Sorry, reprise, but I’d like to get one final loose end out of the way here before acceding to your request. My response to the above would be that, IMO, the only proper moral decision is to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and follow Him according to the understanding of how to do so given by the Episcopal Church. Am I therefore justified in seeking a law banning atheism, agnosticism, and all other churches? It’s a moral decision with consequences, right? So why shouldn’t I impress my opinion of what’s right upon everybody else?
Finally, there seems to be an undercurrent of judgmentalism against unmarried women who become pregnant (though evidently not against the men who assisted them in doing so). I’d urge all those religiously-oriented people who feel an urge to stand in judgment over them to go to a church and pray about it. Say a Catholic Church, in front of a statue of Mary.
Au contraire. I participated on the CNN abortion board for six months before it closed and exactly ONE lifer poster could be possibly said not to be a christian. In my experience the VAST majority of lifers are coming at the issue from a christian belief system.
I have also found on numerous occasions that christians for a variety of tactical reasons hide their faith when posting about abortion (lying for Jesus is OK). On one particularly memorable occasion I had my identity highjacked and used on another board where the impersonator claimed to have “seen the light.”
Yes. Generally when I say yes, I mean I believe it to be true.
I don’t believe it is an independent, living, breathing being when it is a blastocyst or fetus. I don’t believe it is an independent human being with the rights of an independent human being. It’s potentially a human being.
The mother’s perception does come into play though. A baby conceived after several years of infertility is going to be regarded differently to a baby conceived at the wrong time in a woman’s life. Given that contraception is not completely 100% effective, there always will be unwanted pregnancies and I don’t believe a woman should have to carry a baby she did not intend to conceive if she doesn’t want to. If she wants to carry that potential baby to term, then fine.
First of all, thanks for the responses. I didn’t have a chance to get back to the thread last night as I as having a long chat with my daughter (with luck, we’ll have a definitive answer about whether she is or isn’t pregnant later today).
One thing this situation has brought home to me is how inadequate the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are. There are a huge range of beliefs which fall into each category, and a lot of cross-over between the two categories. In many ways, I wish we could develop new words to reflect the fact that many people fall somewhere in between the extremes of viewpoint on the issue of abortion.
This has been a good opportunity for me to think really hard about what “pro-choice” means for me as a mother, and what I’ve found it means is that my daughter should have the widest number of options possible (including abortion) and that I’m not willing to try to influence which option she chooses by offering more support for one option than another (sadly, this is something I have seen done in the past by parents to their daughters). My most important concern right now is that the choice truly be hers - the impact which any given choice would have on the rest of us is secondary. Yes, a part of me is thinking “how on earth will we cope with a baby in the house for the next 6 or 8 years?”, yet I know that it’s not an option I’m prepared to discourage her from choosing.
So for me, I’ve discovered that while it’s much tougher to be pro-choice in respect of my daughter than in respect of myself (I know absolutely that I’d have an abortion if I found myself pregnant at this stage of my life) or my friends (whose having babies wouldn’t require me to totally rearrange my life for a number of years), my belief in “choice” isn’t merely an abstract one.
And I guess that’s the debate I was looking to pursue, whether our positions on abstract issues like are as absolute as they often sound or whether they are something which we apply quite differently when talking generically than when they are an immediate issue which willl impact on our own lives.
FTR to the extent that I ever really thought about it, I always assumed that in the current situation I’d probably incline more towards abortion than any of the other options.
I see where you were hoping to go with this thread reprise. I am pro-choice, but I am not pro-abortion. I don’t think abortions are good things. I wish that every baby was wanted, and every mother was fully capable mentally, emotionally, and physically to have every child. But, it’s not going to happen that way.
I think about this is a lot. I take every care I can with my husband. We always use contraceptives, and often, we forego intercourse all together and do other, equally fun, things. I do not want a child, and I’m doing my best to avoid that. However, what if we make a mistake? What would I do? Have it? Abort it? Give it up for adoption? Those are huge questions that I really don’t have the answer for. I get the feeling that it’s very easy to be pro-choice in words, but obviously, in action it might be more difficult.
I don’t think I would abort it though if a mistake was made. I would look at my options and choose to take a different option than abortion. That’s part of being pro-choice. I would not want anybody to dictate to me what I could do with my uterus, so I extend the same courtesy to others.
