentioned this already, but how many self-sufficient infants do you know? They still rely 100% on their parents for life once they are born, minus the need for the mother to supply oxygen.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I think I am now able to supply the answer to my chicken and egg question. The *when does a fertilised egg become a person* riddle. (For me, that is. I wouldn’t dream of presuming the same for anyone else. We all have to decide for ourselves. I’m just sharing here.) The answer is not precise, because the process is gradual, but there are certain clear points.
It is when my (probably genetically fired) senses of recognition (of a fellow human), compassion, empathy, protectiveness, joy, and similar reactions are triggered.
That is principally down firstly to movement, and secondly to appearance. Perhaps the latter first if there is some means of imaging what is going on in the womb. I feel that’s when nature actually tells me it wants me to respond.
If I trod on a fertile chicken egg and smashed it open, I would feel nothing, not the slightest concern. Nor would I if its minute chain of initial cells was lying on the ground and I trod on those. I wouldn’t notice. It’s simply not a living chicken for me. However, if an egg containing a recognisable chick embryo were smashed, and I could see the helpless little pink thing struggling for life and dying, or even saw its pathetic fresh corpse … Ah …
Excuse my pointing out what follows in support of my conclusion. It isn’t intended in any way to be offensive, and I hope won’t be taken as such.
A woman doesn’t know she is pregnant at the moment the egg is fertilized. She has no idea. Least of all does she feel protective instinct for a new life. In fact she is unlikely to know until suspicion – or better, hope, sends her for a confirmatory test. Before that she might even quite unwittingly do something that causes natural abortion. The emotions kick in when confirmation of the test comes. Or if no test was available or sought, when the kicking comes!
August 8th, 2008 at 2:22 am
don’t know if you’re still reading this,
MEG – indeed I am; sorry, I’ve been very busy at work over the past few days. Still am
but i want to comment on what you said,”my problem is accepting that death can be best for an unborn child”.
what if a girl falls pregnant, this a hypothetical situation, who was tricked into prostitution at a young age (it happens), addicted to heroin involuntarily (it happens), is a victim of domestic violence from her also smack addicted boyfriend (it happens) has no contact with her family, and can’t get any help from adoption agencies (it happens). is death not best then?
But you are mistaking me as being a 100% diehard anti-abortion proponent. I have a daughter myself, so I know how actual circumstances can shape your views on these matters. I can accept that there are circumstances where agonising choices must be made. Where I have a problem is the apparent trend (evident in published statistics) that abortion is being used as a means of birth control or as a lifestyle choice.
And, why are examples always given using extreme circumstances, as per the one you have presented. What about if the unborn baby was the result of a well-off married couple, where the wife does not need to work, having had sex but the woman forgot to take her pill; she gets pregnant but decides that having the child would inconvenience her lifestyle? (No need to answer…I’m merely illustrating the point).
If unborn babies had a voice, would they choose death as the best option for themselves? Without wanting to sound too glib..I would repeat the Reagan quote I mentioned in an earlier comment : “I’ve noticed that all of the people that are for abortion have already been born”.
I mean I may think differently if the unthinkable did happen to me, but from the point I stand at now, I could say that even if I was raped, I would have the baby, and try with all my will, to love it. I still think that.
This would be a particularly difficult position for any girl/woman to be in, and it can be wrong to be judgemental. In your case, I think that the fact you keep the option open of having the baby is a healthy one. Good for you.
So, me and my friends were talking about it(I am a teenage girl), and five of them felt exactly the same as me.
Actually, MEG, this bit surprises me. Recognising that “teenage” covers ages 13-19, I would not have guessed this. Your comments have generally been mature, thought out and well presented. Are you sure you’re a scouser?? just kidding!
I completely condemn the many women who use abortion as contraception to avoid stretch marks, but I stick to the fact it needs to be an option for the Penny’s of the world. Not everybody has the same moral stance or strengh that me or you seem to have, and that is what you have to accept.
