kentucky_lady

abortion is the slaying of an innocent child whose right to life doesnt enter into the matter, while i agree some people should never be parents, i also feel that no one except GOD has the right to decide who lives and who does not!

Gatorade Frost

I say you should have the right to an abortion at any moment in the pregnancy up until your water breaks. Until the baby's born it's your choice as to what you do.

People should be educated on abortion, though. If you don't want an abortion based on religious reasons, fine, that's your choice. If you don't want to have an abortion for whatever reason, that's good, don't have an abortion, but don't let your morality in that re gard make me guide my life.

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cellophanedeity

I spend a good deal of time assisting in the prevention of abortions. I teach sex-ed.

One of my major problems with the anti-choicers is that many of them are also against teaching safe sex beyond abstainance. People have sex. All the time. Whether their Gods and teachers and parents and presidents say it's right or wrong. And without proper sex-ed, there will be unwanted babies. Then, whether their Gods and teachers and parents and presidents say it's right or wrong, people will have abortions.

May as well make it safe.

(Incase you don't know, I'm staunchly prochoice)

Edit: not to say that contraception is infallible. I know it isn't. But it does help.

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Destrox

I've always felt abortion should be legal, and the govt has no business in it what so ever.

Now, as for our high voiced friend here and any others against the issue. I have some thoughts for you


Do you eat any sort of meat at all? If so, don’t you feel that cow, pig, chicken, whatever should have had the opportunity to see and fulfill life? But it didn’t.

Would you rather a baby to be born into a family that can not take care of it what so ever, and force that baby into a possible life of malnutrition and high levels of disease? Would it not be better for that baby to not suffer?

Some people should not have kids’ period, some people are simply not ready and to immature / financially well off.

As long as you don’t add in religion (which I happen to have zero of, which also HEAVILY affects my opinion here) I really do not see where there can be much of an issue.

Life and Death, it happens every second of the day. There is more to this earth then just us humans. We share it with many other creatures that have been here much longer, and many of them kill their young. Do you get ruffled up about that too?

I cant see where you can draw the line between the death of a baby vs. the death of any other thing we do daily just for our own needs.

Heck I wouldn’t even call it a baby if its in a early enough stage.

Oh and if you have no memory of the event, there’s nothing to be lost.

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analog

You know what's a fun game?

Read an entire thread on abortion- and there are tons of them here at the TFP- and count the number of times you see a "pro-life" or anti-abortion person invoke God in their post.

Actually, make it easier on yourself- just count the ones that don't. This way, you won't need a pen and paper.

This "debate" will never die.

kentucky_lady

women may very well have the right to make choices for THEIR body...but its not their body thats being sucked out or torn to pieces.

la petite moi

Alright, folks, here's my opinion:

According to Auriana Ojeda, book editor of Should Abortion be Restricted?, “Abortion is one of the most controversial issues in American society and politics today”(6). The argument of whether abortion should be allowed or restricted has lead to many passionate debates among governments, religious organizations, and political advocates. By believing that abortion should be legal, a “pro-choicer” advocates a woman’s right to her own body and the right to choose. Also, by keeping abortions legal, women will have the opportunity to have a medically safe abortion in clean surroundings. If restricted, which “pro-lifers” (also called “anti-pro-choicers”) support, young women and teenage girls will have back-alley operations done, leading to illness and death. If abortions are kept legal, as dictated in Roe v. Wade, women will be able to achieve much more, control their own reproductive lives, and fulfill basic personal goals without being hindered by unwanted pregnancies.

