Actually, I believe that there are fewer abortions every year, and that number is steadily decreasing.
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You are, of course, correct.
How ironic, then, that the religious right, who is so against abortion, also is against all kinds of sex education and many of them feel contraception is bad as well, including condoms.
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Amen.
The problem is, as has been discussed in this thread, it doesn’t end there.
Major presidential candidates and other anti-choice people make their plan well-known that they want to start with things such as this and move, slowly, on to a complete ban of abortions.
I hate the slippery slope argument as much as the next guy. But when abortion foes come flat out and SAY that they WANT it to become a slippery slops, until all rights come crashing down the cliff, then I think it’s a warranted fear for abortion rights advocates.
First off, how do you know I do not have children? (I don’t) However, second, I have been pregnant twice. Twice I have miscarried during the second trimester. Now, you are correct in saying that I have never had kids gorwing inside me. What I had was tissue and blood, just like I mentioned before. Yes, I had names picked out. Yes, I had even had a “baby” shower for one of the pregnancies. Does the fact that I have had these experiences change my views? No! Call me heartless or call me practical, either way the fact remains that I will not mourn something that could have happened the way I do when an actual tragedy has occurred.
So, Katy, since my definition of when “kids grow inside you” differs greatly from yours, I’d say, in the words of Peter North, we’ll just agree to disagree.
Let’s get back to argument of how women suffer anguish and regret for the rest of their lives after they have an abortion. How much of this anguish comes from external forces? If I told you that you would regret forever having a facelift, then constantly reminded you of the regret you should have, and had multitudes of people say the same thing to you, perhaps showing you pictures of the operation to show it’s nastiness, and/or showing you pictures of your face before the operation and telling you how beautiful you used to look, after a while you might start hating yourself.
Personally, I label people who do this to other people assholes. JMHO.
What happened to life, liberty and the pursute of happiness? Abortion prevents the child from having those basic rights that are guaranteed in the constitution.
Whatever!!! Just don’t screw up my life with your wicked stupid ideas!
Okay. Well if we are to take the legal view that the baby is a complete human being from the moment of conception and the mother is only a source of nutrition and oxygen, then lets consider the logical extension that the baby (this complete human being) is trespassing and the mother can exercise her equal right to sever the relationship and remove the parasite from her body (i.e. give it up for adoption immediately and let somebody else step up to provide ‘nutrition and oxygen’). It’s all about ‘rights’, right?
Gross simplifications, like those espoused by that doctor, make me angry. This is not that cut and dry. You can shout all you want about the baby’s ‘right to life’, but in no other case do we give a human being the right to leech off the vital essence of another (sometimes to the point of death for the carrier). We don’t excuse a cannibal because he was exercising his “right to life” in eating your flesh.
This is new ground and normal constitutional rights just don’t apply. People need to stop harping on the ‘right to life, liberty, yadda yadda yadda’ and start offering real, logical (not religious) reasons why abortion is detrimental to society. Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin, et al. were great guys, but they weren’t gods and didn’t hold a monopoly on wisdom. It’s okay to think a few new thoughts now and then about issues they would never even have imagined.
It would be interesting to see a few proposals for constitutional amendments defining some of the ‘basic rights’ that cause so much controversy today (right to privacy, rights of the unborn, rights for suicide, etc.). Instead, we are engaged in a futile dance of interpretation of a 200-yr-old document that could never have addressed these issues. That’s what constitutional amendment is for!
People all over this country get guns, every day. People sell guns to the people who will pay for them, be they licensed to sell those guns or not, because people want to buy guns.
I don’t like guns. Not one little bit. But with my last breath, I will defend your right to own one, if you so choose. You’ll never, ever see me walking into a gun dealership and saying “I don’t like guns, therefore you can’t have one. Nyah.”
I’ve given a child up for adoption. I’ve had an abortion. I’ve had a miscarriage. I’ve got two more kids now. Been everywhere on the reproductive spectrum. With the exception of the miscarriage, all choices were mine, and all of them were good. I will continue to support the right of all people to excercise the rights guaranteed them by law. This includes the right not to choose abortion.
It’s going to be a long, long time before this one ever gets settled.
Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.
A) The mother has equal (or greater) rights to life, liberty and happiness all of which may be threatened by that baby.
B) Is it even clear that the unborn are protected by the Constitution since they are not yet American citizens?
[Not to be picky, but C) ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ were defended by the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, right? Does the Constitution actually offer such nebulous guarantees?]