Reprise,
A couple of points of useless dribble:
Your OP is why I believe pro-choice should be called pro-abortion. Get right to the point. If you want my opinion (and who does) then I would kill the fetus. That is the better option when compared to 2 ruined lives or 3 considering yours. You can call it terminating or whatever but you know the facts. I feel for you. Its a tough situation. But it should be. It should be hard to kill. Do what is best for everyone involved. Just don’t call it a woman’s choice concerning only her body.
Hmm…checks top of page…yep…still the SDMB. You DID read the part of my post where I was referencing the SDMB and NOT the CNN abortion board and NOT TownHall or the Rush Limbaugh news group…or the Anarchists listserv, right?
Try again. Your initial post classified ALL pro-lifers as “christian”…again, I invite you to peruse previous threads on the topic on THIS message board before making that kind of sweeping assertion.
Cool…undocumented broad swipes against christians based on your vast anecdotal experiences. :rolleyes:
Has that happened on THIS board by pro life posters?
If not, it’s not really relevant to THIS board and THIS thread…I suspect that you’d find suspect behavior among all sides of this debate (have you met our pro choice friend, Ray Heller, for example?)
We’ve been down this road before…There are numerous instances, at least in this country, where an opinion of “what’s morally right” has been “impressed” on others. Debating the merits of whether to do so in THIS case is legitimate…suggesting we should never do so is naieve
Kind of a vague reference there…so not sure who YOU think (in this thread) is being judgemental towards unmarried pregnant women. If you could point out the specific judgemental attitude or post, it might be easier to respond to your concerns.
Sorry beagledave, I can only go by my experiences, not yours. As to the relevace of experience outside the narrow confines of this board I find it completely appropriate. The correlation of lifers and christians is nearly one to one. I find it curious that that fact seems to bother you.
OK, a quick update. The first test has returned a negative result, and although another needs to be done in a few days it’s extremely unlikely that it’s a “false negative”.
I think that to some extent people’s viewpoints on when it’s OK to impose your beliefs regarding abortion on others might be be generational.
When I was a teenager, a few girls from our town used to disappear for half of the year and return months later changed people. Years later, I found out that they’d been sent away to give birth and that they’d been forced into surrendering their babies for adoption (this practise was so widespread in Australia that our adoption laws were eventually changed as a result of it). These young women were never given the option of keeping their babies, their parents simply told them what they were going to do and that was that. Yes, it was an option which preserved the life of the foetus involved, but at a terrible, terrible cost.
Around the same time when I was having my own children, bullying daughters into relinquishing their babies had gone out of fashion and many parents confronted with a pregnant teen would simply make arrangements for an abortion, irrespective of what the teen herself wanted. I don’t find this practise any less reprehensible. More than one of my friends hid their pregnancy from their parents because it was the only way they could exercise their choice to not have an abortion. It’s hard enough being a pregnant teen, but imagine being so terrified of your parents forcing you to take a course of action you don’t want to take that you’d go through the first 5 or 6 months alone and scared. One twelve year old was so scared that she hid her pregnancy from everyone until the night she gave birth. I’m equally sure that many young women went through abortions alone and scared because they felt the need to hide from their parents the fact that they’d been sexually active.
I think it’s wonderful that young women today have so many choices, and that we support them in those choices. I hope we never return to the idea that abortion or adoption or keeping an unwanted child is a choice to made for young women by others (whether they are parents, partners, or legislators).
Ah Reprise, you are far too thoughtful and moderate (by US standards, anyway) for this debate. Where’s the venom? The self-rightousness? The absolute certainty of being right?
Oh, thank god your daughter dodged the bullet this time. You two have been on my thoughts all morning.
I agree with you, reprise, that both forcing abortions and forcing adoptions on others is wrong, and I’m happy we both live somewhere where that no longer happens. I’m also happy that your daughter has a mother who was bending over backwards, not only to allow her daughter to make her own choice, but also not to unduly influence her.
I hope she gave you a big hug and a thank you when the results were confirmed
Thanks B. Gardner for your total misinterpretation of my statement. I was making and rebutting the statements pro-choicers use in arguing their position. Don’t believe me that some of them use this argument? Try this currently running thread for debate on the very issue:
Again, thanks for your insulting characterization of all Christians. Try a taste of your own medicine in an earlier post of yours:
Pot, meet kettle.
What you claim is the opinion of the majority of people is blatantly exaggerated.
What you claim to be common sense is anything but.
What you claim with such dismissal to be merely a clump of cells is patently wrong. Abortions happen during the entire term of pregnancy, when the clump of cells has matured into an indistinguishable human life.
