Abortion: Murder or Woman's Right?

Great Debates
121

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Hard headedness is assuming that if you make a choice and it turns out to be a bad one, it MUST be a bad one for everyone else.

As for the stipulations you talk about, it has been debated for decades by people much smarter and with more influence either way than us.

Ultimately, those who call themselves pro-life wish for ALL abortions to be outlawed, regardless of circumstance. Anything less is sinful.

And those who consider themselves pro-choice wish for “abortion-on-demand” because of a fear that the climate the way it is will make it limited or outlawed to people who have every reason to excersice their control over their body.

For example, I think third trimester abortions are horrible. But I hope the Supreme Court allows partial birth abortions anyway, because in SOME cases (mother finds out late she is pregnant, finds out the fetus has some disability she is not prepared to cope with, whatever) it might be warranted, and as worded, it would make only a more dangerous technique available to women in this situation.

Which puts us right back to endangering living, breathing, thinking people again. Which I refuse to do under any circumstances, no matter how much I disagree with them making that choice myself.

Yer pal,
Satan

122

NewtonsApple wrote:

Are there any stats out there on the percentage of abortions that have complications? In particular, I’d like to see the percentage of abortions with complications performed by PP compared with those performed by other “higher-priced” practitioners.

If PP failed to notice obvious complications, as you say, it sounds like you have grounds for a malpractice suit against them.

The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.

123

Sounds like for the most part I agree with Satan. (Evil grin) My mother would die to hear that said.

Oh Satan what did you think of my thread in MPSIMS. :slight_smile: Tantalizing thought no? Tell your SO its my fault I made you want it. I told mine that SATAN made me think it. Thanks it worked.

-N

124

Note that was “for the most part”. So there are sticking points but we seem to see some things quite the same.

-N

125

You lost me Newt. You mean your anal sex thread? Well, honestly, I don’t care where you do or don’t put your penis as long as it ain’t in me.

And to keep it relevant to this thread, anal sex lessens the chance of unwanted pregnancy considerably!

Yer pal,
Satan

126

Well, Newt, ('dyou mind if I call you that?) I fail to see that I am hardheaded simply because I feel differently than you do. Maybe I’m missing something?

I would like to see some statistics as to the number of women using abortion for birth control. Because I gotta tell ya, almost all of the women that I escorted were young and scared. And then they had some very vocal opponents of a legal procedure yelling at them. And forcing photos of aborted fetuses into their faces. One chap had a doll on a skewer. (never quite understood that one) There may have been some women who were coming into the clinic for the third time, I never asked. But bottom line, it is a legal procedure. Therefore, they had every (legal) right to do so. Morally is a whole 'nother thing.

Which is what myself and others have said in regards you and your wife.

And just to take a moment and be a complete prick, if you and your wife had been more responsible, then this would never have been an issue. I’m very sorry for your loss, but when you set yourself up as final arbiter of what is or is not right, then you deserve to be called on it.

Waste
Flick Lives!

127

The book Satan and I are referring to is The New Our Bodies, Ourselves. A bit feminist for my standards, but a reliable source on women’s health. This edition was published in 1992.

And I’m going to cite some stuff from it, some quotes they cite from women. Just to show how the other half lives, you know.

As you can see, not every person has the same reaction of regrets to an abortion, although I’m sure that happens. It’s a choice you make, and some women can handle that choice better than others. Abortion should always be an option, because regrets or not, women should have the right to decide what goes on with their own bodies.

“Buffalo Bills? Oh, yeah. The guys that always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” --WallyM7

128

Im sure that taking all your citations from ONE book whos author probably only included statements and anecdotes to support her own, didnt by any chance bias that whole above citation DID IT?

So where can I find a book that will support me and only me and give no sort of other views other than mine?

You see how this becomes:
a personal experience vs A book

Not the same level.

129

Um… It’s a book listing personal experiences. You think they were made up? In addition, someone else above told of a “personal experience” which does not involve the anguish you claim in your life.

Facts is facts: We do not deny that some women feel remorse, grieving, and it would be foolish not to realize this. Even those who know in their heart they made the right decision might feel bad about it from time to time.

