Admittedly, pashley and I approach things from a very different route, but I can’t see anything in his post that remotely resembles that. He argues against doing it, probably even against the right to do it, but never intimates anyone would be forced to do it.
Ptahlis said:
[hijack]
Tell that to the citizens of Iraq.
[/hijack]
(Sorry.)
The prosecution of someone who causes a fetus to miscarriage or ends a woman’s life and a developing embryo in it is not saying it is a living entity with rights, and in fact, totally consistant with being pro-choice.
In the case of an abusive husband kicking his wife in the stomache causing a miscarriage, the woman had something inside her that was going to develop into a baby, a baby she wanted, had a name picked out and a crib in the spare room. The violence was against her will and took away her choice as to what to do with her body and the part of it that needs her body to develop what she wants. This is totally reprehensible.
Whereas in the case of a woman who wishes to get an abortion but laws are in place against them, the woman has something growing inside of her that if she doesn’t do something about it, is going to develop into a baby, a baby she does not want, and is a problem on whatever levels she deems it. The laws which are proposed will take away her choice to do with her body and the part of it that needs her body to develop what she wants. This is totally reprehensible.
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
One month, 20 hours, 28 minutes and 26 seconds.
1234 cigarettes not smoked, saving $154.26.
Life saved: 4 days, 6 hours, 50 minutes.
I happen to believe abortion IS murder, but I also believe in the concept of justifiable homicide. If someone breaks into my house and threatens my family, I feel that I am not only legally justified in killing the intruder, but I am morally and ethically blameless in taking the intruder’s life.
I’ve always thought the “Is abortion murder” question was a silly debate. Using the logic of some pro-choicers, you should be able to legally kill a 2 week old infant and still call it an abortion. For me, the question is whether the murder was justifiable.
Let me explain with a ridiculous example: Some weird extra-terrestrial creature (I said it was a ridiculous example) comes to the earth and says that it will completely destroy the solar system unless Evilbeth has an abortion. I would, myself, take out Evilbeth, her unborn child, and anyone else who got in my way if it meant saving 6 billion people.
So lets scale back the example a little. What facts and circumstances would justify murder? Rape? Health of the Mother? Health of the unborn child? Inconvenince of pregnancy? It becomes less of a black and white question when you consider that there are always extenuating circumstances.
In doing some surface research on the web it seems that the number of rapes that go unreported is anywhere between 50-80%.
Women are unwilling to report a rape for some of the same reasons she would want an abortion–shame, humiliation, fear, and an overwhelming desire for the entire incident to go away.
Are these people honestly saying, “Well, sorry if it causes you further distress and pain but without that documented police report, we’ll just have to force you to have that baby.” What are the options here? Further pain and humiliation from being forced to recount the incident to some cops versus further pain and humiliation from being forced to carry around the product of a violent assault for nine months?
That isn’t a choice.
Oh yeah! I forgot–these people think she should just be grateful for any little choice they “allow” her to have, right?
Who’s going to adopt the unwanted babies? Yes, I know there are thousands of couples who want to adopt, but the numbers of babies “saved” by shoving us back into the dark ages by outlawing abortion would be staggering. We’re talking * millions * of babies here, with the numbers just going up every year. And I hate to say it, but there isn’t a big market for minority babies, or babies with medical problems. A crack baby, a physically deformed or a mentally challenged baby is going to have a hard time finding a home. A lot of these children would end up in foster care, or maybe due to the massive numbers of them we would bring back the good ole orphanage. Either way, they would have to be supported by our tax dollars.
And if the rapist is out there on the streets, still stalking women, that makes it go away?
If a crime has been committed, society has a right to know of it and to catch and punish the perpetrator. If someone wants to do something as serious as terminate a pregnancy because its existence is the result of a crime, asking her to do her societal duty (as well as protect her own continued safety!) shouldn’t be too much. It is a shame if it’s a tough thing for her to do, but an abortion is a serious thing as well.
Chaim Mattis Keller
** gesh ** I don’t consider myself ‘on a bandwagon’, nor will I fight anyone ‘tooth and nail’ so what happens to your supposition of ‘everyone’ if I’m a ‘ONE’?
People are complex creatures aren’t they? They may believe something, and because every situation of that particular ideal has either not happened, so that they could have formed ideas concerning it, or they just might not have anticipated such a stand.