What you claim as a moral distinction is an insult to the very humanity that you, I, and every unborn child share.
Reprise, I’m glad to hear good news. I guess now is the time to get your daughter into the doctor’s office and start talking about other contraceptive options - like the three month injection, or that inplant that’s supposed to last two years (I haven’t heard much about it). The Pill is good, but is too susceptable to human error.
As you both misrepresent my statement and clearly didn’t bother to visit the link I provided I’ll take a miss, thanks.
Actually, I said SELF RIGHTIOUS. As only the self rightious would take offense I take it it’s a catagory you fall in.
Well, no it isn’t. The majority of the world has come to grips with abortion. It’s a problem here because our own home-grown religious fanatics want to impose their own Taliban-style restrictions on the populace.
Your unsupported statement to the contrary is of course sufficient proof to the contrary.
More lifer lies and BS. Post 6th month abortions are a tiny, tiny percentage that usually occur for compelling medical reasons that your ilk like to sensantionialize for your religio/politico purposes.
Thank you for the display of emotive sentimentalism. Very persuasive.
You know NaSultainne, between this and several other threads I’ve got your measure. You’re one of these self-rightious SOBs who just lives to tell other people how to live their lives.
Before you talk of the splinter in my eye, look to the log in your own.
And I’m one of those Moderators who works here to tell people how to post their messages. One of the things I occasionally have to tell people is that direct insults like calling somebody an SOB is not allowed. Take it to the Pit. Or, better yet, just don’t do it.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that everything you said is true. How does that support your claim that it’s not a baby unless the mother decides to keep it? That is, after all, a different claim altogether.
First of all I would like to explain that when we went to the doctor to do the contraception trip earlier in the year my preference was for either Depo-Provera or an implant because it’s harder to forget and isn’t affected by the gut absorption problem. It was very clearly explained to me that given my daughter’s bone-age, neither was actually appropriate for her (she’s actually quite short and her bone age shows that she’s close to at the end of growing - apparently both Depo and implants are likely to stop any further growth in its tracks). There are also apparently a number of other health concerns (not proven, but not resolved either) about the longterm effects of the more enduring hormonal forms of contraception in young women who haven’t yet reached maturity. Until the patches are actually approved in Australia (which is at least a year away) one form or another of oral contraception remains the best option (abstinence just isn’t going to happen).
You bet that I’m relieved that it’s looking less likely that my daughter is actually going to have to exercise her right to choice. It’s a tough decision to make as an adult sometimes, let alone as a 15 year old. Ironically, in between my knowing the test results earlier today and me getting a chance to discuss them with my daughter this afternoon a friend of mine rang me with a truly sickening story of how her own daughter has just had her two children removed from her due to massive physical abuse done to a 13 month old boy (I don’t use the word “sickening” lightly). But I’m also asking myself whether this horrible abuse which has been suffered by this young child would have happened at all she hadn’t been subjected to so much “abortion is wrong” pressure. I’m just glad that when I asked my daughter " what would you have done if the test was positive?" (and I pretty much always knew the answer) she just felt so confident that I would support her in whatever decision she made that she just knew I would do everything I possibly could to ensure that she completed her education and followed her dreams; that she said “I knew you’d support me mum whatever I chose”. It doesn’t get much better than than your child having that much confidence in your willingness to give them as many choices in life as possible.
Will someone please explain the “sympathy” thing to me? It’s been said by both “pro-life” and “pro-choice” people in this thread.
Is the word you are thinking of “empathy”? Because “sympathy” implies “ain’t it awful”, whichever side of the debate is using the term. From where I sit, if you’re pro-life then you should never perceive the possibility of a new life in this world as something to be “sympathetic” about. From where I sit neither should you if you’re pro-choice feel “sympathy”? If you’re truly “pro-choice” then you support absolutely whatever decision is made. You might recognise the toughness of making that decision, you might recognise that sometimes it involves a measure of sadness and regret, but “sympathy”?
My OP started off being largely about the language we - on both sides of this issue - use when we discuss it. “Sympathy” implies “oh what a tragic situation to find yourself in reprise”. Difficult, you bet. Confronting, definitely. Inconvenient, and how. But “tragic”? No, not ever - I most certainly always saw that if my daughter was pregnant and decided to keep the baby it would be a CHALLENGE (and that’s the world’s biggest understatement) and would have involved lots of effort on the part of many people, but an occasion for “sympathy”? Never ever, have I perceived the possibility in those terms. Empathy, compassion, support - yep - but not "sympathy.