Again, I would reiterate that you are wrongly mistaking me for a militant anti-abortionist. There is a reality to life that we must all accept. Issues like abortion polarise people into one camp against the other.
I would also like to say I am very pleased my droll insult landed. Thanks for explaining.
I’m pleased you liked it.
And I read you converstaion with Anon, and just guess where in England I’m from!
Ok, I promise not to make robber jokes; but I reserve the right to visualise you sitting at your computer wearing a colourful nylon shell-suit, complete with a big ‘tache and an old skool Kevin Keegan perm!
And doing a lorra, lorra talking like Cilla Black…
Waitwaitwait, are you, gasp, agreeing with me?
As I mentioned to you, I could see the point you were making, but I did not agree that it was entirely applicable. But I also didn’t want to go around in circles with “what about this” or “what about that” etc.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Segue: Note our all encompassing agreement on this issue? and all related topics covered in this thread?
August 8th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Kiwiboi: You neglected to acknowledge that although abortions are procured in Canada with ease, we have less than half the rate of the USA and a substantially lower number than the UK.
Mom – my point wasn’t even directly about the argument for/against abortion. I was shocked (totally shocked) to learn that in Canada a baby is not classed as a “human being” until after it is completely outside of the mother’s body.
Surely it’s not just me that finds this breathtaking? Or, maybe I am missing something?
August 8th, 2008 at 5:51 am
NO!
Abortion is already killing but contraceptives MUST BE LEGAL. Natural family planning is harder than it seems because it is natural instincts for couples to do coitus out of love but contraceptives is part of responsible parenthood. Family planning is important to prevent overpopulation especially in small countries such as the Philippines, but abortion must never be legalized because it is the removal of life.
Contraceptives isn’t the prevention of life. So, what would you choose? The life of one or the lives of millions of people?
It is also evil to kill, and it is also evil in a way to overpopulate a country with irresponsible family planning.
In short, CONTRACEPTIVES: LEGALIZE; ABORTION: NO!!!!!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 5:52 am
As for the contraceptives, use condoms, pills and injectables, but NEVER TAKE A LIFE AWAY!
If she’s in the mood, better be good.
keep her safe with Frenzy condoms.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:20 am
kiwiboi:
Circles?
You don’t move!
Again, I would reiterate that you are wrongly mistaking me for a militant anti-abortionist. There is a reality to life that we must all accept.
You still seem prtty one-sided to me.
But, wharrevs, you’ve made your points, as have I, so I’m out .
I wasn’t even born when people wore flammable shellsuits on Brookie- that’ll give you an idea of my age.
Also, I am probably legally obliged to tell you, Liverpool’s bosss(great).
No, it is.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Denzell: I understand where you’re coming from, and I agree that taking innocent lives isn’t preferable, but you must know that we can’t count on Americans to follow “responsible family planning”, they just don’t care. I don’t know how you can think that family planning (which has to be worked out between individual families, and there are plenty of families who don’t talk, they just “do”, and end up with more kids)can even begin to solve the problem of overpopulation. No one is going to approach this reasonably, because everyone has their head set on backwards about this issue.
Oh, and P.S., Contraceptives are legal already. And contraceptives ARE the prevention of life, DUH, that’s exactly what it means.
Contraception: A device, drug, or chemical agent that prevents conception.
I.e., prevents life. It’s not a bad thing, it reduces the need for hasty abortions when people use it more often, but a lot of people out there don’t care to take the time to take the pill or slip on the latex, and that’s where abortions come in.
You seem a little ignorant, in that you think everyone will go to family planning meetings and use protection and not have more kids than they can handle. This world is far from perfect, and until you realize that you’ll never understand why abortion is a sad, necessary evil.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:27 am
And it will also give you an idea of how out of time your stereotype is. There are new ones!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 6:44 am
And it will also give you an idea of how out of time your stereotype is. There are new ones!!!
But not as good…
August 8th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Kiwiboi; It doesn’t really matter the terminology now does it? Even in your vernacular we abort fewer babies than most western countries.
