Ok, I finally did get to your message and read that and thought, well, maybe I have been had. But, did you look up the ‘experts’ in the article? I know you’ve already pointed out that the source is biased, so I will take that you realize that.
Now, here is an article that demystifies the myths in the article you’ve quoted:
And this debunks that. Seven doctors on the panel discredits the Silent Scream, one of which is a Professor of Neuroscience, Neurology and Pediatrics.
Bzzzt. Try again.
For that post, whyNot deserves a medal for demonstrating why StraightDope is worth subscribing to.
Pyroto YT Tiger, I’ve got a simple question for you. Many years ago, I was on my own, some 3,000 miles from my nearest family member, struggling to get back on my feet after a serious, life-threatening bout with depression. I didn’t have the physical, emotional, or financial resources to carry a child to term; I barely had the resources to look after myself and as it was I tended to be suicidal with some regularity (remember, folks, that was years ago, and I am doing much better now). I also had no health insurance. What would you have done if you’d found yourself pregnant in my situation? Yes, I realize the answer is not to get pregnant in the first place, but birth control fails and rape happens. It’s an imperfect world. I didn’t have the money for pre-natal care. I didn’t even have a phone because I was so broke. What would you have done?
I believe abortion is morally wrong and would love to see a day when no child is ever aborted. I also know that there are times when abortion is the least bad of a bunch of lousy alternatives. I respect those who share my view that abortion is morally wrong and would never choose to have one. I also consider it a moral imperative to see it kept legal so that women who cannot, for whatever reason, carry a child to term aren’t forced to do so.
Respectfully,
CJ
I don’t know why all you women are posting to this thread, with all your petty personal experiences. This is a subject of Abstract Moral Principle, and thus better left to men.
Well, I’m certainly amused that you presented that link after dismissing mine as biased. Do you know who Glasow is?
Hee!
I continue to find it tragic that there’s such a divide between two groups whose ultimate goal is the same thing: to lessen the number of abortions.
My cousin recently buried her newborn. He had a host of genetic problems, discovered by the various tests they do in utero: a three-chambered heart (the normal human heart has four), one kidney, who knows what all else (I wasn’t given a great many of the details). I asked my father, a MD, whether having a three-chambered heart was survivable under any sort of circumstances, and he responded that it absolutely isn’t. This is a child that had no chance. He lived for 30 minutes.
She chose to carry her child to term, and I respect her choice. And that’s what it comes down to: choice. Some of us are fighting to preserve that choice, while others are actively trying to eliminate it.
Thank you. But I’m actually more proud of this post of mine:
And the reason I’m proud of that one is that another poster provided clear evidence which contradicted my idea, and I was willing to acknowledge it, concede the point and admit that I was wrong. These are qualities that seem to be lacking in this thread, and ones that could make a whole lot of it irrelevant.
Snickers, my sincere condolences to your cousin and your whole family. That is a terrible choice to have to make, but I’m so glad she was able to chose what was best for her and her family.
What I find most peculiar is how an admitted ex-pro-choicer is throwing around so many epithets like ‘pro-abortion’ and has such an encyclopedic knowledge of every disgusting propaganda site on the internet today. Doubtless people can change their minds, but going as Pyroto YT Tiger claims from one viewpoint to what appears to be the fanatical opposite doesn’t ring true.
Well, I’ll just chime in here.
I had an abortion in Jan of 2000. I am married, have 3 kids already. I had Gestational Diabetes with my third child, and have lost 2 sisters to diabetes. I would (and I am completely serious about this) rather have cancer than diabetes.
I could not face another pregnancy with GDM and possibly contracting DM for the rest of my life. I figured I needed to be here for the kids I already had.
My husband and I were barely married at the time–not happy at all–he went so far as to ask me if this was his. I was faced with either a strongly possible chronic illness (on top of already existing auto-immune stuff) and a very toxic marriage or a toxic marriage and a healthy me. To add the stress of another newborn was too much for me.
We talked, agreed on an abortion and I made the appt. Strangely enough, this was a turning point of sorts for us–my husband and I started talking earnestly about Us and Our future etc. It has been rocky and it’s taken 5 years, but we are much more stable now.
If I had ahd the baby, who knows? We may still have come thru or I might be on welfare now or (seriously) in a locked mental health ward and he have custody of the kids.