The path to women’s right to choose has not been an easy one. Although legal until the mid-1850’s, abortion laws banning abortion after the first fourth months of pregnancy began to emerge by the 1820’s. By the turn of the century, every state had restricted abortion. Soon women were risking their lives to have illegal and highly dangerous back-alley abortions. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in the 1930’s, approximately 800,000 illegal abortions were being performed each year, leading to 8,000-17,000 deaths annually. Early reformers saw these extreme risks of keeping abortion illegal, and pushed for legalization. Finally, between 1967 and 1971, during the push for women’s rights, 17 states legalized abortions. Also, according to the ACLU, “In 1968, only 15 percent of Americans favored legal abortions; by 1972, 64 percent did” (Ojeda 62). This shift in public opinion led to the landmark case Roe v. Wade in 1973, which forbade most existing states’ abortion bans.

The final decision of Roe v. Wade was based on the 14th amendment, the constitutional right to individual privacy. This amendment states, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property…” (U.S. Constitution…). Liberty is the right to choose how one ultimately lives out his or her life and thus, the Court found this right “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy” (Ojeda 62). The Court upheld that the state could not interfere with a woman’s rights to abortion, unless there was a convincing cause for regulation. A compelling reason in protecting the possible life of a fetus could only be declared once it became “viable,” typically at the beginning of the third trimester of a pregnancy. Thereafter, abortion was also allowed for certain health reasons (birth risks for the mother, extreme deformities, and genetic abnormalities, etcetera). As the Supreme Court later restated in 1992, “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives” (Ojeda 62). By legalizing abortions, women were given the right to manage their own reproduction.

In 1992, the Supreme Court was faced with another legal debate concerning reproductive choice in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The Court protected the constitutional right for a woman’s individual choice, and proclaimed that under the “undue burden test,” state regulations cannot put “a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus” (Abortion Timeline). U.S. Supreme Court Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter supported the individual rights of women by asserting, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence…and the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under the compulsion of the State” (Ojeda 44). When women have the individual right to their own bodies, they are also given the right to lead a better life.

When allowed the choice of abortion, women are able to prevent irreversibly ruining their lives. Not all pregnant women are able to adequately care for a child. Some suffer from mental and physical problems that disable them from managing a very active baby. Still others are deep in financial debt, unable to provide the huge expenses of a child. What’s more is that in high-visibility jobs (like waitressing), women are often forced to quit their job once their pregnancies becomes noticeable. Very few women are paid full wages when on maternity leave, and rarely are their jobs held open for them. After becoming pregnant, women may discover that they have been demoted to a lower-status “mommy track” jobs (Currie 42).

If forced to give birth, a mother may not have only ruined her life, but her child’s as well. In one study, 41 percent of women deprived of abortions regretted giving birth, and a third of those surveyed “harbored anger and resentment against these unwanted children” (Currie 39). If women are not allowed the choice to have an abortion, they will not only be dramatically affected mentally, but physically as well. Additionally, without the right to an abortion, women will affect not just themselves but many others.

When abortion was made completely illegal by the early 1900’s, it did not stop women from finding other means to get rid of their pregnancy. During these times, illegal clinics were run by inexperienced doctors and other unlicensed practitioners with no true concern for their patient. One story by Susan X, describes Doctor Harvey Lothringer, who performed an illegal and brutal abortion on her when she was only 18 years old. She illustrates a picture of absolute horror, explaining how the doctor charged her a large sum of 400 dollars, would not allow her boyfriend stay with her while she was paralyzed with fear, scraped the lining of her uterus so much that she was later unable to menstruate for a year, and then used a German Shepherd to “dispose of the evidence” (Lest we…). This doctor later served four years in prison, when, after a 19-year-old girl died during an illegal abortion he performed, he dismembered her body and flushed it into the sewer system. Furthermore, women would resort to using knitting needles or hangers as abortion instruments. Other lawful doctors had to treat these maimed women when an illegitimate abortionist caused extreme damage to her body. There are countless cases of doctors that could do nothing for women after they were infected with gas gangrene, septic shock, kidney failure, and a variety of other fatal diseases during an illegal abortion.