And no, I do not find it horrible or jaw dropping that Canadian Law does not consider a child to be a child until it is born. They aren’t; they are a fetus, intrinsically part of the mother. Like I said before, pre-birth the baby is not autonomous. Entirely why we feel a fierce protectiveness when pregnant, and why the decision to abort is personal and agonizing for most women. And frankly is no-one’s business but the mother.
Again I reiterate, the only way to lower the abortion rate in countries where it’s levels can be interpreted as obscene is through proper sex education beginning at an early age, and easy confidential access to birth control.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Ah, MEG (if you’re reading),
I forgot to tell yer. As all vile bigots say, some of my best friends are scousers. Even a next-door-neighbour a short while ago. No true, I’ll never stand alone …
Actually, so are (or have been) some of my all-time favourite comedians (except Ken Dodd – who he?, who did no more for me than he did for the tax authorities!). But the late, great Leonard Rossiter (‘Rising Damp’, ‘Reginald Perrin’). Awsome. One of the greatest of all time. My parents used to say the same about Tommy Handley.
Hey, MEG, doncha just hate it when Americans go on about their culcha here and we doan unnerstan a word?
Sorry folks, I’m off to watch some Olym pics now.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:45 am
And no, I do not find it horrible or jaw dropping that Canadian Law does not consider a child to be a child until it is born.
Mom – No, not “child”…Canadian law decrees that until you are totally separate from your mother’s body you are not a “human being”. It also allows for a 9 month old fetus to be aborted.
Why should I not be shocked by that (irrespective of my position on abortion) ?
August 8th, 2008 at 7:48 am
627, MEG,
I suspect kiwiboi was baiting you, and I suspect you fell for it hook, line and sinker. Oh, dear, you’ve let down my image of mercury-witted scousers.
Never mind. Ask him if he wears his pearly whistle and gor blimey titfa to scive. Ask him whether he speaks like Albert Steptoe or Alf Garnett. That may not mean anything to you, but it will to him.
I got called away, but from what my wife tells me we seem to have less representatives at the olympics that America will win gold. Never mind, we could still take on the word at tiddly-winks and beat the lot. The day that fails, I forsee the end of the mighty British Empire as we know it.
The sun will set.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Take on the world. I need new specs.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:58 am
631,
Right with you all the way there, Kiwiboi. If that sounds like too mild agreement, it isn’t. You can’t hear my tone of voice, see my expression or feel my mind. Yet another reason why my image of Canada as one of the gentler big countries is taking knocks. (I have others which are irrelevant here, if not in other LV topics.) Still have plenty of lovely Canuk friends though. Never presume to identify undeclared individuals with their country’s ongoing policies.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:17 am
(If you don’t want to have apply a bit of challenging thought, just skìp on the next post.)
It has been proposed that the developing result of procreation, from the fertilized egg onwards, should be inviolate because if it could speak and think, and was asked whether it wanted to live, it would of course say, “Yes”. So we must speak for it.
I wonder how many who support that are vegetarians. Or rather eat meat. Have you ever seen an animal, or images of one, in the slaughter house just before its time comes? Those wildly rolling, terrified eyes. It KNOWS what is about to happen. The expression is quite akin to Jews in the gas chambers. Do you think it should have been asked whether it wanted to go on living rather than end up as a tasty dish on your plate? For those who go back to the *zygote*, I will also ask the same about the fertile breakfast egg (or do you eat sterile ones from a nice humane battery house?).
Well, that’s different: It’s an animal, not a human. It wouldn’t have lived at all if we hadn’t raised it to eat. We nearly all eat meat, so it’s acceptable. Think before you apply any of those retorts here. They are not relevant to this hypothetical comparison. We are considering reverence for helpless life. Humans can live as vegans.