Sorry but this is a pet peeve. Brightmoon, you are either a troll or you have never read the Constitution. Here it is. Please read it before stating what (you think) is in it.
Just something that irritates me. The moron wrote:
I hate when people use the “fact” that an egg becomes a person at the moment of conception. If this is true, why are they not condemning women who have ectopic pregnancies? Those are ended by a doctor. Why don’t they call these “abortions” and condemn them?
After all, conception occurs in the fallopian tubes so if a doctor removes that “baby” isn’t that murder?
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they’re going to be when you kill them.
Bosh! From the moment of conception, you have a potential person. And if left alone, there is no guarantee whatsoever that a wee bairn will be the result nine months down the road.
That article was filled with the standard boilerplate that I read and hear, and for the most part it is quite simply not true.
There are other possibilities that may manifest themselves: ectopic pregnancies, spontaneous abortions, and miscarriages for instance. Who wrote that article? Was it the Charley Reese fellow whose photo appears next to it?
Just a few points to your Dogmatic diatribe disguised as an editorial:
Delta is ready when you are. I, for one, am glad to not live anywhere but the USA. For example, in many countries, you would suffer repercussions by printing an article that went so against public opinion as yours does - yes, most Americans are pro-choice - and the worst that happens to you is a response.
Well, in the battle of semantics, I would submit that “Pro-Life” is more of a misnomer than “Pro-Choice,” as most Pro-Life people I know also support the DEATH penalty, and many other things which show a nefarious plot that does not wish for “life,” but for their ability to decide exactly who lives and dies.
Good try, Chuckles, but it’s called an embryo, not a human being. I’ll even give you fetus, but ultimately, it’s a mass of uncongealed blood and tissues, and remains that way for quite some time. It lacks the ability to breathe, think (you know how long it takes the brain to form?) and feel for many months, and since most abortions (aside from those with health complications) happen in the first trimester, they are essentially removing a blood clot.
Sperm has the potential to become a human being, too. In fact, Jewish law dictates that wasting it is a sin. Yet, over 90% of men masturbate. Murderers!
Then why do 40-60% of all fertilized eggs never attach themselves to the uterine wall and vanish? Seems to me that at least half of all pregnancies ending naturally would show us that a fetus not becoming a human being, maybe there’s nothing unnatural or “murderous” about it.
And those contributions - and responsibilities - greatly increase after nine months and the fetus does become a real human being. As such, a woman has every right to not want to take those responsibilities on should they so choose. Of course, I wish that more women (and men) would be responsible and take precautions to avoid it to begin with, and adoption is a good option for some, but ultimately, it’s up to the breathing, living, thinking adult to decide if they wish the blood clot inside them to become a responsibility later on, and I refuse to think I know what decision is right for her. Since I don’t even KNOW her.
This is assuming, of course, there is a God. If there is, He’s quite an abortionist Himself, what with half of all pregnancies ending naturally. Do you think anyone is going to shoot him, or burn down heaven, because of this? I know some other abortionists have suffered this fate… You think God will?
Once again, I must submit that Delta is ready when you are.
You talk of how our country has become “immoral.” Well, since morality is a personal thing, I submit that you cannot make such a statement. There is no proof that the things you bring up - music, what’s on television - have anything to do with mass behavior. Art imitates life, not the other way around, except in a few cases with weak people, and I also submit that the masses not have their entertainment choices diminished because of a few wackos.
I also must comment on your journalistic style… Going from one issue to a panorama of them makes for an unfair debate and not easy reading. Stick to the topic at hand, please, Chuckles.
Yeah, just saying no really solved the drug problem in this country, didn’t it.
Sorry, but you currently live in a Constitutional Republic. You certainly have the right to say “no” to anything you wish, but even if a preponderance of people choose to say “no,” the rights of others to say “yes” has to be considered and not infringed upon. The Constitution guarantees this. If is one of the principles that this country was founded upon. Look it up in the library, that is, if there are any of them left when you’re done burning all of the books.
Case in point, you can freely worship whomever you wish in this country, and that is protected. You can spout a minority opinion in a newspaper and that is protected.
If people said “no” to your column, that does not mean you do not have the right to say it, for example. Though, I do choose to say “no” to subscribing to the Orlando Sentinel, and would offer that opinion to anyone who asked.
And failure of the fertilized ovum to implant in the uterine wall on its way through. I just can’t stress failed implantation enough.
(And for those of you playing along at home: No, a zygote that does not implant in the uterine wall in the first place is not considered a miscarriage.)