It is obvious through these stories and the death toll of illegal abortions that if restricted, women will not just stop having abortions. As commentator Anna Quindlen writes, “It is a great mistake to believe that if abortion is illegal, it will be non-existent” (Currie 37). That is why it is essential that women have the right to their own bodies. If abortion is criminalized, the reality is that women will just once again turn to uncertified butchers. If regulated, the death toll of abortions will dramatically fall because the environment in which to get an abortion will be safe, sanitary, and much less painful—mentally and physically.

An argument that many pro-lifers bring up is that killing a fetus that could potentially be a baby is murder. The key point in this is that the fetus is a potential human being, not actually a human being. Although a newborn baby can feel pain, as seen through observations, there is practically no real evidence that a fetus can feel pain. Pro-lifers typically translate simple bodily reflexes as pain; however, as Stephen Currie writes, “The synapses are not yet well developed enough to permit the feeling of pain as a true human would experience it” (24). Most importantly in this argument is that almost nine out of ten abortions are performed in the first few weeks after conception, when really the fetus is an embryo, only a two inch long ball of cells that hardly resembles a newborn at all.

Pro-lifers contend that a fetus could have been born and then grown up to be the next Einstein; however, it should be noted that the fetus could have also grown up to be the next Adolf Hitler. As stated by the webmaster of ‘I’m Not Sorry.net,’ “The potential for evil is just as strong as the potential for good.” In fact, evil is more probable than good in unwanted pregnancies, because the children may grow up in a household full of discord and resent.

In addition, pro-lifers are particularly fond of quoting the Bible in order to back the notion that abortion is murder; however, these biblical references are far from convincing. The Bible does not expressly address abortion, but it does not prohibit it. In fact, if any evidence can be drawn from the Bible it would imply that abortion is not at all like murder. An example of this is in Exodus 21, where a man is sentenced to death for killing a woman; however, if he hits a pregnant woman, causing her to miscarriage, he is only fined. Such a light punishment is contradictory to the belief that aborting a fetus is murder (Currie 28).

Not only does the Bible illustrate how murder and abortion should not be viewed in the same light, but so do other manuscripts of other mainstream religions. In the Talmud, a Jewish script based on the Old Testament of the Bible, it is stated that “the fetus is as the thigh of its mother”; that is, it is only a part of her body. Although cautioning against having abortions on a whim, many American Jewish leaders concur that abortion and murder are simply not the same thing. As a Catholic theologian visiting an abortion clinic reports, “I have held babies in my hands, and now I held this embryo. I know the difference” (Currie 26). In fact, as a universal rule, even present laws in the United States do not identify a fetus as a “person,” and murder is defined as killing someone already born. Hence, the pro-lifer’s argument against abortion because it is murder is moot.

Although some may be opposed to the idea, a woman must be at liberty to choose whether she wants to have an abortion or not. If a woman is not given the freedom of choosing to have an abortion, essentially her body is not hers anymore but instead the government’s and an unborn mass of cells called a fetus. As author Roger L. Shinn asserts, for a woman “to be forced to give birth to a child, against her will, is an overwhelming violation of her freedom” (Currie 40). Moreover, if denied access to medically sound abortions, a woman will instead only be forced to relinquish herself to an unreliable illegal abortionist. All of the achievements women have accomplished over the last century concerning reproductive rights will have been in vain if abortion is made illegal again.

---
Works Cited
“Abortion Timeline.” The Daily of the University of Washington-Seattle Online. Accessed 12 March 2005 <http://archives.thedaily.washington.edu/1999/100499/N7.Griswold.html>.
Currie, Stephen. Abortion. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2000.
“I’m Not Sorry.net: Celebrating the Right to Choose FAQ.” 2003-2005. Accessed 15 February 2005 <http://www.imnotsorry.net/FAQ.htm>.
“Lest we Forget…” Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion, Inc. Accessed 17 February 2005 <http://www.wcla.org/articles/lest.html>.
Ojeda, Auriana, ed. Should Abortion Rights be Restricted? San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2003.
“US Constitution: XIV Amendment.” Legal Information Institute. 1999. Accessed 13 March 2005 <http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html>.
---

highthief

Pretty well agree with this passage. A woman's right to choose - yup, the right to birth control like a pill or a condom, not to killing a child.