If human sperm and eggs could express an opinion, they too would want a chance. You may consider them utterly different from newly initiated life. They are, but only in a matter of degree. They are life. You scarcely accept degree anyway. For you the newly fertile egg is virtually equivalent to the grown person. Each sperm and egg is completely different from any other that ever has or will exist (cloning aside). They are as unique as a fingerprint. Just think on that miracle. Each one would *want* to live as much as its luckier mates who won the life lottery. Live to fulfil their genetic destiny, not be expelled from the body as waste, or absorbed back into it. Well, alright, that’s not ours to say yes or no, I grant.
For all I know, if you had asked me in the womb, I might have needed a bit more foresight. What will happen to me if I do get born into that great big wicked world? If the answer to that was, you will be killed in an African tribal massacre as a baby, or sent to a gas chamber as a child, or be killed by the very parents who bear you, or a variety of similar responses, I might perhaps reply, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Well, you will reply, that’s simply hypothetical. We mean you just choose to live and take a chance things will work out. That’s the trouble though. It IS hypothetical. Just that. So if your hypothetical conditions are valid, so are mine.
I trust no one will turn round and accuse me of being emotionally manipulative.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:46 am
632. Anon
I expect you don’t latch onto sarcasm easily!
And I like a good bait.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Anon 630 (are you the same person??, give yourself a name, man, it’s much easier!)
doncha just hate it when Americans go on about their culcha here and we doan unnerstan a word?
If you are the same person, you’re the only one who has made culture references. Probably because it seems slightly innappropriaate, so no, i don’t hate it.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I suspect kiwiboi was baiting you, and I suspect you fell for it hook, line and sinker
Anon – “baiting” is a bit strong. Most scousers I have met have had a great sense of humour, and I thought that MEG probably would too. It was just a bit of fun, as she certainly seems to appreciate.
Never mind. Ask him if he wears his pearly whistle and gor blimey titfa to scive. Ask him whether he speaks like Albert Steptoe or Alf Garnett. That may not mean anything to you, but it will to him.
Yep, anybody from London would know what you are talking about.
As for me sounding like something out of Eastenders…nope. As my nick suggests, I am a kiwi, and have your standard New Zealand accent (probably diluted a little due to my time in the UK). My kids, though…standard sarf-London, innit
August 8th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
****
#621. Mom424
Segue: Note our all encompassing agreement on this issue? and all related topics covered in this thread?
****
Eerie, isn’t it?
;-D
August 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
****
635. Anon
(If you don’t want to have apply a bit of challenging thought, just skìp on the next post.)
****
Just when you think it’s safe to go back in the intellectual water…
As usual, you bring more clarity to the issue. I believe I used some of these same arguments, in briefer form, nearer the beginning.
I used to get riled at protesters in front of department stores, decrying the sale of fur coats, yet the protesters were wearing expensive leather shoes. Why cry over one, and not the other? The only answers I could come up with were:
1 – we eat beef, and
2 – cows aren’t as cute as fur-bearing animals.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Anon and Kiwiboi: Yes and we still abort fewer fetuses than you or The Americans. Way fewer. Who’s policy is faulty?
And by the way, there are very few late term abortions here, they still would have to be approved by the doctors and hospitals involved. In fact I know of two women who discovered late in term that their children were grossly malformed. They had to carry the child to term, and of course in both instances the child died at birth. The legal definition of autonomy does not set hospital policy. But it does prevent a mother being charged with murder for aborting a fetus, and the doctor who performed it.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Segue: I have said since the seventies that if baby harp seals looked like warthogs we would still all be wearing fur.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
MEG, 637,
Seems like you ain’t too good at pickin up the old sarcasm and irony either, luv. When I write in that particularly *high falutin style* you should perhaps begin to suspect that my tonguely object is firmly jammed in my cheekly object. Or are you playing multiple bluff, God help us? If so I surrender. Unconditionally.
