Do you agree or disagree that America, as well as other countries, should ban abortions although it’s a womens alternative?
Shouldn’t this be in the Great Debates, not MPSIMS, seeing as abortion is one of the most agured issues in these United States. And what exactly do you mean by “women’s alternative?” For the record, I have a strong opinion on this issue, but wouldn’t mention it until this thread is moved to the correct forum.
Wonder how many of the folk who’ve viewed your OP, Magnetic Flux, have tried helping by reporting the post to the moderator?
I agree – this is a GD if ever I saw one.
Well, maybe she made a mistake. Ever thought about that?
I don’t know whether it was a mistake or not, but this same poster has already had one post moved from MPSIMS to IMHO…and this one was posted a couple hours later to MPSIMS and needs moved to GD. shrug
FaerieBeth
Um, yeah. I don’t think anyone in this thread so far has implied otherwise, Harihat2.
Welcome to the board, Magnetic Flux.
Your thread is better suited for Great Debates.
(Please take some time to read the forum descriptions.)
Cajun Man ~ SDMB Moderator
Abortion must remain legal until all women have the same socio-economic rights as men. One of the only things that might alter this situation is the advent of an artificial womb.
This topic is usually a firestorm for most folks I know. My mother and I fight about it often even though we are both advocates for a woman’s choice.
She believes that a woman has the right to choose no matter the situation or advancement of the pregnancy. I support a standard of choice within limits.*
FaerieBeth
*For instance, I feel that late third trimester/partial birth abortions are …cruel? unnecessary?..none of these seem to be the right word, and I’m too sleep deprived to delve deeply into my writing vocabulary. Medical science has continually pushed back the viability date on preterm fetuses, so I suppose it would be concievable that some of these late term abortions could live outside their mother’s womb if they had been wanted, but expelled from the womb due to other circumstances or by other means. Of course, I am not current on the information of how often these ‘late term’ abortions are actually performed.
Even though I am very pro-choice and don’t believe the life of an unborn fetus is equivalent to that of a normal human, I am fairly sure that I would be against a ban on abortion even if I felt otherwise (as I have in fact, in the past) for the sole reason that enforcing said ban would cause vastly larger problems.
How the hell could you begin to enforce a law against abortion without seriously treading on people’s civil rights? Yes, you could stop doctors from publicly offering abortions, but I’m sure many still would. Woman misses period, women calls gynecologist a friend tells her about, woman goes for an ‘examination’, problem solved, and who’s to know? Are you going to require all doctors to keep track of biological waste they produce and dispose of, and go through their garbage or plumbing? How are you going to find out if a ‘suspect’ was pregnant before the supposed crime without violating doctor-patient privilege? Are miscarriages going to be reported to the police like gunshot wounds and suspected abuse is now?
Add to this that we are living in a society where everybody has access to a great deal of information. A google search just gave me a list of common plants that can cause an abortion. A desperate enough woman will still lose the child, but whether or not she survives may rely on whether she thinks the doctor will report her to the police if she goes to an emergency room.
Add that there is no comparable alternative to ending a pregnancy - 9 months of pregnancy followed by a traumatic and life-threatening experience is not a fair trade for an operation that’s generally safer than getting a tooth pulled. I might go for a ban on abortions if there is ever an easy and safe way to remove an embryo and use it or save it for future use if there are no wombs available for it. For now, though, I can’t imagine banning abortion in todays society. It would make the war on drugs look like a logical and successful enterprise.
This book, * Eve’s herbs * talks about use of plants to induce abortion from ancient times until it was legalized.
Now that this is in the right forum, I say I strongly oppose abortion, in all cases except extreme danger to the mother’s health. I do hold a fetus to be equivlent to any other human; the only difference is age and physical development. That and I believe the US population isn’t growing fast enough; it is just below replacement levels now, and a declining population will cause all sorts of problems, especially as an older population would have a lower percentage of people actually doing the work. Even if illegalizing abortion only prevented half of the abortions, the population decline would be halted. As to how to enforcing the law, just keeping it underground would be enough to me. As for cases when women might be harmed trying to perform the abortion herself, it doesn’t bother me a bit - any women who would kill her unborn child deserves the same punishment she would get if she killed her 6 year old child.
Oh, so it’s your social duty to carry a child to term, now, so it can grow up and work to support old people.
Nah, making it illegal in the U.S. (i.e. overturning Roe v. Wade) will be a huge mistake. Some states will try to ban abortion, others won’t, and you might end up with a situation not far removed from the slave-states/free-states divide.
If you’re really concerned about declining birth rates, you’d be better off supporting legislation that gives grants to studies into the causes and treatments of infertility so that women who want children will be able to have them. Increasing immigration would help, too, since immigrant families tend to be larger, at least for the first generation or two.