Having said that, I realize there are some realities here. To start with, I'd liek to see abortions restricted to 14 weeks and under, and go from there.

I'm a pretty liberal person, except on this issue. There are a lot of selfish people out there.

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analog

Fundies are so cute when they're all charged up about something.

AngelicVampire

I am not an anti-choice person, however surely women do not need abortions to control their reproductive lives or unwanted pregnancies, the pill and various other techniques (condoms etc) offer nearly 100% protection, I believe (and sorry if I misquote) that USTwo noted 20 years of sex and no unwanted pregnancies.

Similar to men women have the options of abstainance, and protection, can it really be said that women need abortions to control their reproductive lives (abstainance has a nearly 100% gurantee of no kids, there has only been 1 reported case of an abstinant woman having a kid as far as I know, and that was 2000 years ago).

FoolThemAll

Good luck not using a pen and paper. I've had more than a couple posts on the matter. NONE of which invoked God.

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FoolThemAll

Cute theory. Just don't pretend that it's scientific. There is no scientific reason for defining 'human being' so as to exclude prenatal stages.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Mojo_PeiPei

I've always been amazed at the road taken by "anti-lifers", and how their means of jusitification has always coincided with the same line of reasoning used to justify just about every atrocity ever perpetuated; they attack the status of humanity, just the same as jews and and blacks humanity was denigrated.

Edit: Hopefully this will remove the Godwin effect. My apologies, still think it's a fair analogy.

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FoolThemAll

Oh shit. Godwinned.

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roachboy

it is really pretty simple, this:
if you oppose abortion dont have one.

strangely enough, that is an entirely viable option under the present legal scenario.
under it, folk who imagine there to be a god who would disapprove are free to imagine that there is a god who disapproves and to act accordingly. there is no reason for this to be more than a position that can shape discussions that precede having this procedure.

or: theirs is a position within the game, not a position about the game as a whole.

or: arguments from the anti-choice sectors are political arguments dressed up in the register of theology or "science" or "philosophy"---they are neither compelling or binding on folk who reject the politics. nor should they be. there is no contradiction between such opposition and the fact that abortions are legal and safe.

what irks me is the assumption that you often encounter from the antichoice crowd that the present legal situation entails a cavalier attitude toward abortion--that somehow the safety and legality of the service itself evacuates the complexity of the decision to have one--this hallucination entails the idea that it is the right that takes this matter seriously--by extension, then, no-one who disagrees with them politically does.

every so often you see a group of far right activists arrayed along a public way holding up huge images of aborted foetuses--the assumption behind this as a political action is the above. but when you talk to these folk, the ones behind the huge images of aborted foetuses, you find the "thinking" to be extraordinarily narrow on the question itself---the real problem appears to be that not everyone believes as they do.

the antichoice crowd is wrong about the assumption that they are required to force serious discussion of the implications of having an abortion--an assumption that is both offensive and patronizing. the positions typically outlined on the matter by the antichoice crowd are not even about abortion directly--they are about the frame of reference within which their opposition to abortion functions. the opposition, then, is not shaped by the issue itself, but rather by a desire to impose its religious assumptions on the rest of us. so far as i can determine, that is the reason for the anti-choice movement. the assumptions about the ease of abortion is a correlate of this position, a way of recoding their total intolerance of differences in views.

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highthief

Do you think everyone opposed to abortion is a "fundie"?

I'm as agnostic as you can get, but oppose abortion.

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Mojo_PeiPei

I find cute the smugness and the antagonizing factor of this comment.

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stevie667

I'm for it, for many reasons. I don't favour it for use as birth control, but when shit happens, it does no-one any good by saying 'its your mess, now deal with it' to potential mothers.