Trouble with us is we don’t employ those little smiley things, do we? I’ll be honest, I’m so e-gnorant I wouldn’t know how to.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
kiwiboi. 638,
O.K: I give up. I haven’t got any weapons, but I’m coming out with my hands up. For me and everyone I know, *baiting* in that context has to to do with sense of humour. You know: something you say which you don’t intend to be taken seriously, so that if the other person does you can say “Got you that time! You fell for it a treat.”, or words to that effect. Or when I say I’m going to pull your leg, do you recoil from envisaged physical violence? If I can’t get through to fellow-Brits in a bit of fun, I obviously have no chance with anyone else. Lighten up you two, please.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you’ve had quite enu-hu-hu-huuuuff
Just remember that we’re living on a planet that’s revolving….
Seems a bit of Monty Python might be in order.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I presume that the originator of this discussion is from somewhere in America, I must admit I hadn’t realised that abortion was illegal all over America (if that is correct). I personnaly am from the uk and for us over here abortion is legal and largely accepted. There will alway be people who disagree with it but i believe women have the right to have an abortion. Why should a woman force herself to give birth to a child that isn’t wanted? I disagree that it is another from of contraception, because going through an abortion is traumatic and highly emotional. Most women would use it as a last resort not as a contraceptive. I have to say though that i think the timelimits for abortion shoul dbe lowered here and everywhere, perhaps to 12 – 16 weeks max. After that the baby is too much like a baby to allow it – only in extreme cases such as rape. So in summary, I’m pro – choice.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
to me life occurs only at birth. before birth a child would likely not survive outside of it’s mother.
abortion should be legal for many reasons. Most of all the current population is to high, and will reach a crisis point soon, many under developed countries where the infant mortality rate has dropped still have a extremely high birth rates, the earth can not support many more people i can barely support us now. Also aborted fetuses allow are one of the most plentiful sources of stem cells that can heal millions of injure people, and save the dying. lastly abortion should be legal to help rape victims. imagne the trauma faced by a women who will face a life having to take care of the seed of a criminal who hurt her.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
kiwiboi, 638,
Of course, you had to be, unless named after your favourite fruit (everytime we drink *Tittukiwi* juice, I finks of you).
It occurred to me that if I went on about whether you jumped up and down doing a haka, or dragged your dags, folks would have even less idea what I was bleating on about. (Sheep ref. intentional!)
Damn, I keep putting *whether* instead of *wevver*. Still, class will out, you know.
Don’t think I can think of a single scouser I’ve known who didn’t have a sense of humour. It comes with the accent, maybe. Explains all those comedians too.
Actually, I’ve always found scousers and geordies to be the nicest of visiting soccer fans too, even when you’re outnumbered n to one by them. You don’t need to go along wearing a suit of armour reinforced by a bullet-proof vest, as for certain big London clubs and Man U.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
segue, 640,
Sorry if I repeated your earlier (as I said, I¡ve still not read loads here). I do read straight back to the point I’m addressing though to make sure I’m not repeating anyone SINCE its been made. Which means that people have not read or accepted earlier points in contra.
More MP, please. Let’s restore sanity.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Anon:
Oh, dear, you’ve let down my image of mercury-witted scousers.
kay, I can see that’s sarcastic, and the rest is said in that ironic tone but
I suspect kiwiboi was baiting you, and I suspect you fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Is that sarcastic???
See I don’t read that as sarcastic, and if you read it in a normal tone, that’s quite patronizing isn’t it? Thats why the posts were snotty.
Actually, all my posts are snotty. Ha.
But anyway, those smiley faces, I don’t have a clue either! You probably won’t know this line, as you seem to like Old school comedies, but I wouldn’t use them even if I could because, THE WINKY FACE IS THE SIGN OF A MORON.(soz kiwiboi.)
And luv – I bloody hope that was sarcastic! (Was that a multiple bluff? Hahaaaaaaaa)
August 8th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
MEG, 637,
Give myself a name? I have. It’s Anon for LV. I’m using it for every post. Are you confused by somone else calling themselves *anonymous* here, or something? Why? What sort of a name do you want? My REAL one????