Who can say? I had a choice (and thank god I did). I made my choice. Yes, I suffered a depression post-abortion and guilt. But the depresson would have come regardless–I was depressed after each child’s birth. Guilt is guilt. In a perfect world, I would have loved to have had a fourth child. In the real world, it was not to be.
got my tubes tied at the same time, so that it could never happen again. End of story.
Is what I did wrong? Maybe in your eyes(?) I wasn’t a teen or raped or a victim of incest. I am a middle class, white woman --I am one of the ones who is supposed to have it all. But I made the correct choice for me at that time. I would do it again, if I needed to.
Plus, you know, the constant lies . . . like how she saw her child’s non-existent nose on an ultrasound.
Just in case anyone had forgotten . . .
I don’t like to suggest that this is something common to the entire pro-life cadre, but there’s definitely a strain of extremism visible in murders by pro-life activists and the organizations that tacitly support them; it’s I guess not surprising that a certain proportion of them wouldn’t be above resorting to emotional manipulation and outright lying (after all, the noted anti-abortion activist who filmed Silent Scream was present, performing the ultrasound, during the procedure.)
It’s people like Pyroto who don’t particularly care about the truth, or the doctor who filmed Silent Scream who according to his (claimed) moral principles was witness to a murder, that convince me that the pro-life movement doesn’t care much at all about reducing the number of abortions (sorry, Snickers) but more about making laws around it. The constant rhetoric about personal responsibility is a more pleasant cloak around a sense of punishing the women who end up in that bad situation, which is especially apparent when pro-lifers support laws permitting abortion in cases of rape (after all, in that case it wasn’t the woman’s “fault.”) There seems to me to be at very least a lot of moral relativism in the pro-life crowd, and to me it says something unpleasant about the motives for their actions.
I had not thought of it that way, excalibre -but I think you are on to something.
No one can set a date for when life began,perhaps eons ago. Human life started hundreds of thousands of years ago. life is a passed on thing. If the man’s sperm is not living then no potential child will result. Many potential lives could be called destroyed for every ejaculation. A Zygote is camparable to an apple blossom,it isn’t yet an apple. A zygote isn’t a person. There are women who choose abortion as a case of self defense. Who can decide what a woman has in her heart or how she can protect her self and her family?
Monavis
You ask if a woman has an abortion later regrests it; no it can’t be undone,but what of the women who have suffered post partum depression, then killed some, or all of their children? Who can judge what another can be capable of ,or can endure?
Monavis
9 to 11 millimeters, crown to rump. Then the link earlier in your post: http://abortiontv.com/Pics/Abortion...stTrimester.htm, the body of the “Seven week old” fetus is easily twice as big as a dime. A dime has a diameter of 17.91 mm, at least according to the US Mint, which makes the body of fetus at least 35.82 mm, or more than three and a half centimeters long. Since in the early stages of devlopment, the head of a fetus (which was not included in the picture or my measurement) is about as long as the body, that would make the crown to rump measuremnt 71.64 mm, over 7 cm. A handy OB chart will tell us that a 7 cm fetus is about 13.5 weeks old, which is twice as old as your site claims.
Riiiiiiight.
Okey dokey.
Sorry, forgot to include my crown-to-rump cite. It contradicts Pyroto’s cite, so it’s best to include it. Here is the website the chart came from. All on the up and up.
A little background about me: I am a male and I would have had an older brother but my mom had an abortion and you know what I am fine with that.
All of you pro-lifers need to think about the broader picture. Humans have always practiced abortion, in the past in horific ways (Roman women would just leave unwanted babies in caves to die), at least we abort fetuses now before there is brain activity (except in the rare cases of late term abortion). You want to care so much about potential life but what about kids and the living. I have news for you, the Earth is becoming overpopulated. Social systems and economies are strained, natural resources are becoming strained. If we dont have abortions and our population keeps exploding it wont be long until this planet cant support our species anymore and then you know what. There will be massive famines and war and millions will die, but you pro-lifers dont care or dont think about that. The hard reality and truth is we need population control so there will be a decent world for future generations. Think of the big picture and long term picture people!
I used to attend Pro choice events where the anti choice people would hold up an enlarged photograph of some poor chubby baby, at least 14 months old- stuffed into a waste paper basket. They would point to it, and scream out that this is what abortion looks like. I always wondered if they ever got around to pulling that poor kid out of the trash and wiping off the ketchup.
nm
I’m closing this thread because it’s very old. The Sensible Truth, you’re welcome to share your thoughts on abortion in a new or active discussion, but with threads this old, it’s better to leave them be.