But, just as there might be some women who are torn up over it, there are also women who are just fine with it, and realize the positive benefits their choice had on their life, and the negative consequences had this choice not been made available to them.

It would be unfair to apply those women’s feelings to ALL women who have had abortions… But it is equally unfair for you to assert that grief is the ONLY way to feel.

Yer pal,
Satan

130

Thing is, Newt, this one book I was citing quotes from also has quotes from people who were torn up over abortion. Everyone has different reactions, and that was what I was trying to prove. For every story like yours, there’s one like the ones I quoted. When you say

you’re tarring everyone with your brush. Not every woman feels the way you and your wife did. It doesn’t cause everyone pain. It isn’t a mistake for everyone. It was a mistake for you, and for that I am sorry. But IMO, it’s more of a mistake to take away the rights of women to do as they choose with their own bodies, making them second-class citizens in their own country, due to legislation that bounds them to whatever morality happens to be popular at the time.

Of course, this is only considered because men have always been the empowered gender. As some feminist once said, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

“Buffalo Bills? Oh, yeah. The guys that always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” --WallyM7

131

For example, I think third trimester abortions are horrible. But I hope the

Despite all of the bruhaha about partial-irth abortion, I remember reading that last year only two or three were performed, and then only because of danger to the mother’s life. It’s not as if it’s done for *recreational * purposes, or anything. It’s not as if the mother suddenly reached the ninth month of her pregnancy and said, “Well, maybe this isn’t such a good idea, after all.” As I understand it, viable fetuses are usually only aborted for two reasons: that the fetus is seriously deformed, or the mother’s life is at risk.

132

Sorry! That top line should have been in the quote as well.

133

Ah, so it’s all grand politics in action, eh?

I just saw an interview with that Forbes character. In it, he clearly said how he was all for “steps in the direction” of an out-and-out ban on all abortion technique, “in order to get those who are currently for it to change their minds slowly.”

Uh huh.

This is why they make a big deal about late-term abortions. And this is also why they all must be stopped at all costs.

Yer pal,
Satan

134

Firstly, thanks to Drain for the book title.

Yeah, Lissa, but you will be hard pressed to find someone in the pro-life camp who will concede that third-trimester abortions are already rare. I just had a conversation with an acquaintance who did his damnedest to convince me that it is a common procedure, used as birth control.

And I saw the same interview, Satan. Honestly, though, I don’t worry so much about Forbes. Most of my concern is directed toward Bush. After all, he is the anointed one.

Waste
Flick Lives!

135

Satan wrote:

Personal nitpick:

The term “Partial-birth abortion” is not the clinical name for the procedure. The term was invented by the procedure’s opponents, in an attempt to give it an even more negative stigma than it deserved. (Much in the same way that the terms “junk gun” and “assault weapon” didn’t exist in the language until they were invented by legislators intent on banning inexpensive handguns and semi-automatic versions of military assault rifles, respectively.)

136

So this has become a real debate??

Recycled ammunition to fight recycled wars. All postings to follow are authentically part of the SDMB archives (AOL era)…

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137

“Momcat”

I’ve watched my momcats with their litters of kittens and sometimes just after birth but before biting off the afterbirth membranes and cords, they explore one of the kittens and decide, for this or that mom-cat-reason, that this one is not destined to be in this world, and they push it to the side and do not free it from the afterbirth and do not nurse it, and it dies.

Personally, I’d support a similar bill for abortion rights for people, that up until the mother symbolically cuts the unbilican cord and declares her baby to be alive, it is not legally a person and she can declare it to be dead instead, and she should have that authority. God gave her that along with the power to bring life into the world in the first place, and that position of responsibility and its powers are the trade-off for a lifetime of
PMS, periods, cramps, UTI infection susceptibility, breast cancer, and a variety of other things that women have to put up with that we guys don’t have to deal with.

Of course it’s killing. Of course it is human life. Get over it.

It isn’t murder. Not all killing is murder. SOME abortion may sure as hell be murder but no one is ever in a better position than the pregnant woman to determine whether or not the sad event is necessary in this particular case. SOME women may be horrendously bad judges of such matters, but ultimately God put them in the position of being the gatekeepers of life and some are wise and some are fools; some make difficult decisions weighing all
the complex factors with care and others treat the matter as a cavalier decision. Don’t worry your souls about it – as right to life people point out, those who have abortions for lightweight and transient reasons often suffer horrible guilt pangs and have nightmares about what they did.