I don’t know if you would really want those people around. The children of resentful mothers could end up being some very damaged individuals.
Giving birth doesn’t automatically mean some magical sort of maternal instinct kicks in and makes a woman a good mother. Forcing women to have children they cannot financially support nor want can lead to child abuse or neglect. We all know what the results of a child raised in that environment can be. Just stop by your local prison.
And, no, adoption isn’t necessarily the answer. The number of couples who wish to adopt is much smaller than the number of fetuses annually aborted. Not to mention that a good deal of potential adoptive parents want healthy white babies. A mentally retarded, deformed, sickly or black baby would have a hard time finding a home. Where would we put them?
I have to say that I have never heard an argument against banning abortion (with an exemotion for the very rare case that the life of the mother is threatened) that holds up under any sort of scrutiny. So I would have to say that I would be for such a ban.
My primary reason for this is that the life created at the moment of conception is a human life, and deserves the same protections that we afford to any other human life. I agree 100% with the words of the Declaration of Independence; that it is a self-evident truth that all men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life. I believe that this right trumps any claim to a right to privacy (otherwise we could murder someone in our homes and claim that it is not a crime because we have a right to do whatever we like in the privacy afforded to us by our homes).
The argument that criminalizing abortions will make the proceedure less safe or will not stop them is not a reason to allow this atrocity to continue. One could just as easily (and just as correctly) argue that decriminalizing murder, rape, or theft would make these acts safer for the perpetrator to commit. Similarly, one could argue that criminal statutes do not stop these acts. I don’t hear any real clamor to legalize these crimes though.
Finally, the couching of the abortion question in terms of a “woman’s right to chose” is, in my view, disiengenous at best. This suggests that a woman does not have any choice in whether or not to have sex. Yes, there is rape which robs the woman of this choice, but this does not make the subsequent abortion any less despicable. We punish the one responsible for this act (although, in my view, not nearly harshly enough). To punish an innocent, with death no less, is unconscionable.
Okay, I’ll bite (though I’ll try not to get hostile about it).
poof Abortion is now illegal throughout the 50 states. Am early-term pregnant woman declares “I’d rather die than have this baby!” for some personal reason (she hates her husband, she was raped, she already has 8 kids, she really hates kids, whatever). If she can’t get a medically-safe procedure, she’ll take whatever abortion-inducing herbs she can get and even resort to coathangers if she must. What’s the correct legal remedy? Strapping her down for nine months? Then I assume you’ll also take the child away from her, as she is an unfit mother. In order to enforce the laws you’re proposing, quite a lot of misery will have to be inflicted. Even murderers (of post-birth humans) wouldn’t get such treatment, so why does a woman whose diaphram failed deserve it?
For that matter, what’s the punishment if she successfully aborts? Death? Long-term imprisonment? Sterilization? How is that going to address the population issues raised in DreadCthulu’s post? She aborted a child, so… what? Would you force her to carry another child to make up for it? Would you act to make sure she never conceives again?
It’s easy to say “make it illegal!” and let it go at that. I’d like to see some actual thought given to the enforcement of such laws and punishment for offenders.
So, am I holding up under scrutiny?
I am both anti-abortion and pro-choice.
I am anti-abortion because I do consider the fetus in all of its stages to be a human life. Further, I believe that women, as well as men, should face the consequences of their actions. I would think that most unwanted pregnancies are a matter of carelessness in the heat of passion and not of failed birth control or rape. I am willing to offer help to women who refuse to have their children aborted on moral grounds. And I think that anyone who supports anti-abortion laws should do the same. Where is all of the concern for that baby after it is born?
I am pro-choice because there is another human life that must be considered too – the life of the woman carrying the child. The baby is not just hiding out in there. It is affecting the hormones and health of the mother. Carrying a child can become extremely complicated and, in extreme cases, result in death. She is the one who must endure the pain of delivery. The responsibilities of raising a child are not shared equally in this country.
BTW, I support zero population growth.
I am also pro-choice because we have, for the most part, a governing body consisting mostly of men who will never know the full effect of any anti-abortion laws that are passed. When political power is equal and earning power is equal and concern doesn’t fade from the hearts of anti-abortionists, then maybe I will change my mind. When technology is able to track the fathers and require them to share responsibility equally, I will reconsider.
(And I hope that you are enjoying SDMB, Magnetic Flux. Welcome!)
So killing another human being is okay, if it’s done to prevent misery on the part of someone else?
I’ve never understood this. If it’s always wrong to kill the fetus, why is it okay if the mother’s life is in danger? If a fetus’ life is just as valid as that of the adult, why should it be acceptable to kill one person to save another? This makes no logical sense.