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cellophanedeity

I'm not against killing humans. I am against killing persons.

And while I know that this brings up the whole "women weren't considered persons a hundred years ago" thing, I don't think it's necessarily the same. Women display characteristics of personhood, and in my opinion, fetuses don't. At least not at first.

Perhaps I'm a selfish, terrible and unethical person, but this is just what I believe.

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FoolThemAll

It really isn't that simple. This argument cannot settle the issue.

The differences between "if you oppose abortion don't have one" and "if you oppose infanticide don't commit it" still need to be examined. There are obviously significant differences, but do they lead to different conclusions?

I'm incredibly skeptical of any abortion argument - from either side - that includes the phrase "this is simple". I've never seen a 'simple' argument that didn't fail in some way to account for some important angle of the issue.

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roachboy

foolthem:

the rest of the post developed the argument.

let me recycle it in shorter form. i do nto accept your analogy of abortion and infanticide.
there is no argument that you could make that would persuade me of its validity.
i take your position to be a political one dressed up in the discourse of morality.
and i reject the politics.

further, i think that even if one were to accept your positoni, it still would not follow that the existing law needs to be changed on accont of it. i do not think that fact that the procedure of abortion is safe and legal reduces the complexity of making the decision of whether or not to have one. the antichoice crowd in general assumes that the legality of the procedure obviates all ethical problems that individuals may wrestle with over the question of whether the procedure is something that they want to avail themselves of. i think that assumption absurd.

that is why i think the question simple: as one position amongst a range of positions that already functions to shape the ways in which the question "should i have an abortion" is framed, you already have the level of power appropriate to the status of your arguments.

so go ahead, argue against it--i would even wager that your arguments would be more persuasive now in individual cases than they would be were folk who share your politics to manage to change the law.

what i expect that you do not like is the simple fact that, in the present context, i am free to ignore your arguments because i reject the premises on which you make them.

more generally, this is, in the end, what antichoice people cannot abide--views that are not their own. and this is why they want to change existing law.

but think about it: the worst thing that could happen to the antichoice folk would be winning the power politics fight over the law. it would do to the credibility of your arguments what the bush administration has done to conservative politics in general---erase all credibility except in the eyes of a minority of the population.

and it would no doubt reduce the persuasive power of your arguments against abortion becuase it would erase any possibility of talking to folk who do not agree with you a priori. so you would loose in a much more profound way if you won politically. be happy where you are, and oppose abortion all you like. leave the rest of us to make up our own minds.

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it make you sick.

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FoolThemAll

No point in going there, then. Thanks for saving me time.

We've been through this before. I think the assumption is absurd as well. But it does not follow that a complex ethical decision should have no legal consequences if it is the wrong decision.

Do you think you're any different?

This is where the "I don't accept your premises" thing goes both way. I don't accept yours, therefore the above statement is perfectly absurd in my view.

Even if you don't accept my premises, the premises still exist in the great debate. That's why your 'simple' argument settles nothing.

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roachboy

on this issue, absolutely.
think about it. it will become clear to you.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

FoolThemAll

edit. This is my point.

You're saying that anti-choicers are intolerant of the pro-choice position on abortion? True, but not particularly noteworthy. You haven't established that the intolerance is wrong. I think I'm safe in assuming that you're, in fact, intolerant of the pro-choice position on infanticide. Think I'm comparing apples and oranges? Fantastic - welcome to the crux of the debate: apples/apples or apples/oranges?

This is what you're ignoring in favor of erroneous oversimplification. You're, of course, free to disagree with the premises. But if you pretend they don't exist, you will be called on it.

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analog

You realize, of course, that there's no reason to INclude either fetus, or embryo, in the definition of "human being"- nor is it currently included in any such definitions.