Oscar Wilde’s definition of a gentleman – something like: ‘One who never ACCIDENTALLY offends others’ (wonderful!). So clearly I’m not a gent. What’s new. I’ve known that all along.
“doncha just hate it when Americans go on about their culcha here and we doan unnerstan a word?
If you are the same person, you’re the only one who has made culture references. Probably because it seems slightly innappropriaate, so no, i don’t hate it.”
Nor do I, MEG.
It pains me to spell out something I’d have hoped was blatantly obvious. (I can find no *signal* that your response above isn’t dealdly serious.) So know this. I try to make a meticulous point of not being offensive to or about any individual or group unless I’m under ubdoubted gross personal attack myself, or find a view utterly monstrous. Read my posts elsewhere in LV and I hope you’ll agree that’s so. I also try to signal my non-serious entries with flip words such as *doancha*, *culcha* and *luv*.
So, we’d been rattling on about obscure British culture (for non-Brits). I was in fact hoping to send our American friends (and perhaps any others) a backhanded apology for having railroaded the column for this. Alas, *handed* seems to have been replaced by *fired*! I suppose my lovely friends from across the pond are offended now too. In that case my unreserved apologies for the unintended slight, folks. In fact, I was referring to LV in general anyway, not this specific and intense subject.
In fact I’m not in the least bothered bothered by US *in-chat*. There’s so much to absorb in LV, it’s a relief to be able to back off. Besides, I find a lot of Brit *Youff culcha* far more impenetrable.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
MEG,
Hi. We’ve crossed in the post and I’m just out to a birthday thrash. If I don’t finish: WATCH THIS SPACE.
Quicksands and quaking bogs. The more you struggle, the deeper you sink in. We’re in one, luv!
Sarcasm. I think all depends on how you interpret *baiting*. I intended it one way, you took it the other.
Have you ever tried reading scripts of really funny progammes. When there are no subtle voice give-aways, no telling expressions, not meaningful pauses, they often seem quite unfunny. Let’s think about that in this context, eh.
But I don’t think the odd misunderstanding should stop us trying.
Pax?
August 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Anon: (annie?hahaaa)
I thought ANYONE who wished to reamin anonymous, for some reason, hmmm, used the word Anon as their name.
So I don’t know if anon is your nickname(which i meant by give yourself a name) or just another poster wishing to reamin, hmm, anonymous.
I HAD NOT READ YOUR OTHER POST WHEN I SENT YOU #650.. IF YOU REPLY, PLEASE ANSWER BOTH.-YOUR ABOVE POST EXPAINS THE “LUV” PART, WHICH WAS ACTUALLY A JOKE, but it is just not worth writing if you have to spell it out! I can understand your pain in the fact that sarcasm is basically void on the internet, because it is the ONLY humour(mild as it is) I can do, unless you use a lot of exhales(hahaha, hmmm, ahhhh, well) and the vile emoticons.
but i don’t think you’ve noticed i have not mentioned any obscure brittish culture, and I am in fact, a youff! hahaa!
so, that explains why my saracasm has been “impenetrable” maybe?
“doncha just hate it when Americans go on about their culcha here and we doan unnerstan a word?
If you are the same person, you’re the only one who has made culture references. Probably because it seems slightly innappropriaate, so no, i don’t hate it.”
and yeah, i was deadly serious, but I thought you were patronizing me. Soz.
AND, YOU DIDN’T OFFEND ME!!!
I JUST LIKE A GOOD FROUM ARGUMENT! GESE!
August 8th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
STOP SENDING POSTS AT THE SAME TIME AS ME!
READ MY LAST ONE, I’VE JUST AGREED WITH EVERYTHING YOU SAID!
God this is so hard, I AM LITERALLY SLAMMING THE CAPS!
August 8th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Hannah: What I mean is that after the baby is born, it is not a necessity that the baby be breast fed. As I said before you’re not going to understand what I’m saying if you don’t want to. This part of the debate is all subjective, noone’s going to ‘win’ this argument.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
MEG,
No I was digging at myself about the impenentrabl