That then, would NOT be hypocrisy, it would just be an issue that they’ve not thought out. No name calling, just an acceptance that they can still believe something without considering every nuance.
That, said. I agree with the general idea of being against abortion. I do not think that a woman who when it is between her life and the baby’s life in some catastrophic physical, life and death situation, she ought to be given the choice, or her husband, if she is mentally unable to do so. Her life ought to be the one considered first. I don’t think that makes me a hypocrite.
** Lissa, ** the facts are not there to back up your statement. The number of live births are going * down not up * as you stated.
Rape and incest are both crimes and ought to be dealt with as severely as the law allows, but I don’t think you ought to do more injury to make the crimes ‘right’. If it undid the rape or the incest, then maybe it would be justifiable, but it doesn’t do that, it only compounds the trauma.
I once knew a young woman who was 18. She got pregnant for the 4th time, and planned on having another abortion. She got pregnant four times out of selfishness and negligence. She partied all of the time, and probably didn’t even know who the father was. WHen my mother (Who was a good friend of her’s) offerend to adopt the baby if the young woman would carry it to term, the young woman agreed. About 2 weeks later she went partying and did some heavy drugs. She then informed my mother that she was getting an abortion, because the baby would probably be deformed. I know I still mourn the loss of that child, a child I never knew.
This young woman was the most selfish person I have ever met. All of the previous examples of why women should have the choice (especially Satan’s) makes sense to me. But when I think of people like that girl, it makes me sick. She killed a child because she wanted to get high.
I think the pro-lifers, anti-abortionists only see people like that as examples. That’s why they get so crazy over the debate.
I’m sitting on the fence. People like the girl in me example makes me sick. People like the women in some of Satan’s examples makes me symathetic. But see, that’s the problem right there. That’s why this debate will go on forever. Because there are people who feel they have legitimate reasons for the abortion, and there are people who feel like they want to party without any consequence or responsibility. The anti-abortion people will bring up the girls who are only concerned with themselves every second of every day. The pro-choicers will only bring up the women who already have children who can’t have another for whatever personal reason that will affect their current family (ie kids)
About the OP, I cannot see how anybody would expect a young woman to give birth to her father’s/uncle’s/cousin’s baby. That would be cruel and unusual. I have heard of some cases of rape where the women kept the baby, and were happy they did. I have heard of some cases where the women felt they had to abort the pregnancy. That’s a sticky situation that I don’t really want to touch with a ten foot pole, because I have never been in that situation and I don’t know what it’s like, thank God.
Sorry this is a long and rambling post. It’s late, I’m going to bed.
I think an interesting perspective on this would be to simply say that it is a living entity with rights, but in some situations that its rights are subjugated to that of the mother. There are many “rights” that people have, and sometimes choices need to be made between which rights are going to be upheld in certain circumstances where rights conflict. If a pregnant woman is making a decision about abortion, her rights come in conflict with those of the baby/fetus.
What if the woman was raped, and having this baby would cause unspeakable anguish and trauma to her. One might be able to say that the birth of the child would cause permanant damage to the woman. So, rights must be weighed and choices made. If you believe that every being has the right to life no matter what, even at the expense of someone else, then your question is valid. If, however, you feel that it is not so cut and dry, then the “discrepancy” in the law is no discrepancy at all, but merely a weighing of rights. Sometimes fulfilling the rights of one individual inhibit the rights of another.
The punishment of a rapist or incestuous relative, and the decision of a woman to keep or not keep the progeny of that event, are separate events, and making one dependent on the other or conflating the two only adds to confusion to an already difficult question.
If abortion is always, in every case, wrong, then the circumstances which resulted in the pregnancy matter not a whit. If abortion is always, in every case, right, then the circumstances which resulted in the pregnancy matter not a whit. The answer lies somewhere in between.
In my opinion, women should be permitted to obtain abortions for whatever reason they want at least up to the point of viability. After that, I have not yet decided on my opinion on the matter, but in general, I don’t approve of forcing people to take actions they do not want to take.
** gesh ** I don’t consider myself ‘on a bandwagon’, nor will I fight anyone ‘tooth and nail’ so what happens to your supposition of ‘everyone’ if I’m a ‘ONE’?
You are completely right, once again the articulation of my post has let me down. What I meant was that this is a subject that causes alot of emotion from both sides of the fence. Therefore you are going to get alot of people who don’t know the ins and outs of a topic but will argue the toss anyway as they FEEL something is right or wrong.
