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.
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.
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 *****ing hypocrites.
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 ***** is not ‘cool’. When I was at what I think you call High School (17 yo) all of my friends had had *****, many of them unprotected (and I repeat, not because coming from a poor background, but because they lacked *****ual education). I was mocked because I was still a virgin, and I luckily come from a family where ***** 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
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.
@ 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 ***** 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
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.
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.
@ 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.
If you abort a baby you should be aborted with it, end of story. Everyone knows the consequences of ***** 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).
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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 *****. 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?
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.
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.)
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.
The alternative to legal abortion is illegal abortion.
End of.
@ 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 *****. 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 *****. The risk of poor, and minority women contracting the AIDS virus is on the rise, due to sub-par *****ual 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?
“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 *****ual education to schoolkids. Abortion being made illegal is like curing a headache by cutting off the head.
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.
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 *****. All ***** 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 ***** 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?
Correction: Abortion should be legal…then the rest
@ 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.
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.
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.
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 *****, and if you still do then you should have to live with the consequences.’
Any *****ually active men in here willing to give up ***** 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.
“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.
Sorry, I had some formatting errors. The last two quotes come from the second link.
@ 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).
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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
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.
@ 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.
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.
GettyB: You said “A woman can only get pregnant at a certain time frame every month…let’s just not have ***** 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 ***** 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.
nerdlette: “Any *****ually active men in here willing to give up ***** 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 *****. 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.
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.
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 *****ually 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.
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 *****? 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!
@ 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 ***** 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.
@ 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 *****ually 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?
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.
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.
@ 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.
@ 159.Eddie
Do you eat meat?
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 some*****. 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 *****ually 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 ***** 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 ***** 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.
Yes
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.
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 *****s. 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.
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.
previous post ^ is at eddie.
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.
…pro-lifers do not care for the well being of the fetus, but are actually protesting women having healthy, NORMAL ***** 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 ***** 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 *****ography, especially of the Bang. Bros style where exploitation is celebrated at every turn.”
http://adonismirror.com/08152007_leader_amptoons_*****.htm
http://easypersiflage.com/blameforum/index.php?topic=5339.0
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.
“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. *****ing 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.
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 ***** 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.
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.
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 ***** in general because it’s specifically for baby-making?
Something tells me everyone on here who isn’t a virgin has had ***** 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.
I got a little too passionate there..
REACHING arguments
the second we LEAVE our bodies
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.
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.
*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.
***** fetus’
Randall:
Well it is supposed to be underwater…I suppose you’re just helping out in your own small way there…:)