Not to mention that "human being" is a meaningless term- it just means "a human". "Human" doesn't indicate life, sentient capabilities, brain or brain activity, spine, hypothalamus, nervous system, etc., etc. The body of a dead human is just as much a "human" as a live body. Pointing to a corpse, you would similarly indicate it as being a human being as you would an embryo in early development. Therefore, saying that an embryo is "human" and insisting that means it's alive, sentient, or has any brain activity, is both foolish and incorrect.

Human is just the form. What's important is the life, and that's where people argue the point... just where it begins. Some would say that conception- the simple act of fertilizing an egg- is the beginning of life. They're basically saying that, from the onset, that tiny little bundle of replicating and dividing cells is a person. Scientifically, that's a ludicrous notion- just like when a person is declared clinically brain dead, they cease to be a live person. Machines can maintain the biological processes of the body, such as respiration and circulation, so that the body can be harvested for organs- but the person is dead. An embryo without a brain, or brain activity, is no more a "living person" than a body with clinical brain death.

I think most everyone agrees on a time during the pregnancy where there should be a cut-off, because it is a living creature capable and most plausibly engaged in brain activity which indicates true "life". For most, that's the point at which the brain is developed enough that the brain activities indicative of human sentient life are present. Prior to that, it's just a sac of cells and fluids, not a life.

highthief

Newborn infants don't display a lot of "characteristics of personhood" either, yet most people wouldn't kill them them casually in the modern western world. However, in other parts of the world and in the west not so long ago, infanticide is/was as accepted as abortion is today, when you inconveniently had a female child or twins.

Not that long ago, people (in the church, in the scientific community) claimed blacks were subhuman, were not persons, etc.

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FoolThemAll

Scientifically, it's a tiny little bundle of replicating and dividing cells. That's what science tells us.

Your notion that it's absurd to label it a person is not scientific. It's philosophical at best and arbitrary at worst.

You're free to believe that. Don't pretend it's scientific.

Every stage of the z/e/f is a stage of the human being. The z/e/f is clearly a human being because of its potential to become what looks like a human being. To become sentinent, to become autonomous. It owns that potential. Nothing but a human being can - it's fallacious to call it a "potential human being". A corpse lacks that potential.

As for your 'person' distinction: it all depends on how you define it. If you define it as a "living human being", then you're flat-out wrong - it is a person. If you add more to the definition, then you could be right. But at that point, I'm no longer interested in limiting the protection of the law to persons.

Your 'science' is nothing but semantics. Science cannot tell us what deserves protection.

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cellophanedeity

When it's in the body, the only way to get rid of it is by taking it out, which kills it. When it's already out of the body, you have much easier ways of removing it. I'll be pro-choice until someone comes up with a fetus teleportation system.

I hoped that I wouldn't need to go into racial personhood if I mentioned gendered personhood. please substitute the word "non-whites" for women in the second paragraph of my last post. Non-whites, disabled people, and women display characteristics of personhood.

Not than long ago, people (in the church, in the scientific community) claimed that the use of contraceptives was murder. *sings Monty Python's Every Sperm is Sacred*

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highthief

I'm not sure I understand where you're going with that ...?

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cellophanedeity

Sorry, I should have been more exact.

Perhaps the reason why we don't believe in killing already born babies is that if the mother doesn't want it anymore, it's easy to keep it alive and still get rid of it. But, if the baby isn't born, and the mother doesn't want it in her body, the only way to remove it (as of right now) is to kill it.

The last thing I want to do right now (other than having an abortion. I really don't think I ever would/could have one) would be having my genitalia torn apart by a kicking screaming mass of gooey flesh. If babies came out of penises instead of cervixes, I think there would be a lot more abortions, but I may be wrong.

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highthief

Now I understand.

So. a hypothetical, for some perspective/comparison.

If someone held a gun to a person's head, and said they were going to kill said person, but you could save that person by, let's say, agreeing to break your arm (and subsequently have the arm cared for by top-notch doctors), would you let the person die?

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cellophanedeity

I'd let them break my arm.