But not because they had abortions; because they took a heavy and important matter lightly.

Room for compromise, you say? Sure. We need to reduce the abortion rate. All those unintended pregnancies are a sad thing, and abortion is a sad solution even if it is sometimes the best one, and one thing the conservative people who normally oppose abortion rights are totally right about is that teaching sex ed in the schools as if it were a simple matter of plumbing and how to prevent the sperms from getting to these ova over there is
grossly irresponsible to our kids.

We should be exposing our children to adult discussion of sexuality. REAL adult, not the lewd filth for which “adult” is a sick euphemism. Discussions of how erotic interest and sensation feels emotionally. Discussions of falling in love, how personal feelings and sexual feelings for someone can mix together. Discussions of vulnerability as well as ecstasy. Discussions of how vulnerability brings up the issue of power in relationships.
Discussion of ambivalent feelings about sharing one’s sexuality as opposed to feeling cautious about dragging something so important as to be holy through a sewer of nasty attitudes and exploitative experiences.

And I do believe sexuality is holy. I have a far far less reverential attitude towards marriage and would oppose teaching kids to wait for marriage, but I’m open to the idea that kids should hear from adults expressing various points of view about marriage as the proper container to hold and define human sexuality, and that’s a compromise. (I will teach my own child that I believe marriage at this point to be an abomination in the eyes of
God).

Obviously I am one of those people who are often referred to as “sexual liberals” by the religious convervatives, and I am also a “feminist” of course. However, I am certainly not a non-thinking slogan-weilding sheep and it will do neither of us any good for any of you to simply ridicule me as another “feminazi” or “liberal”. No one else reading behind you will buy it. I have read and listened to the right to life perspective and will
continue to listen to you, for I believe this issue is not a football game to be won and then we go home – we all have to live with each other, and if you are here to seek compromises on the issue I will listen and participate.

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138

Momcat II, Daughter of “God is a Cat” –

Since, as has already been discussed on these boards, God is a CAT, I spoke to my cat about this abortion thing, and after I had made my due offerings to She Who Possesseth the Noble Kitty Feets, she said :

When momcats have a litter of kittens, they inspect the newborn fluffies and check the tail and feet and shape of the spine and such, and sometimes decide that this one or that one is not a keeper and nudge it off to the side and do not remove its afterbirth or nurse it, and it dies. Such is the authority of the condition female, she purred, the tradeoff for having menses and a sore back during pregnancy and enduring labor pains. God is a FEMALE
CAT, she explained, and everything female is her symbol, power of life and death. You humans are fascinating in a disconcertingly pathetic way, she said. Grow up. Give your mom-persons a pair of symbolic kitty teeth to bite a symbolic umbilical cord for the ones they wanna keep, and pronounce those “live births”.

The rest? Came from her, didn’t they? Cells got their nutrients by parasiting off her, didn’t they? Got carried around like a 6-to-11-pound backpack by her, didnt’ they? [she should try climbing fences with a litter of six, but that’s another thread]. So look, oh foolish Weilder of the Can Opener, if anyone with such investment in the project is gonna abort it, who else has more investment to come in and say this is a bad choice? If she has to
put one down, you should bring her liver treats and flaked tuna and hug her a lot and scratch behind her ears. Or whatever you furless folks do for each other. She probably feels worse for it than anyone else, and if she says it was necessary, believe me, you’re best off trusting her on that.

She who labors rightfully possesses the fruits of her labors – Miaow Se Tongue

Now open that door, for I have outdoor projects to attend to, she said.

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139

“Mom is mom”

The potential human is alive, both before and after the moment of
conception, but up until the moment of birth is also, literally, part
of the body of the pregnant mother-to-be (or not-to-be).

To some people, the central issue is that “this is life”. Most of
them do not worry overly much about ova and sperm that do not join
their respective other to become a zygote, but after conception
consider it murder to kill.