For me it’s a tricky one to decipher, every new circumstance leads me to form a different opinion on that particular case . And that is why I would always fall on the side of pro-choice if I had to pick one either way. By being on one side or the other to a degree were you ignore all of the details and disregard the things that you feel may be in a grey area then to me you are ‘jumping on the bandwagon’
For me you can be one of three things in this debate :
1)For abortion(wholeheartedly and regardless of details)
2)Anti-abortion(wholeheartedly and regardless of details)
3)Undecided(You weigh up the circumstances and details before making a choice as to what you believe to be right)
It’s all about belief and what you FEEL is right. I’m a number three.
**
[/QUOTE]
There are those who would argue that the way to determine moral truth is through feelings. I don’t know about you, but if someone were to logically explain to me why it was ok to kill people, I still wouldn’t do it. I believe it is wrong because I “know” it is wrong; it’s just this feeling I have. I don’t refrain from murder strictly for logical, rational reasons. I’m not saying that this is the only way one should look at an issue, but I wouldn’t be so quick to disregard those who say, “yeah, I guess I can see your logic, but you’re still wrong.”
What? I think you missed my point, AnitPro…
I was saying that if legal abortion were abolished, forcing all of the women who get abortions to give birth, there would be a hell of alot of unwanted babies out there available for adoption. True?
Then maybe they are the ones who need abortion the most, because they should absolutely not be giving birth.
Having a baby, although a “natural consquence” of having sex, should never, EVER be a “punishment”.
If women are forced into motherhood, they will produce a generation of ill-disciplined, anti-social, emotionally stunted children. We do not need a nation full of emotionally (maybe literally) abandoned children - there are enough to go around already.
As unfortunate as this is, it is very unlikely that the children of women who “want to get high” will find adoptive parents. It is a shame, but the most-sought-after type of child is white (unmixed), healthy and newborn. And many parents who are paying high-priced lawyers to go through the process don’t want to settle.
It is very sad that women refuse to take responsibility for their own reproductive systems. But forcing them to give birth to, abandon, neglect and victimize an innocent child is not the solution. Even if I did believe that abortion was murder, I would think that death and a peaceful afterlife would be a better fate for a baby than that.
And what kind of a parent do you think this person would be?
And even if you say, “adoption,” what kind of host would she be for nine months to something growing inside of her that she cares as little about as you make her out to?
And what gives you the right to make her deal with those nine months so that you (or anyone else) gets the result of what was growing within her?
As much as I abhor people such as her and cases such as this, even for them I still feel totally pro-choice, even if it’s only because of the last question I asked above.
Yer pal,
Satan
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One month, three days, 2 hours, 14 minutes and 49 seconds.
1323 cigarettes not smoked, saving $165.47.
Life saved: 4 days, 14 hours, 15 minutes.
A few points I’d like to throw out.
I find it difficult to form an opinion here, but I’d say I’m mostly pro-choice. An un-wanting mother is NOT going to have a healthy (mentally or otherwise) child.
I do have to agree, you’re either pro-choice or pro-life, no in-betweens, but I can see the politics of getting it as banned as possible, though I am not for this. The government has no place in mandating morality.
I find it reprehensible that some people are so self-indulgent and irresponsible that they party, get pregnant (repeatedly) and then use abortion as contraception.
I am very much against using tax-dollars to fund abortion clinics.
My $.02
Mortimer
I believe that Abortion is morally wrong, but so is being a bad parent to an unwanted child. I am very much against anti-abortion LAWS, so you might say I am “pro-choice”, but the real reason I am against any such Law is that I feel the State should not have the authority to make Moral choices for anyone. Remember, any State that has the authority to BAN abortions, also has the authority to REQUIRE abortions, and that is very scary indeed.
The worst case of misjustice I know was a women
who was raped, reported it, found out she ws
pregnant, and got the rapiset convicted and
imprisoned. When she had the baby, the father
sued for visitation rights. The judge agreed,
saying the fact he’s a rapist doesn’t make him
a bad father, he has a right to see his child, etc.
She was forced to take the baby to prison once a
week to see her rapist. She now wishes she hadn’t
had the baby.
Annie, not that I would ever doubt a word you say, but the above sounds incredibly UL-ish. Do you have a cite for it, by chance?