I wouldn't have the abortion myself, and I don't think that a fetus is a person.

I know we're not going to ever agree, and I respect your views despite never wanting my ability to choose be hindered by them.

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highthief

I think your POV is interesting - not to choose it (abortion) for yourself yet subscribing to the thought that an unborn child is not a person.

Not trying to convince you of anything, just an interesting way of looking at things.

For us, my wife and I were both strongly pro-choice - until she got preggers (deliberately) and we learned more about the development of babies in the womb. Now, we take the opposite approach, and would prefer to see stricter controls placed on abortion (though not outlaw it completely, just limit it to first trimester and stop giving irresponsible people unlimited access to it as a means of birth control over and over again).

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florida0214

OKay at the risk of sounding like a conservative idiot I will say that abortion is wrong no matter what. That child did no choose to be born so why punish it for somebody elses mistake, crime, irresponsibility, and stupidity. With so many people unable to have children, you have a way to get out of being responsible for that child and it means that the child can live. I am sure all that are alive agree it is much better than not being alive. Remember that you are here because somebody decided that your life was worth not aborting. I think we may have to define alive. Remember that a fetus has a heart beat after 18 Days. Does that mke it alive. I think so. Consider that most people are pregnant for more than 18 days before they realize they are pregnant.

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"Two men: one thinks he can. One thinks he cannot. They are Both Right."

ClostGoth

I would personally never have an abortion. I feel it's wrong, it is taking the _potential_ life of a child even if performed within days of conception. I'm not sure at what point it becomes actual murder, but I'm sure it _does_. I _have_ been in the position where carrying a child to term endagered my own health and I chose to allow that child a chance. (He's a beautiful 6yr old now - smart and artistic, stubborn and BEAUTIFUL.) Having said that, I'm pro-choice. Why? Because I don't feel it's the government's right to tell a woman what she can and can't do to her own body. Flip it around - how would I have felt if it were illegal for me to have carried my 6yr old to term because it endangered my health and possibly my life? What if I had NO choice in the matter and they had terminated that pregnancy? I had already lost his twin. I may not agree with the decision to abort a child - it horrifies and disgusts me. But so do the situations of the children I work with that have parents who never wanted them. I deal first hand with kids whose parents should never have had them, never really wanted them, have abused and damaged them and then thrown them away. I can't say that it would have been better if they'd never had them, because two of them in particular are about to join my family. But I can't tell those women how to make that decision for themselves...

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filtherton

I don't care if abortion is murder. Most rational people can understand the idea that there are some times where killing another person is actually in the best interests of everyone else. It is actually, in a general sense, in all of our best interests if there are less unwanted children with irresponsible parents out there.

Edit: not to say that i believe in infanticide. Clearly there must be some line drawn between acceptable termination and legal murder. If i were more christian i might presume that life begins as soon as god "breathes life" into a child, i.e. the kid's first breath. If i were more "christian that doesn't really read the bible" i might assume that life begins at conception. I'm not really christian, but i tend to prefer the former.

FoolThemAll

If it's in the best interests of everyone else, why not?

Hypothesis: You do care if abortion is murder. That's how you attempt to draw a distinction between the two.

False?

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

filtherton

No, i don't care. I don't think abortion is murder; as far as i can tell, unborn fetuses don't have the kind of rights you need to actually be able to get murdered. I also don't care if antiabortionists use a looser definition of murder, because whatever you call it, murder, termination, abortion, birth control, biggest mistake ever, is wholly irrelevant to the debate. Abortions serve a good purpose. Thinking you can invalidate the practice of abortion simply by calling it murder misses the point because even if it does fit some loose definition of murder (depending on where you think life begins), it still serves a good purpose.

FoolThemAll

"Even if it does fit some loose definition of murder, infanticide still serves a good purpose."

Tell me the difference between those two statements.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

filtherton

You don't know the difference between infanticide and abortion? One kills and infant, the other kills a fetus.