To many people, the central issue is “capacity for feeling”. They
aren’t uncomfortable with the idea of the death of zygote, blastula,
or embryo, but by the time it is a fetus, it looks like us, not like a
little fishey, and it has cute little limbs and such. The assumption
is that this is something we can empathize with, it is like us, and
would become one of us, obviously, in the absence of abortion,
miscarriage, or various other possible interferences. They would set
a time frame within which abortion should be available and legal,
after which it should be restricted or illegal. Most such people
would agree that it is good and necessary that accessible abortion
services be universally available if such a time frame is to be
implemented. Roe v. Wade would fall into this general category, with
only limited access to abortion in the third trimester and some
restrictions during the second.

To me (to finally answer your question), the central issue is “part of
the body of the pregnant person up until the moment of birth”. To me,
this implies that there are TWO lives connected to this bundle of
tissue, the one feeding parasitically off of the other in a manner
that is wonderful and sacred if the pregnant one desires the
situation, but unsupportively invasive if she does not. It is hard to
imagine a more explicitly personal relationship with another living
entity than one in which you are letting your kidneys and liver
process the other’s wastes, sharing your calcium and protein and
glucose (with the other getting first priority), and carrying the
other’s body inside yours as you climb steps, bathe, or sway in the
aisles of the subway.

I would make a law that says babies are declared to have been born
alive by their mothers unless the mothers are incompetent or
incapacitated, and up until they have been declared to have be alive
by their moms, they have no legal standing and are legally regarded as
part of the bodies of the mom, who has total authority regarding
decisions to continue or not continue the pregnancy. If she (the mom)
is legally competent as of the time of the onset of labor, she would
be presented with the newborn after a normal vaginal delivery, or
after her recovery under other circumstances, and would be given a
couple of hours to inspect and assess, after which she would be
expected to deliver an opinion as to whether or not the results were a
live birth. If she says no, the products of the labor which she
deemed unsuccessful, which is legally at this point tissue, is to be
incinerated at the site of delivery.

I admit that my position appears to be at an extreme end of a
continuum (although it is how most mammals deal with the issue except
minus the incineration), and politically I could live with the
situation status quo as long as abortion services are not just legal
but readily available in every locale.

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140

“Reply to IrishTxLady” (remember her??)

» {{I would like to say this… I may send a confusing message when I
say that I am pro-life. This reflects my opinion that abortion is
wrong. Therefore, I will not have an abortion. However, I feel that
it is not my place to judge those that have abortions. I have been
given no authority to judge them. I do not want to call myself
pro-choice, as I do not want to have the appearance of supporting
abortion. There is no appropriate label for me, I suppose. I don’t
like it, so I don’t do it. I would like to see late-term abortions
stopped, but that is the extent of my activism. }}Irish

{{How about “pro-choice but anti-abortion”?}} Kat!!!

Since when does “pro-choice” mean “pro-abortion”? Sounds to me like
Irish is pro-choice. « FWLev
That would be my interpretation as well (although it may be important
to her to underline that she’s revolted by it). Most pro-choice
people I know take the position that abortion should be legal and
available, but it’s not something they eagerly anticipate undergoing.
Some would say flat-out that there’s no way they would, others say
they hope it never comes to that, and more than a few have been known
to discover (as someone previously described, sorry no C&P but it’s
buried back there) that what they THOUGHT they wouldn’t do, or would
do, isn’t how they end up reconciling a problematic pregnancy.

This is also true of a substantial handful of right-to-life women.
I will admit that I have known a small contingent of women who speak
at least in public as if abortion were kind of like blowing your nose…
expel snot, dispose, no issue, just tissue.

OTOH, I’ve heard the speeches and read the writings of a lot of
right-to-life men who are very open about what they don’t like about
abortion, which is the same thing they don’t like about birth control:
it leads to a society where females are NOT keeping their legs
crossed to everyone except for a stably employed man who will marry and support
them, which in turn leads to a society in which young men don’t have
sufficient impetus to work obediently and respectfully for older men
in order to acquire the status of stably employed man so they can get
some.

I’d say folks like us outnumber these nuts and I’m tired of
deliberately partisan slogan-screaming although I remain “politcal”
about it.

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